Assassin

Assassin (v1.02)
http://gyazo.com/87077f81a84b65c222a3cd345f96c700

"Caelan..." whispered the voice outside his window.

He still didn't know her name. He suspected she didn't either.

They had first met in the alley behind the bar, nearly ten years ago. He'd stepped out to dump a chamber pot, and then turned to see what he could only think of as a drowned street rat. A gangly, malnourished youth, huddled between piles of garbage, blood staining the grimy rags that passed for clothing. Eyes barely focusing on him, glassy with pain.

Caelan had blinked, shrugged, and stepped back inside.

He'd cleaned the tables, swept, and checked in with his father to see if  any more casks needed to be moved down in the cellar. Once those chores were done, he'd grabbed a few things and stepped out the back door again. Kid had still been there, barely responsive. He'd brusquely hauled her to her feet and practically carried her into the washroom, ignoring the attempts to claw his skin off. There, he'd cleaned the cut on on her arm with alcohol, and stitched it closed like he'd done for a half-dozen patrons after bar fights got ugly.

Once that was done, he'd given her water and some bread that was going stale, and let her rest on some blankets in the corner. Come dawn he'd kicked her out, letting her keep the blanket to spare him the trouble of burning it. Near as he could remember, she'd never said a word to him, only cursed like a sailor at the pain when he was cleaning the wounds.

"I killed four men tonight, Caelan."

He hadn't thought about it much at the time. There were always street rats around, various groups looking to pick pockets or steal from vendors or try to kill one another with dull knives and sticks. He probably saw her plenty of times over the next couple years, one face among many.

There had been the morning he'd found a silver ring in his boot. In hindsight, that had probably been meant as a gift, a debt repaid or something. His father's growing paranoia about urchins scheming to rob the place had probably also been been related to her, though that was only a guess on his part.

Then one night he'd sat groggily upright to see a human girl staring at him, squatting on a stool a meter away from his cot. She'd mumbled some kind of warning, about how the new captain of the guard was planning to raid the half-orc establishments in this district on bullshit charges. His family made some bribes to get their place off the list, and a few days later he'd finally made the connection between the scar on that girl's arm and the wound he'd stitched up years before.

"Three guards and the target. The fourth guard was too scared to even draw on me."

The young woman was through the window now, eyes gleaming as she took a step towards him. They said that with humans, their best warriors moved like water. The sight of her nowadays, all lithe power and fluid motion... it helped him understand what the hell the old veterans had meant.

He didn't know how long she'd been a part of the Redfeathers. People used to think they were a myth, before they'd started taking contracts for high-profile assassinations. But she'd found them, or they'd found her. While he was graduating from his father's errand boy to the tavern's new bartender, she'd been moving up from street thief to part of the most fearsome group of killers this city had ever known.

But she'd never forgotten him.

He didn't know what it had been to her at first- perhaps some kind of idolizing crush, a little girl dreaming about the big strong half-orc boy who'd rescued her from ending up a cripple. Or maybe she'd been nursing a grudge, determined to turn the tables on the one person who'd seen her at her very weakest. But just as he'd found himself sneaking glances at women's chests and stroking himself as he bathed, she'd... well, taken to spying on him while he was doing it.

"Brick wall of a man, just fell to his knees and begged. More sense than pride. You could learn from him."

He'd spotted her by sheer luck one day, made some scornful comment about it not being a free show. She'd leered and tossed down some coin, clearly high on something.  Even then, nothing he said ever seemed to deter her.

He'd written her off as a brain-fried junkie, but she'd been there again a few days later, this time sober. Even then, he'd been more pissed than worried.

"But no, you're gonna keep on playing hard to get. Won't you, tuskboy?"

The slur sent a queasy chill down Caelan's spine. For a moment his composure faltered, and he glanced up at her before forcing himself to resume cleaning the bar. From any other human's lips, it was a derisive insult, the kind of thoughtless hate one rarely even bothered to notice. But when she said it... it was generally with one hand between her legs. It was like a declaration- the bitch knew he was the wrong species, knew that to humans his kind were hideous spawn of monsters, knew that any kind of intimacy between them was completely depraved and wrong.

And she wanted him anyway.

