Rage

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Edwige

I ’d been left to soak in a massive tub. The cast iron monstrosity was definitely custom made specifically with him in mind.

I wanted him to come back, as irrational as the thought was.

He had made me warm. It’s been so long since I’d felt anything besides hunger churning in my gut and the icy cold of death aching in my bones. I wanted him to come back and help me be warm again, to remind me that I also had life within this pale, scarred flesh. I’d felt it rising in me as he’d carefully peeled the blood and sludge covered chemise off my body, the touch clinical and gentle despite how I’d thought we were going to devour each other a scant three quarters of an hour ago.

He’d shed his outer layers, wearing only trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show muscular sage green forearms. A smattering of thin scars over them, the delicate, lighter marks in stark contrast to the ragged edges of the bite marks that littered my flesh. I could feel him cataloguing each of my old injuries as he gently helped me into a smallish room at the corner of his opulent bathroom, the water streaming from a metal disc at the top warm and gentle as a spring rain.

“Magic,” he’d said to my unspoken question, “a naiad owed me a favor, and instead of the usual drown-your-enemies payment plan, I chose this instead. There is a lot of bathing in my line of work,” he’d added somewhat bashfully.

“It’s wonderful,” I sighed, keeping my eyes closed as the gentle downpour loosened the layers of dirt that clung to my skin until it felt like even my heart and soul had been gently scrubbed. He’d then set me to soak in this inane tub, with its clawed feet and curled lip. A luxury of luxuries, I could nearly swim laps in the damn thing.

A maid, who was an aging human woman with a carefully schooled look of neutrality on her face, added an oil that smelled faintly of something floral that I couldn’t quite place, it floated over the surface of the water and clung to my clean skin.

I trailed my silvery claws through it, the marks of what I was never truly left, not that I wanted them to. I loved my teeth and claws. I loved the brilliant silver of their long, razor sharp points. I loved the designs that were etched into them, the miniscule twining vines of moonflower were so finely wrought and delicate they were barely discernible unless one was looking closely. Until now, the only eyes that had seen them were mine, and the terrified ones of my victims. I tapped them against the side of the tub, filling the still, humid air with the soft tinkling of fairy bells.

“I didn’t expect them to sound like that.”

His voice made me turn, and I gazed up and up at the orc, still in his suit pants and suspenders, the shirt marred with the gore I’d been painted in.

“No one does,” I told him, a smirk twisting the corner of my pale purple lips. “I like it.”

“I like it too, toothtaker,” he replied. Coming forward, offering a him-sized towel, the length of fabric large enough to wrap around me like a throw blanket. Just seeing the orc sent a bubble of warm, delicious life burning in me, and I couldn’t help but snuggle back against his broad form as he wrapped me up, and set about patting another cloth over my damp hair.

“It’s Edwige,” I said shyly, “not just toothtaker.”

“And I’m Hargrave,” he answered, smiling at my offering of a name.

“Why are you being so nice?” I asked the brusque question, tempered by how I leaned into his touch and practically purred with every pass of his hands over my hair.

“You’re mine. My beloved, my treasure,” he replied, carefully nonchalant, though I could feel the enormity of the statement behind his gently spoken words. “In orc tribes you would have been called a gift from the moon goddess.”

“When I was a witch, I would worship the moon.” I mused, allowing him to maneuver me onto a padded bench that sat before a mirror, looking at him in our reflection of the silver as he frowned down at his stained shirt, removing it and letting his suspenders fall around his muscular thighs. His bulk framed me as he began carefully combing through the tangled mass of my hair, scoffing when I suggested it might be easier to just hack it off and save us all some time.

It was nearly dry by the time he finished, running oil that he had said he used on his own mane of thick black hair through my thinner strands before quickly braiding it into a single neat rope that fell nearly to the center of my back. I was surprised when he laid me in his own bed, not so secretly pleased to continue being near him, to feel his warmth and his bulk, to smell the scent of earth, expensive cologne, and his maleness as he wrapped himself around me.

“How many are left, Edwige?” He whispered the question so softly against the shell of my ear.

“One more,” I replied, running my ornate claws over his warm skin, bringing goosebumps up in their wake. “One more mouth.” I growled the words, and I felt him pull me tighter against the broad expanse of his chest, as though he sought to shield me from the violence I contained.

“I’ll help you find them,” he growled. The promise making my heart and core throb in unison, “and I will revel in your vengeance.”

