Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

Tybalt pulled back from Miranda and smiled at the look of surprised pain on her face.

“You… You bit me,” she said accusingly.

“I did,” he admitted, licking a little blood from his lips.

“Do you enjoy causing pain?” she asked after a long moment, her tone more serious.

“To you,” he replied, staring into her eyes. “Right now. Yes.”

And he did. It was surprisingly fun to tease her, to control the interaction fully, to bully her in a way he wouldn’t be likely to do to a woman he actually cared about.

Although that wasn’t the actual reason he’d bitten her.

Even though it was erotic for him to have a fully naked Miranda in his lap, and the fact that she wanted to get on his good side had presented unexpected opportunities, he hadn’t forgotten why he was there.

I’d better do it one more time, Tybalt decided.

“I’ll show you again,” he whispered.

Miranda’s eyes took on that doe-eyed, submissive look that he’d come to realize he loved seeing in a woman. The look that appeared when they had decided to bend into the shape he wanted for them. It almost made him want to keep her. Take her as a lover, the way she was insinuating he should. Break her, far more than he’d ever done to Samara - who, after all, had never been that far from the woman he wanted her to be.

Miranda, on the other hand, was a viper. She deserved every bit of his hatred. She’d been trying to manipulate him throughout this interaction. She’d been willing to sleep with the man who’d killed the man she was about to sleep with, for no certain gain, not even for her own survival, but entirely to improve her position.

He wasn’t even sure he believed her story about being secretly a bastard. But if it was a lie, then she was one of the most gifted liars he’d ever met. To come up with it so quickly and tailor it so perfectly to him was impressive.

Yes, he almost wanted to keep her, to slowly, painfully pull out the viper’s fangs.

But only almost. He didn’t have that much time for games. His existing plan for her was good enough.

Miranda gave him a slight nod. Consent for him to inflict a little more pain.

He leaned in close and sank his teeth into her neck. They were slightly sharper than usual, thanks to Tybalt having used Scrimshaw on them before he came into the room.

Pestilence Mage reached Level 44!

The necromancer instantly dismissed the alert.

“Oh - ow…” Miranda gasped slightly, then whined a little, but the sound and the words were tentative, uncertain, like she wasn’t sure whether she enjoyed the bite or not.

He’d bitten her hard - hard enough that he again tasted a little of her blood - but she didn’t seem to dislike it. Maybe he would have molded her to enjoy pain if he chose to keep her.

But he wasn’t. No. He wasn’t going to keep her.

That ought to be enough.

He grabbed her by her pert ass, resisted the urge to squeeze it one last time, and lifted her off his lap. He dumped her onto her back on the bed.

She looked up at him, a mix of emotions on her face. Eager, trying-not-to-seem-eager, distinctly horny, afraid, resentful, confused. It was more erotic than he wanted it to be.

“Are you going to, um…?” Miranda looked too embarrassed to finish the question.

“Am I going to fuck you?” Tybalt said bluntly, finishing her thought for her.

She nodded, slowly obviously trying not to betray how much she wanted a certain answer. The way her legs opened slightly told him exactly what she wanted and expected.

Silly girl. I’ve been playing these games for years. You’re not subtle…

“I don’t think you’re worth my time,” he said after a moment.

Outrage crossed her face before being replaced by fear.

As he spoke those words, the others came out from where they had stood, just out of view, in the hallway. Everyone was there: Aoife, Dero, Kistana, Liora, Mariella, Samara, Victoria, Vidalia, and even the undead. The zombies, the guardian spirits, and the former Beastkings Edgard, Henry, Robert, and William. All of them looked through the open door at the frozen Miranda, who frantically moved to cover her nakedness with her hands, fear, confusion, and humiliation warring for primacy of position on her face.

Gods, that’s good…

Finally, she locked eyes with Tybalt, and her expression calmed a bit. Her brain registered that the sudden arrivals were a part of his plan, that this was all still part of this strange game the two of them were playing. He was obviously waiting for her reaction. So she tempered it.

She’s remarkably calculating. I guess it runs in the family. Along with spite, malice, cruelty…

He almost admired her.

“So, I’m not worth your time,” she said, looking like she was holding back some more intense words that she eagerly wanted to speak. “What are you going to do with me, then?”

