Chapter Thirty-One

The plot thickens. Other things also thicken.

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Karalti was silent through the short flight, teleportation, and landing. I could sense she was eager to get Suri and Rin off her back – and me, for that matter. The dragon stamped and pawed as I got down, and once Rin and her turrets were on the ground, I felt Karalti’s mind press into mine. “When you’re done, take my saddle off, please.”

“Unequip it?” I asked. “Karalti, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired.” She snorted a cloud of steam into the cold night air. “Hang back with me?”

“Uhh… sure.” Remembering what I’d said to Suri before, I doubted she was just tired. “Let me say goodbye to Suri.”

“Thanks so much, Karalti!” Rin tentatively patted Karalti on the leg. “I’m so sorry to have to ask you guys to run me around. I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t important.”

“What are you working on?” I asked.

She linked her hands behind her back and hopped up and down. “It’s a secret! I still have some adjustments to make, but you’ll find out tomorrow morning. Just promise me something?”

“What?” I caught Suri around the waist as she slid down.

“Promise you won’t be mad.” And with that, Rin winked and then jogged off into the castle grounds before I could say anything.

Suri yawned as she unequipped her fancy clothes, and put on her regular underlayers: a dusky rose halter top that laced at the front, and a pair of clinging doeskin leggings that hugged her legs in interesting ways. A slow, lazy smile spread over her lips as I pulled her into my arms and kissed her.

“You kids have some good clean fun,” she said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“After tonight, I think the list of things you wouldn’t do has to be pretty short.” I rubbed the area on her neck where I’d bitten her. Thanks to the magic of HP regen, the wounds had already healed, leaving nothing but a set of pink marks that would fade by morning.

“What can I say? Prison life doesn’t leave much room for modesty.” She rubbed her cheek against mine, then danced back. I smiled at her, holding her hand until she tugged it from my grasp and sauntered off toward the barracks, where she’d made her room.

“Ugh. Finally.” Karalti tracked her as she left, her nostrils flexing.

“What’s gotten into you?” I frowned up at her. “You were all sweetness and light this afternoon. Now you’re jealous?”

“I’m not jealous.” She began to preen herself again, grooming in a way I’d never seen her do before. She bought her hands up to her chin and ran her claws over it, almost like a gerbil washing its face.

“She said, jealously.” I held up my hands. “I’m just saying there’s a track record, okay?”

Karalti lowered her head until the tip of her nose was even with mine, and as she did, a cloud of scent descended over me. Karalti normally had a subtle, sweet scent that I loved, but tonight, it was like she had doused herself in a mixture of ecstasy and opium. My skin tingled, my fingertips vibrated, and heat - real, living heat - spread through my nerves and into my muscles, making them twitch and flex and pump. They weren't the only thing that swelled, either.

“Holy shit.” I swallowed thickly. “You know, Tidbit, I’m not sure… but I think I know why we can’t stop eating. It’s time.”

“Time for what?” She sniffed over me with great delicacy for such a huge creature, jaws parting as she inhaled my scent over her tongue, like a cat. “Mmm… you smell really good. Like food, and boy, and… mmm… all the things you were doing with Suri.”

“Okay. You’re in heat.” I drew a deep breath to steady myself, but in doing so, breathed in whatever it was being released through her skin. “Fuck. What do I do? I’m not sure a night of snuggling is a good idea.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to break your promise to me, now would you?” She uttered a drawn-out rattling sound, more resonant than a growl. It made the hair on my arms stand up.

I put my hands up. “You’re in heat, Tidbit. You’re wound up because I’m wound up, I’m wound up because you’re wound up, and-“

She snorted a cloud of hot, iron-tinged air in my face, then lowered her head and padded backwards on the dark stones. As she did, I noticed that her eyes were no longer violet. They were a blazing, glowing molten silver, and they were utterly fixated on me. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if she was about to launch herself into the air, run off crying, or eat me. 

