Blood Moon Ch. 03

A request by a client featuring their blood elf OC and a worgen. For reference photos, just google her. This chapter is fairly long so if you're mostly interested in smut, skip towards the end

***

In his human form and tucked coolly away in the shadows of the early morning sun, Ren watched from a distance as Seraphita and her new bodyguard exited through the southern gate of Gadgetzan. The two of them rode on long-legged dromedaries into the awakening desert, quickly becoming black specks against rolling hills of sand, until, finally, they disappeared from sight. He would follow after them in an hour or so, riding upon his own lumpy dromedary rented from the same goblin stable master that they had purchased theirs from. As he rode, he was conscious to stay far away, out of sight from them in case they became suspicious, and whenever he glimpsed them on the horizon he fell back, allowing them to pull further ahead.

It was not a long trip—just a little more than a day really—so he traveled light, carrying little else but his sword, a tent and the bare minimum of rations. Still, Ren was not fond of deserts and he considered any time spent in them to be a horrid ordeal. Adjusting the brim of his hat, he surveyed his surroundings: he rode atop an ocean of sun-bleached sand, the countless miniscule beads forming up into massive waves of sand dunes that stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky was overcast, smeared with dark clouds that cast their shadows over the barren landscape and provided some respite from the fierce, overpowering eye of the sun. Hoof prints from the two ahead of him formed a trail in the sand, and he allowed it to guide him, occasionally stumbling upon the remnants of creatures that had crossed their path: basilisks smitten by holy fire, or hyenas ran through by sword. Vultures attached themselves to the corpses, squawking and flapping their wings at him as he passed, wild and desperate from hunger.

"Greedy buzzards, aren't you?" he said, pulling a strip of dried meat out from his pocket and munching on it. "Believe you me, I don't want any stringy basilisk meat." Ignorant of his spoken language, the buzzards continued to hiss at him with their raspy voices. Shrugging, he edged his mount around the great birds and left them to their unsavory meals.

Ren continued on this uneventful journey, no more than an hour or two behind Sera at all times. The trip was dull and he found his mind drawn to the little priestess: specifically, why she had left the boat without him. He had asked this question to himself over and over and had yet to find a good answer for it... at least not one that he liked. Surely it wasn't his fault? Discarding that thought with a firm shake of the head, he rode on for hours, mind occupied by Seraphita and cawing buzzards. When the sun at last began to set behind him he tapped his feet against the sides of his dromedary, entering into a brisk trot that kicked up little motes of sand behind him. Sera would not be far ahead of him. He climbed up a lofty hill of sand and leaned forward atop his mount, squinting his eyes and just barely making out the light of a small fire in the distance.

There she was.

Stealthily, Ren inched himself a touch closer to her encampment and then worked on setting up his own camp. Situating himself at the base of a mountain-like hill of sand that hid him from Sera and her bodyguard, he pitched his tent underneath a jutting rock that soared obliquely into the air. Weathered by the ages and coated in a desert varnish, its surface was cratered with little holes. A curious little lizard poked it's head out from one, nodding up and down as it observed his efforts to strike a fire with flint and his boot knife. After he had finally succeeded in lighting a fire—requiring more attempts than he would be comfortable admitting—the lizard darted it's tongue out and then scurried back into it's hole.

Rummaging through his packs and pulling out some bread and cheese, he sat down next to his little fire, eating and drinking from his waterskin. The temperature dropped like a stone in water as he ate, plummeting to chilling levels within the hour. Savoring his bread and cheese until it was finished, he then warmed his hands upon the fire, reaching his arms out as if to embrace it. Shivering even still, he made the decision to shift into his worgen form; fur sprouted all over his body, covering him from head to toe in dark, chestnut brown hair. It retained the heat of the fire, insulating him from the freezing chill of the desert.

By this time it was fully night, though the light reflecting off of Azeroth's two moons illuminated the sleeping desert and allowed him to see almost perfectly. Looking up at the glowing celestial bodies above him, he felt a strong impulse to yell—or howl as it were. Tired as all, he stifled it, and a protective urge to check on Seraphita's camp took its place. Climbing up to the top of the huge sand dune, he lowered himself onto his stomach and crawled to its apex. Her camp was less than a mile away and he could make out the forms of two tents and a pair of camels, as well as her and her bodyguard, Simon Bolero.