Hargrave

“Word in the red district is there’s only one left from that nest,” my second-in-command, Immer, informed me, her breathless excitement making the sentence tumble from her lips.

“Who?” I growled, looking up from the wide window-seat I’d been lounging in, monitoring the toothtaker- no, Edwige’s- progress through my carefully manicured green space. She was ravishing in just one of my shirts. I’d ordered clothing in her size to be procured, but I was already regretting it. She was much lovelier in my things, with her pale legs on display, feet bare, skin shining against the darker green backdrop of the plants.

“Gyrhorn Pavalur,” she replied. “They call him ‘The Duke’ in the red district. He owns several blood brothels, all of them catering to vampires who’ve lived long enough to rise above the rabble.”

“Let me call Edwige up for this,” I said, ignoring the annoyed look on Immer’s face. She could wait a few more minutes, this directly concerned my companion.

The woman in question was in the doorway a few moments later, her clawed fingers trailing over the white trim, leaving miniscule curling peels of paint in their wake.

Edwige

The territorial rage I felt seeing Hargrave in a room with another woman, even though she was across a desk from him and clearly here in some kind of professional capacity, surprised me. It awakened the toothtaker within me, and I felt myself baring my gilded teeth as I stalked towards Hargrave and positioned myself beside the oversized wood-and-leather desk chair, shining claws and teeth on full, threatening display.

The orc in question seemed to revel in the dramatics, leaning back and enjoying in my show of possessiveness. I rested a hand on his thick shoulder, uncaring that my gilded claws dug into his woolen jacket, leaving pinprick tears behind.

“Edwige,” Hargrave purred, snaking an arm around my waist, pulling me closer. “Allow me to introduce my second-in-command, Immer Venro, formerly of clan Leaf-Fall.”

The woman rolled her eyes, and the slight movement was just enough to reveal the pointed tips of her ears. An elf then, I mused, the predator in me cataloguing the information for later use. She seemed to take me in stride, a rare occurrence. My teeth and claws were usually enough to send anyone running, vampire or not. The whispered stories of creatures like me haunted all the magical species, even though we had been made to hunt only one of them. Her face returned to impassive politeness a moment later, her dark skin and delicate features facing towards me without a hint of irritation or fear. I thought I could grow to like her.

“Immer was just telling me some fascinating information about the nest of vampires that appear to have been targeted by these recent, brutal…” he squeezed me affectionately as he purred the adjective, “killings.”

“There’s only one left, which I’m sure Edwige is more than aware of,” Immer said, raising a single, dark brow at our antics. I had been aware…though I had no plans to tell her that. The memory of my time under the attentions of the vampires was clouded by pain, fear and the odd, dizzying intoxication that being fed their blood had brought on. That had been what tied us together, what allowed me to recognize them by scent and aura, which had allowed me to trace and catalogue them.

“Gyrhorn Pavalur,” Hargrave added, though the name meant nothing to me.

I looked down at him, questions wrinkling my brow.

“He owns several blood brothels, and rarely leaves the red district,” He continued. The background information doing nothing but making my task more daunting than it had already been. I was astoundingly powerful as a toothtaker, but hunting a vampire within the borders of their territory would be incredibly stupid of me.

“Which means if you intend to finish your work, he will need to be drawn out of his hidey-hole and into the light,” Immer finished, smirking at her little play on words.

Hargrave

“I suppose you know how to lever this asshole out of his den?” I drawled, running a soothing hand over the curve of Edwige’s waist. I had felt her stiffen as we spoke. The information concerning her last target could hardly be categorized as good news.

“Gyrhorn is bored,” Immer answered. “That’s why he builds these nests, riles them up, then uses them to see how far he can push another living thing before they become-“ her eyes darted to Edwige, and the pity in them was enough to make me cry. I wondered what horrors she had seen, that she understood the ones wrought about my moon-gift as well as she did. “But that boredom is going to work in our favor, toothtaker, because he is always seeking something, or rather someone,” her eyes flicked to me at that, “new and interesting.”

“And I’m new and interesting?” I asked, a brow raised.

“You’re a mystery. Richer than the nobility, fingers in all kinds of unsavory pies, and a house in a fashionable district that no one has seen yet. I think he’ll be more than a little interested in speaking with you, seeing the inside of your lair, and possibly even luring you into his after he’d made a few overtures. Or we can continue to let Edwige do her own work, waiting for him to get bored enough to seek his next bit of fun outside of the red district.” Immer looked at her, a question in the twist of her lips.

