Chapter 50

“You’re hurting him.”

Kashka glared up at the giant blue woman. “We’re both in his head. Do you think I don’t know that already?”

“Then you don’t care?” asked Ikuno.

“Of course, I care!” the cat-girl hissed as her fangs grew longer and her face took on more cat-like features. “But I miss Ratt, and I’m angry I had to leave her, AGAIN! I know I’m hurting Kal when he’s just trying to keep me safe, and that makes me angrier!”

Ikuno stared at the seething cat and tapped a clawed finger on her chin for a few seconds before saying, “I have an idea.”

Grabbing Kashka by the hand, the oni dragged her unceremoniously out of their magical tent, calling over her shoulder, “Kal! We’re leaving! Be back in a little while ... or maybe tomorrow!”

“Wait! What?!” said Kal, poking his head out of the library just in time to see the girls slip outside.

“Where are you going?” he asked over their mental bond. Over the same bond, he felt Ikuno pull Kashka onto her back and start forming the rune in her head for the Speed spell. With the cat-girl secured to her back, she activated the spell and took off across the plains northwest of Silvermoon, headed west. A moment later, the oni’s presence over the bond faded dramatically as she dampened their connection. The spell, combined with the large woman’s long legs, could cover large distances alarmingly fast, and it wasn’t long before their connection over the bond faded until he could only tell the oni was alive.

Kal turned his attention to Kashka since she had not muted their bond, but the cat was as clueless as he was about Ikuno’s destination. Looking through her eyes didn’t help since Kashka had to keep her head behind Ikuno’s back, or the late-fall wind rushing by threatened to freeze her eyes in their sockets.

Kashka noticed him in her head and muted the connection as Ikuno had.

Sighing, the mage turned back to the book sitting open on a small table in the tent’s library he had been reading. Those few moments were the only ones since shortly after they left Silvermoon she had opened up to him. Even then, she probably let her guard down as Ikuno dragged her off. Otherwise, the cat had kept their connection muted and actively avoided him. Which included not joining him and Ikuno in bed at night.

It had only been a few weeks, but he missed her. Kashka had been a constant part of his life since he rescued her in Fazal. Even when he was paying for their fare aboard The Scarlet Bitch by tending to the needs of its monster girl crew, Kashka was always there in the back of his mind and often visited him in between performing his ‘duties.’

Despite traveling together and sleeping in the same tent each night for the past few weeks, it felt like she was further away from him than the day he saved her from her former master.

And Ikuno was right. It was hurting him. The oni mentioned last night after they made love how Kashka’s absence wounded him and how her continued refusal to open up to him kept picking at, and deepening, that wound.

Kal didn’t like the implications of what it would feel like if, or when, she decided to go back to sailing aboard The Scarlet Bitch.

“Hehehe. I have you all to myself for a little while.”

Kal looked to the side to see a short, nude, glowing woman with fairy wings. Usually, she was quite a bit smaller, small enough to sit on his shoulder, but could grow to this size using the energy of a will-o’-wisp they defeated more than a year ago. However, her larger form seemed to shrink with each use, so she only brought it out for certain occasions, typically when she was in the mood.

Kal returned her lusty leer with a soft smile. “I know it’s been a while since we had any time with just the two of us, Ria,” he said as he sat down in front of the book and held his arms out to her, “but would you mind just letting me hold you for a bit?”

The leer disappeared, replaced by a look of concern. “What’s going on?” she asked. Her wings vanished as she climbed into his lap and sat down.

“I’m just worried about the future and need to hold you for a bit.”

“Fine, as long as you give me a good dicking later. I shrink less when you cum inside me.”

Kal chuckled. “I’d be happy to.”

The bandit stepped back into the camp, grinning from ear to ear as he cinched his belt. “Whose next?” he called out, then chuckled, “The bitch ain’t got much left in ‘er.”

“Liar! She’s taken damn near every cock here,” answered a man on the other side of the Ripping Claws’ camp, followed by a round of laughter.

“That she has,” the bandit said, taking the mug of ale handed to him. “But unless ya like cold-blooded monster girl pussy, ya oughtta get in there soon. She won’t be warm much longer,” he said, sitting down around one of the camp’s three fires.

The Ripping Claws found this copse of trees out on the plains north of Silvermoon long ago and formed the clearing they now sat in. They expanded the campsite enough to make a ring of tents that blocked any light from searching eyes, with the surrounding trees finishing the job. Finishing out the ring were the two carts, one loaded with kegs of ale and one of food and supplies, and the boss’s much larger tent. Horses grazed a short distance from the carts, and the lone tent the bandit had just come from sat downwind, separated from the main ring.