“Nothing,” Tybalt replied.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, repeating the lie. “You’re not a threat to me, and I was never planning to hurt you. I said it before. I haven’t threatened you a single time. You’re just… something I had to get out of my system. I was surprised that you decided it was to your advantage to become exactly what you spat upon with contempt at our last meeting. A whore. And you’re right. When we were kids, I did have a thing for you. So I… tried you out a little. I’ve never been with a noble whore before. But I decided I didn’t want you. I have women who actually want to sleep with me, to belong to me.” He gestured behind himself at where the others stood. “Women who actually care for me, who share my life and my vision for the future. Women who aren’t trying to find some angle by which they can use me. More beautiful than you, by the way. I’m sure you can see that.

“And less venomous. So I don’t want you.” She gave him a look, a mixture of skeptical and stung, and he almost laughed at the pride evident in her expression. “Even if you were twice as attractive as you are, for my own good, I wouldn’t want you, because of who you are as a person. You’re poison. Cancer on two legs. Maybe that will give you something to think about over the next ten years or sixty or however long you live. You’re still my kin, so I wish you a long life, Miranda.” He gave her an evil smile to go along with the mix of lies and demeaning words. “Live with the humiliation of knowing how useless and treacherous you were to your country, how you shamed yourself, offering your body to me, and how you shared your darkest secret - and your first experience of sexual pleasure - with your worst enemy. I couldn’t have enjoyed this more if I had planned it this way.”

Tybalt grabbed her by the wrist before she could form her reply, and he used Teleport. He had turned off his Anti-Magic Field some time ago, while he was teaching her how to kiss, but the noble lady had been too preoccupied to notice. He took them outside to the desert sands, close enough to see the Fortress yet far enough away not to be spotted by torchlight. Miranda was still naked, and Tybalt took her form in via the moonlight for a moment before he spoke again.

“You can run now,” he said, putting on a generous tone. “Flee for your life. I have more work to do here tonight. Almost everyone in the Fortress must die. You’re my kin, so I’m sparing you this once, despite the hatred I feel toward you. If I catch you in my territory again, I won’t be so merciful.”

She swallowed, looked angry, but nodded, forcing a grateful expression onto her face.

“Can I… have some clothing?” she asked.

“I think you can figure something out.”

He nodded to a slender piece of greenery that she wore, just above her foot, woven into an anklet.

She stooped, untied it, and moved a little of her green mana into it, and the green threads of plant began to grow, brought to new life. She couldn’t do much to such a small plant, even with all her power, but she was able to sprout a few leaves joined together by a slender stem.

It was enough, as she applied it, for some makeshift underwear that clung to her body like slender vines, covering her sex, her ass, and her nipples. Whatever village she made it to first would get quite a view before she procured more clothing.

“Farewell,” the necromancer said, smiling at his cousin.

“Farewell, cousin,” Miranda replied with a look somewhere between relief and restrained fury. “Good luck in… in your conquests.”

The necromancer teleported back to the room he’d just left.

The others were all gathered inside and had closed the door in case anyone happened to pass by. Dero had been preventing possible intruders from appearing before with her Spatial Seal and Sound Void skills, but now there was no point in burning the mana. It was meant to be a busy night for her, as with the other combat capable members of Tybalt’s harem.

“I was under the impression that you hated her, master,” said the voice of the Charnel Fortress in his ear, breaking the polite silence it had maintained all this time as the necromancer put his plans into motion.

The others in the room looked around uneasily at the creepy disembodied voice, but the necromancer simply answered.

“I do hate her,” Tybalt said with firm conviction. “That’s for life. None of the shit she said was going to change that.”

“You seemed to let her off lightly despite those feelings.”

“Yes,” the necromancer replied, expression breaking into an evil smile. “I seemed to.”

“I was surprised you didn’t want to take her with us,” said Dero, moving with the others as they all stepped into the room.

“She seemed like she was capable of serving some functions,” Vidalia said, smiling darkly. “But it’s easy to grasp why he wouldn’t want her to.” She looked at Samara and said quietly, “Whatever we do with you, it’s not ever going to be because Tybalt hates you. Maybe that’s - no, probably that’s something that should be kept out of our bedroom.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve never hated someone more than I hate my own family,” Tybalt said, smiling thinly.