She did none of those things. Instead, she reared up tall on her hind legs, concentrated, and shifted down. Maybe it was the booze and the lingering high, but the way her body dissolved into a shower of kaleidoscopic light was abnormally mesmerizing, especially when the light cleared and left her standing nude in the center of the courtyard. For a moment, she was perfectly outlined by the glowing haze of mana, and I felt something deep and primal stir to life behind my eyes. Karalti seemed to sense it. She rolled her head to look at me over her shoulder, lips parted, eyes hooded.

“You know what to do,” she said. “I can feel the way you feel, right? Tonight, I felt what you were doing with Suri. Your heart was pounding so fast. I could hear it while I was sitting there, trembling, while that idiot Soma talked and talked… but the whole time, I was thinking about you.”

"You uh... you might want to put some clothes on." I drifted toward her, glancing toward the lit towers ringing the courtyard. 

“Oh, I might, may I?” Karalti flipped her hair back over her shoulders and lifted her chest up as I drew closer. She was a whole other creature to Suri: small and slim and lithe, small-breasted, her skin pale and pearly. Her being in human form did nothing to dispel the cloud of pheromones engulfing me like a hurricane. Before I realized what I was doing, I’d pulled Karalti into my arms and buried my nose in the heavy, silky length of her hair. And once I started drawing deep breaths of her, I couldn't stop. She squeaked in surprise and tried to push away, but I caught her, roughly, and pressed her back against my chest. 

“Hector?” She moaned as I clutched the back of her thigh with an armored hand and squeezed, hard enough that the moan turned to a gasp. Her head tipped forward, sending her hair swirling over my nose and mouth. A dizzying wave of heat flushed through my skin, and for one breathless moment, I was sure I was about to compulsively strip off my clothes and take her right here, right now, right in the middle of the fucking courtyard. It was pure lust: selfish, compulsive, and unstoppable. The trance was broken when she suddenly shoved back from me, tearing herself out of my hands.

"Oh my god. Karalti. I am so..." my apology was cut short when I saw her - really saw her. Her lips were flushed, skin peppered with goosebumps, her muscles taut with excitement. She was panting, chest heaving. Her eyes blazed molten silver, wild and feral. “So…”

“Catch me.” Her lips peeled back, and she snarled at me like a wolf as she backed up a few steps, light and graceful on her bare feet.

Karalti turned and sprinted off in a cloud of intoxicating perfume, and the desire to run surged back into my awareness. Before I realized what I was doing – before I had the sense to stop myself – I took off after her at a sprint. 

My dragon laughed mockingly as she vaulted up onto some rubble, then sprung up to the shattered castle wall. She pulled herself up with inhuman speed and strength, pattered along the edge of it with the certainty of a cat and burst forward as I half-Jumped, half-teleported up behind her. The dragon was absolutely fearless off the ground, leaping out of my grasp onto a scaffolding rail and swinging herself up onto the rickety catwalk like a gymnast. I scrambled up after her, right into a cloud of lingering scent. Heart laboring, pulse pounding in my neck, all the hand-wringing I’d done over the ins and outs while Karalti had been growing up was shoved aside by the pure bull-grade testosterone surging through my veins. The catwalk shuddered and swayed under my boots as I put my head down and ran as hard and fast as I could, trying to head her off before she reached the shadowed vault of the tower ahead. 

“Come on, lancer boy! I thought you could jump?” Giggling with delight, Karalti bounded from the edge of the scaffolding like a cat. She leaped to the ledge, looking back at me with an expression of wild, unadulterated lust, just before she vanished into the darkness of the tower. 

I growled, following my nose when my eyes failed me. My boot slipped on the ledge, but I stumbled forward and, on pure instinct, vaulted into the first open window and followed the flick of Karalti’s hair around the corner. She bowled past a shocked patrolman, who flattened himself against the wall as I shoved by and dashed forward into a Shadow Dance that put me right behind her naked back. I reached for her as we ran into a junction, catching her shoulder with my fingertips. There was a push of magic, and then Karalti split into mirror images of herself that fled in opposite directions. 

