Hearts of Malice Ch. 07

When the doors stopped moving, they were wide open, blending against the walls as if they had never existed. They had given way to more of the dark tunnel, the two women's lanterns unable to light the whole length of the shadows. In the distance, a blue light was dancing under the ceiling of the tunnel.

"Your job is not quite done, knightess, but rest assured that this is almost over."

Urilesh was already walking toward the light, but Loretta just stood there, the sound of own breathing deafening her. She finally moved forward, gritting her teeth and wondering how long she would have to regret what she had done and Urilesh's promised end.

When the knightess caught up with Urilesh, the demon was standing right in the doorstep of a room lit by a powerful blue flame seemingly imprisoned in a metallic contraption on the ceiling. Urilesh's lantern was snuffed out and discarded against the wall. Loretta switched out and abandoned her own lantern.

"Keep your hands to yourself unless I ask." Urilesh warned as she entered the Vault.

In turn, Loretta entered the brightly lit octagonal room, every inch of it bathed in blue. Runes were carved on four of the sides of the room while the other four were slightly protruding and completely bare. In the middle of the room stood a pedestal made of stone and wood weaved and atop of it rested a large, raw gemstone akin to a sapphire.

Urilesh slowly walked around the room, circling widely around the central pedestal, stopping in front of the first three bare walls and putting her hand on the smooth stone for a minute with her head humbly bowed. She skipped the last protruding wall and finished her circle, standing in the entrance of the room next to Loretta.

"Get the key." Urilesh ordered the knightess. In front of Loretta's puzzled look, Urilesh pointed to the turquoise gemstone in the middle of the room.

"Why don't you get it yourself?" Loretta retorted snarkily, crossing her arms on her armored breastplate.

The demon huffed amusedly and smirked. She took a step toward the pedestal then reached out her arm. Cautiously, she approached her hand to the so-called key.

Loretta physically winced as the skin of Elisa's palm began sizzling, visibly and audibly assaulted by an invisible force. "ENOUGH! Enough. You made your point."

When Urilesh withdrew her hand, it was bleeding profusely. The skin had been ripped apart, exposing the muscles, tendons and bones underneath. Grimacing, the demon took a step backward and gently swept her other hand on the wounded one, rapidly healing it.

When her hand had been fully healed, the demon gazed up at the knightess. "Get the key."

The knightess took a deep breath. Her plan was to grab the gemstone as fast as possible, hoping to be subject to whatever was protecting the key for the shortest amount of time as possible. In a single motion, she leaped forward and reached out her arm toward the pedestal.

But to her surprise, she felt no pain, only a soothing warmth radiating from the gemstone resting on its pedestal. Her hand shaking, Loretta grabbed the key and lifted it from its socle. In a blink, the four plain walls disappeared, revealing behind each of them an alcove. And inside each of those alcoves a dead, mummified body was held upright by large amounts of chains and ropes wrapped around them.

Dumbstruck, Loretta couldn't help but stare at the bodies one by one, her jaw slack. Her head was spinning, heartbeats echoing her ears. She couldn't even begin to piece everything together, but she knew that she shouldn't have been there, and neither should Urilesh. But then another realization settled in. Her heart was beating fast, maybe faster than it had ever beat, but the heartbeats that filled her ears were deathly slow and yet incredibly strong.

Loretta knew what fear was, having experienced plenty and as a knightess she knew how to face her own fears. But never had she been so utterly terrified. Sweat beaded on her whole body and with each second that passed she had to fight against herself to not lay down on the floor and cry like a child.

"They... They are still alive..."

"Two of us are, yes." Urilesh confirmed as she stood in front of the fourth body. She grabbed the knightess by the hand to draw her attention. "Undo the bindings."

"But I don't..." Loretta paused and gazed at the gemstone in her hand. The key.

Loretta brought the key close to the chains wrapped around the utterly decrepit, yet apparently alive body. One by one the bindings snapped and disappeared, slowly freeing the corpse from its prison. With the last bound gone, the knightess expected the body to fall, but it stood upright in its cell on its own.

The knightess was roughly shoved away from the alcove by Urilesh. The demon was laughing uncontrollably in front of the freed body. In front of her very own body. She slowly reached out her arm toward the body. "How long have I waited for this very moment? How sweet is the victory..."

