Hunting the Hunter Ch. 05

"I am aware of your situation. The letter has informed me of the intended arrangement. And no...I do not care. In regards to the message...I will take your proposition to the night mother. We will find you if and when our dread mother chooses to respond. And as for the melodrama..." he rose slowly from the table and pulled his hood back up so that only his face from the bridge of his nose and below remained visible, "...well, that's just one of our many services. Part of the package, if you will, and free of charge." She could see a slight smirk pull at his lip again as his long fingers wrapped delicately around the handle of her knife and pulled the tip from the table.

He whirled it dexterously before presenting the handle to her with a courteous nod. She accepted and one of the gloved fingers brushed her own forcing her to suppress a full blown shudder. He must have noticed, or knew somehow, because his barely there smirk widened slightly. "A pleasure doing business with you madam. I do hope we'll meet again." She couldn't say for certain, but that definitely sounded like a threat to her.

She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. He paused at the door. "By the way," he murmured over his shoulder, "Some of your methods are a little sloppy, occasionally even bordering on recklessness...but much of your work shows definite promise...and even, I would presume to say, a certain amount of style." He turned back slightly so that she could see his eyes. "I especially liked what you did with the Redguard. It was very...efficient. Excellent knife work."

The door closed and, after listening to her pounding heart beat for the better part of eternity, Inanna melted in her seat with a low groan. "That's it. I'm going into retail." She leaned forward until the tip of her nose and forehead rested on the table. "Or maybe inn keeping. I'll buy Roxy out in the morning."

The tiny window to her tiny room was open, and now that the silence spell had bled away, the soft yet persistent sounds of evening had begun to filter in. It was calming. She had to admit, now that there was time to think strait, she'd been pretty nervous. She wasn't one to fall for put-ons and shows...but these guys were definitely professional showmen if that was indeed all act. But it couldn't be. It wasn't. That guy had been truly creepy, even in hindsight.

Her head shot up. There hadn't been any Redguard necromancers in the caves. Not one.

What... the... hell.

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It was another soft summer's night. The air was warm and the cool little breezes that tripped down from the Jerral mountains rustled through the trees with a playfulness it seemed to reserve solely for the summer months. You'd never think to look at it, that such a lovely night was full of nasty, scary, dark things. It was easy to imagine on a evening like this that the dark was a safe place, and that things like bandits, and deadra, and necromancers, and paid killers weren't lurking in the shadowy places. But they were...like they'd always been. But before her was one of the shining places. A bright pearl, glinting in the moon light.

She was still unnerved by the assassin's strange comment about the Redguard and was hesitant to come back here right off, or even at all. But, after the last couple of nights she'd had...well, the pull had been too hard to resist. It was like she just...wanted to be nearer, and being nearer, the weird vibrations and anxieties were magically soothed. It was a little odd. But hey, who was she to question what worked. There was a human saying about horses' mouths that was somehow applicable...but it eluded her at the moment.

She approached the ruin from an odd angle, hoping to catch Lucas off guard if he was around. She didn't see him and guessed one of the heavies was on watch instead.

As if hearing her thoughts something stirred as a warning in the bush next to her. Inanna crouched and automatically palmed one of her knives...just in case. A lion emerged and greeted her with a small huff.

"You're pretty sneaky you know that...didn't hear you coming at all till you shook that bush for me." The lion tilted his head and his pale blue eyes glinted. "How are you tonight Muthsera Cyrus?" She had a hard time recognizing them from a distance, but up close she could make out the distinguishing speckles of charcoal gray in the fur along his throat, and a small scar over his left eye which seemed much more apparent in his lion form than in his human.

He shifted and crouched down next to her, perfectly unfazed by his nudity. He was of a slimmer build than most of the others, but he was still pretty darn easy on the eyes. He had....a runners body, she'd say. Much like a fellow Ashlander actually, if she were to think about it. Which clearly she was.

"Not too bad, yourself?"

"Eh." She made a face, recalling the less than pleasant way in which she'd spent the last couple of days.

He chuckled. "Yeah, you've smelled better too." She cocked a brow at him.

"What's that supposed to mean." He smiled kindly at her.

"Well I don't mean to offend your feminine sensibilities, but you smell like you've been rolling around in someone's grave."

