Remnant II

by Randi Darren

  “I’ll stay at the farm,” Gwendolin declared with a nod of her head. “Nia will need me.”

  “There it is then,” Steve said, looking down at the table again.

  Fuck that cat-girl cunt right in the eye, then bring her corpse back to Nikki.

  Promise to bring her back alive or not.

  Thirty

  Leaving Filch, Steve felt like he was doing the right thing. Taking the right option and direction.

  He regretted that he’d been in conflict with Nikki once again, but she hadn’t spurned him. There’d been an open dialogue that included everyone.

  And it had concluded with Nikki bedding him repeatedly, fervently, and rather demandingly.

  Like she was trying to make up for the fact that she sent me off last time with almost nothing.

  “Mine, mine,” Jaina called out, scampering forward and moving toward a zombie.

  Kimor clicked her tongue audibly.

  “Didn’t see it in time,” grumbled the witch-knight.

  Jaina, Nancy, and his witch-knights had taken to obliterating zombies they found. It’d become a strange type of game to them.

  “Can someone explain to me why you’re each so determined to be the one to kill them?” Lucia asked. “I mean… I’m not against it and I think it’s a good thing to do—I just don’t understand the joy you take in it.”

  “Every kill generates power,” Nancy said. “The more you kill, the more Creep you destroy, the stronger you get as a witch.”

  “Wait, really?” Steve asked. He’d never heard any of that from anyone.

  “Jaina told me,” Nancy said. “She was weaker than Ina before the trip, and now she’s several times stronger than her. The only difference before and after was a lot of killing.”

  Huh. That’s not wrong, is it?

  “We should collect the witch-knight royal guard and bring them to the citadel,” Steve said. “Leave a gap in the defenses and just let the witch-knights train up.”

  “Yes,” Hiren stated firmly, her helmeted head turning toward him. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I think I’d rather stay with you,” Felisa said, a step behind Steve. “I’m enjoying my other duties far more than being a witch-knight.”

  “You would,” Siena grumbled. “You’re a Banshee. Wouldn’t be surprised if you had your own song for Steve.”

  “Song?” Steve asked, taking a moment to glance back at Felisa.

  “Banshees are the same species as Sirens,” Lucia said before Felisa could respond. “Sirens feed off attention, Banshees feed off attention and death. Haven’t you heard those old tales about Sirens drawing men to their deaths? Same species, different goal.”

  Oh.

  Oh! Okay, that’s rather interesting.

  “Do you have a song for me?” Steve asked bluntly.

  Felisa’s eyes slid away from Steve. He couldn’t see much of her face behind her helmet, other than her eyes, but he got the impression she was embarrassed.

  “Yes,” she admitted after a few seconds. “It’s… I don’t think you’d like it, though. It’s not like… it’s not like Gwendolin’s.”

  Steve raised his eyebrows at that. He had no idea Gwendolin had spoken to Felisa at all. His knights had mostly stayed away from his wives.

  “I think I’d still want to hear it,” Steve said.

  Felisa shook her head.

  “Okay,” she mumbled, coming to a stop. “No one else should be here.”

  “Whatever,” Kimor rumbled. “Let’s move up ahead. Maybe we can find some zombies.”

  Breaking into a light trot, Kimor started moving away. Hiren, Siena, and Beati immediately followed after her.

  “Oh? Hmm, alright,” Lucia said. She slipped her arm into Nancy’s and continued to walk away. “Where were we?”

  “Fae court etiquette regarding second wives,” Nancy answered.

  “Ah, yes. Second wives. They’re to be brought to family meals only when—”

  Lucia’s voice faded away, leaving Steve alone with Felisa.

  Felisa pulled her helmet off and gave him a nervous look. A smile slowly formed on her face.

  Reaching up with one hand she smoothed her sweaty hair back across her head.

  “Are you sure, Steve?” she asked. “It’s… it’s not like Gwendolin’s at all. And I’m a Banshee, not a Siren. It could—”

  “Sing for me, Felisa,” Steve said.