One of the Ripping Claws’ newer members got to his feet and stepped out of the main camp, headed toward the outlying tent.

The man who had just come from there watched the newcomer for a moment before turning to the bandit beside him. “Ye were on watch earlier, weren’t ya? Not getting yerself a turn?”

The man looked toward where the rookie Ripping Claw disappeared before grimacing. “I prefer pussy that hasn’t been stuffed with the jizz of thirty men already. I’ll wait for the next one,” he replied before gulping down the last of his ale. “Time for another mug,” he announced before standing up and making his way toward the cart stacked with kegs they had commandeered earlier in the week.

The newer bandit hesitated outside the tent. He didn’t really want to do this. It wasn’t that he cared about the woman. She was just some bitch that the scouting team found out in the forest alone, but he wasn’t excited about sticking his cock in a pussy, mouth, or ass that the entire camp had used. But he was new, and until some of the older Ripping Claws got killed, he was stuck waiting his turn.

The smell coming from the tent also made him pause. The mixture of semen, blood, saliva, urine, and feces made him want to gag. This was saying a lot since bandits weren’t known for their hygiene, and the Ripping Claws were no better. The entire camp stunk. Even the boss’s whore reeked, although for her, it was a mixture of sex juices and perfume instead of dank body odor.

The boss occasionally lent his whore out to his friends or to a Ripping Claw who performed exceptionally well in a raid. However, he was neither the boss’s friend nor had he done anything to stand out, at least enough to receive such a reward. So, the nearly dead woman in the tent was the only chance he was going to get to empty his balls in something that wasn’t his hand.

Sucking in a deep breath of the chill and slightly cleaner air outside, he pushed the tent flap aside and stepped in.

Inside was dark and cold. They kept these tents on the outskirts of the camp, away from the fires, so that the woman’s screams wouldn’t be loud enough to disrupt the conversation and merrymaking around the campfires. Enough light spilled in through the flap as he entered that he was able to make out the thin table and the woman’s form bent over the top of it with her ankles strapped to one set of legs and her wrists attached to the other.

The bandit felt like something was amiss, but it wasn’t enough to overpower the erection fighting to get free of his pants. As he stepped forward, he realized he couldn’t hear her breathing. Usually, after a day of getting brutally fucked by the Ripping Claws, these women were a gasping, wheezing mess.

“Dammit,” he grumbled, undoing his belt. The bandit didn’t like it, but this wouldn’t be his first time sticking his dick into a cum-filled corpse. Hopefully, she would at least still be warm.

Stroking his cock to keep it hard while holding his pants up with the other hand, he made his way to the table. Once behind the woman, the bandit let his pants go and put a hand on her ass to help him line up with her pussy in the low light and, to a lesser degree, see how warm she still was. He immediately froze as his hand encountered...

“Fur?” he said aloud a moment before the woman on the table burst into a flurry of action. More quickly than he could even think of reacting, pain blossomed on either side of his neck, and warm liquid began pouring down his chest and shoulders.

He tried to call for help, but only the blood filling his lungs sputtered out from his lips. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed at his neck, trying in vain to stop the flow of his precious lifeblood. A gust of wind lifted the tent flap enough to see his attacker. As his vision went dark, he looked up to see a cat-girl with eyes that shone in the near darkness, naked except for the malicious grin on her face and his blood staining her claws.

“Well?” Ikuno asked over the bond.

“I think you might have been right,” Kashka replied. “How is the girl doing?”

“Rough. They used her pretty hard, and she’s knocking on death’s door, but I think we got to her in time. I wouldn’t mind Kal being here with his ability to focus on healing where she needs it most, but she’ll pull through. It will just take a bit longer. But this trip was for you, so go have fun. These fuckers deserve everything you’re about to give them.”

Kashka briefly considered returning to Ikuno and getting her cloak and gear, then looked at her bloodied claws. The same malicious grin she wore as she watched the bandit collapse appeared on her face. No, there was a catharsis in killing that man with her natural weapons, a release, and she was here to vent some of the anger inside her.

“Take his dagger,” Ikuno sent over the bond as the cat approached the tent’s entrance. “Your claws can’t stop a steel blade.”

“That won’t matter if they never touch me,” Kashka replied with a hint of haughtiness even as she went back for the dagger.

She flipped the bandit’s dagger in the air as she made her way out of the tent, noting that it was shoddily made and that the balance was all off. But that was a small matter as she didn’t expect it to get much use.