Rogue's Wicked Harem

by Reed James

  “Maybe...” Sven panted while rolling onto his back. “Getting tripped... was part of... my plan.”

  “I like you,” I said, tightening my grip on my sickle. “Cocky and brash to the end.”

  ~ * ~

  Princess Ava

  The lamia crashed into me. I gasped as she smashed the pointed end of her stone into my face. I shuddered, feeling the proxy shivering beneath the impact. Her attack hit with force, and alabaster wasn't the strongest of stone.

  What made it easy to shape into pleasing forms also proved its undoing here. I grabbed her waist, struggling to push her off, but her legs squeezed about my torso. She raised her weapon up again and slammed it down.

  A chip of white spun through the air—a piece of my face.

  I gasped, feeling the proxy crumbling as she slammed her stone in for a third time. Cracks ran through the delicate material. My soul struggled inside of the vessel. I had to stop her. I shot my hands up to grab her wrist.

  She dodged and struck my head from the side.

  My proxy's head shattered. I had a brief glimpse of white stone flying away from me, chunks that held the carved features of my face. Then my soul flung out in a shock of pain, shooting back to my body and...

  I didn't slam into my body. I found something else. Something that felt so empty, just aching to be filled. A proxy that wasn't a proxy. It had never been inhabited by me. I had never formed a bond with it, and yet... Yet it felt so familiar. It begged for something to animate it. It had been constructed to be possessed.

  So I possessed it.

  ~ * ~

  Sven Falk

  I gripped my sword. This wouldn't work. His reflexes were still sharp, unlike mine, but what choice did I have? His sickle swung down to rip out my throat.

  I thrust my short sword before me. Not to parry with it, but to throw it. I let go, the point knifing right for his chest, a missile he couldn't ignore. The assassin's face twisted in surprise. He hadn't expected it. His attack changed.

  His sickle knocked the sword from the air, bouncing it to the ground.

  I drew a dagger as I gained my feet, growling with the last of my will. I had to close the distance to him. I sprang at him. The world spun around me. Only the assassin remained clear to my sight, standing tall and deadly, the chain whipping around him.

  I threw myself at him.

  The chain struck my side.

  I grunted, missing with my attack. My shoulder hit him in the stomach before I bounced off of him. He stumbled back as I landed hard on the ground. I groaned, rolling, the world tumbling into a blurring mess. My stomach rebelled. My limbs shook.

  “Part of your plan, eh?” the assassin asked. Then he laughed, stalking up to me. “Oh, yes, daring. You don't give up.”

  “Only... when I'm... dead.”

  The assassin nodded. “So be it. You'll have to watch your women die from the Astral Realm.”

  ~ * ~

  Princess Ava

  I stood in my new body, crouched low. It had four legs and... a tail. I felt it swishing behind me as I padded around, adjusting to the new proxy. I faced Greta, her eyes wide as she knelt over my body. I shook my new flesh. It felt... woven together.

  “Princess?” Greta asked, her voice soft.

  “Yes,” I said through the muzzle of the... of the feyhound. How was I in Scáthnamhaid?

  Then I remembered the lamia. My eyes found her creeping up on Zanyia. She straddled Sven's sex slave, prepared to rip out her throat. Metal clanged behind me. The assassin laughed as I sprang at the lamia.

  She looked up just in time to hiss. My new jaws felt so strong as they crushed about her throat. She yowled in pain as I carried her off of Zanyia. I bit with all my strength. I felt the warmth of her life pouring out over my muzzle as I carried her to the ground.

  I landed on her. Her eyes were so wide as she convulsed beneath me. Claws raked at my wicker body. I felt the scratches, but didn't care. I kept biting, shaking my head from side to side as more and more of her life spilled out of her.

  She died.

  A man bellowed behind me.

  ~ * ~

  Keythivak

  Sven struggled to hold his dagger before him, his entire body shuddering and shaking. The poison burned through his veins. But I couldn't afford to leave him alive now. As much as I wanted him to suffer, to lay impotently as I killed his women one by one, I needed to eliminate him.

  Just in case.

  I kicked the dagger out of his hand.

