Hearts of Malice Ch. 01

Chapter 1: Under the Moonlight

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A dreary howl echoed through the dark woods, a telltale sign of wolves on the prowl in the twilight. As the sun slowly disappeared behind the western mountains, a luxurious carriage trudged along the muddy road, drawn by the muscles of two strong horses. Two soldiers on horseback escorted the carriage, flanking it. They brandished a torch with one hand while the other rested on the hilt of their sword.

Two women were comfortably traveling inside the carriage. The first one was a young woman dressed with an opulent frilly white dress. On the top of her head sat a silver diadem, jeweled with invaluable gemstones. She was nervously playing with a lock of her long blonde hair as she gazed through the window of the carriage, trying to see through the veil of night.

Sitting on the opposite side, the other woman seemed barely older but wore a bulky plate armor with a moon etched on her chest plate and on her shoulders. Her brown hair was tied in a ponytail and her matching eyes were calmly observing her travel companion. A sword was laying on the seat next to her, the same moon engraved on the hilt.

"Loretta, did we really have to travel by night? This road is terribly unsettling." The blonde woman asked, her eyes still watching the passing landscape.

"Yes, Princess Elisa. I'm deeply sorry but your father the King requested your urgent return." The female knight answered gently. "But don't worry, the Order of the Moon will always be there to protect you." She added with a tender smile.

The Princess finally moved her eyes away from the window, looked at Loretta and smiled in turn. "I'm glad you were the one chosen to escort me, but I know that watching over me isn't the most exhilarating assignment you could have had." Elisa said softly, almost apologetically.

The knightess lowered her eyes, fleeing Elisa's gaze. "T-To be truly honest with you, Princess, I... huh... I volunteered for this." Loretta admitted.

Elisa perked up. "Really?! You did?" The Princess asked, beaming. "But why though? Is there something you're not telling me, my dearest Loretta?" Elisa continued, suddenly very serious.

Loretta fidgeted on her seat, her eyes focused on her armored greaves. She tried to find an answer to the Princess' question, but none came to her mind, or at least none that she dared to voice out loud.

Elisa suddenly burst out laughing. After a minute and once she got her bearings under control, she swept the teary corner of her eyes with the back of her hand. "You're still soooo easy to tease. You've not changed a bit, Loretta." The Princess said cheerfully.

"Princess, please. This is not..." Loretta tried to weakly reprimand the Princess, but her sentence was abruptly interrupted.

"Stop calling me Princess!" Elisa exclaimed adamantly. "Please, please, call me Elisa. Don't you remember when we used to play with sticks in my Father's garden, pretending to be knights? I wasn't just a Princess to you back then." Elisa finished, melancholically.

Loretta sighed. "I remember. It was terribly improper. A commoner sneaking in the castle grounds to play dangerous games with the young princess unbeknownst to the whole court. What would your Father have done if he had known?"

"He knew." Elisa said simply, shrugging. "How do you think I justified all the dirtied and torn dresses?"

Loretta slumped against her seat, taking in all the implication of what Elisa had just said. She shivered at the thought of having to face the King's gaze, now that she knew that he knew all along.

"I think he was just happy that I had a friend." Elisa continued, obvious to the knightess sudden existential crisis.

Silence crept in the carriage, and before long Elisa let out a noisy, unladylike yawn.

"You should get some rest, Prin... You should get some rest. We'll reach the castle tomorrow morning." Loretta advised gently.

With a sigh, Elisa closed her eyes and leaned against her seat, trying to find a comfortable position to get some rest.

"Tomorrow, before your duty sends you somewhere far away, will you humor me one more time? For a cup of tea, maybe?" The Princess asked, her eyes still closed.

"I will." The knightess answered, her reddening cheeks unseen by her friend. "I definitely will."

With a smile on her lips and under the watchful eye of her friend, Elisa was soon lulled to sleep by the sound of the wheels and the wind in the trees.

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Princess Elisa woke up with a start as a loud neigh resounded in the night, followed by a wet thump. The carriage rocked, then it stopped and the world stood still and silent.

Loretta swiftly wrapped her gloved hand around the Princess' mouth and brought her left index finger to her lips, wordlessly asking Elisa to stay silent. Slowly, the knightess removed her hand from the Princess' mouth. Satisfied by the quivering Princess' silence, she grabbed her sword by the hilt before looking Elisa in the eyes.

