The Power of Pain 5
#5 of The Power of Pain
Nigel and Cerise try and find a way to be happy about their lives, but they were never meant to be together. Meanwhile, Bast appears to take a hint of further revenge.
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The Power of Pain
Part 5
For Catsithx
By Draconicon
Cerise was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, because she felt happy, and she forgot that she was dreaming as fast as she could so that she could keep feeling happy. It was all too rare, these days.
She was in bed with Kain. She could feel him against her, his hand against her shoulder, the pressure of his touch light, but eager. It was something that always had the potential to pull her close, always had the chance to drag her into his embrace, but he never did it. Never without asking first. Never without her permission.
They were putting down a book. An old dream, an old memory. The kitsune-dragon hybrid sighed, knowing what was coming. They celebrated that night, celebrated the pair of them being together, the pair of them mastering a spell, him explaining it and encouraging it, her learning to cast it. The fire still burned in the fireplace from the ball of flame that she'd summoned and let loose.
The dream shook, and they skipped through the sex. She wished that it hadn't, wishing that she'd have a chance to remember what she used to have, but it was too late. Gone, long gone, and now she was sitting on the edge of the bed, alone.
What had happened? Right; Kain had gone after something, some little trinket or other, saying that he would be back later. A little bit of time would pass, and then she would feel a little bit alone. No more Kain, no more comfort, no more affection in the room. That always happened when he left, always leaving her feeling off, that something was missing, that she didn't have what she needed in her life.
She could have had more. She could have given him more, if he asked, but he always waited, always wanted to hold back until she gave permission. Hard to do something with that, hard to move forward.
The dream started to shift, and she remembered what would happen next. The world was changing, the world shifting, reminding her of how everything had changed after this night.
Instead of staying in her room, she'd gone to Nigel's, and she did it again in the dream. The happiness was starting to fade, becoming something else, something hotter and needier. Something more of the body than the heart, something that she had allowed to happen and had always regretted, even though she buried that regret again and again in her desperate efforts to forget about it.
It didn't help tonight. She walked out of the room at the inn, traveling down the hallway to the one where the Doberman stayed. She knocked on the door, her tails twisting and turning behind her. An invitation to enter was answered, and she stepped inside. Nigel looked up at her, barechested, strong, powerful.
She felt something, then. Something that might have been anger, something that might have been some petty jealousy.
I could have this, she thought. I could have this, and nobody would know.
And so she did. She walked up to Nigel and kissed him, and he kissed her back. Rather than questioning it, he rolled her over in bed, and her dress went up. They were together, pressed against one another, grinding and thrusting like the animals that they were deep down inside. He came inside of her, marking her, taking her.
They came apart, and she felt something, something different, something amazing. She didn't know what it was, precisely, but she knew that she wanted more. She knew that she'd need this, this raw pleasure that came when someone just took the lead.
It was the day that her love for Kain had died.
She opened her eyes, the red and black hybrid slowly sitting up, the white fur on her chest gleaming in the moonlight streaming through her window. She looked at the sky, and then laid back down, folding her hands over her breasts.
I can't go back...
It hurt her to think that, but she had to admit it, now. She couldn't go back to Kain, and that meant that she was stuck with Nigel. She was stuck with a man that didn't care for her, with a man that wanted nothing but her body, with a man that didn't know how to fix her.
She had given up everything for this. The pleasure had been there, at first. The loveliness, the knowing that someone else desired her enough not to care about waiting. Someone that didn't need to wait for her all the time, someone that would just give her what she needed. It had been great...
For a while.
Then the world turned upside-down. The crisis of the Bastian Faithful struck the world like a natural disaster, spreading across the continent with a fury that nothing had ever matched. Even now, the capital city was all but besieged, holding the focus of the great cat army just outside the walls. The only thing that stood between them and the rest of the world was Rallsin, this city, and that was only going to last for so long.
