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The same dream again. Not a dream. A nightmare. Not a nightmare, though. A memory relived sure as gears embrace each other again and again to wind the clock: Karniel’s arms bound behind him—the membrane of his wings shorn off his arms, even the long reed bones of the fingers for his wings snipped—flightless and bloody and alive and furious. The hot poker against his back that made his skin sizzle, the incantations carved in stone lighting underneath his feet.

And the bat anthro woke in a forest far north of that memory. Coated in sweat and shivering, Karniel groaned as hunger pangs roiled through his belly. It had been so long since he last fed on anything. Years for the bat, which, in the grand length of his life, might be weeks to the layperson. Still, he was starving to death. Karniel touched the back of his neck where the brand remained—skin scarred and fur refusing to grow back over it.

The bat got up. He was lost somewhere in a northern pine barren. And he had many days of walking yet to reach the northern wastes he wished to die in. Taking mark of the mid-morning sun in the southern hemisphere, the large bat began numbly loping northward.

***

Mathus shut the door to his apothecary and hung a sign on the door. He would be back in the afternoon. He spent all night acting as the impromptu midwife to one of the villagers who went into labor early. Everything turned out fine, but he had, exhausted, slept in. So he was leaving late to the forest to gather supplies for a pain reliever he was low on.

Morgen’s Rest was a village of about one hundred souls. Most of the folks in the town were trappers and fur traders. As Mathus walked to the palisade that marked the border of the village, he passed tanneries and butchers. It was late spring and everyone was out and the town living in plenty.

As Mathus reached the entrance he was greeted by a parade of yapping hounds and behind him some noisy hunters hauling back the catches from their traps. Mathus tried to move off to the side, even as floppy eared dogs nudged his knees and tried to sniff out any treats in the basket Mathus carried under his arm.

One of the hunters called out, “Get out the door late mistress Mathus?”

Flustered, before Mathus might respond, another hunter said, “Oh I heard a lot of hollering and moaning in his place last night. Which one of you boys were in there treating him to a good time?”

Mathus, pale face becoming pinker and pinker, said, “Good day to you all,” and tried to hurry past.

“Oh come on, sway those hips for us honey!”

“Hey, leave the boy alone, not his fault he’s a eunuch.”

They laughed and tried their best to come up with the best insult between them. Mathus kept his head down and marched fast as he could. He was not a eunuch. But with how high pitched and soft-spoken Mathus was, it had always been insinuated. He was a frail, thin man and the other men of the village made sure to remind him he was not one of them. Perhaps if he did take a wife or start a family he might avoid such barbs, but, well… some of their insults did hold a seed of truth. And there was a reason he had ended up alone with his tinctures after so many years.

As he got well away from the village, Mathus began reciting some sonnets as a sort of mantra. The repetition of meter and rhyme on his tongue just felt good to practice and helped soothe him.

Today Mathus was looking for a particular mushroom that came in during the spring. He knew a spot where the bluish-white capped heads poured through a clearing. It was out of the way, but worth the walk, and with a basket full he could dry the mushrooms out, grind them into a powder that acted as a potent pain reliever when added with water or tea.

Taking an old deer track, he cut a path away from most of the hunting grounds. And after half a mile of trekking, found the clearing he look for. Still repeating sonnets now for something to entertain himself, Mathus busied about the clearing. He started on one end, his knife cutting the stems right at the caps. As he filled up his basket, he eventually grew so concentrated on his work he stopped reciting poetry.

In the silence, he heard breathing.

Mathus went still, basket half full. The breathing was the sort of labored thing he had heard listening to people sleep through fevers. Alarmed, but not quite afraid, he crossed the clearing. A few paces away lied a long, humanoid body. It wore rags and lay face down. A coat of fine, dark chocolate covered fur covered it head to toe. It had long, pointed ears, and except for some mark on the back of its neck, black fur worked between those ears and down his neck.

Though they rarely came this far north, Mathus knew of the southern nations where humans lived intermixed with animal-like people. He had never seen one before, however. And this one was… big. At least seven feet tall, but Mathus was not afraid of the person. He had survived enough harsh winters to know that this person was also on the brink of starvation.

Mathus whispered, “Hello?”

No response.

Mathus went to the person’s side and knelt by their shoulder. On closer inspection he gathered this person must be male. Mathus nudged his shoulder and tried again, “Hello?” The person stirred with a groan and Mathus said, “Oh thank goodness—hrk!” A large dark hand snatched his throat. Suddenly Mathus had been lifted in the air, thrashing like a fish tossed from the river. Despite his condition, this… bat person lifted Mathus like the man weighed as much as a cane.

A deep, sonorous voice snarled, “Bold of you to touch me, human.” That hand squeezed down just a fraction more, as if the bat planned to snap Mathus’ throat. But, soon as Mathus thought that, the bat howled in pain. They both fell to the ground: Mathus dazed a little and coughing, the bat thrashing in the dirt, holding the scar on the back of his neck.

Mathus sat up on his knees, hands hovering over the bat as if trying to decide whether to hold the creature or not. “Are you alright? What’s wrong? I’m a healer—maybe I can help with what ails you.”

Whatever pain wracked the bat came to an end. Panting, he glared at Mathus and spoke again, “A backwater cur like you has nothing to offer me but whatever disease festers on your breath.”

Mathus flinched, but did not move away. Tentatively, he rested a hand on the bat’s shoulder again. The other man’s fur was soft and pleasing to the touch. Mathus told him, “I have had much worse things said to me, so you will need to try better if you want to scare me off.”

