Honey... I'm HOME! Rated MA

[Aurelianus Drak'shal]

Natalia indulged herself for a few more minutes, savouring Amari’s flesh in ways hitherto unknown. Something had changed within the redhead, and Natalia couldn’t help but silently marvel at the change in the once soft and terrified slip of a woman. The fleshcrafted tease slid her teeth into her former plaything’s skin along her collar bone, with all the gentleness of a lover. The warm, coppery tang of blood teased her palette eliciting a shiver of delight up her scarlet-hued spine. Natalia had always loved the way Amari tasted.


The other woman, Amari’s companion, was ignored by the scale-skinned vixen; but not, as expected, by the other denizens of the House of Sin. Small groups of them hungrily watched her from darkened, fur-lined alcoves or edged closer with the soft creak of leather and the whisper of blades on skin. Some came within arms reach but none of the patrons dared interfere with what was clearly official House business – Natalia wouldn’t play so gently with someone for any other reason and many of the perverse throng bore the scars to attest to that. They consoled themselves with eking their wretched pleasures from each other as they eyed the soft, untainted form in their midst. Tongues probed incisions, teeth teased ragged flaps of raw, abused flesh and fingernails raked down forms already kissed by all manner of blades and scourges.


As was always the case, the building practically breathed with life. The walls, where not covered in lavish tapestries depicting scenes of unnatural couplings and forbidden practices, ran with beads of condensation. It was not wise to dwell upon what precisely those droplets consisted of. Narcotic laced smoke coiled through the room in languid tendrils, seeming almost alive as it sought the lungs of the mass of deviants.

But the atmosphere within the palace of depravity was different from what it had been the last time the Ar’Tuel had been under its eaves. It was a subtle change, but something sour lurked in the air. A bitter aftertaste that had little to do with the acts performed here on a nightly basis The echoes of lust and pain from within resonated with a darker undertone. Something desperate and afraid.

It took a few minutes for Amari to realise what was missing. The office overlooking the main foyer, hanging like a pregnant spider on chains as thick as a man’s waist, was empty. No lights, none of the usual malevolence seeping through the mirrored windows from its occupant. The Master of the House’s absence was like a missing limb, something all too obvious once noticed.

“What is that doing here?”

The voice snapped Natalia out of her amusement like a whip-crack. She turned on her heel, eyes narrowed to slits and a vibrant edge of colour tinting the scales adorning her body.

Standing at the foot of one of the curving twin staircases, his too-lean frame encased in leather bindings, Gimmel snarled his displeasure at Amari’s arrival. The sections of his pallid skin on display were tinged with a lack of circulation, bulging around the tightly woven strips, but even as Zavine bore witness to this fresh horror she noticed his face; the off-white flesh above the man’s mouth tapered off to a smooth blankness. No eyes. No eye sockets. The barest hint of nostrils to mark out his features. Even so, as he stalked closer, hands tensed into claws at his side, the pitiful creature hiding behind Amari felt his attention as it ghosted over her.

“The Master did not summon you here,” he spat.

Natalia stepped between Amari and Gimmel, seeing the small crowd that had gathered disperse to the edges of the foyer. None of them looked away, but not one would draw attention to themselves now. Voyeurs all, but no-one in this house was fool enough to bring down the pain-artist’s ire when his temper was up.

“Aurelius didn’t tell us to turn away guests either,” she hissed, pointedly refusing to follow Gimmel’s use of the honorific title their tiefling leader so detested.

“In fact, Aurelius hasn’t left that gods-damned hole of his in months and has no more spoken to you than he has to me.”

There was a note of something in Natalia’s voice that Amari had never heard before.

Sadness. Regret.

With a wordless snarl of hatred, the blind former-man took a step forward, sharpened sickle-blades of bone sliding from the meat of his forearms. Above the sudden silence that fell – as close to silence as the palace of degeneracy ever came, anyway – Amari and her companion could hear the soft pitter-patter of blood dripping from them onto the cold, stone floor.

“Step aside Gimmel. Maybe she can do something about him. Fuck knows you haven’t helped any.”

Clearly he was battling his better judgment, muscles straining and teeth creaking in his tensed jaw, but after a strained moment Gimmel backed down. His tongue slid wetly around his thin lips, and with a rattling breath the seething murder turned on his heel and stalked into the depths of the House. The gathered deviants parted before him and he was gone. No doubt to haunt the lowest levels of the building where he would find someone or something to vent his cold fury on.

Natalia took a moment to gather herself before glancing over her shoulder at Amari with a look of rejection etched deeply across her emerald eyes.

“I’ll take you to him.”

***

Natalia took Amari and her.. pet? through the building quickly, keeping to the back halls. The usual sounds dogged their steps; leather on yielding flesh, screams of some hungry longing between agony and ecstasy. She said nothing, shoulders hunched from Amari’s questions. With every passing moment the unease and tension rose.

The pair of outsiders were finally ushered out a set of oak double-doors, opening out onto what in any other building might have been a back garden. A wide square sat between the lurking wings of the House of Sin, the hard-packed earth frozen solid by Salvar’s embrace. Even as Summer slowly receded, the icy expanse of Knife’s Edge saw little respite from the bitter cold. The trio’s breath misted before them as the still-naked murderer-whore led them past rows of stained stocks and creaking gibbets to what had once been a well.

The edges had been widened, the shaft dug out to expose a dark hole like the rotting opening left by a pulled tooth.

With a grunt of effort, Natalia heaved back a rusted iron grate that covered the hole. The smell of spoiled meat tinged with the coppery reek of old blood wafted out like the foetid breath of some gargantuan monstrosity. Even for this place, the smell raised hairs on the back of the neck, triggering some primal sense of fear.

“Nat, wha—"

Amari turned to question Natalia again, but the scaled woman was already moving. With a firm shove both Ar’Tuel were sent plunging down into the darkness.

The heavy grate clanged shut over them, and squealing locks were slammed into place. Natalia’s voice followed them down into the damp, cloying hole.

“Follow the tunnel. And.. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. Help him, please.”

With that, she was gone leaving Amari and Zavine alone.