Loretta could have stopped Urilesh, wrestled her away from the dry mummy, or at least tried. But she did not. She simply stared as Elisa's hand inched closer and closer until finally, the very tip of Elisa's finger touched the body.

A burst of light forced the knightess to shield her eyes with her arm and deafened her. When the sensory storm quelled, Loretta's eyes blinked open. The Princess was hunched against the wall of the room next to the empty alcove.

"Elisa!"

"She's fine." A voice came from behind the knightess.

Loretta flipped around and her eyes fell on Urilesh's true form, a splitting image of the creature she had destroyed during the night that had changed her whole life.

The reborn goddess was standing with her arms crossed under her plentiful chest. Her voluptuous body was otherworldly pale and completely bare except for her black as night very long hair flowing messily on her breasts and behind her back. She was taller than the already tall knightess and her amber eyes were seemingly piercing straight through Loretta's soul.

"I have to thank you, Loretta of the Order of the Moon. All of this would have been impossible without you."

The words of Sir Reinhold echoed in Loretta's mind. The knightess was now able to make sense of 'True Divinity'. It took her all of her iron will not to drop down to her knees in front of Urilesh's overwhelming splendor.

"While this little humanly escapade with your Princess was truly enlightening, it's time for us to part ways. But before that... You tried to kill me, if I remember correctly."

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Elisa suddenly woke up and took a deep breath, her eyes flustering open. The world around her was blurry and felt surreal, as if she had woken up from a long dream. But her painfully sore body was definitely real. Wincing, she straightened against the wall behind her and waited for her sight to return fully.

The Princess was in an unfamiliar place, a room with runes carved on some walls and hollow alcoves in others. The room was lit by a dying blue flame on the ceiling. Her memories of the past hours were fuzzy but the invasive presence of Urilesh was nowhere to be felt. Elisa's eyes finally fell on her knightess, standing protectively next to the Princess.

"Welcome back." Loretta said with a smile, tears beading in the corner of her eyes.

Elisa hurriedly stood up, but her wobbling legs gave up quickly. The Princess fell but was swiftly caught by Loretta's arms. Elisa rested her head against the knightess' shoulder, enjoying the warmth of Loretta's embrace.

"Where is Urilesh?" The Princess asked, her head still nested against Loretta's neck.

"She's gone." The knightess kissed the top of Elisa's head. "Long gone. She emptied this place and just... blinked away. And well... She also dispelled the curse she had casted on me."

"Really?!" Elisa took a step away from Loretta and smiled brightly. "That's awesome!"

Numerous precipitated footsteps could be heard, coming from the tunnel leading to the inside of the Vault and growing louder and louder.

"Elisa, listen. We don't have much time. Everything I did, I did it for you. I have no regrets, and I will take the whole weight of the blame on myself. I love you, with all my heart."

"W-Why are you saying this? We won, this is over. Tell me this is over!"

Elisa was pulled into another tight hug by Loretta, but even the knightess' embrace couldn't reassure the Princess as the knightess stayed silent.

"What have you done?!" Sir Reinhold's voice came from the entrance of the room. Mortified, he slowly swept the empty room with his steely gaze.

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Loretta was patiently waiting, sitting on a chair behind a wooden table in a small, bare room. Her hands were tied together by a rope and she wore a cuff around her right ankle. A sturdy chain bound her leg cuff and the back wall.

Finally the door in front of Loretta opened and Sir Reinhold entered. The old knight's severe face seemed more tired than usual. Reinhold didn't bother sitting down on the free chair in front of him, instead simply putting his hands on the chair's back and leaning on it.

"I'll be brief. For what you did, it has been decided that you'd be stripped of your rank among the Order of the Moon. You are released from your duties towards the Mother of All. Be assured that this is far less punishment than what I desired, but Queen Mireya was unable to see past the fact that you saved her daughter."

Reinhold sighed, his hands tightening around the wood of the chair. "A guard will come to unlock your restraints, you are free to go. May we never meet each other again." Immediately, the knight turned around and began to leave the room.

"Sir Reinhold!" Loretta tried to catch the attention of her former leader.

Reinhold stopped, but didn't turn around. "Regrets and excuses will change nothing, Loretta."