She closed her eyes, letting out a long, slow sigh, a whistle of pain that hissed through her teeth. If only Nigel could have been better. If only he knew how to be a decent person. If only he could do something more than fight and fuck.
If only he could be more like Kain.
Bast sat on a hill outside of Rallsin, smirking to herself as she looked at the great and powerful city. It still stood between her followers and the rest of the kingdom, and she knew that it would continue to stand until she dealt with the last two champions that had rallied the city's defenses. The three-tiered walls were too big to go over, and they went far enough below the city to be all but invulnerable to sapping and diggers.
That meant that they needed the starve them out, and with an experienced fighter general and a mage that had greater power than most mortals, that meant that they needed something more than a simple siege.
The black-furred goddess looked up at the sky, staring at the constellations that represented her old rivals in the pantheon. She sprawled, extending one leg, the gold bands on her fur making her sparkle in the night.
"How does it feel?" she asked the heavens. "How does it feel to know that I'm back, and you can't do anything to stop me?"
There was no answer. There never would be, not without the priests calling the gods down to earth. They knew she was there, now, but unlike them, she had been summoned by a mortal that had something to offer. She had been summoned with his very soul, empowered to the point of having a proper body of her own. She was soul-bound to the world, which gave her a power that even the avatars of the gods could not match.
She was mighty. She was all but omnipotent, and her conquest was only a few tasks away from being accomplished.
Rolling herself to her feet, the great and powerful goddess looked at the city. Today would be the day that the general fell. Today would be the day that the mage was captured. Today would be the day that the last of the champions were called home to their makers...
Except for one.
Bast flexed her fingers, feeling the slight, metaphysical bindings that held her back. They were not the bindings of chains, but rather the feeling of an agreement. The black cat that had offered himself to allow her through had given her several conditions, even if he didn't know it. He required revenge, pleasure, and worship, and if she did not give him that, then the deal would be off. He would have his soul back, and she would be forced to continue her campaign on a more even footing with the rest of the gods.
A pity, really. If he had been any other species, she would have ignored his pleas, but he was a cat. A very broken cat, but a cat, nonetheless.
Bast flexed her fingers, disappearing into the night. All cats had that power; she just did it better.
Nigel had found the dive bar at noon and hadn't left since setting food inside. Not because the bar was good, but because they didn't care about whether he got abrasive, or physical. The barmaids had all learned to avoid him to some degree, but that didn't stop him from slapping their asses or feeling them up every time that they brought another drink over to him.
Damn Cerise...fucking it all up...
He wanted to be rid of her, but she was too powerful to just cast aside. The fact that she was the only thing keeping half of those bastards on the other side of the wall, and the fact that she was responsible for keeping their food production from falling to nothing, was the only reason that he still kept her in the party. A party of two, these days...a party of two, all because of her fucking problems.
Shouldn't have fucked that bitch...
The Doberman shook his head. She'd been a fun lay that night, that first time, that time when she was all too willing to open her legs for what he had to give her. She wanted to be used like a woman needed to be used, and he'd been more than willing to oblige. The fact that she'd been willing to cheat on Kain had been enough for him to know that the cat wasn't doing his job.
That became a regular thing, and then...then they got over their heads. They made the decision to cut Kain out of the group, and everything had gone wrong.
Cursed. I'm fucking cursed.
That was all that he could figure after everything had gone this badly for him. He had lost two of the most powerful people in the world to this cult, and then he had lost the connection that he had with Cerise. His pleasures no longer came from the hybrid - at least, not more than a few days in a month - but rather from the barmaids and other wastrels and whores that he could find. They were always ready for him, never asking for more than their fair share during the fun that they had.
It was better that way. Funner that way. Less painful that way.
He downed another flagon of beer before he leaned back in his chair. He almost fell off it, having to grab the bar to stay upright. Nigel groaned as the bartender walked over to him.
"You might want to stop, General. What if the enemy attacks?"
