Sleeping Beast Ch. 04

REMINDER- I write long stories; some parts don't have naughty bits, but the parts that do will make more sense if you read the non-naughty bits, too. Thanks for reading!

--o----O----o--

"Don't you want breakfast?" Troitsa asked as her friend hurried by the hearth.

"It's fine--" Argus waved a hand in her direction without looking up. "--I'll eat later."

The door slammed behind him and Troi sighed, leaning on her elbows as she stared into the cooling orange coals.

He was angry with her; she could tell. He'd hardly spoken to her or looked at her since five nights past, when she'd... what? What had she done to elicit such scorn? Been ruined by his brother?

Nivid had been spending his lust on her body for weeks while she was face-down over that bench. What was so different about what they were doing now? What was so awful about Troi and Nivid making love face-to-face that her friend should now disdain her company as an intolerable trial?

And how did he even know?

It wasn't as though the changes between them would be visible to others, and Troi couldn't envision Nivid gossiping with Argus like a fishwife at the market. 'Sakes, he barely spoke to her.

She flushed and took a long gulp of cool water. Well, until five days ago, he'd said very little, limiting his communication to a murmured word here or there: "sweet" after licking her pussy, "good" when she came over and over again, and her name, slurred, "Trishta" before he left her at dawn. She set her mug down and smiled.

After she tricked him into the light, though, Nivid had been nigh-on chatty. Speaking clearly was a laborious task for him: he omitted words to make communication easier on himself, but that thick tongue gave him a long, sibilant "s," and there were a few letters he couldn't say at all. But none of his speech difficulties made what Nivid said to her less moving.

It was still mostly sexual, but he met her eyes when he spoke, as though gauging her reaction, and Troi found this new habit incredibly touching. Last night she'd been sitting on his belly, leaning back against the furry haunches while he slouched on the sofa, caressing her tingling breasts between one session and the next. "Pretty," he'd growled, his rough thumbs sweeping over her nipples. She'd nearly come.

Just before she fell asleep, Nivid had taken a generous taste of air from the inner curve of her neck. He exhaled on a soft hum, his eyes still shut. When he opened them, he murmured blissfully, "Like spring after winter," and her heart had melted.

Coming back to the present, Troi frowned.

What was wrong with any of that? What did Argus have to be so incensed about?

Troi slammed her mug down and marched from the kitchen, following the faint path Argus had taken past the demonic, leering scarecrow in the garden.

--o--

She found him at a dry pool by the edge of the precipice, where Talgut told her a spring sometimes rose bubbling from the rock if the weather was wet enough. Russians called it "living water," that which came from the earth clean and untouched, possessing magical properties a priest or priestess-- or a witch-- could use to alter destiny. Troitsa wasn't Russian, but her people prayed to a water-god, and her mother had been a shaman, so the spring's sporadic existence held some interest for her.

Argus heard her coming, but offered no greeting.

Troitsa clambered onto the giant slab of rock from the back so she wouldn't have to shuffle by the daunting drop beyond his dangling feet. She sat to one side and behind him for the same reason. Now that she'd found him, she felt awkward rather than resentful, and she didn't speak.

She missed him. She'd thought to be with Nivid more often after being freed from their former constraints, but she'd learned he was largely nocturnal. Many of his waking hours were already spent with her, and those that weren't were occupied by hunting or otherwise prowling the woods. Troi had become accustomed to passing a large portion of each day with Argus, and she didn't realize how much she depended on his friendship until he withdrew it.

They sat there for a bit, Troi not speaking and Argus not turning around.

Argus knew he'd been acting like a lout, but he had no excuse to offer. Not one he could share with Troitsa, because he was already far too dependent on her presence in his life. They all were, and it was just getting worse as time went on. Sooner or later, Troi would leave, and if she stayed here very much longer, her departure would kill him, kill Nivid or kill both of them at once, which was more likely. Logically, he doubted one could survive without the other, despite their separate bodies.

She was enjoying herself now, but before coming to Zamok Denova, Troi had been a slave in a harsh household. After being beaten and raped for five years, almost anything would feel like freedom, even being held captive in a dilapidated castle. She'd found neither friends nor pleasure in her former life, whereas here, Troi had Argus and Talgut for companionship and affection and laughter, and Nivid for all the hedonistic delights the fates had previously denied her. Of course she was happy.

