"Seventy DP for a bottle of wine?" Pearl hissed, hovering over the bubbling pot of pasta sauce I was stirring. "Ten, we are destitute. We are paupers. We are one bad expense report away from eating boiled shoe leather."
"It's an investment, Pearl," I whispered back, adding a pinch of crushed fire-herbs to the sauce. The smell was intoxicating—rich tomato, garlic, and a heat that hit the back of the throat like a lover's promise. "And it's not just wine. It's Crimson Bind. It lowers inhibitions and increases sensitivity to… spiritual connections."
"It makes people horny, Ten. Just say it."
"It opens the heart!" I corrected, pouring the deep, blood-red vintage into a decanter. "Sister Sarah is a fortress. If I try to siege her with just words, she'll have me whipped. I need to lower the drawbridge first."
I plated the pasta. It was a masterpiece of carbohydrates, glistening with oil and herbs—a stark contrast to the gray gruel the nuns forced themselves to eat daily. I placed the plate and the wine on a wooden tray.
"Wish me luck," I said, smoothing my humble servant's robe.
"I wish you fiscal responsibility," Pearl grumbled, vanishing into my shadow.
Sister Sarah's quarters were a contradiction wrapped in stone. At first glance, the room was exactly as I expected: cold, sparse, and depressing, with a single candle flickering on a desk piled high with disciplinary reports and a heavy wooden ruler that looked like it had seen too much action.
But Sarah herself was a different story.
She had shed her heavy daytime habit, clad now in a simple white robe. However, the candlelight played tricks on the fabric—or perhaps it wasn't a trick at all. The linen was shockingly thin, almost see-through. Beneath the ghostly veil of the cloth, I could clearly make out the dark, hardened peaks of her nipples, straining against the material as if trying to punch a hole through the white restriction.
Despite this unintended display, her face remained a mask of iron. She wore her wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose, framing that perpetual look of severe disapproval—the "disciplinary face" that could freeze a novice's blood at twenty paces.
Yet, my senses picked up something else. Something that clashed violently with her icy demeanor.
The air around her was thick with a captivating scent, a heavy, intoxicating blend of blooming jasmine and deep red roses. It was a smell of pure indulgence. My enhanced olfactory senses twitched, tracing the aroma to the shelves lining the back wall. They weren't filled with scriptures or holy texts.
They were packed with small, glass vials. Dozens of them. No, nearly a hundred. My chemoreceptors tasted the chemical composition in the air instantly: essential oils, floral extracts, rare musks. It was a collection of perfumes worthy of a noblewoman, an obsessive hoard of sweet scents hidden in the heart of this ascetic sanctuary.
"Enter," she said, her voice sharp, unaware that her secret obsession—and her body—were already on full display to a monster like me.
I slipped inside, keeping my head bowed, the tray balanced on one hand. "Forgive the intrusion, Sister. Mother Matilde mentioned you had missed supper during your… diligent supervision of the novices. She thought you might require sustenance."
A lie, of course. Matilde was likely asleep, dreaming of new ways to frown.
Sarah looked up, her ice-blue eyes narrowing. She looked tired. The stiff wimple around her face seemed to be squeezing the life out of her skin.
"I do not require indulgence," she said, her voice sharp. "Take it away."
"It is not indulgence, Sister. It is fuel," I said softly, stepping forward and placing the tray on her desk, right on top of a report about a child who had laughed too loudly. "The Silent Stone requires strength to carry its burden. Please."
The scent hit her instantly. The garlic, the basil, the rich, savory steam. I saw her nostrils twitch. Her stomach gave a traitorous growl, loud in the small room.
Her cheeks flushed a pale pink. "I… suppose it would be wasteful to refuse."
"Excellent," I murmured. I poured the wine. The liquid swirled in the glass, dark and heavy.
She took a bite. Then another. Then she was eating with a speed that betrayed her starvation. She took a long drink of the wine to wash it down.
"It is… adequate," she said, wiping her mouth, though her eyes were slightly glazed. The Crimson Bind worked fast.
"You work too hard, Sister," I said, moving to stand behind her chair. I didn't touch her. Not yet. I just let my presence loom over her, a shadow in the candlelight.
