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Also: Warning! Smex! Like a bunch of it! Kinda long, too.

Chapter XXII - Bittersweet Rewards

Cel sat in an unlocked cell in the Black Tower, just one level beneath the top-most floor, where Captain Summer and his council of officers were debating. Out the arrow slit window, she could see Amarthane lying dead below her, a still-smoldering corpse even five days after the end of the battle and cessation of incendiary bombardment.

Castle Amarthane lay in the center of the river, some miles away, just outside effective range of one another, like a spider in a great necrotic web. In the city below, the only 'life' she could see were shambling swarms of the undead left over from the apocalyptic battle of the week before, wandering aimlessly and directionless through the growing banks of snow that drifted through the uninhabited ruins.

Behind her, the heavy oaken door to the cell cracked open, and Timid poked his head in, speaking in a soft and worried tone.

"You called for me, Cel? I..." He awkwardly went silent. They hadn't spoken since the night he'd spoken prophecy in a voice not his own, and forced her not to slay the very fur who'd raped her repeatedly, and who she now believed was the father of a life growing inside her body.

Cel curled her uninjured knee toward her body, and leaned against the wall, feeling as if she were somehow hiding. Her face burned with regret, and her eyes were sorrow-filled, wet, as she closed them and let out a shaky sigh. The snow leopard knight's knee felt as if someone had been pounding on it with hammers, and her leg beneath it had finally returned some feeling, albeit only enough to make her wish it hadn't.

Instead of responding to his words, she reached up, and began unwinding the bandages that covered her mutilated scalp and face.

Timid stood in the doorway, transfixed. While he'd seen what was beneath those bandages, having wrapped them himself, he had never known her to remove them unless it was time to clean the wounds. As her pink, raw scalp became exposed, he stepped fully into the room and closed the door, then walked over to her with the confidence of a trained healer. Her emotions, he had trouble with. Her injuries had no need of bruised feelings.

She reached out an arm to stop him, touching his chest gently but firmly with two fingers, before going back to unwrapping herself. Her tower room was drafty, but it had been her haven these last few days as the survivors of Amarthane lived besieged within the Black Tower. Still, she winced all the same when cold air spilled across exposed, de-furred flesh atop the crown of her head, and opened her eyes again.

Timid looked into them then, his own soul-filled and plain brown, hers bright blue-green in the dim lighting, and she could see the softness and care there. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, as she looked down and away.

"I've...Become hideous haven't I?"

The little priest's face was full of worry as he stepped past the invisible line her paw had drawn when it pushed his chest a moment ago, and he reached out to touch her cheek with soft, soothing fingers. His other paw went past her right ear, touching along the line of her jaw to draw her face forward and up, so that their eyes could meet again.

In his face, she saw his sympathy and concern. She could see he hurt for her, and it made her want to curl up and sob. With steely will, she forced past the urge, though it remained ever-present. His fingers stroked gently along her jawline, as he spoke in quiet words intended only for her.

"I won't lie to you, Cel. Your face is scarred, and your scalp fur will likely never grow back. To conventional eyes, you will never again be a beautiful woman."

She closed her eyes again, sniffing once, refusing to let her snout start running with snotty tears. The knight refused to backtrack, and become the crying girl she was expected to be all her life, before she'd left the highlands of her birth.

The cat continued, stepping yet closer to her, near enough that she could smell the desert-like smell of a newly clean wool frock, and the scent of rice and chicken broth that came from the fur of his arms. He had been serving kitchen duty, by his own demanding, she recalled, and felt a bit ashamed that she had stayed up here alone in a tower to brood.

"But despite that, your heart shines with an unblemished silver-blue light. You fought hard, and saved many lives, including mine. Without you, we could not have succeeded in saving so many as we did. Ten thousand furs owe you their lives, at least in part."

She nodded softly. Cel had known he would say this, when she had considered what to say when he arrived after her call. The logic was sound, but seemed to dodge her question, and her eventual purpose for this conversation. She clenched a paw against her still-flat, muscular belly, and felt as if she could vomit from revulsion, while she forced herself to speak again. Her voice came out so soft Timid wouldn't have heard it, had he been any further away.

"Do you find me attractive?"

The priest blinked at her, and she opened her eyes in time to see the flush in his ears and cheeks, before her eyes flicked away. She felt filthy, like she needed to scrub herself raw in a bath of boiling water, and the cringe of expected rejection made her roll her shoulders forward, slouched in the corner of the cold stone wall. Timid's paws slid down from her face to her shoulders, and squeezed them.

"Can I sit?"

She nodded, still unable to meet his eyes, and shifted so he could join her on the padded wall bench. As he did, the wiry priest drew her shoulders back against his chest, and slid his arms around her waist in a gentle embrace.

"You have a beautiful heart. I would have lost hope long ago, if you weren't with me."

She laid her shoulders back, shaking under her fur, as her paws rested on the arm around her middle, shivering like a leaf. Timid's free arm came around to stroke her cheek with the back of a finger, avoiding the raw spot just beneath her ear. His words nearly wrenched tears from her breast again, and she cursed herself for weakness, forcing more words from a suddenly-tight throat.

"I n-need your help, Tim. With s-something I'm loathe to ask for."

He was petting her neck, gently stroking the soft fur at its side with a hesitant touch, half sure she would lash out at him for being too familiar. Nonetheless, his instinct to help the injured and hurting was stronger than his worry of being harmed or of frightening her. A worthwhile risk, she thought, with admiration for his conviction to helping others.

"Anything, Cel. What can I do to help you feel better?"

She bit her lip, pinching the skin between upper and lower fangs, as her good leg curled in against her body tightly, pressed against the back of his paw. She felt small, curled up like a child against him, even though she was slightly taller than he was when out of armor.

"I...Th-the child in my belly...I-is there one?"

Timid shook his head slightly, still soothingly stroking at the down-soft fur of her neck.

"There's no way to tell for sure, Cel, I don't know."

Cel nodded slowly, leaning into his gently combing paw as she took slow breaths to keep quavers out of her voice.

"Do you think there is?"

His pause was slight, but telling. She knew his answer before he spoke.

