Rogue Within

by Mima

  “My fucking glasses! Where did they land? I’m going to rape your face so deep I’ll pump my cum into your gut, you fucking cunt.”

  Moriko’s legs gave out. She fell to her knees with a splash, free hand gripping a fistful of rough grass that quickly stained red.

  “That’s what you get for trying to enjoy the spoils before securing the basics.” Thad crossed his legs, his palms folded over his knee. “Besides, I want to rape her first.”

  Moriko bent over and vomited into the watery grass, her stomach seizing again and again.

  Signy’s ethereal look was ruined as she had to squelch around the front of Donte to stand in front of Moriko. Moriko looked up into her lightly lined face, staring into her familiar gray eyes, with her neatly braided gray hair. Moriko spat a mouthful of foul after-wash up at her, but it didn’t make her face, just peppered her robe.

  With a thoughtful look, Signy kicked at Moriko.

  Donte blurred, his foot blocking the kick, landing like a bar between them. “No.” His gaze settled on Signy.

  Moriko shrank back, close to his leg.

  Signy’s face crumpled into a look so ugly and horrible Moriko’s stomach heaved again. She stepped up to Donte and kneed him viciously in the crotch. He did nothing to block it. His breath wheezed for a moment, but he held his stance. Her fingers flared wide then closed in a fist, like she’d gathered something out of the air. Like she’d just swallowed his pain and liked it. She glared at him, but he’d transferred his look back to Thad.

  Thad jumped down from the log. “Fascinating.”

  Russ was still cursing out among the grass. “A fascinating failure is more like it. Clearly you don’t hold him any longer, if you ever did.” He kicked at a stick, still looking for his glasses.

  Thad’s demeanor changed in an instant. He strode toward the stocky, smaller man, his teeth bared and fists clenched. “I do own him! He’s been forced to deliver his own mate to me. If Sverre hadn’t ruined it he’d still be our toy.”

  “You owe me a day under the lash, you filthy animal.” Sverre hissed at Donte with an almost sensual anticipation. “When I said to go feed, you know I didn’t mean you to leave the fortress. Let’s see you ever escape again without feet.”

  Russ faced Thad. “Well that’s what you called us all here for. You want to prove you’ve conquered the Beasts’ great resistance to darkcraft. So do it.”

  Thad crossed his arms. He turned back toward the tableau of Donte, who stood with legs widespread between kneeling Moriko and furious Signy. “No. He gives great benefits but he’s also an immense drain. I did the hard work and I’ve held him to us while he was away. Now he’s ripe for the taking.” His pouting face eased into childish slyness. “I wanted you here to test who was the most powerful. The time has come. Tomorrow I will lead the attack through Royal City and sleep in the Queen’s blood.”

  Moriko whipped her gaze up to Donte, pleading with him to move now, to end this man now.

  “The truxet are not yet banished.” Signy scoffed at him, moving a bit farther from Moriko. “We wanted them out before we made such an attack. Several other Cities are much closer to this decision than Royal City.”

  “Why would we waste such wonderful fighters? With our Bear, we can capture more beasts, and enslave them, and soon it will be our animals against theirs. Combined with our powers, we’ll be unstoppable.”

  Sverre guffawed. “You tried to enslave dozens of the captive hawks and never did. This Bear was an exception, already alone and weak.”

  “Explain the way he’s killed for them, hunting our students.” Signy twitched her cloak tighter around her.

  “Our plan is working,” Russ rubbed at his face. “There’s no need to rush the attack when we’ve been years to this point.”

  “I am the leader and your source!” Thad actually stamped his foot, splatting muck up onto one thigh. “Me! I found the island, I trained you, all of this is mine.” He pointed dramatically at Donte and Moriko, chest out. “The one of you who can rule this simple, broken creature’s soul will have your first pick of Cities. If any of you are even capable of it.”

  The moment held. Moriko watched Signy exchange a glance with Sverre, and Sverre with Russ.

  “It’s a shame, but fine.” Signy gestured vaguely into the grass to her left. “Your glasses are there, Russ.”

  Moriko got the distinct feeling Signy wasn’t talking about who would control Donte.

