Dhampir Chapter 4: The Vow of Lunaris

Re-edited and updated April 4th 2014
Finally done with all the editing, so things will get a little more interesting now. This means I can move forward with adding some extras, proper chaptering and publishing the first volume in a much nicer format with italic emphasis and proper paragraphing. Just need to get done with those steps and figure out little details like what to name it and what to do with the cover, but there we are. Whole thing up to here should read a bit better now, I don't really know how some of the little errors slip by.
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Index: http://pastebin.com/u/LDR
Chapter 3: http://pastebin.com/dHdjtZAq

Chapter 4: The Vow of Lunaris
Exhausted beyond reasonable constraint, Dianna’s consciousness waxed and waned weakly, never fully waking from the brink of blackness that comforted her. Hazy words teased her ears, as she lay limp, her senses fading in and out.

“Is it really alright to send her?” That placid and stoic Dryad’s voice asked, high above where her head rested. The much more deceptively sweet voice that belonged to the Alraune replied, as Dianna felt her body rolling into a soft embrace.

“Uh-huh, why not? Let them figure out what to do with her, or let her do stuff with them. Not our problem! Maybe it’ll be interesting, anyway. Besides, can’t very well just leave her here anyway. She’ll wake up eventually and get mad.” The Alraune explained, not nearly as cheerful as Dianna’s grip on her senses faded out again.

Darkness gripped her wholly, dragging her into a restless sleep for some unknown length of time. Dianna had already lost her immediate sense of time under the pair, and would wake to find she had lost her sense of place, too.

The room Dianna awoke in was foreign, to say the least. Not a room from the inn back in town, or like any she’d ever seen. There was a simple, almost makeshift charm to it, yet it wasn’t lacking in style and refinement at all. It was that clash of themes that left Dianna’s head throbbing as she lay under wondrous, red velvet sheets.

The room had no windows, but a single, low-burning flame lantern on a table aside the bed. It seemed bolted to the table, which in turn stood bolted to the smooth wooden floorboards under it, as though someone might steal anything they could pick up. Even the chairs seemed locked down, with hinges in their arms to get into them.

The clashing of styles from that simplistic wooden floor to the beautifully carved four-poster bed Dianna lay on the centre of made no sense. She wore a silken white shirt that wasn’t her own, though it seemed tailored to her size, complete with puffy frills of lace at the neck and wrists. Quickly shoving her hands under the sheets, she found she wore trim underwear of the same fabric, and even a bra beneath the shirt. It seemed she was in a much less compromising situation than she had lost consciousness in.

Even Dianna’s black coat and leggings sat folded on the table. Her rapier, hat and other effects were missing, however. That was when it struck her, making her bolt up from lounging back in the bed to pat around her chest. Her necklace was missing, too. Rolling out of the bed, she dashed to the table to pick up her coat and ruffle her leggings. Nothing came lose, it wasn’t here.

Rage flared in Dianna, and she could feel her fangs pricking her lip as anger for her captors burned as much as anger at her own carelessness. It was times such as this that her Mother’s smug, knowing smile haunted her mind. She would never have sympathized and stuck her neck out for weak and conniving humans to be abandoned or captured and mugged by another monster.

The room had a door. She broke it and stormed into a hall much like the room she’d awoken in. Wooden boards and simple lamps dotted a long hallway, but still no windows or natural light. Across from her room, a second door opened to admit a yawning woman with messy, rustic auburn hair and vivid emerald eyes that fixed on Dianna in dazzled surprise.

“Oh, sunken hells, you’re awake.” The woman slurred in a foreign accent, blinking and rubbing her eyes with a soft groan as she stretched. She had nothing but a simple, embroidered blue silk scarf covering her bosom, draped from around her neck with a necklace of what looked like shells, reef and rocks.

“Where is it?!” Dianna’s blood was still pounding too hot for reason as she glared at the woman across from her who jumped and scowled, folding her arms under her chest and clucking her tongue.

“Pleasure t’meet you too, fish guts. Y’er lucky to be dressed at all, so a little humility wouldn’t go amiss. Some leggings on ‘n all, eh? It’s cute, but flashing your butt’s a bad idea ‘round here.” The woman pointed out, smirking in a crooked, teasing way as she looked down at Dianna’s soft, bare thighs. Fury took reign and Dianna’s fist flew, leaving a splintered wedge in the opposing door, the woman before from her having ducked down with an unnatural fluidity.