"I'm inclined to believe the bear you killed in the Cathedral. That, and your morning vomiting, and the tenderness in how you move your arms at meals when they might touch your breasts."

Her stomach flopped, though his words were not a surprise. It made her request no easier.

"I can't tolerate the idea the father is that...Th-that bastard Toryen. I...I n-need your help t-to..."

Timid gave her a gentle squeeze, and took a soft breath, steeling himself to speak what she knew would be a gentle but powerfully convincing speech on how the clergy never allowed the voluntary death of the unborn. She cut him off, blurting out before he could start.

"I need you to m-mate me, Tim, so I can tell myself the father's not that bastard! I d-don't want t-to look on this child and...And hate an innocent baby for reminding me of him!"

The caresses stopped, and her eyes were clenched shut tightly, expecting him to yell in rejection of the idea, or to push her away. She cringed, and felt a coward for it. For while she feared no foe with blade or bow or club, she had sublimated her own femaleness so long that she had no idea how to handle a rejection of this kind.

The soft words that came to her from his lips sounded unsure, and she opened her eyes to look up at him as he spoke, to see the nervous uncertainty in his eyes.

"I'm...Not a tiger, Cel. If you wish to be...To be sure this will work, you should ask Captain Summer, or...Or one of the other tigers, I...Uh...Y-you realize if you aren't with child, you might be after...After this?" His face was pink with embarrassment, and he seemed to be seeing her with different eyes than before. She realized, with a start, that he'd not seen her as a potential mate before. He'd viewed her as another male somehow, despite knowing with certainty what her physical sex truly was.

"I don't..." She swallowed at a lump in her throat, and pushed on to continue speaking. "You would...Make a good father to a child...A-and I don't trust them like I trust you. A-and you-mf..."

She was cut off as he leaned in awkwardly, and their lips met, with a shock that traveled through her maw and down her spine. His paw clenched one of hers where it rested over her flat, tense belly, and his thumb stroked at the back of her fingers with the gentleness of spring wind. His kiss was uncertain, light and airy, utterly unlike the ones Toryen had forced on her when she'd been bound and gagged and unable to bite him as she'd bitten his brother. The thought made her shudder, and forced tears from her eyes, her iron will remaining as the only thing permitting her to push past the memories and allow this to continue.

Her lips moved against his, as she forced them to, and she felt a warmth beginning to suffuse her shakes and terror. Cel realized that his kiss, their touch, felt good. Not the guilty helpless sparks of sharp physical pleasure that had been forced out of her by a raping bastard and her traitorous body, but the warm, silk-soft comforted joy of her mind being lulled by one of the kindest cats she'd ever had the pleasure to know. Soothed by the lips of her friend, her rescuer, the one male she'd ever allowed to see her in a time of true vulnerability.

After a long, long time, she felt cool wind and warm breath brushing her lips as Timid withdrew just a bit, and spoke uncertain words.

"I-if you're sure...How do we...How do you want to...I don't know about th-mm..."

She kissed him, to cut off his trepidation, returning the same soothing touch he'd given her, a paw rising from her side to stroke along his soft cheek-fur, while the other kept their shared clasp against her belly. Hesitantly, she brought that clasped paw up, and brushed his wrist against her small, firm bust, shivering involuntarily as a stiffened nipple caught along his fur, before she released his paw and placed it on her soft-furred, cloth-covered mound.

His squeeze was gentle, probing, the touch of a medic, and he took a moment to stroke over her nipple, as if he were afraid to offend her with so intimate a touch. She sucked in a breath, feeling a heavy warmth there, a sensitivity it had not had before, as she took breath from his lips. Then, his other paw was on her, more confident, stroking the neglected breast and cupping its slight, soft shape to gently squeeze.

"B-bed..." she whispered, lips trailing against his with each panting movement.

She felt Timid swallow, his throat moving against her temple as he shifted, causing her to slide down his chest slightly as he awkwardly attempted to find a way to lift her without bending her knee. Cel felt, pressed against her back, the burgeoning maleness she'd seen once before, bound and bruise-purple, and she shuddered in a mix of revulsion and arousal at the memory of its hot spurting, the sticky liquid all over her paw.

For a moment, Cel felt as if she were falling, dizzied by a haze of lust as her support vanished, to be replaced by a sense of flying as Timid's strong arms scooped under her shoulders and knees and lifted her free of the bench they'd reclined on. She looked up at him, and could not stop the smile that pulled at her scarred face, seeing the wide-eyed look of nervous anticipation that radiated from his open face.

Then she was laid on the bed, her knee giving a dull ache of protest that was quickly ignored, as Timid leaned over her again, enveloping her lips with his own. This time, his kiss was less tentative than the first one, probing lips finding response from hers, Cel's arms drifting up seemingly of their own accord to wrap around his neck and draw him in. Somewhere, beneath the heated panting and lusty daze, her heart jerked, a shock of fear reminding her of the last time she'd been so close to a male with mating on his mind.

She firmly stamped down that part of herself, stiffening with a gasp against his lips, as his paw stroked her breast again, gentle through the cloth. Then those delicious fingers moved away, along with his questing muzzle, and she looked up to see what had stopped him. Tim's brown eyes, dark with lust, also looked worried and nervous as his paws began to roll her dress upward, slow with caution.

"Cel...A-are you sure this is...What you want?"

She closed her eyes, at the rush of heat to her face. He could see her now, her most private places, and unlike the last time his eyes didn't hold the clinical, detached look of a healer. She felt the cold draft of the wintry tower across her nether lips, as the dress bunched around her waist then continued to rise, and swallowed the pulse of terror that surged through her, an image of the hated Casso brothers and their laughing leering faces shooting through her.

Cel only realized she was shedding tears when Tim's soft, warm tongue licked them from her cheek with a tenderness that helped cut through the fear that seemed to reverberate through her body. The dress was up over her breasts, then, and she lifted her arms so he could slide it off her entirely, before the urge to conceal herself grew too strong and her arms came down to hug against her chest.

Timid sat back on the bed, his knees under him as he compressed the mattress next to her, and looked down with wonder at her uncovered body. Cel was slender, the lines of powerful muscle well-shaped and hidden beneath a soft pelt of rosetted white fur that parted only for old white scars, newer pink ones, and the excited pink-red of her groin where it peeked from between her legs. He could see she was shaking, fearful, her legs pressed together and arms over her breasts, suddenly unable to keep his gaze when he looked back at her face.

