“Neither of you co back! Lunatics! Trying to set my bar on fire.”
I stumbled as I was roughly shoved out onto the street, Edwards words echoing behind . I turned around just in ti to catch Alice as she stumbled.
My drunk, stumbling, beautiful girlfriend, despite being a head shorter than at least, was such an adorable thick muscular woman that I struggled to keep her up, straining at the weight.
Not that I’d ever vocalize any of that as I kept her from eating street. I prided myself on keeping my head firmly on my shoulders.
“Asshole,” Alice muttered in a slur that made my head ache so.
As our designated person to guide us ho on this two-person venture, I’d had…three ads? Four? The Imp had sworn it would take the edge off, and honestly as I’d gone through tankards, I hadn’t cared. I’d pay in the morning, maybe. So I only swayed a little as I went and pulled her up.
“You did try to burn down his bar,” I said as I pulled her up.
“Fucking deserved it,” she hissed. “Trying to cut off.”
“You did drink an awful lot,” I said. “More than I’ve seen you do in the past. I suppose it is good to see even you have your limits. Just maybe don’t go to arson when you get this sloshed.”
“It’s not even the first ti I tried it with his tavern,” she muttered as she leaned into . She tried to stumble towards the Hells’ Own but I swiftly turned her the right way around.
“First ti you tried it where anyone else could see,” I reminded her. Normally, her attempts at arson were a lot less serious, a lot more private, and a lot easier to put out. Except that one ti when soone had caught a whiff of smoke and she’d had to pretend to be addicted to Skaff for a month.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Ruined your big party.”
“We already had the big one,” I said. “Back at the headquarters. This one was just the two of us, rember? Private little celebration?”
Alice frowned, staring owlishly up at . “But this one was way bigger than the other one. By a lot. The one back at the headquarters was…ten people?”
I kept my small smile on despite the dagger she’d just sunk in its heart. “Eight.”
“Oh, I made you sad, didn’t I?” she said as she nestled her head back in under my jacket, pressed against my side. “I didn’t an to, I’m sorry.”
“It’s reality,” I said evenly. “Hard to be sad over that.”
“No,” she said. “That's what’s easiest to be sad over. And I shouldn’t have made you feel like that, especially not tonight.”
She nipped , just a tease through the shirt and I shivered despite my best efforts not to.
“I love you,” she said as she pulled her teeth back.
I pulled her in close as I walked, but she wriggled a little, pushing away.
“What?”
“I never hear you say it,” she said, her tail wrapping insistently around my wrist. “I say it a bunch, but you never do.”
“Well, you love lots of things, rember,” I said as I tried to peel the tail off. We’d made it perhaps forty feet from the Hells’ Own, and the bouncer had a clear warning glare on that was clear in its ssage.
“So?” she asked, trying to nuzzle against , leaning on for support, tail looping further around my wrist, crawling up my forearm then leaping off and making for my belt. “You can love lots of things too, can’t you?”
I grabbed her tail before it could drunkenly fish it’s way into my pants, only for it to dart for my neckline and make a play for sothing else entirely.
“I realize you’re drunk, but could you please focus a little?” I said as I played tug of war to keep her from groping . “It’s past midnight, and these streets are hardly safe.”
“Say you love ,” she told .
“I love you?” I said, half-jokingly, only for a cutely furious face to turn my way. I rembered being frightened at first, but when you knew the person behind it, knew they wouldn’t hurt you, it beca perfect instead.
“Say it like you an it.”
I paused, then let go of the tail and it fell down behind her. It..this was simple. Easy even. Just, my heart’s pounding was only worse as words stuck in my mouth.
Alice smiled at , almost teasingly, only the fact that she was so clearly drunk made think it wasn’t on purpose.
I spun her around, getting on my knees so she was a little taller than , and hesitantly rested my head on her shoulders so only she could hear.
