Redux: Lineage

It was about thirty minutes into the hike into the mountains that I really wished I'd brought gloves with me. They were numb to the bone and began to ache, my fingers nearly unresponsive when I tried to bend them, and any motion from the digits hurt. I was thankful for the thick woollen shirt I wore being backed up by a cotton undershirt, offering twice the protection against the screaming winds, each gust of the mighty gale feeling like cold nails scraping across my face, barely able to keep my hood from being torn off due to the sheer strength of it. My teeth chattered and my body shook, but still I pressed on, my Familiar seeming completely fine beside be as his double-layered fur, powerful muscle, and wide paws made traversing the mountain as difficult as walking on a flat surface.

"You're going to kill yourself here, you know that?" he asked me, shouting over the wind. "You're going to be eaten, or fall off a cliff, or freeze to death, all because you want to sleep with a random stranger."

"I'm here for the Wyvern blood!" I shouted back at him, nearly being pushed over by the mighty winds. "The eggs and the sex are a secondary objective!"

"Don't try to lie to me!" Grael barked. "You can pull the wool over everyone else's eyes, but my blindfold has worn through from how many times you've used it. I know what you're here for, and it isn't the damn blood!"

"You know me too well," I chuckled, holding my hands in front of my face, sacrificing the warmth of my palms to try and keep my face from being shaved off. "Remember me as a good man after I'm gone."

"Right," Grael growled, becoming annoyed with my lack of progress. "I'm getting annoyed here. Just be quiet, get on my back, and hold on as tight as you can."

"You're not a horse," I said, looking back at him.

"Yeah, but you've taken me for a ride long enough for me to be considered your trusty damn steed," Grael said. "Now shut up and climb on."

I did as instructed, jumping up on the wolf's back and sinking my fingers into his soft, warm fur, and feeling a wave of relief wash over me. I pressed my entire body into his back, wrapping my legs around his hips and holding on, feeling the warmth of the titanic beast seep into me as I relaxed.

"You got a good hold?" he asked, rolling his neck.

"Yes, why?" I asked in response.

"No reason," he shrugged, growling savagely before blitzing off at great speed, nearly throwing me from his back as he did so.

I tried to look up at where we were going, but the pain of the wind stabbing into my eyes proved too great, even if I squinted, so I resigned to merely placing my face in the fur of his back and trying to warm myself up as much as I could. I was able to feel the great wolf's powerful muscles expand and contract as he sprinted, feel the vibrations of his enormous paws through his legs and into his shoulder muscles as he bounded forward faster and faster.

"I honestly can't believe I willingly follow you into these kinds of situations," Grael said over our mental link, his voice crisp and clear without the tearing winds nearly deafening me. "Our tombstones is going to have an epic description of our final battle with the reason for it being that dear old Richter got a good whiff of pussy and ignored his common sense. Again."

"To be honest with you: if I got a tombstone that listed all of the occasions that has happened, it'd need to be a fucking obelisk," I smirked.

"I hate that you sound proud of that," he sighed. "I hate the fact you sound okay with that."

"If a king dies defending the honour of his fair lady, than it is an honourable death," I shrugged.

"Yes, and if it were you questing for her hand in marriage or to protect her family name, I'd be completely okay with that," Grael said. "But putting your life on the line and losing it in battle for 'Thine fairest pussy' is not a good reason by any definition."

"Hey, this was your idea, remember?" I asked him.

"When the blazes did I suggest that we go out and risk our lives for blood and eggs?" he demanded in an almost offended tone.

"You said that it would be a good idea to sleep with the Court Mage to get her on our side," I explained.

"I meant by doing it with a little smooth talk and warm wine, not risking hide and hair in the mountains during a Wyvern mating season!" Grael exclaimed. "There is no woman on this earth that is worth this much of a risk."

"Sure there is. I just haven't met her yet," I said, chuckling quietly to myself.

"The fact that you've acknowledged that there's a 'perfect woman' for you and that you haven't found her yet makes me wonder what the hell kind of goddess you're looking for in a wife," Grael said. "And that's besides having large breasts and a big rear."

"You're also forgetting that I'm eighteen, with the rest of forever ahead of me," I said. "Why the hell would I be looking for Ms Right at my age?"

"I... you raise a point," Grael said, conceding after a moment's thought. "But I still wish you'd conduct yourself in a more regal manner when it comes to dating."

"Because you're an old conservative nanny who thinks sex should only come eight years into the marriage and should consist of nothing more than awkward grinding in the dark for ten minutes followed by nine hours of crying?" I asked him.