"I wasn't going to apologize and I have no regrets. I went as far as I needed to save Elisa. But I believe that you don't see the full picture. I don't think Urilesh is what you so firmly believe that she is."

"Then you are even more of a fool than I thought. Goodbye, Loretta. May the Holy Moon find it in her heart to forgive you, because I can't."

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Urilesh was laying down entirely naked on a large bed, her legs spread. Her back was resting against multiple pillows and she was sipping wine from a glass she held with her left hand. A half-empty bottle of the same wine was standing on the nearby nightstand. Her other hand was ruffling the red hair of a woman lying down between Urilesh's legs whose head was bobbing up and down on the divinely huge cock jutting from Urilesh's crotch.

"You're a good little cocksucker." Urilesh playfully patted the top of the woman's head, then her grip tightened and she pushed the woman down, forcing the whole length of her cock in the redhead throat. "But you need to be better."

Firmly keeping the gagging woman in place with one hand, Urilesh finished her drink then discarded her glass. Now using both hands to keep her partner steady, Urilesh began to furiously thrust her cock in the redhead's welcoming throat, groaning and moaning aplenty. No amount of sex and pleasure would make up for the lost centuries, but that didn't stop Urilesh from trying.

Even though her face was used as a mere fleshlight, the redhead was diligently sucking Urilesh's cock to the best of abilities. Her lips were sealed around the goddess' impressive girth and her hands were pleasuring both the goddess' throbbing balls and her pussy lips.

Urilesh roared as her enormous penis began to pulse and her divine seed was spilled in the depths of her human sex toy. The goddess' balls churned out a massive load, thoroughly flooding the redhead's mouth and throat and filling her belly to the point of making it bulge. Satisfied by her partner's performance, Urilesh finally withdrew her cock from the woman's mouth who then hurriedly began to lick it clean.

"There's plenty more where that came from." Urilesh smirked and gestured to the woman to stand up.

An unexpected knock on the door interrupted Urilesh's sexual marathon. The Goddess' picked up her empty glass and poured herself another drink. "Attend to the door, would you?"

The woman jumped to her feet and swiftly headed toward the door of Urilesh's room. The Goddess stood up in turn and grabbed another glass from the nightstand and filled it with wine. The naked redhead soon returned to the bedroom with a man cloaked in black and walking with a stick in tow.

"You." Urilesh raised an eyebrow. "This is quite unexpected. I wasn't sure you would survive."

Anton removed his hood. "The wounds you inflicted me didn't quite kill me but left me... physically diminished." He waved his walking stick in the air.

"Leave us." Urilesh ordered the naked redhead and she swiftly left the bedroom.

"Who is she?" Anton asked, stealing a glance at the bare, gorgeous body as she left the room.

"She was a slave held captive by some bandits that I crossed path with. I didn't quite catch her name. I didn't quite catch yours either."

"Anton." Urilesh handed Anton her second glass and the magician took it. "Why am I not dead yet?" The magician asked after chugging a large part of his drink.

"Why would I kill you?" Urilesh shrugged and finished yet another glass of vine. "You are not a threat to me anymore."

"You're not quite like the legends depict you."

Urilesh smirked and got closer to Anton, her piercing eyes plunging in his. "I had spent millennia mulling over my mistakes and losses. I was... bitter. Angry. But I recently had an epiphany. My wrath was misguided."

"Then..." Anton dropped his stick and clumsily fell to his knees, prostrating himself in front of Urilesh. "Let me serve you! My magic may be nothing but a shamefully weak copy of yours, but I know this world, I know mankind. Let me be your first Apostle! Let me learn by your side!"

"Rise." Urilesh waited patiently as Anton used his stick to stand up, struggling. "Do you know what happened the last time I walked this Earth unbound?" Anton shook his head and lowered his eyes. "My divine sister turned mankind against me and started crusades to stop me. This was the very beginning of the stigma against magic that persists even to this day."

Urilesh tried to pour herself another glass of wine, but the bottle was empty. She whistled briefly and after an instant, the naked redhead entered the room with another bottle. "As you can imagine, I'm done with trying to change mankind. Now I just want to settle somewhere, build a family... Maybe a couple hundred half-Exalted half-human children."

The Goddess picked up Anton's glass from the ground, refilled it and handed it back to the magician. "But truly, what I must do now is prepare."

