One Night in Rome
The sweet smell of the spring blossom from the flower garden did nothing for the stench of rot that pervaded the house, it was ever present in the Cardinals country villa. Every time she had attended him here had been present and even his very body carried it, as if the man himself bathed in death every morning and slept with a corpse every night. If only that was the most repellent thing about Cardinal Allestro, perhaps he would make a more palatable client.
Lyra had once asked Belladona about him, before she had left for Florence, the girl had been the favourite of Allestro at the time. It was strange that she had been so candid about him, but her fear of him was plain. She said the cardinal dealt with services the dead often, and with the plague so rife on the streets of the Rome, the dead were in no short supply. Even so, the explanation did not satisfy her, the rumours of his strange sexual tastes, of his cruelty to his servants and of course his association with the Borgia family and their weird bacchanalia were widespread.
Still with Belladona departed, as well as the two other girls the cardinal liked to spend time with before her, it seemed the attention of this man of god had come to rest on Lyra. An attention she dearly wished she had not attained. She remembered how Ramona had become so different, quite and withdrawn after being assigned to him, she hoped she was faring better in Sicily, the girl had always dreamed of returning to her family there.
The snow leopard ran a claw down the side of the Port decanter on the tray before her, letting her talon slide randomly through the criss-crossing cut glass above the crimson contents, her mind drifting to where she would escape to given the chance. She had dressed herself as was fitting an evening event such as this, a light full length dress in black lace with a gold brocade, showing just enough of her white furred bosom, letting her ample breasts push up just a little. If the cut of the robes did not make it clear of her profession, she also wore a broach proclaiming the house of courtesans.
She was here with a group of other girls to entertain the guests at a garden party celebrating the Cardinals return from France. Lady Giotti had insisted that Lyra be one of the serving maids, knowing full well of both Allestro's desire for her and Lyra' disgust at the man. Still opposing the Madam of her own house was a futile exercise, as much as she hated her duties she hoped that he would be too drunk to make good of his urges.
"What are you doing here, skulking like a thief when the guests are thirsty?" as if her very thoughts had summoned her forth, Giotti emerged from the annexe to the room, herself bedecked in a scarlet dress with a less revealing cut.
Lyra' words were just barely this side of civil, though her blue and amber eyes betrayed her feelings "The guests may have to think this swill of a port, but they would like it less if it were not decanted fully." she took the silver crucible from the bottle and laid it on a cloth, trying not to meet the gaze of matriarch.
"You should be out there seeing to the needs of our dear Cardinal, he has asked for your twice..." the Madam smiled and walked up behind the smaller feline "I expect him to be very pleased with your performance tonight as well. I will not tolerate any more of your pathetic whining."
Lyra snarled, her sharp teeth on display to the other female as she turned to face her "I am free to choose who and who I do not bed! That has always been the way has it not?"
Giotti hardly flinched "Allestro is a rich man who has powerful friends, do I have to remind you what happens to those who displease allies to the house of Borgia? Let alone to a Holy Cardinal of Rome. " She walked off towards the doors to the garden "Bring the port now, and try to act like a lady for once."
The faint scent of decay was thankfully absent from the garden proper, the ten or so guests were all seated at a grand table beside the Cardinals hedge maze. Each was arraigned in descending order of importance with the cardinal himself at the head wearing the crimson robes of his office. Out here the late afternoon sunshine, the birdsong as well as the gentle laughter of her fellow cortigiana di lume could almost make this feel a happy scene. Lyra attempted to lose herself in her sisters false levity and delay her approach to the man she was trying to avoid. She poured serving some of the guests at the other end of the table, a pair of French nobles wearing striking blue silk doublets.
She found her eyes wandering to the cardinal, at first sight he was not unappealing, a jet black panther with a few streaks of grey in his fur. But there was a look in his eye, a madness, a darkness, a hunger, it was hard to say which it was, and it was probably all of them. It made his looks irrelevant.
"Girl! Come here my snow kissed peach." Allestro had noticed her already, his voice was heavy with wine "Bring me that port and the sweet smell of your fur..." he grinned, a malevolence in his tone that set even the other guests on edge, but of course it was not politic to acknowledge it. Lyra merely tightened her grip on the neck of the bottle, idly wondering what such a heavy weight would do to his skull as she glided up beside him. "As Your Eminence wishes."
The panther slid his claw along the back of her dress, pressing his claws through the light material to the round of her buttock, feeling her firm muscles as he looked up at her "You are very lucky, my little peach, you will get to attend me in my chamber tonight.." he proffered up an empty wine glass for her to pour and slipped his fingers against the base of her cheeks. She stiffened, that charnel scent of death clung to him, her thighs tensed and prevented his fingers questing further "As you wish, your eminence...It..will be my honour." her words were catching in her throat.
Allestro laughed and released his hand from her "Madam Giotti! You had not told me this leopardess was as frosty as her fur would suggest...are sure she has been broken in?"
The matriarch gave Lyra an icy stare but her voice was all honey "You will find she melts like a morning frost once she is in your bed, your eminence. I give you my promise she will be as capable and satisfying as any of her sisters your have enjoyed so much before her."
"I hope you are right, I should not want to have to tell His Holiness of any complaints regarding your services, the planning for the banquet of chestnuts is happening now, and my word does carry such weight with him." He took a long draw on the port and smiled with wine stained teeth. "Girl, run along now to my chambers and undress for me...this party is drawing to a close, my guests should leave before dark." His words were more command than observation.
Lyra cursed him as a bastard, a heretic and a vile simonist while keeping the same smile and following it with a neat curtsey, her eyes on his. He continued to leer at her, eyes roaming her body and her exposed ankles, her snow white bosom. "Nothing would please me more, Your Eminence.."
The masters chambers were on the top floor of the house and here the sickly scent of decay was at its strongest, as if all the scents of the house had accumulated here. The cardinals room was sumptuously decorated, silks and tapestries from Araby, a cut glass set from the south of France, a selection of lewd Bavarian woodcuts decorated one of the walls, though no amount of luxury or pornography could undo the feeling of dread she felt in this place.
The central spiral staircase led from the floor below the room arrayed around it, something was odd about the room however, it was much smaller than the house itself, there must be other rooms here, yet no other doors were visible. So many of the nobility had a need for secrecy, hidden rooms were no rare occurrence, and if this was where the Cardinal kept his spoils then there was a fortune hiding behind one of these walls.
Lyra had little trouble finding the door, it sat behind a heavy tapestry, covered in Arabic swirls and patterns, and secured by a rope that would allow it to be raised. However the iron bands and solid oak of the portal were secured by three thick heavy locks making entry impossible. Still with the kind of treasure that was contained within, the young feline would have no problems escaping the city and making a life for herself elsewhere.
She ran her fingers down the surface of the door, her mind drifting to the fantasy of a life outside the walls of her servitude to Giotti, somewhere she would not have to be at another's beck and call for the rest of her life.
She let the tapestry fall again, smoothing it down and making sure it laid was just as it had appeared, the curves and lines of the intricate patterns pleasing to her. She turned over the possibilities in her mind perhaps he would join Ramona in Sicily, or Maria who had left last winter to join her brother in Austria both of them had been close friends and would welcome her.
The curvy snow leopard turned and walked to the window, gazing down at the gathering dark and the guests departing from the garden, while her claw tugged at the lace on the front of her dress. The tightness of it made it a welcome release as the black cloth loosened around her chest, letting her feel the moist heat from her body rise up around her neck, it had been a long day.
She wriggled from side to side letting the dress and her chemise below free itself, letting the long dress drop down below her breasts, a blessed relief from this humid chamber. She examined the thin material of her underclothes, the hardening of her nipples visible under it, then slid her dagger and purse from her hips, setting them aside on a flat topped trunk. Finally she could slip her dress down over her rounded ass.
With the dress laid along the same trunk, she removed her Sandals too - the Cardinal was shouting at someone outside, sending his servants away, evidently he did not want to be disturbed. All the better. She undid the draw strings on her wrists and neck, and slipped the garment off to reveal her nakedness below, bright white fur and grey spots covering her form. Her sleek muscles were visible in the places the nap had been brushed against by her clothes, she ran her palms down herself, enjoying the coolness and stillness before what she must do.
Allestro entered the room and snorted, he had obviously seen her standing there with her back to him, she raised her tail over her buttocks, tensing them a little as she half turned her head "A drink, Your Eminence?" The panther grinned and walked over to the large canopied bed, though his eyes never left her "One more yes...before we begin."
Lyra crossed the room, taking her time to pour out a measure of wine, but making herself bend over slightly to give the Cardinal the kind of display he wanted. Such a distraction would help with slipping open the hidden compartment in her signet ring and pouring out a quantity of the red liquid inside.
She handed the tainted wine over with the same languid set of movements, the sultry dance that helped distract him, even as she felt the fur rising on the back of her neck at his closeness, his eyes drinking her in. Still he drank the wine with equal gusto. Her disgust was hard to conceal.
"Why don't you undress me...show me how sorry you are for not entertaining me sooner, my snowy delight..." he relaxed back on the covers, spreading his legs, the obvious bulge under his cassock filling her with a repellent feeling. The drug was fast acting she knew, but also fast to wear off for some, she would have to be quick. The snow leopard clambered over him, spreading her legs and pushing him back against the pillows "Relax, Your Grace, and you will find my services most to you liking..." she purred. Already his eyes were drooping, though he seemed to suspect little with a sleek feline wrapped around him.
A few moments later she had succeeded in opening up his robes, and laying her paws on what she wanted - a trio of iron keys of the same magnitude as the locks she had seen before. Deftly she jumped off the bed and padded to the tapestry again, the Cardinal was motionless, but for the soft movement of his chest, oblivious to the trinity of clanks that signalled the imminent theft.
She pushed her shoulder against door, the loud creaking joined by a wash of foetid warm air and a cloud of flies, light from the bedchamber flooded inside letting Lyra see the grizzly triptych.
A row of pews filled the room like a chapel, and a trio of figures were grouped at the alter visible in the dim light.
Belladona knelt in a penitent position to the left of the cross, her hands held up in supplication, her white fur stained green from the rot below it, next to her Maria was turned away from the scene, positioned and held in place by iron rods, as if preparing to run. Her body was more emaciated, withered and mostly all her fur was missing. On the cross however, the skeletal remains of Ramona completed the look, only the tufts of sandy lion fur could identify her. She was crucified before the others her entrails dried long against the wood from a cut in her side.
It was here the stink and rot its source, it was here that the Cardinal kept his most secret treasures.
She sank to her knees, coughing and fighting back the nausea, dragging her claws into the floor, is this what happened to the others before her, is this why that monster stank of rot so badly spending time praying to his unholy scene? This the fate he had planned for her. "Bastardo!" she turned, this creature had to die, and now.
Allestro stood at the foot of his bed, a crossbow pointed at her.
The rush of panic and horror washed over her, making her legs feel weak, it was a moment before she registered that he was not even looking at her, and indeed the slack jaw and glassy eye of the panther led her to believe he was still outside the land of the real. Even so, her shout had got his attention, "Stupid..bitch...you think you can try and ...poison me.." he snarled and shook his head, seeming to become more lucid by the second.
Lyra launched herself at the staircase, leaping the first few steps as a crossbow string snapped behind her, still there was no accompanying pain to go with it, she skittered down the steps, the metal jarring her as she landed her bare paws onto it. The Cardinal was not far behind, staggering against the railing "... bitch, you wont get away. They never get away..." his speech sounding more confident now. As she reached the landing below, a glance back let her see the long dagger he had drawn from his robe, the papal seal of the Borgias on its hilt.
She ran across the main hallway and into the room she had decanted the port in earlier, across it the French windows leading out onto the garden beckoned, her heart stopped a moment, there before it stood a hooded figure, blocking her path. The hood covered his face in shadow, but his robes were unmistakably religious, whites and the same crimson as the Cardinal, he was obviously one of the house guard. No wonder none of her sisters had escaped. The figure wore a pair of swords at his hip and white furred claws poked out of the mailed sleeves.
She glanced back, Allestro was still working his way across the hall, his gait unsteady and tottering from side to side, he clutched the door frame to the hallway and looked up at her, a wild grin on his muzzle. She slipped inside the room and slammed the door behind her, the motion on her bare fur reminding her that she was totally naked still, though such concerns were the least of her worries. She turned back to the window but the guard was gone, vanished into thin air. There was no time to think on such things, she made a run for the doors to the garden, flinging them open just as there was a crash from behind her, the Cardinal roaring as he spotted her again. "Ill gut you, you little whore! You don't deserve a place in my divine work, no-one will ever find yo-"
His words cut off suddenly and she was so surprised she turned back again, the cardinal stood half way across the room, the guard was also there again, kneeling down and similarly facing her, a sword in each hand, from below his hood a pair of red eyes could be seen, reflecting the moonlight above. Slowly he returned to standing, holding the blades up and flicking them rapidly down, a splatter of blood suddenly staining the wooden floor from the blades.
Cardinal Allestro wavered a moment, his mouth opening and closing once, it seemed as if the robe was melting into a pool on the floor, both black in this lack of light, his blood draining from a pair of thick slashes across his chest, criss-crossing and draining him in seconds. He slipped to the floor with barely a gurgle. The white robed man slid his swords back into his belt, when he spoke his voice carried a hardness that demanded obedience. "You will come with me...neither of us must be seen to leave..."
Lyra nodded, the chill of the night air outside starting to cut into her, making her nipples harden, her form shiver a little. "Y-yes...that bastard deserved it...what he did-"
"I know what he did...I know more than I care to know of that worm, but now he is dead and I must complete the job.." he reached into a satchel and retrieved a grey clay container, stoppered with wax. An acrid scent rose from it as he opened it, Lyra walked back inside and looked down at the crumpled body of the cardinal. "Do not let this touch you..." he instructed, from here she could see the boxy muzzle and white and black striped fur of his maw inside the hood, the deep red eyes set within and the outline of his thick white mane. This liger was an impressive specimen.
The assassin poured the thick liquid out over the floor, making a circle around the body, then placed the jar a few feet away, replacing the stopper and lighting a wick on its top, he regarded the naked leopardess again. "Outside. Now. Into the maze..." he took her arm with a warm paw, wrapping it around the heart shaped marking there and guiding her out forcefully. They crossed the garden rapidly, sticking to the flower beds to the side, the cold was more intense away from the house, and by the time they were in the shade of the hedge maze, she was shivering.
"We must wait to be sure it catches..." he whispered into her ear, the warmth of his breath a contrast to the rest of her body. "Y-yes...Mnh." she was too nervous and preoccupied with the cold to ask him who he was or why he had saved her, but some questions one does not ask of an assassin. The Liger seemed to notice her discomfort, opening his white cloak and wrapping her in it, his body pressed against hers while her back pushed up against the stone plinth that housed a Gryphon at the maze entrance. She was glad of the warmth, and pushed her muzzle against his neck, breathing in the spicy and slightly sweet scent of the man, a little sigh of relief brushing the fur there.
She felt his muscles under his cloth outfit, only part of him was armoured, she could feel the contours of his chest and firm stomach against her own, and was surprised to find herself getting aroused, a tingle of pleasure and wetness between her legs. She could also feel the girth of him there too, so pressed to her was he that the bulge at his crotch nestled against her sex, she wished that thought had not crossed her mind, that along with her recent brush with death had her needy. He spoke again, and she felt his words rumble against her chest "We may be here a while...these old houses do not take to fire quickly."
"As you wish...my lord.." she was unsure what the right way to address an assassin was, but this seemed appropriate. She felt him laugh softly at that, then he brought his gaze down to look into her blue eyes, regarding her a moment, his nostrils seemed to flare for a second, as he took in her scent, could he smell her excitement? Perhaps. She blushed and turned her muzzle away from his.
A moment later she felt his lips against her neck, soft warmth and the hardness of his fangs flat against her skin as he licked her. His rough tongue caressed her fur, making her shiver for a different reason. She moaned out and brushed her claws down his sides, quite sure she had gone insane to want so badly to give herself to him. Yet she was very wet now so needy that she could hardly believe it.
His lips met with hers and she kissed his much larger muzzle deeply, letting him slip that rough tongue around her own and consume her in passion. Her claws slid down and pushed themselves up into the warmth under his robe, feeling first the outline of his sack and then the thick length under the slim cloth. She tugged it away, letting her fingertips dance along the soft furred sheath of him, feeling electric chills running up her belly, wanting this large male inside her, making her moan into the kiss.
The assassin groaned into the kiss, his length growing as the snow leopard let her soft furred paws glide up and down him, her other paw drawing slow soft talon tips along his balls, all the time kissing him intently, all memory of the cold having left her in this heated need for him. Their fangs clashed in their growing passion, kisses becoming more ragged and panting as the pair lost control before their raw desire for each other. She broke from the kiss, panting a little as she stared into the striped lions eyes, then pushed herself back, scrambling with her paws to push her body up along the stone behind her.
Lyra felt his paws slide under her ass, dragging his black claws into the fur and supporting her, "Mmh Please...Yes...fuck me.." she insisted, given over to the hunger for him now, spreading her legs and wrapping them around his hips, thrusting down to enclose herself around his ready shaft. She felt every inch of him sliding and opening her, the sensation making her bow her head against his chest, biting back a scream but similarly letting her fangs drag into the material of his tunic to the flesh below. She felt him tense up though more from the sleek liquid tightness of her than the pain of her fangs.
She looked up at him, becoming aware now of his features, a red glow lighting them up as the house behind them took to the flame. "Mmmh take me harder." she begged, pushing her muzzle into his long white mane, the blackness of her own contrasting with it as she inhaled his scent, pumping herself down to meet his sudden rapid thrusting, he feet raking up under his robe to drag deep claw marks into his rear. Each push inside her made her emit a purring whimper of pleasure, the need for him satisfied by the feeling of fullness he was giving her, the press of his body, trapping her against the stone.
The sound of of crackling and breaking as the manse behind them became engulfed in the fire made her bolder, her moans and purrs rising in frequency and volume. She felt the heat from it almost burning the back of her, the heat of their union burned brighter inside her though. The desire to pleasure the assassin making Lyra grind herself and squeeze his length with successive movements, she could read the pleasure on his muzzle and she grinned to him with a lewd expression. "Yes...cum inside me." she whispered, biting her lip. The risk of impregnation seemed irrelevant to her right now, all this death had spurned her passion for life.
She pushed herself down hard to hilt him in her sex, her body giving way to its needful release, her sex squeezing and milking the larger male, her foot claws clamped and pressing into his buttocks. She felt him swell, a sudden low rumbling growl coming from his throat as he came, the flash of heat deep inside, the leopard felt her hackles rise as he cried out to the flaming heavens. He collapsed against her, panting, and she let her legs fall to support herself, though she was careful to keep him inside her still, the last of him still flowing into her. Another almighty crash came from the house as the upper level collapsed, a rush of red and orange cinders blossoming in the air and raining down around them, singeing her fur where they touched.
After a moment, she felt him pull away the sense of him no longer inside making her whine softly. He took her paw again, though clearly his mind was too clouded from his recently release to speak, and took off through the maze, dragging her behind. Finally he slid through a shrouded gap in the hedge and they tumbled out onto a steep bank. Behind them the flames sent long shadows across a secluded vineyard as they reached level ground, their forms merged with the flickering twisting darkness below.
The sea of blackness swallowed them up, a silence and a stillness as the padded together across the grass, the assassin guiding her. All the cold within her seemed to have been pushed out by their passion. Ahead Rome shone with all its beauty and possibility, behind the lair of that murderous bastard burned into ruin. Her three friends were avenged and despite the anguish she held for them, with this assassin beside her Lyra felt safe again.