"They're not getting...getting over the fucking walls..."
"Yes, but what if?" the badger asked.
"Fucking bring me another drink."
"General -"
"I said, bring me another drink!"
He roared at the top of his lungs, and the badger hurried off. The barmaids were well and truly terrified of him at this point, and he knew that they were unlikely to ever lose that fear. He might need to find another bar before too much longer. They were too afraid of him here, too likely to run off if he wanted to have a little fun. He shook his head, looking down at his flagon again, wanting more but knowing he had to wait.
The badger returned a few minutes later, filling him up, and he set to drinking again. He thought of how bad it had gotten for him in the city. He had been a hero, but now? Now, he was just this 'General', putting on a show for the city, letting them think that they had a chance. Rallsin might have had a chance, once, before the cult got so strong. Now? Now they were just a fortress with nowhere to go.
Starve them a bit further, they'd break. Do something to the water? They'd break. Do something to the sky and scare them a little? They'd break. If it wasn't for the enchanted walls and the other stuff that kept the place so well-defended, it would have been lost months ago.
He sighed into the drink. If there'd been the slightest gap in the enemy army around him, he would have made a break for it. The cats would have been easy enough to fight if there were less of them, or if they didn't have a full circle around the city. As it was, he was trapped. Cerise wouldn't run, not when she was this badly needed, and she was the only one with the power to teleport someone out of the city.
He was doomed. He was just...fucking doomed...
Downing another mouthful of beer, he was about to call for another when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked over, then down.
A black-furred cat that was all but naked stood before him. She had half-transparent wraps around her chest and waist, almost but not quite hiding her nipples and her pussy. Barefoot, jangling, bangled with bracelets and anklets, she was nothing but some street whore.
A hot one, too, to him. He grinned, reaching down to grope her, and she smiled as she stepped forward, all but straddling his hand.
"You want me," she said.
"Heh. You think that the General wants trash?" he asked.
"You want me," she said, her voice sultry and low, exotic and different.
"Heh...well, you're not wrong."
"I will make you happy."
"You will, huh? How will you do that?"
She smiled, pressing her thighs together in a way that brought his hand right up between them, rubbing her pussy without him even trying to reach for it. He grinned further as she leaned in to whisper to him, growling against his ear.
"I will give you the best night that you've ever had...a night of pleasure and release...of anything that you might desire...and then I will leave."
"Heh...will you...will you actually -"
"That, too."
"And -"
"Everything."
She was definitely convincing. He smiled as he slowly pulled at the necklace around his neck, the amulet connecting him and Cerise. It had been a little present between each other that they had commissioned after Kain had died. Something to mark that they were a couple, something that left them able to talk to each other.
It had no purpose tonight. He undid it, hanging it from his belt as he stood up from the stool.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Follow me...to a room of desire..."
He wasn't quite sure how they got there, but he thought that they might have been back at his own room at the inn. He didn't know for sure, though, and that didn't seem possible, considering it had taken only a few minutes to get there and the room was halfway across the city. Yet, at that moment, it didn't matter. He was getting what he wanted, and that was all that he cared about.
She was half-naked now, and he was completely naked. He was spread on the bed, and she was straddling him. Her breasts were bare, little golden piercings through her nipples that he hadn't quite seen before dragging them down. They looked so lovely, so hot, so sexy. He reached up, only to have his hand batted away.
"Not yet. Allow me...allow me..."
She straddled him, her hips lowering over his groin, gently taking his shaft between her pussy lips. Not yet inside of her, though, just grinding down on him, rubbing on him, sliding him between her lips down there. Hot, wet, eager? All of those things described her, and he loved it so.
He reached up to her chest again, and this time she let him feel her, fondle her. They were heavy, warm and fuzzy, and as he ran his thumbs over the golden piercings, the hoops hanging down and pulling her nipples with them, he could feel how real they were.
Oh, very real. Very valuable.