  Russ flailed over toward them. He looked comical and weak, but Moriko knew the image was false. “We should be on the fucking island. This is absurd.”

  “Our stone is close enough. We’re all fully powered after drinking the deaths of three beasts.” Sverre tromped out into the clearing too, his tattoos rippling with movement. They were ancient symbols, letters, abstract shapes that gave him the appearance of a striped animal who’d had its hide rearranged. His entire form was covered, scalp, face, torso, right down to his fingers.

  Thad clapped his hands once sharply and Moriko jumped. Rubbing his palms, he strode toward the fallen tree. “I expect a mighty battle for a mighty prize. I tell you now, there’s nothing like the thrill of controlling such a creature. He’s magnificent and as much concentration as he requires, he is also a source of constant power, where his misery provides a steady flow of energy.”

  Thad propped himself against the trunk. “There’s no high like feeling his own anger when he delivers the pain you command him to give. You get a whole extra depth to drink from.”

  Russ finished cleaning his glasses on his shirt and put them on. “She hasn’t been taken yet. Why don’t you reassure us he’s under control by having him hold her for you? I want no interruptions during our duel.”

  Thad beckoned. “Bring her here, Bear.”

  Moriko assessed the line of Donte’s jaw. Yes, it was still Donte here with her.

  Donte pulled on her arm and she stood, stiff and aching, trembling. She struggled to straighten her spine. Only the training she’d had since birth came to her aid, her back rising from muscle memory more than defiance. He moved them toward Thad. She realized she still had a fistful of grass and water had slid inside her glove.

  When they came before him, Thad slid an oily look down her body. “I think this one will have pointy tits. I’m going to carve my name across them.”

  He reached for her and time seemed to slow. She knew she was supposed to let him take her, let him own her. She knew Donte had a plan and she could never win. But independence was in her blood generations deep. Thad reached for her and her earthcraft pounded up in a wall.

  “I can’t do this, Donte.” She panted wildly, pushing with her wounded arm at his unbreakable grip, twisting her forearm, backing away and tugging to be free.

  “By my pleasure, you will, bitch.” Russ’s voice came with crackling whoosh.

  A blast hit her square in the spine. She arched up onto her toes, a gurgling scream wrenched halfway out of her and frozen in agony. Her blood melted. Her skin inside the leather seemed to disappear.

  Thad shattered her thin wall, his fists bursting through it, toppling the upper half. His fingers locked on her throat and yanked her forward. His breath smelled of spiced peppers. His will crushed her.

  Her body twisted between the two pains, the one behind driving her into stillness, and the one before her sucking the air from her lungs. Her legs kicked wildly, knocking the rest of the weak barrier down.

  “Hold her still,” Thad snapped.

  Donte’s hands shifted to her shoulders. He held her up the way one would hold a fresh nightshirt before folding it.

  Strangled animal noises came from her throat. Her gaze rolled from the trees to the sky to Thad’s insane teal gaze. His fingernails ripped into her neck. If his look along her form had felt oily, the presence of him inside her was like lava. There was no resisting it. He trampled into her and slid deep. She suffered, struggled, and ended. Thad’s presence settled inside her with the clank of a spiritual lock. Donte. I t
rust you.

  Thad caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “There. You’re all safe from the royal earthmage, Russ.” He backhanded her.

  For all his form was slender, there was incredible muscle there. Her head lashed to the side and her vision spun in a burst of pain. Donte continued to hold her steady.

  Perhaps it was strange, but at this darkest moment yet, she took strength from his presence at her back. Her mate was here, bearing her up, with her. He’d survived this same spell, found a way out. With the horror of it crushing her, she’d never been more impressed.

  She was locked to Thad now but she truly believed Donte was the master here. For the first time since they’d arrived, she leaned on him. They were together.

  Thad sighed, pleased. Drawing her in roughly by gripping her braid at the back of her head, he licked up the side of her face and across one eye. Her breath dragged in roughly. Donte’s hands were like talons on her shoulders and she knew he suffered.

