Kane walked back to the main room, where all the slaughter had happened,
then proceeded towards the far end, where he saw another door. He opened the
door slowly, weapons in hand, and was almost knocked out by the stench. It was the
galley, but, what a galley. Rotten food laying everywhere, barrels of booze
fermenting, dead animals decomposing. It was a brightly lit room, but the stench was
horrible. Tables and benches overturned, broken, even a few drunkards laying
asleep. How the hell did they not wake up with all the ruckus going on around them.
Kane walked over towards one and kicked him in the ribs. He did not move. Probably
dead, how amusing. He walked over towards the cook and did the same. He didn’t
move either. Kane turned around and started walking, but he felt a presence. A
deadly intent, an intent to hurt or kill him. The two blades emerged instantly in Kane’s
hands and he turned around. The cook pulled his arm back, going for a stab, holding
a big kitchen knife in his hand. Kane blocked the move with one of his blades and cut
his arm off at the wrist with the other in a fluent combination. He howled like a
banshee, falling down to the floor, gripping for his stump with his left hand.
‘’Do you want me to help you? Save your miserable life?’’ Kane asked him
without an inch of emotion in his voice.
‘’Yes, yes, yes! I want to live! Ooooh, the pain. Why the hell did you have to
cut my hand off!’’ he yelled.
‘’Because you were trying to stab me’’ Kane said nonchalantly. He did not
reply, instead just howled on and was trying to eb the blood coming out of his stump.
Kane used a second degree blood forge on his blades to heat them up and burn his
stump to make the blood stop pouring out. However, it did nothing for the man’s pain.
Though he wouldn’t die for now, he would be howling for a long time to come.
‘’Is there any edible food here?’’ Kane asked the cook who nodded over to the
right, behind the counter. Kane walked over and through another door into a small,
dark room. Luckily his eyes were used to darkness, so he had no trouble spotting the
other lone figure. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind, all alone in a corner, just
behind a stack of crates.
‘’What is your name, kid?’’ Kane asked the boy as he approached. He
screamed, probably thinking he would be killed as well, now that he was found. ‘’ I
will do you no harm lass, just tell me your name’’ Kane said reassuringly.
‘’I.. i.. its Thanis sir’’ he replied stuttering.
‘’Do not fear me boy, i will do nothing to you. If i would want to i would have
done it by now. Are you one of the kidnapped villagers from Ithice?’’ Kane asked.
The boy nodded enthusiastically.
‘’How do you know, sir?’’ Thanis asked.
‘’I was asked to take care of the filth that done what they did to your little
village. Trust me, they are all dead’’ Kane said, trying to reassure the boy, but instead
the boy got frightened again.
‘’Do you know how to cook, kid?’’ Kane asked. He just nodded as fast as he
could. The poor soul. ‘’Would you like to live?’’ Kane asked again. He nodded again.
‘’Then stand up and move it. Grab as much as fresh ingredients as you can and
come outside with me. Start preparing food for when my companions are back. I will
help you with starting the fire’’Kane said. He took some meat with one hand, and with
the other he slashed the old cook dead as they passed him. Thanis looked at Kane
but he just shrugged and lead the way out, telling him to cling on to his cowl and not
to look at all the corpses laying around. He stumbled a few times but in the end they
made it outside. He dropped the oversized bag to the ground and got dragged
himself with it to his knees. He tensed for a moment, as if afraid of being scolded,
slapped or whatever. When he noticed nothing happened, he looked up and saw
Kane looking the other way, so he stood up himself.