  He’d heard two different Siren songs for him. One was for a father, the other for a husband. Curiosity wasn’t something he normally lived for, but he really did want to hear what a witch-knight in service to him would feel through her song.

  Felisa’s eyes slowly came up to his and snared him.

  Steve couldn’t look away.

  Felisa began to sing a wordless melody that was low in pitch, slow in the change of notes, and almost haunting.

  She sang of a deep and dark void that was exactly that. A void of everything.

  Then the void was filled with the promise of sex and violence. Of death.

  Sweet, tasty, delicious death. A never-ending life filled with being satiated and tempted by the first blush of romance.

  Dark, twisted, and bent over itself, it was a song more like a funeral dirge mixed with a lover’s lament.

  And for all of that, it pulled at Steve and drew him in close to Felisa. He felt a kinship with the void. He’d felt that void recently in his life and wanted to fill it himself.

  He didn’t need to be a smart man to know that the void had clearly been Felisa and Steve the promise that filled it.

  To Felisa, Steve was clearly something she’d ached to find and had been searching for.

  When she leaned down and kissed him, she hummed her song instead. The break in volume and power gave Steve the ability to come back into his own mind.

  Breaking the kiss, Felisa leaned away from him and watched him, her eyes still holding his.

  “Well,” Steve said after taking a breath. “I can certainly see how your song is not a Siren’s song. But I didn’t dislike it. Though… I do have to ask… there was something in there that was unexpected.”

  “There was?” Felisa asked, her eyebrows moving upward.

  “Mmm. Almost like you were falling in love with me,” Steve said. He’d never been one to shy away from telling someone something. He wasn’t about to start now with someone he owned.

  “Oh,” Felisa said, then nodded. “Yes. I’m falling in love with you. My duties may only be to service you and kill on your behalf, but it’s not a poor existence. It’s better than I was doing previously, and you treat me very well.

  “Nancy’s no different. She loves you, too. Mostly for the same reasons.”

  “Huh,” Steve said. “Sounds like I need to find all the dark races and bind them together. You’re all so desperate for affection that you’d thank me for putting an owner’s tag on you.”

  Felisa nodded slightly at that.

  “Probably,” she murmured.

  Something to consider.

  ***

  “This is the point of no return,” Lucia said and then sighed. “I really don’t want to be back here. My memories of this road aren’t so pleasant.”

  “No?” Nancy asked, looking at Lucia.

  “Not in the least,” grumped Lucia. “I was turned into a half-chewed meal and almost died. All for the love of a Human who managed to knock himself out.

  “The scars are… they’re hideous. My skin is ugly and ruined.”

  “No, it’s very much not,” Steve interjected, reaching up to lay a hand on Lucia’s back. “It’s one of the reasons why I have such a hard time denying you anything, my sweet butterfly. You know that. I tell you it often.”

  Lucia shook her head, then tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  “Hmph. It’s good you recognize my beauty for what it was before and after,” said the Fae. “Lucky man that you are to have become my consort.”

  Rolling his eyes at that, Steve couldn’t he
lp but grin. He was glad to see Lucia seemed to be over her experience, for the most part. It probably wasn’t an incident that anyone could get over.

  “Right, well, this definitely is our turning point. I wonder how we should approach it?” Steve asked.

  “We march forward, kill them all, and you kill the commander by skull-fucking her,” Kimor said, patting her fist into her open hand. “Simple.”

  “You’re as simple as you are stupid,” Siena said.

  “What? You’re stupid. Stupid Ogre,” Kimor said, her antlers trembling slightly. “You should service Steve and learn your place tonight.”

  “I will service Steve tonight, as it’s my right to do so,” Siena said. “But you’re still a stupid and simple idiot, Kimor. We can’t just bust in their front door and lay waste to them.”

  “Why not?” Kimor asked, holding her hands up. “Steve is our lord. We’ve all seen what he can do. He’ll be King of Lamals soon. Better we show how he will rule now, so there are no questions later.

  “We go in, kill everyone, hold the commander down, Steve skull-fucks her to death. I bet he’d get prestige for it.”