The bat snarled and shoved Mathus’ hand away. Grunting, he staggered to his feet, hand resting on a tree for support. Standing, the bat towered over Mathus. “Just leave me in peace,” the bat warned. He started marching north, and Mathus chased after him.

When the human cut the bat off he said, “Wait! You are starving. Surely I can at least offer you some food for your journey?”

The bat stopped and studied Mathus for a long moment. His eyes were dark, polished orbs, piggish nose pointed upwards and a slight overbite that displayed his fangs. Mathus added stubbornly, “I cannot, in good conscience, leave you to die in these woods, friend.”

“Hmmph, hardly friend. Would you be willing to feed me if you knew what I ate? Were it not for this wretched curse holding me back, my fangs would have torn your throat open already.”

“Ah,” Mathus took a step back, “So it is people you eat.”

“Please, do not be so gauche,” the bat told him. “I have little use for human meat when this forest is fat with game. My kind feed on the life essence of lesser creatures like you.”

“Oh, you mean our blood?” Mathus asked. “I have heard of creatures like you.”

“And yet you are not shitting your trousers in fear yet? Most rude of you if you ask me,” the bat said. He had this haughty air even half-starved as he was.

Mathus said, “Will your curse not let you feed?”

“Were it only that simple. Slow starvation would be less degrading than what I am being put through.”

Mathus nodded. “I think I understand.” With a matter-of-factness, the healer took the knife from his belt and pressed the blade to his palm. Sucking in through grit teeth, he slit his palm open.

“What do you think you are doing?” the bat asked, a little alarmed.

Mathus held out his bleeding palm to the bat. “You need to eat. Eat.”

The bat scanned the forest around them before he asked, “Is this some kind of trick?”

Mathus shook his head. “I cannot let this bleed forever.”

The bat swallowed a lump in his throat and asked, “What is your name, human?”

“Mathus of Morgen’s Rest, you?”

“Karniel the Great,” the bat stepped closer, nose twitching. “You do me a great service, Mathus.” Karniel snatched Mathus’ hand and pulled it to his lips. A long, forked tongue dragged across the wound. Karniel moaned into Mathus’ palm and, body quaking, licked the blood clean. Soon he suckled against the wound until the blood began to slow a little, at which point, snarling, Karniel bit his hand. The moment his teeth broke flesh his body locked up in another bolt of pain.

He collapsed while Mathus, gasping in pain, staunched his wounded hand in his sleeve. He watched, hearing the skin on the back of Karniel’s neck sizzle while the bat seized on the ground. Mathus realized he could do nothing for the bat, so while Karniel went through the same fit of pain, Mathus cut the cuff off the sleeve of his trousers and used it to bandage his hand for the time being.

When Karniel came to, Mathus knelt beside the bat, rubbing up and down Karniel’s back. “You… you are touching me again,” Karniel spat as he forced himself up. He already felt invigorated—better than he had in months. He had not fed on anyone since the wretched curse was put on him.

Mathus said quietly, “You cannot bring pain to another, can you?”

Karniel regarded the slim, pale human. “You are smarter than most of your kind, it seems.” Mathus’ had delicate, birdlike features to his face. His blue eyes sharp, the bangs of his dirty black hair sweeping down to his brow. He was pretty in a… village-filth sort of way.

Karniel shook away the thought and said, “The only way I may feed is for someone to voluntarily offer their life essence. But I would rather die than beg others to help me, so I am traveling north to do just that.”

Mathus frowned. “But why?”

Karniel scoffed. “Your species is too short-lived to know anything about pride, I suppose.” He got up and found the sun again and started walking north.

“Wait!”

Karniel grit his fangs and wheeled on the human still following him. “Is your intellect so meager you cannot take a hint? Leave me alone.”

Mathus remained undaunted, which infuriated Karniel more. The human said, “Stay with me for the time being. At least until you have completely regained your strength. You still look underfed.”

Karniel gawked at the little human. He asked, “What is it you are getting out of this, human?”

Mathus cheeks flushed with color. “Uh, nothing. I just… you’re in need of help. I want to help. Isn’t that enough?”

The bat shook his head. Unbelievable. What god, he wondered, was testing him now? Karniel’s eyes flicked to the human’s wounded hand. He was still hungry, but unless Mathus drained his entire body here and now, Karniel’s hunger would not be sated for some time.

“It will take months for me to finally be sated, if we go at a pace that is safe for you, little Mathus.”

“A-alright,” Mathus said. “You can live with me for the time being.”

“I am not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

Mathus shook his head.

“I could run away you know, run away from you right now you would never catch me with those tiny legs of yours.”

Mathus offered his unwounded hand in a handshake. “Then run, if that is what Karniel the Great is known for.”

Karniel flashed Mathus a fanged grin and took the human’s hand in his. “My you are fearless aren’t you? Fine, Mathus of Morgen’s Rest, I will stay with you till my hunger is sated.” A few months mattered little in the span of Karniel’s great life. He had lived for two millennia, a little distraction could at least be entertaining.

***

Mathus made a grumbling Karniel help him pick mushrooms before they both headed back to the village together. By the time they reached the gate it was late afternoon and a crowd of men flanked by women and children went to greet them. Someone had raised some kind of alarm, for the two dozen men at the gate all wielded the first weapon they grabbed.

Karniel said as they approached, “Ah, count on humans to always be gracious hosts.”

“It will be fine. You won’t be hurt, I promise.”

“Oh I know, but as my food source it is you I worry about.”

“Mathus!” one of the men shouted at the front of the crowd. “What is that creature you got in tow with you?”