“Hey! That’s cheating!” I swung right, but the scent wasn't strong enough. I pivoted with another snarl of frustration, but then realized where we were. We were in the Donjon, the highest tower in the Inner Keep, on the floor that contained the Ducal Suite. There was a discreet door that led into the countess's bedrooms from the opposing corridor – the one Karalti was headed for. 

Teeth bared, I ran straight up the hall instead of trying to follow her, flung open the door to my apartment, barreled through it to the Lady's Chambers and rolled over the bed to the door. I flung it open right into Karalti's face. 

“Eeek!” She skidded to a halt, and as her feet slid from under her, I caught her around the waist and lifted her off the floor. She shrieked, half-laughter, half-raw throated excitement, kicking out with all four limbs as I dragged her into the bedroom and slammed the door behind us. Her skin was burning hot to touch, slick with something sweeter and headier than sweat. She fought tooth and nail, but her excitement and lust and need pounded through the Bond like a bass drum as I bore her down onto the bed. Karalti wanted this. I had to trust Suri when she told me what she wanted, but with Karalti, I knew. She needed to be chased, she needed to be caught, she needed to be fought. She wanted to be overpowered, pinned down and taken and loved and bitten. She needed it like she needed air.

Karalti kicked along the sheets as I pinned her beneath my weight, crushing my mouth against hers. She let out a muffled cry and arched against me in a way that made me relax for a second – a second too long, because she got an arm free and slugged me across the side of the face as hard as she could. The blow cleaned my clock. I reeled aside, only to be flipped over onto my back.

“No more lectures.” Heaving for breath, she seized the front of my shirt and tore it open, her eyes glowing bright and wild in the darkness of the room. Her hair fell over me like an ebony curtain, spilling over my throbbing face. “You’re fine with it, Suri’s fine with it. No lectures. No stopping.”

"Karalti...?" I half mumbled, half-moaned her name, confused as to how we'd even gotten here. Her nude, me about to get nude, not even an hour after I'd finished up my date with Suri. But she bent down to bite my neck, and her perfume engulfed me in a sweet cloud that caused something deep in my hips to tighten and squeeze. "We can't-"

"No. Don't." She was panting, drenched in sweet sweat as she fumbled at, and then tore the lacing on my pants. "Make me feel the way you felt before. Do it, do it, please, please, Hector please don't stop-"

Karalti lowered her face to lick a long hot line up my belly, and I stopped fighting her as she pulled the fly of my pants apart and breathed in against my skin through nose and mouth, moaning as she rubbed her lips and face against me. Without thinking, I caught her under the arm, hauled her up, and pulled her up on top of my hips.

“Ahh! Good! It’s good!” She bucked back, as inexpert as she was enthusiastic, and slid along instead of over. I could feel her right there, wet and hot and confused and mad with need, and I was about to cave when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

Any person with normal human eyes wouldn't have seen the shadow slip out from behind the curtain, angled in such a way to avoid being seen until the last second. I hurled Karalti off me, pitching her to the floor in a squawking heap, and scrambled up with an outflung hand. The darkness of the room warped, solidified, then lashed out as a shadowy noose that snapped around the man’s throat. It took him by surprise: he nearly dropped his sword - a bizarre, jagged-looking thing that fuzzed like old television static. I couldn't see his face through the leather owl mask he wore, but he clutched his neck a moment before vanishing into smoke and reappearing behind Karalti as she struggled up to her knees.

"Behind you!" I screamed.

