Marynath the alchemist grimaced over his smoldering pentacle. Why isn’t this working, he thought. The elements—expensive as they were—were now useless, only half-transmuted and fallen into piles of black-and-purple ash, lacking the vital humors to complete the recipe. Each should have liquified and polymerized, running into the center of the pentacle to be collected, but they had not. A draft shivered the candles and a pang of desperation crept up him.
An apple crunched wetly outside his door and the human winced. It was bad enough that the muscle never slept, and was always seemingly creeping someplace near, but that the Zhajeeni thug kept crunching those infernal apples was enough to drive a person mad. He started the process over again, sweeping the half-transmuted ashes from the altar.
He redrew the pentacle, changed the configuration of the runes, and brought some more of the precious materials together. Sweat began to dapple his forehead. One more failure and his life would be in mortal danger. The sheer expense of the ingredients, the importance of the final elixir, and not least of which, the man he was working for, were all militating against him.
He muttered a short prayer as he began the distillation process. His heart pounded in his chest, the candles shifted to an eerie green. Why he had taken this job from so dangerous a man, he did not know. Please, please, please. Well, he did know. It was the money. Malario Baal’nadis supplied the rare components, and Marynath supplied the raw talent. The mixture began to glow—a pale-blue light, almost imperceptible.
Come on…
The reaction was sustaining itself! Rearranging the life rune was the trick, he was sure of it. Fool, he thought, why couldn’t I see it before? The equation needs creative power! It needs nature’s kiss! And just like that…
The candles guttered back to yellow. Nothing.
‘Damn it!’ Marynath hissed as smoke curled from the cooling ashes, his horizons collapsing before him. He only had enough of the precious ingredients left for one last transmutation attempt, two if he somehow found more Olyrium Root on his own and short-changed the remaining gold dust, but that might poison the recipe anyway. To get more supplies, he would somehow have to get out from under Baal’nadis’s hired hand.
The crunch came from just over Marynath’s shoulder now, and he cursed audibly. That filthy cat could move quieter than a shadow when he wanted to.
‘I thought you said you were an expert,’ Savaad purred in that deep, mellow rasp of his. The man-beast was tall and lithe, armored lightly in leather and fur—animal and his own—and a long, thin dagger always hung from his belt. It was that above all that the alchemist wished to avoid.
‘And I thought cats were obligate carnivores,’ Marynath said, swiping a lock of brown hair from over his eye and straightening his tunic. ‘How you can constantly crunch those confounded apples is a mystery to me.’ The Zhajeeni mercenary rumbled a small laugh somewhere in his throat, a sure and secret laugh that made Marynath uneasy. Everything the cat did made him uneasy.
‘I have been to many places,’ he said, ‘killed many things—I pick up many strange habits. I am not like the rest of my people.’ Another damnable crunch. He would have to escape somehow, flee the deal. There was no way he could make the elixir now. He would stall until the cat had to sleep—everything has to sleep, even the damn Zhajeen. He would change his name, hide out in the far provinces…
And look over his shoulder every day of his life.
If I get that far, Marynath thought. He saw the Zhajeeni hireling’s reflection in a bronze mirror. He was smiling. He turned to face the brute.
‘Yes, well, I have much more work to attend to, so if you’ll just…’ His eyes met the man-beast’s, and he found nothing warm, nothing human there. How eyes so lustrous and gold could be so dark and frigid, he had no guess. Dark and roan stripes reminiscent of the tiger ran in bands along the felid’s long body, and tufts of blond hair curled up from bobcat-like ears. Savaad’s main was plaited in elaborate braids. On arms and legs, chest and head, striped fur peeked from leather and cloth. Mounds of long, wound muscle lay beneath, still as death—but not the stillness of inaction. It was the stillness of the predator ready at any moment to make the kill stroke. There was something inexplicably… enticing about that morbid connection.
‘You are thinking of escaping,’ he said, with the disappointment of a hangman resigned to do his duty. As though he had expected more.
‘Preposterous, I—’
‘You were hired to do a thing,’ Savaad interrupted, taking a step forward. ‘I am also hired to do a thing. Watch over the alchemist, protect eryaman zenci escort him. Ensure my master gets what is due to him. And if he runs…’ The cat was practically looming now, death in his eyes. Marynath glanced to the sheathed dagger, then back to those cold, gold eyes.