“I love you,” I whispered, and almost imdiately scread at myself. No, no, no, not beyond the mask! Hells, even the slightest sliver out was weakness poking-
Alice pulled back, grabbing my face in her hands and kissed . It was sloppy, it was drunken, it was bliss.
“Thank you,” Alice said when we were done, then she let go and I almost fell to the street floor, as if she had been the only thing keeping up.
I got back to my hooves, and she went back to my side, nestling in once again.
“I don’t need to focus,” she said drunkenly. “You’re here to protect . I don’t need it.”
“Really?” I said, not able to get more than that single word past as we started walking again. I felt…fragile, but good, my heart was pounding, every beat feeling like it might shatter to pieces but so…free and …Hells what had I just done?
“You’re so good at protecting,” she said with a yawn as she clung to .
“Really?” I repeated, keeping her close to as we neared the tunnels. Even with reputations as black and fell as they ca, soone would be fool enough to jump us if they detected weakness.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s why I picked you.”
“Picked ?” I said, keeping an eye on the roof. Okay, that wasn’t even pretending to be a chimney, even collapsed chimneys didn’t have three different high points side by side.
“Why I picked you to go after,” she said sleepily. “Can’t intimidate everyone, just a good way to piss off the one person who is willing to risk crossing you. Needed soone to make sure that wouldn’t happen. High-ranking, powerful, teacher. Being crazy ain’t enough to keep the worst off. Gotta get soone to support you. Any way possible.”
We weren’t moving now, and she tried to keep going only to be stopped by my grip. I looked down at her, still listening, but feeling like I was a thousand yards away.
“You were so lonely,” she said, eyes closed now, and the only thing preventing from forcing them open was interrupting this the mont I did. “Easy to tug along. Lonely little girl all be herself, sure you’re made of ice and stone and maybe your heart is too, but even stone hearts bleed a little. Wrap you around my finger. Actually ended up easier than expected.”
She yawned, breaking the flow of conversation as I was vaguely aware of sothing shrieking in the back of my mind as the imp cackled.
“Didn’t think it would work at first,” she continued as sothing roared in my ears and my grip tightened further. “Thought I was pushing too hard but that was exactly what was needed. You’re too easy Malvia, and it made you the perfect choice.”
Unlawfully taken from , this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Complete halt now, hands shaking, mouth trying and failing to open to say any of the thousand things populating my head.
“I think I might love you,” she muttered sleepily in my side. “Maybe?”
I…she…this entire ti….from the beginning. Nothing but a…fucking….my hands quivered, the nails on my free one digging into my palm, cutting deep. Teeth ground as I stared down at her sleepy head, her cute, despicable, detestable face and I was going to-
“Freeze!” A voice called out from one of the roofs. “Not even the Fla are invincible, so-”
I pushed Alice roughly aside, ignoring her drunken exclamation as black fla wreathed .
When the street stopped burning the next morning, the corpses of all the muggers had ford into a hellish thing with eight legs and twice as many arms, biting gnashing mouths all over it. I heard later off-handedly it killed ten before finally being taken down.
I couldn’t bring myself to care at all.
***
Three months later. Hell had co for the Black Fla.
A bit flowery, as I sat on my bed, ignoring the sounds from up above, but accurate.
The entire room shook, the floor quaking, my bed's springs squeaking as I was tossed a little. Not even anything related to us directly, just the army following Her Majesty’s directive to finally take the tunnels and dwarf settlents that lay underneath Avernon, and the dwarves had proved less than willing to comply.
This would hurt us too. As those tensions had grown, the dwarves had been the ones to turn a blind eye to our presence down here, although they thought of us as just a small criminal cartel needling the Imperials. Versalicci had already made plans for the dwarves who had more directly known of our presence down here. If things got much worse, there’d be a sudden pandemic of slit throats and devil attacks in the dwarf holds
As I looked at the roof shaking once again, it provided a nice distraction from what was in the room with . Or rather, who.
Alice stood at the entrance to my room, a lazy sneer on her face, arms crossed, tail whipping back too and fro as she glared at .