The human was close enough to touch him now, leaning forwards with that gods-damned leering grin. His tired hands clenched at the cleaning rag, blood pounding in his skull. Gods below, he wasn't stupid. He knew what she wanted him to do. He knew it was a bad idea, knew it would only make it all much worse, but- gods below, what was his alternative? To give in without a fight?

She licked her lips. /Oh, fuck this./ His arm snapped outward, a backhanded swing with enough power to fracture her skull. She swayed back lazily, eyes dancing as it missed her by inches. Caelan used the moment to snatch up the stout oak club he kept under the counter, the one he'd used to end a dozen different brawls. He'd beaten a pair of swordsmen with this thing, he could-

But in that instant, she'd lunged forwards- a leaping shoulder roll that brought her atop the counter on her back, knees tucked to her chest, boot heels leveled at his torso. As he blinked her double kick slammed against his sternum, driving the wind from his lungs and throwing him backwards. The half-orc's head crashed against the shelves mounted on the wall, filling his vision with stars as he clutched desperately for something to steady himself.

He lashed out with the club, but the motion of his arm was checked by an open-palm blow against his elbow. Still half-blind, he roared and made to charge forwards, but she'd hooked one ankle against his and his attempted tackle became a drunken forwards lurch. Two hands seized the front of his tunic and whirled him around, slamming his back against the freshly cleaned counter.

It took longer than he wanted to get his bearings- to figure out that he was lying on the bar with her straddling his chest, blade drawn and pressed against his neck. The steel gleamed wetly in the light from the hearth, but her eyes had gone cold, any trace of humor long fled. "This would be where you start begging, tuskboy."

He drew a ragged, faltering breath as her weight bore down on his chest. "...Fuck off. If it please milady."

Her composure held for a moment, though her grip on the blade tightened until her knuckles turned white. Then she stopped trying to hold back, laughter bubbling up out of her throat as she set aside her blade and embraced him with a kind of loving snarl. "You are perfect. Nephalia's bleeding cunt, you are *perfect*. Have I told you that?"

Caelan wasn't sure how to process that. So he just lay there for a second, while she moaned contentedly and roamed her hands over him. Then he snarled and did his damnedest to throw her off. They fell to the floor in a tangle, but now she was holding him from behind, one arm around his neck while her other hand firmly pinned one arm against his back. Caelan could feel her breathing excitedly against one ear. Gritting his teeth, he reached back with his free hand, but she'd been counting on that and swiftly had both his wrists bound together. He strained against the cord for several moments before he slumped back against her, flushed and sweating as he gasped for breath.

"So *feisty*," she whispered happily. He gave an involuntary shudder as she kissed the back of his neck. "No one in this fucking city has your kind of spirit. Put a blade to their throat and they're docile as lambs in the slaughterhouse. Such a wonderful stud." He shook his head, mostly to keep the sweat from getting in his eyes. Nimble hands ripped his tunic open, not bothering to undo the buttons first. They roamed across his bare chest, her skin earthen brown against his own greyish-green hide. Like freshly fired clay on an old copper rooftop, he thought numbly. Then he stiffened as one of those hands slid down beneath his trousers, taking hold of the erection he'd been willing back down.

"You're perfect," she murmured again, stroking her hand up and down. "That's enough," he said flatly, determined to kill the mood. "You can make a man stiff, but that doesn't- doesn't mean he's interested, damn it. Find someone else to be your pet-" He'd meant to say more, but she'd gotten him fully erect and started moving her hand faster. "Shhhhh. It's okay, Caelan. I understand." He gnashed in his teeth in frustration. This was disgusting. Why did it have to feel so good? "I know you'll never belong to me, or anyone else. You're too much of a stud. You can't resist a woman who puts her hands on you like this, it doesn't matter who." He tried to speak, but she went on hurriedly, a note of awkward reassurance in her voice. "It's okay. It's not your fault, you can't help it. I can stop anyone else if they try something, and if anything does happen I'll just take you back."

Caelan scoffed, and the motion of her hand paused. "Oh, and that's your heart's true desire?" She couldn't really think he was going to buy this horseshit. "Some horny tuskboy running a seedy tavern down in the slums?"

"Yes," she said without a trace of hesitation. "More than anything." He smirked, but... there had been a certainty in her voice, one that suddenly left him feeling unsure. Slowly, as if compelled, he turned his head to look at her. She stared back, and the earnest hunger in those pale grey eyes made his blood run cold.