‘I wasn’t going to run, I just need more—’
‘No more,’ the Zhajeeni said. ‘You said you could perform with the materials given. You swore an oath on this, and now you wish to break this oath.’ Savaad had him dead to rights. He began to stammer something, but his voice died in his throat when the Zhajeeni thug placed a hand on the hilt of that dagger. Any second it could flash from the sheath, and that would be the end. Would Savaad eat his remains? The thought seemed silly.
‘There—there are extenuating circumstances, unforeseen problems,’ Marynath pleaded, terror becoming increasingly evident in his voice. But then, the cat could smell his terror all along. He did not need to see it. The eyes never wavered, never blinked. The hand stopped moving.
‘Go on,’ Savaad said. The human released a palpable sigh of relief.
‘It’s clear that something is missing—something… vital.’ The Zhajeen raised a tufted brow. ‘Some vital humor that I did not anticipate.’ He felt like a fool trying to explain—he wasn’t even sure what it was that he was trying to explain. ‘The ingredients are right, the recipe is right, the instruments,’ he swept a hand to encompass his many bottles and books and alembics, ‘but something… life-giving, is missing. The transmutations keep failing for want of a motive ether of some sort.’
The cat threw his cruel eyes onto the ashes in the pentacle, then back to the human who stank of fear and lies.
‘You will do this thing one last time,’ Savaad said, his voice flat as a knife. There was no possibility of argument in the cat’s eyes. Marynath cast his eyes down at the Zhajeen’s boots, turned slowly and took a deep breath. He gathered the supplies, said the words, arranged the runes with no flourishes this time. There was a rustle of cloth and leather behind him, and he imagined the cat was moving to unsheathe the blade in preparation for his failure. Marynath poised the little sack of gold dust over the pentacle, the slightest pinch of which would begin the reaction.
‘No,’ said the mercenary, with a queer twinge in his voice. Marynath froze. ‘Not yet.’
Out of the corner of his eye, the alchemist saw the glint of candlelight on steel. His heart jumped, his muscles sprung into motion. Whirling, he came face-to-face with his would-be executioner, and in an instant was stopped cold by what he saw—Savaad had somehow shrugged out of his leathers and stood before him naked as his—litter day?
‘What’s the mean—’ And the impossible—the last thing anyone, especially himself, ever expected—happened. Marynath’s phrenetic words, slurred with fear and confusion, were cut off by a kiss—searing, strangely passionate, alien in its contours and taste.
The knife hovered there in the cat’s right fist, while the left came up to cradle Marynath’s chin. His lips parted under the probing of the flat, felid tongue—unexpectedly lacking the roughness one would expect—but his senses soon returned. He broke away, a thin filament of saliva lingering between them for a heartbeat before snapping and disappearing into the void.
‘What in all the gods…’ The human’s words fell short. He suspected it was a trick—a joke of some sort, the black humor of a stone-cold killer. Any moment he expected the blade to dash across his throat. His eyes found it, hovering there, shivering candlelight dancing on the steel.
‘I told you,’ the Zhajeen said, gold eyes opening, blooming with caught candle-fire, ‘I have traveled far, seen many things—’
‘Acquired many strange habits,’ Marynath glanced back. There was a touch of his old sardonicism in it. Fear was ebbing away—at least the mortal terror was, if anything. Whatever Savaad had planned, it required him to live for the time being.
‘Just so,’ the cat said, and brought the blade slowly forward.
‘Listen, we can—’
‘Hush,’ Savaad purred, a dangerous, narrow glare congealing on that dark face. ‘You wouldn’t want me to slip.’ Marynath closed his eyes and felt the tip of the blade just barely suggest itself over the flesh of his stomach. The Zhajeen was saying something, but the pounding in Marynath’s ears ate up the words. A tearing issued, and the human looked down to see the blade traveling up his tunic to meet him. Just when it would have slipped and sliced his nose in two, the blade stopped and his clothing parted cleanly, revealing his lean, pale chest. From this vantage Marynath could see the demetevler escort Zhajeeni thug’s heat—black and glistening, not like a cat’s at all. But for its color, it was like that of a man. His face flushed with blood. He had seen much worse, he thought—but, strangely, couldn’t remember seeing much better.
