~~~ Chapter Notes ~~~
Loki and Kiro returned from the monster hunt in the middle of the night. All chapters in this tale are complete and have been submitted. Hopefully, the kind, gracious, smartly-attired, and outrageously attractive admins will release a new episode every day or so.
~~~ Kiro's Quarters ~~~
I woke to a hand on my shoulder. It was softer than Kiro's. Whoever it was, they smelled better than him too. I rolled over and opened my eyes. It was Dora.
"She still pissed?" I asked.
Dora nodded. She glanced up as Kiro came into the room.
"My head is pounding...," he complained.
"Come over here and I'll clear it," I told him.
"It's not an injury..."
"Let me try anyway," I objected.
He leaned over me and I squeezed his face in my fingers.
"Seriously?!" he said, laughing. "Hey! That worked!"
Dora giggled. He grinned at her. She poked me in the ribs.
"Alright! Alright! I'm up. I don't want to go to school today, mother..."
I felt her fingers closing on my butt-cheek and jumped up.
She and Kiro were both laughing.
I chased her around the sofa. She sprinted for the door and raced down the hall. I was hot on her trail.
The guard heard us coming and got the door open for her. I'd need to have a chat with him later...
She ducked into the room and I sprinted inside - and quickly slid to a stop.
The look.
The one your mother gives you when she's discovered that you shaved the cat.
With the razor she uses for her legs.
Which she discovered while trying to use it for just that purpose.
The sneer of Death is a baby's giggle compared to this look.
I was a man in a deep hole, holding a shovel. I could keep my mouth shut - or I could dig myself a little deeper.
"Listen...," I said...
"Shut up."
"I love you?"
"You two dumbasses..."
The tutor behind us, checking the girls lesson-work, cleared her throat.
Kira spun on her.
"He convinced the prince to chop off his head - so that he could transfer the injury to the demon bear! All because Kiro wanted some stupid trophy! I watched my ignorant brother slash his blade through this fool's neck. I watched his head separate from his body as blood fountained from the wound like a geyser. I watched his head roll across the floor of the cave with a stupid grin on his lips as he stared at his own ass."
The tutor looked at me like I was the dumbest son-of-a-bitch in the entire world. Kira turned around, vindicated.
For some reason, though, I was more hurt by the shocked looks of Alia, Lia, Nala, and the rest of the children.
"In hindsight," I began to apologize, "that was probably not..."
"If I didn't love you more than my own life, I would kill you myself," she said quietly.
The feeling of those words - striking me - was similar to the feeling when I touched that necrotic blade to my arm.
I looked down at my feet and kept my mouth shut.
See, I can do smart things sometimes.
"Get your shit and let's go finish this," she said finally.
"I'm ready whenever you are," I told her.
"Let's go visit Mila and get some food," she directed.
"Can I come?" Nala asked.
"Stay here with Alia, Lia, and the others," Kira told her.
The little girl's pout disappeared when her cousin gave her "the look".
At the kitchens, I had to stand in the middle of the room with my head down and endure the shocked reactions from Mila and the rest of the cooks as Kira told the whole story again.
The prince walked in just as she finished. He took one look at the faces arrayed against him, spun on his heels, and hurried away - leaving me alone with the wolves.
Mila didn't give me any food at all. She gave it all to her cousin - while giving me the same look that the tutor had given me upstairs. I sighed. That got me glares. I focused on breathing without making noise - while staring at my shoes.
Five minutes later, they were still clucking like a bunch of hens. I got fed up with it all and portaled back to the cave.
I was halfway out of the thing when I heard Kira hollering for me.
At first, she sounded mad. I kept walking. She switched to just being irritated. I didn't slow down. She tried to justify castigating me. I turned west - towards the enemy camp - and continued on with what I'd already planned to do the night before.
"Loki...," she said, racing after me.
I gave a heavy sigh, stopped, and turned to face her. I was just a little pissed.
"I fucked up," I told her. "I get it, alright? I've got shit to do. If you all want to stand around and yammer on and on about what an idiot I am, then, by all means..."
"I'm sorry."
She didn't justify anything. She just waited to see if I'd forgive her.
"Come on," I said. "Let's go fuck some shit up."
I turned and headed off again. She caught up to me and took my hand. I squeezed her fingers.
We walked probably a half-mile before she spoke again.
"I tried to finger myself after I stormed off last night..."
"This morning..."
"Yeah, whatever... I couldn't get myself off."
"And?"
"I'm horny, you bastard," she complained.
"I promise to bend you over a pile of corpses later and fuck the shit out of you. Happy?"
"Yeah."
We went invisible and continued to hold hands. We missed the first scout completely, but lucked into the second one. I put my hand over his mouth and Kira slit his throat. When we found the next scout, I realized our angle was off. We killed that one and backtracked to get the one that we'd missed. These guys weren't that horrible at their jobs, but I could see through Kira's invisibility - so coordinating our attacks was child's play.
As we finished off the last scout, she gave an excited yip and leapt into my arms.
"I can see you!" she whispered into my ear.
"That's gonna take all of the mystery out of fucking you while we're invisible," I told her.
"Spoilsport..."
We swept into the enemy camp from the southwest - walking through the support units' campsites hand-in-hand - completely visible. A few curious folks just watched us pass by - entirely unaware that I planned to find their leader and remove their entire command structure.
We weren't challenged until we got to the commander's tent. As we approached the entrance, one of the guards stepped in front of Kira. She acted like she was going to kiss him and then slit his throat. She disappeared. The other guard looked at me in confusion as his buddy's blood gushed down over his chest. An invisible blade entered his right eye and he screamed.
Up to that point, it might have been a quick in-and-out. Now, we had announced ourselves to everyone close enough to hear the man's agonizing death.
"Messy...," I told her. "I don't need any spectators when I'm plowing that tight little cunt of yours. Now you've guaranteed that we'll have an audience."
"You're no fun..."
An old guy in robes emerged from the tent, immediately raised his hand, and fired one of those sparkly orb things at me. I heal/absorbed it almost at the same time as it struck my face. He stared at me, dumbstruck. Kira slashed his throat and shoved him on top of the first guard.
She pulled the flap back. I heard the "thunk" of a thick fibrous cord suddenly going taut and my future wife turned to face me with a crossbow bolt stuck between her tits.
I stepped forward and grabbed the quarrel to remove it. It was kind of stuck. She squirmed a little as I pulled it free. I healed the wound just in time to hear the crossbow fire again.
"Fuck, that hurts...," she complained.
I spun her to face the inside of the tent, pulled the bolt from her back, and healed her again.
"Ready or not, here I come...," she teased.
There were a dozen frowning men inside of the large tent, standing around the war-table, each of them facing my fiancée as she strolled in like she owned the place.
I took the wounds that I healed from her and sent them at the left-most and right-most individuals - reducing the number of opponents to ten.
She turned around and glared at me.
"What?" I asked.
"Those were mine...," she complained.
I held my hands up in surrender.
