The ridge north of the battlefield lit white, and the shockwave hit Serika half a second later with a concussion that rattled her teeth and sent the nearest dwarven shields stumbling sideways.

Earth shattered somewhere beyond the treeline.

The sound that followed was heavy enough to come through the ground before it came through the air, a deep concussive impact of armor and flesh meeting at speeds that didn’t belong inside mortal bodies.

Then another followed, and another after that, each one shaking the earth harder than the last.

She couldn’t see the fight past the ridge, but she could feel it through the bond, which was quickly proving that the girls were given something akin to a hivemind passive ability, an overly prominent perception for those the Bloodfather decided to share his blood with.

Quinlan’s heartbeat ran hard and steady against the brand on her abdomen, his focus collapsed to a point so narrow that everything on this side of the hill had fallen out of it.

The warmth that usually filled it had gone cold and dense, violent fury running beneath.

But she could also tell that he was not losing himself to rage - he was just, for a lack of a better word, fucking livid.

Serika knew that to be the case without a shadow of a doubt because of what her eyes were showing her: pale blue people running toward her and her friends.

Every soul construct he’d summoned was sent down here, to help them contend with the sea of hostiles ambushing their position.

Spectral soldiers held the gaps between her sisters, absorbing charges, covering flanks, throwing themselves at threats with the silent precision Scar had drilled into them.

Jasmine’s golden legion held the southern line in lockstep. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Not a single conjured body faced the ridge where their master fought alone, and every resource, every summoned blade, every ounce of support Quinlan could spare had been aimed at his women while the man whose fight shook the hillside kept nothing for himself.

The warmth that hit Serika’s chest came fierce and sudden, because the man she loved was fighting the worst thing on this field alone so they wouldn’t have to fight without help.

She could feel the same recognition traveling through the Bloodfather’s bond, mark to mark, woman to woman. Every brand on the field pulsed with it, and the pride that answered was unanimous.

<Quin.> Serika’s voice pushed through the bond with the blunt certainty she brought to everything she did. <We didn’t struggle this much to remain damsels in distress. Your help is appreciated, we love you greatly for it, but now... Focus on your fight and stop worrying about us.>

<What she said, Hubby.> Vex’s addition was flat and direct.

The yandere witch felt the butterflies flutter in her stomach as she saw Quinlan send them more and more help while fighting his brutal war, but she, too, wanted to plant her feet down and tell her overly protective man once and for all: we’re badass chicks you don’t have to worry about all the time!

<Go handle your business, baby.> Lucille’s voice settled behind the others, calm and unhurried. <We’ll show you and the whole world what your women are made of so that you’ll be able to stand proud as you show us off!>

<Focus, you damned exhibitionist...> came multiple grunts, snapping the Bloodmonger back.

In response, Lucille merely laughed.

The sound that left her was sharp and cracking and showed teeth none of them had seen on the harem’s gentlest woman.

"I’ll focus alright!" She grinned through the chaos, swinging her axe wide enough to force the nearest dwarf back a step.

"You needy gals are gonna suck Quin’s Reservoir dry before this fight’s half over, I can already tell! Let me start filling it back up before disaster strikes!"

She charged forward into the dwarven line, and the Bloodfather’s mark on her lower abdomen blazed crimson through her plate as she drew from the Crimson Reservoir for the first time in real combat.

The heat that answered the draw was thick and slow and molten.

Magma crawled along the axe’s edge in glowing rivulets that dripped onto the scorched earth and hissed where they landed, and Lucille watched her blade coat itself in the element the Bloodfather’s blood had chosen for her.

Her Bloodfather affinity: Magma.

She grinned wider.

"Sexy Soul Girls Suicide Squad!" The shout cut across the battlefield at a volume that made the nearest dwarf wince. "We’re going in!"

Two healer Elite Souls snapped their heads toward the shout from across the field.

Lucille had given this a lot of thought.

She’d spent too many fights pulling Seraphiel away from combat to heal.

Her alone, dragging the Dawnbringer’s attention when the girl should have been fighting her own battles, and even endangering the lives of her friends by forcing the elf to become her personal pocket healer.

The guilt of that had nagged at her for a long time.

But then an unexpected solution surfaced, thanks to the bottomless ambition the love of her life harbored.

Lucille realized that this, like almost anything in her life, had a solution as long as Quin’s powers were involved.

The solution?

Just grab a few soul healers and have them back her up.

Quinlan’s soul constructs could be resummoned when they fell, so pulling two from their squads cost nothing significant that couldn’t be rebuilt by the will of her man.

If the Bloodmonger wanted to do what a Bloodmonger did best, she needed healers who could keep her standing while she waded into enemy lines and killed until the Reservoir overflowed.

The two healers appeared at her flanks in heavy spectral plate thick enough to absorb direct hits. They were already aware of the job description that awaited them and decided that robes were not going to cut it.

With them came two dwarven soul constructs in full heavy armor, tower shields locked and forward, forming a moving wall of spectral steel around the Bloodmonger’s healers.

Lucille’s Sexy Soul Girls Suicide Squad, SSGSS for short, assembled and ready.

The caramel-haired beauty had workshopped the name for a while.

She found the nearest dwarf and swung.

The axe hit the blacksteel breastplate dead center and the impact jarred both her arms to the shoulders, and the dwarf rocked half a step backward before planting his boots and answering with a warhammer strike that caught Lucille across the ribs hard enough to send pain flaring through her side.

Dwarven heavy infantry in full blacksteel plate. The most heavily armored race on the continent, in their heaviest armor, and this one hit back.

His warhammer came again, a lateral swing aimed at her hip, and Lucille took it on the flat of her axe with a block that numbed her fingers and drove her boots sideways through the dirt.

She answered with a wild overhead that cracked into his pauldron and left a molten score across the blacksteel, magma spraying from the axe’s edge on impact, and the dwarf absorbed it without going down.

He hit her again. She hit him harder.

The duel devolved into exactly the kind of fight a Bloodmonger was born for: ugly, relentless, and measured in endurance rather than technique.

Lucille hammered the same section of breastplate over and over, each swing landing on the molten crease the last one had left, magma splashing with every impact and softening the metal beneath.

The dwarf answered every hit with one of his own, warhammer cracking against her plate, her ribs, her guard, and Lucille’s teeth were bared and her caramel hair was wild and the sounds leaving her throat had stopped being grunts and become snarls that belonged in an animal’s chest.

She took a hit to the shoulder that would have dropped a lighter fighter.

Didn’t stop swinging.

Took one to the thigh that buckled her knee for a half-second. Swung harder.

The twelfth swing caved the breastplate inward at the molten crease, blacksteel folding around the wound, and the dwarf who had matched her blow for blow through eleven exchanges finally folded as the axe found what the armor had been protecting.

"Gundren!" A voice bellowed from the rank behind the fallen soldier. "I told you to stay in formation! You and your big damn ego, always rushing out to challenge someone! Always!"

The shout carried the raw fury of a man who had been giving that same lecture for decades and was now delivering it to a corpse.

Lucille heaved, dragging air through her teeth. One dwarf. A dozen swings. The Crimson Reservoir hadn’t even ticked upward.

The Bloodmonger was forced to realize that, just like her sister-wives, she, too, was sucking her man dry with far too much gusto.

"This can’t go on..." she muttered between breaths. "We’ll suck all of Quinnie’s juice out way too quick! Disaster!"

One of the healer constructs cleared her spectral throat. "Ma’am, could you perhaps describe Master’s Reservoir with words that don’t sound so..."

"Suggestive?" the other finished quietly.