The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

"You want me to tell him to stab himself?" Tenele asked, but there was an edge of relief in her voice. She had, for a moment, feared the woman would demand she tame his manufactured flame by mating, and was certain she might combust.

"If it will shut her up," Laurius muttered in their native tongue so Cera wouldn't understand. He sat up.

"I only just mended you!"

"You'll have to mend me again," Laurius said, reaching out for the dagger in the woman's hand. He would gladly stab himself if it meant he got his hands back on the dagger. "May I? Mistress demands it." He reached down for the sword, tucking it slightly behind him to get it further out of sight.

[Soran Nightblade]

Cera frowned skeptically at Laurius's eager behavior. "He seems to wish to serve you. I'll give him that much," she observed, tapping her clawed nails on the hilt of the dagger. "Are you so eager to die when your mistress has not yet commanded it?"

[Emora Deen]

Laurius hesitated, his gaze flicking to Tenara, and then to Ren. He glanced at the man's arm, where his sleeves hid the words Elias had carved into him. Then, he shifted his gaze back to Tenara and thought of... Well, he honestly tried not to think of it. Laurius was a selfish man, but nothing in this world had ever made him feel the guilt he felt at what had happened to them. "If she commands it, I am deserving. But, even if she didn't, I am still deserving."

Tenara shook her head. "Laurius..."

"Please, Mistress," Laurius said, putting on his very best impression of Ren. "Let me serve you."

"I cannot bring back the dead!"

"Well, count me as one of six."

Tenara opened her mouth to shout at him, but his eyebrows rose meaningfully.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren felt like his limbs were going cold, pangs of emptiness tearing towards his chest. "No," he choked. He shouldn't interfere. He knew that. He'd come here expecting to lose them all. But somewhere along the way, he'd become greedy. He'd stopped being okay with being stripped of them. Any of them.

He turned to Cera and clasped both hands over the dagger blade gently, as if in prayer. The weapon rejected his touch, making his whole body throb. It made it that much easier to fall to his knees before her. "Marquess, it is as you say. I am not truly hers. I should have died with honor, but instead she took it from me. It is more than I can bear! Now that you have seen this, I beg you, Yurivis, let your heart be tender to me. Help me!" he bowed his lips to her hand and licked it softly.

Cera hesitated. Any Yurivis would be moved by such heartfelt male surrender. Despite her treatment of her brother, Cera did not enjoy seeing Ivie abused. She required only unconditional submission... something her defiant brother had never shown her.

All Ren could do was hope it was enough. He stifled a very real sob before butting his horn into the back of her hand. No more pleas or begging. Just surrender.

Cera's grip on the dagger loosened and dropped it to the floor. She ran her hand over the back of his head like she was soothing a frightened animal, and turned a glare upon Tenara.

It was the distraction Ren was waiting for. He placed his hands on the floor and kicked the dagger backward, sending it spinning across the floor toward Laurius. "*Run!*" he screamed with every voice he had.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius moved, grabbing the dagger as it skittered across the floor into his hand. He was on his feet a moment later, scooping up Havitharon's sword. "Tenara!" he shouted, running toward the hall and what he thought to be the direction of Havitharon's rooms.

Tenara started after Laurius but stopped short, whirling on Ren still with his head pressed into Cera's palm. She lifted a hand and flicked her fingers, a blistering invisible force striking Havitharon's sister. She reached down and grabbed Ren's wrist, dragging him away.

[Soran Nightblade]

"Don't you dare!" Kishva shouted. Ren staggered after Tenara, her sure grip the only thing giving him strength to stand. Terror raged through him, along with shame and guilt. He had just defied females for the first time. His nerves squirmed with horror as their commands coursed through him, unanswered. It made his legs shake as he ran with Tenara and Laurius toward refuge.

"Left!" he shouted as they reached a juncture of halls and belted toward Thvoros's quarters. He had to pray that was where they'd taken him for treatment.

______________________

"-quis. Marquis!"

Havi's senses blurred back together for what had to be the third time in the space of a minute. The physician was trying to get through to him, but he kept dipping in and out of consciousness. He registered the state of his body. He was curled on his side on the floor of his quarters. His hands were clutched over his bleeding stomach. Everything was too slick and painful for him to even tell if he was putting pressure on the right place. And, nonsensically stronger than the other sensations, the heat of the rut seared through him.

His eyes arced up to the physician like twin thunderbolts. For once, she didn't seem to be afraid of him, though he would have preferred it that way.

