Armored Heart: Blood Pact. Chapter Two.

“Manny?!” Called Zorah, as she walked the distance from their room in the tenements to The Rock for the third time that day. Gods, what a damned fool she’d been to invite that boy to walk her home, rather than wait for Manny.

Zorah had felt the dread creep into her bones the very second she woke up, and saw Manny wasn’t there. When she’d left, she assumed Manny would figure it out, and follow her home soon enough. The elf never spent the night somewhere else, that just wasn’t her thing.

First, she’d followed the shortest route from home to the tavern, asking shopkeepers and locals along the way if they’d seen her before repeating that question to the tavernkeep himself. When that had only told her Manny had been the last to leave the night before, she’d gone home along a different path, asking for her along that route, as well.

Now, she was on her way back there again, following alleyways rather than main streets. Just being in them made her feel unsafe. As cramped as they were, they were always dark, even at noon.

“Manny?!” She called again, louder this time. Her voice bounced off the looming buildings, and mixed with the sounds of the city around her.

She kept walking around, searching the alleyways, checking nooks and crannies, growing increasingly worried and afraid. That fear turned to despair in an instant, when upon rounding a corner, she saw a limp form with orange hair, sprawled in a puddle of blood and broken glass.

“MANNY!?” She cried as she scrambled towards her, and pulled her into her lap. The elf was deathly pale, shivering slightly, and was clammy to the touch. Her blouse was dyed a deep maroon by the drying blood, and her neck and face both had a thick crust of the stuff stuck to them that started to flake off the second Zorah moved her.

Manny’s eyes fluttered open, looking dazed and confused. “I… I was… lookin’ for you,” she slurred.

Zorah swallowed. Gods, this really was her fault. She’d just abandoned Manny in the middle of the night, fucked right off to get laid like a gods-damned teenager. “What happened?! Are you okay?!” She asked, her voice hoarse from asking and calling out for her all day.

Manny frowned at her. “I… I don’t know. Don’t feel so good, though. Can… Can we go home?”

Zorah smiled and nodded. “Absolutely, yeah,” she said, hoarsely. “I’m… I’m just going to take you to a healer first.”

Manny snickered at her. It was as unsettling as it was relieving. “We… We can’t afford that.”

Zorah shook her head. “We’ll figure it out,” she said. Healers could cost a fair amount, and it would be a problem if they had to pay that, but… Well, they just happened to know a fair few healers from when they were growing up, and Zorah thought she could call on them for a favor.

* * *

“Manny?” Called a familiar, yet nearly-forgotten voice. It wasn’t Zorah, she’d have woken up for her. It was… someone else. It tugged at her mind, a well-defined shape that pierced through the haze and fever that was her unconscious self. She ignored it, at first. But it was insistent, and… and loud, and repetitive, and started to shake her as it called her name again and again.

“W—whath….?” Manny asked, shivering. She had such a vile, acrid taste in her mouth, and her head was pounding.

“Êtes aidé, said the voice, and her headache started to recede, leaving her only to deal with the cold and vile taste. Manny recognized it as the divine language. She’d heard it spoken so often as a child, back in the…

She frowned, and opened her eyes. The vaulted ceiling of the infirmary in the same monastery as Shala’s Embrace loomed above her, alongside the wrinkly, light-skinned face of Abbess De La Cornon, looking down her nose at her. “Gods… What in all the hells am I doing here?”

The abbess clicked her tongue, disapprovingly. “You watch your tongue, Magnanimity. We raised you better than that.”

Manny rolled her eyes at the name, and moved to sit upright. “Well, you kicked me out when I was still a child, so, no you… woah…” She trailed off as the thought petered out, and her vision started to go dark from the worst headrush she’d ever had. She slumped, and the old abbess grunted with the effort of catching her, and guiding her back into the bed.

“Shala’s grace, what happened to you, child?” The woman asked. “Zorah said she found you in a puddle of blood in an alleyway, but you haven’t a scrape on you.”

“She did?” Manny asked, looking herself over as the abbess nodded. She’d been changed into a different clothes, a simple white gown with gold thread stitching. And she’d evidently been bathed, too. “I… I was at The Rock, and I drank a lot, and… And then I left, and I…” She paused. “I don’t remember.”