  He struggled to draw another one as I raised my sickle up in the air. I focused on his throat, on slashing down and cutting it open. Of seeing his bright-red life gushing out of him. A tremble raced through my limbs.

  Hithina yowled in pain.

  My gaze snapped to my right. The feyhound had... Had animated again. It had its jaws wrapped about my lamia's throat, biting deep. Her blood spilled around its muzzle as it carried her to the ground. Her body spasmed, her claws raking ineffectually across the feyhound's woven body.

  My heart clenched.

  “Hithina!” I snarled as her body fell limp.

  The feyhound lifted its bloody muzzle and stared at me. My body trembled with rage. I—

  Cold pain stabbed into my heart.

  ~ * ~

  Sven Falk

  I shuddered on the ground as the assassin looked down at his chest. His eyes widened in disbelief at my throwing dagger planted between his ribs and into his heart. He stumbled back, dropping his sickle. He grabbed the hilt of the knife and wrenched it out of his flesh.

  Blood pumped down his black shirt in thick gushes. It spilled in a dark flood of crimson. He blinked then stared at me. The knife fell from his grip as he staggered to his right and collapsed hard on the ground. He let out a gurgling moan, his body collapsing.

  A great chill ran through me as the assassin died.

  The poison wracked my body. I shuddered, closing my eyes. My entire body shook and shuddered. The world spun around me. I whimpered, casting my gaze around for my sister. For Ava. For Zanyia or Aingeal.

  I had won. I killed the assassin and... and...

  The poison killed me.

  “Sven!” Ava cried out, her voice sounding twisted, almost like the barking of a bitch dog. “No, no, Sven!”

  “Ava!” I groaned. My teeth chattered. “Need... Kora... or... or... Ain... geal... For...”

  Why did I need them? The chills wracked my flesh harder. My entire body convulsed. Foam rolled out of my mouth as the world spun around me. Darkness crashed into me. It dragged me down deeper and deeper into...

  I drifted through burning fever.

  ~ * ~

  Princess Ava

  I abandoned the feyhound and opened my eyes. I sat up, Greta shivering. I gained my feet, my nightgown whirling about my feet as I spun to face Sven. He convulsed by the dead assassin, foam flecking his mouth.

  “We have to help him!” I shouted. “We have to get Kora up. Or Aingeal.”

  “How?” Greta asked as I darted to Sven lying away from the fire in the cold grass.

  “I don't know!” Tears fell down my cheeks. We won and yet... Everyone was dying anyway. How could I get them to Az and the Temple of Rithi to be healed?

  I felt so weak, so helpless. I was just a princess. I didn't have any strengths. I didn't have any powers. I could only imbue...

  I could imbue. I glanced at the feyhound. An idea formed in my head.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Goddess of Inspiration

  Princess Ava

  “You need to... keep them alive,” I panted to Greta, my face flushed. I lowered Sven's shoulders to the ground, holding his right side, my bedmaid the left.

  Her youthful face glanced up at me. “What? Are you... going somewhere?”

  I sucked in a deep breath, my heart racing from dragging Sven back to the fire where the others lay trembling and quivering, the poison raging through their bodies. My entire body trembled, fear clawing through my guts. They couldn't die. />
  My family couldn't die.

  “We'll keep them... alive, Your Highness,” croaked Nathalie, the only one still conscious, her face wan, and her body wrapped up in a blanket.

  “But where are you going?” Greta asked.

  “Az.” I drew in a deep breath and laid down beside Sven. I closed my eyes and let my soul slip out of my body into the feyhound's form.

  I settled into my new form, rising up onto the four legs. My body felt long and lean. I glanced around, my perspective lower. I breathed through the feyhound's nose and... smelled. My other proxies had the sense of touch, I could be stimulated sexually through them, but I couldn't smell. I couldn't taste.

  I didn't even understand how I could imbue the feyhound. I hadn't prepared it. I hadn't bonded to it. It just... felt open. Emptied. It didn't matter. I had to get help. I bounded away from the fire, my four paws slapping on the hard-packed road leading along the Forest of Lhes. My legs stretched out as I ran faster and faster, the land blurring beside me.