"No, that's not what I think it should be at all," Grael growled. "At the age you are, and especially with the limelight on you, you're going to get a reputation for yourself as sex-crazed party maniac that is willing to kill himself and his friends just to get a little bit of sex. I'm not saying that you should never have sex until you find your perfect girl, but I still do think you should try to control your desires and at least not run into danger after the promise of sex like a dog chasing a bone into a pool of lava. It's unbecoming of someone of your stature and will only hurt you in the future."

"Do you want to be my Ms Right?" I asked him jokingly. "You seem to look out for me more than most of my girlfriends."

"Oh, please," Grael scoffed. "I'm way too good for the likes of you."

The conversation kind of died at that point, mostly because I decided to try and keep my mouth shut and conserve my dignity as best I could, waiting for Grael to catch the scent of the Wyverns, luckily in a location where the murderous wind had died down. Hopping down off my furry transport, I dropped into a low crouch and crept over to the edge of the ledge Grael had stopped at, seeing an entire sea of white and orange Wyvern eggs that were sadly being guarded over by a large group of Wyverns.

"Ah, fuck," I growled in a hushed tone, looking over the guardians of the eggs.

"Were you expecting them to be completely unguarded?" Grael asked in a surprised manner. "Wyverns are more protective over their eggs than dragons are of their prime treasure. There's no way we're getting any of these eggs away without killing every last one of these Wyverns."

"And that's not really something I want to do," I sighed, shifting my stance slightly and resting my knee on the ground. "Dangerous to humans or not, these are still sentient beings and wild animals. They're not demons or actively malicious. I really don't wanna slaughter a whole clan of innocent animals because they have something I want."

"So how are we going to play this?" Grael asked in a serious manner. "Because we either kill all of them now and take what we need, kill the guards here, steal what we need, and fight off the other Wyverns all the way back to the city and put numerous innocent civilians in danger, or we try to sneak in and steal what we need, and get the whole damn colony chasing us back to the city to put even more people in danger."

"Yeah... you're right," I said, nodding my head slowly. "Fuck..."

"So what's the call here, Richter?" Grael asked me. "Because either way, there's going to be blood and death either way. The only change is whether or not some of the blood is human."

I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply as I ran the decisions and choices through my head several times over, pondering what the best course of action to choose was, while at all times feeling a deep pang of guilt in my chest. These thoughts were interrupted in a matter of moments as the sound of a furious screech followed by flapping wings tore through my ears, my eyes shooting open before I was tackled to the ground by Grael, the enormous beast pinning me to the ground as a set of scaled legs slashed their talons in the air where I'd been a moment before.

Grael rolled over, putting me on my knees before getting to his own feet, squaring his stance and growling angrily, the Wyvern that had swooped in seconds earlier now perched on the rock face and screeching loudly, a loud alarm wail to get every other Wyvern in their colony alerted to the presence of the all the intruders.

"Looks like we don't have much of a choice now," Grael snarled, butting me with his head to get me to focus on the others flying towards us.

"Here's hoping these things aren't on the endangered species list," I sighed, tearing my new sword from its sheath, squaring my stance and preparing to cut them down.

The first few came in hard and fast, Grael tackling one of the scaled draconids out of the air in mid-flight, his enormous body mass slamming into it and snapping its wing under both of their weights. It began to screech loudly, managing to get no more than a second of pained wailing before Grael tore its throat out, green blood soaking and matting his fur as he wrenched its jugular free, spitting the flesh from his maw and focusing on another, rapidly approaching Wyvern.

I dealt with two of them, slashing the foot of the first clean off as it swooped at me, pivoting on my heel as I did so, before jabbing my sword upwards just as the second one came down towards me, plunging my blade deep into its gut moments before its weight and momentum knocked me straight to the floor, the air being knocked from me on impact and my head slamming into the cold stone floor. Lights exploded in my eyes and pain began to throb, sounding being unclear and distant as I saw the first Wyvern that attacked me hobble towards me, spewing blood from its stump as it limped on its wings, desperate to finish me off.

"Richter!" Grael hollered in rage as the Wyvern brought its jaw down towards my neck.

