[b][u][center]Perks of Desperation
Part 2
For A-lycotonum
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]








She came as soon as he called her name with full intent, and she came with the whistling of wind through trees that were not there, with the smoke and heat of a forest on fire. No sooner had he whispered her name than a shadow of her appeared before him, shifting and as indistinct as the smoke of which she smelled. Her body was vaguely canine-esque, a muzzle barely visible through the fumes and rising spirals of black vapor, but it was her glowing eyes that held him. She smiled, fangs of stained ivory barely visible. 

“Vitus…so you finally understand what you want.”

“I understand what I need,” he corrected her. 

“Want, need…they’re close enough.”

“For your sort.”

“For all of us. The hunt is on, and a want becomes a need soon enough.”

“And you need me more than I need you – ulk!”

He gasped as she crossed the space between them, grabbing his throat and bearing him down to the bed with the greatest of ease. There was far more force and substance behind her grip than he had expected or anticipated, and he gagged as he tried to breathe through the grip she had around his neck. 

“Don’t try, puppy. I know what you are…and I know that I want you…but that doesn’t mean that you are my only tool. A worthwhile one, and one that I’ve invested a [i]lot[/i] in, but not my only tool.”

“Nnngh…mmph…”

“If you fail me, I have other hunters to bring forward.”

“Nnngh…”

“But I don’t want you gone…and I want you to succeed…so…”

She loosened her grip, and he gasped for breath. As she pulled away, he rolled onto his stomach, huffing, panting, one hand going to his throat. It felt almost like she had seared his neck with fire, and for a moment, he swore that he felt bald skin beneath his fingers, patches where her touch had burned through his fur almost like the touch of a collar. The fur regrew, and soon, it was gone, but the memory and the discomfort remained. 

“Now…face me like a hunter…and not like some bitch eager for breeding.”

He growled deep in his throat, but he knew that there was no way that he could directly challenge her. He might have called her to him, but that didn’t mean squat. There was no summoning circle, no great power that held her bound. She was here on her own volition, and the fact that she was this strong, even as nothing but a shade, meant that he had to take this carefully. 

So, he stood up slowly, turning to face her. His shaft had gone soft, finally, and he was able to face her without the embarrassment of a throbbing cock pointing in her direction. Melchiresa paced back and forth, moving from one side of the cabin to the other, never taking her eyes from him. 

“What do you want, Vitus? What will it take to make you do what I want?”

“I want to know…what you need, first.”

“Mmmm, information for your obedience?”

“Information as [i]part[/i] of the price for my obedience.”

“Mmm, mmm.”

“You want me to do things? I need to know if I even can.”

“That…I will help you with.”

She waved her hand, and as she did, the smoke flew from her body. It formed into a map, gray-scaled, and it spread out, and out, and out until it showed all of the known world. It spread from Absalom at the center to Infernal Cheliax to the east, and from there, to the other great continents. Absalom and its island had already turned black, marked as taken, and Cheliax was nearly as dark. 

“Devil-stained?” he asked. 

“Devil-ruled.”

“Hmm…”

His eyes drifted up and over the different places on the map. There were meanings and interpretations to be gained from the different colors. Gray in places, and almost gray-green in another, further north. He ran his hands through the smoke, disturbing it as he looked at the forests there. A great woodland…stained…no, illuminated, rather than stained, but in a way that hurt the eye. 

[i]Holy?[/i] he wondered. [i]Or purified?[/i]

Either way, it wasn’t good, so he moved on. 

Further down the map, he could see pockets where the gray turned almost red. Nothing was ever its true color, merely a hint of it, a suggestion towards it as it moved from gray to something else. He looked at it, then at the movement further south, the boat that they were on, and confirmed that it was the same color. 

“Demon Lord followers. Or enclaves. Or cults,” he said. 

“Hmmm, Katya was right about you. You learn quickly.”

“It’s the only reason that I’m still alive.”

“No. I am. Your learning just helps.”

