Not to Cause Offense Ch. 02

"Okay, okay, you've won!" Jira finally snapped. "Stop teasing me already and just fuck me, alright? P-please."

"I told you, this isn't teasing. This is torture," Terin whispered in her ear, and he stuck his dagger in the floor directly beside her head suddenly enough to make her jump. "Just a reminder, you understand. It'd be stupid of me to put it away just yet, given your track record of last-minute escape attempts and your penchant for violence."

But this time, Jira didn't reply. She just stared at the dagger with huge, round eyes that were full of excitement and a grin so wide it had nearly split her face in two. Chuckling to himself, Terin went for his belt next. His prey was so obviously transparent, it was borderline disappointing. Though Jira still had her face pressed into the carpet, her ears were angled backwards, starving for any hint of movement and desperate to be caught up in the tumult of her lover's advancing lust. With great intent, Terin began to undo the buckle, being sure to let cloth rustle and prongs shift. Metal clinked against metal, then he slowly slid the leather belt from its loops. The subtle swoosh it made as it came free seemed to especially excite Jira.

Though a bit fumbling in his youth, Terin had learned a long time ago that women weren't like men. They didn't fuck to cum and then fall asleep afterwards. They wanted to be immersed in the experience of being fucked. They wanted to let go of the ledge, fall backwards through the air, hit the water with a painful jolt, and then drown—drown in the sound of sex, the smell of sex, the taste of sex. Women didn't gorge themselves on pleasure, they savored it. They became one with the dirty, grimy essence of themselves and found a way to make love with those parts. You could satisfy a woman easily enough, but if you wanted her to starve for you, then you needed to shred her to pieces, take hold of each one, and then immolate them. Even after the shadows on the floor had grown long and you'd both gone back to your respective lives, some part of yourself needed to linger. It didn't really matter what lingered—the taste of your cum on her lips or the dull ache from a bruising handprint—but women never liked abrupt endings. When they were finished feasting, they wanted to feel so painfully full it was maddening and find little bits and pieces of food still rotting in their teeth for weeks afterwards. Honestly, women were kind of disgusting, but therein lay their appeal.

The last button on his trousers finally loosened, but Terin resisted the urge to immediately plow into Jira. She still didn't want him badly enough—not yet. So he grabbed her bound wrists instead and pressed her against his growing bulge, letting her imagination run wild with the feel of him in her hands. She grabbed on and he encouraged her, but all too soon he backed away again and left her pawing at empty air. Then Terin leaned over Jira and held her close, letting his warmth sink into her skin and the smell of him fill her nostrils. Even in the dark, he could see the subtle, feline twitching of her nose and watched her eyes grow wide as he finally pulled out his cock and ran it along the little valley between her buttcheeks. Soon enough, the head was angled just outside the entrance to her sex and she was desperately trying to push back onto it, but he wouldn't let her. His hands held her firmly in place until she was practically sobbing with need.

"You don't hunt monsters," Jira gasped, struggling against the carpet and failing at every turn. "You're the monster; you're a beast!"

"Are you sure you still want me, then?"

"Gods, how is it so hot? And so hard. It's like silk, but over sun-burnt stone."

"Probably something you said or did; I hope you regret your actions now."

"P-please...come on...st-stop this...I need..."

"You need what, exactly?"

"I need you."

"Oh, that's not entirely true, now is it?" Terin laughed, running his thumb over the head of his cock and catching the little bead of precum there. He grabbed Jira by the hair and shoved his fingers into her mouth, running the sticky mess over her lips as he did so. She could have bit him badly enough to require stitches, but she moaned instead. "Come now, what do you really need?"

"I just...I only..."

"Come on, you can say it. I promise I won't tell."

"I just...I n-need..."

"Yes?"

"I need cock," Jira groaned, totally defeated. "Please."

And Terin gave it to her. He grabbed her by the hips and slid his length into her in one swift motion, while she gasped and writhed and moaned beneath him. It was incredible just how tight she was and yet, there was no resistance to the intrusion. Terin had spent so much time working her up that Jira was now a sopping wet mess and her body was so hungry for him that it practically swallowed him whole. Breathing deeply, he took a moment to calm himself, then slowly began to thrust. But he couldn't hold back for long, not with Jira mewling in ecstasy beneath him. Though he held onto to her, she refused to be restrained and kept pushing back and forth onto his cock. Her gorgeous ass danced for him in the moonlight, but her tail kept hitting him in the face, so he pinned it to her side and lamented that she wouldn't let him play with that adorable little asshole.

