The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Drexa moved through the corridors of what she had come to look upon as her underground castle with a relaxed glide. All was proceeding as it should, which allowed her a moment to revel in the power she now wielded. The fools of her old home never understood. They were too comfortable in what they had built. Balance was all they cared for, whether it was balance between them and the land they had tamed or balance with one another. They were happy with the status quo and that was something that Drexa found she could never be. Life there was suffocating and the people there had become increasingly insufferable.

All she did was ask, “Why hide?” There was no longer any need to stay in the wastes hiding away from the rest of the world. They weren’t a group of refugees from the land of mortal men trying to survive anymore. They were powerful, building on the magics and sciences of their forefathers There was nothing to fear from the primitives who were still using oils to light their homes. Adar could destroy them all and rule as they should. Greater animals always ruled over the lesser, and it was only right that Adar take that place. Indeed, it was an abandonment of the rules that governed the universe that they did not.

But they hid, literally and figuratively because they lived in fear of what they were. In their own way they continued to live in the cloistered bubbles of their own making. They even refused to explore magic to its fullest potential. Unnatural creations? Magic itself was natural, as was their ability to manipulate it, therefore it stood to her reason that whatever they created with it was natural. If it was too far outside the natural realm, so much the better, as a new and better balance would be found.

But they dismissed her, at first trying to reason with her as though she were a petulant child, then by ignoring her, hoping she would simply give up the truth. Finally, when she set out to prove that truth, in even the smallest of ways, talk had turned to punishment. They had proven themselves truly unfit to have the power they did.

So she left. She left taking the seeds of that knowledge with her. She searched the world for a place remote enough to go unnoticed, but close enough to the magic pools she needed to draw from and with enough of the primitives to draw from and spread apart enough to where, by the time they knew what was happening, it would be too late.

The primitives of Adar would learn that her path was superior. And if that meant they had to be ground under heel, so be it.

After they learned, so would the world.

She entered the cavern closest to her chambers. It was massive, hollowed out by the elements and the centuries. Lit from the ceiling by the sheets of white light, she walked one of the paths between rows and rows of her creatures. The air was warm and cloying being so close to the ley lines, creating an environment perfect for them to grow. They all glistened in the light, the pink and gray membrane encasing tooth and claw nourished them and let them slumber until she called upon them.

Scattered about were female primitives nestled where they would birth and the sounds of their animal heat echoed through the chamber. One sat on her knees, hand between her legs, middle finger frantically rubbing as she whined and stared at the ceiling. Still another stood, short with hanging breasts, toes digging into the dirt while a cocoa-skinned woman had her mouth locked around the other’s clit, digging her nails into her thighs as the other birthed. Drexa couldn’t tell who was happier.

They owed her a debt for even that. She rarely made mistakes, but in her first experiments she’d paid no heed to their psyches because she simply didn’t care. Pain and the threat of it did indeed drive the meat to obedience and did force it to accept the changes she required, but it also eventually drove them insane, making even the breeding meat difficult to control. In her zeal for her plans to bear fruit she’d ignored the basic truth that beings were hard-wired with an ability to avoid pain and resist it, finally giving up sanity to do so. Practicality demanded change.

But pleasure? The mind had no defense. It was rare to find anyone who could resist over a long period. Most surrendered quickly, happy to give up their petty little existences in favor of her work and perpetual reward. Why tend a field all day or worry for your next bill at the mercantile when you could simply fuck, orgasm, and obey? Others tried to fight; others that thought they had things that mattered more, but drown them in lust and joy long enough and they all eventually stopped trying to fight their way from it.

She put her chambers close to them simply because she loved being so near her creations. They were her children in so many ways. As she approached the other end of the room the gray, black-veined curtain of flesh parted to her inner chambers. Here she had carved a small slice of Adar with her magics as well as the belongings she took with her when she exiled herself, turning this and that to her needs. It resisted as well, as all things wanted to stay what nature made them, but she bent them with little more difficulty than the meat. The rock in the room was now smoothed, bleached, and shaped to take on the appearance of the light marble stone favored there while the floor was smoothed black. Tapestries adorned the walls and at the opposite end of the room on either side between the dais upon which the long couch she playfully considered a throne rested were passages to her laboratory and one of the ley lines that fed into this place.

Also accenting the room were the lovely women, all nude and in various stages of fucking, some changed and some not, with some carrying her children and some not. For some it seemed that emotion drove them with one another, while, for others, it was simply an animal release. All stopped in mid act as they noticed her. For them, to directly look upon her was rapture. They waited eagerly for any whim from her lips. Even from them she felt the scope of her power. They were hers. They would fight to the death for the chance to feel her touch.