The Demon Lord clenched her fist, and the map zoomed in, closing on the space between them and Cheliax. He winced; that wasn’t what he wanted to see. 

“I want you and yours to go to this place. There are people there that can help you grow, make you stronger, make you more powerful, and allies of Brundir that you can hunt and slay.”

“I am not a killer.”

“Oh, did you not hear me the first time?” Melchiresa smirked. “You are my hunter. You go, you hunt, and you [i]kill[/i] where I tell you.”

“You want me to hunt, you let me do it my way. I can do more than kill.”

“Yes. You can screw up. And rut.”

“…”

“You will go to Cheliax. You will hunt at my command. And you will grow strong. Strong enough to survive, strong enough to thrive against Brundir.”

“…And the others?”

“Heh. Your pack?”

He nodded. 

“They will come with you. You will protect them. And the stronger you become, the better a job you can do with that. I will give you strength, and power, and give Katya the spells to teach you to make you my best hunter…if you obey.”

That was the caveat. He had little doubt that Melchiresa could make him stronger. Even now, standing beside her, he could feel the power of her demonic essence in the air. He could smell the burning of the wood she stood on, even though it was nothing more than her shade, her projection. The corruptive power of the Demon Lord had already twisted some of the boards of wood into something else, something otherworldly, reeking of rut and blood. 

He looked at his hands, at the claws that had grown from his fingers, at his naked body. His humanity had been stripped from him, and no illusion would ever bring that back. The sooner that he got used to the fact that he’d have to make a deal with some power out there, the better for him. He had to do this. 

And there were no gods that could help him. Only the Demon Lords were free to work. 

“Fine. We’ll go to Cheliax.”

“Good boy.” She chuckled. “But you said that was only [i]part[/i] of your price. What else do you ask of the Hunt-Mistress?”

“…”

“Ask, or I will consider our deal concluded.”

“I want…strength. Power. Magic.” Vitus looked at his hands, unable to make himself look the Demon Lord in the eye. “I’ve always been the one to fail. The one to lose. The one that had to be rescued. Let me…for once, let me be the one that [i]can[/i] take care of things. Let me have the power to do what’s needed…so that they don’t have to come for me. Again.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Heh…a hunter that asks for the strength to hunt…perhaps you have some glimmer of intelligence, after all.”

“Hmmph.”

“Granted…You will grow…slowly, but by you will grow. And by the time that you reach Cheliax, you will have the strength that you ask for.”

Melchiresa was fading, he realized, her voice going quieter and quieter. He lifted his head to see that her smoky body had already all but disappeared, leaving only claws and teeth and eyes behind. She was smirking, too, and he wondered just how bad his decision had been. 

But one last thing lingered, rankling. He said it before he lost the chance.

“Hazel’s your other hunter, isn’t she?”

“…Heh…no. She’s my [i]bitch.[/i]”

And with that, the Demon Lord disappeared. The smell of smoke, however, did not. 

Vitus slumped back to his bed, sitting on the foot of it and staring straight ahead. His eyes were fixed on the wall, almost as if he could stare through it, and he wondered, briefly, if the light in the north had been the result of Hazel’s actions. He remembered that she’d gone so far, heading back to the ancient temple where she’d trained, and that she had meant to seek out the light of Erastil for both their sakes. 

What had happened to her?

What had become of her?

And why did Melchiresa proclaim Hazel as hers?

#

Robin groaned. It was a familiar sound, and one that bothered her to make as she knew that it bothered her husband to hear. Piers shook his head, looking away from her. He looked at the book on his lap, looked out their porthole at the sea, looked down at the hole in his clothes, and looked down at his arm. 

Or rather, what had been his arm. What was now a stump, and no more, and still seemed more interesting to him than what she had become. 

“You can’t forgive me, can you?” she asked. 

“…”

“You can say something. Anything. If you’re angry, then fuck, be angry. But say something.”