Jira eventually beat him to climax, but just barely. They were panting and cursing together in a sweaty heap when she suddenly gasped and then her insides were clenching and unclenching his member in steadily intensifying waves. He knew then that it was only a matter of seconds before he followed her into the abyss. Quickly, quickly—before it was too late!—he grabbed her by the hair and forced his tongue past her lips. There was an anguished, impassioned kiss, then Jira's mewls turned to screams and he filled up on the sound of her defeat. But it was the taste of her that finally sent him over the edge. He felt a growl in his throat and it spilled over into a deep, guttural moan as his balls tightened and then let loose. Her cunt milked his cock vigorously until every last drop of cum had been stolen from him and there was nothing left but the feel of his fingernails digging into her flesh. Then Terin collapsed on top of her and they both panted together in the moonlight, still slick and blinking back exhaustion. Somehow, they rearranged themselves into a naked pile and then he was holding her against his chest and trying to remember how it was that men talked.

"Good gods, that was—"

"Don't ruin it..." Jira panted. "Don't give it a name."

"What?"

"Just let it be what it is. Men are always trying to give names to things, but all you lot really end up doing is explaining them away until only shadows remain. Some things can't be bottled up inside of words or else they suffocate. Not everything has to live outside of memory for it to be real."

"Where did you say you were from?" Terin asked, thoroughly bewildered. "You said you were Captain of the Black Guard?"

"In Drier, yes," Jira replied. "Why?"

"What gods do you serve?"

"What gods do I—" Jira began, and she burst into laughter. "You think I...? No, you can't seriously. But you do, don't you? Haha!"

"What? What's so funny?"

"I don't serve any gods," Jira chuckled, still trying to get her glee under control and failing. "You honestly still believe in gods?"

"'Believe' is not the word I would use, no."

"Then what words do you use?"

"A man's relationship with the gods is immensely personal," Terin told her, his tone very serious. "I'm glad you're getting a kick out of this, but I won't speak of it lightly. Sorry."

"Okay, fine," Jira groaned. "But we did have fun, didn't we? Sorry about your shoulder, by the way. I have some needle and thread if my teeth went too deep." Sitting up, Jira pulled the cloth covering Terin's injured shoulder to the side, then frowned. "Wait, where the hell did it—? It should be right here..."

Looking thoroughly confused, Jira began unbuttoning his shirt, but there didn't appear to be any wounds present where she'd left them. That's when the dots finally connected in Terin's mind and he remembered Ahlyra, still either asleep or unconscious in the room across the hall.

"Leave it be!" Terin snapped. "I can take care of it myself."

"But it's just...gone. Did you pre-game with a potion while I wasn't looking? Surely you didn't think I'd hurt you that badly?"

"Just let it go!"

"And what about your arms?" Jira pressed, grabbing his right hand and rolling up a torn and slightly blood-stained sleeve. "And the scratches I—"

But as soon as she could see the skin more clearly, Jira gasped and let go. The arm she was holding was covered in long, thin scars from wrist to shoulder, but they weren't like any scars she'd ever seen before. Instead of being raised and pale, these were concave and black as pitch. It was as if someone had scooped out line after line of flesh and then gangrene had set in afterwards. From a distance, the marks looked a lot like rangy, long-decaying trees standing still amid the snow in the dead of winter.

"I didn't do that, did I?" Jira asked, now standing to her feet with her hands pressed to her lips. "I'm sorry, I didn't think that—"

"These aren't you," Terin told her firmly. "I got them a long time ago."

"Oh, well. Okay then."

Even Jira knew not to question a warrior on his scars. The scratches she'd left were no longer visible, but she didn't ask him about those, either. Instead, she and Terin just awkwardly stared at each other in the darkness and let the shadows gradually eat them up again. But the silence was kind of a mood-killer.

"Do you want a glass of wine?" Jira blurted, sauntering fully naked back over to the fireplace and the little table there. "It's not very good, but it is wine, so...?"