But Argus wasn't a fool, nor was Troi. At the moment, his home was sufficient for her, but eventually, its shine would dim, and Troi would need more. She was young. With the gift of a fortune, she could remake herself, find a kind husband, and settle down to having a handful of beautiful babies and a wonderful home, which was exactly what Troi deserved. Argus wouldn't begrudge her one second of it. Even if he believed it possible, he wouldn't wish for her to stay, because keeping her caged in this limited life of theirs wouldn't be fair to her.

On the other hand, he wasn't going to lie to himself about it, either. He wanted her.

After stealing away from the guardroom bench to wait for Nivid by the fire, Troi had been leaving him and Talgut soon after their evening meal, instead of lounging about reading and sewing. She was sharing her warm, welcoming body with Nivid every night, but since his first taste of her, Argus had been in hell. Nivid and Argus could block each other out temporarily-- closing the door from either end-- but they shared the same mind and retained most of the same memories. Every day, after Nivid fed on Troitsa, Argus woke with her scent in his nostrils.

Coping with the endless lust would have been simpler were it alone in his psyche, but it shared its frosty bed with his heart. He, Argus Denova, was in love with their resilient, sage, and adventurous captive, Troitsa, who had no surname of her own, and all he wanted in the world was to give her his.

But he could not. They could not.

Argus Denova wasn't truly even a person now, no more than Nivid was.

They couldn't keep Troi here for much longer. He hadn't mentioned it to Nivid, because he knew what that reaction would be, but she'd have to leave soon. They were already-- all of them-- too attached to her, and breaking those bonds would only become more difficult and more painful. If they did it soon, maybe he and Nivid would eventually recover. Maybe.

When Talgut returned... well, the two of them would have to devise a way to convince Nivid to lock up the wolves, then drink a large glass of liquid without paying too much attention to its taste. Argus shook his head, not quite laughing at himself.

How the hell were they going to make it through this? Nivid tearing his heart out, killing both of them instantly, might just be the best outcome Argus could anticipate.

"Argus," Troi finally asked, "why are you angry with me?"

He sighed heavily, not turning around. This was exactly the conversation he'd been avoiding. There was no chance of her becoming impatient and stomping off, however. The woman was as stubborn as a sunset. He sighed again. He'd have to tell her something.

"I'm not angry. I'm worried about what will happen to Nivid when you leave."

Troi was silent for a while as she worked through whether she believed what he was telling her. She was passably sure nobody would force her to leave, but she thought Argus would tell her she couldn't stay here, in the sense that it wasn't an appropriate life for her; it wasn't proper.

In Troi's experience, words like fitting and suitable and appropriate were luxuries only the rich could afford, because really, what was proper about a fourteen-year-old being raped by a man purported to be her owner? That was what she was telling Argus in her head when she realized she was quarrelling with an opinion no one had yet expressed.

She took a breath and tried to calm herself before she asked, "What if I don't want to leave?"

"Troi, I know after what you've endured--"

Even from where she sat, Troi could see the angry contortions his face went through on her behalf.

"--Zamok Denova might seem like a haven, but you're young. Eventually, this won't be enough. You'll want to have a family and a normal life."

She barely drew breath before answering his conjecture. "All I've ever wanted is exactly what I have here, Argus.

"I want to be free to say and do as I please without being beaten. I want to plant vegetables, tend my animals, and maybe grow strawberries someday. I want to be happy, a gift which has already been granted to me at Zamok Denova."

"Even so, Troi, how are you going to be happy with Nivid?" He bent his knee and half-turned in her direction. "There's absolutely no possibility of finding a priest willing to marry you!"

Troi remained serene in the face of his increasing volume.

"Our clan never hewed to Moses or Jesus. My gods are the twelve spirits, and they need no more ceremony than that which we chose to create."

"Regardless," Argus snapped, "you won't be able to have children with Nivid."

Troi looked away. "I won't be able to have children with anyone."

His stomach lurched.

She gazed out over the valley to where the skittering strings of cotton had slowed and begun blossoming into high white thunderclouds. It would rain later on.

"Two Koročun ago," she said, referring to the winter solstice festival, "after the master put a babe in my belly, his wife paid a vile old woman to take it out."