Her head was a ruin, compared to how beautiful the rest of her body was. Timid was still angry, he realized, at what they'd done to her - Her face had been sliced in several places, the stitching made badly to cause scars that pulled at her when she smiled or laughed or frowned. Her scalp was still raw, even after so much healing and time, and looked painfully irritated. A small miracle had left her ears unscathed, at least.

With a hesitation bordering on worship, he finally leaned over her side, and gently took her wrists, meeting eyes with the frightened leopard again as he lifted her arms and placed them on the pillows over her head. Having leaned forward, he whispered to her, while feathering a kiss along her cheek.

"You've nothing to hide, Cel. You're still beautiful, at least to me."

She looked up at him as he sat back, her eyes full of vulnerability, shimmering with tears as the indomitable warrior shook with unwilling terror, and balled her paws into fists where he had put them on the pillow. The urge to strike at him was warring with her desire for the cat, and the tenderness she was finally letting herself feel, and she wrapped her fingers around the metal bars of the bed's headboard.

"T...Tie my paws. I don't w-want to panic and..."

Timid nodded, though he could see the terror in her eyes at the thought of being bound, helpless, and took it as a great show of trust that gave him a rush of pride through the worry. A quick moment of searching about led him to the realization that the only thing good enough to tie her was his rope belt. Swiftly, he wrapped the rope in Cel's own dress, and then tied the cushioned thing around her paws, cinching it until it was tight enough to restrain without cutting off the blood to her paws. Then, he wrapped the rope around the headboard, tying her paws together around it.

Leaning in, he stole a kiss the shaking leopardess barely returned, then shifted his lips downward, playing them along her throat as he whispered.

"Give them a tug. We'll go only as fast as you want, alright?"

She shook her head softly then yanked with impressive force, her muscles potent from a life of war and training. Still, they barely budged the headboard of the heavy metal-and-wood framed bed, and budged the rope not at all. In a choked voice, she whispered back, as if afraid someone would overhear.

"N-no...D-don't wait f-for signals fr...From me...Just mate me, Tim...Please. I need it."

The little priest looked up at her, and nodded his comprehension. She was giving her consent now, so that if she panicked, he knew she still wanted the deed done. Timid moved on the bed again, taking the spare cushion and putting it under her bad knee, which lifted easily enough. Then, he put pressure on her other leg, pushing her good knee away from him against some slowly released resistance.

She was spread open for him, exposed, her arms bound to the point of helplessness as he knelt between her thighs. She was pink, he saw, as he leaned down to examine her womanly place more closely. Pink, and glistening with dampness, a pair of gracefully-formed lips that he carefully spread with his fingertips as she sucked in and held a shaky breath. Between the lips, tender pink flesh peeked at him, a dark tunnel above which a quivering reddened nub waited at the apex of her loins.

She whispered something unintelligible and he sat up to shuck his robe, tossing the rough woolen garment aside, before shimmying out of the breeches underneath it. Cel had her eyes on him again, watching as his red, spiny shaft bobbed in the chill tower air. Tim blushed, suddenly bashful, as the leopardess unconsciously licked her lips to moisten the dry things.

Then, he returned his mind to the task at paw, using his palm to maneuver her good leg and her hips until Cel's groin was pointed at him, slightly upward so he could lower himself to it. Resting down on an elbow, he used a paw to maneuver his cock, flushing darker red in his ears and nose tip as his spined shaft touched female flesh for the first time and drew a soft gasp from both of them.

Tim met Cel's eyes again, and gave her a nervous smile for reassurance, as he moved his paw off his reddened flesh and to her cheek, brushing a thumb across the soft fur there, still damp from fearful and embarrassed tears. In response, Cel gave a flushed smile, though he could see her jaw was clenched, her eyes just a bit too wide.

With a shift of his body, carefully moving his weight so he wouldn't rest against her bad leg, Timid felt her warm, wet heat spreading up his shaft as he sank two widths of a finger into her steaming depths. He was unable to restrain a soft groan of pleasure at the strange, clutching sensation that titillated his barbs and made him want to pound away at the softness without pity. A sharp intake of breath stalled him from instinct, and he looked up to Cel's face to see her eyes clenched tightly shut, paws balled into fists, muscles straining up and down her form.

She expected it to hurt, he realized with a shock that penetrated his lust-filled haze, as she clenched so tightly around him he felt as if his shaft would be crushed. With a grunt of discomfort, Timid shifted his hips, then laid his arms down at her sides to lean forward and capture a nipple with his lips, flicking his tongue across it in the hopes that pleasure would help her relax.

"T-tim...I don't w-want to...P-please..." She was choking out words, shivering as her nipple sent jolts of warmth through her body, confusing her mind with conflicted signals of revulsion toward the mating act and carnal pleasure of the body. Her body stayed tensed, her tunnel like a clenched fist, impenetrable to his cock despite his shifting and lickings.

"Cel," he murmured, against the gentle swell of her breast, "I need you to relax. I can't do this if I can't go in farther."

The great cat shook her head, tears running down her cheeks, though she stalwartly refused to sob aloud. Cel fought, inwardly, with the idea that she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of enjoying this. She had no reason to hate Timid, no reason to be angry with him or deny him her pleasure, though the leopard knight warred with herself over the instinct, glad her paws were well and firmly bound lest she swing at him.

Finally, after minutes of gentle Tim petting her cheeks, laying soft kisses to her throat and breasts, and whispering words of comfort, Cel felt her body begin to unclench. The pressure at her opening was firm, and had been so all along, and when her womanhood un-cramped, he grunted in surprise and in a moment was in her to the balls. Cel sucked in a breath at the full, heavy feeling, and the distant piss-urge-like sensation she knew was the beginning of her physical pleasure.

For a few seconds, they rested together, joined fully, and Cel hoped he would simply fill her with seed and pull away then and there. When he began to withdraw, though, her heart raced, good leg twitching as she felt the sudden urge to put it around his waist and hold him inside her. The confusion was too strong, though, and she lay still, merely bending her good knee and laying it to the side so he would have an easier angle for driving himself into her hot, aching core.