Mathus stopped twenty paces from the group and gestured to the bat who towered over everyone in the village. “This is Karniel, a traveler from the south—”

“No,” Karniel said, “I will not let myself be introduced as some vagabond.” Karniel stepped in front of Mathus and gestured with a wide wave, “Greetings noble residents of Morgen’s Rest!” All of the men flinched and brandished their pitchforks and spears in alarm, which almost made Karniel laugh. “I am Karniel the Great, the Sun’s Eclipse, Scourge of the Emerald Cities, Ruler of the—”

“A bard! He is a traveling bard I found lost and starving in the woods—”

Karniel scoffed, “How dare you—” before he could say anymore, Mathus had stepped in front of the bat and clamped a hand over Karniel’s snout.

“That is why he is so theatrical. He will be staying with me until he is well enough to travel along on his own again.”

The villagers tension slackened a little. One of the villagers asked, “Where’s his instrument then?”

“He sings!” Mathus wheeled to face Karniel and hissed, “Play along. You scare them into a panic and they will attack us both.”

Karniel snapped back in a whisper, “I will not sing for an unwashed mob of dirty humans!”

“Hey, what are y’all talking about?”

Mathus fixed Karniel with a stern glare before he faced the crowd. “Nothing important. Karniel’s voice is very dry and raspy right now, but in a few days’ time he might be able to sing.”

“My voice is perfect—” Mathus stomped on the bat’s digitgrade foot. Karniel winced, glowered at Mathus, and coughed before playing along: “Yes, the days on the road have born heavily upon me,” he rasped. “I need only food and rest and promise not to be any trouble to you kind folk.”

There was a grumbling from the crowd as the men spoke.

The man who first hailed them stepped forward.

“Alright Mathus, take him in if you must. But if he causes any trouble, it will be both of you hanging from the gallows.”

Karniel scoffed and whispered, “Please, I have yet to meet a noose that bested my neck.”

“How many times have you been sent to the gallows?” Mathus asked in an actual anguished rasp.

The bat shrugged, “Feeding tends to be messy work, and sometimes the authorities of a village catch me by surprise. I would say four or five, one forgets these sorts of minor slip-ups when you live for two thousand years.”

“Just behave,” Mathus whispered as the crowd parted and they started walking into the village.

“What are you, my nanny?”

“Nursemaid, given our arrangement,” Mathus shot back.

Karniel actually chuckled. “Oh-hoh, your wit is far sharper than any of the weapons this mob is carrying.”

They were followed back to Mathus’ apothecary. It was a two story building made of timber with a thatched roof, a slouching chimney, and a few shuttered windows. Karniel needed to duck under the doorframe to fit inside.

“How cozy,” Karniel said dryly. The interior room was crowded with shelves filled with bottles and tinctures, a counter at the front and a side-room that led to a set of straw mattresses where sick patients staying overnight might stay and sleep. A door behind the counter led to a messy kitchen where the chimney was set with a hearth inside it for cooking.

Mathus said, “I am sorry about the escort.”

“Oh, it is no matter,” Karniel said. “I am quite used to such reactions.”

“What sort of reputation did you have in the south?” Mathus asked, as the bat approached one of the shelves and studied its contents.

The bat said, “Oh I was quite the tyrant and villain to most I encountered. I had to travel for years to reach a place where word of my deeds had not spread.” He said it as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

“And are you those things, truly?”

Karniel turned his back on Mathus and touched his branding scar. “This curse was not put on me because I was known for behaving myself.” The bat faced Mathus and added, “I have lived my life as any god might. Less you found a certain blessed blade and severed my head from my shoulders, only starvation can kill me, which is why I was punished so. Now, if you were god, Mathus, would the petty concerns of mortals trouble you? Knowing they may die a few years later from a horse kicking them in their stable or a snake bite out in the field? Could you say you would see them as anything but livestock and entertainment for your whims?”

Mathus swallowed the knot in his throat. He said, “I have treated snake bites and blows from horses—there is no need for such things to kill someone.”

“Really, is that what you are taking away from this?”

Mathus shook his head. “You are not a killer anymore.”

“Oh I assure you I can still kill others, it is just my pain will be so severe I will black out for a week or more.”

Mathus took the bat’s hand. His pale flesh was dwarfed in the bat’s darker palm. Fur did not grow here. Flesh same as Mathus’ own.

“What are you doing?” Karniel asked.

Mathus said, “Your hands are very soft.”

“What are you on about? Did you expect I would have a farmer’s hands? Dirty and caked in callous?”

Mathus looked up into the bat’s scowl. Karniel must have weighed twice again as much as Mathus. He only came up to the bat’s sternum. Mathus said, “I do not believe you will kill again.”

Karniel rolled his eyes. “Yes, that is the point of curse, or did I need to spell that out.”

“Whatever you were before, I want to help you Karniel.”

Karniel’s brow furrowed. “I do not understand you, Mathus.”

Mathus looked down a little shyly and admitted, “I do not understand it, either. But the more I learn about you, the more certain I am that helping and healing you might heal hundreds more who come in your wake.”

Karniel scoffed. “You will find your faith better placed in whatever god your local church sports.” The bat backed away and asked, “Show me to your upstairs, will you?”

Mathus nodded, blushing a little. He led Karniel into the kitchen where a stairway went to the second floor. On this floor was a wide suite. It held a proper bed on a frame big enough for two. A writing desk with an open book on it. A map of the continent tacked to the wall, a small table with two chairs and a chessboard set out. And on nearly every other wall were bookshelves stuffed with books Mathus had collected over the years. Without fail, any time a traveler came into town, he tried to buy some kind of tome from them if possible. He had made quite a collection, he thought.

“Ah, a reader?” Karniel said. He glanced at Mathus as if reassessing him. “It is a tiny collection you have, but I imagine you have more books hoarded than anyone else this far north.”