"Prepare? For what?"

"Don't tell me you didn't feel it. The force that disturbed the delicate balance of mana of this world."

"I-I... I did. I thought it was you."

Urilesh patted Anton's cheek. "No. I'm part of this world and I have been for quite a while now. No, that wasn't me." Anton's confused look made Urilesh smirk knowingly.

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Elisa was impatiently pacing back and forth in the busy main hall of Kaedon Castle. Two weeks had passed since the King's death and Sofia's uprising and life had almost returned to normal in the castle. But each days that had passed were a torture to the Princess as Loretta had been captured and imprisoned that fated day under Reinhold's authority.

Thankfully, Elisa had her own authority as well as her mother's at her disposal. The Princess had explained at great length to the Queen how Loretta selflessly did everything she had to do to save Elisa, sadly including defying Reinhold and helping the creature known as Urilesh that had seized the Princess' body.

In the end, Reinhold's tales of Urilesh the primal evil found no sympathy with the Queen, who was incommensurably grateful that her non-treacherous daughter was still alive and well. After days long negotiations, Loretta was at last to be freed and with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

The Princess was so focused on her swirling thoughts and on what she would say to Loretta when they would finally be reunited that she didn't see the former knightess entering the hall and rapidly approach, a large smile on her face. Only when she heard her name being called Elisa snapped out of it and looked around, her eyes falling on Loretta.

"Loretta!" Elisa bolted toward the knightess and jumped in her open arms. Loretta easily caught the Princess and held Elisa against her.

The knightess opened her mouth to say something, but the Princess shoved her lips against the knightess', pleasantly silencing her. They shared a long kiss choke full of love and just a smidge of lust. When the kiss finally broke, both women's breath was cut short.

"Princess, we are being watched." Loretta whispered, self-conscious of the gazes toward them.

"I don't care." Elisa kissed Loretta's neck. "Let them watch and gossip. I love you."

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"I hope they treated you well enough. I'm sorry it took so long, Reinhold is a stubborn old fool, I thought he would never yield."

Back in the privacy of her room, the Princess was pouring two cups of tea. She handed the first to the knightess seated on an armchair nearby before taking the second and sitting in front of Loretta.

"I can't complain, really. At least this time I wasn't consumed by utter lust."

Elisa gently blew on her tea to cool it down. "So she really did? She dispelled what she had done to you?"

Loretta nodded. "I don't have those uncontrollable desires in me anymore. But..."

"Yes?" Elisa raised an eyebrow, suddenly very worried. The Princess wasn't sure she could have handled one more bad news.

"She... I still have my penis." Loretta finally admitted, lowering her eyes.

"Oh." Elisa wasn't sure how to react. Loretta's penis had brought them closer than they could have ever been and was immensely pleasurable for the Princess, but Elisa also knew that Loretta had a conflicted relationship with it, that she thought of herself as a freak.

"Urilesh asked me if I wanted to keep it, and... I don't know why, I hesitated, just for a second. That made her laugh and she didn't remove it."

"And... How does that make you feel?" Elisa inquired, truly curious about her lover's feelings.

"I don't know."

"Do you want to know what I think?"

The knightess acquiesced quietly, almost shamefully, then she took a sip of tea to hide her blushing cheeks. Elisa stood up and approached the knightess.

"You control it now, not the other way around. It won't make you do anything you don't want, or I don't want. I believe that your penis is a blessing because I'll be Queen at some point, and then I'll need heirs. Babies that you'll be able to put inside my belly." With one hand the Princess rubbed her perfectly flat stomach.

Elisa leaned against the knightess, putting her lips right against Loretta's ear while one of her hands gently massaged the knightess' clothed crotch. "And don't even try to convince me that you didn't enjoy fucking me, despite everything."

Loretta gulped, red as a lobster and Elisa laughed happily. The knightess cleared her throat awkwardly, then tried to change the subject. "So... Anything else happened in the past two weeks?"

"No no no." Elisa chuckled. "You're not getting out of this. You got me in the mood, now you gotta deal with it." Elisa's voice was dripping with contagious lust.

"But Princess... There's a knight right outside the door and--"

"I don't care. You and I are a thing officially now, and you're the providential hero in my Mother's eyes. We could announce our marriage today and nobody would bat an eye."