Timid began slowly thrusting, unsure just how to move but certain he wanted more of the deliciously warm, wet sensation that quivered and rippled around his straining shaft. He'd never known sex could feel so good, and for a time forgot what he was there to do, merely pumping his hips to feel the caress of her flesh along his barbs as he firmly fucked her, filling her from opening to cervix with each long, smooth motion. For her part, Cel simply laid her head back, eyes tightly shut, and tried to ignore the sensation of tingling, quickening pleasure that radiated from the flesh his barbs plucked at, and from her breasts when he remembered them and began lapping at her small pink nipples.

After a time, Timid's motions came to a stop, hilted all the way into her body, so he could gaze at her flushed face. Cel's eyes were closed, her muzzle slightly open, ears facing to the rear, panting softly and beaded with sweat. Tim brought a paw to her cheek, and leaned in to kiss her, finding no immediate response, except that she opened those bright blue eyes that seemed to pierce his heart whenever he met them.

"T-tim...I don't w-want to..."

"Don't want to what?" he whispered back, resting his body a moment by laying against her, keeping most of his weight on his forearms.

"Th-they...They made me en-enjoy it...B-body betrayed me...P-please just finish..."

Her words were a pained whisper, frightened, her eyes full of sorrow and apology, yet also a pleading for something he doubted she knew she was wanting, and Tim felt it in sympathy as a sad tingle in his chest. He took her cheek in his paw, keeping her eyes on him when she tried to look away.

"I'm not them, Cel. I want you to enjoy this because I care about you. Will you let me make this nice for you?"

Cel closed her eyes again, though his paw stayed on her chin and cheek, cupping gently. Tim didn't move, though his cock told him he ought to, throbbing with need at the hot, tight contact. Finally, she gave the tiniest of nods, having for the moment ended her inner battle, though the snow leopard's paws clenched around the iron bars they were bound to.

Timid released her cheek then, and brought both paws to her waist, shifting the slender, powerful feline for a more comfortable angle, before putting one paw back down to the bed for support and the other down just above where he'd entered her, toying with the reddened nub there in ways that made her gasp in surprise, made hips twist and her flat stomach twitch as he pushed into her again with a soft grunt. Inwardly, he thanked senile old Brother Charity for teaching him bawdy songs that gave him some hint of what to do.

When he thrust again, Timid heard her suck in a breath through her noise, before letting out a soft sound somewhere between a whimper and a hitching sigh, which presaged a fluttering along his aching shaft. He grimaced in pleasure, giving a soft grunt and another probing thrust that in turn pulled another quiver from Cel's clenching depths as she unconsciously tilted her head back, showing him her throat.

With that sight, he was lost into the motion, the feel of fluttering flesh tracing and pulling at his surging cock, of soft breasts for him to lick and nip at, lost into the sound of Cel's soft whimpers of helpless pleasure and the simple, carnal joy of pumping his hips and thrusting himself as deeply as he could go. Cel's paws, wrapped around the iron headboard bars, were jerking and white-knuckled as he firmly pistoned into her.

Inside, she was railing against herself yet again. Cel's body was tingling with pleasure, from licked and nibbled nipples to burning, aching, pleasure-strobing flower, as her housecat plugged in and out, pumping her steadily as his barbs plucked within, teasing sensitive nerves and jangling her splintered self-control. One part of her mind screamed at her to resist, to fight him off, to flee in morbid horror. The other part made her open her eyes.

Timid had his head tilted back, eyes closed as he fucked her, hips plunging and balls slapping against her with each powerful thrust. Unknowingly, he'd showed her his throat, and if she'd wished it she could have leaned up and bit it out with her sharp teeth. He trusted her that implicitly, she realized. Where she felt afraid and vulnerable, he was trusting and loving, and her heart thudded with exertion and a curling sensation that had her staring at the pleasure-entranced male.

Even so lost in the hypnosis of their mating, his fingers never stopped toying with that mysterious spot that had her writhing and wriggling, clenching and sucking at air. While Toryen and Royval Casso and the bear in the Cathedral undercroft had forced orgasms from her, they were sharp, hard, stolen things that started swiftly and ended powerfully, yet were filled with revulsion and a feeling of dirtiness and guilt. They were taken from her to humiliate a captured knight, a prisoner and political enemy. This, she realized vaguely, was for her own benefit, a gift of love instead of a theft of dignity done out of spite.

A surging throb began in her shivering loins, pulsing like thunder, and she opened her muzzle to once again beg Timid to stop, to finish this without driving her to release. She bit the urge off, though her mouth hung open, knowing all too well that he would stop if she asked. Something in her, something strong, didn't want him to. Cel tried to speak, to reach out for him, but her muscles were fluttering, useless, arms tied to the bed.

Then he thrust into her again, and she clamped her eyes shut as an explosive bolt of mind-emptying pleasure shot through her body, clenching her muscles and forcing a sharp shout from her throat as the world spun and she shook within and without, bunched muscles clenching and sweat-bathed as she came.

Over her, Timid gasped out at the feeling, the milking of her body roiling on his pleasure-bathed cock, and he thrust into her hard enough that the bed banged against the wall with a meaty thud. The sudden striking of his tip, against her innermost wall, forced another cry from Cel's throat, as her release exploded again, the first having not even finished.

Tim yowled, and brought his muzzle down to her shoulder, digging his teeth into the downy fur and tough skin as his hips began to piston, slamming into her erratically, forcefully, until his toe claws dug into the bedding, tearing the sheet, and he began making yelping noises as his tail flagged sideways and his orgasm hurled itself outward from his balls. He felt as if his whole lower body were trying to spurt itself through his shaft, while she milked and clenched and cried out with little squeaking noises of ecstatic paroxysm.

His climax filled her and more than filled her, as the little cat's yowl tapered off into a panting whisper, and he collapsed against her chest, their shared breaths and sweat mingling with the throbbing pleasure of their joined sexes. Timid nuzzled into the soft ruff just above her breasts, then against her throat, as the Slaughtered Knight panted and squirmed, each touch to her sensitive body setting off small shocks of pleasure that clenched and shivered her tender passage around the stiff invader that rested, twitching, within.