  Thad rested his smooth cheek against hers. He whispered to Donte, “You serve me well, my pet. Too well. Clearly you seek to betray me but you will fail. I will enjoy ripping the cunt you claimed to pieces. She’ll suffer a year and a day more than I held you before I let her die.”

  Donte stood absolutely still behind her. Thad thrust out his lower lip, clearly disappointed his heinous words failed to rile Donte. He pushed Donte’s grip from her shoulders. Instantly, Moriko wavered. He took her upper arms and spun her around, pulling her to lean against his chest, his hands cupping the leather swells of her breasts. Moriko looked up at Donte, but his gaze was locked on Thad, empty, cold.

  “I understand this is the princess you once used so fondly, Signy.”

  “Yes.” Signy’s answer was faint, bored.

  Thad snickered. “Donte, go give Signy a kiss. I know how you love her kisses.”

  Warm air puffed past Moriko’s face. Donte leaped across the clearing in such a burst of grace and strength it took her breath. He landed next to Signy. Signy threw Moriko a look that would have done Akisa proud and ordered him to his knees. He knelt as easily as he had for Idivay.

  Signy clenched her fist in the back of his hair and wrenched his head back. Her thin mouth pressed down over Donte’s, eating at him with awful eagerness. Moriko moaned, shaking. Thad yanked her head up and around to his own face and bit at her lips, sliming his tongue against her locked teeth.

  A burst of green light glowed over his mouth, painting the smooth, symmetrical lines of Thad’s face into a nightmare mask. “Sit, bitch, with your hands in your lap.”

  She sat. Her body moved without her intent. Unlike the spell with Russ where he’d bitten into her arm, there was no battle, no slow horror. His desire controlled her like a puppet. Her mind roared and sobbed, battering in her own echoing hall, locked out. He’d done something to her lips. Itching erupted over them in a wave of agony. Her hands anchored demurely at her waist would not move. She rolled her gaze down, and knew her mouth was free of a thousand spiders, but her mind swarmed nonetheless.

  He relaxed against the tree, legs stretched, ankles crossed.

  Moriko wondered at the shimmering green dome that appeared.

  “What are you doing, Thad?” Signy’s scorn was clear.

  Russ stood with his hands on his hips, staring up at it from within. All three of the darkmages were sealed under a new dome that filled most of the small clearing. And Donte, too, crouched beside Signy, blood trickling from his mouth.

  Sverre lobbed a burst of green fire at it, clearly as a test more than anything. A black slash of lightning shot back at him, knocking him down in a spray of dirty water.

  Thad chuckled, rubbing his palms. Which made his rage-filled roar so surprising in the very next instant. “Did you think I didn’t know?”

  Sverre splashed to his feet. All three of them turned toward Thad. Donte remained crouched. Moriko’s throat was dust dry. She didn’t like him in there with them. This was bad.

  “Every last one of you is planning to betray me.” Thad shoved off from the log and strode up to the edge of the cage. “My Bear, I can understand. I expected it. Not that he’ll succeed. But you, who have benefitted so much from my vision, from my strength. You whisper and lurk at the slightest sign of hardship. So we lost some acolytes. So we lost our lizard birds. So we lost most of our sifting stones. Not before we made good use of them. We still have my foundation.”

  He paced along the outside edge, blasting tufts of land with black clouds sprinkled with green. Grass disappeared in oily bursts of soot. “My orders constantly resisted, constantly questioned. Your disgusting fear and respect of the beasts who have fouled our birthright for so long.”

  He stopped and hammered at the dome with his fist, sending green bursts out from it like pebbles in a pond. “Who delivered the killing blow against the beasts we brought down today, finally, gloriously in open combat against them?”

  The entire world froze. Thad kicked the dome. She watched it ripple up and suddenly knew it was not a sphere, only half a globe. Some of her tension faded. Thad had not blocked off the earth.

  “It was me, that’s who.” He said it sullenly, half to himself. He blasted a thin sapling and a waft of smoke rose up into the air, a delicate trail of pain from a simple, natural, beautiful thing.

  “We do not challenge you, Thad. We have been ever loyal at every stage of your plan.” Sverre moved in a flowing cross-step to place himself equidistant from the others.

