Chapter 20:
Bushwhacked
Rebecca loved sex.
She craved it, just as any Lapine does, and had many lovers and flings over the years.
But sex with Carol was different; it was intense in a way she had never before experienced.
The cherry-haired woman was confident and attentive, but also commanding, dominating even. They had been dating now for a few weeks and she hadn’t eased up in that regard at all.
So it came as no surprise that she had taken charge the previous night and seemed to be perfectly happy never to relinquish that role.
Which was just as well because the enamoured Lapine never wanted her to, swept up in things the way she was.
After another long night of lovemaking the pair had fallen asleep entwined in each other’s arms.
And when morning came, so did they, at least twice.
Now they lay in Rebecca’s narrow bed, naked and sweaty from their exertions as they basked in the afterglow.
Carol was flat on her back, with the Lapine nuzzled up against her side, no room really for them to both fit any other way.
Her head was resting above the human’s breast and her ears flopped over her shoulder, while her hand played over Carol’s stomach, drawing little patterns to amuse herself.
Her exploratory digits found something curious though, which caused her to sit up.
“Wow, this look like it hurt! What happened?”
With concern on her face she trailed her index finger over a large and slightly oval scar below one of Carol’s weighty breasts.
The dark-haired woman’s look turned distant, her eyes haunted.
“I made a mistake.”
Seeing her new lover’s mood Rebecca quickly back-pedalled.
“You don’t have to tell me, I talk too much!”
Carol let out a chuckle, then ruffled Rebecca’s dyed hair.
“It’s fine, it happened a long time ago. An... accident in the machine shop. Piece of heated pipe got kicked out of one of the presses, went right through me.”
The Lapine’s eyes widened and her fingers paused in tracing over Carol’s skin.
“That must have hurt like the dickens!”
Carol’s hand shifted from ruffling her hair to stroking the bunny’s floppy ears.
“Nearly killed me.”
Rebecca was more than a little uncomfortable with the change in the mood, so she scooted lower and pressed her lips to the scar, kissing it repeatedly, though she had to push her breast out of the way for access.
“All better?”
Carol chuckled throatily at the intimate touch, the malleable flesh of her tummy shifting with each breath just below Rebecca’s chin.
Her hand had followed the Lapine’s movement and was now resting in her blonde hair.
“Almost.” She said.
Her palm flattened over the bunny’s scalp and she pushed her lower, not forcefully, but insistently.
With a little giggle, Becks followed her lover’s direction and kissed her way down her stomach until she reached her most intimate place, the dark curls of rich red hair tickling her chin and lips.
Carol’s eyes fluttered close and she relaxed back into the somewhat uncomfortable bed.
“No fingers, just your tongue.”
Again, it wasn’t a request, it was an order, but it was an order the Lapine was only too happy to obey.
Her tongue shot out to lash over the delicate folds of Carol’s pussy, parting them as she sought the older woman’s clit.
One thing Carol had made perfectly clear: she didn’t need much in the way of foreplay.
Wet noises sounded in the Lapine’s room as the heartstone mounted in her pierced tongue flicked and teased the cherry-haired woman’s pussy, causing her breathing to deepen as she softly moaned.
“Focus on my clit, suck on it.”
Rebecca obeyed, finding the tiny nub with her tongue and catching it with her lips before suckling hard enough to make a little squeaking noise whenever her lips lost the seal on the sensitive flesh.
The reaction was dramatic as Carol’s hand tightened in her hair, almost hurting her as she pulled her tight to her pelvis and began to pant.
“Don’t- don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop.”
On the contrary, Rebecca began to flick her little bean with the tip of her tongue as she sucked on it even harder.
Meanwhile she reached up with both hands and began to knead Carol’s impressive breasts, finding her erect nipples with her thumbs and pinching them lightly.
“Ah fuck! That’s a good little slut!”
A confusing wave of shame and pride washed over the Lapine at being called such a name in the midst of what she considered a loving act, but it didn’t hinder her technique in the slightest.
Her lips were buzzing a bit from numbness and her face was moist as she licked and sucked constantly until Carol arched her back and her breath caught in her throat as she thrashed beneath the attentive bunny’s ministrations.
Seeing that her partner was in the midst of a truly breathless orgasm, Rebecca took no mercy on her, lavishing her pussy constantly until Carol let out a great gasping moan and the paroxysms subsided.
“Fuck, ah fuck, that’s enough! Little slut, that’s enough!”
She slumped back against the bed, the hand that had been holding the bunny’s face in position now pushing her away.