The abbess frowned, and made a noise that could just as easily mean thoughtfulness as it could mean skepticism. “And you clearly have lost a lot of blood. You’re as pale as a ghost, and you can scarcely sit up straight without fainting.”

“My neck’s killing me,” Manny complained as she rubbed it. “Throat, too.”

“From lying in the street all night, I’m sure,” Abbess De La Cornon said, dismissively.

A pang of worry started to creep into Manny’s mind. If she’d been covered in blood, and was now wearing a gown… “Wait, was I… Did I have clothes on?”

The abbess’s face softened at the questions. “Yes,” she softly said. “And… I did check for signs of… that.”

“Well, was I?!”

“No.” Her voice was full of conviction and certainty. “You don’t have any bruises, any wounds at all, and… And even if someone had violated you and used healing spells, it’s all but impossible to hide such a heinous act from Shala’s scrutiny. Nobody touched you, Manny, we’re quite certain of that.”

A wave of relief washed over Manny to hear that. It made her feel a little awkward that the abbess and her priests had apparently looked at her in so much detail, but that paled before the reassurance that nobody had abused her while she was unconscious. “So… what did happen to me?”

“I don’t know,” admitted the abbess, as she rose from the stool by Manny’s bedside. “Zorah said you were surrounded by broken glass, so where your wounds came from seems obvious—”

“But I don’t have any wounds,” Manny said.

The abbess gave her a withering look, as if she’d said the most obvious thing in the world. “No, you don’t. Which leads me to three ideas.”

“Which are?”

“One would be that you have latent magical talent, and healed yourself with it. It… wouldn’t be too outlandish. I’ve learned that elves don’t manifest their talents until puberty, and that that’s… later in life, than I’d assumed.”

Manny crossed her arms. She suspected that would be as close to an apology for kicking her out too early as she’d get from the woman. “And the others?”

“Another would be that a bystander saved you. But… that strikes me as very unlikely, frankly. People are blighted selfish creatures, and even most of the priests here at my monastery would at least want your praise and gratitude for saving you.”

“And the third?” Manny asked.

The abbess smiled at her. “My third theory… would be that Lady Shala herself saved you.”

“That’s absurd,” snorted Manny.

“I’ll remind you this is her infirmary you’re in, Manny. You might find you’ll only get cold soup tonight if you go on like that.”

You’re letting me stay? Manny thought, but didn’t say. She wouldn’t be able to get the words out without sounding ungrateful.

“So… Yes,” De La Cornon said, as she made a sign, and touched the gold and silver amulet around her neck. “I believe it’s certainly possible that Lady Shala took pity on you, and saved your life after you cut yourself on the glass. Lady Shala’s always had a soft spot for drunkards, and your namesake—”

“I am not a drunkard,” huffed Manny. “And Shala didn’t come down from her divine realm to save my damned life, either. She didn’t even bother to save me from you and your priests shoving me out into the streets.”

De La Cornon sighed. “I… believe you should rest, Magnanimity. Perhaps you’re right, and Shala had nothing to do with what happened to you. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re here now, and she demands we do nothing less than our best to help you recover.” The abbess turned, and started to walk away from Manny. “I’ll have someone bring you some tea and something to eat, to help you regain your strength. I will be back to check on you myself, as well.”

* * *

Days passed. She spent them recovering in bed, first in the monastery, then at home in her and Zorah’s cramped little room. She ate when food was offered to her, went to the bathroom as needed, but otherwise passed the time by sleeping as much as she could.

Their tenement room was cramped, with two beds, a window, and a curtain down the center. The rest of the space was filled with crates and boxes of their stuff, as well as firewood for their little stove.

On the morning of the fifth day after her… accident, she decided she’d had enough. She could not and would not simply lie there and stare at the ceiling until Zorah decided she’d had enough of providing for dead weight, and kicked her out. With some effort, she got out of bed. The head-rushes and shivers had stopped days ago, but the persistent drowsiness was proving harder to shake off . But she decided that wouldn’t stop her, as she opened the trunk she kept most of her clothes in.

She’d never seen the clothes she’d worn when Zorah found her again. Apparently they had been too far gone to save. She’d only gotten her boots back, and a cream-colored set of priests’ robes she might try to trade for something less… Shala, at the market.