‘’I am getting some firewood. U start preparing the food’’ Kane said. Thanis
nodded to him and opened the big bag. Kane turned around and walked a bit,
gathering smaller branches and dry wood for the fire. When he got back, he saw
Thanis had prepared most of the stuff and was waiting on him. Pottery, spoons, a
long knife. He must have gone back inside, despite being scared to death. Kane’s
respect and appreciation for this kid went just a bit higher than it was a few minutes
before. Kane walked over to him and put the firewood down then started the fire
without speaking to the kid, stood up and walked towards the cave. ‘’Listen, when a
huge wolf and a pretty girl come from over there’’ Kane said, pointing his finger to the
general direction of the river, ‘’tell them that you are now a servant of Kane and you
are preparing food for everyone. Also, tell them that i am inside looking for any
valuable stuff’’ he said and turned around to move.
‘’Please wait, master.’’ the kid shot out. ‘’The bandit boss had a sorcerer, who
could go invisible!’’ he said excitedly. ‘’His cape made him go invisible! And he had a
very expensive looking dagger!’’ Now that was an interesting item if it could be found.
‘’What do you think about this, kid.’’ Kane said. ‘’A sword was appearing and
disappearing around me, stabbing me during my fighting. Could it be possible that
the person was hiding the sword under their cloak, so i could not see it?’’ Thanis
nodded excitedly. ‘’All right, i will go look for it then. Thank you for sharing the
information, please go on with preparing dinner, alright?’’ Kane said gently.Thanis
went back to cooking and Kane went in back again.
Everything was as he had left it. Except there was a little bit more blood,
having been drained of it, the corpses would soon start to rot. Kane walked casually
towards the main area where the fighting had been going on and searched for the
sword. He kept overturning bodies, or body parts, tossing them about, searching for
the bloody sword. After a long while, he finally found it, under a pile of corpses. He
felt around with his hands and stumbled upon something physical that was not there,
or, it was there but it was not visible. He took the body and carried it to a clean part of
the room, where no blood was laying on the floor and put the body down and started
touching the body with his hands, trying to figure out how to get the cape off the
body. Kane fumbled around the chest and neck area, or what he assume was that
area, loosened the cape and tore it off. In front of Kane a man appeared, dead,
drained of all blood. His hand was still clutching the short sword. Suddenly, Kane felt
the urge to take that sword out of his dead hands and stab him repeatedly until he
was a gory mess. He dared to attack Kane from behind, the insolent worm! What had
happened to chivalry?
‘’Breathe, Kane. Slowly, in and out. No need to rage over a damn corpse’’
Kane told himself. He checked through the dead man’s pockets and found a few
trinkets, a talisman and some precious stones. Then he walked over to the goon
leader and checked him. Again gems and gold coins. ‘’Sure is a nice haul’’ Kane
mused to himself. Deciding not to look in each bandits pockets and hoping there was
something in there that was worth something, Kane walked over to the throne,
checked around it and there it was, a small casket. In it was a vast number of gold
coins and precious gems. Roughly about a half a thousand pieces he guessed.
‘’The scum must have pillaged a lot of villages and people to have gathered
this large a number of gold coins’’ Kane said to himself, taking the casket in his other
hand, since one had the cape and the two purses holding them. Kane stood up,
looked around one last time and walked towards the exit. The closer he got, the
fainter the stench of death was filling his nostrils and the lesser the urge to hurt
someone or something. When he exited the cave he saw Alpha and Janine standing
next to Thanis, talking and laughing. Kane walked over to them and greeted them.
She jumped at the sight of Kane, literally. She ran into his arms, hugged him and
kissed him fully on the lips.
‘’Thank you, thank you, thank you!’’ she said cheerfully, kissing him again.
‘’What the hell is going on?’’ Kane asked in return, baffled.
‘’You saved my brother!’’ she said, still holding Kane tightly. Now this was a
piece of good news.
‘’O, thats good. I didn’t know that Thanis was your brother. I just assumed he
was one of the survivors from Ithice. O damn it, i forgot to free the other ones from
the dark room. I have to hurry back in, i will be right back’’ Kane said, turning around
and running into the cave again. Some moments later he knocked on the heavy door,
the sound an echo in all the silence. Some noises could be heard from the other side,
as if feet shuffling.
