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“And when we fucked,” Bracken chimed in, his gleaming white fangs on full display as he too, stood and boxed me in.
Suddenly backed into a tree on the opposite side of the pathway, I reached for Clem, pulling him to my chest as a shield. Kiar’s tail curled around my ankle and when Clem pulled far enough away for me to see his face, I saw that he was wearing the same lascivious smile as the others.
I released him, sneering at them all, even as my heart skipped a beat.
All they ever had was sex on their demented minds! I thought I was too easily aroused at times until I met them. I was no match for their sexual drive.
“No. More. Fucking,” I gritted out, even as my chest clenched, my body remembering the feeling of all of them, all at once, consuming me last night. I wanted that again, to feel that high, that sensual rush.
I knew I’d be chasing that feeling over and over again for the rest of my life after we parted ways. That’s why it was better to stop them now. I had already let it all go too far.
“How else can we give you enough power to break the tether?” I demanded, clutching Clem’s shoulder.
“Why so soon?” Bracken cooed. “Birds of a feather should flock together. We can help you along the way. You won’t be able to grab the stone in that state, in a noc-ruled territory, right, Sun?”
Help? I thought, fury and bitterness overwhelming me because Bracken was right and that pissed me off even more.
I glared up at him, and he smiled down at me, but it was anything but friendly this time. I wasn’t stupid enough to underestimate a noc who was so intimately connected to me. Afterall, their alliance was with their undead king.
“How about we hunt?” Kiar suggested, curling around a tree as he raised up, propelled by his tail, plucking a withered bellfruit from a branch. “Killing. Fucking. Eating. I’ve noticed all three of these things strengthen Clem’s spell, and us in turn. And it’s better than standing here arguing.”
“…Sounds like a plan for now. The night approaches and we will be more powerful. It would be nice to fatten Sun up so we don’t have two bony pets,” Bracken mused, rubbing his chin again.
I blinked up at him, shocked, as he and Kiar shared a look, and I realized the extent of what he meant when he called me a “pet,” that he meant it in the literal sense.
Tensing, ready to argue, I was stopped by Clem tugging on my hand. He knelt and healed the bruises on my knees and rubbed his heated palms over my feet, before whispering, “Let them go. We need mana before it’s too late to restore the spell.”
Bracken and Kiar turned to leave before I could get a word in with them, though it didn’t matter. Clem didn’t need to elaborate on what would happen to us if we didn’t secure the mana he so desperately craved to keep our souls tethered.
“Just scream if you need us. But don’t you worry your handsome little head, Sun. We’ll stick close and protect you two if trouble finds you,” the batbeast chirped over his shoulder, followed by a cackle as they disappeared into the thicket of leaves, leaving us all alone.
“Ugh!” I punched the tree behind me, infuriated because I genuinely did need their protection. I was left behind and compared to a mothian in terms of strength. A level-one noc! How absurd.
No, what was more absurd was the fact that I was weaker than Clem in that moment, since punching the tree hurt me more than it should’ve as I crouched in defeat, nursing my self-inflicted wound. Fed up, I tried to focus on something else so I wouldn’t rage, hurt myself, and drain Clem’s magic even more.
Clem twiddled two sets of thumbs besides me as I adjusted my clothing, and my sword. My captivity had made me rather bony, truly, and whoever wore this uniform before me had to be much taller and broader. I was practically swimming inside of it compared to my former tattered robes.
Digging into the pockets to warm my hands, I was startled when something sharp nicked my fingertips.
“Huh?”
Carefully this time, I reached inside, shocked to find shards of Blood Onyx in my pants pockets as I yanked them out.
“How hadn’t I noticed?” I thought, gathering them into one fist, slapping my forehead in disbelief with my free hand.
I had completely forgotten stealing the sharp pieces of noc weaponry.
It would have been a great aid during the revolt. But it seemed my nocs had fucked my common sense out of my head, just as I’d suspected, seeing as I didn’t think of it even during the heat of the battle.
Clem pursed his thin lips as I picked up two shards carefully so that I wouldn’t slice off my fingers. Jia had used them as weapons in the battle, filling me with pride. Maybe I, too, could figure out how to turn my folly into a blessing. But how? She and Atlan must have taken many moons to sharpen the tips into the shapes they wanted, as they planned out how to overpower the rats.
“...You can sharpen them, you know, without an axe. It’s better too, seeing as striking the bloodstone with a shard of bloodstone is how you unlock its power,” Clem paused to click. “That’s why you all had common tools for such hard metal, or you prisoners could have turned its power against your captors. That shard is large enough I think to spark. It won’t hold Dio’s blessing, but it’ll be sharp enough to kill most nocs, I think.”
Clem stated all that as if it were common knowledge. And maybe it was. Or maybe inside Bracken’s infamous cave, he took up smithing and spell casting. Only the Gods knew.
A flash of anger heated my chest. This was yet another lie of omission. If I’d known what the Blood Onyx was called, and how to power it, maybe just maybe I could’ve pulled off a revolt sooner than expected.
But then I would have probably been killed, and if nothing else, I couldn’t fault Clem’s need for self-preservation.