After a few moments of catching his breath and allowing his mind to return, Timid began to blush again, and reached up to undo the ties holding her arms. Cel whispered, and he paused, looking down at her dazed blue eyes.

"N-no...L-leave it for now, okay? J...Just...Just don't leave...I n-need...Need..."

She sniffled, as tears began to run down her cheeks again, pale ears going red with embarrassment as Cel turned her face to the side.

Timid touched her cheek, and gasped softly as his softening shaft slid from her entrance, followed by a dribble of his creamy seed and her juices. When her face turned back toward him he saw the shame there, but also the flush of enjoyment, and a slight flicker within of something he wished hard to nurture.

When he kissed her, she tentatively kissed back, and he licked gently at the chapping there when they broke away, forcing a brightly-blushing smile from her as he made a quiet joke and hugged her still-bound form.

"Thank you, good sir knight, for giving a hero's reward so well."

Tomasj awoke hacking harshly, feeling as if he were choking on his own chest. Arms too weak for the task tried to rip his bed shirt open, only to find he was naked, in a clean though sweat-dampened bed that for a moment seemed unfamiliar. Others might have felt terror, to wake gasping, disoriented, feverish and breathless in a strange place, but Tomasj accepted it with the same morbid humor and nihilistic nonchalance in which he took most things.

Someone touched a wooden bowl to his lips as the coughing began to die down, and he sipped warm soup as a gentle paw caressed the back of his head, ruffling and then combing through the coarse black fur. When he'd drunk his fill and was forced to breathe again, he looked up in squint-eyed curiosity to see Toryen Casso, the slender, athletic, and viciously psychotic tiger, standing over him with a child-like grin of glee.

Across the tapestried stone chamber he assumed must have normally been an office by its desks and heaps of old paperwork, the forest warden, brown fox Vanyal, sat upright and asleep in a bed, naked but for a blanket over his lap and bandages that covered him from shoulders to waist. His right arm was wrapped in plaster-soaked bandages and splinted, the other simply wrapped up in cotton and linen. His paws had been a mess, and were now wrapped tightly, though evidently left somewhat mobile. The forest warden fox's head had some bandaging as well, though the wolf doubted it was for more than cuts and bruises to the sleeping creature's fool skull.

"Tch, running off alone. What a bloody idiot," he gasped out, between wet, labored breaths.

Toryen snickered, an almost childlike giggle, and touched the bowl to his master's chin again, only to be waved off by a weak paw motion. The tiger set it down on a bedside table without really looking.

"You sent me off alone. How is that different?"

Tomasj rolled his eyes upward to look at the cat again, meeting his strangely shiny eyes with a bloodshot stare and smirk.

"Because you are mine to do with as I please."

He got a cheeky smirk in response to his statement. Then Tomasj grunted, as a paw found his sleep erection, trapping soft linen and cotton sheets around it as the deft tiger pulled up an edge of his blankets to peer under while licking his lips like a hungry feral.

Tomasj sat up further, trying to raise a growl, but getting phlegm instead, which he spat aside onto the floor in a messy glob. Meanwhile, Toryen tossed the blanket aside and climbed onto the bed, licking his chops and giving his master a pleading look while running his paws up the gaunt wolf's chest. Tomasj responded with a smirk.

"May I suck your cock, master? I'm hungry and I've been good..."

"No. Because you asked, and I didn't command it."

Toryen pouted, his lip thrust forward and forehead lowered, as his paw wrapped around Tomasj's red and aching pole. Before he could protest, the cheeky tiger was slurping at his tip, gathering the musk and saltiness on his tongue, and forcing a stuttered grunt from the weakened wolf. Tomasj's tail flicked in annoyance, against the bed.

Across the room, Vanyal had evidently awoken, which Tomasj noted due to the sardonic statement issued from his lips. His voice sounded strained, likely from the broken ribs.

"Well done controlling your 'slave' boy, wolf."

"Fuck you, country bumpkin, you aren't having your dick sucked. Who is winning here, eh?" He sneered and stuck his tongue out at the fox, like a pup, which lasted only a few moments before Toryen whined again and slurped his tongue from half-formed knot to tip, drawing a gurgling growl from Tomasj's throat and a trail of clear liquid from his prick.

"I thought I said no sucking!"

Toryen looked up at the angry tone, and smirked, using his grip at the base of Tomasj's cock to rub its tip all over the soft fur of his face, leaving little trails of wetness in its wake before beginning to lap just under the tip again.

"I'm not sucking. I'm licking. You never said no to that."

The wolf snorted, amused more than angry, as his right arm managed to draw itself up off the bed. He settled it between the tiger's ears, grabbed onto the headfur there, and pulled him forward and down. The move slid his cock into the younger male's muzzle, then throat, as Tomasj jerked him downward, momentarily choking even a highly-experienced cocksucker like the young tiger.

"Fine, then. When I finish, it will be on your face. You can go suck Vanyal's cock to fill your belly." Toryen's tail whipped, which Tomasj assumed was something like a pup wagging its tail in anticipation.

"Hey. None of that. I'm a married fox, you know," came the weak response. Tomasj gave him a rude paw gesture, which was enthusiastically returned, albeit with a wince, to the wolf's amusement. Then, he forgot all about trading childish paw gestures with his fellow invalid, as Toryen drew back and set his talented tongue to work bathing the flesh trapped in his maw.

"Hrgh, fuck." Toryen's head-bobbing was playing all the right notes on his cock, forcing it to leak copiously, which the tiger didn't even pause while swallowing. The paw on his cock began to squeeze, making stroking motions toward his maw every few seconds, as if trying to milk the male teat down his throat.

"Lick my balls, you little slut," the wolf hissed, yellowed teeth bared as he coughed again, enjoying the pleasure altogether too much to continue thinking about how his chest felt constricted and full when he breathed.

The suction and delicious twisting of tongue left his cock as it popped free of Toryen's muzzle, to cool in the tower's chill winter air. A second later, Tomasj's heavy balls, overfull from months of unintended abstinence, were sucked into the tiger's watering maw one after the other, like they were delectable morsels, to be savored and sucked and lightly tugged on.