Her own eyes went distant for a moment, forgetting the scene. There was something in her mind that felt like an itch at the base of her brain. There was power not unlike hers at the edge of her ability to sense it. Rather than it igniting fear or anger in her, she could not keep the happiness from her face. Someone had come. As she tried to sort through the hints from her senses she found there were many someones. The meat among them didn’t matter. It would be torn asunder one way or another.

The others? She knew someone she needed would come eventually. They were predictable in that they would come. They were also predictable in that she knew that they would not have come in force enough to crush, or even oppose her, as that would have required engaging more of the world than any of them wanted to.

In short, they were perfect for her uses. In fact, as they drew closer, one seemed a curiosity worth investigating. Come to me.

One noticed her smile through her happy haze. “Have we pleased you, Mistress?”

She was taken from her reverie by the sweet voice to look upon the blonde nestled between two others on a bed made of several soft animal furs piled on the floor in a mix of black, brown, and gray. “Always, my pets.” Drexa looked upon her as she absently caressed her ripe belly, belly button protruding as a hint of just how full of one of her children the girl was, milk dripping from her breasts, making trails as it wandered down her body.

Drexa noted then that she was no more immune to the temptations of than any other mortal soul. Her mouth began to dry with a thirst only those weeping breasts would slake. “Make room for me.”

As they scurried to do so, she smiled. Meat had many uses.

At sunrise the party had set out again, this time Maylin riding with Deres. They made good time, though they had remained relatively quiet until breakfast had finished, no one wanting to truly break the peace that was still to be found They were now on a more traveled path, having just investigated a small trading post. Not that Neral and those troops with her would have preferred it to be a burning wreck, but that at least had the virtue of being expected by their experience. It was easier to deal with than the eerie calm that shrouded it as they approached. Even the animals seemed to stay away from anywhere the creatures had been.

Inside, it was much as Maylin had described what she’d witnessed in the village, with anyone who had resisted eviscerated by animals. That Maylin described those animals having once been human chilled to the bone. Faces had been frozen forever in pain, fear, and panic. The sight and sound of insects staking claim and the stench of death was everywhere. “It could have been worse for them,” she’d said soberly more to herself than anyone else. That it was probably true by any sane soul’s reckoning helped nothing.

As they left, they noted that tracks still covered the road, mashed together certainly, but they were clear enough if one knew what to look for. Running footfalls, misshapen footprints, and the telltale of wagon wheels painted a picture. Then there were the bodies and carcasses on the side of the road scattered about. The creatures found a group fleeing, or perhaps a caravan leaving the post not long before it was attacked. The remnants of humans and beasts remained along the road and examinations of both suggesting it had happened not long before as bodies were still warm as Neral and Kress examined them.

“We could catch them, sir.” Kress said, closing the eyes of an older woman who would no longer be using them, bloody paring knife in hand. Kress admired her. She had no hope with such a weapon, but she gave her last anyway. “Maybe.”

Neral shook her head. “Not in a bum’s rush from behind. “We’d probably end up like them.” She called to Maylin who who had been wandering, almost scenting the air like an animal herself. She walked over calmly, deciding to focus on Neral’s dark eyes rather than any of the carnage around them.

“Can you scout ahead without being detected?”

Maylin nodded, now pleased to have something to do to perhaps put this right. “I expect so.”

“Do so. Find them if you can and make mark of the land. “If there is a place to take them on that gives us the advantage I want to know it.”

Her face drifted toward concern in the way her jaw set. “If we engage them, she’ll know we’re here.”

“She’ll know that anyway when we come knocking on her door. I assumed that she was aware of us as soon as we stepped through your doorway.” Her tone hardened to an order, “But if they see you, or sense you, or you think they might, return to us. We’ll be riding ahead on the road keeping our pace. Do not engage them alone. Understood?”

She didn’t relish the thought of running under any circumstances, particularly when she could save lives right then, but she had agreed to defer, so she did. “Yes, General.” Neral had turned her head to examine another victim and when she turned back Maylin had vanished. It tensed Neral almost as much to see how uneasy her two had become as they wandered the road together steps from her. She dared to think ‘nervous’ but that didn’t help her. “Are you two all right?”

He worked through his discomfort.“There’s just a lot of magic here is all, and sort of more than I expected. We must be close to a large ley line or a nexus for several smaller ones.”

Anna, an archer who looked like the wind could blow her away, but moved like quicksilver and was just as lethal with the daggers at her waist as with the bow on her back. “Ley line?”