Ren had followed the man a night prior and even struck up a conversation with him, doing his best to learn who he was and what his intentions were. As far as he could tell from his surveillance, as well as the conversations he held with Osric and Simon himself, the man was an ordinary sword for hire with, it might be said, a strong penchant towards drinking. Currently, he seemed to be discussing something with Sera, but not even Ren with his big wolf ears could hear from such a distance.

Satisfied that she was ok but curious as to what they were discussing, he contemplated sneaking closer or simply marching into their camp but ultimately decided against it. Instead, he watched Sera from afar, wishing that he was the one sharing a camp with her rather than this Simon Bolero fellow. He would confront her after he found out what she was up to and not a minute sooner. Still, he did miss her, and it was difficult to stop himself from going over to see her. So, solemn and more than a bit frustrated, he watched over her until she retired to her tent, the light of the moon cutting through the clouds and beaming down upon it as if it shined especially for her.

Lying prone and relaxed upon his belly atop the sand, Ren watched over her for some time longer, acting in a sorts as a second bodyguard until finally, with his eyelids heavy and drooping, he got up and turned back towards his own tent. Stamping out his little campfire, he took one last lingering look at the great big moons filling the heavens. This time he did howl; short and full of woe, he roared against the night sky, cutting through the silence of the desert for a brief moment that he quickly silenced with the clamping shut of his jaw. Feeling strangely better, he exchanged an odd look with his anxious dromedary and then crept into the blanketed confines of his tent where he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

***

Seraphita awoke abruptly in the middle of the night and immediately sensed that something was wrong. Drawing her holy shield about her, she belted her dagger at her waist and then, silent as she could manage, peeked out of the tent. What she saw made her gut twist into knots and her eyes widen. Three blood elves hovered about the camp, swords in hand and ill intent in mind. The night was darker now, the moons themselves asleep behind blankets of clouds, and the green eyes of the elves glowed like little lanterns in the darkness. On the ground between them was a form that she could only assume was Mr. Bolero.

A streak of white hot anger coursed through her and her eyes, golden unlike the other elves, flared like the sun itself. In an instant she was on her feet outside the tent, barely cognizant of the freezing air. Light gathered in her hands, illuminating the camp and alerting the trio of camp-invaders. They turned to face her just in time for the leftmost one to catch a searing lash of light across the chest. It struck him like a whip diagonally across the torso with a hiss and launched him back into the sand, unmoving with a deep, cauterized wound like a gulley burned into his body. To their credit, the other two reacted with impressive swiftness; the rightmost one jumped in front of the middle elf, holding up a tall heater shield while the one in the middle ducked behind him. It would not save them.

Left hand outstretched with fingers towards the ground, a surge of light that she intended on using as a lance gathered in her palm, warm and comforting for her—just the opposite for them. She raised her hand to end both of their lives in one decisive strike but was stilled by the actions of the middle elf. Sweating despite the frigid air, he emerged from behind his shieldbearing friend, holding Mr. Bolero with a dagger at his throat.

"Turn out the light, priestess, or your human friend's blood will be on your hands." His words were strong but his body trembled, and not from the cold.

"My apologies, Lady Seraphita! The one struggling not to wet himself behind me—" Simon began, but was abruptly silenced.

"Quiet, fool!" the dagger wielding elf hissed, shaking Simon and drawing a tiny trickle of blood.

"Go ahead and kill me," the human continued, "see how long you last afterwards." His captor growled and shook him again, but they all knew that he was right. "He's a rogue—didn't even know he was there until he had his dagger at my throat."

Rogues were sneaky bastards. She had best keep an eye on that one. "What do you want?" she called, light still pulsing in her hand.

"You! Kaerys wants you alive and back by sunrise."

Kaerys. She figured as much.

"Now, put out that light and come with us," the rogue continued. "We know you won't risk this man's life so don't bother trying to wiggle your way out of this one." He didn't sound completely convinced of this himself, but he was right, she couldn't risk Mr. Bolero's life.