She dug through the trunk for a while, fishing out clothes that smelled stale, but clean. A dark red blouse she dismissed out of hand, shuddering a little at the thought that what she’d worn that night might well be that same dark red, now. Besides, it was far too fancy of a top to put on to go to work.

While digging, she encountered some food she’d hidden. A piece of hardtack she’d… liberated from a neglectful baker at the end of winter, she’d rationed it away in the knowledge that it would stay edible for at least a few months, and that the peace of mind of having some food on hand was worth more to her than a full belly then and there.

She settled on a roughly spun burlap tunic, with breeches in a similar color, but nicer fabric. She was halfway through getting dressed when the door to her room opened.

“What in the hells are you doing, Manny?!” Demanded Zorah.

“I’m going to work today,” Manny explained, without turning to look at her. She pulled up her breeches, and tied the lace into a knot.

“Manny, you can’t! You need to rest, need to—”

“Do what?” Manny said, turning to look and give her a withering stare. “Lie here, eat your food, stare out the window? No, thanks. I need to pull my weight.”

“What you need is to give it another day, Manny. You need to take care of yourself.”

“I’m not taking care of myself by just lying in bed for days on end, Zorah,” Manny said, gesturing to her comfortable-enough bed. “It’s not like I can read a bunch of books while I’m resting. All I can do is just slowly go nuts in here, and I won’t. I’m going to go earn some money. At least enough to pay for the food you gave me.”

“I didn’t give you that,” Zorah whispered, and Manny cocked her head at the odd confession. Before she could ask who did, if not her, the tan-skinned human continued on her own. “De La Cornon gave me some money to take care of you until you were ready to—”

“And I am,” Manny firmly said, doing her best to convey she wanted this conversation to be over. She sat down on her bed again, and put on her boots. “I’m glad that old crone finally feels bad about kicking us out as kids, Zorah, and I’m glad she gave you some money, too. Keep it, as a reward for scraping me off of the floor.”

“A reward for scraping you off the floor?” Zorah asked, her voice rich with frustration. “Manny, you nearly died! Gods, when I saw you lying there I honestly thought you were already dead.”

“Well, I’m not,” Manny said, as she worked the laces. “I’m very much alive, which means I still need money to stay that way, which means I need to get to work. And so should you!”

“I’d prefer it if you don’t,” Zorah tried. The sharp fit of frustration dulling into concern. “You don’t exactly have the least demanding job in the city, Manny. And I don’t want you around that creep Darim when you’re still recovering.”

Manny finished tying her laces, then stood up, and took her friend by the shoulders. “Zorah, please. What’s he going to do to me, other than try to hit on me? I can take care of myself.”

Zorah’s features softened into a concerned, familial look, and after a moment, she pulled her into a hug. “I know you’re tough, Manny. Tougher than anyone. Promise me you’ll still be careful, though.”

“I promise.”

* * *

Vincent lingered in the First University’s library, sitting in the shadows, but as close to the large windows as he could stomach. He had to sit close to be able to look out, and see when his soon-to-be thrall returned to work, so he could… explain her destiny to her.

He was positively giddy with anticipation at the thought.

Ever since he’d fed on her, he’d felt… better. His head was clearer, his wits a little sharper. The dark urges that screamed into his mind during every silence had all but vanished, reduced to mere whispers he could easily ignore or control. He trusted himself around his feeding stock again.

And because of that, he trusted himself to be around her.

It had been five days now, since Manny had caught his eye, and he’d tasted of her. Five days of her presumably resting and recovering, restoring her strength, only for her to inevitably lose it to him.

He wondered how quick she would be to take to his training. How long she’d resist and be stubborn, before she bent to his will and her eyes lit up with Adoration. A few days, perhaps? Two weeks at the most.

Gods, that would be fun. To see a thrall slowly realize she loved him, again, and to know he’d enjoy that love for centuries this time. He felt a growing pressure in his trousers, and crossed his legs, putting the book he was pretending to read in his lap for good measure. Nobody around him needed to see he was that eager to see his elf again.

He glanced down into the volume a few times over the next hour, as he daydreamed about the future. It was a terrible, fictionalized account of a war between Abania and Aldressa, and scarcely worth reading. But, it served its purpose as a prop, and eventually, that huge mass of curly, orange hair wandered into view, pushing a wheelbarrow full of cleaning supplies.