A little embarrassed by how impressed Karniel sounded, Mathus told him, “Most are not that very interesting.”

“You will find that true of any library,” Karniel said as he inspected a book shelf. He added, “The bed is… subpar, but it will do.”

Mathus was about to show the bat a particular collection of historical accounts he liked, but stopped and asked, “What do you mean?”

Karniel nodded, to the bed, “I will be sleeping there, of course.”

“Ah, I suppose I can sleep downstairs.”

Karniel sighed. “Well don’t be so glum about it. You only need to ask and we can share the bed, even if it will be a tight fit for the both of us.”

Blushing, and surprised how flustered the suggestion made him, Mathus said, “Oh no! It is fine. I do not want to put you out.”

Karniel slid free a book and opened it. “Long as it is your choice.”

Mathus studied the bat while he read. There was something… very handsome about him. Even half-starved, Mathus could see the traces of athletic muscle that pushed out of Karniel’s shoulder and arms. Even his strange, alien face was nobly cut and attractive: full lips around his fangs, strong jaw and distinctive cheekbones… and this close alone together Mathus could tell he smelled good, too. A… he sniffed… a sage-like smell with a definite masculine undertone. And in the outline of the bat’s ragged trousers was a very obvious bulge—

What was he thinking? Karniel was supposed to be some kind of monster.

Mathus took a step back and, stuttering, said, “I… I am going to fix us some tea.” Then he hesitated with an honest query, “Er, wait, if you feed on blood, do you eat or drink?”

“I can,” Karniel said, “Though I only do for pleasure. Voiding oneself of food waste is rather a tiresome affair.”

“Oh, that reminds me, there is a chamber pot downstairs in case—”

“Tea would be acceptable, but I do not think I will be eating any food. The thought of squatting over a dirty pot or some hole in an outhouse makes me ill.”

“Then I will make us some tea,” Mathus said before hurrying out of the room.

When he was gone, Karniel felt the urge to follow the man. He resisted of course, lest he be made out to be some lost pup. It was an urge seated in his belly: he wanted to be protective and possessive of this human. Karniel did not exactly understand why Mathus decided to help him, but Karniel could not exactly say no. And after tasting the sweet pleasures of blood again, Karniel realized he very much wanted to still live. He admired the book stuffed room. Perhaps he could tempt Mathus south with the promise of the grand libraries in Melan…

He just needed to hold onto the human until the curse was lifted, then he could go back to his titles and thrones. He would not exactly be welcomed back, but kings would bow to his power and abdicate their throne for him. They really had no choice on the matter. He took a book of sonnets and retreated to the bed. It was a weather-worn collection that claimed to be the poet’s life work. But Mathus knew the poet two centuries before, and there were many sonnets missing from this book and many more that were fakes written by contemporaries pantomiming the poet’s style.

Mathus came upstairs carrying a tea tray, and stopped when he saw the bat lying back on the bed. The frame sagged a little under Karniel’s weight. The bat seemed absorbed in what they were reading. Mathus set the tray on the desk and said, “I love Gerordan’s work. I have most of the sonnets of that book memorized, actually.”

Karniel sat up and said, “You have good taste, though, a sizable chunk of this collection isn’t his work.”

Mathus gawked. “It’s not?”

“No, I knew him and owned one his final folios, and there is much missing from it and much that is fake.”

Mathus just stared.

“What? I told you I have lived for two millennia. Do you think I kept company with anyone but the greatest minds of any generation?”

Licking his lips, Mathus asked, “Could you recite them?”

“Excuse me?”

“The missing poems,” Mathus said. Then, blushing he started serving their tea, “I just mean over our tea I would love to hear Gerordan’s poetry from someone close to the source.”

“Heh, I told you I was not a bard.”

Mathus frowned. “You do not have them memorized.”

“Please, do not insult my intelligence. I have near perfect memory of most things I have read—assuming it carried my interest. I will recite the poems for you, if only because this is the first time I have seen you treat me with the reverence you should have when we first met.”

***

Two weeks passed and Karniel spent most of his time in Mathus home. He left with the human to help gather supplies for the apothecary, but Karniel did not mind spending most his time indoors. Mathus taught him the various medicinal offerings the surrounding land held, and Karniel listened because there was little else to do. Though, sometimes Karniel might recite poetry for Mathus as they walked. Karniel knew his voice was pleasing for it, and it did please him to have a captive audience.

The bat could tell Mathus was an odd one in the town. Most villagers seemed not inclined to let him take part in their daily life. Karniel had asked if the bat was the cause, and Mathus shrugged, “Things have always been like this.”

And they dropped it. They played a game of chess, which Karniel had not touched in centuries. He preferred go, but it is what they had. What he had not expected was for Mathus to beat him the first three games they played. Though the man downplayed any skill on his part.

It was… an interesting trait. Karniel saw Mathus humble himself to just about everyone. Karniel was only prideful in the sense that he was not shy that he was a superior being. He was much faster, stronger, smarter than any mortal and also practically immortal. Why should he hide those facts about himself?

Still, Karniel sensed Mathus might be letting others use him as a doormat a little too much. And because Mathus was his food source, and because Karniel got rather bored, he decided to make Mathus a project.

He came to this conclusion one night while drifting off to sleep. The bat woke before the dawn and went downstairs to the kitchen. Quietly, with new familiarity of the room, he stoked the cooking fire and checked the larder for some food. There were some bread, eggs, some dried meats and canned fruits from the previous season. He took them out and got to work.

He had not cooked in decades, but the art was not lost on him.

The sound of eggs frying woke Mathus. Groaning, back a little achy, he called out, “Karniel? Is that you?”