Rebecca sat up, wiping her forearms across her face to clear away Carol’s intimate juices.
Their eyes met in the morning light streaming in through the window.
“Was I a good little... slut?”
She was still getting used to dirty talk, it wasn’t her favourite, but she would do just about anything for Carol.
“Mmmmm, you really were. Now come here, it’s kind of cold.”
She extended her arms and Rebecca folded herself into her side again, happy for the chance to enjoy a good cuddle.
Sadly their canoodling didn’t last nearly as long as she would like before Carol broke into the silence between them.
“Thanks baby. You’re really helping me stay sane. This deal I have going on just keeps getting more and more stressful.”
“Too many moving parts?”
“In this case, not enough. My silent partner is being a dick, but we don’t really need to talk about it.”
Rebecca had learned enough about her new paramour to know not to push, so instead she changed the subject herself.
“You once told me you grew up in the slums, but you never really talk about your family.”
Carol laughed darkly and shrugged underneath her.
“Parents both dead, no siblings.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“S’okay.” She slurred, her eyes drooping from the efforts of the morning; “Long time ago now.”
Her face turned pensive then and she bit her lip as she looked into Rebecca’s pink eyes.
“I haven’t really found a good time to bring this up, especially since I’m the one that just said we didn’t need to talk about it, but I have a bit of a favour to ask.”
Rebecca giggled and licked her lips, still tasting the other woman on them.
“Another one?” She said cheekily.
The Lapine was a bit proud of her wit, but Carol didn’t seem to share in her mirth. She tilted her head up to meet her eyes and saw that the cherry-haired stunner looked more than a little uncomfortable with whatever it was she wanted to ask, so Rebecca smiled wide in encouragement.
“Anything.” She promised firmly.
Carol eventually chuckled at her seriousness before explaining her predicament.
“I really do hate to even bring it up, it’s just, I ordered some rather delicate parts from Oakridge, the parcel probably hasn’t even shipped yet but I need it, like yesterday. I’m concerned that it might get lost or delayed somewhere along the way, so I was hoping that you might be able to keep an eye out for when it comes into the sorting center?”
The Lapine thumped her foot in thought against the baseboard of the bed; it wasn’t a small ask, as many packages go through sorting every day, and technically she wasn’t supposed to remove any before they had all been inspected and cleared. But with her still basking in the afterglow of their night, and morning, together she really didn’t see the harm.
“If it shows up in the center, I’ll find it! Promise!”
Carol smiled with one side of her mouth.
“Perfect.” She lifted her head slightly as a familiar look of hunger took her features; “And now I believe it is I that owe you a favour.”
With the practiced ease of an experienced lover, she rolled the Lapine onto her back and began to kiss her way down the bunny’s body.
Rebecca’s breathing hitched at the abrupt turn of events, the feel of Carol’s lustrous hair trailing down her body enough to make her shiver in anticipation.
Sure her privates were more than a little sensitive from their activities from the last several days, but she wasn’t about to complain about it.
__________
Far away from the cozy confines of Rebecca’s room in Algrade, another monster girl was also in bed, though her thoughts were far darker than the bunny could ever manage.
Evadne the Chimera sat on the cot in their hideaway; her shirt pulled up and over her shoulders as black bile and oozing pus seeped from her stomach and back, the taint of entropy still preventing her wounds from closing properly and healing as they should.
With his lips pressed tightly together Jonathan worked to clean the messy injuries around his original stitches, pinching his fingers together to force out as much pus as he could before wiping it away with a wet cloth.
The Empath was guilty of many things, but having a weak stomach wasn’t one of them.
He sighed as he finished his work, pulling back from her and tossing the mess of gauze and soiled cloth into a nearby bin.
“All my contacts have dried up and we’re running out of supplies. The girls we have are half-starved, I tried taking them out to hunt for game in the woods. It was a nightmare, once their blood was up, my grip on their minds slipped and I lost control of them.” He heaved another heavy sigh; “We lost two, the Faun and the Harpy, they tore each other apart.”
“Then the others should have been able to eat their fill.” Evadne said flatly.
Jonathan paled and swallowed the lump in his throat, choosing to ignore her ghastly observation while washing his hands at the basin by the bed.
“If you don’t recover soon, we won’t make it through the rest of the winter.”
She hissed at his grim prediction, but did not argue with him as he went to the table in the middle of the room to fetch fresh bandages.
He paused, taking a moment to lean against the table, though he drew no comfort from the solidity of it.