He watched her the entire time she was in view, positively enamored. He discovered she must be a particularly hard-working elf, as she sat down on the rim around the university’s central fountain, and took off her boots before she waded in with a brush, and started climbing and scrubbing the bird dropping off of the statue in its middle.

She really was a tall woman. Six feet at the very least, comparing her to the statue. It had been difficult to gauge just how tall she was, slouched, crouched, or leaning as she had been every time he’d noticed her before. And with that large mass of orange hair? It was nothing short of a miracle that no Adampora or Abanian… envoys had decided to take her as a souvenir.

* * *

By the time Manny was done with the statue, she’d already worked away half of her shift, and positively stank of the ammonia in the pigeon shit. The water of the fountain, too, absolutely reeked of it, with the filth of the birds dissolved in it, but quickly being washed away by the fresh water coming from the spouts.

She waded back out of the water, and sat down on the rim again, lazily loading another bundle of offerings to the so-called dearly departed into her wheelbarrow to throw away while she waited for her feet to dry enough to put her boots back on.

Manny would absolutely have to bathe before she did anything else after disposing of the rotting flowers, she decided, glancing about at the various buildings. She knew almost all of them had basements full of big, coal-fired boilers to heat the buildings above them. And more importantly, she knew from cleaning them that they had showers with hot water, so the poor fuckers they’d convinced to scoop coal all day for the same pay she got wouldn’t track black dust behind them when they went home for the day.

She loitered for a while, waiting for the spring sun and breeze to dry her off. Once she was satisfied she was dry enough, she got up, and made for the trash barge as she tried to recall what else Darim had stuck her with doing today. There was cleaning the fountain, then this, then came…

Library, right, she thought, as it came back to her. She had to clean some of the windows in the reading hall, and clear the ash out of the many fireplaces in there. Because gods forbid that those rich assholes have to make do with only the heat from the boilers and radiators.

Much to Manny’s dismay, she realized that she could smell the barge from fifty paces away. It hadn’t been replaced with an empty one since before her last day at work. It was at that sight that it occurred to her Darim had probably given her the hardest and filthiest work in some petty attempt to punish her for not letting him cheat her out of pay.

She braved the smell, and dumped the wheelbarrow out onto the barge, again scowling at the shallow falseness of the flowers and little notes people kept leaving for colleagues they couldn’t possibly have actually cared about.

Painfully aware of how terribly she now smelled, Manny rushed back to the equipment sheds and put away the things she wouldn’t need again for the day before she practically ran towards the library building. She was already carrying the supplies needed to sweep the fireplace and clean the windows, and let herself in through a small side door that was barely visible from outside. It led down some narrow stars that hugged the wall.

The heat of the boilers hit her immediately, the air in the basement warmed to only barely-tolerable temperatures. The showers were close to the exit, with a series of lockers close to their entrance, presumably for the workers to keep a change of clothes in for after work. She stuffed the supplies into one of them.

“Hello?” She called, looking around for anyone actually working. She could hear the roar of the fire in the boilers, so she knew someone should be down here, attending to them. But she couldn’t see or hear anyone. “I’m… I’m just here to take a shower,” she called out. “I won’t loiter more than I need to, I promise!”

Not that that means I won’t loiter at all, she decided as she stepped into the shower area, and stripped out of her dirty clothes. They really were filthy, stained with trash and bird shit. If she wanted to be able to clean indoors and not make things worse, she’d need to wash these, too.

She looked around for a while, and chose the dirtiest shower alcove for that honor. She laid out her clothes on the floor underneath the spigot, then turned the valve for the hot water open all the way. In seconds, near-boiling-hot water started to languidly fall out of it, and onto the fabric, billowing grand clouds of steam and running a hideous dark color as it rinsed away the worst of it.

Recovering the clothes from the stream of scalding water without hurting herself would be an exercise in caution, she knew. But that was a problem for later. She looked around the rest of the shower hall, trying to choose where she’d wash up. The alcoves ranged from too filthy to consider to relatively clean. Unfortunately, the clean ones all had wooden signs propped up in them, and she could take the hint that that meant they didn’t work.

All but one, she realized. One of the shower alcoves was downright invitingly clean, with a brand new bar of pink soap in the tray, practically begging her to choose it. She cautiously tried the two valves, and frigid and piping hot water both came out on command. Manny spent a few moments experimenting with the valves until the water was as hot as she could comfortably tolerate, then stepped underneath the stream.

