Jace disentangled himself from Verna, her chest was shining with perspiration and her eyes gazing at him with a hungry glean. Had they limited the past half-day session to just the wooden bed he wasn’t sure it would have survived. They had already broken a chair and the nightstand was broken as well. He had to admit, he could grow quite addicted to the kindred woman’s body. Before meeting this woman, he didn’t realize there was a difference between good and bad sex. Now he realized that was only because he never had good sex before.

The need in her eyes, which seemed to be saying “more” was addictive. If they hadn’t already delayed their visit to the keep half a day in this activity, he would have given in to that look. He leaned down toward the alluring woman and pressed his lips to hers. Engaging in a passionate kiss that threatened to end up in a continuation of their session. He broke away from the kiss, her cheeks were flushed and the hungry look on her face only grew more alluring.

“Verna”

“Nana” she corrected without hesitation

“Verna,” he started again, she pouted as she usually did when he refused to acknowledge that terrible nickname, “get cleaned up and dressed, we’ve already wasted most of today.”

Still pouting she stood up gracefully, then strode over to her scattered clothing; she really knew how to get a rise out of a man. Every movement was sensual, and he couldn't help but stare. There was something delicate and indisputably feminine about how she moved about collecting her things. Suddenly she cast a spell which terminated the direct scrying of the room. With the room no longer monitored she spoke.

“They’re still there watching the inn. Don’t you want to give them a better show? It would be best if they came to us.” Her voice was reasonable

They had chosen to start their love making session precisely because of the people who started watching them half a day ago. Of course, they were being watched via scrying. Several of those scrys were created in a way to actually remotely watch a location. Verna had gotten rather enthusiastic once they had gathered a “watching” audience.

He never knew she was an exhibitionist, though in retrospect it made some sense. Seeing how she was displaying her nude body to him within hours of meeting him. He gathered his things as well.

They discussed their plans one more time. Jace was sure their preparations took into account an even larger opposition force then the one tracking them right now. Verna however seemed to think otherwise. And cautioned him to resume their love making and wait for those people to come to them.

It was an attractive suggestion, one which Jace seriously considered for almost a minute, his clothing forgotten in his hand.

An average, slightly fat middle aged human woman was leisurely laying on a giant, ornate bed, resting on an elbow with a purple augode pillow under her arm, as she watched two young male slaves, toys really, fuck each other in the corner of the room. The room was lavishly decorated with gold and ivory, in a wing of the palace inside the keep courtyard. She loved watching the toys look appalled when she made this demand. It was the look of pure loathing as they hesitantly played with each other that entertained her more than any other. She lived for the moment a toy would deny or refuse her demands. The bloody games that followed would usually motivate all the other toys to do as she demanded.

The slapping sounds caused by one man pumping into another filled the room, their low grunting usually was enough to turn her on. However, she was only paying them half a mind. One of the toys, the one on top looked a bit too enthusiastic which was ruining her mood. Nothing bored her more than when a toy started to enjoy this hobby of hers. Slaves were sent away to a butcher shop if they ever lost their loathing of this entertainment. She figured this young man had reached the end of his usefulness.

Of course, the other Toys quickly realized that the ones who got into this hobby of hers were sent away, not knowing the destination, so there always was a group of slaves trying to be enthusiastic about their duties, and even trying to convince the other men to be enthusiastic as well. Obviously trying to escape her clutches. It was enough to make her laugh from time to time as she watched their games. Unfortunately for those Toys, they were all poor actors, faked enthusiasm was just as fun to her as loathing. She enjoyed watching marginally attractive young men between 12 and 18 debased against their will. The men of this age all probably enjoyed watching the slave girls or unmarried women in the same situation; the king, her brother had a harem filled with sisters and mothers, he enjoyed bringing a whole family of girls into his bed, it really was a paradise of vice for people like them who probably would have had to hide their perversions in another age all together.

Occasionally she would discover one of her toys would have a slave girl lover, she enjoyed nothing more than making those girls serve her while their man was forced to be fucked by another man, and act like he enjoyed it. Sometimes if she was feeling particularly happy with the looks of despair on the girls face she’d have one of the other men fuck the slave girl, so they both could act like they enjoyed it in front of each other. Of course, if they put up too much resistance then she got to get one lover to torture the other lover until their lover was a pile of bleeding meat; the despair and betrayal on her Toy’s faces when the situation got to that was always the best. She had even built peep holes and listening spots into the walls of her room, and enjoyed leaving the room while they were still at it, sex or torture, to watch in on their activities undetected.

Would they stop fucking? Would they keep fucking? Would they stop acting? What about the lovers, would they talk to each other? How about the torture, the begging screams to stop the torment and the indecision on the face of the other as to whether to stop or not? It was the best drama in the world.

In addition to the one man’s enthusiasm, Kindra’s mood was still recovering from her son’s death. Her son’s body had been so badly mutilated they wouldn’t even let her see him. But she had heard enough. He had been skinned by some shitty mage her brother was too afraid to go hunting for. Knowing his character, she had employed some of the guardsmen as spies to secretly look for this magician “Jace”, and had hired a Fairy mercenary company at a staggering sum to hunt him down and kill him.

The company was known as the “Black Eyes”. They specialized in hunting down mages. They had told her just hours ago they had located the inn this mage Jace lived at and were planning to capture him this evening. Considering she hired them just two days ago, she was reasonably happy with their speed and efficiency, even if she was appalled at how much it cost to hire them.

Just as she was about to tell the men to finish up, she really wasn’t in the mood to indulge tonight, one of the guardsmen she had paid to watch out for this Jace came running into her room. He didn’t even look at the two boys in the corner, her perversions were rather tame in comparison to some of the royal family, and quickly dropped to his knees and bowed down like he was being viewed by the king himself.