"Nnf...What do you say Van? Like the show?"

Van shrugged and rolled his eyes, though he was unable to deny the tent in his bed sheet. His arms were too immobilized by splints and bandages to do much about hiding it. Or relieving it, for that matter.

"Your wife is a witch, isn't she? Mmmff...Fuck, suck me again, whore." Toryen wasted no time in obeying, grinning cherubically at the insults, as if they were the highest of praise. "Witches are promiscuous creatures, in my homelands."

The fox shrugged again, not rising at all to the wolf's bait.

"My wife is quite faithful, though she never asked the same of me. Our marriage is simple. Whenever she asks it, I lie with her. If she does not tell me otherwise, I'm free to bed who I like."

"Heh. What a foolish deal. Have you used her naivete yet? Also, you dodged my question about witchcraft."

Van gave him a pointed glower.

"No. In point of fact I haven't." He wasn't about to elaborate about his wife's strange, near-alien species, or about their marriage and romance customs. He'd been faithful to her for many years, because he loved her, despite the fact he knew jealousy was a difficult concept for her to understand nevermind possess. Nor was he about to answer the question about witchery. The wolf could figure it out for himself.

Tomasj jerked Toryen's head back by his grip on the male's headfur. The wolf's cock, turgid and pumping with blood, ready to release, pointed right at his muzzle.

"Tug me off, you dirty little shit. On your face, or you'll be getting a beating you won't enjoy."

Without hesitation, Toryen grabbed him by the knot, curling Tomasj's toes as he gasped from that sudden delicious pressure. The paw stroking just under his tip was largely academic, at that point. With a half-howl bitten off by bad lungs, the pent-up wolf's balls pulled up and fired, blowing an enormous, yellow-white load of spunk all over Toryen's boyish features.

With his muzzle open, the tiger caught a few spurts across his tongue, as his master's ejaculation ever-so-slowly tapered from heavy, punishing pencil-thick surges down to the watery aftermath he'd be leaking until his knot went down. With a few cleaning licks, rewarded with runny, watery mini-ejaculations, Toryen got off Tomasj's bed and walked straight over to Van, uncaring that his stripes were nearly invisible under the wall of cum that blanketed his face like a thrown cup of milk.

The fox blinked at him, and curled his lip back to show pearly white fangs.

"Get away from me, you bastard. Your father murdered my cousin and uncle, and I'll not play your game."

Toryen's grin faltered, and his eyes seemed to shrink as he hunched his shoulders. Still, he reached for Vanyal's mostly-hard cock, and trailed his fingertips along it where it rested beneath the blanket.

"I...I can't stop unless master tells me to stop..."

"Tomasj, you son of a whore, tell him to stop that or I'll kill the little bastard when my arms heal."

Tomasj waved a paw languidly, and Toryen let go of the fox's prick with a disappointed, cum-dripping expression, before slouching back over to his lupine master, his own pants tented out in the center.

"Strip and paw yourself for me. I won't have your aching balls make you less useful to me."

Toryen's ears pinned back, as something inside the mad tiger realized he was being chastised. The feeling of guilt was so alien, so new to him, that he wasn't certain what to do, and simply stood in the center of the room clenching and unclenching his paws like a nervous recalcitrant child, not an adult of twenty-some summers.

"Now!"

The wolf's snapped command broke him out of his awkward reverie, and he hurried to undo the ties on his leather pants, dropping them and squatting down, taking his cock in paw and beginning to stroke it, surprised at how strainingly hard he was.

The tiger didn't even register Van's question, as he spoke to Tomasj.

"How far are you going to let him take this 'master' business. You know slavery is illegal here."

"Pff. What government is going to stop me? Besides, it keeps him under control, and the priest says we need this little murdering prick."

Toryen sucked in a soft gasp, tickling his spines with a claw tip and spreading the seeping clear liquid from his tip down his shaft for greater lubrication before he sped his strokes.

"You are a sick bastard, Tomasj."

"And you are ungrateful...He saved your life, remember?"

The wolf coughed at the end of his statement, perhaps a bit more pointedly than he meant to, and began quietly hacking, while extending that same rude gesture from earlier over his head.

Soft splatting thumps heralded Toryen's release, as the little cat whimpered into the paw he'd jammed into his muzzle, suddenly inspired not to interrupt 'master' having a conversation. His pearly white seed splattered the stone floor in seven long lines from his straining, jerking tip. Then he fell backward onto his rear, losing his balance as post-release relaxation hit his straining calf muscles.

"M-master...I'm done."

Tomasj looked up, gasping for breath, and waved a paw expectantly.

"Well..." cough cough "clean it up..." cough "Tongue only."

Two hours after dusk, the companions had assembled in Summer's office-turned-infirmary, surrounded by heaps of now-pointless paperwork he'd yet to have burned as tinder for the kitchen fires. Cel and Timid were seated between the two beds, along with Captain Summer, a scarred and hastily-clean lapine runner who had managed to get back and forth between the Black Tower and Thieren's Old Bailey Prison fortress repeatedly in the last few days, and several of Summer's senior lieutenants. Still in their beds, Tomasj and Vanyal had been propped up with pillows so they could more easily see and participate in the circle-shaped meeting.

As the last invited guest entered, Timid looked up, and for a moment failed to recognize the Paladin-Commander without his armor. The wolf was tall, well over six feet, with the heavy muscles of a life-long warrior. His face was grim and unemotional, lined with wrinkles, and had sprinkles of white running through his otherwise charcoal fur.

The Paladin-Commander bowed to Timid, clapping a paw to his chest in the traditional symbol of formal acknowledgment for his religious superior, then cut a shorter bow to Captain Summer, who gruffed at the formality and beckoned him to the table.

"Welcome, High Paladin Joray. Now siddown so we can get this started."

Timid patted the last chair, and waved the zealous commander over, still surprised at the instantaneous obedience from the very fur who had, a few days ago, loudly called him a seditioner and heretic and practically clubbed his skull in. The moment the big wolf was seated, Captain Summer rested his paws on his knees, sat forward, and began to speak.