"Discipline requires vigilance," she recited, though her words were slightly slurred. She reached for the glass again. "The flesh is weak. It must be corrected."
"Is it?" I asked. "Or is the flesh just lonely?"
She froze, the glass halfway to her mouth. She slammed it down, spinning in her chair to face me. "How dare you! You are a servant! A janitor! You know nothing of our holy vows!"
"I know that you scream at the children because you cannot scream yourself," I said, dropping the submissive pitch of my voice. I let my natural baritone slide through—deep, commanding, and laced with a unnatural resonance. "I know that you use that ruler because you crave the sting. You punish them for the desires you are trying to bury."
"Silence!" she gasped. She tried to stand, but her legs wobbled. The wine was singing in her blood now, sending heat flushing through her veins, pooling in her belly. "I will have you… I will have you flogged…"
"Will you?"
I stepped closer. She fell back into her chair, her breathing ragged. Her pupils were blown wide, swallowing the blue of her irises.
"You're sweating, Sarah," I observed. "Is it hot in here? or is the Crimson Bind telling you the truth?"
"What… what did you give me?" she panted, her hand clutching the fabric of her habit over her chest.
"Dinner," I said innocently.
I let the glamour slip. Just a fraction. Beneath the hem of my robe, two tentacles uncoiled, slithering across the stone floor like silent serpents. They wrapped around the legs of her chair.
"You preach silence," I whispered, leaning down until my lips were inches from her ear. "But your body is so loud, Sarah. It's screaming."
"No…" she whimpered. But she didn't push me away. She couldn't. The aphrodisiac had turned her blood to fire, and her rigid self-control was crumbling like dry clay.
I reached out and took her hand—the one that usually held the ruler. Her skin was burning hot, a fever of repressed desire raging beneath the surface.
"What… what are you doing?" she whispered, her voice stuttering as she tried to pull away, but her grip was weak. "This is… a sin. I am a servant of the Stone…"
"And if you were not a servant? If you were just a woman?" I murmured, stepping closer until my shadow swallowed her whole.
Beneath the hem of her robe, I let the glamour fall away completely. My tentacles, slick with a faint, divine bioluminescence, uncoiled from the floor. They didn't strike; they caressed. They slid up the legs of the chair first, then bridged the gap, brushing against her ankles.
She jolted, a gasp tearing from her throat as the cold, wet muscle touched her feverish skin. "Please…"
"What have you done to me?" she breathed, staring at me with a mix of terror and absolute fascination. Her pupils were blown wide, tracking the golden glow of my eyes.
"Nothing," I said, my voice dropping an octave, vibrating in her chest. "I'm simply making you honest."
The tentacles moved higher. They glided up the curve of her calves with a slow, deliberate pressure, testing the muscle, feeling the tremors shaking her frame. She tried to clamp her legs shut, but my limbs were stronger, gently but firmly prying her knees apart.
"No… you can't…" she whimpered, but her hips bucked involuntarily, seeking friction.
My tentacles slid past her knees, exploring the soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. The sensation of the smooth, suction-cupped flesh against her tender skin made her arch her back violently. Her fingers dug into my arm, her nails biting into my skin—not to push me away, but to hold on for dear life.
The limbs writhed higher still, trailing slime that felt like cool silk, inching closer to the source of the heat. They bypassed the barrier of her thin robe, sliding directly against her skin, teasing the very edge of her femininity. I could feel the heat radiating from her core, the dampness of her arousal soaking the air.
"Tell me, Sarah," I teased, watching her face crumble into pure, desperate need as one tentacle tip hovered right against the most sensitive part of her, just barely brushing the swollen flesh. "Do you want to punish me? Or do you want me to show you what real discipline feels like?"
She opened her mouth to scold me, to recite a scripture, but all that came out was a broken, needy sob. Her head fell back, exposing her throat.
"Please…" she begged, her hips twitching, chasing the contact I was denying her.
"Please what?"
"Make it… make the burning stop…"
"Oh, no," I smiled, my eyes glowing gold in the dim light. "We're just getting the fire started."
[System Notification: +250 DP generated from 'Anticipation'.]