  “To be sure, you’re right,” Beati said. “We should herald our lord in that way. I agree with the stupid Reindeer. Since becoming witch-knights, we’ve become much stronger. Both martially and as witches.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Kimor groused bitterly.

  I mean… you kind of are though, Kimor. That’s not a bad thing, but… you really are.

  “Yes, you are,” Hiren said. “But that’s okay. We respect you all the same, Kimor, stupid or not. Just as we respect Felisa for wanting to be our lord’s personal bed toy, Beati for being an actual scumbag thief, and Siena for… well… she’s an Ogre. That says enough.”

  The knights glared at one another, then started to laugh.

  “Is there a reason we shouldn’t just go kick in the door?” Steve asked. He really didn’t know why that wasn’t the best answer.

  “Truthfully? Because the more soldiers you kill, the worse off Lamals will be. Unless you want to breed a whole lot of pig-pen soldiers to replace them,” Lucia replied, laying a hand on her cheek. “The losses you’ve already caused them are more than enough to set them back by at least five years of very heavy recruiting.

  “And if Lamals is going to survive after we get through this, we’ll need the soldiers. So while I do think it’d be ideal to simply invade and slaughter the lot of them, we probably shouldn’t.”

  Oh. That makes sense.

  If we lose too many soldiers, our neighbors could simply try to wipe us out after the fact.

  That, and didn’t Nikki said the only saving grace we had as a nation was our ability to produce soldiers? That’s pig-pen soldiers, I bet.

  And I don’t plan on letting that continue without their consent, so… damn.

  Alright.

  “Fine,” Steve acceded. “Fine. I prefer Kimor’s idea, but we’ll do what we must. Let’s head to the shattered gap and see what we find there. Maybe we can get up on the wall and travel inward from there. That seemed to be a definite weak point, as Linne herself proved.”

  “I like that idea,” Nancy said, nodding her head. “It’ll give us a chance to see how bad it is, and how to contain the Creep.”

  “Yeah. Alright, let’s just call it a night for here then. Last time we found a nice spot up that way, didn’t we?” Steve asked, pointing off toward where a small group of trees were set together.

  “Indeed,” Lucia agreed. “It wasn’t bad at all.”

  Soon after that, Steve and company were safely tucked away from the world. The knights and Jaina would take turns on Creep watch, which apparently wasn’t much of a duty to them anymore.

  Because whoever was on duty got an increase to their power as they drank in Creep through their dome.

  Lying there in his tent, Steve wasn’t sure what to make of the most recent changes in his life.

  He hadn’t really felt what most people would call remorse over the deaths of his wives.

  It was more of a boiling rage. Full of anger and the absolute desire for revenge.

  But none of the sobbing, teary stuff that people seemed to be expecting from him.

  Steve felt like that wasn’t normal. He’d felt the same way over Chessa’s death, in fact. Nothing felt quite right to Steve when it came to that sort of thing, and he couldn’t pinpoint it.

  Maybe it’s because… I’m not… normal.

  I don’t have the same brainwashing as everyone else.

  I clearly see things differently than others. Things don’t affect me in the same way.

  I have powers no one else does.

  And then there’s that voice I hear.

  “Steve?” asked a soft voice from outside. He couldn’t quite place who it was. They were speaking too softly.

  “Yup?”

  “May I enter?”

  Eh… maybe it’s Siena. She said it was her turn, right?

  “Sure, come in,” Steve said.

  The flap slid to one side and Nancy entered.

  Smiling at him, the lovely Wight swiftly came over and lay down next to him.

  “Siena will take her turn tomorrow,” Nancy said, pushing Steve’s arm out to one side and then pillowing her head on it. Then she snuggled up to his side. “I pulled rank on her and claimed tonight for myself.”

  “Decided to take her punishment on yourself?” Steve asked, grinning at her.

  “No, she was rather annoyed with me,” Nancy said, smiling up at him. “I think you misunderstand how your witch-knights feel about you. They’re not mad at you. Not anymore.