The warm water was lovely even as it beat down on her scalp, weighing down her hair enough to straighten it for the time being, and let the delicate points of her ears poke out, usually hidden by the sheer volume of her curls.

They were sensitive things, far more so than humans’, as far as she could tell. Her curly hair shielded them from the cold winter winds well enough, she supposed, and she was beyond happy that that kind of weather was behind them for the year. But they still had an awful tendency to sting something fierce even in relatively warm winds, if she made the mistake of not covering them.

She reached for the bar of soap. It was pristine, stamped with a few divine runes, and smelling of roses and spice. It lathered up magnificently, and before long she was scrubbing herself with it, starting with her hair and working her way down.

Bubbles frothed on her skin as she scrubbed, washed away by the hot water, before swirling around the drain in a fabulous spiral.

It didn’t take very long at all for the stench she’d dragged in to disappear, washed away by the hot water and perfumed soap, along with all of the day’s worries. She’d missed a few days of work, lost out on over a hundred copper Scales by being bed-ridden, but… who cared? She didn’t. She was working now, earning her keep again. And… knowing just how much money the rich tended to give to priests, Zorah had probably made a tidy profit from taking care of her for a few days, with De La Cornon’s contribution.

She kept lathering, scrubbing, and rinsing, perhaps more than absolutely necessary, but content to draw this out as long as she could. Darim might scowl at her when she finished an hour late. But she’d be paid, and she’d be as clean as those windows would be. She cleaned between her toes, behind her ears, at her rear, and under her arms. Lathering, scrubbing, and rinsing, over and over.

It was heavenly, frankly, to enjoy a drawn-out shower in quiet comfort. Nobody was harrying her to hurry up, or use less hot water, or not to waste soap. She… She just wanted to stay in that water, to keep enjoying it and clean herself as if to spite everyone who’d ever tried to rush her. She decided she’d stay in the shower, at least until someone else showed up, and… and honestly, probably even longer than that.

She lathered up her torso again, from the downy, vibrantly orange hair just above her sex all the way up to her neck, enjoying scrubbing herself clean, then watching the soapy foam circle the drain as it carried away even more of her stress, and filth, and…

A whistle caught her ear. Off-key, but recognizable. The song she liked to whistle while cleaning something particularly foul, and it was getting closer. Was… was… She looked around. Was someone coming to clean the showers? Or… or was she what was dirty?

She lathered up again, starting with her hair and working her way down, scrubbing as she went, and rinsing off as quickly as she could. The whistle kept getting closer, the tune insistent that… That what?

She… Her clothes! They were still dirty, that must be the problem! She darted out of the shower, bar of soap in hand, going as quickly as she dared on the slick tiles. She reached for her clothes, picked them up—

“FUCK!” She cried as she dropped them, having burned her hand on the searing hot water. Carefully, she reached for the valves controlling the flow of water, and opened the cold tap all the way. The steam billowing out from the alcove quickly stopped flowing, and Manny dropped to her knees before she reached into the now-tepid water to gather her clothes, and begin to scrub them with the bar of soap.

Lather, scrub, rinse. She did it over and over again, watching the water that flowed away until it was crystal clear, listening to that whistle come closer, and closer.

“Well,” came a nasal voice from behind her. She snapped her head up to look at the speaker, and saw her boss, Darim, looming over her, fully clothed. He had a great, knowing smile on his face. “I thought I’d find you in here.”

“Y—you… you did?” Manny asked.

“Oh, of course,” Darim said. “After cleaning up the fountain and making a trip to the barge? You couldn’t go into the library without washing first, could you?”

Manny thought about it, watching him carefully. His expression didn’t betray whether he approved of that decision, so eventually she cautiously nodded.

He smiled, slightly. “So… I left a little surprise for you here.”

“W—What was it?” Manny asked.

The large man nodded at the bar of soap in her hands. Manny looked down at it as she played with it, still enthralled by the little bubbles that formed on her skin when she did so. “That priestess of Ishara was more than happy to give me that, once I told her it was for you. She told me the herbs work wonders to help elves relax.”

“Herbs?” Manny asked, dully. “I… I did smell… herbs,” she admitted. When she next looked up, she saw he was taking his clothes off. He wasn’t nearly as ugly as she’d assumed, she realized. Hairy and sweaty, but… well, she could help him with that.

