Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 120: I’m Keeping Count, Shortcake

"Not yet, no, but I’ve gone as far as third base," Arrie told Loveday, biting her cheek.

"Well, I’m certainly not going to fight you for him. It’s up to you, but I would be very careful with him. Try and preserve your heart if you can. I just really worry he’ll break it Arrie. He’s young and full of testosterone. Of all of the men here, he has that feeling of having wild oats to sow. I do get the impression he’ll struggle with monogamy too..."

Arrie smiled with self-condemnation, "your feeling is right," she nodded. "He’s definitely still a vocal proponent of polygamy."

"And you’re content with that Arrie?" Loveday asked her with concern. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"I don’t know about that. I’m a long way off marrying him so I don’t have to decide that now."

Loveday nodded, satisfied. "Good. I like how you’re thinking. There’s no scenario where you should agree to marry a man who wants more than one wife. If you’re not enough for him, leave him. You’re an amazing woman Araminta; you deserve a good man."

"Thanks Lovie," she whispered, turning her head back to the foreshore so Loveday couldn’t see her eyes reddening.

Somehow, she couldn’t feel that sense of self-worth that Loveday so clearly had in spades. But how could the woman not feel confident in her charms when she was so tall with that gorgeous figure and face?

What Arrie knew for sure that she did feel, was a great sense of joy that Baer cared about her and wanted to marry her... maybe she even wanted that feeling enough to be a second wife.

She also thought that she could make him love her enough.

Their girl talk was interrupted by the arrival of Baer and Wolf, who had finished laying the trap.

They all lay in silence, watching the bait.

Within about five minutes, Indy tapped Loveday; the rakali had arrived.

Their sleek brown backs could be seen above the water as they got closer to the shoreline.

Soon, they were climbing out of the water towards the bait. Nobody moved. Even their breathing was quiet.

The big rats sniffed at the carcasses, and then immediately started hoeing in, tearing at the flesh and chewing down big chunks of it. There were nine of them surrounding the food and gobbling it down.

Nothing unusual happened at all. The rats just went on chewing.

Delphi signed to Alton, ’it doesn’t look like it’s working’.

’No,’ he signed back. ’Let’s give it a few more minutes, then go.’

Alton gestured to Niko and Brenner; five minutes then go. Brenner knew sign language based on their aunt’s training, but Niko didn’t, so they used the universal military hand signals.

One of the rats stood up on its hind legs and appeared to be sniffing the breeze.

Uh oh! thought Delphi, this didn’t bode well...

Immediately it seemed to go into a state of high arousal, fixated on something in the treeline, it’s posture upright and tense, its teeth chattering and drooling, it’s white tipped tail stood on end.

It let out a loud squeak, and the other rakali also stood up and started sniffing.

Almost immediately, all nine of them stood in the same predatory position.

"Um... this doesn’t look good," Delphi whispered to Alton. "I don’t think that’s subservience."

"Correct, it looks like we’ve been made, and the hunt is about to begin," he whispered back.

Time to call it, he thought.

Alton leapt to his feet. "Alright soldiers, call your dragons and let’s get the hell out of here!" he shouted.

There was wild disarray as soldiers yelled for their dragons, dragons ran over the embankment to their riders, and Brenner, Niko, Delphi and Alton ran through the trees to their mounts, running up their tails and clinging to their saddles as the dragons took off.

The rats dropped back to all fours and started to chase down the dragons, just as they’d been bred for, squeaking wildly with excitement.

Luckily for the humans, the rakali were too distracted by the dragons to be much interested in them.

Baer and Wolf literally threw the girls onto their dragons’ backs and the dragons started to run before they could even climb into their saddles.

As the dragons fled, the humans hauled themselves into their saddles and harnesses, grabbing their bows and swords.

Alton, Delphi and Niko who were bringing up the rear to maintain a defensive line, managed to get some arrows away.

The arrows penetrated the rats’ flesh, but not deep enough for any real impact, because they kept on coming.

Delphi tried again and managed to get a shot into the ear hole of one, it let out a squeal of pain, but didn’t slow its chase.

As one drew level with Niko, he swung his sword at its face. That definitely worked! The creature squealed and curled into a ball, cradling it’s wound.

"One down," he grunted with satisfaction.

A rakali came around wide and rushed into the centre of the pack. It latched onto the tail of Arrie’s dragon, Pawee.

The dragon hissed in pain as the huge fangs sunk into his tail flesh.

Arrie screamed, desperately trying to reach the rakali with her sword, but he was too far down the tail, and she would have had to leave her saddle and climb down Pawee’s back. The dragon was jumping about too much for her to have a hope of staying on without her harness.

She pulled out her bow and shot into the rakali’s back, but it remained fastened onto Pawee’s tail.

Pawee stopped running, swishing his tail and trying frenziedly to detach the rakali. Arrie was buffeted to and fro as he thrashed wildly.

Thank goodness she had used Winter’s abseiling harness, so she was clipped into the saddle, but she was being tossed about like a crash test dummy.

She stopped screaming as she focussed on staying alive and trying not to injure Pawee with her weapons, which were being rattled and shaken as she was flung about.

Baer wheeled around his dragon, Monaro, and swung in behind the rakali with its teeth in Pawee.

Monaro raked his claws down the rakali’s back and then spat a big gob of poison into the wound for good measure.

Baer hacked at its head with his sword. It was a decent blow, but it would take four or five more the same to behead it.

The rat took off like a bat out of hell as the poison started to sizzle in the deep claw wounds on its back.

"That oughta fuck him right up," said Baer with satisfaction. "Are you okay shortcake?" he called.

She nodded vigorously. "All good. Thanks Baer. I owe you another one."

He winked at her, "I’m keeping count, shortcake, don’t you worry about that".