"Stay right here, stay silent. I'll be right back." Loretta whispered, and Elisa nodded back.

With a deep breath, Loretta opened the door of the carriage just enough for her to slip through, and bravely headed into the night, noiselessly closing the door behind her.

Outside, the fearless knightess held back a gag as her eyes fell on the remains of a horse. Its head had been cleanly severed and had rolled further down on the path. Its body was slumped against the carriage. The soldier that had been riding the horse wasn't faring better. His lower body was crushed under the dead horse's weight and his throat was sliced open so deep that he had been almost beheaded. Blood permeated the mud around the carriage, the darkness hiding its hideous red taint but not the metallic smell in the air.

Loretta tightened her grip on her sword and paused to attentively listen to the ambient sounds. But she couldn't hear anything besides the wind howling and her own heartbeats.

Gritting her teeth, she began circling around the carriage, carefully avoiding the corpses. She observed with relief that the two horses that drew the carriage were apparently unharmed, but as she slowly walked toward them, she noticed they were unmoving, as if frozen in time, their fur radiating a dull white glow. The carriage's driver was also still on his spot behind the horses, the same glow marking his skin.

The knightess continued inspecting the carriage's direct surroundings as the moon appeared from behind a dark cloud. The second soldier was nowhere to be seen, and neither was his horse. Puzzled, Loretta returned to the front of the carriage. In front of the frozen horses, the path ahead was lit by the gentle moonlight.

"You're different. Blessed by the moon." A mysterious, sultry voice called out in the night.

Loretta sharply turned toward the voice, weapon in hand. Effortlessly hovering a few meters above the ground was a humanoid figure. Squinting her eyes, the knight saw that the strange being appeared to be female, at least in appearance, with large breasts, long black hair and thick hips. Two curved, goat-like horns stood atop of her head. She was completely nude, her skin appearing ivory white in the creamy light of the moon.

The lifeless corpse of the missing soldier was dangling under her as the being held it at arm's length. Nonchalantly, she threw it away, and the body crashed limply on the mud. The strange woman slowly lowered herself until her bare feet hit the grass.

"What are you, freak?" Loretta snarled.

"My true name is beyond your pathetic mortal comprehension, but if you grovel before me and implore me I'll let you call me Mistress Urilesh." The strange woman answered, smirking meanly.

With her heart thundering in her chest, Loretta assumed her combat stance, firmly holding her sword with both hands. She was confident in her abilities, but her strange foe was unsettling her. Something about this naked, freaky woman screamed exuberant malevolence. Still, it was not a fight Loretta could afford to lose, not when the safety of the Princess was at stake.

"Brave. But foolish. Mayhap you'll be able to entertain me, if only briefly." Urilesh said as she observed the knightess.

Urilesh extended her right hand and opened her fingers. With an excruciatingly abhorrent noise, a scarlet blade slowly emerged from within her palm. Loretta could only stare in disgust as the hellish blade grew longer and longer until it reached the length of the knightess' own sword.

When the blade stopped growing, it was still connected to Urilesh's palm directly and bore no hilt. Nevertheless, the creature wrapped her fingers around the razor-edged weapon and smiled.

The knightess could bear no more. She rushed forward, not wanting to give her enemy more time to prepare. As she quickly closed the distance with her stoic foe, she grabbed her bastard sword with both her hands and swinged it widely.

Urilesh reacted with unnatural speed, and used her own blade to block Loretta's attack. The weapons clashed and both opponents were pushed backward by the impact's intensity. The fiend immediately struck back, elegantly swinging her blade in an upward slash that Loretta deflected easily.

The fighters took a step back simultaneously, and for a fraction of a second they gauged each other, before resuming their ebb and flow. Relentlessly, Loretta pressed on, forcing her opponent in a perpetually defensive stance. The knightess' heavy strikes were elegantly dodged, and her swift, precise ones easily blocked.

Unbeknownst to Loretta, her assault slowly pushed the two fighters further and further away from the ruined carriage. Confidence slowly filled the knightess as her foe was apparently struggling, unable to strike back under her flurry of ferocious attacks. But after long, exhausting minutes of sword clashing against sword, the paradigm shifted.