“Why?” Samara asked.

“When his mother was dying, they turned their backs on her,” Mariella said before Tybalt could answer, her expression somber. “Tybalt values loyalty to family above almost anything.”

Vidalia and Victoria were nodding along with her, both already aware of this secret. Only Tybalt himself was slightly confused.

Almost anything? Why almost? Oh. Maybe she’s just thinking that I value much the same things as her at this point. I’ve listened to her every time she’s counseled mercy. I’ve kept her in the rooms where key strategic decisions are made. When she demanded the ogres not engage in their usual cannibalism, I gave her what she wanted. She must think that those moral principles are as valuable to me as loyalty to family… or she’s just adjusting her view of me slightly to match her self-image, as someone who’s turned on her family of birth to support a foreign people.

He decided not to call out her error. It was a misunderstanding between them, but it was the kind that could not be corrected in a short conversation. He would need time to discuss something like that gently.

“You said it better than I could have myself,” the necromancer said instead.

“So, you just let this person who betrayed your family - in your eyes - go?” Dero asked, raising an eyebrow.

“She could have made a powerful undead, as a nature mage,” Victoria observed. “If you corrupted her, and I prayed over her—”

“But then I would have to see her face every day,” Tybalt said.

If she was a vampire or something, under my control but still trying to use her feminine wiles… and more beautiful than ever, because that seems to be a rule with vampires… I’d definitely sleep with her for real. And I’d hate myself for it. It took self-control not to do it the way things actually played out.

“What did you actually do to her?” Kistana asked quietly.

He frowned slightly. He knew the solution he had come up with was horrifying. It might be especially disturbing to the catgirl, who had almost died of disease months back, right after saving Tybalt’s life.

But he didn’t want to have any true secrets from his wives.

“I developed a virus just for nature mages, and I injected it directly into her bloodstream,” the necromancer said after a moment. “That was why I bit her twice. I wanted to plant the seed thoroughly and ensure that it took root. Nature mages aren’t exactly healers, but their powers promote growth and regeneration, which can be used for healing. As someone who grew up the son of a nature mage - even if I didn’t inherit his class - I’m familiar with how their powers work. This virus exploits that. It feeds on the victim’s reserves of mana and fuels spontaneous, unnecessary cellular growth… of a kind of cells that are defective.”

“To… rapidly age her?” Kistana asked.

“To render her infertile,” Liora guessed.

“No.” He shook his head. “To give her cancer.”

The others became quiet at that. Even the Charnel Fortress seemed to have nothing to say.

Tybalt licked his lips one last time and tasted the blood that remained there.

“Even now, my gift blossoms inside her,” he said slowly. “I can sense it. Aggressive. Rapidly growing. It should be impossible for her to heal on her own, since it does something too similar to her own powers. Eventually, it will be powerful enough to consume all the mana her body produces. Once it reaches a certain critical mass, every day of the rest of her life will be worse than the last. She’ll know what’s happening. Also, the virus is contagious, but only to nature mages… and more effective the more powerful the nature mage is, since it feeds on that specific mana affinity. So if she sees our - I mean, my - father again, it will afflict him even more violently than her. Perhaps they’ll die in each other’s arms.”

It’s strange. I’m happy, but also… have I crossed some sort of line? It feels a little bit like a hollow victory, somehow. I’ve definitely won. Unless she figures out what I did immediately and gets the High Priestess of Astara to help her, despite her being on house arrest. I don’t think a regular healer could do it. I won… Shouldn’t I be more excited? What happened to my mother, inflicted as a fate on her worst enemies, should feel like justice. Ma, you would have wanted this, right? I avenged you. I made them pay.

There was no answer, of course. At least not from the dead.

Tybalt had been thinking about having one of his women take care of his arousal after he dealt with Miranda, but the swelling had gone down considerably as he thought again about what he’d done to her.

“It’s nothing but what they deserve,” Vidalia said, pulling the necromancer out of his own head. As he looked around, he noticed the foxgirl and most of the others looking at his face with concern.

“Well, it’s done now, in any case,” Tybalt said, rubbing one of his temples. “Let’s go kill off Caracalla’s little army.”

It would be a long night.