Argus completed his turn to face her more directly. Her head was tilted down and away from him, but he could hear the tears in her voice. Despite everything she'd endured, Argus had never seen Troitsa weep, and he felt her pain as acutely now as he'd felt Nivid's when the curse first claimed their lives, all those years ago.

His heart beat so loudly he couldn't hear her breathing. He imagined it to be uneven, though her voice was not. Troi was obviously affected by the events she was relating, but characteristically, she wouldn't crumble under the weight.

"I'm too broken to birth a child now," she rasped softly.

Devastated and unsure how to go about consoling her, Argus didn't reply.

As always, Troi refused to linger in the darkness. She pulled herself out with nothing but her unquenchable strength of spirit.

"In any case--" Her spine straightened and her eyes returned to his, glossy but clear.

"--the streets of Ufa are rife with needy, homeless urchins. Talgut can buy a wagon and bring back a dozen at a time."

Argus swallowed. She was marvelous, and he found himself loath to crush her spirit by outright nixing her dream. He spoke gently. "The truth of it, Troi, is that as long as you're here, you're in danger. Someone will eventually pay heed to rumors of a monster dwelling in these mountains, and people will come seeking him. They will burn us out and kill us. You will inevitably die in the same net, or mayhap the curse will take you when it finally claims our lives."

"Your mother wasn't a witch, was she?"

Argus shook his head. "Nyet." The change in topic was unexpected, and he hesitated a moment before adding, "Of course not."

"Well, this curse doesn't make any sense, then." Troi pursed her lips. "You can't put a curse this strong on just anyone, you know... it needs power to sustain it."

Her forehead wrinkled as she frowned in his direction, but Argus could tell she wasn't seeing him, she saw a quandary which required a solution, like how to prevent Nivid's wolves from dining on the chickens she'd soon possess.

Ignoring the odd remark-- what did she know of sorcery?-- Argus opened his mouth to forestall whatever she was planning, but Troi forestalled his speech instead, hopping energetically to her feet atop the boulder.

"Besides," she stated happily, smoothing her skirt. "I don't believe you."

"What?" Argus growled.

"I don't believe you. I think all of that--" She waved her fingers dismissively. "--your altruism and concern for me and my future, even the curse, those are all just excuses you're using to make me leave."

Argus stood, too, forgetting that what she'd said was true, and that he should let her believe whatever awful thing she was about to say next, because maybe if she was hurt enough, or angry enough, maybe then she'd leave.

"Don't be ridiculous," he barked.

"Me?? I'm not the one being ridiculous." She poked him in the chest, altogether ignoring their size difference as she glared up at him from six inches away. She paid no heed to the inherent danger of her position until Argus poked her back... much, much lower than where she was poking him.

Troi hid her smug reaction.

Argus captured her finger and held it, breathing deeply. He took care to block the experience from Nivid, because if Nivid knew Argus was upsetting his woman, he'd come tear his head off. Which would end Argus' dilemma, but traumatize Troi, who didn't need any more trauma in her life.

He relaxed his jaw to grind out a furious question. "So my concern is FEIGNED?"

"You think I'd LIE to you ABOUT THAT?" His voice grew in volume with every word.

She wrested her finger from his grip, leaning in and tipping her face up to yell a confirmation right back at him. "Da! I do! You lie because you don't want me to leave at all!"

Argus was shocked, though with his erection poking at her belly, her supposition wasn't an exceptional one. He shifted his weight to pull away and replied with scathing sarcasm. "Oh, really? And what makes you think I want a vain, simple girl-child around?"

She was angry enough to slap him, and for the first time in five years, Troi didn't have the threat of a beating sitting ponderously on serenity's side of the scale. She seriously considered a kick in the shin, but since his body had just confirmed a hunch for her, Troi chose the one argument he'd find impossible to refute. She pressed the palm of her hand firmly against the bulging mound beneath his homespun trousers.

"This," she hissed.

From narrow slits, his eyes widened into fiery discs, but instinct shoved his shock aside, and for once, Argus reacted without the weight of reason holding him back, either. He hauled Troi's body up against him, and he kissed her.

If she'd been thinking, she wouldn't have kissed him back, but his lips stole her ability to think, to move, to breathe.