“Bleeding Kraken, it’s too early in the day for this. Get off it, ya scurvy rat!” The woman shouted, and something thick and swift tripped Dianna’s footing. Her world spun, yet still showed naught but wooden boards as she hit the floor, hard. Coughing and moving to right herself, Dianna found her legs tangled by that thick mass that had tripped her. Struggling against it – refusing to go captive and be humiliated again – a dark red length swung into her field of vision, just in time for her to brace against the wet smack that clashed into her face.

A single thud of weight later and that constricting feeling that had her legs all but surrounded Dianna, including coiling around her neck. Struggling felt like trying to fight with a mass of slippery gelatine. Everything was soft and malleable, giving her no good grip or hold to fight off, but its encasing grip and hold on her was absolute. It was even getting hard to breathe.

“Ah-ah, c’mon, I’ve grappled drunken bull sharks meaner than you. Give it up, sweetie.” The woman insisted, the grip tightening around Dianna until it twisted her body in painful ways, forcing a frustrated groan from her. She could see what was binding her now – the lower body of the woman towering over her was a mess of eight tentacles twisting and locking around her body mercilessly.

She was a type of cecaelia – half octopus, and every bit as ridiculously strong. Dianna had no chance of moving, now. She couldn’t even breathe, but she refused to give in and kicked at nothing, scuffing the floorboards as the light of the lamps dimmed out.

“Can’t… Dad’s…” Dianna hissed before finally losing consciousness to the cecaelia’s sleeper hold. Slowly, cautiously unwinding, the woman atop Dianna sighed and shook her head in disbelief, flexing each of her ‘legs’ from the cramping toll holding the girl down had taken on her.

“Oh, y’er a damn silverpike tiger, alright. C’mon, let’s get you back in bed to cool y’er flaming head.” The half-octopus woman murmured, lowering her body evenly by spreading her tentacles out to pick up the bare-bottomed girl and hoisting her over a shoulder to slither back through the broken door.

Dianna awoke a short while later to find herself fully clothed and booted with a stronger headache than she’d have liked. The dull throb on her face felt like there must be a bruise around her left eye where that tentacle had connected. The reminder made her wince and reach to rub her face – or so she would have, if her hands weren’t tied behind her back.

The sound of snoring drew her attention to the cecaelia aside the bed, her legs coiled up into a thick ball beneath her cloth-covered waistline. She was asleep? Here? Like that? Dianna wanted to roll over and kick the damn squid woman’s head, but she was lounging further than Dianna could reach, and the repercussion with her hands tied would be terrible.

“Hey… hey! Wake up!” Dianna instead shouted, the mass of tentacles exploding in every direction as the woman bolted up into waking, her appendages waggling and pointing in every which direction.

“Hah?! Oh, ya feel better, now you’re hooked ‘n hung to dry?” The cecaelia asked, grinning in self-satisfaction that made Dianna seethe, but she had calmed down.

“Where is this?” Dianna asked for a start, ignoring the exotic woman’s slurred jab. The lack of windows left the place obscure and foreboding to a sense, and the cecaelia’s playful chuckle made her feel no better.

“Oh, could be a lot o’ places. You’ll be more interested in the who ‘n why, I reckon. Well, you’re in the Lord Victor Morgan’s company, and he did want to meet ya once you’d come around. Seems you’re an interesting one, an can’t say I disagree.” She chimed, smiling more amicably as Dianna turned away to frown into the ceiling. She didn’t like run-around answers like that, and who was this victor person that was interested in her?

“Well, I guess you’ll be escorting me like this, huh?” Dianna put in, glancing back to the cecaelia, her size and form a jarring thing to look at as she bobbed up and down on the mass of legs that let her wriggle over to the bed.

“Uh-huh, better for both of us that I don’t have to strangle ya again.” She explained, as though the simplest of things, helping Dianna off the bed to prop her to standing and give her pert rear a firm smack. The gasp and indignant glower she gave the octo-legged woman went largely unnoticed as she swayed and thrust her hips to move over to the cracked and fractured door, pushing it open to escort Dianna through the halls.