Bryana looked at her as she took a draw from her water-skin before planting the stopper firmly before mounting her horse. “The energy from which magic is drawn flows like rivers through the earth in the same way molten rock moves and travels. Indeed, where you can find that molten rock, you have often found, or are at least close to, a ley line. Energy closer to the surface can be tapped, allowing the mage more power and reach, assuming they know how to tap it.”

“And she knows how?”

“She knows how,” Deres affirmed solemnly.

“But so do you, right? The three of you?”

They each nodded. “But right now she’s the one on top of them tapping them,” Deres said. “She has the advantage. As we get as nearer to them we may be able to use them as she does. If we can the odds will even there, but, for now she has the advantage.”

“You may?”

He looked to his wife. “She’ll likely have wards about them so that she is the only one who can tap them that way, just in case. It’s what I would do. If she doesn’t, or our combined power can break the wards, then it gets more interesting.”

“Entertaining, you mean.” Bryana said, her lips curled upward. Some of the warriors among her knowing what she meant.

Dion spoke as the party mounted and began to ride. “So it’s to her benefit to kill us now. It’s to her benefit to swat us like the bugs we are.”

“So we move quickly, find a way through, and hurt her how we can.”

Kress’s horse seemed to strut down the path “She’s only one mage, we have three. We’ll help you get there, the three of you burn the bitch down in a crossfire, and we all go home. Simple.” Many of the assembled agreed.

“May you have the Goddess’s ear,” Neral told her.

They marched on for a time with Neral continuing to be slightly in the lead. “Shades!” Dalen’s eyes widened from atop her heavy cavalry horse. She had turned her head to the left and Maylin was simply there. “Don’t do that, woman!”

“Apologies.” She said flatly, making her way to the front to Neral. “They took two small wagons, probably what was left out of the post, one with people and the other with supplies. They’re being led by a dozen beast-things, mostly the size of men, though two are the bear-like creatures we saw before.”

“Magic?”

“I sense it, yes.” Her mood seemed to lighten at the thought of action. “To our benefit, they seem intent on following the road and in no rush. There’s a patch of old growth ahead that the road curves to the east to avoid. Ride hard now and we could ambush them from those trees as they leave the turn.”

“Won’t they be ready for that though?” Elan asked even as she stretched and flexed her bow arm in preparation. She didn’t speak much due to her youth and upbringing. Her father had taught her that one learned by watching and listening, not talking. Her sea blue eyes with snow white hair made her striking, with her slight frame and soft features making her look younger than her years. That all had caught the eye of the general early on. There was great potential in a soldier so skilled and yet, so willing to absorb the new on its own terms.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Neral answered. “We would be, but they seem concerned with tearing apart and taking and, up to now, in these outreaches, I don’t know that they have seen much in the way of resistance. Why rush?”

“Us?” Kress quizzed her commander. She was too well-trained to push her views in the open, not that Neral had to ask how she felt. She didn’t have to ask how any of them felt because they all felt the same. Reaching down, she offered her hand to Maylin, who didn’t balk this time, though it still took her a bit to get settled on the back of the beast she was sure hated her.

“Show me.”

She spurred her horse onward. Even Stenna seemed to want to act, seeming quite happy to unleash her full power on the terrain. It pleased Neral to feel that within her as she rushed ahead with the others behind. As they reached the interception point Neral was already contemplating how she would strike depending on what she saw with her own eyes. They left the road, arcing wide through the grassland, aiming for the treeline ahead.

The ride winded the horses somewhat, but they were now in a position to wait out the caravan, so the horses would find some bit of rest. Neral left her horse, walking toward the road, getting a view of the lay of the land to pick her entry point. “Good job seeing this spot, Mother. We have some height as well.”

“I’m not a tactician, it just made sense to me. But thank you all the same.”

Neral’s eyes sought who she needed. “Anna? Elan? Track back a bit to check their formation, then return.”

“Yes, General,” Anna said with a nod before turning to ride out, Elan right behind.

Maylin followed Neral as she walked to Bryana and Deres, deep in conversation. “Are you two going to be all right?”

Deres just looked at her. “Remember the stories of some of the places I’ve been?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t always endear myself to everyone there.” That smile she adored appeared again. “That was through no fault of my own, of course.”

“Of course not,” Maylin agreed, doing her best to help keep the tension broken. “Who could dislike such a sweet boy?”

He shook his head in dismay, his voice weighted with mock sadness. “I really have no idea.”

Bryana shrugged off the concern. “We’ve sparred. You know I can fight without the magic.”

Neral fought down her own trepidation. “We’ve never fought alongside mages before. There’s no one in the kingdoms with any such experience, and a lack of coordination could prove an issue.”

He nodded, his tone more serious. He knew her well enough to know when that lighter tone was going to come off to her as dismissive.“Don’t worry, Neral. Fight as you have always done and we shall watch out for one another as you’d expect.”