‘’I am opening this door to free you. Stay where you are until i tell you
otherwise’’ Kane said, trying to reassure the people on the other side of the door.
Slowly, he moved the door until light spilled inside. A little girl was standing on the
other side of the door, looking up at him with big blue eyes.
‘’Are you here to save us, mister?’’ the little girl said. Kane’s heart broke at that
moment and he fell through his knees hugging the little girl.
‘’Yes, i am’’ he barely managed to say. The rest of the prisoners slowly
approached Kane, bowing to him as if he were a saviour, which he in all honesty
was, but he didn’t feel comfortable with how they bowed to him as if he were royalty
‘’Everyone, please follow me. Do not look at the floor, it is full of dead bandits.
You do not wish to dream about this place’’ Kane said and lead the group outside.
Some minutes later, the whole group was standing at the fire he had made a bit
earlier. The food Thanis had prepared wasn’t enough for all, but Kane and Alpha had
denied their portions and gotten more meat for Thanis to make for the group of
seventeen. There were seven girls and ten women. After they had eaten, Janine had
shown them the river where they had gone to bathe, so the women did the same. In
the meanwhile, Janine had started a big fire close to the river bed and after bathing,
all of the women had washed their clothes and hung them near the big fire to dry
faster. Kane had just been sitting at their own fire and not moved at all, thinking about
everything that had happened that day.
First the massacre in Ithice, a sight which had embedded itself in his
memories for all time and now this. His own massacre which he would remember
until he died as well. Janine came over and sat next to him, her head leaning on his
shoulder.
‘’Thank you again, Kane’’ Janine said. ‘’You have given us back our lives, you
have saved these women and children from a horrible fate. I honestly do not know
how we could ever repay you, but, i hope that one day we will be able to’’.
‘’No worries, milady. The pleasure was all mine. Though honestly, during the
ordeal something has happened to me, which i rather hadn’t experienced, but, what
is done is done’’ Kane replied and gazed off into the sky, a dark, brooding look on his
face. ‘’Tomorrow we need to move. We will bring the women and the children to
Homitage and settle them in with someone. I will give them some money to start out
with and then we will see how to proceed. Are you all right with that?’’ Kane asked
Janine.
‘’Yes, it is more than we dare to ask for, kind sir’’ she said with a smiled, curled
around Kane and kissed him again on the lips, ending in a long embrace. Kane’s
heart started pounding in his throat and he started sweating. Janine feigned
ignorance and acted like nothing was amiss, staying in his embrace for a long while.
Thanis and Alpha joined them in the meanwhile, just sitting down and gazing
up at the sky, enjoying the view of the countless stars, until Kane broke the silence.
‘’Thanis, is this the cape?’’ he asked. Thanis looked at it and shook his head.
‘’I do not know, master. I have never seen the sorcerer, only heard about him.
Tho, i have heard rumours about the cape. They said that, if you are to be invisible,
you have to share your blood with the cape. Now, what they meant with that, master,
i do not know, or, if it is indeed true’’ he finished and looked up at the stars again.
‘’We will have to take a look at that when we get back to Homitage’’ Kane said
to no one in particulair.
Later when the mood got a bit better, Thanis was telling us about his
experience in the hellhole we saved him from, about all the people they had robbed,
killed, tortured. How they had threatened him they would kill his sister if he wasn’t a
good boy, if he tried to run. He was barely sixteen and had gone through a lot. Kane
decided he would take care of him now, take care of both of them.
‘’Hey big guy. What do you think about them?’’ Kane asked.
‘’Hmmm, they look tasty, but, aside from that, i think they are decent people.
Honest people. We could definitely use them. If nothing else, you will pass as a
family with them around, so you will stand out less where ever we end up, one day.’’