  “They all want you to bed them. Each of them have different reasons, but… no, they don’t view their evening duties as punishments. At least not anymore.”

  “Hmm. And what about you, my delicious little Wight?” Steve asked. “Ever since… since I did what you wanted… you’ve been a little different.”

  “I have?” Nancy asked, frowning.

  “Well, you still beg for all the things you normally do,” Steve said. Nancy hadn’t stopped asking for him to brand, slap, hit, punch, cut, strangle, abuse, or impregnate her. “You just… you don’t seem to be as twisted about it.”

  Nancy sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

  “My parents always told me that once I started having regular sex with my husband, I’d understand how a relationship can grow just from that,” Nancy said, her words slow and cautious. “I thought it was just them being stupid. But… it seems there’s something to that, I guess. At first, it was being forced into sex and taken as I was. It was delicious.

  “I know. I know you didn’t force me, and it wasn’t actually rape. That was in my head. In my own little fantasy, I guess.”

  Steve had just been about to object to the way she’d phrased that. He remembered things very differently.

  “I don’t taste as good anymore,” Nancy said. “The misery just… isn’t there anymore, I guess. That’s why I really want you to do the physical stuff.

  “But I do understand why you have a hard time doing it.”

  “You do?” Steve asked. He hadn’t expected such a change from Nancy.

  “You love me. It’s why hurting me seems backward to you,” Nancy said, reaching over to pat his bare chest. “But I’m telling you, if you love me, you need to start hurting me. Just enough to make me taste good to myself. I can tell you when I’m at that point, if it helps.”

  Once more, Steve ran into that absolute wall he had inside himself. He didn’t want to harm Nancy in any way.

  “Even the fear of getting pregnant doesn’t really do it for me anymore,” Nancy revealed. “Mostly because I think… I think I want to be pregnant now. Though the idea of being pregnant and not being a formal wife does taste amazing right afterward.”

  “You’re telling me that if I love you, I should slap you,” Steve clarified.

  “That’s exactly right,” Nancy said. “Slap me, choke me some, or bra
nd me. I really want you to brand me. Right on my face. So everyone can see it for that day before it heals.

  “I want to be branded so badly.”

  Steve was already shaking his head. He didn’t want to do any of that to her.

  She was his henchwoman, his mistress. Nancy had already pulled all the darkness out of him with how she let herself be treated and encouraged it.

  Doing more to her seemed wrong.

  Except that it was what she wanted.

  “It was… so… amazing, when you killed me,” Nancy said, her voice sounding dreamy. “Everything went black and it felt like my head was going to explode. Your hands were so tight on my neck. I don’t think I’ll taste anything like it again.”

  Coming to a decision, Steve realized he could do something for Nancy after all.

  “Suck me,” Steve said, putting his left hand behind her head. With his right hand, he slipped off his sleep shorts.

  “Oh, gladly,” Nancy enthused. Before he could pull on her head, she was already moving down toward his lap.

  Her lips wrapped around his tip, and she went down on him instantly. Sucking at his hilt, she began to bob her head up and down, her hair fluttering around her head.

  Letting out a slow breath, Steve couldn’t help but feel really good. Nancy was always generous with him. As much as Lucia, if not more so.

  Laying his hand on the back of her head, he pushed down on her.

  Wedging his tip in her throat and his hilt to her lips.

  Nancy coughed once, her back and shoulders flexing.

  Steve didn’t let her up. He held her down. Even when Nancy pushed at his hand, he didn’t move. He held her there.

  After ten seconds, she gently patted his hip with one hand.

  Steve let her go, taking that as her signal to stop.

  Coming off him, Nancy took in a deep breath, gasping.

  Steve grabbed her around the throat with one hand and pushed her down next to him. Squeezing gently, he watched as her already-red face turned redder. Her eyes were wide, staring at him.

  With his left hand, he flipped her dress up and then forced her legs apart long enough to wedge his hips up between her thighs.

  He could feel Nancy resisting him, her hands holding tight to his wrist even as her legs tried to push him free.