She arched her back, her tail flicking between his legs, her pussy dripping on his cock. He hadn't been so hard since he fucked Cerise after they had killed Kain. This was better than her, though, better than the other whores that he had enjoyed. She...she was different...better...hotter.
He groaned as she finally leaned forward, allowing his cock to slide up from his belly and into her. The warmth that clenched around his shaft was all but legendary, and he growled deep in his throat as the feline started to roll her hips, rocking forward and back along his cock. The way that she was welcoming his shaft into her, the way that she was so eager for it, was something that was probably down to her being a whore. He wasn't drunk enough to forget that. But for a moment, just a moment, he felt the eagerness of Cerise mixed with the lust to be used that he required from his partners.
His cock felt like it was in a hot, velvety embrace, and the tight warmth and the soft textures of the feline's sex were already milking him of everything that he had. He could feel his pre-cum flowing fast, and he shivered as she slammed down on him, taking him up to the hilt seemingly without effort.
She was purring, he realized. Purring with that smile on her face, without even making a sound other than that. No grunts, no moans, no pants. Just that pressure of her hips against his, the warmth of her body against his body, and the slight vibration of her purr going all the way down to her sex.
He moaned, and he submitted to her ride.
Cerise knew that something was wrong the moment that Nigel showed up at the inn. She had felt him return, but he didn't respond when she touched the amulet around her neck and sent him a message. Even with all the hate he had for her now, she was sure that he would have at least said something. That, and there was something else in the air, something that bothered her, something that...that felt wrong.
The hybrid stayed in bed for a moment or three, waiting to see if anything at all might be said to take away her worries, but it didn't happen. Nothing broke the silence. After one more moment of hesitation, Cerise pulled herself to her feet, floated a robe to her side, and then stepped into it. The cloth was warm, but not enough to dispel the chill running down her spine.
What did he find? she wondered as she left her room. What could he have found out there?
And why did he bring it back here? He wasn't that stupid. Even now, when he was drunk every night, he was still Nigel, still the warrior. He wasn't stupid.
Yet, at the same time, only a stupid person would have brought something that felt like this back to the inn. The air felt like it was quivering, a sensation that she had only felt once or twice before, and always in the presence of an avatar of the gods. The few times that the temples had called that together, the few times that she had been present to see it summoned: those were the only times that she had felt this, and even then, only when the power of the god remained in the room before fading away.
Whatever Nigel had found out there, it was huge, powerful, and more than likely, something that they weren't going to be able to handle. She shivered as she walked down the hallway, feeling the wood bend under her toes, knowing that she was going to make him angry by interrupting him.
It's his own fault, she thought, trying to justify it. He could have...he could have told me what was going on...
Cerise pushed it out of her head for now. She wasn't going to feel better about this until she found out just what Nigel had found out there, and to do that, she needed to find out what he was doing in his room. Probably fucking, knowing him. He had been doing that more and more of late. She shook her head, trying to ignore her own misgivings as she put her hand on the door to his room.
The sound of fucking hit as she started to push it open, and she knew that he had found some floozy or other, some streetwalker to do his deeds with that she wouldn't do with him anymore. Or at least, that he didn't think that she did well.
Kain never complained...
She hesitated, not wanting to see her lover buried inside of someone else, but she needed to do this. She had to see just what he had found, even if it caused an argument. Otherwise, they might be doomed.
She pushed the door open the rest of the way -
And her eyes went wide. The feline straddling him was none other than Bast herself, but how? How would the goddess be here? How could she be in the middle of rutting Nigel in this very inn?
How?
How?
How?!
Her mouth hung open wider and wider as she watched the riding continue, barely believing that he had been stupid enough for this. The goddess looked up from her ride, smiling at her, and then looked down at the Doberman.
"Oh, you're close, aren't you?"
"Mmmph...fuck...you're so...wet..."
"Yes. With life...seed..."
SNICKT.