I threw my arm up just in time to protect myself, though the Wyvern's powerful jaws still easily sank into my clothing and flesh, tearing deep into the skin and crushing the bone of my arm. A roar of agony tore from my lips, the pain nearly making me vomit all over myself, barely able to keep focused on the threat in front of me. I managed to flick my sword around in my hand and began to repeatedly bash the Wyvern's snout and eyes, crushing its nose and bursting one of the lizard-slit orbs, making it move its jaws away from my ruined limb, tearing flesh and gristle away from it as it did so.

I booted it in the chest as hard as I could, knocking it over onto its back and seeing, Grael leap at it, his enormous weight crushing its ribs as he bit down on its skull, pulling up on it harder and harder while keeping his weight on the chest until he eventually tore the head from the neck, the Wyvern screaming in an agonised and deformed way, especially so as the vocal cords snapped and the head lost access to the lungs. Grael bit down hard, the skull crunching in a loud and horrific manner, what was left of the creature's eyes rupturing and its brain fluids leaking through the blood-stained teeth of the furious Direwolf. He then cast the head aside, his rage turning to panic and worry, dashing over to me and staring at the wound.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked me. "Are you going to pass out?"

"N-No," I growled, fighting down the urge to throw up as I stared at my mangled arm, the teeth having poked inch-thick holes in the muscle with blood and shards of bone flowing from the sounds.

Not only that, but the arm itself had been crushed down to the size of a lamb bone, my fingers twitching on their own as the residue of the severed nerve connection walked off its last legs. The limb was completely wrecked, being nothing more than unusable dead weight at this point. I managed to push myself up, keeping the bloody mess of shattered bones and severed tendons down by my side as I flipped my sword around again, ready to face the coming onslaught of the rest of the Wyverns.

"Are you seriously going to keep fighting like that?" Grael asked in an astonished manner.

"It's not like I have much of a choice, is it?" I asked, grimacing as the ache of agony kicked up in my arm once more. "We need these vials filled up."

"Richter, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but you're practically missing an arm!" Grael snarled. "You are in no condition to fight right now!"

"Sure I am," I smirked, watching as four more Wyverns crawled up the ledge, two on the walls and one of the ground. "My sword arm still works, and that's all I need to cut this overgrown geckos down to size."

Grael looked between me and the Wyverns for a split second before diving in front of me, once again lowering himself and readying a pounce attack.

"I'll knock them over," he snarled. "You finish them off."

"Sounds like a plan," I said, my arm really starting to burn now, both from the pain and the exposure to the cold.

The Wyverns attacked, Grael managing to bite one in the throat as it leaped over him, bringing it down just before my feet, allowing me to cut deep enough into it's throat to slice through its jugular vein before I quickly back-stepped away from an attacking Wyvern, jabbing it in its open mouth as I did so, before slashing through the snout of the third one. The fourth one came from above, much like the one that had bitten my arm off, and I made the right move this time. I dodge-rolled under it, landing near its small, aerial-foil-esque tail, and stood up, ignoring the splintering pain I felt in my ruined arm from doing so. I whirled around, slashing its tail off in the process before plunging my sword into its spine, paralysing it from the waist down.

It dropped to a heap on the floor just as the Wyvern I'd stabbed in the mouth tried to flank me, only to have Grael charge into it stomach, crushing more ribs and knocking it over onto the floor. He tore out this one's throat, this quickly becoming his method of dispatch for the fight, and moved onto the one with its nose barely attached by a shred of flesh. He leaped at its behind, slamming his powerful jaws shut on the Wyvern's shoulder joint and, using his weight and strength, tore the limb clean off, the Wyvern's pained scream being nearly deafening as he did so.

The beast staggered around, staring at the injury and at the two of us, backing away and screaming in what sounded like fear. I felt a pang of guilt hit inside my chest, no longer seeing a vicious monster, but now seeing nothing more than a scared parent, a mother, judging by the scale pattern, being brutally slaughtered for no other crime than trying to protect her child. I quickly put my own mother in that position, seeing her bloody and maimed, my younger self behind her legs, as she begged and screamed for me to leave her and her baby alone.

"Richter!" Grael hollered. "Now if not the time to feel remorse!"

I shook the image from my head, knowing he was right. Besides, we'd already crippled this thing. It couldn't fight, couldn't fly, and couldn't hunt. The other Wyverns would ignore it and its young, it wouldn't be able to hunt, and would only starve to death in a slow and painful manner. I took a deep breath, forcing the regret and guilt from my mind and tried to replace it with cold determination. I advanced towards the Wyvern quickly, beheading the lizard with a single strike and ducking out of the torrential spray of blood from the stump. I made a mental note, hoping that I'd find its eggs in particular to either crush them or take them to the lab.