That was a good enough answer for her before she grinned at them. “What I’m really saying is, please, none of you set me on fire?” An idea suddenly occurred to her. “Can you stealth our approach?”

They exchanged glances before Deres answered her. “We could make you completely hidden if you wanted.”

She’d expected as much. “Invisible part of the way and then only so sound is heard in the last seconds?”

They spoke amongst themselves for a few moments, working out the logistics of who would do what and what the cues might be before the three of them nodded, almost together. Maylin was the one to ask, “Why would you want them to hear you?”

Dalen answered as she sat on the ground with her whetstone, making sure her blade edge was satisfactory. She’d always kept her weapons in good order, the act itself was meditative for her more than anything. “Because the cavalry will go in first behind the General and even half a dozen horses barreling down upon them at full charge will be like thunder in the air.”

“Sometimes sowing a few seconds of confusion is more effective against an enemy than a complete blindside,” Neral told them. Such tactics had been used effectively by her, and against her and her superiors as she rose in the ranks until she’d learned her lessons well.

“We could throw the sound,” Deres said. When she looked at him in askance, he filled in the missing pieces. “There are some trees on the other side of the road. The cover isn’t nearly as friendly, but an attack could come from there.”

Neral smiled. “Them trying to form a skirmishing line with their backs to us would be lovely.”

“Something not very honorable about trying to line your enemy in a row to hack at them from behind, Dalen told Neral, rising from the ground before she shrugged when Neral waited to see if she’d balk. “And if I were facing an honorable enemy, it might bother me.”

“If there are mages in the party though, they may well detect you before you strike.”

Neral met Bryana’s eyes. “Then my own mages are going to have to be faster, aren’t they?”

“You are always so demanding.”

When her archers returned, Anna began to speak, but the General quieted her with a look that she hoped came off as inoffensively as intended. “Report, please, Elan.”

Color seemed to drain from her already fair skin as she looked to Anna, then to the General before speaking. “A dozen,” she whispered before clearing her throat and making the effort to raise her voice and focus on nothing but the facts. “A dozen, as reported, sir. Two heavy beasts in front with the rest on either side. Three women, I think, following behind.”

She stammered to correct herself before she got the response she suspected her uncertainty would have gotten her. “Definitely three and they look female, and only sort of human.”

“How many captives?”

“I counted eight.”

Neral glanced at Anna, who nodded. “Good.” She quickly assembled her troops and went over the plan. “Hopefully the distraction will work. If it does we’ll have a clear run at the heavies. I don’t want to fight them any longer than I have to. Dion, I want you to come in hard and loud after our first pass. If you can, time your strike to hit after our first turn. Otherwise, our mages against theirs, and archers rain the pain. And, in the middle of all that, if anyone makes a run at the hostages, we do what we have to protect them. Simple enough. Any questions?”

No one had any, so all that remained to do was wait. Neral felt Stenna twitching beneath her. She knew what was coming. She wanted to run. She wanted to charge, but her rider was at peace. This is what she’d spent her life doing. She would move, then her enemy would, then she would counter that in a dance until one saw an opportunity arise from their opponent’s mistake and ended it. She surrendered to that truth and waited for her moment.

That moment came with the sound of the wagons on the road. She judged their distance and hers as the seconds ticked by. Slow, deep breaths took her those last few heartbeats until it was time. She felt no different and no one else acted as if they did either, but she trusted the magics would work.

They moved.

They went from stock still to the pounding of hooves into earth at full gallop in seconds. She was pleased seeing that her timing was setting up as she hoped and she’d intercept them at the point she wanted to, putting her cavalry between the wagon and the larger beasts. She leaned into Stenna, drawing her longsword. When she reached the downward slope to the road she saw the beasts turn to look away from their approach.

She aimed her sword to put the tip into a gray and black hide at just the right angle and depth that she wanted. Neral rushed between the beasts and the horses pulling the wagon, causing them to rear and whinny. At the same time sword found hide and dragged across it, bringing anguish from the beast and a wild swing to strike back that just missed. Once they reached the opposite field she wheeled around to see the damage done. Three of the human-sized creatures were already on the ground lifeless from a hail of well-placed arrows. The creature she had struck focused on her despite several deep gashes in his flesh, snorting and howling in rage at the sky.

Her infantry was engaging the other while three of her archers maintained the high ground, striking wherever they had a clean shot. Anna was in the fray, using her daggers to climb the other larger beast while Makleen and Dion engaged it from the front. Deres was in the wagon, using blasts of orange fire from his palms, effectively forming a perimeter around it while the people in it hunkered down. The female versions of the things attacked him when they could but she marveled at the way their bolts seemed to strike but wash over him as though he were armored. He didn’t seem fatigued, but she knew magic was finite. If it all dragged on too long it would become an issue.