"We've enough food for six months, and as I suspected, Casso's trebuchet can't reach us up here without inviting return fire. We've the better position and they know it. The hill gives us range, and the Black Tower is actually more defensible than Castle Amarthane herself, albeit less than half her size.

"That said, we've also got our troops spread thin protecting just under ten thousand surviving civilians, who've taken over the surrounding governor's offices, treasury building, and Gibbet Square. Fast work by our Mason friends has built the defenses we need to keep them safe and alive for now, but keeping order over ten thousand frightened, bored, jobless souls is going to be damn near impossible over any real stretch of time.

"Our scouts," he said, gesturing to the lapine, who blushed but didn't look away, "tell us that Thieren's got another thousand civilians and three hundred soldiers under his protection at the Old Bailey Prison. They estimate the total number of undead in the city at thirty thousand, but the estimate is only an educated guess.

"Lastly, and worst of all, the farms outside Amarthane are entirely unusable. Winter's here, and besides that the farms aren't defensible."

The aging tiger sat back in his chair then, and to Timid's eyes looked older than he had only days before. Older by a decade of mental and physical exhaustion. He knew why. Though the Captain had made no demonstration of it, he was grieving for his family. Timid overheard, during kitchen duty, the other Guard talking about how Summer's son had fought and died defending civilians during the breakthrough in the poor district, having arrived early in the fight. His wife had lived not a mile from the breached gate.

The Guard had been angry that Summer hadn't sent better assets to protect that gate, but he knew beneath that façade they were merely grieving for their beloved leader's loss. He had no blood family left, and no one to comfort him in this time of bleakness and rotting snow-crusted sorrow.

Summer continued to speak after a brief pause, and Tim was heartened to see the old captain's eyes hadn't lost their spark. He was grieving, but unbroken, unyielding like iron.

"Three tasks are critical at this moment. Firstly, we need to build or obtain better shelter, so that the worsening winter doesn't freeze our refugees to death. Secondly, we need to find a way to produce or obtain food. Thirdly, we need to prevent Casso's madness from killing us all.

"And a fourth task is our long-term goal. Put an end to the undead scourge, so we can start to rebuild."

Timid shook his head, and stood, pushing the chair out behind him. To his right, Cel looked up at him, and clasped his right paw with her left before standing in support of what they'd discussed. To his left, the Paladin-Commander stood as well, uncertain of what was happening, but unwilling to show any sign of a lack of solidarity.

"I'm sorry Captain, but you're wrong. We have one task that comes before all of those."

Summer looked up at them all, raising a brow and squinting all at once. Cleverness, Timid realized. The Captain was calculating. So he forestalled the wily tiger by simply speaking his mind, rendering such calculation unnecessary.

"At this moment, the people are heartened by faith. Lord Sir Joray and my remaining clergy have been preaching the prophecy, of which I've told you all, and the people look to it as a way to salvation. For now, it is helping keep order. But that won't last forever, regardless of its veracity."

Summer nodded, steepling his fingers together in front of his muzzle. To either side of the Captain, his lieutenants looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Timid suddenly realized he was hitting on exactly what this meeting was truly about.

"Our first task is to decide on a single leader, to whom the people will look for protection, care, and authority."

The Guard lieutenants were worried now. They were afraid he was going to demand leadership, and were not prepared to let him have it. Such a division could kill them all, and everyfur at the meeting knew it. Timid simply smiled, a gentle curve of his lips. Then he went to a knee, bowing his head near to the floor. Cel remained standing, partly because of her duty as his personal guardian, partly because her knee was inflamed and already pained enough from sitting and standing again. The Paladin-Commander followed his pontiff to the ground, bowing lower as much as his large frame could.

"The Church of the Many Faiths as One hereby swear to serve the people above all other things. It is therefore now our policy to obey the word of civil law, so long as the law is just and pursues no undue persecution of the faith. As is our mandate, we proclaim you Lord of Amarthane, Tyberius Summer."

Summer sat stock-still, brows raised in surprise, both at the priest for his act, and at himself for not seeing it coming. Then he started to laugh, a rolling sound of stress and release that had his lieutenants staring toward him in concern. One of them spoke, though, having kept his head and remembered important details.

"The Temple has no such mandate, Father Timid. By what law do you claim such?"

Cel grit her teeth and spoke.

"When King Callian died, he did so in my arms and without a proclaimed heir. His final words were to me. He made me swear to keep them secret, until such time as I saw fit to reveal them."

She reached into a bag that hung at her hip, and drew from it a metal tube, its lock nicked and damaged but still shut. Cel thanked the gods that Thieren's unit of soldiers had kept it as she'd sworn them to do before riding out to slay the traitor Verenax. She thanked the gods he'd had the foresight to tell her he still had it, and to send his rabbit runner with it to her.

Cel produced the key, a tiny brass device of exceeding detail, and used it to unlock the small tube, withdrawing a letter written on fine vellum and handing it to Summer.

He took the writ, raising a brow as he broke the ornate red and blue wax seal that held it shut with the tip of his claw. The old captain's brows shot up as he read the royal decree aloud.

"By mine Blood and mine Name, Callian Eightcrowns, I give this Royal Decree in case I should pass from this mortal world before fathering an Heir.

Mine __Kingdom_ is riven by War and internal division betwixt noble cousins. Long have I striven to end these battles, for they do no Good for the true heart of all kingdoms; The People._

For as we rule by the Allowance and Forbearance of Commoners, we cannot truly call ourselves Noble if we lead them Wrongly and to their Doom for our own Vanities.

To That end, it is mine Dictate that the Lord of mine Capitol, Beautiful Amarthane, over which many factions have fought and died, shall be He or She who is Elected so by a Majority of Sitting Officials, which are to include Guild Masters, the High Priest, the Captain of the Guard, the High Burgher or other Commoner-Elected Leader, and He or She who is Elected to Vote by the Majority of Knights.

Such elections are to occur once in Ten Years, or upon the Death or Retirement of prior Lord-Elect of Amarthane. By Mine Own mandate, in absence of other Royal Decree, this is to be the Law of the Eight Kingdoms.

To he whom may wish to usurp the Will of mine kingdom, I decree Death for thine crime of Treason Most Foul.

~Callian Eightcrowns, King of the Eight, this Eighth Day of the Eighth Month."