"And blood," Bast whispered, sitting up as the first spurt of it hit her right in the face. "A shame. I thought someone that would tempt a lover of cats away would be bigger."
Cerise almost puked as she watched the horrible display, her eyes locked on the bleeding, dying Nigel. Of all the deaths that she had imagined him going through, this was not among them. Dying, bleeding out on his bed from an assassin that had come from another place, another time, another world: it was as dishonorable a death as one could imagine. Her mouth quivered as she looked at him.
"And you."
She whipped her head up, staring at the naked black feline, the gold lines of her jewelry melding with her body once more, becoming lines on her limbs and chest. She stood with a glowing, golden light around her, something that made her look all the more otherworldly.
It was a horrible reminder of the power that she faced. Cerise gathered all of her magic into one ball between her hands and flung it forward with all the desperation of the damned. It flicked between her fingers, hit the glowing feline -
BOOM!
And the explosion that it caused sent her flying backwards. She hit the door, slammed through it, and skidded across the hallway. She landed in the opposite room, gasping for breath as she looked through the smoke.
The spell had been more than a fireball, more than lightning. It had been a blast of pure force, like the low level magical missiles that were taught to the most beginner of students. Yet, this had been on a level that was big enough to destroy a large chunk of the city if it had been cast properly. She panted for breath as she stared into the smoke, half-believing that she might have at least cast the goddess over the walls with such a blast.
Those hopes were instantly dispelled as the black cat emerged from the smoke.
"Was that the extent of your powers, little one?"
"You...you..."
"You, you. That's all that you think about, isn't it?" Bast asked.
Even as Cerise tried to get to her feet, she stumbled, fighting against her own shock, exhaustion, and what felt like at least some bruised bone down along her legs and back. She felt like she'd been splattered against the floor, like something might have actually broken. Wincing, she pushed herself up with the aid of the bed behind her as Bast continued.
"You had something beautiful for yourself. The love of a young feline, someone that was devoted to you. Utterly, truly devoted. And what happened, hmm? Because he was over-eager, you threw him away."
"I - ulk!"
She was floated off her feet, lifted to the ceiling by the scruff of her neck. The long tendrils on either side of her face sagged down, drooping from the lack of support that she had. She gasped for breath as she was held aloft.
"You threw him away," Bast said. "And if he had been another species, I would not care. But I look after my own."
"Nnngh...You...you're conquering the world...for him? For Kain?"
"No. For me. But I would not be here if you had not tossed him aside. You, and this pathetic Doberman, and everyone else in your little group? You are responsible for this. You are responsible for every lost life, every lost land. If you had not done what you did, he would still be with you, and the world would be as it was."
"Nnngh...you...you did..."
"No, you did this."
And just like that, she was slammed back to the floor, bruising her shoulders and her arms, her legs and her back. She hissed from the pain, coughing as the air was knocked from her lungs.
Bast stood over her, looking down at her as the goddess knelt down. The smoke had faded, and a giant hole in the wall could be seen in the gap. She had done that. She had ripped a massive hole in the wall, and -
And in the wall of the city, too.
Cerise stared at the giant hole in the rock behind the inn, stared at the many felines that were swarming down the hill towards the hole in the wall. In one fell swoop, she had completely compromised the defenses of the city. No General to rally the men, no walls to hold the enemy back on the other side.
Nothing. Nothing but the men themselves, and they would fall to that swarm that was flooding towards the broken wall.
"No..."
"Yes. And soon, you will face the consequences of your actions."
With everything that she had, Cerise reached out for the magic. She grabbed hold of it, feeling more power than she had ever felt in her life streaming out through her arms, through her fur, through her entire body. It was like a flood that had been granted to her by the gods themselves, a rage that burned through her entire sense of self.
She turned it on the goddess, swinging her arm up as it glowed with the light of magic -
Flick.
Only for the light to be bounced away from her arm. The magic disappeared. Her magic was gone. Just like that, it was taken from her, and she was nothing but some little hybrid laying on the ground.