Edwige was preternaturally still against me, and I could sense her desire to end the life of her final tormentor growing with each moment.

“How do you propose I lure this Gyrhorn into my home? Sending round a card might be suspicious when he goes missing immediately afterwards.” I said, pinning Immer in place with a hard stare.

“I imagined you would host a ball. A rather large one,” my second replied, as though she were informing me I was doing nothing more taxing than ordering lunch.

“A ball?” Edwige deadpanned, “like dresses, and dancing, and champagne?”

“Exactly like that,” Immer replied easily. “Something opulent and decadent will be like catnip to Gyrhorn and the other hundreds of citizen we invite will create an even greater draw, and if he disappears into the night, it certainly cannot be pinned on Hargrave, who was hosting the entire time, and it won’t be blamed on the phantom toothtaker either. Since he will simply vanish, along with his shiny teeth.”

I opened my mouth to protest the entire ridiculous concept, but Immer was faster, holding up a slender, dark hand to forestall my words.

“She is a wanted woman, with a trail of corpses behind her. The constabulary is more interested in stopping her than in discovering how, or why, a toothtaker was created in the first place. If her next kill is somewhere on your property, no one will know there’s another corpse missing its teeth.”

“Won’t it be suspicious if the last place he’s seen is, well, here?” Edwige asked. “I don’t want to land Hargrave in any hot water.”

“Suspicions don’t matter. They fall on him all the time,” Immer replied with an easy shrug.

“One of the perks in my line of work, little demon.” I told her with a chuckle. “Crime lords aren’t ever not under suspicion... What’s one more on the pile?”

“I’m sure the city’s morbid curiosity about you will have every invitee frothing to accept.” Immer added.

“Frothing…” Edwige deadpanned, her clawed hold on me relaxing just a little. I would do anything for her, I realized in that moment, anything she needed. Even if it was something as silly as a fancy party.

“Well, if it’s going to make the citizenry froth, I suppose I must,” I said with a small sigh. “Find someone to plan it. I don’t know the faintest thing about what goes into planning a ball, I’ve never even hosted a party.”

Immer smiled, the satisfied smirk of a cat that had gotten its cream, before standing up and marching out of the room to get started on whatever myriad of preparations needed to be initiated.

Edwige

The moment the door clicked shut I was climbing into his lap, my lips pressing firmly to his. The smooth glide of his tusks against my cheeks was achingly erotic as I asserted my claim on him, as I reminded this much-larger creature he was mine. I purred my approval as his mouth opened, darting my tongue in to taste Hargrave, to savor him. I couldn’t believe he was so willing to help me, to put down all the time and effort it would take to lure the last piece of my vengeance out of his hiding place. To bring my enemy into his home for me.

“Thank you,” I purred, pulling away to mutter the words before diving down to press kisses to the exposed flesh above his shirt collar.

“Anything for you,” he replied, panting and breathless beneath me.

I grinned and nipped at his lower lip, enjoying the growing hardness that he thrust against my bare core. The shirt I’d stolen from him was riding up my legs, helped further by his warm hands travelling over my pale, cool flesh, grasping handfuls of my ass and kneading the flesh. “Perfect,” He groaned, dragging me against the erection trapped within the confines of his dark pants. The single word, which yesterday felt so impossible, warmed me even more.

He thought I was perfect?

I sank to my knees, not wasting time with the fastenings on his trousers, instead using my claws to rend them from his legs. I gasped with delight as his erection, thick and tall, a deeper green than the rest of his flesh, the head just peeking out from his foreskin, with a single pearlescent bead of pre-cum decorating it, leapt free. I licked my lips in anticipation, turning my gaze from his perfect cock up to his handsome face and dark, glowing eyes.

Hargrave

She stared up at me, eyes wide, pupils blown out.

Edwige on her knees was so achingly lovely that I couldn’t muster a single thought about my ruined trousers. She was the entirety of my focus. Every thought, every breath, every beat of my heart. It belonged to her. She looked so innocent like this, so sweet and docile on her knees. I knew in reality she was a savage, barbaric and untameable. That doing this small act of faith and trust was just for me. I revelled in it, revelled in her, her power, her strength, and her choice of me.