Following along amicably, without any intent to humiliate herself again, Dianna frowned as she continued to walk along the torch-lit halls. The air didn’t smell as though they were underground, but why was it so enclosed and stifled? Such concerns faded from her mind as soon as the cecaelia walking ahead of her pushed open a sturdy, ornate set of doors that invited a sudden, raucous blare of a spectating crowd.

They were below the room Dianna entered into – a heightened balcony of sorts. It held a table with dark wine bottle and two glasses in the centre of the curve the padded chairs framed it. One man sat in the centre chair of that set, a trim black beard shadowing his jaw above a suit of a refined dark blue cut, trimmed and lined with gold and lace.

“Ah, you’re just in time. Please, sit.” He offered, his voice low and rich with confidence and power. The cecaelia escorting Dianna saw fit to remove the rope binding her wrists, smiling and waving her ahead to the seat. Apparently, she was little enough of a threat to let her loose. The thought prickled at Dianna, but then she didn’t know the first thing of where she was, and had not been attacked in aggression, so would tread carefully.

Moving around the tall back of the chair, Dianna sat in one of the throne-like seats two removed from the well-dressed man who merely glanced to her briefly with sharp blue-green eyes before smiling. She certainly didn’t feel like attacking anyone now, though she would burn this place to the ground to get her things back if need be.

“A drink to you, my latest guest. I am Victor Morgan, as you may already know. I rather reputation not precede me but my companions are free with their tongues at the best of times. Please, make yourself comfortable.” He offered, reaching out to the table and pouring that dark red wine into the two glasses. It had a strange, viscous pour and immediately prickled Dianna’s sense of smell as she stared at it. She took the glass wordlessly all the same.

It gave her a moment to look around without appearing obvious, for more than the glass had irritated her senses. Surely enough, a peculiar, dark-skinned elf stood with her back to the wall at the shrouded edge of the balcony, peering at Dianna with deep red eyes.

There was something about her disposition – clad entirely in soft black leather from the high-neck brace down to thigh-high boots - that left her with an impression of not drawing attention. No, more than a presence, there was an air of sorcery around her that shrouded her in a darker shadow than the cast lanterns would have allowed.

Had her intent been to remain hidden from Dianna? Pursed her lips and looking away as smoothly as she had met the woman’s gaze, she carried through on the motion of lifting the wine glass and sitting back as if nothing was amiss. It would serve her better to not let them think she was intimidated, at any rate.

Looking out at the small stadium and crowd below – a simple, wide caged pit with a sand-coated floor and rows of wooden benches for spectators – Dianna lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip, immediately sputtering it back out into the glass.

“What sort of foul joke is this supposed to be?” She asked in a careful, measured tone of shock, refusing to turn directly to face the man aside her. The low rumble of his chuckle made Dianna’s skin crawl with caution. She hadn’t feared poison after all this trouble – poisons wouldn’t kill her, in any case – but the smell and look of it had peaked her curiosity.

“Oh? Worry not, it’s fresh from a vein, I am well aware it is not the sort to fair being aged like most wines. Ah, there she is.” The man said in that nonchalant manner before diverting attention, waving down into the stadium. There was a familiar looking man stood at one edge of the cage, bare chested with tattered remains of leggings and dirtied boots.

The sight of him was not entirely unexpected – he was the one she had followed into the forest, so it was good to see that he had been brought to the same place, and not kept by the Alraune. He did make Dianna raise her brows and purse her lips in curiosity before taking a measured sip of the blood in her glass, however. What almost made her spit it out again was the sight of the figure at the other side, strolling up to the cage bars with thick, fur-padded arms folded under her mane-coated bosom.

The right shoulder of that luscious, coppery auburn crest was missing a heavy clump, but even without that cut-away mark, Dianna could recognise the beast at an instance. With its wings folded and fluttering uneasily, a thick, meat-red tail swished back and forth behind its back. A manticore was not a thing of stealth and subtlety to go easily forgotten. Quite to the contrary, as the gate drew up, the manticore’s muscles tensed and flexed visibly as she stepped in to the cage, instantly intimidating the half-naked man across from her.

“These games are somewhat a ritual by now, though I spared you the ah… induction, much to Eidith’s displeasure. Ah but manticores are a stubborn breed, this gathering was about all I could do to sate her.” Victor explained, spreading his hands in a helpless manner with another light chuckle. Dianna glanced from the pair in the arena, where the gate behind Eidith slammed shut, to the Dark Elf intently watching from her darkened corner and the man sat as though royalty aside her.