Piers said nothing, as he had done ever since they had boarded the ship. Robin knew that her husband would be like this after the operation had gone bad, knew that he’d be broken in some ways, but she hadn’t expected this. She’d expected him to come out of it with fury, with rage, or, failing that, as the man that she had seen when Vitus had fucked her in front of the former commander. 

She thought that she’d see something. Instead, she saw nothing. Nothing of the man that had been her husband, nothing of the man that had run their lives together as a tight unit. Nothing of the condescending bastard that she loved as much as she hated. 

Nothing. 

She groaned again, and he whipped his head around. 

“Stop doing that.”

“Then do something about it,” she said. 

“As if you’d want me to. After that.”

“…”

“After him.”

Robin glared, but he didn’t push it. God, she wished he would. Just to show her something, anything remained of the soldier that she had married. It would have been a relief, a chance to see that there was hope that he could recover, instead of just sinking into this. 

She bit off the next groan that came, though. It wasn’t fair to him, in some ways. And it wasn’t something that she wanted to let loose, anyway, particularly with what it meant. 

The clenching between her legs had been going ever since the night before, and it was something that she’d [i]tried[/i] to use to get Piers happy again. She’d thought that any man would have enjoyed the feeling of being wanted so badly that a woman would throw herself at them, would go down and do whatever they wanted. She thought that he’d love the chance to prove to himself that she was his wife, his female. 

But then, he’d seen the fur on her neck, on her face. He’d seen her bestial shapes, and he’d turned away. He refused, utterly refused to touch her anytime that there was a hint of the were-rat to her, and no matter how much she tried to control herself, the moment that she was touched, or even tasted, she could feel it slipping. 

Even now, her bare feet cracked and stretched, only to pull back in, going from tanned human feet to pink rat paws, and then back again. They would elongate, getting nearly half again as long, with long, flexible toes, and then pulse as they got more sensitive against the boards of wood underfoot, and then she’d get control and pull them back. She’d hold it for a while, and then, the moment she relaxed, lose it again, watching as they stretched out and grew a little bit longer once more. 

It was a constant battle to keep herself in human form, and it was getting harder and harder the longer that this heat went on. The ache between her legs, the dull need, was making it so hard to think of anything but the urge to get fucked, the urge to get bent over and railed like there was no tomorrow. 

She gritted her teeth as she rolled off the bed, getting to her feet. She stumbled, her loose tunic sliding along, raising up along her back. The breath of air along her bare ass was enough to remind her of her state of undress, that she could leave the cabin and get fucked by one of the crew if they saw her like this. 

The guard-woman that she had once been would have been disgusted at that. 

Instead, she felt aroused beyond measure. The idea of being fucked, of having this painful urge mated right out of her, was almost tempting enough to indulge. She took a half-step from the bed, then stopped herself, sitting down once more. 

No. No. She was his wife. She had already strayed. She could be better than that. 

“Why are we doing this?” Piers asked. 

“Because going home would get us killed.”

“Not that. Not leaving. Why are we with…them?”

Robin had asked herself the same question, though clearly she’d found more satisfactory answers than her husband. They were chased out of Absalom by someone with greater power than any other force that had ever ruled it. The Arcanamirium, perhaps, might exist as a bastion against that strength for a short time, but it would be under siege, all but imprisoned within the various laws that Gralon Brundir would be weaving against it. Any overt action would be punished, and the other establishments of the city would be present to take action against them as part of the various treaties that bound the tightly-knit city of magic together. 

There were a hundred and one different checks and balances that were supposed to keep any one power from seizing the city, but the problem with all those checks and balances was that they had been an intricate system that almost nobody ever bothered to learn in full. There was no point; they just worked, so why bother learning [i]how[/i] they worked?

That way of thinking had brought them to their knees when Gralon Brundir had come around and started using their own system against them, taking more time than anyone in the history of Absalom to learn their own laws and build his own into the system, slowly giving himself the edge without anyone ever realizing it. And now…

Now, they were on the run. 