“Open your mouth,” I growled.

She seemed surprised, hesitating for a moment before she obeyed. I knew this next move was stupid, supremely stupid. Her teeth and jaws had been crafted by the goddess of death and winter to rend flesh and shatter bone. Her teeth were coated in a metal that would poison many magical creatures. They’d been perfectly formed to destroy. I slid two fingers into her deadly mouth, fucking them slowly against her perfect, pink tongue, ignoring the danger of her sharp, hard teeth even as I admired how they sparkled.

Edwige

I don’t think anything more erotic had ever happened to me before. I stayed perfectly still as he slid his soft, fragile limbs against my tongue, delving deep into my mouth, ignoring the scrape of my vicious, bloodthirsty teeth against the creamy, delicate flesh of his digits. I groaned, shutting my eyes to bask in the dual sensation of softness and trust. Slowly, so slowly, I closed my lips around them, sucking softly, reveling in the salty taste of his flesh.

It was delicious. His surrender. His skin. The taste of his trust was heavy, decadent and perfect. I slurped and sucked, teasing my tongue over the knuckles to show him how good it could feel against his cock. I adored him, the confidence he placed in me, letting me tease his fingers with my terrifying teeth. He was so close to them, and yet he showed not an ounce of fear.

I gagged a little as he thrust his fingers deeper, and the small sound brought a feral grin to his face. He did it again.

“Perfect,” Hargrave groaned again, fisting his cock in his other hand. “Precious,” he added, swirling his fingers over my tongue one more time before removing them and wiping them against my cheek. A gesture that had me panting for more.

My mouth watered as he continued thrusting into his own fist, and I leaned forward, just a little, to press a soft kiss to the head, tasting the salt of his pre-cum. I held so still as he fed me his cock, wanting him to feel safe, to know he could trust me to never use my vicious teeth against him. It was massive, filling my mouth completely and tasted of salty male. I sucked gently, still watching the orc that was towering over me as he began to claim his pleasure, fucking into my mouth with slow, steady strokes. I breathed through my nose and adjusted to his girth. I could feel my cunt weeping, feel its emptiness and need as he languidly fucked into my mouth. When I reached down to stroke myself, pushing the borrowed shirt out of the way, he grunted his approval, moving faster, going deeper into my throat.

“Touch yourself for me, little demon, get that pussy wet and ready for my tongue, and my cock,” Hargrave moaned, his hips stuttering as though he could barely contain his pleasure. I cried out in protest when he pulled out of my mouth.

“You taste so good,” I mewled, looking up at him from my place on his office floor. He pulled me to my feet, kissing the tip of each of my silver claws, sucking lightly on the last one, heedless of the razor sharp danger each one presented. The gesture, so sweet and giving, had me collapsing against his chest, overwhelmed with a tide of emotion I hadn’t thought myself capable of any longer. Hargrave cradled me against his chest in an easy hold, wrapping a hand around my nape to pull me up for a deep, sensual kiss, sliding his other one down towards where I needed him most. Two fingers, thick and warm and so fucking perfect, slid between my greedy lips before burying themselves in my core, dragging a wild cry from my throat, one that he swallowed down with his greedy kisses.

“Mmph,” I groaned as he curled them just so, brushing against that place inside of me that was built for the singular purpose of bringing me pleasure. “Hargrave!” I cried as he did it again and again, the gentle touch demanding my orgasm.

“First you’ll come on my fingers, Edwige,” he whispered against the shell of my ear before licking it. “Then you’re going to come on my tongue,” he continued, nipping the column of my throat. “Then when you finally come all over my thick cock, I’ll think about pumping you full of my seed.” I groaned as he thrust in time with his words, the pace as smooth and steady as how he’d fucked himself into my mouth.

“Yes, Hargrave, please!” I said between gasps and pants. I felt him smile against the column of my throat as he continued to press and curl those delicious digits inside of me. When he added his thumb, pressing it directly against my clit, I was lost. My orgasm crested through me, making me shake and sob as he kept fucking me through it. The self-satisfied smile he wore as I finally came down from my peak was so goddess blessed adorable that I just had to kiss him between gasping for breath.