The beast that had set eyes on Neral began to charge, pushing off on thick hind legs, pulling itself forward with the front ones. It screamed a death threat at her and she urged Stenna forward, meeting its eye. Come on then.

She charged, her troops behind her and the sounds of battle around her. This was her element too. They closed upon one another rapidly as she contemplated a hacking strike near one of the wounds already made in the hopes of widening it. At very nearly the last moment a lash of blue fire from Maylin’s fingertips struck its right hind quarter, the acrid smell of burning fur and flesh filling Neral’s nostrils.

The beast shrieked and began to tumble. When its belly appeared she opted for another dragging strike, shifting her sword accordingly. It slipped into the hide as she pushed hard, letting the resistance and momentum lift her from her horse. She let go of her weapon and managed her fall, rolling onto her back and upright. Kress, Zynn, and Abren, a battle-grizzled piece of the cavalry struck it again.

In its rage it managed to swipe Abren from her horse and send her flying before Maylin leaped inhumanly to position herself before blue energy blasted from her fingertips, eating its way through the open flesh in the beast’s belly. It rose up wildly trying to block it, only to injure itself more as it touched the raging energy. With a final cry of desperation it fell to the earth with a crash Neral felt in her boots. She rushed to pull her sword from the flesh. “Thank you, Mother.”

“What is one for otherwise, child?”

Bryana, disheveled and a little bloodied from nicks and cuts from metal and claw, had moved quickly to engage the last of the things that controlled magic, absorbing the frantic strikes as the distance between them closed. Bryana knew the other was new to magic. It was in the wonder in the other’s eyes pondering how Bryana still stood.

Bryana dodged the last two blasts artfully before closing one hand on the throat of the thing before burying a dagger just under the breastbone. Bryana watched life fade from the yellow eyes as even the obsidian skin seemed to lighten. The creature seemed almost pleased at its end. “You will become Hers.”

Bryana fought the urge to spit in her eye. “I think not.”

“Then die.”

She raised a brow and pushed the dagger downward relishing the look she saw in its eye and the tremble in its body. “After you.”

She smiled, revealing razor-sharp teeth before looking to the sky. “I...am...Hers.”

In a way she couldn’t explain, those words left Bryana chilled to the bone.

Bryana felt the life leave it before letting it fall. Turning, she saw Deres leaving the wagon as Neral moved up while the rest of her soldiers made sure the dead were dead. Bryana hadn’t realized how concerned she had been until seeing them well lifted her heart. She met them, seeing Neral catch her breath with Deres looking at ease with all that had just transpired.

“Good job with the mages,” she said. “Are you both all right?”

They nodded but Bryana corrected her. “They weren’t mages, any of them.”

“Then what was it they were throwing around?”

“Oh, it was magic, no question. Deres told Neral. “It’s that they weren’t mages. The had no mastery of it. They had no understanding of how to alter a spell as it’s being cast or anything else I’d expect even a novice to be somewhat aware of. I suspect that they are simply conduits. I think that Drexa’s tapped them into the ley lines somehow to let them do simple things like bolts, basic shields...corruption.”

Neral didn’t like that corruption could be classified as a simple thing, but she knew firsthand how easy to manipulate most people were, particularly with magic. “So they are tied to her?”

“They are above the beasts, but not by much.”

“Casualties,” she called out.

Kress answered happily. “Few wounds here and there. Fatalities are all of them and none of us.”

Neral filed all of what she’d been told away in her mind as she went to the wagon with members of what looked to be two families together, fear and bewilderment common themes on all their faces. What appeared to be a father with a rough beard eyed them with distrust. “What are you?”

She inclined her head. “I am Neral Jaye. I and those with me have come to stand against what sweeps across your land.”

He looked around.“Just you? That’s all?”

Maylin stood straighter.“I will point out that you and yours are alive, so it’s a start.”

He shied away momentarily, suitably shamed. “You’re right. Thank you. Thank you all. I am Voren, this is my brother Bix, and our wives and children. They’ve been going from town to town, taking...killing… changing good people into...things.” He struggled not to crawl into himself. “Who are they? What do they want? Who is ‘she’?”

Neral noticed that Maylin had walked off down the road with purpose before turning her focus back, not wanting to get into the finer points. “Just someone who needs to be stopped.”

“Mages, too. You fight to stop the others?”

Deres kept the measured tone he used on patients. We are mages and we fight to end her. You have nothing to fear from us.”