Silence blanketed the chamber, a felt fog of stunned disbelief at the late king's decree. Captain Summer re-rolled the scroll with utmost care, and offered it back to Sir Cel, before standing.

"I assume," he asked, in a quiet voice, "that you have held this vote?"

Timid bobbed his head, gesturing to himself and Sir Cel.

"I am accorded as the High Priest until such time as we can assemble a council of bishops to vote otherwise, and Sir Cel is the highest-ranking knight that remains on our side of Castle Amarthane's walls. What few other knights we've encountered amongst the refugees consented immediately to following her command. The commoners do not yet have an elected official, since the death of their Mayor, and I have a letter here from the Mason's Guild, signed by the other four surviving Guild Masters, proclaiming that they will follow you to the very Underworld if you ask."

Still knelt on the floor, Timid drew a scroll from his own bag and offered it over, though with less care and ominous regality than Cel had with the writ. Summer took the letter and read it over quickly, before handing it off to one of his lieutenants. Then he shook his head, snorted, and reached down to grab Timid by the collar and pull him to his feet.

"Get up. There's no time for silly formalities. I'll accept, as it will prevent wasting time forcing the nobles stuck here with us to follow my lead."

Timid grinned, and reached out a paw, which Summer took and shook. Then the Captain turned to Cel, and offered his paw again, which was shaken firmly by the female knight.

"But if you hold another vote again without notifying me, I will bash you both over the head and lock you up, understand?"

That got a pair of laughs and nods. Then Vanyal spoke up, through a laugh that clearly pained him.

"My lord, if it please you, I have a few ideas for how to handle our remaining three minor troubles."

"Go ahead, lad, speak your mind."

"First, have your guards build a smaller perimeter around the Black Tower, then have the common-folk start disassembling buildings and using them to build defensible walls along the roads. Teach them how to build and move those locking barricades you used a few days ago.

"The undead aren't that dangerous, now that their leaders are gone. If we can build safe avenues, the refugees can start clearing, fortifying, and re-occupying surrounding buildings. It'll give them an important job to do, and make them feel they're reclaiming what's theirs."

Lord Summer raised a brow again, feeling his forehead begin to ache with all of today's startling insights and revelations. He nodded and beckoned for the fox to continue, shaking his head at how obvious that solution was, and yet had remained un-thought-of.

"As for food, you'll eventually want to apply the same kind of forts to the outlying farms, I think. But for now, have the civilians build terraces on the building tops. Use those layers of horse shit all over the streets here, together with whatever dirt and soil can be scavenged from the poor-town hovel floors. Send armed teams. It's an opportunity to train more soldiers and do something useful at the same time.

"As for Casso...Fuck the bastard, let him rot in the stone hell of his own making. His castle's already under siege whether we're in front of it or not. Disease and starvation will take them well before it takes us, and if they can see we grow food just out of reach, it will drive starving soldiers to revolt.

"You've already won that conflict, m'lord. So long as you can keep him contained. I suggest preparing the City Wardens with orders to shoot down anyone he sends out foraging, or capture them. He won't know where we move, where we are...He won't be able to risk attempting a breakout. By the time he realizes how hopeless things are, it'll be too late and morale too low to fight us."

Summer's lieutenants were quickly scribbling down the ideas, and debating amongst themselves in soft voices the finer points of such a plan. They didn't have to wait on their Captain and Lord to tell them - They knew his mind well enough to realize he'd accept the plan by the way he was nodding.

"Good ideas, Vanyal. We'll talk them over with the Masons and Wainrights Guilds to get started."

Then he fixed Timid with a look that got the priest shifting in his seat slightly.

"Which leads to the last point of this meeting. I know you believe your visions. You intend to follow them. When do I have to lose you and your group as an asset? When are you planning to leave?"

Timid shook his head and sighed. He'd worried about this very question himself for days now, and still had no answers.

"The prophecy mentioned seeking out the Frozen Heart. Cel knows where he...er...it? Cel knows where it is. Our next step is to go there and speak to it. With any luck, it will know where we have to go next. If not...Well, I have a theory. Van?"

The fox coughed, winced, and nodded that he was paying attention.

"The prophecy also described each of you, and in its own way made mention of what I could expect from you. In your case, it said you would 'feather the winged devils' and that your arrows would 'know the way.'"

Van tilted his brow, and restrained a laugh into a cough.

"That's an old superstition of my people. When lost, throw an arrow up and let it fall. Whichever direction it points is the direction to go in. Thing is, a lot of the time the arrow just ends up point-down in the ground. Which was our way of saying 'stay put and wait for rescue, idiot'."

"Would you be willing to try it?"

Van nodded and then winced when he tried to shrug his shoulders, bending forward with a soft gasp.

"We're...Nngh...Not going anywhere till we're healed."

Timid nodded, and felt his paw squeezed in Cel's own. He looked to her, and nodded, seeing the concern in her eyes. They had no way of knowing how soon her pregnancy would begin to become obvious, or how long it would be before it would slow her down and make fighting impossible for her and dangerous for the unborn infant.

"The prophecy didn't give us a timeline. But...Uh..."

Cel sighed, flushed in embarrassment and some degree of lingering shame, and just blurted it out.

"I'm with child. The longer we wait, the less useful I'll be."

Tomasj burst out laughing, the mad sound drawing all eyes to the till-now silent wolf as he snickered and chortled with chesty wetness.

"What, did you fuck her while she was unconscious the night we met her? I have newfound respect for you, priest!"

Timid glared at him, as did Summer and Cel most hotly of all, though her ears had turned bright red with an embarrassed flush.

"No, you idiot. Just...Shut your fool mouth for once, will you? We'll assess what to do next once we've spoken to the Frozen Heart. Van, we'll wait a few days, till you're mobile again. Tomasj, try not to drown on your own lungs. We need you with us."

The wolf gave a mocking salute from his bed, and went back to cough-laughing.

Summer nodded once, firmly, and stood along with is entourage.

"In that case, I've got some gifts for you all. They ought to be ready by tomorrow."

"Gifts?" asked Timid, blinking.

"Well...More like investments in your success," Lord Summer responded with a half-smirk.