"Are we not heading to bed?"

"Don't tell me that you literally want to sleep together?" Jira asked, but when Terin shrugged and nodded, she gave him a pitying look. "Yeah...I, uh, don't really do that."

"After all that biting and clawing, you're going to shove a glass of wine in my hands, kick me out, and call it a night?"

"I promised you sex, Monster Hunter," Jira replied, and that same addictive smile was back again, almost as if it had never left. "If you want someone to warm your bed, call a concubine. I'm sure Lord Vareill has no shortage of those on staff."

When Terin awoke, light was just beginning to break through the trees beyond the windows and the stone walls were bathed in a soft, yellow glow. With a groan, he sat up and massaged the crick in his neck, then glanced over at the bedroom door. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken a quick bath, grabbed some breakfast, then headed into town for a brief scouting mission before the scheduled debriefing, but these weren't normal circumstances, were they? Like it or not, Terin had a slave girl to attend to. Hopefully, she would be a little less difficult after a good night's sleep, but he wasn't too terribly optimistic.

With a sigh, Terin stepped up to the doorway and raised his fist to knock, then thought better of it. He didn't want to startle the poor woman, but he didn't want to give her the opportunity to startle him, either. Besides that, he couldn't spend the next month tiptoeing around his own quarters just to accommodate her. Terin sympathized with the woman—he really, truly did—but he also had a job to do. The sooner he finished that job, the sooner he could set the slave girl free, get back on the road, and put this whole mess behind him. In the meantime, she would just have to suck it up and learn to cope.

"Good Morning," Terin chimed, cautiously stepping into the bedroom. "Sleep well?"

Ahlyra peered up at him from a cocoon of blankets, her gaze just as steady and unwavering as it had been the previous night. Her eyes, however, had softened somewhat and Terin decided to risk a few tentative steps forward. It was a mistake. Suddenly, Ahlyra was flinging herself out of the blankets and scrambling backwards, a single thin sheet clutched in her hands in a pathetic attempt at modesty. She didn't realize she'd run out of room until her lead went taut, then she gazed up at Terin with newly rekindled hatred. It seemed that she blamed him for the length of her lead, never mind that he wasn't the one who'd chained her up.

"It appears you're still mad at me," Terin observed, and he waited to see if Ahlyra would answer, but she only glared at him—same as always. "Gods above, what am I going to do with you? What am I going to do with you when you won't even talk to me?"

Scanning the woman up and down, Terin felt a grimace on his lips. Her hair was sticking out in all directions and her clothes were a wrinkled, haphazard mess. It looked like she'd been crying, too. There were tear streaks on her cheeks, though Ahlyra had obviously made some half-assed attempts at cleaning herself up. That's when it finally sunk in just how hopeless Terin was at this whole "comforting damsels in distress" thing and just how useless it would be to try. He hunted monsters and he just wasn't good at anything else.

"Alright then," Terin began, running his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "As I tried to explain to you last night and which I will now, once again, explain for your convenience—I never asked for you, I only accepted you under duress, and I'm not too happy about being saddled with you in spite of all that. I know you don't believe me," Terin added, his voice strangely sympathetic. "If I was in your shoes, I'd be suspicious, too. That doesn't change the fact that I'm not equipped to sort out whatever fresh hell they've put you through. I'm your master now, so I'll make sure you're fed, clothed, and kept warm. There are books I can lend you to keep you occupied and I'll see about getting you your own bed, but other than that, you're on your own. When my job is done, I'll let you go. Until then, just...try not to knock yourself unconscious, okay?"

"You lie," Ahlyra hissed after a long, uncomfortable silence. "You lie!"

"Whatever you want to believe, it makes no difference to me," Terin shrugged, and as he spoke the clock in the next room rang out six times. "Look, I have to get going now, but I'll make sure someone brings you breakfast and then takes you to the baths. Would you like any books before I go?"

"You lie!" Ahlyra screamed. "You lie, you lie, you lie!"

"So...that's a 'no'?"

"I know what you are!" Ahlyra continued. "I've learned, and I've never forgotten!"

