"Sever the spine!" I shouted from the bell tower.

Bold Step leapt into action, slicing his claymore up along the giant feline's back before plunging it deep into the base of the minion's skull.

I sprang off the crumbling adobe tower and flung the tip of my chain sickle into one of the creature's glowing eyes.

"Slayer incoming!" Bold Step called out from below.

I raised my ears and chirped out a whistle to get an expanded visual of the surrounding area.

The beige flagstone streets were dark. It was long past midnight, and the moon was veiled behind a thick layer of churning clouds.

Three more big cats led by a Corrupted Slayer bounded over the eastern rampart of the old craftsman's district.

"I'm on it!" I ripped my sickle free, leaving a wide weeping gash in the feline's face, then charged full speed into the Slayer's path.

"Kneel cretin!" The Corrupted Slayer bellowed as she swung a long glaive dripping in noxious poison. Pulsing green vines stippled in little serrated thorns were infused into the razkur's skin. The green veins webbed up her arms, extended to and intertwined with her polearm's steel.

It's attached!

I cackled and sprinted in close.

The Slayer was fully grown and over six foot tall but height and strength only served my opponents by making them arrogant and careless. She never saw the weighted end of my chain loop twice around her weapon.

"Like this?" I slid on my knees under her legs and yanked my chain hard as I skidded out on the other side.

The Slayer's glaive tore loose, along with half her arm.

She screamed and spun on her heel, then shot out six razored vines from the weeping stump.

"I will taste your innards and serenade the Graven with a ballad of your failed insolence before the night is done!" The Slayer pounced at me on all threes.

"Really?" I flipped backward beyond the grasp of her claws and whipping vines. "Is that verse one? So clunky and long-winded! I can't get the rhythm at all."

The Slayer snarled, then dug her vines into the dirt, driving the barbed tendrils beneath the grey stone street and then up, narrowly missing my feet.

"Here, let me give it a go," I tossed her severed arm and glaive over a twisted metal fence. "C'mon, vine lady, say goodbye! C'mon vine lady, time ta die!"

The Slayer shilled into the night and charged at me, but she was too slow. I dove over her, hooking my sickle under her shoulder blade while snagging a meaty patch of flesh on my blade.

"Vine lady prayed and prayed, fed the lie," I kept my pace sharp and jaunty as I zipped beyond the Slayer's grasp.

Another cat minion vaulted for my head, but Bold Step threw it down with a single swipe of claymore.

"Damned fiend gonna feel some pain. She's outta time!" I smirk at the green and white Slayer, stalking at her and flicking my ears rudely forward. "Vine lady claimed to sing, but all she heard was how to die!"

Before she could snare me in her vines, I cleaved off her other arm, then rolled up over her shoulder before clamping my sickle around her neck. One swift spin later, the headless Corrupted Slayer flopped with a thump hard on the ground.

Opposite the sandy flagstone street, Bold Step finalized his own tidy kill.

He bisected the last surviving feline minion, wiped the black blood off his blade, then holstered his weapon on his back and swept away the sweat from his sleek, freshly shorn white hair.

The tall male razkur stood shirtless, panting and heaving his smooth iridescent scaled pectorals as he smiled and ran over to scoop me up into his arms.

"You stole my melody," he laughed and swirled me around in the air, pressing our bare chests together with his heart beating inches from mine.

"You were blocked on the lyrics," I giggled and touched my nose to his.

"Pedantic thief," Bold Step's ears curved forward as he embraced me tighter. His hands lingered on my sides traveling up and down.

"Just your favorite supportive nudger," I draped my arms over his broad shoulders, savoring his hot breath as it warmed my lips.

Bold Step's mouth hovered millimeters from my own. Then he withdrew and put me down.

"We must find shelter," Bold Step's fingers cringed from my skin the moment I touched down on solid ground and our drastic height difference became evident once again.

His advances always ended like this.

The rush of battle would draw him in and then his ears would dip the second he recalled the ritual's physical restraints that afflicted all the citizens of Thorngate.

We were centuries beyond being just friends and I had long since told Bold Step how I felt. He claimed he felt the same, but still, he refused to touch me.

The familiar dance had grown tiresome. However, that never dulled the lingering sting when he pulled away.

"I'm not thirteen," my ears sharpened. "I haven't been for centuries."

Bold Step chewed on his lip and lowered his head.

"Who do you think is judging us?" I snapped at him. "What laws or family matriarchs do you think will frown on us? We've each done far worse here to disappoint our parents."

Once again, Bold Step refrained from giving me an answer, but I understood the conflict plaguing his thoughts. Physically, he was twenty-nine and I was perpetually trapped in the body of a preteen girl.

"I want to be bonded with you."

"I know," was all Bold Step could bring himself to say.

"You want it too."

He backed away, unable to raise his head and admit what we both knew to be true.

"You realize the worst thing about this place is being near you and not being touched," my hands balled into fists. "I can't help it if my outsides don't match my insides."

"It's not your fault," Bold Step lunged closer.

"But the thought of laying your hands on me disgusts you," I hissed and stepped back.

"No!" Bold Step had the nerve to grab my hand. "Never! You are everything, in this place and whatever lies beyond."

"But.." I scowled.

"I can't give you what you want," Bold Step let go of my hand. "I'm not that man."

No more... I knew what had to be done.

I closed my eyes and turned away. "I want to be bonded in all ways and know that I'm truly wanted. This cycle hurts too much."

"Hurting you is the last thing I want."

Bold Step didn't run after me when I stepped away.

"Then do not speak to me if we ever cross paths again," I refused to turn my head around and look back at him one last time.

I walked away for good and Bold Step didn't chase after me or fight to make me stay.

"The person you seek doesn't exist."

I turned back in puzzlement because, in Thorngate, those weren't his last words to me. "You never said tha-"

A thick black tentacle strangled off my breath.

"You're not a child anymore," Bold Step's voice warped into a deep snarl as more tentacles coiled around my body and yanked me to the ground.

The tendrils stretched my arms and legs akimbo and tore away my weapons and clothing.

Bold Step stood over me, wriggling a malignant tentacle over the small pouch attached to my belly.

"Your sons will die," the tip of his tentacle attempted to violate the seal, keeping my pouch attached.

I wanted to scream, but all the air was being squeezed out of me.

Panic seeped in as Bold Step climbed on top of me. His once opalescent white eyes were now black and glossy.

"You and I are one," he forced my face to his and kissed me. I was powerless to stop the black bile spilling from his lips and into my throat.

The pressure of something large and rigid, determined to invade me, prodded between my thighs.

I struggled, but couldn't break free.

Bold Step licked my face, leaving a trail of translucent black slime. His grip tightened and I couldn't breathe.

"There is no escape..." his wicked smirk blurred above me and my vision shrank until all I could see was a pitch-black starless sky and a circle of white lightning crackling above.

...

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