“It all went to shit didn’t it?” He murmured.
He was exhausted. Evadne’s emotional landscape was as bare to him now as it had ever been, a constant reminder of how far she had fallen, and how much work it would be for him to get her back.
Add on to that the constant anxiety of keeping the Tenebrae under control...
His eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, and he was getting dangerously thin, he had been giving most of his own rations to the wretched monster girls in the next room.
With no response forthcoming from Evadne, he did his best to rally himself for the next challenge and turned to finish tending to her injuries. His hands were fumbling with the rolls of bandages on the table when one of them rolled out of his grip and fell to the floor with a barely audible thump.
As it turned out, dropping the bundle of bandages saved Jonathan’s life.
A spear, cast with deadly force, shot out of the darkness of one of the side tunnels and would have driven straight through his heart had he not shifted while trying to keep himself from likewise dropping more of their precious medical supplies.
Instead the weapon impaled him just below his collar bone, making him cry out and spin to the stone floor with a crash.
Like lightening, the towering warrior woman that had thrown it charged into the room and was almost on him before he even comprehended that he was hurt.
In all her years Evadne had never seen an Amazon move so fast.
Her blonde hair was cut short for battle and a band of her own blood was painted across her eyes.
The mark of a death oath.
If the Chimera hadn’t already been sitting up she wouldn’t have been able to intercede, as it was she barely managed to scramble to her feet in time.
She collided with the deadly Amazon in an awkward tackle from her flank and the two monster girls crashed into the heavy table right beside Jonathan, knocking it on its side as they grappled over the top of it.
The wounded Chimera grunted in pain when she hit the stone floor and the stitches in her belly tore, her black blood flowed freely. Meanwhile the Amazon was unhurt and deftly somersaulted backwards, rolling to her feet in one fluid motion.
Evadne heard Jonathan let out a clipped scream, having recovered his faculties enough to discover the spear sticking out of his upper chest.
If he died, her plans were dust.
So with desperate effort she unfurled her wings beneath her and leapt to her feet to meet the Amazon’s renewed assault.
Even in her weakened state she was still a Chimera, and her strength was far superior to her opponent’s, but she was sluggish from too much bed-rest, meanwhile the warrior that she faced was in top form, as was readily apparent when they squared off.
The Amazon met her initial clawed swipe with a ruthless counter, gripping Evadne’s right wrist so her claws had nothing to tear into while simultaneously pulling herself in to slam her opposite elbow into the Chimera’s face, breaking her nose again.
Evadne let out a garbled hiss and, blinded by tears, let loose with her left arm in a wild swing that would have staggered Nina. But the Amazon ducked under it and pulled Evadne’s right arm down and to the side, forcing the stronger monster into an awkward stumble, slamming her into the overturned table.
The Chimera’s wrist was released in the move and she desperately wiped at the blood and tears on her face to clear her vision, only to have the Amazon’s spinning kick take her in the ear and smash her face into the table again.
Her face smeared a dark streak of her black blood down the metal surface as she slumped to the floor, dazed.
The sudden quiet in the room was punctuated by Jonathan letting out another grunting scream, his eyes wide and his mouth twisted grotesquely in terror at his own injury.
The Amazon’s chest heaved with exertion as she took in the results of her ambush; she didn’t think she could overpower the Chimera, but she was no fool and didn’t waste time gloating over the unexpected victory.
Instead Yana Brael drew a broad bladed dagger from the sheath nestled in the small of her back and stalked over to the traitorous Empath with death in her eyes.
But in the dark of the tunnel system, the brief combat caused no small amount of noise, and several dark eyed girls awoke from their unquiet slumbers.
Yana gripped Jonathan’s hair and he cried out as she bent his head back, one of his arms battering at her in desperate fear.
“Fitting that you should die a coward’s death.” She muttered as she brought the dagger under his chin.
But even as the razor edge of the blade bit into his flesh, she heard the rapidly increasing sound of footsteps on stone approaching her back and her instincts had her rolling over him at the last second to avoid the wild swing of an Antlion’s shovel, narrowly missing out on having her skull caved in.
When she regained her feet she recoiled in horror.
Three ant girls had flooded the room, armed with shovels and heavy picks.
In the light of the lanterns Yana could see that each set of brown eyes was swirling with darkness.
Her eyes drifted from one emaciated monster to the next, they made no move to attack her, but were blocking her path to her real target.
“So they found a queen after all. Bastards.”
From the tools they carried she knew that they were worker caste, not warrior, and she didn’t want to kill them, but her mission was too important.