The large man walked past, and started to collect the little wooden signs from the other clean showers, tossing them into a careless pile. “I’m so, so happy you figured out what the signs meant, too. This whole plan worked out fantastically.”

“W—what plan?” Asked Manny.

Darim rolled his eyes at her as he finished stripping down, and put his clothes in one of the lockers. “Assigning you some filthy jobs, making sure the stokers would be gone, putting up the signs, making sure you’d notice the soap. It… it took effort Manny.”

“Effort? B—but… why?”

“Oh, lots of reasons,” Darim began as he came close to Manny. With her still kneeling next to the shower she’d been using to wash her clothes, his crotch was almost directly in front of her face, but she made a point of looking up at his face. For a moment, he just looked at her, then he grabbed a handful of her hair, and started to pull her back towards the alcove she’d been showering in.

She yelped in pain, kicking and flailing on the slick tiles, dropping the bar of soap and desperately trying to stop him from pulling. Quickly, he shoved her into the alcove, and she hit her head on the tiles and stones with such force that the world spun, and she instinctively reached up to feel if she was bleeding.

“The main reason, though, would have to be just how fucking sick I am of you disrespecting me day after day.”

* * *

Vincent sat in a different chair, watching the doorway into the library with rapt anticipation. He’d seen his elf come this way almost half an hour ago, and he’d been so sure she would be cleaning in the reading hall.

Perhaps that had just been wishful thinking. There were a few places she could have been going other than the library, he supposed. The campus baker, perhaps? It would have been awfully convenient for the elf to wander into a big, empty hall with lots of shadowy nooks between the shelves and to serve herself to him on a silver platter like that.

There were a few people around that he’d have to take care not to tip off, he knew—mostly cramming students and exhausted researchers. But he could have always impressed the Resignation on them, should the opportunity to take her have arisen. That would have been such a dramatic and romantic start to her life with him.

The door into the reading hall opened, and hope surged in him for just a moment, until he saw who it was. “Alara,” he quietly told the priestess by way of greeting, acknowledging her with a little nod.

She grinned when she saw him. “Lord Borohon. What a pleasant surprise,” she said, and her intonation made it clear it was anything but that.

“What do you want, Alara?” He asked. He didn’t particularly care to entertain her with a match of flirting and insults today.

“Oh, nothing from you, I assure you,” Allara purred, and her eyes scanned him. “You look well. You’ve gained weight, I think. Have you been eating again?”

“Once or twice,” Vincent admitted. As much as he didn’t want to get into their usual… routine, it was nice to talk about it to someone who didn’t live by the dark urges of that hunger.

“Any candidates?” She asked. When he nodded, a look of vindication replaced her grin. “I knew it! I knew my Lo—” She cut herself off, and looked around, then lowered her voice. “I knew my Lady Ishara would bless you sooner than later. Tell me about her.”

Vincent smirked. It was so strange to him that this priestess went through all of this trouble to obfuscate who she worshiped. “An elf, the young thing that works here in the university. Bright orange hair, big eyes to match?”

“I thought that might be the case,” Alara said, knowingly. “She’s suddenly very popular. She didn’t seem very interested in my affections when I offered them last week, though, wouldn’t even tell me her name.”

“Oh? She was more than content to share hers with me,” Vincent bragged

“Manny, right?” Alara asked. “Her… I think the fellow’s her boss? He let it slip during our meeting.”

Vincent straightened a little in his chair. “You… had a meeting?” He asked, uncertainly. “With someone you think is my thrall’s employer?”

Alara raised an eyebrow. “Well, she’s not your thrall yet, Lord Borohon. And, yes I did. He wanted a bar of Aldressan surgeon’s soap.”

A chill started to run down Vincent’s spine. “Aldressan surgeon’s soap? Doesn’t that—”

“Sedate elves? Render them tame as beastkin smoking dazeweed and greenleaf?” The priestess asked with a smirk. “Why, yes. I believe it does.”

“You sold him that?” He growled, as he rose from his seat. Unlike with Manny, he towered over this priestess. “Where are they?”

She gave him an infuriating shrug. “It’s a bar of soap, Vincent. I’d have to guess they’re in a bath somewhere. Or maybe a shower.”