It was stupendous.

In some dusty rear nook of his noggin, Argus was aware that Nivid would not abide him kissing Troi, not with Argus in this body. But it didn't matter. At that moment, all that mattered was that he and Troi were going up in flames, and they were going together.

She'd turned to a dervish in his arms, writhing so frantically that Argus needed all his strength to hold her in place. He used it, lifting and crushing Troi's ribcage to his as he stuck his thigh between her legs.

In less than a minute, they were practically coupling atop the cliff, still standing upright on the rocks where Talgut said a spring appeared when the weather was wet enough. At the moment, Troi was the wettest thing for miles around.

She pulled Argus' hair, biting his lip as she ground her clit against his thigh, some tiny, ineffectual portion of her brain wondering what in the name of the gods she was doing. This was Argus, not Nivid! But he kissed just like Nivid, he moved against her like Nivid, and her body reacted exactly the same as it did to Nivid! All that anger coursing through her veins had to be expended somewhere, and currently, somewhere had his hand on Troi's behind, helping slide her body up and down his thigh as her faithless pussy hurtled toward completion.

A resounding crash of thunder from the castle and a nearly simultaneous roar of rage tore them apart.

Desperately cleaving to the will and consciousness his other half was trying to tear away, Argus readied himself to protect the woman.

"Troi," he barked, his hands on her shoulders and his eyes burning into hers, "turn your head! Don't watch! Your oath!"

Argus didn't get the promise he wanted. Troi's staring eyes were wide and scared, her mouth open and silent, and he ran out of time. Prepared to spin and jump from the boulder, he suddenly found himself crumpled into a hollow atop the cliff.

Troi couldn't believe she'd succeeded.

It only worked, she said later, because he was already off balance, with most of his weight on just one foot. Otherwise, she couldn't have budged him. But the people-god, who had so sorely neglected her over the past five years, heard Troi's prayer, and when she shoved, it worked: arms akimbo, Argus stumbled backward over a crack in the rock and into the shallow depression where Talgut said there was sometimes a pool if the weather was wet enough.

Troi didn't tarry to watch him land. Still praying-- for Argus, for Nivid, for herself-- she leapt off the boulder and into Nivid's path. She thought maybe one leather-clad toe touched the ground as she launched herself forward, flying through the air, straight toward Nivid's face.

Fortunately, in a rage, his demeanor became more bull-like. His head and shoulders sunk toward the ground and his hind quarters bunched as he charged. She couldn't have reached his face otherwise, she said. But she did. She didn't pause, and the force with which her torso met his head snapped her limbs toward his body, exactly where they needed to be. Troi wrapped her legs around his waist, locked her feet at his spine, and clung to his horns like handles.

He was livid, spitting and snarling, his mouth foaming and his eyes steaming scarlet. In that moment, there was nothing human about him. Bracing his knuckles like forefeet, Nivid shook his head, and Troi stuck to him with every ounce of strength in her body. She'd meant to call out, to use his name, to plead and beg forgiveness, but he shook her so violently that all she could do was cling.

Nivid flung his head about, snorting. He couldn't free himself of whatever was blinding him. He sidestepped, trying to locate a ledge or boulder he could bash his head against to scrape the thing off.

Argus felt a snap and a sharp, stabbing pain when he landed in the stone bowl, and the blinding flash merged seamlessly into the fiery blaze of rage consuming Nivid. Ignoring his injuries and not bothering to ask his eyes for information, Argus reached out. He left next to nothing in his body, giving everything he had to Nivid, trying desperately to help him sort the madly swirling impressions and emotions into some semblance of sanity before it was too late for all of them.

Since Argus knew without thinking that Troi had gone for Nivid, Nivid learned it too. With that knowledge and their will and energy combined, Nivid was able to admit a sliver of illumination, and after only three really savage jolts, a whisper of his woman's scent penetrated the burning borders of his fury.

The thrashing torso began to slow and the agitated jerking of his huge head became sluggish. In only moments, Nivid's consciousness cleared enough for his ears to hear the sound of Troi's intermittent, airy plaints. He froze. One giant, noisy inhalation of the fragrance swaddling his nose, and the remaining anger slipped away, the crimson fading from his eyes.