She was running out of time though, as Evadne had recovered her senses and quickly regained her feet to push past the Tenebrae.
Yana’s eyes narrowed as she took in the wounded Chimera.
“When we met before, I was on the defensive. Unable to fight you like I would have wanted. You killed my war-sister, and I will have your blood for that.”
“When we fought before, I wasn’t even trying.” The Chimera hissed, black and bloody spittle flying off her lips.
Without warning Yana burst forwards, again Evadne was startled at the impossible speed from the Amazon.
The dark monster didn’t even see the knife before it was driven deep into her shoulder, though she certainly felt it as it scraped against bone.
She grunted in pain and her tail lashed out, but it hadn’t been the same since the Minotaur had stabbed it and so it was too slow to catch the blisteringly fast Amazon as she tore the blade free.
If she had been alone she would have lost, instead a pair of Antlion shovels blocked Yana’s follow up strikes.
The Amazon cursed as she shifted her focus to the Tenebrae, preparing herself to kill them.
“Damn you for making me do this.”
Together the Tenebrae tried to corral the Amazon, not behaving at all like other fallen girls she had faced.
But they were worker caste, not warrior.
She killed one of them before they even knew what happened, catching her shovel mid-swing and pulling herself forward to drive her blade with brutal force into the girl’s throat, bisecting her wind-pipe and throwing her against a wall of shelves.
Her antennae twitched spastically while her hands clutched at the blood blossoming from her neck, her darkened eyes wide in shock as she slumped to the floor to spend the last few minutes of her life gasping for air.
“Damn you.” Yana repeated as she turned on the other Tenebrae protecting the downed Evadne.
Once again she ducked back at the last moment, the girl’s spade nearly taking her nose off.
Worker caste or not, she was strong!
While their warriors were amongst the finest in the whole world when it came to ordered discipline and resolve, Antlion workers could easily lift many times their own weight above their heads.
The Amazon’s back was to Evadne now, still on the floor, and her focus was on the Antlion, so she missed the Chimera fumbling with something that had fallen off of the shelves taken out by the dying ant-girl nearby.
Though Yana had committed herself to killing the other Tenebrae, she never got the chance.
Abruptly her body seized up and her brain exploded with pain.
From the ground Evadne had struck at her, and she wasn’t armed with a shovel.
The lost-tech rod in the Chimera’s grip crackled again and blue lightening shot out into the Amazon, her muscles no longer responding to her orders as she fell to her knees.
The other Tenebrae surged forwards and with her body unresponsive Yana was quickly overwhelmed and pinned to the ground by the eerily silent girls as yet more Antlions flooded the room.
Control over her muscles returned gradually, and even when she was finally able to move again she was fully restrained, forced to watch as a bloody-fingered Jonathan fumbled through the satchel of medical supplies.
He’d already managed to get her spear free of his chest, and her eyes widened in horror when she saw the little glass vial that he was after.
“You bled a Dryad?! Neucta scum!”
A Dryad’s blood could be used in place of her healing magic, but only if the monster girl in question had died in the giving of it. Trafficking or possession of the substance meant a mandatory fifty year dig, so the black market had dried up for it a long time ago.
The scent of spring filled the underground room as Jonathan poured the greenish blood over his wound with shaking fingers.
“NO!!” Yana cried out.
Frustrated tears streamed down her face as she saw his wound closing and her goal rapidly sinking into impossibility.
The Tenebrae gripping each of her limbs were simply too strong, the dark girls chittered and spat at her when she struggled, but did nothing more to harm her.
“Keep that shit away from me.” Evadne swore with one hand pressed to her bleeding shoulder and the other her gut.
“I know dammit!” He snapped back; “And where the hell did she come from?!”
He gestured wildly at the Amazon, who was still struggling vainly to break free of the dark girls around her.
“I don’t care. I’m going to fucking eat her.”
“Don’t be an idiot, look at how strong she is!”
Evadne turned her glare on Jonathan and snarled at him.
“Exactly! Look at how strong she is! She is an Amazon warleader! It would take you ages to break her mind, and that’s if you even could!”
Yana froze mid-struggle at that.
They want to turn me into a Tenebrae!
The thought made her blood run cold as the pair continued their argument.
“Enough! Chain the bitch up for now!” Evadne finally relented with a grimace; “You need to redo my stitches.”
Her bond-mate ground his teeth together, but did as she said, righting the table and gathering the necessary supplies while the Tenebrae carried Yana off into the darkness of one of the many caves around the large room.