Edwige

“You’re so pretty when you come, little demon,” he crooned, hefting me into his arms and sweeping out of the office. “I can’t wait to watch you do it all over again in our bed.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I sighed, using my claws to shed his shirt off, trailing them carefully through the hair decorating his broad chest, licking over one of his flat, deep green nipples and grinning as he shuddered. Then it was my turn to laugh as he kicked the door open with a booted foot, the rags of his trousers flapping as he prowled across the room before tossing me onto the freshly made bed.

I watched with my own satisfied smirk as he divested himself of his ruined clothes, revealing acres of thick muscles and dark skin.

“Perfect,” I sighed, echoing his words back to him as he knelt on the bed and crawled towards me. A behemoth of a monster, the leader of a brutal criminal organization, with hands even more bloody than mine, was kneeling between my spread legs, gazing down at my cunt, looking like he couldn’t wait to devour me.

The first lick was heaven. Hargrave, always so much warmer than me, was hot against my most intimate flesh. The pressure of his tongue, the heat. It was almost too much against my still sensitive clit.

“Hargrave!” I cried, digging my claws into the perfect bedding. He sucked at me gently, tongue delving just as deeply into my core as his fingers had. His hands clasped me in place as I bucked and writhed into his mouth, another orgasm approaching so quickly it seemed nearly impossible. I released a needy groan as he ate me out like a starving creature, his tusks pressing into my pale flesh, completely uncaring about the bite scars that were scattered liberally between my thighs. It was like every brush of his face and fingers worked to erase the damage and the memories associated with it.

“I’m going to-“ I gasped, rending more holes in the bedding to keep from reaching down and slicing off his thick mane of hair, or even worse, cutting his perfect sage green skin.

“Come in my fucking mouth,” Hargrave demanded before redoubling his efforts, and I was, for once, pleased to obey. Falling into my second orgasm in the span of less than a quarter of an hour, howling my pleasure as it rolled through me, until I was limp and languid in the nest of rags I’d accidentally created.

Hargrave

I couldn’t help the smile that curled my lips as I crawled up the bed to where Edwige laid limp and spent amidst the ruins of my quilt.

“I’m going to worship that pretty pussy morning, noon, and night.” I told her, pressing my lips to her slack ones in a filthy kiss, showing her what she tasted like and revelling in how she returned each press of my lips and tongue with her own. “I’m going to make you cum until you can’t see straight and the neighbors know my name.” She hummed a little approving laugh at that, carefully running her fingers through my hair until it came loose from the braid, flowing around us to mingle with her lighter curls. “But first, I’m going to make you cum all over my cock,” I finished, rolling, so that she was poised above me, her gilded claws against my chest, her plump, kiss-swollen lips curled in a soft smile that set off her silvery teeth.

I leaned up just enough to catch one of her nipples, the tip just a little deeper purple than her lips, and sucked until she gasped before switching to the other one.

“Grind against my cock, little demon, get it soaked so I can fuck it into you,” I demanded, my hands moving to her hips and grinding her against me, reveling the feel of her wet, silky cunt against my greedy, straining cock.

“I need you to fill me up,” she groaned, wrapping one of those perfect, cool hands around my throat like she had the first night I’d found her, crazed from her kill and coated in gore. Fuck, I needed her. Keeping one hand on her hip, I used my other to guide my cock until it notched up against her entrance, and she tightened her grip on my throat, the demand in her eyes a clear command. I thrust into her, filling her perfect pussy all the way up and reveling in the shriek she released. I knew I was big, probably too big for her, but I was more than happy to obey my Edwige’s demand, to be good and obedient just for her. When she held my throat in her deadly grip and clenched around my cock like that, I knew all I would ever want from now on was to be her perfect whore.

Moving my hand back to her hip, I tentatively thrust, pulling her forward so every movement of my hips would grind my pelvis into her pretty little clit.

“Perfect,” she groaned again, head falling back, grip around my throat tightening.

“You are,” I rasped against her tight hold, loving how she commanded me even as I filled her up. I moved her again, and she purred, starting to ride me in earnest, dragging the same needy sounds from me that I’d been so happy to pull from her lips. Soon we were bouncing together, filling the golden afternoon air with our lusty cries, our skin slapping together in wet, depraved cracks, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to last much longer. She was so tight, so good, so mine .

I came with a roar, feeling lightning shoot down my spine, my balls tightening, and nothing had ever felt as good as filling her up with my cum. She was pressed against my chest, running her claws through my hair as I relaxed into post-orgasmic bliss, adoring how her slight form felt perfect sprawled across me.