She chuckled. "Yeah I suppose I must." She'd scrubbed, but some things did tend to linger. "I wonder how many baths it's going to take to get clean this time." She'd been down in those caves a decent while...she didn't doubt that the smell had permeated right to the bone. Did she mention Gross? 'Cause yeah...

She nodded at him, her eyes drawn up to his small white scar. Normally she didn't pay much attention to scars, since she saw a lot of them, but she'd noticed that none of the others seemed to have any. No doubt due to their unusual healing abilities. She cocked her head in silent question and pointed to his brow. "How'd you get that little nick anyway? Don't you guys heal up on your own pretty good?"

He grinned sideways at her and rubbed a finger over his scarred eyebrow. "Yeah...I left it on purpose. I got it the day we discovered Talon...he was just a little thing. I don't know how he even survived on his own. But I was hunting when I heard him just a-squealin' to wake the dead. I came up on him just in time to see a mountain eagle snatching him out from under a ledge."

"Oh yeah? I've never seen one of them. They're pretty rare, huh?"

"They stay to the north mostly--they're bloody huge. Nasty claws too. I recognized the cub in it's claws for what it was and managed to wrangle him from the bird before it was able to take off. Got this as a souvenir." He chuckled. "And Talon got his name. We took him on as our own after that." He sighed. "That...well, it was before the twins came along, so we figured it was the right thing to do, and he was such a sweet little thing."

She grinned and recalled the last time she'd been down here, and Talon's idea of a greeting party. He'd organized an ambush with the twins...and it was a sad fact that it had, for the most part, worked. She defied anyone not to be startled by three flying balls of fur at six am on a Morndas morning.

"Sweet? That one's a born troublemaker...adorable, sure, but he's a ballsy little ankle-biter."

He couldn't argue with that, so he just grinned back.

A distant sound distracted them both momentarily, but it was far enough off not to be a major concern. He sighed and continued, his face turning serious.

"It was also before we found Moira, Lucas, and Owyn. I'm still hoping we'll find more, but I'm not as hopeful as I used to be. The quality of the hunters has been slowly dwindling, and I worry that this is because the better ones are elsewhere, hunting others."

"You think that's likely?" She shifted her weight onto her other foot and rested her elbows on her knees, still crouching.

He shrugged and held his palms up helplessly. "I can't know...which is perhaps better than knowing we're truly alone...perhaps."

"Feric?"

"He has faith that there are others. He thinks that if he made it, there must be others who made it as well...he underestimates himself sometimes." He looked down at his hands where they rested on his knees, mirroring her own position. "I'm older than the others here...seen more...so I know better. I don't think any of them, Mirisa, Feric, Bella—even Owyn—know their own worth. That's why I worry. They're all exceptional, really, so if anyone made it out, they would be amongst that small minority." He shook his head. "I was the best tracker and hunter of my own pride...and as far as I know, the only survivor. If there are others...there won't be many. I...I don't know how we will rebuild."

She wanted to tell Cyrus they would—could—but she didn't know that either. Even if they did find others, would it be enough? Could they have children with others outside their race, and if so would they have the same abilities? If not...she'd done, and would probably do more questionable things, and for what? No, that was an asinine thought. She was doing it because the being crouched next to her was decent and kind, and he didn't deserve to have his family destroyed. He'd welcomed her into his home...they all had. Even Mirisa, in her own way...a way not unlike her own people's since they were notoriously suspicious about strangers and didn't like to make it easy. In her books, that was more than enough. Other...feelings...didn't have to factor into it. Hormone induced or not, the right thing was the right thing.

A hand squeezed her shoulder. "Hey, sorry. Didn't mean to be a sad-sack there. Don't look so glum, you're prettier when you smile."

She smirked. "Awwww. No, no worries. You just got me thinking is all. But, I better get going. I need to grab some supplies from town before I go back to the ruins and it's almost morning."

"What were you doing up here then?"

She gave him a naughty sideways grin. "Hoping for a chance to torture Shadow, but the little bugger eluded me."

He smirked back. "He really is like her shadow sometimes, isn't he." He nodded, knowing instantly the true reason for the nick name. "But that happens. It was years before Talon let me out of his sight, and Owyn still acts like an infatuated puppy around Mirisa. They lost everyone, so there needs to be someone to fill the void."