“What do you mean?” Dianna asked, taking another slow and careful drink of the blood in the glass. It had a familiar taste, if twisted by something unlike what she had tasted from the Alraune. No, it wasn’t an aphrodisiac – just an additive to stop the blood clotting in the air. The memory of that encounter with the woodland monsters, complete with the Alraune’s needled fangs sinking into her neck made Dianna drink more deeply to supress a shiver as the crowd below cheered and whooped. Eidith’s wings cracked in a booming expansion, furling sand into little clouds as she stepped forward. Her lips curled slowly into a malevolent grin.

“Well, as soon as she found out you were amongst our… ‘guests’, she threatened to tear down walls to have your hide. Considering how drained you were from Ironwood’s Heart, that didn’t seem very fair, not at all sporting, nor very kind.” Victor explained, shrugging slightly and chuckling as he drank from his own glass.

True enough – whilst Dianna had taken her moment of rage out on the cecaelia, she felt weak as a kitten when it had quickly passed. With how that accursed plant had fed on her blood and wrung many of the other liquids from her body, she was in no state to fight anything. Eidith was anything but a kitten. The claws in her thick paws were as dangerous looking as knives, just as sharp as the dagger she threw to the half-naked man’s feet.

“So I take it I have you to thank for the theft of my effects, then.” Dianna replied. With her head settled and a little blood back in her, she had as much control over the situation as she could hope to hold, which was practically nothing beyond clinging to her dignity. The man in the caged pit cautiously picked up the dagger as the manticore spread her arms and wings invitingly. Victor only chuckled again.

“My, theft is a rather harsh word. I am keeping them safe, Miss Idrania. You would not believe how easily things go missing, here.” He spoke, so softly and casually as though a name that simply rolled off his tongue with an accustomed familiarity. Dianna could feel the glass start to give under the steel of her grip, and struggled to stop herself from crushing it between her fingers. Below them, the man had taken what amounted to a fighting stance with the dagger and began circling towards the towering lioness of a monster timidly.

“How do you know that name?” Dianna’s tone was flat, cold death. Whilst she didn’t take her eyes from glaring into the arena floor, she could sense the Dark Elf’s gaze molesting her body as an air of tension weighed down on the balcony seating. The crushing aura was not only her own.

“Hm, well, a childe bearing not only a moonsteel blade of the Northlands, forged in a dead era, but a crest of the Blackguard Hunters, all gone but for the Queen’s closest is delivered to my care. Truth, but there is only one person in the realm you could be. Perhaps I merely show my age in knowing this, however.” He explained, his tone smooth and charismatic to a point that disgusted Dianna, especially with the rolling chuckle that followed. He seemed fond of his own voice and humour to compensate how dark everything around him was.

“Then I trust you’ll have the good sense to return them to me.” Dianna replied, relaxing her shoulders and sinking back into the soft padding of the throne-like seat. With her mind much less composed than her body, she sipped from the glass and focused on the event below.

Controlling emotion had been one of Mother’s most incessant lessons that Dianna – much more inclined to being her Father’s human daughter – had struggled to master, and one she very rarely relied upon. Embracing all the colour and emotion of humanity was a joy her Mother had sneered as openly showing your weaknesses. She needed that guise right now, and received only silence in response as the intensity of the main event beneath them washed over the balcony seating.

Down in the caged arena below, things were certainly starting to heat up. The man with the dagger held a hunted look, but had enough backbone to point it at the demonic lioness before him as the pair circled in the arena. Eidith looked to be enjoying the spectacle far too much, her fur practically bristled as her ears and wings lay low.

Her twitches and snaps were goading and teasing the man who already had one set of shallow scrapes across his chest. Her thick black claws showed no sign of blood, and her body no cuts from him. She was a cat playing with a mouse before a crowd, and enjoying every moment of the exhibitionist game.

Looking to score a hit, the man lunged in, only for Eidith to fluidly slid aside his wide slash, nipping and tearing at what remained of the cloth in his trousers before circling around behind him and lashing her claws down his back in a gouging shove that saw him stumble and fall to his knees. The crowd’s jeers and applause hit an uproar that made Dianna frown as she watched. Eidith licked at one of her paws as she circled. He was struggling to get back on his feet already.