They seemed to accept that for the simple fact that if they were being lied to there was little to be done about it.

Neral spoke again.“Is there anywhere you can go? Where were you trying to reach?”

He shook his head, his voice more fragile with the children as traumatized as they were. We were just running. There’s nowhere to go. They’re everywhere. We thought if we got to the mountains there would be places to hide.”

“She’s there somewhere, so stay away from them if you can.”

Maylin returned, one stone from the road in each hand, the rocks and her hands covered in blood from the beasts. They all watched as she stood with them, eyes closed in silence as the blood left her hands, seeping into the stone until both appeared clean once again. Opening her eyes, she looked to them. “Take these. You may well be safe at the trading post for a time since they seem to want to return to where they came. These will glow when the creatures are near. You should have warning enough to stay ahead of them.”

He seemed hesitant about taking them at first, fearful of the magic they held, but he let one drop into his palm and Bix did the same.

Thanking them, they parted ways with Neral and her company, heading back to the outpost for lack of anywhere better to go. After healing the wounds of the party, Neral and hers set out again. Maylin shook her head from her place and behind Deres and bemoaned certain events.“I fail to see why you wanted me to heal you while still leaving you with the scar, Pel.”

“It’s a mark of survival. It’s a mark of honor,” Pel said from her place with her sisters in the infantry. “Some mark their flesh in ink to make statements about who they are and what matters. These are our statements that, with our flesh, blood, and pain we are warriors for Erette.”

The exclamation of solidarity was reflexive, so much so the Neral was barely aware of having participated.

Misha spoke up from her place in the cavalry unit, her light brown hair kept in a bun that, it seemed at least, never came undone. “There is, of course, the men.”

“And none too few women,” Kress added with a dirty grin.

Maylin let loose an embarrassed smile. “Do I even want to ask?”

Neral was still feeling good about being able to save a precious few with no losses of her own, so she was willing to play a bit. “You see Maylin, female soldiers are somewhat...sought after by the men of Erette, regardless of class. It is generally seen as a coup to gain one’s favor. For some it goes so far as fetish. For all, they seem to enjoy...counting and kissing tours. The more scars, the more fun to be had. So they say.”

“Ah. You certainly are a strange lot.”

“No stranger than you to us, mage from a fairytale land.” Hennis told her, braids swaying with her horse.

Maylin tilted her head. “Fair enough.”

Bryana had been quiet since the fight, speaking little during the ride or even through dinner. When she did, even her wit seemed muted. It started to worry both Deres and Neral, but rather than confront her both at once, Deres told Neral he would speak with her as they set the wards for the evening. He watched her weave her practiced hands, then she watched her watch him. “What is it that’s on your mind, Deres?”

“What makes you think something is?”

“He asked as if she were not aware of his every expression and mood. She looked annoyed without quite managing to fully embrace it.

“Since the fight you’ve seemed...uneasy is the word, I suppose.”

“Have I?”

“She asked as though he were not aware of her every expression and mood.”

Her arms moved a bit more sharply and quickly at the admonishment as they made the perimeter, but she decided not to draw it out. He would use his charm and the gentle sweetness of his voice to melt her, dragging it from her anyway. Either way, the feeling of exposure wasn’t entirely comfortable, even with him. She took solace in that she felt safe enough for it to happen at all. “I have been.”

Her eyes went to that moment as if seeing it fresh “I looked into the eyes of that thing as it died and I saw... mindless happiness. It wallowed in what it had become and the evil it had done. It reminded me of...me. The scale may have been different, but we were the same. I know that I was not so different than Drexa.”

“You said ‘were’, and that matters,” he said. “You have a life beyond that past now.”

“After you changed me. Without that, who knows what I would have done? Who knows the pain I would have caused. I remember her.”

He was nearing the last of the layering behind her to complete the circle. “Changing as was done to you is never taken lightly. That’s why so few in Adar are allowed the knowledge of how to do it, and it’s always seen as a last resort. Some who required it were so wracked with guilt after that they lived alone until death after their amends were made. That was their right, but you used that foundation to build something. You are a kind soul today and that is more a testament to you than the change.”

She finished her work and stood, holding her wrist in front of her, half-hugging herself. “Corruption is such a simple thing, Deres, you know that. Most people live on the edge of it, even if they are so certain of their own decency that they don’t see it. People live their lives on the edge of evil.” Her self-loathing made her bring her eyes to the ground. “I almost took Neral. I almost ruined her I hurt many before her.”

“Most people aren’t evil, Bryana,” he said, closing the distance to her, placing his hands on her shoulders, feeling the anxiety come from her in waves. “For most life is hard, and where it’s not hard it’s tedious. If you come in and offer them the easy path they’ll take it. Then, before they know it, they’ve done terrible things to stay on it.”