"Okay. Fine. Whatever. But I have to get going now," Terin told her, sounding more than a little irritated, and he started heading for the doorway. "I'm sorry—I really am—but I absolutely have to go, so—"

"If it's true..." Ahlyra blurted, and her tone gave him pause. For the very first time, Terin could hear sincerity in her voice and all of the hatred had been replaced by earnestness. "If it's true what you say—that you don't want me and that you didn't ask for me—then why wait? Why won't you let me go now?"

"Gods above," Terin groaned, stopping just short of turning the door knob. Despite essentially being blackmailed into this whole mess, he still felt far too guilty to look Ahlyra in the eye. "Surely, you know the answer to that question, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Ahlyra whispered, and when Terin turned around, he saw that there was no longer anything behind her eyes—they were completely and utterly devoid of feeling. "Of course I do. How could I not? And I...I think I might like being dead."

Another wave of guilt suddenly washed over Terin and quick as he was able, he flung open the door, walked out, and shut it loudly behind him. It was a long walk down through the west wing of Castle Ardor, then down two flights of stairs to the banquet hall. Like everything else, the hall was genuinely impressive, bordered on either side by mahogany doors and lined from end to end with long stone tables. Several scones lit the walls and a total of six evenly interspersed fireplaces were required to keep the space warm. The smell of freshly baked bread and smoked meats and spiced wine wafted through the air, giving Terin pause despite his earlier agitation. But then, he saw them—thirteen silhouettes seated somewhat close together on the far end of the room. They weren't the silhouettes of royalty and their servants, either. These shadows had shapes that were bulky and wide, with erratic outlines suggestive of large, ultra-specialized weapons. Here and there he could see splashes of magic circling clothing, or bottles, or daggers.

And here we are, Terin thought ruefully. Either they're my colleagues or my competition, but I guess I won't be sure for a little while yet, eh?

Despite nearly seventeen years working as a professional, Terin didn't recognize many of the monster hunters seated before him. Lord Vareill would never bother hiring an amateur—let alone a whole room full of them—and, therefore, that left only one reasonable explanation: these men and women were likely the sorts of mercenaries who stuck to the shadows, using unsavory methods to complete unsavory jobs. Terin had given up that sort of nonsense a long time ago and with the turnover rate being so high, it was no wonder all these faces were strange to him. Nearly everyone who risked that type of work either died quickly or retired quickly, usually riddled with curses and swimming in gold. Whether of not the trade-off was worth it was a matter of opinion. The few who didn't fit that description were probably personal hunters on loan from neighboring provinces, used to gain favor with Loroathe.

Stepping forward carefully, Terin watched as the silhouettes became fully-formed figures with detailed faces and clear-cut specialties. First and foremost, he spotted a pale, red-eyed woman with dragon-like features and scales coiling over her cheeks, shoulders, and the sides of her neck hiding out in an isolated corner. A heavy, reddish-green tail lay curled by her feet and there was a nine foot longbow resting against the table where she sat alone. They glanced at one another and Terin watched as a nictitating membrane flicked over her otherwise unblinking eyes. No doubt about it, she was of Draconian descent. Their kind had been banned from Garoiathe ever since the Five Bloods War, so to see one sitting in plain sight in the middle of Castle Ardor was a bit of a shock. She nodded politely at Terin and he nodded politely back, now more convinced than ever that the individuals assembled here were universally considered the exceptions to society's rules. Besides her, there were two shady-looking characters talking in whispered voices a little further up, one with a leather potions belt strung across his chest and another beady-eyed fellow with a raised "X" burnt into his forehead. That was to say nothing of the trio of elves looking about indignantly as if they had accidentally stumbled upon a sewage dump.

And yet, there were at least a few faces Terin did recognize. Most prominent among them was Grand Teller Grotz, a priest in service to the God of Carnage who regularly took side jobs for the sake of his holy research. He was an eighth giant and it showed in the curling, reddish-brown beard covering his face and the massive, eight foot tall figure he'd barely managed to squeeze into a chair. Sitting on the floor by his feet was a hunched figure hidden inside a black cloak, most likely his personal channel. Terin wasn't especially fond of the Order of the Ash, even if there was some overlap in their religious loyalties. They had a tendency to presume what the gods wanted—as if gods could want at all—and most of the time, those wants involved suffering for some reason. But it could be worse.