"What about the other two?"

"Well Ambrose seems equally taken with everyone, but Mori...she tends to keep to herself. Not in the obvious way that Lucas does, she plays and joins in, but really, she's a closed book. I wouldn't go so far as to say she's difficult...she just does things her own way."

She nodded. He gave he a smile and a wink and transformed. She caught herself from reaching out to pat his shoulder as he began to move past, but he saw the movement and brushed his cheek against her arm. The gesture warmed her and she was forced to reign in the ah-shucks feeling it was giving her. Man hormones sucked. She wasn't sweating any more, but now she'd not only lost her iron stomach, but was getting all sentimental to boot.

She watched the big cat slink away and mentally slapped herself back to attention. There was work to do. It was time to stop screwing around. For a moment Inanna considered continuing on to the ruin and finding her preferred cat. That weird pull made it difficult to resist. Instead she cast a suspicious glance into the serene darkness, half expecting to see watching shadows hidden among the brush and brambles, then melted back into it herself.

There were scary things roaming the night...she'd just have to make sure she was the scariest. Mwahaha, and all that.

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Her trip back to town had been uneventful. The early morning hours had seen the streets deserted, save one hooded figure she'd seen from a distance, though it was clear they weren't interested in anything she was up to. She managed to gather up a decent number of supplies...a few new bed rolls and a few tools, but mostly food with a couple of luxury items thrown in for good measure. How anyone could live without access to salt water taffy, she just couldn't understand. The Imperial stuff wasn't as good as the kind made on the east coast of Morrowind, but that was nothing new.

Looking over what she had, she decided it was probably time for another purchasing run, but it could wait until she got back.

She left the supplies in a small side room designated for storage when she returned to the ruin. It was steadily starting to look half decent thanks to the frequent trips she'd been making, but it was still slow going.

Most people were up and about but she found Feric asleep, though still in human form and propped up against a wall, looking very much like he'd fallen asleep by accident.

She padded slowly over to him and leaned in close to his ear. "Morning handsome." He didn't move but his lip twitched. He wasn't asleep after all. "What, no honey for the busy little bee?" The twitch pulled even harder at the corner of his mouth.

She straddled his lap and knelt with her hands on his shoulders thinking to tease him, but to her surprise his hands came down around her hips of their own accord and pulled her closer, sliding underneath her to cup and squeeze her ass. He inhaled against her hair then pulled his head back giving her a disgusted look.

"Ugh, you smell like....dead things." He sniffed again and cocked a brow at her. "And Cyrus."

"Zombies."

"I thought you hated zombies." He tipped his head to look at her askance.

She grinned wryly. "What better reason to kill them?" She pursed her lips and frowned then screwed up her face at him while poking him in the chest. "What are you doing sniffing me for anyway? Serves you right if you got a nose-full bucko."

His expression became suddenly hard to read...which was telling enough and she smirked again.

"Awwww, you're not jealous are you? Mister 'we can't have sex, so sit on it and spin?' You," she poked him hard in the chest, "aren't allowed to get jealous since you can't bring yourself to claim your stake, big boy."

He arched a brow at her and smirked. "I changed my mind." Now that wasn't suspicious. What was he up to?

"So, after all that hoopla and angst about 'I can't tell you, but I really want to, please don't hate me...' blah blah blah... after all that, you just suddenly—poof— up and change your mind?"

His expression was neutral. Too neutral. "It wasn't all that sudden." He smiled slightly. "Maybe I just couldn't resist you anymore."

"You never could."

He sighed, "No, you're right about that." About time he admitted it. Still, something felt...weird. Her mind flashed back to the night of the storm. It had gotten pretty heavy at the end, and had her thinking strange, un-Inanna like thoughts...L-word type nutiness. But that she had already brushed off as heat of the moment crazies. Still...she pursed her lips at him and narrowed her eyes.

"I think you're up to no good."

He squeezed her rear and grinned slyly, both actions conspiring to give her all kinds of warm and extra gooey feelings where she had no desire to be having feelings right at that moment. She shifted in his grip, but that only made it worse. Of course, that didn't stop her from doing it more. "I don't think I trust that grin of yours." His face shifted, still smiling, but there was an edge there, something a little more serious.