“So,” she said, looking at over crossed arms.
“So?” I replied, looking up from my bed.
A lonely bed. It had only had in it. For three months now. And not because I’d been using roofs or streets or anything else in its place.
“Don’t answer a question with a question,” Skall hissed, eyes narrowing.
“Don’t co to my room expecting to know what you’re talking about,” I replied back. “What do you want Alice?”
She actually hesitated, a brief little crack before the sneer resud, those eyes looking at brimming with nothing but confidence.
“Maybe I just ca by for a bite,” she said.
“Fuck. You.” I said, and maybe just a little crack again. Malvia Harrow wasn’t supposed to use language like that, especially around people who could be a threat, but this mask was proving a little malleable.
She recovered just as quickly, leaving it a question of if her confidence was cracking or I was imagining things.
“If you’re offering, I’d be more than happy too, but I think an apology is in order first?”
“An apology,” I said flatly. “From ?”
“It would be appreciated for so of those hurtful things you said,” she replied. “You know, when we got back from the Hells’ Own and safely underground. Or have you already forgotten them?”
“I have not,” I said, keeping a maelstrom down to a simple, even tone even as I wanted to go over and punch her over it. Knowing her, she’d find that sothing else to tease. “I think they were well-deserved. Don’t act shocked that you earned them.”
She snorted. “Course I acted shocked. Trying to wring emotion out of you is like blood from a stone, far too much effort for far too little blood.”
I laughed, bleakly and humourlessly.
“I’m like a stone?” I hissed. “You want to claim that, how many months later? Say that’s the truth and not what we lived through. Or are you just dodging responsibility? Pretending I’m the one without emotion so you can dodge the fact you’ve never loved .”
“I never said that,” she snapped. “You read far too much into-”
“Into what?” I interrupted, getting up from the bed, striding until only inches separated us. “Into you admitting you only ever pursued because you wanted protection? That I was easy? Maybe?”
I stared down at her, her jaw clenched, teeth bared as she glared up at from easily a head lower. Sothing inside ached, wanted to lean down and bite and kiss and try to forget this ever happened.
Sothing in that angry expression shifted, just a second, so fleeting I didn’t know if I’d spotted it or not.
“Don’t bla for you secretly yearning to latch onto the first person to give you so attention,” Alice said. “Nothing to bla for making it easy but your own-”
My hand wrapped around her throat as I pressed forward. Alice was solidly built, all muscles and rough edges while I kept myself lithe to a fault, but surprise counted for sothing. She flailed for a second, long enough for to force her back against the wall, hand wrapped tightly against her throat.
“First lesson of diabolism,” I got out in a ragged gasp, my head just above hers, staring down, my eyes feeling pained as sothing got in the way of my vision, blurring it. “Letting a hand touch you? Death. Just a thought and I could send rot into you, make your veins burst and your flesh decay into nothing. I could…I could…”
My hand was shaking now, little bits of fla forming then spinning off into nothingness while Skall looked at , a half-smile and lidded eyes as she stared over my grasping hand. At so point I’d gone to my knees, my head the sa level as hers.
“No need for that,” she said, tone calm as if I didn’t have a hand wrapped around her throat. “If you want to play gas Malvia, we can let bygones be bygones, start fresh. If you want to hurt ? That's what bites are for.”
I wanted that, I wanted that so badly even knowing what she’d done and that this was probably not even honest, but the thought of things going back the way they were. It was tempting.
Not enough. I was not falling for this, I would never fall for sothing like this!
“Get,” I said, teeth gritted as suddenly flas wreathed my hand and her half-smile vanished into a grimace of pain. “Out!”
****
Three more months. Now as the roof shook up above , it wasn’t just us on the sidelines of a fight between the dwarves and the empire.