With an angry growl of her own, she extinguished the light in her palm and allowed the shieldbearing man to bind her hands behind her back. He did so quickly and with obvious fear but grinned stupidly when he was finished.

"After Kaerys is done talking to you we get to have you," he taunted, lewdly eyeing her body.

Seraphita shivered but said nothing and allowed herself to be lifted on top of her dromedary. Soon, with Simon similarly placed upon his mount and a riderless beast in tow—she hmphed when she passed by the dead elf's corpse—they traveled slowly into the night and towards the man she had been seeking for her entire journey. This was not at all the way she had envisioned meeting him, and anxiety began to well up within her. Her capture seemed to confirm all of her suspicions: Kaerys had been involved in the murder of her fiance, Halron Goldenheart, and now, it seemed, he planned on being involved in her murder as well. There was no Captain of the Guard to save her this time; she was on her own and she only hoped that somehow she could find a way out of this herself.

***

They arrived at dawn just as the first rays of sunlight descended from the heavens, swiftly vanquishing the cool night air. Kaerys' camp was fairly large—in fact, it looked more like an abandoned complex than a camp. There were multiple wooden buildings constructed in a revolving circle around the center of the camp. In the middle stood a massive stone fire pit, burned out from a previous night and cluttered with ash and charred wood. Bones, presumably of animals, laid cluttered around it and at the legs of a multitude of chairs.

Seraphita was led to a hitching post where the elves secured the dromedaries and then turned their attentions towards her and Simon. She was roughly manhandled and tossed off of her mount by the rogue, barely landing on her feet without collapsing to the ground. Clicking her tongue angrily, she stood up straight and faced her captors, head held high and unintentionally resembling that duchess persona more than she knew.

"Come with me," he said, and then paused when she stubbornly stood there scowling at him. "I'll drag you through the sand if I have to. Your choice."

A defiant urge to be stubborn about it filled her, but the desire to not be dragged through the desert sand was greater still. So, with Mr. Bolero being shoved towards a different, more run down building, she followed her captor to what seemed to be the sturdiest shack in the encampment. He knocked on a heavy wooden door, partially splintered and chinked with sand, and announced their entry before swinging it open and pushing her inside. She stumbled into a room of odd smells and even odder instruments: Kaerys Soulgazer seemed to be an alchemist—a fitting hobby for a snake such as he—for there were tables lined with an assortment of glass beakers, ampules, alembics and other things that she knew not of. Vials unconnected to a heat source frothed with dark elixirs, and copper coils, twisted like snakes around the tables, fed vast basins of bubbling, viscous liquids. The room was hot and stuffy, though the poor conditions didn't seem to phase its inhabitant.

Kaerys Soulgazer, fitted in a loose robe of purple that was embroidered with intricate patterns of gold, stepped up to her, hands clasped appraisingly behind his back. He smelled of sulfur and was just as ugly and ratty looking as she remembered.

"Tell me, girl: why is the disgraced scion of the Silverbreeze's poking around my doorstep?" His voice was posh, high pitched, and utterly annoying.

"Don't act like you don't know, murderer," she spat, the disgust in her voice evident.

Kaerys eyed her for a moment, head cocked and fingers playing with the wiry whiskers of his goatee as if in deep thought. Finally, he smiled. "Think you've figured things out do you?" he said, turning as if to walk away and then immediately spinning back towards her, an accusatory finger aimed at her. "You and your family threatened to ruin us all! And now I'm here" —he thrust a hand into the air at his side— "hiding like a rat on a continent of barbarians."

Sera laughed a curt, indignant laugh. "You're blaming me for the murder of my fiance? You must be high on your own fumes; try getting some fresh air for a change."

"So ignorant," he sighed, shaking his head. "There are so few truly prominent families left in Quel'thalas these days... the Scourge made sure of that. Your family is one of them, as is mine." Kaerys stepped away from her and towards an ornate weapon rack. Holding nothing but his crystal-topped staff, it was more like a weapon stand than a rack. He pulled the staff from its holder and tapped it against the floor before continuing. "What your family doesn't seem to understand is the delicate balance of power that we nobility maintain."