  “Ha!” The young man tossed his head, his lank, greasy blond hair bright in the sun. “If that was true you’d be far stupider than I ever intended you to be. Of course you should try to move against me before the final act, so that you could reap more for yourself. But I am not lost to madness as you’d all like me to be. I know you plot against me.”

  He came to the bloody remains Russ had been using when they’d first arrived. Blasting it again and again, throwing in various styles of bolts, the smell of rotting flesh soon made Moriko gag from the very bottom of her stomach.

  “Did you seriously,” blast, “honestly,” blast, “think I was going to sit there,” blast, “while you gathered in this field to attack me as a unit?” He spun with a shout and thrust both hands forward. A stump burst into flames.

  Sacred Couple, please. Moriko was locked in body and mind by the power of this man. The magecraft he exhibited in a mere tantrum was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

  He straightened with a sigh, flicking at his cuffs. “No. Instead, I will sit here and watch you attack each other.”

  “We are your best. If you seek to prove yourself sane you are doing a poor job.” Signy’s voice whipped like a lash. “Why waste your strongest tools against each other?”

  He threw back his shoulders. “Because this isn’t just a cage.” He gave a flourish with one hand. “It is a funnel and everything inside it comes right back to me.”

  He spun on a heel and marched back toward Moriko. She’d never been so cold. When she tried to move back, pain pierced her. When she froze, it faded.

  “What makes you think we’ll fight each other?” Russ asked indignantly.

  “Because Signy’s right. I’m not going to waste all of you. The last one standing will prove themselves the strongest, and yet will never be stronger than me. I will take Royal City, Seventh, the Farm and the Island. Whoever is left will get the rest.” Unbelievably, he stopped and picked a tiny white flower. “We’ll have a long hard siege ahead against the truxet, but we’ll kill many of their women at the island and they won’t have access to the Cities. Once we harvest the wildlings, they’ll fall in a generation. Now begin. Bear, attack.”

  He said it all of one breath, but they all acted as if on cue. Moriko cowered from the display that lit up the dome. Thad sat down beside her, twirling the flower in his grip.

  Donte lunged and dodged, flipped and spun. Blood flew from his claws, yet he held to human form instead of the more powerful blended form she knew trux used in battle. He was hammered
by darkcraft blows from all angles and once she saw him pull a small knife from his shoulder. The dome speckled with black spots as it returned punishment to anyone with sloppy aim.

  Thad gave a small sexual groan now and then. She leaned as far from him as the pain would allow. It soon became clear to her that Donte was alternating his attacks between Signy and Sverre. Sverre was also attacking Signy, but Russ and Signy were trying to bring Donte down.

  “So, why did he pick you?” Thad asked, his fingers rising to undo one of her buckles.

  She twitched but he said, “Hold still.”

  Her body was immobilized.

  “He must have chosen you for a reason. He’s very clever, my Bear. He wouldn’t have chosen the easiest fuck, like he was scratching an itch. He knew he’d be back with me, so he must have wanted you back here, too.”

  Donte was hit by a dual blast from Russ and Signy and went down hard enough his body rolled over on itself, feet flying. She moaned.

  “Answer me. Why did he pick you?”

  She was surprised he actually followed through with a thought. “I’m an excellent fighter.” Get up, Donte.

  “Tsk. Tell the truth.”

  Her gut burned, her head throbbed. Her mouth rolled and she tried to twist his command. “I’m a really good lay.”

  Russ stalked over to Donte and held his arms out, gathering black energy around his fists. Sverre and Signy were now locked in an exchange both physical and craft. For every brutal blow Signy landed, Sverre kicked her with a high warrior’s strike. He also dodged a few spell blasts, letting the dome give a counter blow back.

  The pain of holding back from his command made her cough. Jaw straining, she was unable to resist. She finished, “They were going to kill him. He needed a contact in the Cities, someone who could demand his life. I was perfect access to the Queen.”

  Donte threw a fireball at Russ, who did some falling of his own. Moriko wanted to cry when Donte still failed to get up. The tears burned but she was too angry.