Even in human form, Karalti had incredible reflexes. She flung herself to the side as the assassin struck and drove his weird blade down. It passed into the floor like it wasn't there. He chased her as she scrambled backwards, barely dodging his swipes and stabs. I speed-equipped my armor, called the Spear to my hand and charged in with a shout of rage and a blast of dark fire that ripped the drapes of the four-poster bed to shreds. But the assassin was fast: He evaded the thrust, spun around, and used his momentum to expertly catch onto and jerk the weapon from my hands. He was about to throw his sword when Karalti tackled him from behind. He dropped the Spear as he staggered forward and threw her over his shoulder in one disturbingly smooth motion, sending her sprawling. She hit the wall and tumbled to the floor, and he went straight after her with the sword.

"No!" I summoned the Spear and threw it at him. The blow took him by surprise, and he danced aside a second too late. It struck him in the face hard enough to knock his mask off. It didn't hurt him, but it stunned him long enough for Karalti to plant her foot between his legs.

"Hua'takh!" The Fireblooded man - small, lithe, with a hard, pinched face and four days of stubble - snarled the word at her like a curse, teleporting across the room.

Karalti flipped to her feet and equipped her armor. I did the same thing as the Spear vanished from the floor and reappeared in my clenched fist. The Assassin seemed unfazed: he made a gesture with his hands, and I smelled mana as time dilated in a rush around us.

[Assassin casts Slow!]

He moved at normal speed, but Karalti and I no longer could. I watched in agonizing stillness as he turned and ran at her in stop-motion, the sword raised. Karalti's eyes were no longer silver - they were wide and violet and terrified.

I cast Dancing Fly, boosting my speed, and did the only thing I could: I dashed forward, half the speed of the assassin about to strike, and threw myself between her and the descending sword blade.

The Assassin didn't flinch, didn't pull back. He plunged the weapon right into the meat of my shoulder, face contorting viciously as he twisted it in.

[Heartstrike deals 2163???? drrr-aaaaaaahhh- damage!]

[You are immune to Corruption!]

The blow should have knocked me on my ass, but for some reason, I didn't feel a thing as it sunk effortlessly through my armor, and everything but a sliver of my HP evaporated: just an intense burst of cold that turned my blood to ice. The assassin's golden eyes, so much like Suri's, widened in shock as I slammed the heel of my other palm up under his nose. Blood blossomed in slow-motion, then rained down at normal speed as the spell effect snapped and I suddenly found myself wrestling the man on the floor. His weapon hadn't killed me, but it had taken me down to 22 HP and I could feel every muscle in my torso trying to seize and freeze around the almost-mortal injury. Karalti ran to the door, shouting for help as we rolled across the ground. The man was smaller than me, but he was just as strong and still had most of his hit points. I clawed at his face as he struggled to bring the sword down a second time, his smokey breath billowing against my cheeks. Inch by inch, he gained... my fingers slipped in his blood and sweat.

It was the smell of the blood that reminded me.

I was a motherfucking vampire.

“Look sharp!” Like needles from a blow gun, my dark-tipped fingers distended into long points and shot forward - right into the Assassin's eyes. 

The man dropped his sword with a screech, hands flying up to my wrist as his eyeball burst like a broken egg cracked across my knuckles. I rammed my fingers deeper, and before I could stop it, the hypodermic nails began to draw his blood into my veins in a dizzying, pleasurable rush. Gasping, I fumbled over for his sword... and just as the Assassin came to his senses and pulled his head back, I plunged the weapon into his chest. The sword went through his armor just as easily as it had mine - and as it penetrated, he let out a blood-curdling wail.

"Fuck!" I pushed away as the Assassin thrashed back and forth, his spine bending in ways no human back should ever bend. He screamed incessantly, piteously, contorting around the blade as it seemed to suck him in toward it like a black hole. His bones popped with wet smacking sounds; I watched on in horror as everything in him twisted, smattered with the same television snow effect the blade had. When it finally ended, all that was left was a contorted mass of flesh, glitching pixels, and leather armor. The screams grew muffled, but they hadn’t stopped. 