  I felt no exhaustion. The feyhound's form didn't have muscles. The branches that wove its body into a wicker form didn't need to rest. It had no heart that had to labor. Nothing but my will kept it moving.

  And I would save my family.

  I raced down the dark road as fast as a horse. As fast as the wind. The stars blazed clear above me, wheeling across the sky, the crescent moon rising towards a zenith. I hardly noticed because I dwelt in my fear. It squeezed my brain, compressing it. Terrors whipped at me to keep running, to keep flying down the road.

  What if Sven died while I went for help? What if Kora? Zanyia? I didn't even want Aingeal or Ealaín to perish. I had to save them all.

  I had to.

  How long would it take me to reach Az?

  What if they died?

  Slata, I prayed to the mother of all, watch over my family. Watch over those I love. Don't let them perish. Please, please! And Rithi, sustain your priestess and her family! Let her live to keep producing art in your honor.

  My fears haunted me every moment as I ran down the road.

  The world lightened before me; a soft, green glow built ahead of me. The darkness of the forest didn't race on my right any longer as Lake Verdant's soft light lit up the night. Hope surged through me. The lake country. I neared Az. I could reach it in time.

  I kept running faster and faster, passing Lake Verdant's shimmering surface. Another light lit up the western horizon, a soft blue hue. Lake Cerulean. Az lay near its shores, built between the major lakes, each glowing a different hue.

  I would save my family.

  As the sun rose behind me, I crested the hill and spotted the city of Az sprawling before me, Lake Cerulean glowing to the south. I knew this city. I had lived here for several years, attending the University with the other powerful and rich of Zeutch and the surrounding nations. Not even the Strife had hindered the center of learning in the world. I raced down the road, passing the farms that ringed the city. Houses grew more and more common as I entered the outskirts of the city, racing by the growing crowds of people spilling out to start their day.

  People gasped at the sight of me. I ignored them. I darted down familiar streets, snarling and growling, barreling around men pushing wheelbarrows, darting beneath the hooves of horses pulling draft wagons. I let nothing stop me as I wove through the streets of Az towards the Temple of Rithi.

  Kora's fellow priests were my family's only hope.

  ~ * ~

  Ealaín

  Heat gripped me. I swam through the fever. I groaned and trembled. Fear rippled yellow through the stifling darkness that gripped me. I was failing. My charge. Kora was dying. I was dying. How could I inspire her to create amazing art if she died?

  I darted from the heat. I stumbled through it, searching for something. I didn't know what. Why? I didn't recognize my surroundings. Everything blurred around me. I grasped a wall, something smooth beneath my touch.

  Something familiar.

  “Mother?” I asked, stumbling down a hallway. My entire body shuddered and shook. I blinked, struggling to focus my eyes. “Mother?”

  “My daughter,” a voice tinkled from around me, sounding like a breeze blowing through metallic chimes.

  “Mother!” I gasped, the world spinning around me. “I'm... I'm dying, Mother.”

  “Yes,” Rithi, Goddess of Art, whispered, her words spinning around me. “The poison ravages your mortal flesh. Your soul's tether to your body is weakening.”

  “Is there... Is there hope?” I asked. “For Kora? Her potential to create beauty in the world is so great...”

  “There is always hope.”

  “This is Sven's fault.” I swayed, the heat growing so great. It boiled out of my body and infected my soul. I was wandering from my body, drifting through the Astral Realm. I'd found my way to my mother's realm.

  “Sven?” she asked. “Sven poisoned her?”

  “He led her into the position to be poisoned.” I straightened, struggling to focus my blurry vision, to spot my mother's form. “She's just too much of a gentle soul to object to his whims, Mother.”

  A blurry figure moved closer to me. I stared at her, struggling to see her form. She resolved into clarity as she stopped before me, mother's slender and refined figure becoming clear, her skin as deep-black as mine, her long, flowing hair falling white about her shoulders, a color so pure it almost hurt my vision to gaze upon.

  Her bright-purple eyes seized mine. “What do you mean, daughter? Her brother inspires her.”

  “Her brother is killing her, Mother,” I said. “She loves him so much she has forsaken her craft. She has allowed herself to be swept up in his destructive quest for revenge. He has led her into a world of violence and placed her into harm's way time and time again. He gave her the cursed necklace she wears around her neck.