“Of course it is me, did you expect someone to break into your kitchen and cook you breakfast?”

Mathus shook his head and muttered, “You cook?”

Still a little groggy, he stepped into the kitchen to see the bat crouching by the hearth. The pan he held looked positively diminutive in his hand. Karniel had already fried two slices of bread, smeared some jam on them, and laid atop one slice some salted and dried pork. He took the egg off the fire and scooped it onto the unoccupied slice of bread.

“You made me breakfast?”

Karniel glowered. “What is with that look?”

Mathus blushed and looked away, “It’s just unexpected…” changing the subject, he went to grab the kettle. “Why don’t I make some tea for us—” his hand rested on the kettle’s handle before Karniel’s much larger hand grabbed his. “I can start the tea, you go ahead and eat.”

Swallowing the knot in his throat, he went to his plate.

“The water pump is around back?” Karniel asked.

“Er, yes,” Mathus told him.

Karniel grunted and went outside. Mathus poked his sandwich with disbelief. He picked it up and took a bite. Karniel had smeared the bread in a fat and fried it which gave it a decadent little crunch when he bit into it, and the sweet jam contrasted the salty meat and peppery egg. He moaned a little. It was such a simple combination of things but it was the finest thing he’d eaten in weeks.

“Oh, good, you like it,” Karniel said.

Mathus started, nearly dropping the sandwich as the bat returned and set the kettle on the hearth. He swallowed what was in his mouth—Mathus had become very self-conscious of his manners around Karniel—before he said, “It is lovely. Thank you.”

Karniel preened just a little. “You are practically being honored. There was a century where, bored, I became very skilled at the culinary arts. Though it has been decades, even your meager kitchen can supply ecstasy when skill is applied.”

Karniel was so long winded Mathus managed to chew and swallow two more bites before he asked, “It was very sweet of you to do this for me.”

The bat’s ears flicked in annoyance. “Please, sweet? I am merely repaying you. You have let me live here and feed off you three times now without asking for a single thing from me, Mathus. Why?”

Mathus took another bite to hide his blush.

It did not work. “What is that color for?” Karniel asked, “Why are you blushing?”

Mathus swallowed and laughed a little nervously. “It’s, um, embarrassing. I just really value your company is all.” Valued the bat’s company, indeed. After the first night Mathus started having dreams about Karniel, which turned into daydreams while he ran the shop downstairs! It horrified Mathus to no end to think how anyone might react if they knew how attractive he found Karniel. Sure the bat was arrogant, long-winded, overblown, and probably evil… but he was also smart, funny, handsome, and… sweet? Was this Karniel showing he was caring? Did Karniel actually care about him?

While Mathus’ thoughts went every direction, he continued to keep his mouth full so he might not be expected to speak.

Karniel studied his human companion in the silence, weighing what exactly might be wriggling through the mortal’s skull. Karniel decided to drop it. For some reason, if it was what Karniel expected, it alarmed him that he felt anything more than dismissive towards the human. The bat said, “Fair enough, I confess your company has exceeded all my expectations as well. What I am really getting at is this: I have seen how this village treats you, and I do not understand why you simply accept it. Is it always like this? Am I the cause?”

Mathus swallowed the last of his sandwich before he asked, “What do you mean?”

The kettle had begun whistling, so Karniel fetched it and got out the tea Mathus had. It was rubbish of course, at least compared to what Karniel was used to drinking. Still, the company did make up for the tea’s quality… what was he thinking? He said as he dropped a small scoop of dried leaves into two pewter mugs, “I mean that you daily receive insults, let anyone boss you around, and do not seem to stand up for yourself except, bizarrely enough, around me.”

“Oh, um, I guess I stand up to you because you respect me.”

Karniel nearly dropped the mug he was filling with water. Part of him wanted to spin around and snap that Karniel’s respect was too great a prize to be earned by anyone in this backwater, but then he realized that would be a lie. He did respect Mathus. Gods, was something wrong with him?

“So the others…”

Mathus said, “I know there is really no point to it. They might retaliate and make my life worse, even.” He chuckled, “Folks have actually been more behaved with you around, though I have had less customers than normal.”

Karniel returned with two mugs darkening as they steeped. Mathus had no tea pot or strain so they simply drank their tea in what Karniel knew was coarsely called the grandfather method. “Rubbish,” Karniel said, “Have they always treated you like this?”

“It is…” Mathus hesitated. He took his mug and held it to his lips. He blew on the smoking liquid and said, “Sorry, I know I should not be guarded around you. I just worry you might be disgusted.”

Karniel blinked. “Disgusted?”

“I was always bullied for my size and my voice, but a couple of years ago I was found… entertaining a merchant who came onto me. A male merchant.”

Karniel rolled his eyes. “Oh so this is one of those places. Frankly, what you did sounds chaste. I have seduced demon princes, bedded dragons, and fucked every type of person there is to be had. In most places pleasure is pleasure—though, ritually sacrificing a hundred cattle for a single fuck is looked down upon…”

Mathus just gawked at him some more.

“What?” Karniel asked.

Mathus shook his head. “I’m sorry, so you don’t care?”

Karniel shrugged. “My preference is toward males as well, though that has not stopped me from seducing many a king’s daughter.”

Mathus stood. “I need to go to the outhouse.” He did not. He just needed to collect himself, alone. Away from the immortal bat he had feelings for who seemed like some sex god while Mathus was still a virgin!

Later, Karniel would comment on how much time Mathus spent in the outhouse. Mathus mumbled some sort of excuse, unable to lie to Karniel’s face about fantasizing in great detail about the two of them together.