“Why aren’t we going somewhere…good? With good people?” Piers asked. 

“They saved us.”

“They were part of the problem,” he muttered, bitter. “They broke the law.”

“Let’s not forget, the person that kept the law is the one that’s behind all these problems in the first place.”

“He manipulated it. He didn’t keep it.”

“The law states what it states,” she said, shaking her head. “And when you can interpret them to your liking, there’s always going to be someone that takes advantage of it.”

“It shouldn’t be like this.”

“Yes. But it is. And good people weren’t there to stop it. They weren’t enough to stop it. So…we need someone else.”

“Hmmph. You sure that you don’t just [i]need[/i] him?”

“Are you sure you don’t want just want me to go to him so you can watch again?” she snapped back. 

It was the wrong thing to say, but it was the first thing that had popped into her head with his attitude. She almost immediately regretted it, particularly as he stopped talking. This had been the most conversation that they’d had since he had lost his arm, and she hated the fact that it was about [i]this[/i], but at least it had been something. Not more of the infinite silence. 

He wasn’t showing any signs of talking again, either. She reached out, taking his hand – his only remaining hand – and squeezed it. 

“Look…I did that. And…you watched. You watched…and there was some part of you that –”

“Mmph.”

“I’m not saying we’ll do that again. I’m just saying…it was both of us. So stop holding it against me.”

“…If he called…”

“…”

“Would you answer?”

Robin wished that she could have said no. She wished so hard that she could have told Piers that she would say no, that she would stay with him, that he would be the one that she devoted herself to. 

But even as she opened her mouth to say it, she remembered what she’d seen of her husband. She remembered how pathetic he was as Vitus took her. She remembered how he had sneered at her and pushed her away with the beast-side that had come to her since. Gods, she remembered how he had looked down at her in the barracks, how he had looked at her as something else, something that needed to be cared for, not someone that could stand on their own two feet. 

She remembered all the ways that he had subtly and not so subtly made it clear that he thought she couldn’t take care of herself, and found that she couldn’t actually answer him. She sighed, looking down. 

“…That’s what I thought,” Piers whispered. 

“Then let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“If he called me…would you stay, or would you come, too?”

“…”

“That’s what [i]I[/i] thought.”

#

Katya lingered at the main deck, staring out over the horizon as she imagined what would come next. She knew for a fact that Vitus had called Melchiresa as soon as she left his chambers, and she knew that there would be some sort of negotiation between them. 

Melchiresa would come out ahead. The Demon Lord always did. It was just a matter of how much. 

But in the meantime, the hoofed woman stared out across the sea. There was nothing to see in any direction; no other boat could match their speed without magic – and she had countermeasures for that – and there was no land to see in any direction. They were adrift, and while the captain of the ship doubtlessly had his ideas of where they were going, he would go wherever Katya told him to go. 

Not that he’d realize that it was her decision, of course, but that was the benefit of a charm spell as powerful as the one that she’d used. Sometimes, the best power to wield was to be seen to wield none while holding all. 

Looking down at her hands, she let her magic ooze free. She didn’t have the power of a sorcerer, not the raw energy that Vitus had, but unlike what most of the Arcanamirium believed, she was no devotee of the arts of wizardry, either. Melchiresa was more than just her demonic patron. Melchiresa was her [i]Patron.[/i] A warlock gained power in very different ways to those that gained it through the books or through blood, and they were quite flexible, as well. 

Particularly those that were willing to listen to others. 

Shimmering shapes of black and red and purple danced over her fingers, ranging from smoke to glass, from iron to silver. The various demons that she’d encountered in her lifetime waged constant war with spirits and fae, and them with the other, more elemental creatures that lived in the various planes that surrounded theirs. The life of an academic gave many opportunities to make contact with them, to spread her offerings through the various stages of the universe, and most of the time, someone was there to accept them. 