He scowled at her. “I’ll have words with you about this later,” he said, then ran off. He practically flew down the stairs of the library building, and out into the sunlight that prickled and burned his skin. He didn’t care. He’d already set his mind on this elf. She was his, even if she didn’t know it yet. He wouldn’t tolerate anyone else touching her.

He looked around at the campus around him, trying to deduce where she might have gone. He’d seen her come this way, but then not actually go into the public area of the library building. He looked at it, scanning the facade of the building for—

He noticed a small door at the side of the building, only the very top of it poking out from stairs leading down to a basement. That was almost directly where she had been going, earlier, and with the Sun already turning his skin red, it was an easy decision to check there, first.

The door wasn’t locked, and the shelter from the Sun was as sweet as any delicacy. Thick clouds of steam billowed around him, heavy with the smell of perfume, and glowing faintly to his eyes. He could hear water clattering down in a room nearby.

“—respect me!”

The tail end of a sentence, punctuated by grunts in both a man’s and a woman’s voice. He followed those sounds of running water and labored breathing until he found a shower hall. He saw a hideously fat man from behind, looming over his elf, curled up in pain, covered in fresh, red bruises. Her breathing was heavy and labored, and when Vincent saw the man charge up for another kick, those dark urges that haunted him suddenly seemed much lighter.

He ran into the showers, and in one smooth motion he pulled the man away from Manny, sank his fangs into the bastard’s jugular, and jerked his head to tear it wide open.

The repulsive man howled in pain, and pushed away from Vincent, then tried to punch him with one hand, even as he uselessly tried to staunch the bleeding with the other. Vincent evaded the punch with ease and spat the skin and blood in his mouth out onto the tiles. He watched with morbid satisfaction as the man’s eyes unfocused, and he toppled to the ground, hot blood gushing from his throat at a pace that would kill him in mere minutes.

He didn’t mind the waste. He wouldn’t want to taint himself by feeding on someone like that, anyways.

* * *

Manny watched in a stunned fugue as someone appeared behind Darim, and the pain stopped getting worse. She heard a grunt, then a scream, and suddenly she could see her boss on the floor ahead of her, twitching as the blood gushed out of him.

Someone was standing in front of her now, someone… tall, and thin. She tried to roll onto her back, to see who he was, but breathing only got harder and more painful the more she moved in that direction. She knew he’d done something good, though. Darim wouldn’t have stopped—would have just kept hurting her more and more.

“Th—thank… you,” she groaned, despite the effort of it.

“You’re welcome,” said a coarse, masculine voice. “Can you move for me, Manny?” He asked.

She didn’t want to speak again, so she just shook her head. She absolutely could not move. Not without screaming, and that… that would hurt, too.

“Lie still then,” the voice ordered. “I’ll get some help, and I’ll be back.” Manny nodded softly, and watched the man’s feet start to walk away. They stepped around the growing puddle of Darim’s blood, then paused. “Inntinneach,” he whispered.

At first she was just… confused by the bizarre, meaningless word. But… in the puddles of water and blood that covered the floor of the room, between the little tufts of bubbles, faint ripples started to form, rhythmic, to the beat of her own heart. Magic? She faintly thought, as she stared at the ripples, mesmerized by how perfectly they followed that thrum deep within her.

* * *

She smiled as she stared at the ripples, grinning about how well she understood them, and they seemed to understand her. “Nox,” the man said, and in an instant, those ripples stopped being interesting, as the magical blinders that kept her so focused on them seemed to fall away. She blinked a few times, unsure of how much time had passed, but immediately noticed that Darim was nowhere to be seen.

“You really think it’s worth the effort?” A woman’s voice asked. Manny was still on the floor in the showers, still exactly where she’d been. The water had stopped running, though. And her skin wasn’t wet anymore.

“Yes, I think it’s worth the effort,” the coarse, masculine voice said. “And unless you start seeing this my way very, very quickly, I—”

“Gods,” huffed the woman’s voice. “I’m joking, you angry, violent man! I’m not going to let her die, obviously.” The woman dropped to her knees in front of Manny, putting one hand on her chest as she started to whisper healing spells in the divine language.

Almost immediately, breathing became easier, and Manny was able to at least roll onto her back, and look at them. Her eyes widened when she saw them, and realized she knew both of them.