"Marquis, you need to let me administer-"

"Leave it...on the table," he growled. He never took Toothsbane with others present. Anya knew this well, as she had been his physician since he was a child. Why was she still here?

"Not this time, my lord. Your injuries are too severe. I can't leave you unwatched. Just stay still a moment."

"Tenara."

"I swear I will get your yurivis for you, as soon as you're treated." She crouched toward him, but he wrestled backward until the legs of his desk stopped him. The impact upset a ceramic pot of writing ink, which crashed to the floor.

"Not..."

Anya paused uneasily, unused to seeing him in such a state. "Whatever it is, tell me quick before you bleed out," she said with more confidence than she felt.

He reached for the hand holding the Toothsbane pearl, but hesitated without touching her. It was agony to disobey her instructions in his current state. He didn't trust himself to touch her, let alone succumb to the effects of Toothsbane in front of her. But she clearly wouldn't give in without an explanation.

"I am in rut, and not yet bonded," he rasped. "So, please leave it and go."

Her eyes shot wide. He wasn't bonded to Princess Tenara? Moreover, he was trusting her with that information? Sure enough, his rut was riling up her instincts as well, making her feel possessive, protective, and dominant over him. In this small room, in his current state, if she chose to mark him as hers, he would be unable to do a thing to stop her. This body so many had only dreamed of holding was unguarded and hungry right in front of her. Of course, her employer would be none too pleased, but it would be a reasonable explanation for losing control.

"Marquis, I am not what you fear I am," she said sharply, both to Havitharon and to herself. "Forgive me." She pressed his shoulder so that he twisted onto his back, and popped the pill into his mouth, followed immediately by the leathers. Havi bit down and screamed.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius's head reeled as they turned. He had been on his feet, running with two very sharp objects in his hand before his body shouted at him that had lost a LOT of blood—had nearly died in fact. His vision tunneled, growing dark around the edges, and his stride slowed as he stumbled down the hall, zigging and zagging and colliding into a wall.

Tenara let go of Ren and jumped to catch Laurius as he bounced off the wall and lost his balance. The sword clattered out of his hand. She bent to scoop it up as well, holding the hilt in her hand as he rested heavily over her shoulders.

"Not now," she said, but he murmured something under his breath and trudged forward like a man who had drank too much. "Please, not now. Run! Run."

She pulled him along, keeping tabs on Ren as they hurried to Havitharon's door. Tenara went to open it, turning the handle and shoving inward with her shoulder.

[Soran Nightblade]

When the door burst open, they were greeted by the sight of Havi pinned on his back on the floor, and the doctor who treated Tenara the night before straddled across his waist. She was holding his arms to the floor at his sides, restraining him from thrashing under her. The woman spared enough focus from wrestling Havi to be startled by their entrance. She took in their appearance in confusion as the three guests tumbled into the room and barred the door behind them.

She could more or less guess what had happened as the shouting started outside the door. But this wasn't a great moment to choose sides. She was a physician, and she was with a patient. "A little help. He's seizing," she panted, struggling to hold Havi down.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara had frozen after entering the room at the sight of the woman straddled over Havitharon. At first, it had not seemed like... But then, she saw that the woman was helping him, and she left Laurius stumbling by the door, rushing across the room and falling to her knees near them. "Havi? Havi..." She set the sword nearby, and smoothed her hands against his face. "What's wrong with him?"

Laurius crashed into the wall as Tenara abandoned him, slipping down until his legs rested along the floor. "Shit," he huffed, pressing a hand to his head. He rolled his eyes up. "Tenara... We need... souls. Get us out of here..."

But Tenara was too focused on Havitharon's seizing to hear his mumbled words.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren went to his collapsed master's side like a magnet. He crouched next to him, lifting his shirt and wiping aside the blood to see the state of his wound. His flesh was smooth beneath the slick of crimson. That surprised him. She'd healed him this much?

His head snapped to face Tenara, taking a closer look at her condition. How much power had she used? Could she still get them home?

...was what he should have been asking. But instead, he found himself wondering if she was okay. Well, there would be no getting through to her until she dealt with whatever was happening to Thvoros. He turned his eyes back on Laurius and pressed his fingers to the vein in his neck, monitoring his weakened heartbeat. "Shit," he muttered, and clutched the man's head to his stomach with both arms like he was cradling a wounded creature away from a storm. "Hang on. Just hang on a bit more," he mumbled over him.