‘’Right. Say, ever since you appeared i have been feeling somewhat strange. I
am confused, angry, horny, filled with bloodlust, rage, destruction, menace. My mood
swings were far and between, now they are almost hourly. Do you know anything
about that?’’ Kane asked him seriously. He was silent for a long moment, looking up
at the sky, as if seeking an answer in the stars. Kane looked up as well, looking at
the dark sky, filled with countless tiny lights. They say, every star was supposed to
present a soul, a life. How stupid of them. There were countless stars up there in the
sky, and far less humans. Alpha’s thoughts broke the silence.
‘’I think, that when i appeared, i appeared as a part of you. A part of your soul
was taken out of you, and from there i was born. I also think, that most of the soul
that i came to be from, was your good side, and some of your bad. Most of your bad
side was left inside of you, hence you losing control so often. Of course, this is only
speculation, master.’’ he said.
‘’Stop it with the master already, idiot. If you are a part of me, how the hell am i
your master?’’ Kane asked angrily. ‘’Before, i would have only gotten angry over a
huge insult or an attack by another lover or something of the like. But now, i get
angry over anything’’ Kane said.
‘’Alright, i will call you Kane, or just talk to you’’ he replied. They were silent
again. Thanis and Janine were staring at them, as if waiting for an answer to an
unasked question.
‘’Huh?’’ Kane asked and smiled sheepishly.
‘’As i was saying, master, what is our next destination?’’ Thanis asked.
‘’Ohh, right. We will move the whole group to Homitage and leave them there,
taken care of, don’t worry. Then we will see what to do next. Also, i am glad you are
with us, Thanis. Please cook more for us and take care of us in the future’’ Kane
replied. Thanis’s face brightened and his smile widened. At that moment, it was as if
the whole world was given to the boy. Praise. Something he surely was not familiar
with.
‘’Thank you master!’’ he almost yelled out in delight. ‘’Please, go rest now. I
will take care of everything else so you do not have to. Please, do not feel obliged to
sit in our company’’ he said.
‘’It is not an obligation kiddo. We are family now, and i will take care of you
two. Pardon me, WE will take care of you both. Just know your roles, and you will be
happy as long as you are under our wing’’ Kane said. Alpha shot him a strange look.
‘’I couldn’t have said it better myself’’ he mused and turned his head away
from Kane again.
‘’What? I’m not a piece of stone, nor a heartless being. It just happens that i
have a lot of positive feelings and emotions towards Janine’’ Kane said.
‘’Yea right, towards her body you have’’ Alpha barked back. Ugh, he sure did
struck a nerve, Kane thought to himself. To be frank, he lusted for her. That didn’t
mean he wouldn’t have any feelings for her. Later maybe? No, the feelings were
already there. The pounding in his heart and throat was proof of that. He stood up
and looked at her. She dropped her gaze towards the fire after meeting my eyes. She
knew what she had to do, even though she didn’t like it.
‘’Good night all’’ Kane said and walked away from them, heading towards the
forest. There was a bushy area, perfect for hiding. Though Kane wanted Janine, it
didn’t mean the poor kid had to watch them do things. ‘’Alpha, be vigilant’’ Kane said
through their link.
He just sent a thought of acknowledgement. Kane took a thick blanket out of
his backpack and prostrated it on the ground, laid down and waited. Kane knew he
wouldn’t be able to sleep without her visiting, but, neither was he going to make her
come to him. He would try to treat her with as much respect as he was able to,
depending on it if she deserved it, of course. He would take good care of them, feed
them well, keep them safe, give them a home. But they would have to work for it, he
would make sure of that. All kinds of jumbled thoughts went through his head as he
heard a rustling towards the fire, where he had left them.
‘’Will you have me sit with you, kind sir?’’ a gentle female voice said. Kane
found her eyes staring at him, void from any hate or malice.
‘’Sure, sit with me please’’ Kane said and motioned for her to sit next to him.
Somehow he was nervous, as this was unlike anything he had done before. Usually it
was just him flirting with women and bedding them, this time however, it was
different. ‘’Are you afraid?’’ Kane asked. She just nodded slowly, dropping her gaze
to her feet. ‘’You do not have to be. I think i showed you i harbour no malice towards
you by killing the bandits and saving your little brother.’’ She just nodded again.