"WHAT'S HAPPEN- oh my God." Suri, dressed in her armor and clutching an axe, mantled protectively in front of Karalti by the door. There was shouting in the hallway. A young castle guard burst into the room from the apartment's hallway on the other side, and when he saw the mewling thing on the floor, he turned his head and barfed right there on the rug.

"Kill it! Before it spreads!" Karalti shouted telepathically to the room. 

Spreads? I called the Spear with a thought, and when I saw what Karalti meant, my stomach knotted. The small visual glitches where the sword had entered were expanding, affecting more and more of the assassin's body as the seconds ticked by. The carpet around him was starting to do the same thing. 

My mind was a humming blank as I raised my weapon over the assassin's exposed, mutated heart, and plunged it down with Shattering Darkness. Black icicles burst out from the writhing mass of flesh, which cracked and squeaked as it froze solid and then collapsed into bloodless chunks that scattered and bounced across the floor.

[You have killed Assassin!]

[You gain 1900 Exp!]

[Congratulations! Karalti is Level 14!]

[You gain a new badge: Attempted assassination is the highest form of flattery.]

I gasped, sinking to one knee, and threw the sword away from me. I went to my hands as I ransacked my Inventory for healing potions and came up short. I’d used them all the defeat the motherfucking poop golem. “Fuck.”

Karalti's entire body suffused with light, and the marbled seams of color under her pale skin bloomed over her body. When they passed, they left her slightly taller, more toned, and subtly more regal as she ran over to me and skidded to her knees on the floor.

“Hector!” Karalti looked back to the others in the hall. “Suri, help me take him to Masha! He got hit by that sword!”

She still smelled like sex on legs, but the drug-like quality had diminished... not enough that I didn't notice it, but enough that it didn't compel me to jump her bones on top of the Stranged, frozen corpse of our would-be assassin in front of god and everyone. Drooling blood, I gently pushed her aside and wobbled back up to sit. “I’m okay. I’m okay, Tidbit.”

"Come on, my lord. She’s right. We have to get you to the hospital." Istvan joined Karalti, and helped her lift me up to my feet. 

“Do you have any of your potions?” Karalti asked.

"I... no. We used them all in the... you know, the thing." My head was fuzzy. The shoulder where the assassin had stabbed me was completely numb. It was the same shoulder that had the blacked out glitched piece carved out of it. “Doesn’t even hurt, to be honest.”

“Holy shit.” Suri had been poking around the room instead of crowding the space around me. She stood up from beside the bed with the owl mask I’d knocked from the assassin’s face. “This guy was a fuckin’ White Owl.”

“Whuzzat?” I slurred.

“The White Owls are the best assassins’ guild in Dakhdir,” she said grimly. “They’re mad expensive, but if you want someone dead, they’ll get the job done. And this…”

She gingerly picked up the sword.

“An abomination.” Istvan shuddered. 

“Right?” Suri frowned, turning it over to look down the length of the blade. “Oh, it’s got an I.D tag. Uhh… ‘Nethershard Sword TEMP – Admin Spawn only?’”

“What the fuck?” I reeled a little. “That’s… that’s definitely not fair.”

“No, it definitely isn’t. It’s got a timer on it, too.” Suri frowned. “Item description doesn’t say anything, but it apparently expires in five hours.”

“It must have been Baldr,” Istvan said, steering me toward the door. “There’s no one in Dakhdir who wants to kill Hector or Karalti, surely.” 

I wasn’t losing any more HP, but at 22 points, blue-balled and sleep deprived, I was beginning to feel pretty gnarly. “Yeah. Must be. Ignas is going to be pissed.”

“Not least because the White Owls are Dakhari,” Suri said. She was following us ahead of the guards. “Did this guy say anything?”

“Just one word. Sounded like… Hoo-attack.”

“Hua'takh,” she corrected. “Weird.”

“What does it mean?” Istvan asked.

“‘Pretender’.” Suri got around us and opened the doors ahead as we clattered down the stairs. “Not the usual battle cry of your average assassin.”