For all he appeared outmatched, once he was back on his feet, there seemed to be a stronger fire in his eyes. The grip on his dagger loosened as he stared at his opponent. Eidith’s ears twitched curiously, rising and turning forward as she flexed and licked at her paw. Dianna knew what the look in his eyes and poise of his body meant, and for an instant, she could hear her Mother reprimanding Father for how tense and readable his body was. As soon as the manticore moved, so did he.

The pair met in the middle of the arena in a clash of traded swings, slices and the sort of intimacy that could only exist in such close quarters. He was landing strikes and avoiding hers, just as she leapt to the side and returned his swings with her own.

Each of Eidith’s punches and open-clawed jabs made him heave and shift more visibly than any strike and slash her own body took, but he wasn’t falling. He was rolling with and enduring the strikes as blood flew from their tussle that wasn’t his alone. Focusing on their faces, Dianna noticed something that unsettled her about the manticore.

Somehow, spattered with blood and open cuts, she was smiling.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, their fight ended. Grappling his arm and twisting it painfully behind his back, the dagger dropped to the ground as she held firm and sunk her jaws into his neck. The sight of it made that instinctive little urge deep inside Dianna flare up. Her breath caught in shock as she blinked, but Eidith hadn’t actually bitten his neck precisely, but his collar. The Manticore wasn’t like Dianna or her Mother, but marking dominance in the peak of their primal, bloodlust induced exchange.

Releasing her grip on him entirely, the man fell to the sandy floor as Eidith raised her head, her wings flaring out wide as she simply stared at the ceiling, panting raggedly to catch her breath and bask in the fiery throb of adrenaline in her cuts.

Even from the balcony and with a glass of it in her hand, the scent of blood from the manticore was strong on Dianna’s nose as she watched with morbid interest. The monstrous woman looked as though she was calming down from a blissful orgasm, even as blood matted one of her eyes shut.

After a long moment of gathering herself and enjoying the raucous blare of cheers and adrenaline from the bout, Eidith walked back over to the man with a dark grin, hooking a foot under his shoulder to kick him over onto his back. In some seemingly desperate last effort, he threw sand from the arena floor up at her, which a single wing effortlessly beat aside.

Her eyes narrowed all the same as she moved to straddle his chest, still licking at her paw and forearm where one of the cuts must have grazed her more deeply. Stood there, Eidith pinned one of the man’s arms with a foot and put weight into it as she leant down, her tail swishing and curling around into view.

From where he lay, its spike-tipped maw was a terrifying tunnel of muscle and mucus, the voracious looking hole flexing, expanding and contracting as it drooled profusely. It drew closer to his face, filling his senses with the sordid heat of the thing on top of the bitter copper of bloodshed that filled his mouth. The orifice moved aside as her blood-matted face came into view with one eye shut, wicked grin and all.

“Hey… tell me, do you still fear death?” Eidith purred, her tail’s maw flexing threateningly, as though it might bite his head off. The grounded man paled and simply stared at her, resigned to his fate and working to catch his breath after how she had winded and bled him into submission. It was apparently a response enough for her, as the manticore laughed and leapt away with a quick beat of her wings, landing just beyond his feet. Reaching down for his boot, she grabbed and lifted his leg with one hand, raising her other empty fist high as she looked out to the spectators. The crowd seemed to understand, and cheered wildly.

Hoisting his leg up, the manticore lifted the other with her tail before taking it into her free paw and spreading them wide. From there, his position already looked humiliating enough before she moved her foot between his legs and wrenched down. Even Dianna flinched in the moment, but his person came away unfettered.

The clothing, however, was completely rended from his crotch, leaving his member in clear view and rigidly hard. The sight of it made Dianna’s brows rise as she swallowed hard. She had heard of adrenaline mixing fear and arousal, but that seemed in excess. In truth, of course, it was as much a by-product of the manticore’s venom, received through swipes and slashes that had given him the spirit to meet her head on working on his shaft. Not something he would have known or appreciated at the time, and perhaps not even now, as it stood proudly before the crowd.