"None of that."
"What...how..."
"Sleep."
The word of a goddess, even one that she didn't follow, carried massive command. She fought against the urge to sleep, but there was only so much that a mortal could do. Cerise stared up at the black-furred feline, the golden lights on the female luring her down into sleep, and then into oblivion.
#
Bast shook her head at the stubborn hybrid. If it was up to her, she would have seen this one utterly destroyed, ripped to pieces for the pain that she had caused to one of the feline species. It would have counted for the revenge agreement, and it would have been sufficient to keep her from losing her body. Yet, at the same time, she had promised Maeve the chance to have a little fun of her own.
She smiled slightly. The sergal was an interesting servant. Both talented and mono-focused, she had many obsessions, each distracting her from the whole picture.
Currently, it was the cat that had summoned her. Kain resembled an old lover of hers, and Bast knew that Maeve would do literally anything to see to it that Kain was happy as a result. That was the only reason that the cat had sacrificed so much to her, offering both his soul and his sense of self to become a stud-breeder for her armies. A good number of cats outside the walls had been grown quickly with her power and his seed, and that meant that she had the numbers to conquer the rest of the land.
She stood up, gesturing at the body of the hybrid. It floated to rest beside her in mid-air as her armies started flooding into the city. The people screamed, trying to flee, but the cats were too plentiful. They charged them, knocked them down, and then continued forward after tying them up.
All felines would be welcome beneath her banner. All others would be made to learn their place. One after another would learn where they fell beneath the feline empire that she was building out there. It would be a good world, a better world for the cats, and that was all that mattered to her.
She turned her attention the body again. Maeve had plans for this one. Kain might not even remember the hybrid by the time that she was brought down to their home, but the sergal would make sure that the hybrid remembered him. She would be trained, broken, and turned into another breeder.
A waste, I feel, but it is not my bargain.
She shook her head and snapped her fingers. The hybrid disappeared, sped along with wings of godly power to her new home. Bast, on the other hand, floated out of the inn, staring up at the stars. The gods seemed to look down on her, and she wondered if she felt fear when they looked upon her. The black cat smiled.
"You could have had it better than this," she said, looking at the heavens. "We could have formed this together. Instead, you kicked me out, and now...now, this is my world. This is my planet to shape.
"From now on, things will be done as I will. Not as all of you like. You can't say no anymore. And soon...everyone will forget you. And everyone will know me..."
Yes, there was fear, that time. Fear of being forgotten. The greatest fear of any god, for when the mortals forgot them, so too was most of their power lost. They would be reduced to her level, where she had been before Kain had summoned her. Nothing but a spirit at the edge of existence, nothing but the meanest of existences that would hurt just to remember that they were there.
It was deserved, after what they did to her. It was deserved for all that she had gone through over the years.
Bast shook her head, looking down at the city. It would fall soon enough, and when it did, the rest of the continent would fall with it. Rallsin might not be the last settlement, the last city to come under her banner, but it would be the point of no return. Nobody else was strong enough to stand against her. The champions of the other gods were gone, and they would never return.
If it was up to her, the damn Doberman would have been left to rot as a spirit in the underdark, but she knew that someone had already laid claim to his spirit. The most she could hope for was that Maeve would punish this hybrid appropriately.
And she had every reason to believe that the sergal would.
Well...time to return...
She closed her eyes and faded. As she disappeared, Rallsin burned. Nothing, absolutely nothing of the old world would be left behind. From now on, all would be made in her image.
The End
Summary: Nigel and Cerise try and find a way to be happy about their lives, but they were never meant to be together. Meanwhile, Bast appears to take a hint of further revenge.
Tags: M/F, groping, cat, Doberman, hybrid, dragon, kitsune, vaginal, riding, prostitution, orgasm, blood, snuff, death, series, fantasy, nudity, piercing, goddess, drunk,