Urilesh decided that it was her turn to play now. With a speed and nimbleness that Loretta deemed inhuman, Urilesh attacked, the demon's crimson blade a blur, seemingly everywhere at once. Both duelists were now fighting for real, trading brutal blows that made their blades ring.

Sweating profusely in the cold air of the night, Loretta's brown hair clung to her forehead. Her arms and legs were sore and her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. But then she saw it, the flaw in Urilesh's fighting style. Urilesh's arm that held her gross-looking weapon was vulnerable, if only for a blink of an eye, after some of the demon's swings.

Loretta steadied herself, focusing on deflecting the demon's unending onslaught until the perfect opportunity arose. And when it finally did, she striked, delivering a swift and accurate swing that hit its target right under the elbow.

Urilesh's severed arm fell to the ground as its owner retreated to the air, floating a safe distance away from Loretta while clutching her sliced limb.

"This body is not of flesh and blood. Maim me as much as you want, you'll not slay me." The demonic woman gloated, no sign of pain in her voice.

As if to prove her words, Urilesh moved her valid hand away from the stump of her right arm. Smirking, she snapped her fingers with her left hand. Both her severed arm on the ground and her body began to glow with a purple, ominous light. She snapped her fingers again and in a blink her missing arm reappeared right where it belonged, attached to her body, and the purple light died.

"But I must commend your swordsmanship. Very few of your kind could have faced me like you did. If this had been a mere sword fight, you could have had your chance."

"Why don't you come back here and die, freak!" Loretta spat back.

"You're a persistent cockroach, aren't you?" Urilesh mocked. "But aren't you forgetting something?" She added, licking her lips.

Loretta's eyes narrowed and a high-pitched shriek was heard from behind her. The knightess face fell, and she spun around to face the carriage. The coachman was standing next to the widely open door of the carriage, and he was tightly holding the Princess against himself, a dagger under her throat. Loretta took a step forward, but stopped instantly when the coachman pressed the dagger harder against Elisa's delicate skin, making her sob in pain and fear.

Urilesh landed noiselessly a few steps behind the terrified Princess, and Loretta could only watch in disgust as the demon closed the distance and ran her hand through the Princess' blonde mane.

"Quite the conundrum you're in, Knight of the Moon." Urilesh teased as she stood behind Elisa, towering above the terrified Princess. "Drop your weapon, or I'll have to test the extent of the frailty of the human body on your Princess."

Loretta's shoulders slumped, and she lowered her head in shame. She had been careless, beyond useless as the Princess' protector. Gulping, she slowly opened her hand, letting her sword fall in the mud. Pursing her lips, she pushed her sword with her armored foot and sent it tumbling in the bushes bordering the road. Defeated, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Urilesh smiled, then put her hand on the coachman's shoulder. "Thank you, human. But you outlived your usefulness."

The man crumbled, dead before he hit the ground, and the faint glow disappeared from his skin. Loretta blinked, staring sheepishly as Urilesh killed someone seemingly with her sheer will. She got her bearing back when the demon grabbed Elisa by the throat and held her at arm's length.

"NO! No. Please. You can do whatever you want with me, but let the Princess go!" Loretta shouted, then begged.

Urilesh craned her neck to look at the defeated knightess, still holding the flailing, choking princess. A minute passed, then the demon licked her lips. Carelessly, she threw the Princess on the ground, who roughly landed on her back. Her immaculate dress was irremediably stained by the bloody mud. Before Elisa could do anything, purple magical bindings appeared on her wrists, ankles and neck, holding her in place. Lastly, a gag shoved itself between her lips, silencing her.

As Urilesh walked toward Loretta, the Knightess looked at her restrained Princess. "I'm sorry, Elisa. So sorry for not having been up to the task at hand." She said softly, holding back her tears.

Urilesh stopped a few steps away from Loretta, and she began eyeing up the knightess, as if she was appraising her. Then, she looked Loretta in the eyes, her crimson eyes locked in the poor knightess' eyes.

"Strip." The demon simply said. A single word for an absolute order.

Loretta dared not go against the fiend's will. Shaking, she began working on removing her armor, but the Order of the Moon's armors were not exactly designed to be easily and quickly removed. Long minutes passed and Loretta's steel garments fell to the floor one by one. When she finally got rid of her ornate cuirass, she felt naked and vulnerable, even with her leather padded tunic she was still wearing.