‘I said, do you understand?’ Savaad intoned dreamily. Marynath blinked and gaped. The cat scoffed and rolled those gigantic, gold eyes and stepped forward, his muscled, furred chest radiating a strange warmth.
The clawed hand returned to the human’s chin, and for a heartbeat they looked into one another’s eyes, green into gold, and gold past green. Finally, Savaad chuckled and tossed the blade to the ground with a clatter.
‘Queer habits indeed,’ the human said, his lip curling into a rueful smirk. ‘Into humans, are we?’
‘Like I said,’ Savaad whispered, ‘I know just the thing.’
The cat dove in and scooped Marynath’s mouth into a smothering kiss. The dimensions and motions of the felid maw were entirely beyond his experience, but not unwelcome. Sex and death, he thought. Can you ever separate the two? It made more than enough sense that a creature skilled in one would take well to the other.
Savaad pressed forward, forcing Marynath to lean back onto the transmuting table—further and further, until he was all but lying backward. The human cut to the chase and pulled himself up onto the table in a sitting position, disturbing some of the ingredients. If time was what he needed, he could certainly buy it this way.
‘I’m glad to see that tongue is softer than expected,’ he hissed between mouthfuls of Savaad. ‘Now show me how you really use it.’ For once it was the Zhajeen that was taken aback—if slightly. But the effect was brief.
Mischief blazed in those cold, gold orbs, and the muzzle curled into an unmistakable grin.
‘Now who is having the queer habits?’ Savaad sank slowly down, his eyes neither flinching nor averting. He let upon a pink nipple and began to suckle, then to lick. Deft hands undid breeches and they slid away with the finesse of a pickpocket. Marynath’s smirk was soon replaced by a dreamy look, and his breaths came on deeper and more frequent. The human let his head lull, but the Zhajeen wasn’t having it—a quick nick from one of the sharp fangs brought the human back with a curse.
‘Pay attention,’ Savaad purred, and continued his downward course, dragging that flat, pink tongue left, then right, but always down. When the Zhajeen’s whiskers brushed his erection, the human’s eyes fluttered. Bastard knows what he’s doing, Marynath thought. Something between a chuckle and a purr rumbled from the cat before he opened his toothed maw, closed his eyes, and sank down on the shaft, taking it to the hilt in one gulp.
Marynath threw back his head, and for a moment, his life, his death, his work were all forgotten. The only thought that was not festooned in hazy ecstasy was a queer little parcel, somewhere far in the back—thankfulness that Savaad knew how to handle his own teeth, perhaps?
Then came a shock—a jolt of pain and pleasure, like a needle prick. ‘Ow!’ the human called, more out of surprise than anything. ‘Watch those damned teeth.’ The Zhajeeni smiled.
‘When I use my teeth, it is because I want to use them,’ Savaad chuckled, flashing a carnivorous grin. ‘You were not paying attention.’ The human grumbled something under his breath, but Savaad did not mind it. Instead, the Zhajeen ran the soft pads of his hands down the human’s thighs, scooped him up behind the knees, and lifted to expose the human’s asshole.
‘A bit direct,’ Marynath hissed, in both dismay and expectation. The cat did not answer. His eyes were on his prize now—with the focus of the sun in a magnifying glass, the determination of a predator. When his muzzle disappeared under the human’s taint, Marynath gasped. That tongue went to work immediately, attacking and slurping, pushing and circling. When the Zhajeen began rolling his muzzle in a slow corkscrew, the human could not catch his breath.
Just when Marynath thought he could feel his loins tightening and his climax sneaking up on him, Savaad broke away, licking his moist chops. The alchemist was thankful to be spared the humiliation of being brought to climax by merely the tongue of the man-beast, but the end of the cat’s ministrations left a hole in him not easily filled.
‘Now, turn over,’ the Zhajeen commanded, and Marynath blushed. He had expected this, but when the time came, it was still quite jarring. He cast his eyes away and did as he was told, sliding down from the transmuting table and turning.
‘Look at me,’ Savaad commanded coldly, and the sincan suriyeli escort human complied, shooting the cat a defiant look over his shoulder. Savaad chuckled and pressed forward, teasing his cock against Marynath’s opening, the soft fur of his muscled thighs painting the human’s ass with warmth.