“As for Neral, that was a different person and she knows that. She loves you. She hasn’t seen you that way, really, since that first night. You had done evil things yes, and even to her, but...she never really knew that person.”

She turned to him, fear in her eyes. “Be careful, my love. Both of you. It’s easy to turn. I think of you down that path to what I used to be and...I’m not certain I could fight you. I looked into her eyes and I saw that path again like a whisper in the wind and it frightens me. I’m not certain I could stand to see that in your eyes, much less you as some twisted thing I couldn’t recognize as mine.”

He pulled her tightly to him, his own heart breaking at hers laid bare. “But we have one another, Bryana. We’ll take care of each other as we always have. In some ways his may be our hardest test together thus far, yes, but we’re together for it.” He brought her chin up, “Even though we shouldn’t have been but are because someone would have followed me anyway.”

She found something happy and took hold of it tightly, wrapping her arms around him the same way. “Call it a rebellion. Do you not know all about those? I have been meaning to ask your mother about yours.”

He became playfully defensive, swatting her lightly on her behind.“My mother exaggerates.”

“Perhaps tomorrow I shall find out. I know Neral wants to know, then we can discuss it.”

“By ‘discuss’ you mean ‘torment me with forever.’”

“Forever is perhaps too long a time. Decades certainly.”

He leaned closer.“I am just going to kiss you to shut you up.”

“Can’t keep that up forever, Master, though you are free to try.”

His lips met hers and put forth his best effort but when it came time to settle with her two before the crackling fire, for a long time, as she watched the red and orange embers flit away she made certain that she was as close to them both as she could be.

The night wore on as nights on watch tended to no matter the circumstance. Pel and Hennis walked one half of the encampment while Dion and Elan walked the other. These circumstances were certainly not ordinary so it stressed them all more than it might have otherwise.

“This whole place is wrong,” Pel said, literally trying to shake off her disquiet.

“Show me where a mage trying to wipe everyone from the world is normal and that’s a place I never want to go.”

She raised her lamp as her eyes stared outward into the blackness. “It’s not even that. Well, it’s not just that. But everything is wrong: the sounds of the animals...the birds...even the bugs. It’s all wrong. It’s all too different for me.”

“Stop thinking about it,” Hennis told her, her stride measured as she followed a couple of paces behind. “Worrying about how different everything is from home keeps you from figuring out what is and isn’t normal here. We’ll get home, then you can worry about all your normal bugs.”

“There is no normal here,” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “If there is, none of us knows what it is. It’s all poisoned by the witch.”

“And that’s why we’re here.” Hennis affirmed to herself as much as to Pel. “We’re here to stop it, or at least keep it from spreading.”

A series of fast clicking sounds could be heard not too far from them along with a rustling of the bushes. Pel didn’t jump, but it seemed to startle her all the same, though her green eyes took in the world in such a way that she always seemed awed. “What was that?”

Hennis raised her lantern to peer into the darkness. It’s an animal or something.”

Pel moved her head this way and that to try to get a look, still unable to see anything in the inky black.“It’s the ‘something’ that concerns me.”

“Don’t let it. The wards will let us know. If it comes near us, we kill it. Otherwise, leave it be.”

“You trust that magic? It’s magic that’s ruining this place. I trust my eyes, ears, and sword arm.”

The bushes in the distance seemed to crackle again and Pel took a step forward, leaning towards the sound. “I’m going to check that out.”

Hennis put her hand on Pel’s shoulder. “No, you’re not. There’s no reason to. It’s not bothering us.”

The young were just that. With no experience under their belt, all they wanted to do was react. “Yes, let’s just wait until it leaps from the dark and lops a head off.” She pushed the hand from her. “You do not outrank me, Hennis.”

She pulled back, scolded, but she wouldn’t yield. “If you really feel the need to go look, we should at least tell the general that there is something to cause concern.”

“There’s no reason to wake her.”

Rank or not, Hennis made no effort to hide the irritation in her compact features. “So is it something or nothing?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

Hennis wanted to tell the general, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to lose face before Pel. She needed to show trust to get it in return. “This is stupid, Pel. I don’t know if you’re just trying to prove to yourself you’re not scared, but this is stupid and you’re being stupid. Leave your post to go look if you must, but if I lose sight of your lantern for even an eye blink, I’m calling for help.”

Pel contemplated chastising her again, but the look on the other’s face made it clear that, rank or not, this was her line in the sand. That and she realized she probably would be in trouble at that point anyway. “Fine.”