‘’It is not just that. I saw what you are capable of. You are.. like a monster’’ she
said softly. ‘’I am afraid if i ever say something wrong, or do something to displease
you, that you will just kill me without a second thought’’. With those words she struck
him worse than any weapon could. Did it really look like that? That he would just kill
with ease, as if it was nothing? Was he really like that? No! He was not! He would not
be like that. He would not allow himself to be like that.
‘’If i tell you that i will never hurt you or your brother, unless you try to hurt me
or Alpha, would you believe me?’’ Kane asked. She looked up at him, with those big
blue eyes. The innocence in her eyes rattled him even more. ‘’Will you believe me?’
Kane asked again.
‘’Yes..’’ she said with a low voice. As if afraid that if she said it any louder he
would harm her. Damn it, why was she so afraid of him? It’s not like he attacked
people first. They were just bandits, they deserved to die!
‘’Go’’ Kane said. ‘’I do not wish you like this’’ and he turned away from her.
She was puzzled and afraid at the same time. He felt her hesitation at that moment.
She got up and stood right behind him for a while, probably thinking about what to
do. Then he heard a sound, like a piece of clothing dropping to the ground. She
kneeled behind him and tried to undress him, pulling his shirt off and unbuckling his
pants. Kane stood up, still facing her with his back. She pulled his pants down and
threw them aside, then embraced him from behind, her soft skin touching his. She
was as hot as fire. Her hands went up to his chest and embraced him, pressing her
body hard into his. After a long, joyful moment, her hands reached down and they got
lost in the moment.
‘’Are you a virgin?’’ Kane asked. She looked away and nodded slowly. ‘’Damn.
Marry me, okay?’’ Kane said. She looked up at him, confused. He put up as much as
possible of a sincere look and looked her into her big blue eyes again.
‘’Do you mean it?’’ she whispered.
‘’Yes i do. There is something about you, that i can not resist. Be it fate that
has brought me here, the hand of the Gods or just pure coincidence. I do not care,
but what i do care about is, what happens to you. It’s as if i were under a spell’’ Kane
said.
‘’She laughed softly. Well my dear, you are’’ she said.
‘’Huh?’’ Kane said, dumbfounded. ‘’I am?’’ He asked.
Suddenly he got thrown off of her, as if an invisible hand picked him up and
dropped him a few meters away from her. He stood up and looked over at her. She
stood up also and was gazing at him. From his face to his manhood. She whistled
appreciatively, knowing a good tool when she saw one. He couldn’t help himself but
look her over as well. She looked like a Goddess. Everything was perfect, every inch
and line on her body. But the face, the face was beyond Godlike. It was pure lust,
desire, raw, pure pleasure. Her smile brought Kane to his knees and he bowed down
in front of her. Bloodlust took over and he summoned his swords, instinctively. He
walked over towards her and panic was gracing her face. She was terrified. A mere
meter away from her, Kane pulled up his hand to cut her down as something hit him
head on, sending him sprawling to the ground. During the moment of bloodlust and,
well, pure lust, he hadn’t noticed anyone walking up towards him. I looked up and it
was Alpha. He was keeping Kane down with his own body, pinning Kane’s arms to
the ground with his paws. A few moments passed and Kane came to his senses.
‘’What happened?’’ Kane asked confusedly.
‘’That is what i would like to know as well’’ Alpha said, his fangs bearing
towards Janine She flinched upon seeing his fangs pointing towards her and
stumbled backwards, falling on her back.
‘’Nice view from down here’’ Kane said, looking up directly into her
womanhood. She hurriedly sat upright, covering herself with her hands. ‘’You can get
off me now, Alpha’’ and he did. Kane stood up as well, not bothering to cover himself
up.
‘’Could you please