She looked at the slave-soldier and spoke. “What is it?”

The slave quickly responded “He’s here, this Jace just showed up at the gates of the keep.”

She felt her pulse quicken. “Quickly let the black eyes’ know if they don’t already. They’re to capture him and that kindred woman as soon as they can.”

The slave-soldier stood and saluted then ran out the door.

She felt her heart raced, she seized the cat of nine tails by the bed and told the men to stand, facing the wall. She needed to vent her bloodlust while she waited for the good news.

Verna and Jace left the inn they were staying at; they took what they thought they’d need with them. Jace tried not to get too close to the people on the streets. There was an epidemic of some strange virus running through the city, that caused people to grow some pretty horrendous puss filled sores. Some of those sores being larger then eggs. He had no idea what it was, but from the word he heard from the staff apparently, it could be lethal. He didn’t know if it was healable or not. He didn’t want to catch it to try it out.

What bothered him was how these people didn’t seem to do the basic stuff required to keep you healthy. No one bathed, no one covered their mouth when they coughed or sneezed, the strange animals they kept didn’t seem to eat pests, and the pest… well the pests were the stuff of nightmares. Strange lizard like rat things, called Vullas, that had no fear of humans. Those little creatures would and did eat human babies or elderly. Those black and red shelled beetles/cockroach things, flee like parasites. There was even a type of larva that looked like a white worm called a Reghaldi. By itself it wasn’t dangerous. It moved slow, didn’t have eyes, but if you were unfortunate enough to let one burrow into your skin… You could see an old person from time to time with them infesting them. It was like snakes crawling under their skin. Apparently if left alone long enough those worms would basically devour you alive. The larva apparently hatched into a type of bug which ate dead flesh.

They were working their way along a wide boulevard toward the gates of the keep. The road typically would be busy at this time of the day, however, with the plague most people were avoiding large crowded areas. He wasn’t thinking about the lack of crowds though; he was wondering who the 100 or so Fairies were who had been tailing them from the inn. Obviously, they weren’t here to be nice but thus far they had made no real attempts to attack either. They were the people Verna and him had detected earlier in the day, when they started to watch the inn. It seemed logical they were sent by the King, even if they weren’t doing anything there was enough of them they could be dangerous if they attacked without him noticing their presence first.

Jace and Verna approached the keep. They had prepared for this evening for a few days since he got back on his feet. The plan was set it was just a matter of executing it. Jace just was hoping Verna would stick to the plan. He had to exert an awful lot of effort convincing her it was best if they not just kill everyone by destroying the keep and studying the object. He understood where she was coming from. She just didn’t want a knife in the back. There was no opposition the closer they came to the keep. Their plan expected them to be seen on the approach, yet none of the guards seemed to pay them any mind at all. He had wondered at the lack of search for Verna and himself after killing that priest. Though there were no obvious attempts to locate them, he just couldn’t bring himself to believe the king didn’t know who had killed one of the princes of this city.

The palace/keep was enormous and probably ate up almost 1/10 of the already humungous city. It was made out of the same black stone as the rest of the city, and guardsmen were everywhere. Jace had learned that most guardsmen were slaves and all male, one of the few situations where a slave could wear clothing apparently. The downside for the slave of course was he had to be gelded. He couldn’t even begin to explain this tradition. Even Verna had no explanation for it. They looked just as sickly as everyone else though, one of the guardsmen they passed had a massive puss filled boil sticking out of his cheek. He looked feverish.

The guards finally paid close attention to the pair as they approached the main gate. It was massive, perhaps a hundred feet high, the wall to the keep was very thick, it made an impressive vista, with the black stone houses lining the streets leading up to the large open square before the keep gates, with inns and other large shops ringing the square. Jace and Verna cut no less an impressive look then the gate. Jace in black and silver, Verna dressed like a guard in silver and black. Back in the Inn before they left Jace had asked her why she wasn’t wearing her red armor her reply was.

“I am your slave. Of course, I have to match my master.” She had shaken her cute butt at him as she said it, even covered in scaled armor he found the motion seductive.

Of course, the pair had drawn attention before that, they looked too spectacular for them not to. Most people on the streets shied back from them assuming them to both be kindred, though Jace did not have those yellow vertical slit eyes. He didn’t blame them for the assumption, just looking at the pair it looked like a visiting dignitary and his guard. Life was hard enough, these people didn’t want the trouble someone with his perceived status would bring, so of course they caught almost all the eyes of the people on the street. No, these gate guardsmen weren’t looking at them in fear or even curiosity, they had the look on their face as if they expected trouble. He could see one guardsmen running to bring someone else. An officer perhaps.

Stopping before the gate he let Verna speak. This part had been pretty much scripted out. She was supposed to let them know Jace had arrived and was seeking an audience with the king.

“FOOLS! HOW DARE YOU WORMS STAND AND NOT BOW BEFORE MY LORD AND MASTER, THE GRAND WIZARD JACE!”

Even Jace gaped at her briefly. This domineering tone. She was using a spell to make it echo loud enough he wouldn’t be surprised if some of the men in front of them had ruptured eardrums.

‘Fucking kindred’, Jace growled to himself. He sort of knew how she was going to talk to them, so he really had no one else to blame but himself. But he always thought getting to the gates without a blade drawn was one of the least likely situations. As a result he put little thought into how she should address these people, in retrospect he really should have told her to moderate her tone.

The ringing in Jace’s ears was still dying down and most of the street was kneeling when those following Fairies suddenly made their move.