Pel stepped out, each step slow and careful as she scanned every inch that she could see and her ears were tuned to try to pinpoint anything and everything. She could feel the adrenalin flowing through her as she looked for the rustling thing, determined to find it before it found them.

But it had already found her.

A piece of Drexa watched the primitive venture further and further from safety of the group, sword in hand, looking for something and it was easy to give it something to track. It tasted her fear and that fear opened her. It was tuned and was open to be toyed with.

The warrior pushed forward, leaving the camp farther behind until only her lantern light marked anyone’s presence in the woods at all. The rational part of her mind knew that she shouldn’t have been so far out, but there would be another shifting of the leaves or a bit of shadow that would catch the edge of the light the lamp could cast and she would rush that extra step to catch it only to find nothing. That would touch the animal part of her mind that increasingly held sway and forward she went.

Her eyes darted about, her mouth drying, sweat on her brow, hand with a white-knuckle grip on her sword, ready to slash at anything that came near. So when the first feeling brushed her cheek like the fingertips of a new lover, her sword slashed right to left in a wide arc, blade doing nothing but cutting the air with a low-pitched sound. If she could have seen herself by the light she would have been shocked at the fearful, feral beast looking back at her.

The soldier was gone as she slashed again, this time left to right. Something seemed to tug at her hair so she pivoted and slashed again. The creaking of the metal on metal caused by the handle of her lamp sounded like a shrieking predator on the charge so she attacked again. Over and over she slashed until her chest was heaving and holding the sword felt like holding a tree in one hand. And the touches wouldn’t stop. Her face. Her neck. Every bit of exposed flesh was a target.

Every muscle in her body burned and the sword was too much to hold so it fell to the ground, her hand protesting in pain as the death grip she had gave way. She stood there, legs rooted to the ground and the touches kept coming now, more frequently and for longer periods before backing away as she tried to catch her breath.

Being too tired to stop them, she felt them. They weren’t so bad, really. They were gently soothing her worn body wherever they touched her, penetrating her muscles, almost kneading the flesh as they went. She couldn’t stop them anyway, was so tired, and it felt good, so she just stood there and let the touch and the warmth penetrate her exposed flesh. Minutes went by as Pel floated, eventually even swaying slightly left and right like a flower in the breeze, doing what she could to move toward the sensation.

Put down the lamp.

Her unfocused eyes closed for a long time, then opened.

I am your thoughts. I am your mind. Put down the lamp.

She put it down and followed it to the grass, standing on her spread knees, eyes staring into the dark with the feeling that something was staring back somehow. The touching was constant and tantalizing now.

I am your thoughts. I am your mind. Speak your name.

Pel’s brow creased. How could she not know her own name?

Speak your name.

It was its own release to say it. “I am Pel.”

The voice was seductive and demanding. I am your thoughts. I am your mind. I am your hands. Explore my body.

Her fingertips began to move delicately across her forehead and down her cheeks, firing her nerves as they went leaving a slightly cool trail that made her breath catch in the night air. Down her cheeks her fingers went, her left index finger making it’s way around her pouting lips before a plaintive whimper escaped them. She touched everywhere there was exposed flesh, exciting her even as her cunt began to weep, reminding her of how much of herself she couldn’t reach.

In a fit of frustration she loosened her breastplate and pulled at the padding underneath enough to reach the now soaked linen at her crotch. She dropped forward, propping herself up on one hand, sawing three fingers in and out of herself with whorish abandon. “Goddess, yessss.”

I am your Goddess. Speak the truth.

Her eyes still stared forward at that idea of someone.“You are my Goddess. You are my thoughts. You are my mind.” The last was a lustful sigh.

I am your thoughts. I am your mind. I am your hands. Drive me deeply into your mind.”

Pel came.

She thrust into herself, twisting her wrists and ignoring the pain as as each motion pushed the corruption of her Goddess more deeply into her mind, past her surface thoughts, beyond her subconscious mind, beyond the ability of mages to detect, and into the core of her being. At the right moment she would act in the best way to service the Goddess and bask in her righteousness, drowning in the submission and divine pleasure that would be her reward as she did now.

When she finally embraced reality again she flushed with embarrassment feeling her cheek to the ground knees wide and night air finally cooling her raw pussy. She felt shame for having to go through all she did with Hennis just to try to get away so she could touch herself, but it had been so long since she’d had a lover and the stress of this place and its strange sights and sounds had pushed her over the edge.

But she felt so much better now.

She hurriedly put herself back together before sheathing her sword, picking up her lamp, and making her way back to camp to see Hennis waiting for her. Her eyes quizzed the other. “Well?”

“You were right,” she said quickly, anxious to be away from the subject and back on watch. “It was nothing.”