I'd rather them die in an instant or be put to use in a potion or something than have them hatch in several days time, screaming and calling for their dead mother for days on end until they starved to death... robbed at a chance at life because some selfish prick needed a batch of eggs... just to get in the pants of some random stranger. As that revelation dawned on me, as I realised that the death of an entire colony was not entirely hinged on a prince's rite, an already selfish reason as is, but the fact that expecting mothers would be slain and children would be snuffed out without ever knowing the kiss of life or their mother's voice...

Because some stupid teenager... because I couldn't control my stupid desires?

No, not anymore. I steeled myself, gripping my sword tightly with my good hand, I advanced forward, determined to finish this as quickly as possible, trying not to think about the loss of life or the lack of life these creatures would never have, in the case of the eggs. Grael and I continued our rampage, our genocide of this colony, cutting down each and every single one of these beautiful, innocent creatures in what was supposed to be their sacred place, a location where the everlasting bond between mother and child was permanently formed. A place that was as sacred to them as a church was to humans... that would never hear the song of life again, because I decided they didn't get to.

And soon it was done. With a final stroke of my blood-stained sword, one last swing of this instrument of murder, the last of this mountain's Wyverns fell to the ground, dead as the rocks around us. I'd long since started ignoring the pain in my arm, being only the second worse feeling coursing through me. I turned to Grael, seeing his normally pristine coat and white teeth smeared, matted, and darkened with gore. Blood covered nearly every inch of him, chunks of flesh and bone stuck in between his vicious teeth.

I imagined that I looked no better, I certainly didn't feel better. Richter the Eggsmasher. That's what I was. A great slayer of Wyverns, no doubt, but this didn't feel like a cause for celebration or pride. I hadn't rid a village or a kingdom of a vicious pack of beasts that existed solely to torment those that lived below. I hadn't saved a princess from a mighty dragon after defeating it in fair and arranged combat. I'd snuck into their safe place, the children's bedroom, when they were cradling their future and had started slashing, cutting down anything that moved.

I felt sick to my stomach, only to feel worse at the thought of what I was going to do. It was cruel, without doubt, no it was merciful compared to the other option. I looked down at my boots, seeing the blood and carnage covering them, and preparing myself for yet another atrocity. The eggs needed to be destroyed, every last one of them. There was nowhere one could raise Wyverns in the cities. it was illegal, no matter who did it, they couldn't be domesticated and that made them dangerous. These eggs would hatch in days, no more than five looking at the size of them, and they would be born into a world, reaching out and crying for a mother that wasn't there to raise them.

I wasn't a philosopher, nor was I anything close to a great mind, with wisdom beyond his years, and his eyes opened to all that happened around him... but even I knew that it was better to never experience life at all than to have it painfully taken from you before you even got a chance to live it.

I walked over to one of the nests, seeing the fertilised eggs, my bargaining ticket for a quick fuck, and raised my boot, preparing myself to put the nail in the coffin for these innocent animals, and hoping to myself that I'd never need to do this to another nesting area again.

"If you wish as such-" a female voice said from behind me, Grael and I whirling around to see a strange sight where our eyes fell.

My mind immediately registered the being as Celestia: the height of just over seven feet, the wide, buxom frame, and the soft, voice that spoke to my very soul. But it was as the person came forward, I realised that it wasn't my Aunt, but instead a stranger of inhuman beauty that spoke to Grael and I in a voice that calmed and soothed us, something we needed greatly.

"-I can can destroy this nest myself," they continued, walking towards me and letting me get a better look at them.

They were indeed similar to Celestia in terms of height and body type, but they had their distinct differences. This woman was clothed in a thick, long-sleeved dress that covered and clung tightly to her body, the fabric being a cold blue that matched the same shade of her long, flowing locks. She had a long fringe, lifted and thickened slightly, with it draping over her eye and tucking behind her ear. Her lips were plump and soft-looking, painted with the most gorgeous ice-blue lipstick I'd ever seen.

She wore a necklace, the jewel resting against her tightly-wrapped bust, being a sapphire dragon's claw, with three thick toes and smaller claws, glistening and shining in the harsh sunlight. She cocked her head at me, staring deep into my being with a blank expression, yet one look into her beautiful blue eyes made me feel as if I could fall into them. She continued to speak to me, my mind not registering her words as she walked towards me, Grael and I both stunned by the otherworldly beauty of the woman before us.