"Trust what you know Inanna."

She grabbed him by the collar of his robe and pulled him close until they were nose to nose and growled softly. She let her fire come up so that her words fell hotly against his skin. "You can't use that line....that's my line."

"Is your name on it?" She saw his lips twitch again and hers twitched involuntarily in response.

"You have to ask permission first," she whispered threateningly against his, oh-so-close, lips. Then pressed her groin on tighter, feeling something lovely and hard pressing right back.

It was silent, but she could feel the suppressed groan rolling around in the back of her throat.

"Please may I use you're line?" He whispered with that hint of a smile still playing at the corners of his mouth.

"'Please may I use you're line,' what?"

"Please may I use you're line, you dangerous little imp?"

She giggled against his mouth. "Well, when you ask so nicely..."

"Ugh." they both turned the their heads toward the sound of disgust at the same time. Mirisa stood in the doorway naked, her arms crossed over her ample, yet impressively perky breasts. Maybe she should really do more to try to talk Mirisa into giving Max a chance. He'd be sooooooo grateful if she hooked him up with that hot piece.

"You're lucky...saved by the bell." Ina purred maliciously, turning back to Feric and opting not to reply to Mirisa just yet.

He gripped her ass again and slid his hands down her thighs.

"Ummm, I said 'Ugh...'" they looked back at Mirisa who only rolled her eyes and turned back into a cat and trotted off. She still looked thoroughly unimpressed. Expressive eyes these kitty cats have.

His hands were still busy...and while she wouldn't normally complain...it was disconcerting having him do it 'before' she tortured him within an inch of his sanity. Her hands came down over his and stilled them and she turned her expression serious.

"Honestly though Feric...is something up?" He sobered as well.

"Yes and no."

"Same crap you're not ready to tell me."

"Pretty much."

"Am I going to have to put up with more hot and cold bullshit?"

His lips twitched a little again. "Pretty much." It was her turn to make a disgusted sound and she tried to pull away...his grip kept her in his lap."Something's changed." He was frowning, looking at her with a cocked head.

"Yeah." she agreed. She felt it to. Something was up, different. Not bad necessarily, but definitely disconcerting...mostly 'cause she didn't have the foggiest what it was or what to do with it.

"What is it? What's wrong?" He asked, his voice soft with concern and his vivid green eyes searching her face. She noticed that his pupils had dark gold rings around them which bled into the green. Pretty.

"Besides the usual?" she shrugged. "I honestly don't know."

"You smell different." he offered softly. She grinned.

"I smell like the dead, remember?"

He remained serious. "No. Since the night we were caught in the rain...I just put my finger on it." The way he was looking at her, like he was looking 'into' her, was making her insides roil...and not in the fun 'I'm-a gonna get me some tail' kind of way either.

"Not as good?" Her voice didn't sound as firm as she wanted it to and she cursed silently. Fetcher did things to her...things other people shouldn't be able to do. He made her doubt...hesitate. What happened to nerves of steel. Except with zombies of course....zombie-less nerves of steel. Ugh, he made her think nonsense to.

"No." he shook his head. "you smell--excepting the dead things-- terrific. But it's different. He shook his head as if to clear it and sighed. "I don't know." He smiled wearily. "Go take a bath." She recovered herself, still feeling shaken, but having no intentions of showing it. She gave him a lascivious smile.

"A kitty cat type bath?"

He chuckled. "That I'd like to see...but I doubt you're that flexible." She laughed. Then gave him an over the top 'come hither' look, running a finger down his chest.

"Maybe you'd like to help me with the...hard to reach areas."

He grinned "not with you smelling like that I'm not." she gave him a playful shove and got off his legs, receiving a swat on the ass for her efforts. She pouted over her shoulder at him.

"Fine then, I know where I'm not wanted." she stretched her arms over her head in a long sinuous curve and sashayed away, rocking her hips enticingly. She cast a glance over her shoulder to give him a smoldering look, but it was lost on him. His eyes were still glued to her swaying hips as she passed through the door. She smiled to herself as she turned away. She could live with that.