Satisfied, the demon approached Loretta and put her hands on the brunette's waist.

"Humans love their petty and arbitrary laws, and yet women are still allowed to hide their delicious bodies under plainly hideous clothes." Urilesh shook her head as she spoke.

Urilesh's short nails grew longer and turned into razor-sharp, black as night claws. With a terrifying smile, she waved her newly clawed hand in front of the quivering knightess' eyes, then swiftly slashed Loretta's belly with it.

Loretta's heart missed a beat, then she realized that she wasn't in pain at all. The thick leather that covered her body was cleanly cut, but her pale skin under it was unharmed. She stared at the demon in disbelief.

Like a whirlwind, Urilesh attacked Loretta with her deadly claws from all sides. The demon was but a blur, swinging her hands like a wild beast. And as abruptly as it began, Urilesh's assault stopped.

Loretta stood completely naked in front of the demonic woman. The ground around her was littered with scraps of leather, the remains of her clothing. While her tunic had been thoroughly shredded, her skin bore not even a scratch.

"Look at the wonders I unearthed!" Urilesh exclaimed as her claws turned back to nails and she hungrily gazed at Loretta's bare body. "Small, but perky breasts that were made for groping..." She acted on her word as she began roughly kneading the knightess' boobs. "... wide, child-bearing hips, and an ass so marvelously big that I cannot fathom how you make it fit inside your armor."

Loretta's cheeks were quickly reddening in shame as she listened to the demon listing her body parts as if they were selling points.

"Why choose a life of battle and hardship when you could have been a trophy fucktoy in some lord's bedchamber? Your life would have been much, much easier." Urilesh asked, tilting her head.

Loretta's mouth stayed shut. The humiliation she felt weighed her shoulders heavily, and she didn't want to give the demon the pleasure of entertaining her. Instead, she just stared at her feet, gritting her teeth.

"Not in a talkative mood, Knightess? No matter, I'll find other uses for your mouth." The demon took a couple of steps back and her hands regretfully abandoned Loretta's tits.

Urilesh's hands roamed on her own body, squeezing her hefty breasts and pinching her nipples before moving further down. Her fingers began to tease her aching pussy, sliding across her slit and flicking her clitoris. With a lustful moan, she shoved four of her fingers deep inside her cunt and fingerbanged herself hard and fast.

With a sigh, she finally withdrew her drenched fingers from her soaked honeypot. Sticky love juices dripped onto her arm and breasts as she held her hand in front of Loretta's face with a smile. Then, she slid her index finger over her belly, curving and twisting as if she was drawing an intricate crest with a creamy, translucent ink.

Her finger stopped moving and Urilesh closed her eyes, throwing her head backward in ecstasy. Her mouth opened wide in a silent scream of delight, and her crotch began to bulge. Her body began to glow purple so brightly that Loretta had to close her eyes and shield them with her hands.

When the light died out and Loretta dared reopen her brown eyes, the demonic woman was still standing in front of her, breathing heavily. A massive penis was now jutting from her crotch, as pale as the rest of her body and as erect as it could be. Two hefty balls dangled under it and its tip was leaking drops of viscous precum.

Loretta swallowed hard as she quickly put two and two together. She had been stripped naked by a malevolent creature that now had grown a penis. She wished she could have died an honorable death in combat instead of submitting herself to the impending defilement, but she dared not do anything, petrified by the thought of the demon's lecherous attention bouncing back to the bound and helpless Princess.

"On your hands and knees." Urilesh ordered, her dick throbbing menacingly.

"Will you... Will you kill the Princess no matter what I do?" Loretta asked, mustering all the bravery she had left.

Urilesh blinked, her face unreadable. "No." She finally answered.

Loretta had no reason to trust the words of the demon. It had been pretty clear in Loretta's mind that once Urilesh was done toying with her, Urilesh would slaughter her, and most likely Elisa as well. Still, Loretta chose to cling to the faint hope Urilesh had given her, the hope that her sacrifice would be enough to quell the fiend's appetite.

The knightess slowly nodded, then got down on all four, fighting hard against the shame that threatened to overwhelm her. The breeze felt harshly cold against her exposed nether parts.

Urilesh chuckled ominously. "I told you that you would crawl before me, human."

The demon circled around Loretta and stopped behind the knightess. "And now I'll make you beg as well."