The priestess was the same one that had so brazenly flirted with her, and… and the man… “Vincent?” She tried, looking up at him. As it turned out, speaking still hurt a great deal. Judging by the smile on his angular face, Vincent was exactly right.

“Hello, Manny,” said the man, softly. He sat down next to her on the tiles of the showers. He rested one hand on her shoulder, and her apparent savior made eye contact, letting her feel understood and… safe. She gasped a little, at the weight of a primal fear she hadn’t even consciously noticed being lifted from her. “You were in a lot of trouble there.”

Manny stared at the man, into those magnificent eyes, with irises that seemed to bleed from the brown she’d thought they were into a deep, vibrant crimson. She nodded. “Trouble…” She repeated.

“Still are, actually,” the man said with a shrug. In her peripheral vision, Manny could see the priestess studying her, but… but looking away from those eyes seemed unspeakably difficult.

“Still am…”

“I can save you from that, though. I can heal your wounds, and I can make sure the guards never find out you were here when that man died.”

“S—save… me…”

“Exactly,” he whispered. “And all you have to do is trust me, and do exactly as I tell you, and I can make miracles happen for you. Can you do that for me, Manny?”

Looking into those eyes, beautifully red like that, she felt like she could do anything, as long as he told her to do it. She felt a smile creep onto her face, and she nodded.

The gentle smile on his face grew into a bigger one. One that told her that was the right answer. He shifted onto his knees, and very gently pulled Manny to sit upright with him. Some small part of her could feel that that hurt really, really badly. She thought she might have broken a rib. But… looking into those eyes, that was easy to ignore.

“This is going to be very confusing, maybe even frightening at first. But I promise it’ll all make sense soon enough,” he said. “And you can be brave, can’t you?”

Manny nodded. With those beautiful eyes, she could be brave. If helping her meant a moment of fright, she could easily put up with it, as long as she had those eyes to look into. “I’ll be brave,” she mumbled, thinking that was what he wanted to hear.

Manny watched as he… he bit his lip, without ever breaking eye contact. He must have bit down hard, too, because a trickle of blood streamed down from the wound, the same color as his eyes. She kept looking into them, positive that if she just looked hard enough, she’d see his very soul.

He started to pull her closer, towards him, and she… she leaned into it as much as she could without hurting herself. Their faces got closer, and closer, until she could feel his breath on her lips, and could smell the metallic scent of the blood trailing down from his.

Then, with one more sudden motion, he pressed his lips to hers, and kissed her. His lips were a little softer than she’d expected, but warm, and… and familiar.

She tasted the blood mixed with his saliva when his tongue gently probed between her lips, and suddenly, she… she… She could feel something, a sort of pressure of emotion at the back of her mind. He… he wanted something from her—wanted her to kiss him back.

She did that eagerly. She reached up, cradling his head with both of her hands as she opened her mouth against his, and felt his tongue exploring like she was uncharted territory. He angled her head backwards, and she ignored how much that hurt her neck. She felt that trickle of blood run into her mouth, tasted it until it rolled down the back of her throat.

She felt more. She felt his… his excitement to hold her, and his concern for her injuries. And she felt his possessive tendencies—his need to… to dominate her, as well as his absolute certainty that he would accomplish the feat.

That feeling of ownership, of domination, it… it scared her. It was a primal, overwhelming fear of him that made her push away from him. She yelped in panic as she struggled to her feet, despite the ache in her chest. She needed to run, needed to flee as far away from him as she could, to tell the guards, tell the priests of Shala, tell Zorah about this… This terrible creature, and what he wanted to do to her.

“Two hundred gold Dragons if you make sure she doesn’t hurt herself;” he said, flatly, as Manny started to limp away.

The priestess rose to her feet as soon as he made the offer, almost unnaturally fast, much to Manny’s horror. She intoned “dormez,” and… and exhaustion crept into her bones in an instant.

The spell turned her legs to jelly, and her mind to fuzz. “F—fuck…” She gasped, as she felt the priestess catch her, and gently lower her to the ground. Entire chunks of her awareness of the world—of herself—seemed to fall away, and her eyelids grew so, so very heavy.

The last part of her mind to give in seemed to be the part that even now sensed his concern, and she heard him speak for only a few more seconds after her eyes slipped shut, and she surrendered to sleep. “Don’t worry, Manny. It won’t take you long to get used to having a master.”