"What in the world are you talking about?" she asked, utterly clueless as to the point he was trying to make.

"The land we hold and the resources within our borders gives us power that the crown—or regency—cannot so easily control. I'm sure I do not have to tell you of the markets that your family has cornered."

Seraphita frowned, still not quite understanding what the purpose of his lecture was. It was true that her family owned a sizeable chunk of land—as did numerous other members of the most affluent nobility—and they made a fair deal of their gold from the trading of tin, expensive dyes produced by sea snails, as well as empowered crystals and gems such as the one decorating Kaerys' staff. There were other noble houses just as rich though, so what was his point?

"I can see that you still don't understand," he continued. "I suppose it's not your fault, you are just a pampered priestess, raised until your family was ready to pass you along as breeding stock to another family of similar wealth."

How dare he!

"Sadly," Kaerys said, interrupting an objection forming on her lips, "that is precisely the problem." He pointed the staff gem-first towards her. "Do you see where I'm getting at? Halron's family is just as powerful as yours, and a union between the two of you would have tipped the scales more than we could allow."

Sera struggled to process what the magister-in-hiding was saying. It was simply too absurd to be true, and yet she knew that it was. "You're telling me," she began slowly, her face flushed with anger, "that Halron's murder... my life being completely upturned... all of this was over politics?"

"Yes, politics! Stupid, naive girl," he hissed. "Hundreds of years old and you still don't understand how the world works. You think we would just sit back and allow your families to consolidate such power? One foolish marriage could have ruined the rest of us!"

Seraphita slowly shook her head in amazed bewilderment, mouth ajar as she looked at the corrupt conspirator. She understood the implications of her marriage—they were why it was arranged in the first place—but never could she have imagined the other noble families feeling so threatened that they would resort to murder. With how he spoke, this went beyond just Kaerys: how many were involved in this plot to tear her life apart by its foundations? How many had conversed with her at galas wearing smiles on their faces, all the while planning this great stab in the back? A new world of wicked men and crooked politics was revealing itself to her, she just hoped she could live to see it torn apart.

"If only your family had accepted my marriage proposal things may have turned out differently," Kaerys said with a sigh.

Marriage proposal? She hadn't even known about that one; her parents always were excellent judges of character.

"Then again..." Seraphita looked up at Kaerys as he turned away from her. Was she mistaken or did he just shiver? "Take her away," he barked, not finishing his previous thought. "You may do with her what you wish, but know that I want her dead and left to the buzzards by sunrise."

The rogue who had escorted her inside—who she had forgotten about entirely during her conversation with Kaerys—chuckled and pulled her towards the exit.

"Come on, priestess, let's have some fun before we have to put you down."

***

Sera was pulled by the arm and shoved into a run-down building with half of its roof caved in. Landing with a grunt upon the ground—which was covered in a thick layer of sand—she struggled to get back onto her feet, her hands still bound behind her back. The room was empty save for a broken bed and an oval table sprinkled with fine yellow sand. One of the men behind her—for both of the elves that had captured her were present now—pushed her forward towards the table, almost making her fall over again.

"On your knees," the rogue ordered, and then brandished his dagger at her when she stood there glowering at him. "Unless you'd like for me to get my dagger involved in a little foreplay."

"What does it matter? You're going to kill me anyway," she said defiantly. Her shields could protect her for a time, but she would get nowhere unless she could take care of these two. Even then, that would leave Kaerys who was almost certainly some kind of sorcerer... and wasn't he supposed to have hired more guards in Gadgetzan? Surely these elves were those he already had with him when he arrived.

"Relax, Vyan," the shieldbearer from earlier spoke, "perhaps she's just shy." He fumbled with the clasp of his belt, loosening it and then yanking his britches down to his ankles. "See?" His lips twitched into a mocking sneer. "No need to be shy."

"See what?" Seraphita asked, feigning ignorance and looking him up and down, then around the room and back to him. "I don't see anything?"

The rogue—Vyan—laughed, but the shieldbearer stepped angrily towards her. "Don't let her provoke you so easily, Gelan."