The pounding on the door was like a distant nightmare that would resume the moment any of them closed their eyes. "I have to start the sigils."

"I'm mn-not sheishing, Yurifis," Havi moaned, hissing through the leathers. "Shush convulshing."

"That's the same thing!" Anya sighed. It wasn't quite true, but he was still a danger to himself at the moment.

"Geh off me! Geh owt!" he begged in a midnight voice desperate with need.

The physician looked at Tenara, a deep gray flush coloring her cheeks. The air was thick with the scent of his rutt. Havi's thrashing made it very clear what was going on underneath his clothes, and she wasn't immune to such things. "He was given a dose of Hydris earlier. It doesn't interact well with Toothsbane. Most things don't. Can you take over?" she asked Tenara. She wasn't sure what the story was, but the woman somehow looked even more exhausted than when she'd seen her the night before. Was she strong enough for this male?

[Emora Deen]

Tenara didn’t hesitate, she was elbowing the woman out of the way and assuming her place over Havitharon, too panicked to notice how his body had responded to the drugs or the Toothsbane. She was only focused on his disorientation and his obvious discomfort.

But Tenara was not as physically strong as Havitharon’s species, even the females it seemed. The moment she took over holding Havitharon’s arms down, they came up off the ground, lifting her with them. She shoved back down, opening her magic. Red light bloomed in her eyes, and unnatural pressure accompanied the human strength of her arms.

There was a moment of relief when the struggle to hold him down eased into something natural, even if it caused the blissful curse of her magic to wreak its havoc on every nerve. She finally felt the hardness of him under her. This was not the time, not the place, but… Tenara shook her head. He was hurt. She could mend him. Would that help? What would it do to his sanity to have the drug and Toothsbane in his system, only for her magic to throw oil on the fire? What would it do to either of them?

The pounding on the door turned into a loud, hard boom that almost rattled the thing off its hinges.

“Ren, the spell. Hurry,” she said, lifting her glowing eyes to him. “This is our only chance. We lose them if they break that door down.”

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi didn't realize at first what was happening or who was in the room. For all its side effects, the Toothsbane was healing his body, but it blurred his mind. Until Tenara spoke, he didn't realize who had taken Anya's place over him. Then he finally recognized her voice.

Havi's brain seemed to melt with relief. "Tenawa?" he huffed around the gag. His movements settled, his muscles jerking but no longer thrashing. The need to be hers turned his insides to soup. Stillness felt worse than struggling, but if he moved too much, he might miss a command.

Meanwhile, Tenara's words broke Ren back to reality. He twitched back from Laurius, embarrassed to be hugging his head like a teddy bear, and spun to assess the room. "The Toothsbane is fixing him. It's just working a bit slower because of the rut. His body temperature is too high.

Anya glanced at him, surprised by his knowledge.

"I was Kishva's herbalist and gardener. I read some things about medicine along the way." He left out the part where he'd only remembered such details because of the enchantment on his augmented memory. The same one he was about to use to re-scribe the spell to get home. He spotted the jar of ink that had shattered on the floor near Havi, and rushed to dip his fingers in the dark liquid. He crouched and began scrawling large runic symbols on the stone floor.

"What are you doing?" Anya asked. "Magic is forbidden in this compound?"

"We're a little bit past following the rules, here," Ren muttered, praying she wouldn't try to stop him. A physical altercation with a female might actually explode his brain, and exploded brains didn't remember complex rituals.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara got a sense of relief when Havitharon’s strength stopped fighting her so hard, but she kept the pressure of her magic on him to minimize the damage his uncontrollable twitching could do to his body. She squeezed his arms reassuringly, keeping her eyes locked on his to watch for any deterioration.

“Laurius, can you put out the furnace?” Tenara asked, knowing they needed to cool the room, or cool Havitharon somehow. Unfortunately, her magic was fire and oppression, not cold, not light.

Laurius didn’t respond, his head had bowed forward in sleep.

“Shit,” she hissed, and then the hard, thundering pounding on the door cracked it. Material bowed in a little, but didn’t come off the hinges or snap in half altogether. Tenara sucked in a breath and drew one hand from Havi, holding it towards the door. Power roared up, crashing against it, holding the seams together. Blue fire licked up across the floor and around the stone casing. Tenara focused her magic on Havi and the door, eyes burning bright as hellfire, but she couldn’t hold either for long. “Ren,” she warned. “Hurry.”