  “She will die, Mother, if she stays with him.”

  ~ * ~

  Princess Ava – Az, Princedom of Kivoneth, The Strifelands of Zeutch

  “I need help!” I shouted through the feyhound's muzzle, the words coming out harsher, deeper than my own.

  I raced up the steps of the Temple of Rithi, my wooden claws clicking on the marble that ran up to the impressive columns holding up the triangular peaks of the massive roof. It was all made of stone, images of the Goddess Rithi carved into the building, showing her painting, orating, sculpting, dancing, love-making, writing, and more. She created art in every way possible, her features brought to life with such precision.

  “Please!”

  The baby-faced youth, wearing the white robes of a glimmer (a novice priest-in-training), straightened up as he stood at the entrance. He smoothed his robes as he stared at my strange body bounding up to him.

  “Hurry, hurry! My family is dying. I need to speak with a priest or priestess. A... A radiant.”

  “Family?” the young man asked, his voice quivering and cracking. “What? What are you?”

  “That doesn't matter,” I snarled, fear squeezing any patience out of me. “Kora Falk is dying! She needs to be healed. I need help! Right now!”

  The glimmer blinked his eyes. He threw a look over his shoulder, peering through the open doors into the temple. Then he looked back at me. “Kora... Falk?”

  I let out a whining groan. “You're new. You don't know Kora?”

  He shook his head.

  “She's a radiant from this temple. She's been poisoned.”

  “Kora... Falk?” he asked again. “Are you... sure? You're a... a...”

  “It's just a vessel,” I snarled. “Please, please, fetch a radiant. She's dying. She needs to be healed. If you don't, you'll be responsible for Kora Falk's death!”

  “Well... I...” He shifted in his white robes, rubbing his hands together. “If you need healing, I'd go to the Temple of Slata.”

  “Kora is one of you!” I howled. “You should be the one to help her. And there's an aoi si. One of your Goddess's daughters.”

  “Kora Falk?
I really haven't heard of this radiant. You say she's from this temple. Why haven't I heard of her before? And an aoi si? Truly?”

  “Because of politics,” a new voice said. Behind the glimmer, a pink-robed priestess appeared, red hair spilling about a mature, freckled face. Her blue eyes stared down at me, wide. “You say Kora Falk is dying, Princess?”

  She knew who I was? “Yes! She's been poisoned. Her and... others.”

  “It is good to hear that she lives,” the priestess said.

  “For now. We have to go.”

  “Radiant Gertrude?” the glimmer asked, staring at the priestess.

  “You heard the princess,” the radiant said. “One of our radiants and a demigoddess need our help. Go and saddle my horse.”

  Hope surged through me. “Hurry!”

  ~ * ~

  Zanyia

  Throbbing pain pounded my skull. My eyes fluttered open, staring up at leaden skies. I whimpered, my thoughts muddled. My ears flicked. I inhaled, smelling stale sweat and sickness. I squirmed beneath the heavy blankets.

  “Master...” I murmured.

  “Shh,” a girl said, her face peering down at me. She had blonde hair framing her round features.

  “Who... are... you...?” I asked.

  “I'm Greta,” she said. “Don't you remember me? I'm Princess Ava's bedmaid. We've been traveling together the last few days.”

  “Princess...?” My thoughts fought against the smothering lethargy. I could feel it on my mind, holding me down from thinking. “I... What's happening?”

  “It's the poison. You fought the assassin and—”

  I hissed and tried to sit up. I got halfway up and then the world spun around me. My vision fuzzed dark. I whimpered, falling back onto the ground. I had to get up. I had to fight that lamia-bitch. I had to claw out her throat. I hissed and spluttered.

  “It's okay, Zanyia, he's dead,” Greta said. “You need to calm down. You're very sick.”

  “Greta!” the weak voice of Nathalie shouted. “It's Kora!”

  The panic in Nathalie's voice shot through my smothering weight. I turned my head as Greta scrambled away from me. Kora lay beside the fire, her head pillowed on Nathalie's lap. My Mistress thrashed and trembled, foam bubbling out of her mouth.