That was until Eidith’s foot slammed down onto it, hiding it beneath the squishy, giving pads of her foot’s paw as she grinned down at him demeaningly. Holding both his legs, there was nowhere for him to go as her powerful leg began to grind and smothering his shaft. Flexing and curling her toes made Eidith poke and rake his crotch with her thick claws teasingly as he shifted and tugged at her grip worthlessly.

The razor tips of those toes never went near the sensitive head or cut skin as her foot pushed him between two soft rounds of toes, however. The soft tickle of her dark fur brushed over the head and down the length as a constant reminder of his shame, forcing a strange, illicit moan from him as he lay beaten and bled on the ground. He had expected death, or at least more pain, and braced for it, but this was something else entirely.

“Hah, getting off to a paw like this, disgusting little human.” Eidith both growled and purred, pushing and rubbing harder as her victim began to writhe and moan more consistently from the warming feel of her foot grinding and smothering his length rapidly. The act was as shameful as the beat-down and wounding for him, but he could not stop how the aphrodisiacs coursing through his body forced him to react to every twitch, brush and squeezing clench.

“Nnh, haah! S-stop!” He groaned, for all it fell on deaf ears. Life and energy returned to him in small amounts, making his back writhe and hips buck up into the supple, hugging feel of Eidith’s foot caressing and massaging everything from the base to tip of his cock. Holding his legs firmly, she so much as even dug her heel into his balls to pressure and squeeze more sadistic pleasure from him before the crowd.

It was like that, while licking the blood from around her lips and viciously stroking the plush grip of her foot back and forth that he finally gave in, writhing and groaning loudly before jutting and bucking his hips with a languid moan. The mixture of sensations Eidith was giving her victim – from the soft squish and gentle brushing to rough force and firm grinding – was far too much to hold back against.

Thick jolts of hot white shot from between those fluffy toes, matting and coating Eidith’s dark fur in his sticky white cum as he convulsed on the floor of the arena. The sight and feel of it only made her grin wider, digging the pad of her foot in to smother his pulsing shaft as she gave off a throaty, growling purr of a laugh.

“Hah, couldn’t even hold out against a foot, huh? Mmh, pitiful…” She purred, before stepping back and looking to the crowds to bask in the pride and attention of her victory. Coiling her tail around to her front and raising her hands, the gathered crowds seemed to understand and cheered as she circled the arena. Dianna pursed her lips distastefully and drank from the glass as she watched. It seemed the crowd was wanted blood, and Eidith looked ready to oblige, after making such a grand spectacle of it.

Rounding on the floored man, the manticore grabbed his ankles and yanked him up hard, pulling him from the floor with such violent force that she was able to let go and grab at his knees instead without him falling back to the ground. That thick, prehensile tail coiled around his chest and wound up his body as his legs lay limp over her shoulders, sealing his fate more than ever.

All throughout, his lightly twitching shaft hadn’t yet gone soft, and perhaps it couldn’t, considering the manticore’s venom. With the tail wound around him, that drooling maw came level with the rigid shaft, expanding and flexing threateningly before simply swallowing the whole length into a juicy tunnel of firmly clenching muscles and ridges.

Bucking his hips and groaning loudly, the effect was immediately obvious. Having just orgasmed, the feel of all the uneven, slick and warm ribs inside that tail’s maw along with the vicious clenching force would be too much for any man to handle. Squeezing her legs together was all Dianna could do to stop herself from squirming uncomfortably in memory of how she’d been forced through orgasms under aphrodisiac influence not so long ago herself.

The one saving grace had been that she had been subject to it within the secrecy of the forest – without such an eager crowd bearing down on her, like the man below. He would be at least vaguely aware of the crowd around him, and all the humiliation that came with it. For however conscious he still was, he’d be able to hear their cheers and laughter as Eidith paraded her victory around the cage.

With each step, she heaved him up and clenched around his body with the tail as its bulbous head squeezed on his shaft. Each heaving step would see another visceral suck of the cock trapped inside its wet and over-stimulating grip. Eidith carried him like that around the edge of the arena, leaving him to dangle and suffer the merciless pumping of his shaft as her voracious tail fed on his essence with constant pulses and pulls.

It was a maddening pleasure – near as terrifying as the manticore it belonged to – that ran through him as he hung limply in her care. Under the relentless and slick ribbing of that tail, it was only a matter of time before she milked him to another orgasm, quivering weakly and moaning before the gathered crowd as thick jolts of cum shot straight down the gulping tunnel eagerly.