"You are injured," she said in a delicate tone, taking my ruined, multi-coloured-blood-splattered arm in her heavenly smooth hands, closing her eyes and casting a spell on the damaged limb.

I had to squint to prevent my eyes from hurting, feeling the sheer heat of the light warmly caress my face, as I felt my arm reshape itself, a weird urge to grind my teeth came as the bone was restored, followed by the worst, skin-crawling itch imaginable as the nerves reattached themselves, the muscle recovered the bone, and the skin began to knit itself together once more, feeling like an army of spiders prancing and dancing all along my arm.

Once she was done, she released my newly-repaired arm, allowing me to stare in amazement at her healing process, prodding and poking the limb and marvelling at the fact it felt good as new, without so much as a scar or a blemish on the arm, though it was lacking its usual coat of thin hairs from before.

"Thank you," I said in a quiet tone, something about the woman making me feel tranquil and at ease. "Who... who are you?"

"A friend," she said in a soft tone. "Now, I believe you came here for a purpose, did you not?"

"Y-Yeah... how did you know that?" I asked her, cocking an eyebrow in confusion.

"A voice on the wind told me," she answered, utterly confusing me with that statement. "Are your vials damaged?"

Putting aside the torrent of confusion brought on by her knowledge of both my task and my items, I put my hand in my back pouch and managed to find nothing more than glass dust, the vials having been thoroughly shattered and ground up during the fighting.

"Fuck," I spat through gritted teeth, a wash of disappointment soaking me through. "Fuck."

"Worry not," she said in a calm, comforting voice, holding her hand out in front of her, palm open and facing the sky. "I shall assist you."

She closed her eyes, moment ticking by as several snowflakes landed on her palm. When she opened her eyes once more, they were aglow with magical energy, the bright light flickering around the underside of her brow like flames licking the fireplace, a beautiful and mysterious power that I'd never seen before. She blew gently into her hand, disturbing the snowflakes and causing them to flutter around, somehow staying in her hand. As she continued to empty her lungs, the snowflakes began to shift and form, spreading and hardening until they formed into a solid glass jar, much larger than any of the vials I'd brought with me.

"Here," she said, handing the jar to me, smiling once again. "Complete your task."

The feelings I felt raging around inside me confused me more than anything I'd ever felt before. She was beautiful, busty, thick-hipped, and I could tell she had an ass wider than my torso, and thicker than honey. She was the walking definition of my perfect woman, and yet... there was no lust for her. I didn't want to strip her off and make her slobber all over my cock. I... I just wanted to hold her. I wanted to squeeze up against her beautiful body and have her wrap her arms around me. I wanted her to whisper love and affection into my ears and tell me everything I needed to hear to feel validated.

"I... thank you," I said, looking the jar, and new lid, over before turning around from the perfect woman, going over to one of the Wyvern's corpses and slitting its throat, draining the blood into the jar till it was full to the brim, the screwing the lid onto it, and standing back up. Grael had been keeping watch on the strange woman, but a loud noise, the sound of rockfall, distracted us both for less than a second, she'd vanished upon us looking back, leaving nothing more than an empty space where the most beautiful woman in the world had once stood.

The two of us were confused, looking back and forth between one another as if to confirm that had even happened. We blinked, rubbed our eyes, and examined one another's memories as the situation only seemed to confuse us more. I shook my head, feeling tired and exhausted, and not willing to rack my brain around on the matter of ghost woman and mystical snow jars. I chalked it up to being a Yuki-Onna that had chickened out of seducing me and decided to get on with my life. We returned to the castle, getting very strange looks from guards and civilians due to our filthy appearance, and soon placed the vial of blood on the desk, whistling to get Celana's attention and take it away from her plants.

"Ah!" she exclaimed happily. "You were successful. So... did you manage to get any eggs?"

"No," I said in a sombre tone. "I didn't."

"Shame... oh well," she shrugged. "At least this'll make the bath bombs brew faster."

At the last syllable of that sentence, I nearly felt my head and heart explode. Bath bombs. She'd sent me up there to speed up the brewing process of bathing supplies? She'd knowingly tasked me with ending the lives of not only the current generation of innocent animals, but also ending the bloodline of every single Wyvern in that nest. I felt unholy rage rocket through me, gritting my teeth, and clenching my fists down by my sides, fire in my heart and mind as I stormed over to Celana, roughly grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning around, sticking my face into hers and demanding an answer:

"Bath bombs?!"

"Yes, bath bombs," she nodded, not seeming to happy about my closeness to her. "Are you deaf all of a sudden now?"