***

Another week together passed quicker than the last. Karniel started making food for Mathus and set about to cleaning and tidying the upstairs and the kitchen. Mathus almost started to feel domestic with Karniel around. His feelings had only grown, and, truly, he dreaded the day when Karniel would leave him to move onto whatever was next for the bat.

“Let me tend to this for you,” Karniel said after licking some blood from his lips.

Mathus just finished feeding Karniel in his rooms. A set of materials for their weekly ritual rested on the table they normally played chess at. In order to not draw attention to the increasing wounds on Mathus’ hands, they had done this one in Mathus’ elbow pit.

As Karniel applied a salve to the cut, Mathus muttered, “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it,” Karniel said. He bandaged the wound and asked, “How are the other cuts healing?”

“They will scar, but it is fine.”

“Hmm,” Karniel nodded. “It should just be about another month. Once my vitality is fully restored, I should not need to feed as often.”

A little nervously, Mathus asked, “What will you do when you are fully recovered?”

“Truly? I had been conniving some way to take you with me out of this hovel.”

Several different emotions flooded Mathus’ chest. “This is my home, though,” Mathus said. Though, with the right argument Mathus might be convinced.

“But don’t you want to see more of this world? There are so many more pleasures to be had from it if you are willing—”

“I am happy here,” Mathus insisted. There was something he wanted, but it scared him to be so forward.

“Are you, though?” Karniel asked. “The people here torment you for something as petty as your personal preferences.” Mathus winced, and Karniel could tell he went too far with the man. Karniel squeezed Mathus’ thigh and told him, “Just consider it. There is time enough to.”

Mathus pulled his sleeve back down over his arm. “I should get to bed,” he said and made for the stairs down.

Not happy with where their conversation ended, Karniel quickly said, “Wait! How is your back?”

Mathus stopped on the first step down. He asked over his shoulder, “My back?”

“You were complaining about it this morning.”

“Oh, I suppose I was.” Mathus shrugged, “It’s probably just all this time sleeping on straw on the floor.”

He took another step and Karniel scoffed. “Well stop that, then. Come sleep in your bed with me.”

Mathus started.

“What?” Karniel asked. “There is room enough and you know for a fact I cannot bite.”

Mathus turned around, face very pink. “I just don’t feel comfortable—”

“I promise I do not snore or do anything unseemly in my—”

“I’m attracted to you!” Mathus snapped. He glared at the bat with a look that said, Now look what you made me do.

Karniel shrugged. “I assumed as much.” Though, hearing it did excite something inside Karniel. I must have been too long since he had done something with another person.

Mathus was mortified. “You knew?”

Karniel laughed, which just left Mathus more anguished and embarrassed. The bat barked, “Of course I knew! Hah!” He slapped his knee. “Humans are hardly subtle.” Mathus was ready to just go down stairs and end this, but before he could turn around Karniel offered, “I was waiting to see if you would have the nerve to say something. I am happy to entertain your needs, if you would like.”

In the moment, dying felt easier for Mathus.

Karniel motioned to the bed. “Why don’t we have a seat on the bed and talk?”

Woodenly, heart beating like hummingbird wings, Mathus followed him and sat down on the bed next to Karniel.

“Now,” Karniel said, hand resting on the small of Mathus’ back, “Why are you so nervous around me, hmm?”

“I don’t know why you would want me,” Mathus blurted out.

“Hmm, well that was easier than I thought,” Karniel muttered. He grabbed Mathus by both shoulders and said, “Look at me Mathus—there we go. In the eyes, be a man about this. Now listen, I have had many a suitor grovel at my feet for a single night with me. Dozens of pathetic nobles, buffoonish actors, courtesans, all sorts. And though I do enjoy pleasures of the flesh, I have standards. You are worthy of me. Do not think for a second I would propose sleeping together if I did not believe that.”

Mathus’ went from peach to tomato. Karniel let him go and complained, “I know my eloquence is stunning, but say something at least.”

“I’m a virgin,” Mathus rasped.

“Oh, you poor creature.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Mathus snapped.

“Now, now,” Karniel said, “I did not mean any harm. You being a virgin does not make you any less alluring, and some may consider it a boon. It means I will have a hand in shaping you, and, frankly, I doubt anyone could be as good a teacher.”

Mathus stared at the bat. “You do not care?”

Karniel shrugged. “Do you still want to?”

“More than I have with anyone,” Mathus whispered.

“Heh, you are not the first to say that to me before. You are lucky I find you so fetching.”

“Me?” Mathus asked in disbelief.

Smirking, the bat purred, “But of course.” He touched Mathus’ waist and gave it a tender squeeze. “You are trim,” the hand went down and squeezed Mathus’ butt, making the man gasp, “Your backside fills my palm nicely,” Karniel leaned closer, face to face, other hand caressing Mathus’ cheek. “And your face looks molded by the fine hands of a sculptor whose only concern is adding beauty to the world.”

If Karniel said these things to Mathus in the woods when they first met he was not sure he would have resisted the bat. As it was, three weeks later in his bed, when Karniel kissed him Mathus just quaked and moaned sweetly for his partner.

Karniel’s front fangs grazed Mathus’ chin, but otherwise there was nothing different about the kiss. The bat had full, soft lips that prized open Mathus’ mouth for the larger male’s forked tongue. He shuddered as that oral muscle met his. Karniel still tasted of Mathus blood—coppery and tinged with a little sweetness from the bat himself. Not that Mathus had more than few desperate encounters, but it was the best kiss of his life. Languorous and passionate. Karniel’s hands teased under his shirt and lifted the roughly spun cotton off his body. The kiss broke for that act, then Karniel’s lips returned to his neck. Mathus pushed his whole body into the bat’s as Karniel kissed his flesh hard. A welt of sucking, spark of pleasure. A pleased growl from Karniel that left Mathus quivering.