The young human woman leaned forwards and kissed him full on the mouth.

His head spun as she shifted in front of him, one hand holding him close even as she resumed stroking him with the other. Gods below, was he really trembling like this? This situation was too fucked up, he'd lost sight of right and wrong, couldn't tell one apart from the other anymore.

She'd undone his belt, had him exposed from head to thigh. Her hips bucked against him, and he realized that beneath her leather tunic she wasn't wearing a loincloth. Her lips drew back, and he twisted away, avoiding eye contact. Her head dipped to rest against his neck, and she murmured words of encouragement.

He breathed in. "No." It came out as a whisper. "Yes," she breathed, and it drew his eyes back to her.

He mouthed "no" again, shaking his head. She smiled down like she was looking at a lover. Oh gods... "We can't," he protested desperately, and now that wicked grin spread across her face till the bitch was practically beaming. "Just watch me." She kissed him again- deep and powerful, tongue forcing through resistant lips and darting between his teeth. He spasmed, arching his back upwards by degrees as she pressed down onto him, groaning as the grip of her hand between his legs grew tighter and tighter, now warm and slick, a great heat that-

Oh, Nephalia's mercy. He was inside her. This couldn't be happening. He stared up in disbelief as she broke the kiss, making a keening moan of pleasure as her body twitched and contracted against him. She raised her head with difficulty, teeth clenched in a rictus grin of pleasure. "Gods, you're fucking gorgeous." Some new desperation surged in Caelan, a sense of self-preservation that made him snarl at her words like a caged animal. He rose up in a lunge, trying to bite at her throat. Her hands seized his shoulders, pushing him back down, pinning him to the floor while he writhed and gnashed his teeth. She laughed delightedly at his struggles, eyes alight with the adrenaline, legs locking to keep him firmly inside her.

"You're perfect." He snapped at her wrists. "The most beautiful tuskboy in the world." He spat in her face and cursed incoherently. "Your cock is amazing." He shuddered and roared as she ground her hips against him. "I've wanted you for so long." Something was eroding inside him, no matter how much he tried to shut her voice out.

The half-orc lay back and stared up at her, eyes pleading. "Don't do this to me," he begged.

She didn't even blink. "I love you." Then she kissed him again, and Caelan could feel how it broke him.

Oh, he thought, and blinked in astonishment.

Then he kissed her back.

He moaned in pleasure as she held him down, bucked his hips upwards as she kissed at his neck, arched upwards against her as she clamped down in yet orgasm. He gasped and swelled inside her every time she told him how perfect he was, how wonderful, how she was her gorgeous tuskboy stud and she'd never let anyone else have him. His own orgasm was still building, and when he told her she made that same wicked grin and hooked her ankles around his shins, eyes locked onto his, and all he could do was just gaze upwards raptly at this twisted, wonderful, sensuous, wicked, incredibly *alive* human woman who was eagerly having her way with him.

Then his eyes rolled back and he spasmed as he poured his seed into her, while she seized him in her arms and screamed into his neck. He came over and over, his entire body arching and spasming, helpless to stop it.

For a while, the tavern was silent except for the crackle of the hearth and one another's breathing. After a minute, she reached down and fumbled at this bonds until his wrists had been untied. He stretched his aching arms, and they looked at each other, faces both neutral. Then he sighed and draped his arms around her.

She sighed happily, snuggling against him in the firelight. "I, um. I can be less rough next time." "No. It's fine." "Oh, good. I mean, I-" "Shhhhhhh."

Silence again.

"...Oh," said Caelan, before he drifted off to sleep. "What should I call you?"

She blinked at him quizzically, then nodded as she grasped the question. "...Bitch."

"Bitch?"

"I like it when my tuskboy calls me bitch."

Caelan sighed again. "Suppose I knew that much. Do you even have a proper name?"

"I....no," she said. He looked up. "You're a surprisingly bad liar." "Fuck you. Shut up." "Bitch, you just rode me dry and didn't even bring home dinner first. I think you at least owe me your given name."

She glowered at the wall. "...Temperance." "Hah!" "Fuck you. Go to sleep." "Way ahead of you."

The last time he opened his eyes, she running a hand through his hair, her expression seeming lost in thought.

It would be weeks before he saw her again.