He was too exhausted and beaten to even think of the humility of it all; only how amazing the release of pleasure and forcefully the skin-tight grip suckled it out of him could register in his mind. It seemed capable of softening the grip, but even that didn’t give him a chance to relax. Instead, the wall of her tail felt like a massive tongue tracing back and forth over his shaft, licking away the last of his energy and sanity alike.

With one last, lurching slurp, the suckling tail-maw broke free, and Eidith’s victim fell to the floor in a limp heap of blood, sweat and cum. The manticore took another casual stroll through the arena with head high and wings wide, but her fun was sated. Waving for the gate to open, the merciless and monstrous woman prowled over to it and waited, an ear twitching back behind her.

Before stepping out of the arena, Eidith gave one quick glance over her shoulder, staring directly into the balcony seating with a deathly glint in her sharp glower. The sight of it made Dianna’s stomach clench as she frowned and drank more openly from the glass. Turning away, Eidith left the arena to the sounds of an easily entertained audience of monster and man alike, and so it was over.

Waiting for the far gate to close, a pair of cream-haired elves with that familiar dark skin appeared in the cage, moving towards and picking up the bloodied and beaten man. With an arm each, the pair hoisted him up over their shoulders and turned back to drag him out through what must be the gate beneath the balcony seating where he had come from.

They reminded Dianna of the silent guest nearby, yet glancing to the darkened corner again, the dark elven woman was missing. Not hidden – the corner was considerably lighter, as though a lamp had been set up near it. Victor’s companion had left, then, and did so without drawing any attention. Dianna felt a chill run up her spine from the realisation. Elves – especially their darker kin – were much too sly and wicked.

“Hmhm, just as I suspected. Her bad blood with you doesn’t seem to be so easily quenched and paid. You’d do well to take care, here.” The powerful man aside her explained, chuckling heartily as the crowd simmered down and dissipated into smaller groups. Placing down the glass, Dianna frowned softly and looked to the man aside her.

“I much rather not be indebted to your sense of hospitality than have to watch my back, Mister Morgan. If I could have my things returned, I’ll be on my way and no harm would come to anyone.” Dianna offered, the double edge to her words and the sharp, low tone they came on only made the man chuckle in that infuriatingly soft and dismissive manner. While showing nothing outwardly, if she had her effects at hand, she would have crucified him to the balcony’s railing then and there.

“Ah, I’m afraid that might not be possible.” He explained, smiling as his bold, shifting eyes met the level glower in her stare effortlessly.

“And why might that be?” Dianna inquired, tensing and scowling near as dangerously as the look she’d gotten from Eidith as she pushed herself up to stand. She could feel a presence behind the chairs, but was not about to act on her bloodlust and lash out at him or be caught unawares. She was simply done with sitting. Smiling softly and turning to look back at the arena and roof, Victor was the image of composure as he spread his hands dismissively.

“Well, there isn’t a spot of land for leagues in any direction. Theia, show my guest to the decks, if you would. I have business to attend, so must leave you, Miss Idrania, in Theia's many capable appendages.” Victor rose from his seat to stand several hands taller than Dianna as he spoke to both in a quick, amicable and sweeping manner. The air of charismatic power that had quietly ebbed from him increased to point of intimidation as he smiled down at her, nodding and smoothly turning to take his leave without another word. Dianna didn’t move, her face pale and eyes wide as Theia, the cecaelia that had escorted her in, slithered into view.

“Decks…?” She managed, and the cecaelia simply nodded, grinning stupidly. Above that seedy lamp-lit arena cage, above the halls and stairwells the pair had walked along, above enough floors to dwarf a mansion and enough people to occupy a town, black sails flew on high.

There, on a tiered deck as long and wide as a farmer’s field, a motley crew of half-naked men, women and monsters of all kinds went about their business. White-feathered harpies circled the masts and dive-bombed past several tiers of stained glass spanning the stern, into tranquil blue waters to try at grabbing fish as the monolithic craft idled in the peaceful mid-day waters amidst an endless horizon of ocean waters.

“Welcome to The Vow of Lunaris.”

Chapter 5 - Of Escorts and Nerves: http://pastebin.com/HYc3SXYe