Her raw power might be less than others, but that did not mean that she did not come forearmed with everything else. She had spells of fire and ice, of hell and heaven. She had spells of the deepest pits, and of the highest skies. Magics of the forest and the smoke, and catechisms of the ancient words, and more rested in her heart. Katya knew them all…

And she still knew that she was [i]nothing[/i] before her Demon Lord. Melchiresa was but one of her many deals made, but the lord of the hunt, the master of all the packs and hunters of the world, could still pull her up short in a way that no other could. Her power, her knowledge, was [i]nothing[/i] compared to that handle on her soul. 

She let the magic fade, only for another pressure to take hold. She bit her lip for a moment as the teeth of her Demon Lord pressed against the sides of her neck for a moment, only to release a second later. Things had not gone quite as well as Melchiresa had wanted, apparently, and the heat of the demon’s displeasure washed over her. 

[i]You have made him…intelligent.[/i]

“I wish I could take credit.”

[i]He knows about the other.[/i]

“Heh…He probably remembered what we did in the Arcanamirium, then.”

[i]Not all of it…but some.[/i]

“Did he want –”

[i]No. Thankfully.[/i]

Katya nodded. She imagined that it would have been a bit difficult to promise Hazel to the young man if he had demanded her. For all that Melchiresa seemed rather content with a number of things that had happened lately, that one had been a mixed bag. Things had not gone as well as the Demon Lord had wanted. She didn’t know all the details, but she was aware of that much, at least. 

She continued to stare out over the sea, holding back whatever else she wanted to say as the Demon Lord paced behind her, invisible to all eyes but her. The smoky smell in the air, however, would be more of a giveaway to those that knew what to look out for. She doubted that anyone else on the boat had any such knowledge of that, but she imagined that it would be unpleasant for them. Demon smoke often was. 

“What now?”

[i]Cheliax.[/i]

“Where?”

[i]Westcrown.[/i]

Katya flicked through her own knowledge of Infernal Cheliax. Unlike most of the world, she had little experience there, if only for the fact that devils were more about long-term contracts and she had been more focused on getting short-term deals, but there were a few little facts that she could pull out of it. 

Including the fact that there was a manor there that Vitus would doubtlessly like to see, once he was made aware of its existence. She made a mental note to keep that from him as long as possible. The more that he had to rely on her, the better, and that meant encouraging a little more of his learned helplessness. Particularly if he had made a deal with the Demon Lord to gain power of his own. 

“Is there anything I must do between now and then?”

[i]Encourage his lusts.[/i]

“Heh…he will not be happy about that.”

[i]A duty of a hound is to breed.[/i]

“And you want him to breed his pack?”

[i]To start. I want him to keep that rat pregnant. I want her to give litters of hound-rats. I require more of a pack…and he will need a bigger one, with more females.[/i]

“And…the Bitch?”

[i]Eventually…eventually.[/i]

Of course, Katya had every reason to doubt it would be that easy. The ‘Bitch’ had been a priestess, after all, and they were quick to have faith in things, no doubt. However, that faith, once given, was incredibly difficult to shake. It would require taking her away from her previous god and all but converting her to be a priestess of Melchiresa to create the sort of bonding that the Demon Lord wanted. 

Not impossible, of course…but difficult. 

Even so, she found herself puzzling through the spells that would affect the mind and gradually drag one down that path, and Melchiresa chuckled. 

[i]You were ever the puzzle solver…[/i]

“I can’t help myself.”

[i]Help yourself to something else.[/i]

“Yes, my master.”

[i]And ensure that he fucks.[/i]

“Yes, master.”

Even if that meant fucking her, she knew that meant. Katya felt the usual little clenches down below. She had only teased him about the possibility of using her again, and while she had been looking forward to it, some part of her had hesitated. 

That part was dead. Permission made for a great deal of pleasurable anticipation.

#

Vitus breathed slowly as he gradually dragged himself back from the edge of contemplative oblivion. The constant wishes and worries that had come about with Melchiresa’s statement had all but stolen his mind from the task ahead, and he knew that he needed to keep his mind on the deeds to be done. 