"Do you have any idea what I had to do to get these?!" I bellowed, causing her to recoil slightly in surprise. "I had to brutally slaughter an entire colony of innocent animals! And for what? For some scented fucking soaps?!"

"Not soap, they're a soluble mass of scented-" she began, only to be cut off instantly.

"Celana, I couldn't give two shits and a fuck about what they are," I snarled, my face mere centimetres from hers. "You made me slaughter innocent creatures for this! For a reason worth, and I mean this literally, no more than a stick of rock candy!"

"Right, you need to do two things," Celana growled, her eyes lighting up with bright magic, not similar to the magic of the mysterious woman from before. "The first is back the fuck away from me-"

She accented this by using a force spell to shove me back, knocking me into one of the desk and causing me to bend backwards over it.

"-and the second thing is you need to stop crying into buckets about killing a bunch of damn lizards." she finished.

"What the hell did they do to deserve-"

"Hush," she growled, gently swatting me across the cheek with her magic as she continued to speak. "You need to get it through your head that a bunch of animals are never worth saving over human needs, especially the needs of important humans. If you need to build a bridge of rabbits to save a carriage full of children, you will wring the necks of those bastards with a smile because you need to value human life more than animal life."

"And you sent me up there to get fragranced-" I began, only to be cut off again.

"Fragranced bath bombs that are made out of a special alchemical formula to help prevent Elisyra's skin, muscle, and organs from eroding due to an infection she's currently battling," Celana said, storming over to me and jabbing an angry finger into my chest. "The Wyvern's blood wasn't just to help brew some fucking vanity toiletries, it was to get the plants to mature fast enough to start producing their scent, which comes from an enzyme used in the healing mixture that keeps the queen of this country alive. I have several weeks worth of these bath bombs left in her stock, and have really been cutting it close creating new ones. But the blood you got from a bunch of untanned boots allows me to brew a lot of them in excess ahead of time, as to not be one dropped pan away from losing the ruler of this country."

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me that?" I demanded.

"Why the fuck do you think you have a right to know?!" Celana barked. "The condition the queen is suffering from is meant to be confidential, as she doesn't want the public to worry about her dying before her time. I'm not allowed to go spreading the news to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes waltzing in here looking for assistance."

"Celana, I'm a Prince, I've dealt with hush-hush politics my entire life, and not only do I know how to keep my mouth shut, I know how important it is for necessary information to be circulated properly. So why didn't you tell me about why I was getting the blood?"

Celana was silent for a moment, an apprehensive look on her face as she thought over her response, her magma red eyes rising from the floor after a long moment and staring into my eyes.

"Because this information cannot go public," she confessed. "If anyone found out that the queen was a missed bath away from rotting from the inside out, there'd be panic on our side and play after play from every piece of filth in the country to try and use her condition to their own advantage. I don't know you, Richter, and that means I can't trust you properly. Not yet at least. That's why I didn't tell you about it."

There was a frustrated silence between us for a long moment, our chests heaving and throats hurting from a long time spent yelling. The silence lasted, even Grael remaining entirely quiet, before Celana continued to speak.

"But now that you do know, I hope you can feel a little better about what you did," she said, continuing to stare at me with her magma-red eyes. "And since I'm an honourable woman, I'll not only complete my end of the bargain and assist you with the Narrowscale..."

She went quiet for a second, wrapping her arms around my neck and holding me close, squeezing her enormous bust into my chest as she rested her beautiful lips mere inches away from mine.

"The offer of sex is still on the table... just to let you know I'm sorry," she said in a lustful tone.

I sighed slowly, running the options over in my mind, and trying to make a decision. On one hand, she was manipulative and full of herself, being content to sacrifice whatever she needed to as long as she saw the moral right in the result somewhere, but on the other hand... rejecting her here could lead to problems down the road, especially in combat. I didn't want a begrudged ally, I wanted a friend who was willing to fight her hardest alongside me because she wanted to, not because she had to.

I looked at her in the eyes again, making my mind up that fucking her, using her, was the best play to make, as making her think that I didn't almost hate her would keep me in her good books for the battle. I slid my hands down her smooth body, gripping her hips tightly before locking lips with her. I was going to take her upstairs to her bedroom, fuck the life out of her, and make sure she did what I needed her for before cutting all ties with her afterwards.

With the Court Mage on our side, I could only hope that Zane and Annerose had as much 'luck' getting the mercenaries to join up with us.