And those kisses traveling down his slim belly, to the dark pubic hairs at his belt line. Karniel pushed his nose into them and breathed deeply. “I can tell you are pent up,” Karniel said with a sultry chuckle. His voice like molten steel: heavy and bright and hot all at once. It made Mathus’ shaft ache in his trousers, the bat pulled the offending fabric down.

Mathus squeaked when Karniel, with laughable ease, flipped the human on his front. The man tried to look up, but a big hand shoved his head down into the bed. He felt Karniel’s weight move over him. The bat eclipsed him in every way. “Relax,” he purred in Mathus’ ear, “Let me take care of you.” Karniel nipped the human’s ear affectionately before sliding kisses down his back. Two large, thumbs pulled his butt cheeks apart and suddenly warmth and wet pushed against places it never had before.

Mathus moaned into the bed as Karniel dragged his tongue up the man’s crack. That forked muscle teased across his pucker. Karniel’s fangs grazed his butt. And Mathus squirmed in Karniel’s grip. It was strange and new having someone’s tongue down there. He tried rolling his hips back into Karniel’s kissing. His sensitive pucker flexed as tongue dragged and probed against the flesh. Mathus’ dick rubbed against the sheets all the while, threatening to cum in all the excitement. Then Karniel growled, “You’re too tight in this position.”

The next thing Mathus knew he was lifted in the air, back pushed into the wall over the headboard, pinned there gently as Karniel could. The bat stood on his knees, holding the man by his thighs. Karniel gave Mathus a wink before pushing his rear up toward his face. Crunched together like this was a tad uncomfortable, but there was something hot about Karniel being able to manipulate him so easily, and that pleasure only intensified when the bat continued rimming him. Karniel became more forceful, tongue shoving against that fleshy entrance until the pucker yielded. Mathus scratched his wall for some kind of purchase, moaning as tongue pushed inside him. He had only ever been able to finger himself, and it did not compare at all to Karniel’s oral assault. The bat’s fangs pushed into his butt, nose into his taint, to thrust that tongue deep into Mathus. It undulated and wriggled all over his walls, stimulating and teasing places never touched by another. Mathus mewled like a kitten and Karniel chuckled, vibrations traveling down his tongue into the man.

Karniel’s ears stayed forward to soak in the struggles of his companion. Mathus made the sweetest symphony of sounds Karniel heard in some time. Voice already high, girlish and struggling with all the sensation Karniel gave them. In some ways, virgins could be more fun. One barely needed to try to leave them speechless. Really, sleeping with the Demon Prince Abeshnar had been very high stakes where this was a leisurely stroll for Karniel. And he did enjoy a leisurely stroll. His cock filled out the leg of his trousers. The bat shifted his grip on his human quarry so with one hand he might start getting his pants down around his knees. His cock slapped up into his navel with a meaty thud that launched precum all over the place.

Mathus smelled Karniel’s cock soon as the bat freed it. The musk was heavy and thick. A potent cocktail that made Mathus shaft ache and leak across his abdomen. At that point, Karniel set him down, and the dazed human watched Karniel kick off his pants. The bat gave Mathus a wry grin and said, “Sorry, even I have not found an eloquent way to remove trousers during this part.”

“Hehe,” Mathus reached up and touched the bat’s cheek. “I won’t tell anyone that even Karniel the Great has his limits.”

Karniel’s ears flicked and then swiveled forward as he grinned, “Look at you, still able to be cheeky.”

The bat leaned in and kissed Mathus again. His face smelled of the human’s earthier musk, but Mathus had been clean, fortunate for their impromptu lovemaking. While Karniel kissed him, the bat grabbed Mathus thighs and pulled him back into that C-shaped position. Karniel broke the kiss to instruct, “Hold your legs here.” Mathus did as told and Karniel rumbled, “That’s it.”

Karniel lined up his cock. The human was blushing down to his collarbone, panting a little. In this position his rim, a little puffy from Mathus’ tonguing, was stretched a little more open. Slender limbs arrayed just right, his good sized dick leaking against his pale chest. Mathus was not bad looking at all… perhaps it might have just been so long, but Karniel even thought the man beautiful in that moment.

“Will it hurt?” Mathus asked.

Karniel rubbed his cockhead against Mathus entrance. Nothing about Karniel was small—dick no exception. The dark, uncut spire leaked profusely from its crimson head, which seemed nearly big as Mathus’ clenched fist. Karniel might give a horse a run for its money. And the bat’s ballsack might have nearly equaled Mathus’ head in size. The bat had never exactly been able to hide the size, and Mathus definitely found it all very hot, but he did worry…

The bat kept grinding his meat against Mathus’ entrance. Precum from Karniel quickly smeared all over them both before he finally answered, “It will at first.”

“Will you be alright?”

Karniel touched the brand on the back of his neck before he said to Mathus, “You are worth the risk.” And he finally pushed.

Mathus sucked in a breath trying his best to relax, but when his entrance yielded to that massive shaft it hurt anyways. Split open for the first time burned with pain. Karniel shook, groaning and bent double. His body was lanced with far greater pain. He collapsed over Mathus, panting with the man as they both adjusted. Mathus let go his legs and touched Karniel’s cheek.

“Karniel, are you okay?” The bat’s jaw was grit tight, body locked in spasm even as Mathus’ pain began to soothe. He hugged the bat’s face to his and kissed Karniel’s cheek. “You’re doing great. It’s okay, please be okay.”

“Fuck, I thought you were the virgin,” Karniel gasped.