I stumbled as the floor shook, going to the tunnel’s side. Up above would be where the Army was busy excavating out with explosives and magic. They’d spent a month trying to find the secret entrances into Understreet, but by now patience had worn thin. Now they were just preparing tunnels and collapsing them until they found their prize.
And each explosion brought more tension down here, especially as the inner circle around our ‘fearless leader’ kept mum as to any future plans. I wasn’t in it anymore, either Gio had cottoned on to what I knew, or just my own defeatism had ant less involvent and more freezing out of everything.
A year earlier I’d be afraid of it aning a knife across my throat. These days…that fear was still there, but there was a way out, in just a week’s ti.
Consolidation hadn’t happened yet. We still maintained outposts and other smaller bases in the web of tunnels and caves down here. For all the good it did us. Getting in touch with them was just more opportunities for the army’s patrols to catch you. Of course, it did an hours or even days away from the increasing despair down here.
Not much better in those other bases, but fewer people there to be angry at. And I’d made a habit of it, just to set up for the next run, where three of us would never arrive at our destination. Just dead at the hands of an army patrol, and I had a plan to make the Imp sleep so Gio couldn’t track us that way. He’d assu I’d been tortured and finally made to expire.
Still days away though, and the gnawing thought of not seeing it had made pace down here in what was supposed to be an isolated tunnel.
Supposed to be, if not for the scowling, short figure coming down from the other side.
Alice Skall paused, stopping a good ten feet away from . Underneath her chin, flesh still bore traces of scars where I’d seared her flesh. The…biosculpting sessions afterwards to repair the damage had been awkward to put it mildly, but she’d finally gotten the ssage.
“Malvia,” she said sharply, eyes narrowing. “You dogging my every step now?”
“I don’t dog,” I replied. “Running across you isn’t dogging, and I ca down the other side of the corridor. Why are you running across ?”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything more, just headed for the wall and keeping a wary eye on as she walked past.
I’d at least put a stop to her trying to pretend nothing had happened, even if it ant fear instead. I'd made it clear where things stood, and made it clear any goodwill was us trying to stay alive.
It was enough that she’d dragged out of the catastrophe of a scouting mission Gio had sent us on. If anything made think he knew I’d overheard, it was sending up there with only Alice as backup. If it was so attempt to make sure I died, it had failed. I suppose it made a bit of sense, knowing she’d only pretended to love for protection. Nettle too much and I survive and she’d be dealing with , probably ending in more than leaving her with burns.
I looked at her retreating back, and an urge built, to say sothing, make her co back, sothing. She deserved to know, I could tell her, we could….
What? Escape together? No, I squashed those feelings down, back where they’d co from. Even if she believed , I’d get sold out for a little bit of advantage. With this group? Just the evidence that I’d talked to soone without their approval would be enough to secure her spot and my slit throat. What guarantee did I have that she wouldn’t use for the sa bit of safety she’d admitted I’d been a tool in service to this entire ti? No, best to just escape with Arsene and Lyd-Tolman. I’d gotten lucky that my skills were just the ones Tolman wanted to beco truly himself, and it only reinforced that transactions, they were what mattered.
My brother. My uncle. A half dozen others before them, stretching forward and backward throughout ti. The only person I knew alive who loved without wanting anything in return was asleep, and likely to never wake.
***
My eyes opened, and I blinked, trying to figure out why I was staring at a doorway. Where was I?
Lying on sothing comfortable, was the imdiate answer, and looking down I was on so kind of blanket, in front of a manor. I frowned, the sight poking sothing from my brain. I tried to move, and failed as I was stuck staring at soone’s door.
My mouth felt dry and full of cotton, but nothing was actually there as I probed my teeth with my tongue. I could feel my limbs, but they didn’t want to move even as I told them to.
mories were coming back now, and I tried once again, straining only for very little to move.
A shadow fell over , and I went still as it ca closer, eventually moving around , it’s owner squatting down to look in the eyes.
“Really Miss Harrow,” Captain Malstein said, voice echoing in my ears. “We need to stop eting like this.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers