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Darkness fell quickly over Harbour. Rain poured from the heavens, hissing on the hot cover plates protecting the flickering torches that burned all over the city. In the centre of the city was Harbour Castle, built on a foundation set in the middle of the wide canal running straight through the city.

Apart from the torches that lit the castle courtyard, only one window was lit up in the highest tower. Water battered the single pane of glass as Lydia Twoheart leaned on the windowsill. The noble had been kept in this room for a week now, without contact to the outside world. She hadn't spoke with her friends, or to her family even. She was locked in protective custody, but as a result felt she was going insane.

Lydia was Lord Twoheart's only daughter, and eligible for the Sonata Crown if she married the king's son. And since Prince Sonata had a crush on her since they had first met at the annual royal ball, Lydia's chances of becoming queen had grown greatly. She had been receiving flowers and love letters from the prince for months now... but she had never returned any of them. Her heart belonged to someone else... which was partially why she was locked in a tower right now.

Lydia was an enchanted creature, like most nobles in the Sonata realm. Part human, part animal. Her kind were called anthros, anthropomorphic animals. Lydia was a tigress, but built slender and elegant like a cheetah. She had dark grey fur and pitch black stripes, with crimson eyes that glowed in the firelight. She had a slender figure, wide hips, a generous bust and narrow waist, and was clad in a white silken gown tied with a single crimson ribbon around her waist. She was 24 years old, somewhat old for a noble to still be single. It was a miracle she was still eligible for marriage to the prince. All the other nobles married into other noble families between eighteen and twenty, apparently the perfect age for bearing sons.

Lydia breathed out, her breath fogging the glass before she turned and sat on the wooden window sill. She was still thinking about him, the one she wasn't allowed to see. The one her heart belonged to. And then she thought about the others. The ones she helped, and was now paying the price for... possibly with her life.

Outside she heard the two guards suddenly stop talking. The open fire in her chamber was hot on her face as she curiously straightened up and walked closer to the door, her hand reaching out for the key in her lock.

"Excuse me, sir. You're not allowed..." one guard started to say, but he was suddenly silenced by a wet gurgle.

The second guard tried to cry out, but was similarly silenced. Only then did Lydia hear the clink of metal on metal. It was time.

Heart jumping into her throat, Lydia stepped back from the door with fright, seeing the handle slowly turn as the person who killed the guards opened the entrance to her chambers. There was a metallic click as the lock opened and a creak of rusty hinges as the heavy oak door slowly opened inward. Lydia took a series of deep breaths, trying to calm her heart. Soon a man carrying a white dove's feather would walk into her room, smear her blood as she died on the feather and report to his masters...

But it wasn't the man she was expecting.

The assassin entered and shut the door behind him with a quiet click before turning the key, locking the door. He was dressed in baggy dark grey fatigues with mottled black patterns, and looked like a living shadow. He had a hood pulled up over his head and a scarf across the bottom half of his face. Over his torso he wore a black mail vest, and around his waist was a belt housing various compartments and a pair of long thin daggers, one on each hip. Hanging on his back was a long sword and there were hardened black pads on the back of his wrists and on the shins of his flat soled boots.

Slowly the man raised his head and reached up with a gloved hand. Slowly his hand pushed back his hood, letting it flop down into his neck, revealing his short cropped black hair, sun-touched skin and dark brown eyes. Staring into her eyes, the human pulled down his scarf, revealing the rest of his face.

"Medici." Lydia breathed, rooted to the spot. She had expected her killer to be human. All the assassins she had met were human. But she had not expected the council to send Medici.

"Lydia." Medici said in a hoarse voice, his features softening as he melted in her eyes.

He slowly took a step forward, but Lydia jumped back, bumping into a cold stone wall. A little hurt, Medici stayed where he was by the door.

"Are you her to kill me?" Lydia asked, her voice shaking slightly. She had come to terms with the fact she may die for the past week now. But she never imagined she'd die by the hands of the man she'd loved for the year she had been a spy for the Congregation of Shadows, a guild of assassins dwelling in Harbour's underworld.

"Maybe." The human said. "Maybe I'm just here to ask why."

"Why?"

"Why did you betray us?" Medici asked softly and calmly. "You were the only one who knew where the council was held. When they raided us, five masters were killed, and twelve apprentices lost their lives. Two council members lay bleeding in a gutter somewhere, and five more were captured."

"I had no choice..." the tigress said. "What you do... what the guild does is wrong! I can't live like that, Medici! I can't act as a spy for the assassin's guild all my life! Someone would find out. I'd be executed!"

"The council would have protected you!" Medici shouted pointing in the general direction in the city where the council of assassins used to reside. "The creed says..."

"The council is corrupt! Don't tell me you're that naive, because I know you are not!" Lydia shouted back. "The creed may be able to lull you to sleep at night despite the awful things you're ordered to do, but to them the creed is nothing more than away to control their loyal little puppets!" she opened her mouth to say more, but Medici raised his left for her to remain quiet. At the sight of that hand, Lydia winced and closed her mouth.

"Khyle." Medici said. "Twelve years old. Would have made a fine master. He stood for truth and justice, and would have gladly taken the life of one to allow hundreds to live... that would have been if he had survived the raid... the raid that occurred because you betrayed us."

"Please, Medici, I didn't..." Lydia started, but Medici took a step forward and raised his hand again.

"Master Phenrig." The assassin continued, slowly moving closer. "An assassin, sure. He took lives. Countless lives. But all his proceeds went to the warrens. His work outside the assassin's guild saved the lives of countless children trapped in the poorest districts in these lands. Who will help the warrens now? Who?!"

Medici was close enough to touch Lydia now... and he did. His right hand darted up and grabbed her shoulder, pinning her against the wall of her chamber. Lydia trembled and the human saw a tear roll down the fur on her cheek. His left hand came up now and Lydia stared at it with fear. The human's left hand was missing its ring-finger. It was the hand on which the blood of countless inhabitants of the Sonata kingdom was stained.

Flicking his wrist back, Medici pulled back on a chord attached to the ring on his middle finger. Immediately the spring loaded mechanism was released and a long thin blade popped out of his gauntlet, fitting perfectly through the gap in his fist his missing finger left. The tip of the shining blade hovered a few inches from Lydia's neck, and she stared at it with tearful eyes.

"You were ordered to kill me." Lydia said plainly, her voice breaking.

"No." Medici said. "I'm protecting you. If any of the other assassins got to you... you don't want to know what they'd do to you."

Lydia lowered her gaze and looked away from the human, reaching up and touching his wrist. "Then get on with it."

Had it been anyone else, Medici wouldn't have thought twice. But this was Lydia. His hand shook.

"You'll submit to death so easily?" he asked.

"No." Lydia looked up at his eyes again. "As much as I hate what you are, Medici, I still love you. I love what we had... before all this. I would do anything to go back to that. If I go to heaven, that is what it would be like. Just me and you, no nobles and commoners, no human/anthro separation. I would gladly die to go to that."

"You're still the same naive little girl. There is no heaven, and there is no happiness on this earth."

But Lydia looked at him like he was the naive one, gently stroking his face in her hand. "Medici... my love... if you are going to kill me, could you do at least one thing?"

Gritting his teeth, Medici retracted his wrist blade and lowered his hands. "What is it?"

"Pretend you're not an assassin. Pretend it is like when we first met." Lydia moved closer to his and pressed her body against his. "Love me like you did back then."

All this time Medici had tried to avoid her gaze, but now, as he slowly wrapped his arms around her warm body, he looked her straight in the eyes and felt the world collapse around him. It was like some kind of enchantment. Nothing seemed to matter but her warm gaze, and the heat of her breath on his face.

He automatically angled his head as Lydia craned her neck. Their lips touched, softly at first, and the assassin shut his eyes involuntarily as she shut hers, enjoying her warmth spreading through his lips. She pressed harder and Medici felt her tongue slither past his lips. Their tongues wrestled for a while, and the human felt the tigress sigh deeply in his arms. Her hands slid down over his fatigues, before he felt them leave his body.

While she pulled Medici forward until her back pressed against the wall behind her, Lydia undid the knot in the ribbon holding her gown closed. It came free with ease and opened to reveal her bare breasts. She slipped the robe over her slender shoulders and let it fall in a heap by the couple's feet. Her hands then undid the front of the human's trousers, feeling the throbbing erection underneath.

Soon her hands came up to Medici's shoulders as his hips moved forward. Held up by his strong hands, and pinned tight against the wall, Lydia gasped, instinctively wrapping her long legs around his waist. The tigress moaned and gasped for breath as his erection slid all the way into her. She didn't even get a moment to adjust to his size before he started to slowly move his hips, sliding halfway out before thrusting all the way into her wet tunnel again.

Contracting her nether-muscles, Lydia smiled at the ceiling, feeling him twitch inside her as she suddenly grew tighter. He had remembered their first time making love. This was exactly how, moment by moment, and it was wonderful. Fast and passionate, exactly how Lydia loved it.

Burying his face in her neck, Medici thrust faster into her hole, feeling her grow tighter again.

"Oh, by the Gods..." Lydia moaned out loud, bucking and grinding her hips, feeling a wildfire burning within her. "Medici... I'm... I'm coming... I'm... aaaah!" she clenched her eyes shut and twitched, clamping her muscles hard on the human's shaft. He continued to thrust in and out of her while she came, her juices leaking out past his member.

Suddenly she loosened again and Medici felt it. He thrust into her and twitched, their hips grinding tight against each other as he came too. The assassin remained silence as spurts of semen flowed from him, deep into the tigress whose legs tightened around his waist. Her arms held him tighter against her chest as she gasped for air, feeling hot, sticky liquid flow up through her cervix.

"Oh, Gods... oh Gods..." Lydia panted, loosening her grip on her assassin. "Medici... I love you... I love you so much." She shut her eyes and moved forward to kiss him, but Medici pinned her back, widening the gap between their faces.

There was a ‘slink' of metal on metal as he drew one of his punch daggers from the back of his belt. He grabbed her hand and put the cold steel against the palm of her hand. Lydia's heart skipped a beat as she opened her eyes again, but suddenly she felt his shaft slide out of her. Quickly her eyes closed again as she shuddered feeling her parted walls close in on themselves again as he left her feeling empty so suddenly. It was almost enough to make her hardly register the sharp blade cutting across the palm of her hand.

Lydia cried out and looked down at the thin line of blood swelling out of the long cut in her hand. Medici replaced his dagger and produced a long white feather from his belt and drew it across her wound, staining it with blood. Confused, Lydia stood on her own again and watched Medici as he dressed himself and tucked away the feather.

Without another word he moved to the door of her chambers again and paused to glance back before pulling up his scarf and hood.

"I never want to see you again." The assassin said darkly before wrenching the door open and disappearing out into the hall.

The door was left askew, and naked and alone, Lady Lydia Twoheart sat on the cold floor in a foetal position, sobbing to herself, broken hearted...

---***---

Rain beat down on the muddy path Saren walked. His hood was pulled up, his clothes torn by the dragoness who'd violated him several hours ago, and all his weapons were broken. The cold wind pierced his wet fatigues and he shivered, tucking his hands under his armpits. He sniffed, sad and unable to find the words that would have to explain to his master how he'd failed to kill his target, and let her rape him.

With a sigh, Saren looked over his shoulder, hearing wooden cart wheels on the bumpy road. Stopping, he held out a thumb, hoping this traveller would be kind enough to grant him a lift to the next town. The carriage drew closer and the front wheel stopped in a muddy puddle, splashing the apprentice assassin.

"Hey, kid. You look like shit!" a familiar voice exclaimed.

Saren looked up with surprise. "Master Medici."

From under the canvas sheltering him from the rain, Medici smiled at his apprentice and held out a hand. "Hop on."

Five minutes later they were cruising parallel to the mountains, Saren shivering and attempting to warm his hands over an oil lamp.

"Why so miserable?" Medici asked suddenly.

"Why so cheerful, master?" Saren retorted respectfully, causing his master to chuckle.

"I got my target." He smiled.

"I did not." Saren said sombrely.

"I know."

Saren's eyes widened and he looked at the older human, seeing Medici was smirking at the dark road ahead of them. "Sorry?"

"All the masters send their apprentices to that dragoness as a bit of a joke." Medici smiled at his apprentice. "She's too noble and righteous to kill an assassin... and too horny for that matter... and none of the apprentices are good enough to kill her." He chuckled. "But don't worry. I didn't send you because I think it's funny, and trust me, it's fucking hilarious." Saren grunted and looked away. "I sent you there, Saren, to learn a little lesson."

"Which would be, master?"

"Remember what I said about never trusting anyone?" Medici asked.

"Yes."

"The same goes for love. One night stands are okay." Medici said simply. "Have sex with whoever you want, however you want. Fuck every woman in sight for all I care. Just don't fall in love. Love, as great and beautiful thing as it is, is deadly for people like us. Your enemies, and trust me, you will have them, will use love against you. It is a dangerous weakness for you and the ones you hold dear. Do you understand?"

"Yes master." Saren said quickly, only half listening.

Medici looked at him suspiciously, unsure if he really understood. "All right... get some sleep. We'll be with the council in an hour."

Saren curled up and closed his eyes, not wanting to look at his master. He'd heard all about his lesson. Never fall in love. Easy in theory, but hard in practice... especially if you were already in love...