“I guess we, ah, are both going through firsts.”

Karniel nodded, sighing before he said, “The pain has passed. You are incredibly tight.”

A little short of breath, Mathus said, “You, hah, ever consider you’re just… very big?”

“Heh, I get that a lot.”

“Just—gods—shut up and fuck me.”

Chuckling, Karniel kissed him again. With those warm lips against his, pleasurable heat started buzzing again across Mathus’ body. Karniel began to move, agonizingly slow. Shaft teased in and out by centimeters, just trying to stir up Mathus’ body. Loosen the muscles. Raise the heat. That burning in Mathus’ rim settled into a satisfying ache, an itch Karniel could not scratch enough. And as the bat’s cock sank deeper and deeper, a sensation of fullness and pressure started working across his belly. It felt good, too. Edging on pain, but that pressure worked through his cock and balls as well. Karniel’s body remained pushed close, fur coat soft all over Mathus’ skin. Karniel’s scent of sage and male musk overriding any other scent. The bat’s tongue dancing in Mathus’ mouth. It was a slow edging toward ecstasy. He wanted to lose his body entirely in Karniel’s.

Karniel got lost a little himself. Kissing Mathus felt good. Comforting and hot, pleasurable in the way the smaller man’s lips pushed up against his, unafraid of the bat’s sharp fangs. Then there was that tight passage Karniel slowly plundered. If not for the curse, Karniel might have already forced himself to the hilt in pursuit of pleasure, so certain of his skill that Mathus would get over the pain quick enough. But this, minutes passed and Karniel was only halfway inside the man! But that slowness felt sweet and good. Those velvet walls gripped his dick and milked it like an eager slut might. Mathus made all these cute whines and whimpers into Karniel’s mouth. He squirmed and began bucking into Karniel, desperate for more of the bat’s cock.

At some point, Karniel reached Mathus’ prostate. The bright coal of pleasure stoked and blazed to life as Karniel started nudging, rubbing, and grinding his dick across it. Mathus’ cock squirted between them both, more precum issuing from the man than it ever had before. His stomach slick with it, the fur of Karniel’s torso just brushing across it. Karniel broke the kiss to curse. Eyes shut tight, he pulled back, several inches of meat sliding outside Mathus. The apothecary moaned loudly—cut off when Karniel shoved back in. The bat’s hips came flush with Mathus’ butt. He struggled for breath as pleasure and fullness overpowered him. Panting, red-faced, he saw Karniel tensed up.

Mathus touched his neck, “Are you okay.”

“Fuck—this is embarrassing…” Karniel muttered.

Worried, but also a little consumed in all the heat and warmth and pressure assaulting his body, Mathus asked, “What’s, mmph, wrong?”

“I… I am close…” Karniel said. Mathus could feel Karniel’s pulse through the cock inside him. He saw the slight indent in his stomach where Karniel had buried the tip of his shaft. The bat groaned and said, “If we just stay still a minute—”

Mathus grabbed Karniel’s shoulders and started rolling his hips up and down that shaft. “Cum for me, Karniel, please,” he begged. “D-don’t make me wait—I, gods, want all of you now.” Mathus was close as well, and grinding his abused rim up and down the base of that shaft just brought him closer and closer. He did not want to hold back. That edge like some intoxicating drug he was falling towards.

Karniel hugged the human close. “Mathus!” he whined, “You bastard!” His dick just felt so good inside the human. And even those little humps and squeezes were enough to set Karniel off. A tremor ran down his body, and his dick flexed inside his human partner. Balls leaped together, massive things churning against Mathus’ rear before Karniel’s cock started unloading. A flood of cum filled the human. The first shot so weighty and thick it was like molten heat in Mathus’ belly. The man humped upwards one more time before his peak was reached as well. His cock leapt and shot cum against them both. But it was nothing to the gouts of spunk filling Mathus. His stomach quickly filled with the bat’s potent sperm, a sloppy mix of it pushing down, further down, each waved till it spilled out around Karniel’s cock. Cock twitched at the base of his rim, visibly pulsing before more seed would push out and slide down his ass and against the bat’s massive balls. The skin of Mathus stomach grew taut while Karniel gasped and shuddered against him. The bat’s orgasm outlasted Mathus by a minute, and the human had to remain lying there, in state of humming bliss as his companion worked through his pleasure.

When Karniel came to, Mathus was stroking his nape. Fingers carefully avoiding Karniel’s brand. Huffing, the bat said, “See? Sharing a bed… is, ah, no fuss at all.”

Mathus giggled a little, and Karniel shifted to give him a look. Mathus said, “You are very cute when you are trying to still act dignified.”

Karniel scowled, “How dare you call me cute. I am a god of sexual pleasure, cute is what you call bear cubs or—”

“Karniel!” Mathus laughed. He nuzzled his nose into the bat’s shoulder. “You are only proving my point.”

Grumbling, Karniel said, “I will forgive this slight, but only because you feed me.”

“Sure dear.”

“Oh do not get soft on me just because I was your first,” Karniel scoffed. But truly, as they continued gently bantering back and forth, Karniel warmed at the thought of Mathus laying such affections at his feet.

***

Korlyon stooped next to a clearing filled with mushrooms. The large dire wolf knelt down and sniffed the dirt. His quarry had definitely been here. Korlyon stood and turned east where he knew a nearby village was. Finally, he had caught up to Karniel. He had spent all day in the woods, being absolutely certain Karniel had traveled no farther. But it was true. The bat had taken refuge in a human settlement. Why any human would want that cursed being darkening their doorstep was beyond the wolf, but it mattered little. They would not stop him from killing that monster.