‘G-get on with it,’ Marynath demanded, attempting to retain some of his dignity, but he could not disguise the heat in his voice, nor could he control the way he unconsciously ground against the man-beast’s length. Savaad locked eyes with the human and leaned in close. Slowly, slowly, and with each millimeter he moved, his length pressed harder and harder against Marynath’s opening.
The closer he drew, the rounder the ‘O’ of the human’s mouth became, until the tip breached Marynath’s asshole, and the warm, velvety fur of the Zhajeen’s rippling stomach crawled up his back.
One inch, then two. As Savaad’s face drew closer to his, the human could not face him. The feeling was as embarrassing as it was ecstatic. A nearly soundless gasp issued when the Zhajeen sunk two more inches—gods knew he had them to spare—and began to grind, easing in and out. The human began to moan, and his arms began to wobble. The transmutation ingredients lay below him, and he stared hypnotically into the pentacle, supporting himself by the sides of the table, as Savaad began to pump in earnest, drawing deeper and deeper each time. The Zhajeen had been rumbling a deep purr the whole time, but now that had changed, too. The muscles of the cat’s stomach rolled, and his breathing—usually as quiet as death—was now deep and slow. There was almost no sound but the groaning of both partners, and for a few moments they were in complete tandem—the Zhajeen’s pumps, and the human’s grinding. Savaad began to speed up, running his hands up and down the human’s back, leaning forward so that his husky breaths tingled in Marynath;s ear and shot down his spine. That tingle turned into a tickle, the tickle into a tightening—tightening into a fire. The human’s eyes shot open as Savaad plunged balls deep and began to grind.
‘I’m going to cum,’ he hissed, much less than half-ashamed—Savaad had not left enough of him to be ashamed.
‘Look at me,’ the Zhajeen said, but Marynath could not. He was swimming in a cloud of ecstasy, awaiting the fall. ‘I said,’ the Zhajeen grabbed Marynath under the chin, his claws grazing the soft flesh of his neck, and turned his head toward the bronze mirror, ‘look at me…’
Whether it was the exquisite pain of the cat’s claws on his throat, or the gold eyes meeting his in the candle-shimmering bronze, or the inches upon inches of cock sheathed inside him, or the absolutely lust-drowned features of his own face that sent him over the edge, he did not know, but over the edge he went. When his legs failed, the Zhajeen steadied him, and when his head flew back in a pitiful moan, the cat bit lightly into the flesh of his neck—never had the human experience such a thing, such a beautifully orchestrated deployment of pain and pleasure. His hands searched blindly behind him, finding Savaad’s braided mane. He sank his fingers into it and moaned, bucking into the air as his balls pulsed, streaking the table with one, two, three and more ropes of silver musk. A growl issued from the Zhajeen as he slammed home one more time, pulsing inside the alchemist. Marynath could feel the hot liquid lubricate him further, envelope the cock inside him, and begin to dribble down his taint.
When the room returned, his ears were filled with his own husky breath, the rasp of his own heaving chest, the ebbing of the fire that had burned him to nothing mere moments ago.
‘Gods, that was…’ in the mirror the Zhajeen was recovering, eyeing his lover.
‘We are not finished yet,’ he said with a smirk. Reaching over, Savaad’s cock slid out of him with a wet thlop, dashing a crescent of his seed across the floor. The human’s brow rumpled as Savaad took up the baggy of gold dust again and pulled it open.
‘No, wait,’ the alchemist said, but it was too late. Marynath watched as the little dusting of gold powder fell across the ingredients and his heart sank. He was certain the process would fail, would burn up the last of Baal’nadis’s hopes in him, and seal his fate. Had this been what the Zhajeen wanted all along?
The candles changed color, and the eerie green glow worked strangely on the streaks of fallen seed. A pale-blue glow issued from the pieces—but then something else happened. The light intensified—a bright blue glow, first in the shapes of the individual ingredients, then becoming more indistinct, until they became at last formless, running into the center of the pentacle. Marynath could not believe his eyes.
‘You did it,’ he gaped as the light cooled away, leaving a pool of silvery-blue elixir.
‘We did it,’ Savaad said, nuzzling his mate.
‘But how?’ The Zhajeen chuckled.
‘You said you needed nature’s vital essence, and I told you—I had just the thing.’ Marynath turned to his lover and smiled.
‘We had just the thing,’ he said, drawing the man-beast into a searing kiss.