First, to get to Cheliax. That would be easy enough, he imagined, what with Katya’s connection to the captain. After that, finding out where they were going once they made landfall would probably be a start, and after that…

After that, he needed to do something about the guards that had come with them. 

He sighed, leaning over his hands. He’d managed to rescue them from the devils pursuing them to the boat, but the fact was, he was taking them somewhere just as bad, if not outright worse. There was no reason to believe that they would want to come with him, but now that they were this far from Absalom, with no clear way of sending them somewhere else, he doubted that there was much choice. He had to take them with him. 

His cock twitched in his sheath, and he knew why. Some part of him – some part that he imagined was the hellhound, the stud, the breeder that had a pack that it wanted to use – was eager to keep Robin around. Her were-rat form and human form were both very…appealing, and he had to admit that the pleasure he got from fucking her in front of her husband had been intense, to say the least. It had been wrong, dark, dirty, but it was still incredibly pleasurable. He wanted more of that, even if it meant dragging the pair of them into danger. 

Part of him hated that new piece of himself, the piece that was eager and horny and powerful enough to want to keep it the way that it was. It was that hellhound part of him…

But it was more than that. Vitus knew that it was; it had always been there, always been that part of him that hungered for the strength to use magic properly. He [i]wanted[/i] to have the strength to do things to and for others the way that he had always heard of people being able to do. He [i]wanted[/i] to have the sort of power to draw those to him that he could indulge with, enjoy, even…even go further than most people would. 

He had never imagined himself becoming some sort of hellspawn to do it, but that didn’t mean that some part of him wasn’t satisfied with the results. He rubbed his face, touching his muzzle, remembering when he used to have a flat face, with human ears, and nothing but clean skin. Shaved and groomed properly. 

Now, he was a beast. A rutting beast. And there was nothing that he could do about it except follow the orders of the one that made him like this and hope that he could earn his way back out. 

[i]You know what you’re getting into this time,[/i] he thought, looking down at his hands. [i]The first time, Katya controlled you. The second time, Brundir bamboozled you. This time, you’re going into it with your eyes open.[/i] He clenched his hands into fists. [i]That’s the only difference…but maybe it will be enough.[/i]

Knock, knock. 

“Come in.”

It was Katya, of course. The older woman paused for a moment, looking him in the eye before slowly shaking her head. She shut the door behind her, locking it slowly. 

“We’re on our way,” she said. 

“Melchiresa told me.”

“And he told me a number of other things.”

“…Is Melchiresa…male, for you?” he asked. 

“Sometimes. But he was male first, and it always felt right to me. And he’s never asked me to change.”

“Do you think that they care about what sort of word we used for that? For them, I mean?”

“Now [i]that[/i] would be an interesting discussion, of which gods and demons and other beings had signifiers that actually meant anything…but we’re not here for religious theory, are we?”

“…I guess not.”

Vitus sat up a little straighter as the older woman sat down on the bed beside him. He braced himself, trying not to slouch as he imagined the word coming out again. ‘Stud boy’. It had hit him so hard mere minutes ago and had forced him to throb for her just as she had done before. It was a reminder of how he was a [i]dog[/i], and how he had to obey the ones that held the leash. 

At least, for now. But he braced himself…

But nothing came. 

Instead, she held up her hand, and from it, swirls of fire emerged. She made them dance around each other, forming letters and runes of different shapes and sizes. They twisted and twirled, and before they were fully complete, he was already getting something from them. 

“This is an elemental summons, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “Now, you’re a hellhound, but you have no control over fire. Not properly. Let’s correct that.”

“What about –”

“The nice thing about studying [i]your[/i] way is that it is far more…intense…than studying from books. We will get around to that…but after.”










[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: More checking in with the other cast members, and a deal with a demon. 

Tags: M/solo, F/solo, Human, Were-Rat, Demon, Demon Lord, Hellhound, Deals, Binding Agreements, Series, Fantasy, Nudity,