The turtle slept like a broken hill. Its carapace—once a moving courtyard for the Pride—was cracked and laced with milky seams, each fissure a story of where the Grove Mother's blow had landed. Damask rested a palm on the largest fracture and felt the sluggish, stubborn pulse beneath. The mount had taken that strike for him, and now the price would be years of slow, moss-scented repair.
"Sleep," Damask whispered, turning from the damaged artifact. His gaze swept over the cave. Ashcroft-cut. The realization had been a slow, dawning thing. The discreet drains, the baffled airflow—this was one of Milky's bolt-holes, an emergency bunker activated by her seal. Understocked and forgotten, it was a testament to her clan's distaste for the wild frontiers.
Petunia adjusted the small pilgrim's pack on his back, the disguise their only shield now. He crouched at the cave entrance, a small, still shadow against the grey light.
"Veil's ready," Pet said, his voice low. "Anyone looking for the scent of a Dom's power or the princely aura of an heir will only find pilgrims."
Damask nodded, buckling the last strap of his own meager pack, his fingers refusing to tremble. The Pride was split—the others had not returned. Once, their numbers had made them a force too big to threaten. Now, they were just two bodies with good boots, and the wilderness was hungry.
Damask looked towards Petunia. The Fem who stayed. The Fem who, despite it all, was devoted. His name was Petunia, though in his mind he was simply 'Pet'— a possession, a tool. An indispensable tool.
As they stepped out from the cave's shadow, Pet's head tilted. "I feel something… different."
Damask felt it too. The air was clean, scrubbed of the Grove's grand, beautiful lie. The blood-red flowers were withered husks; the grasping vines, limp and dead. The aphrodisiacal poison was gone, leaving only the honest scent of damp earth and old stone. More importantly, the psychic interference that had smothered his senses had vanished. And in that sudden quiet, he felt it. A faint, thrumming echo in the void where his power used to be—Kestrel's signature.
"Yes," Damask said, the word rough in his own throat. "The interference from the Grove Mother seems to have dissipated."
"Could they have defeated her?" Petunia asked, his voice bright with a childish enthusiasm that made something in Damask's chest ache.
So naive. So innocent. "It must have been a miracle then," he said, the lie tasting like rust. He knew, with a cold certainty, that four pridemates, however skilled, could not defeat a creature of that magnitude. Whatever had happened, it was not a simple victory.
"Dommy," Petunia's voice was a soft intrusion, pulling him from his thoughts. "Are we heading back to the ruin?"
"Yes." He could feel the bond, a thin but unbreakable thread forged in Kestrel's absolute submission. It wasn't a life signature, not a crude health bar, but a connection of will. "I can feel Kest. She's alive."
"But what of the others?" Pet's voice was small, laced with a hope Damask could no longer afford.
"I don't know," he said, the admission a bitter ash in his mouth. He looked at the Fem, at the naive trust in those wide eyes. "If Kest is alive, she'll look over the rest." It was a half-truth, a flimsy shield against a grim reality he didn't have the strength to voice.
"Yes, Dommy," Pet whispered, his faith absolute.
The Fem hesitated, then spoke again, his voice careful. "But will we be able to make it back safely?" The question was a delicate probe, a hint that he understood their weakness. A Dom and a Fem, Level Two at best, stripped of their trump card.
The words scraped against Damask's raw pride. He pulled the small, trembling body close, his arm wrapping around Pet's shoulders in a gesture that was more about possession than comfort. "We'll have to make do. Don't worry. I'll keep you safe and reunite us with the rest of the pride."
Petunia melted against him, the warmth of his small body a pathetic but welcome heat. Damask stared out into the trees, his jaw tight with a resolve forged in the fires of utter humiliation.
"No matter. We head for the ruin," he declared, his voice hard with purpose. "Milky's artifact sent us far. I suspect it's a secret operation the Ashcrofts have. I don't know exactly where we are, but sensing my connection with Kest, we should be a week's travel out."
"A whole week!" Pet gasped. "That artifact was that powerful?"
"The Ashcroft title isn't just for show," Damask said, a note of his old arrogance returning. "Milky is the princess of her line. Such a tool is her birthright. As I'm sure you know."
Petunia's bright enthusiasm tempered, replaced by the cool composure of his own courtly training. "Yes, Dommy," he murmured, a flicker of something knowing in his eyes. "The Hothouse Clan teaches its children many secrets."
"With your C-Apt 5 rating, we'll be fine." The words were a simple statement of fact. Damask's hand came to rest on Petunia's ass, a firm, proprietary weight. A faint pulse of his own nascent mana, gritty and raw, flared from his palm. He felt Petunia's body jolt, felt the Gristle Seeds he had planted deep in the Fem's hole give a sympathetic thrum.
A tactical error, Damask thought, the cold words of the Testament a bitter comfort. I mourned the loss of assets—Sows and Bitches—while overlooking the most potent weapon in my arsenal. The ancient texts were clear: a C-Apt 5 Fem was not a luxury; he was a living forge, a crucible capable of reforging a shattered Sovereign from the ashes. My grief was a sentimental indulgence I could no longer afford.
His hand tightened on Pet's ass, his thumb tracing the perfect, heart-shaped curve. They were ready to set out, but there was no drawback to refining more mana.
A familiar heat, a precursor to creation, began to build in his now-dormant balls. It was a weak, sputtering thing, but it was there.
"Pet," Damask growled, the single word a command.
The Fem understood instantly. He turned, his movements a fluid, beautiful ballet of submission. He bent at the waist, his hands braced against a moss-covered boulder. With his own fingers, he parted his pale cheeks, presenting his tight, puckered hole—an obscene, perfect offering in the grey morning light.
The fuck was quick, brutal, and utterly functional. Damask's cock was a pathetic sprout, but it was hard, and it was hungry. He positioned the tip and, with a single, savage thrust, drove it home. He ignored Petunia's sharp, willing gasp, his mind focused only on the alchemy. His hips found a hard, grinding rhythm, not of lust, but of a blacksmith's hammer on an anvil. He was not fucking him; he was using him, his tight, hot friction the forge he needed to stoke his own internal fire. Each thrust was a hammer blow, each of his willing gasps the hiss of cooling steel. He came with a guttural roar, a gritty, painful torrent of newly-forged Gristle Seeds flooding Petunia's guts.
As he pulled out, leaving the Fem a trembling, leaking wreck, Petunia turned. There was no shame in his eyes, only a profound, radiant devotion. He cupped a hand, a gesture of sacred offering, as a single, shimmering drop of golden liquid formed at the tip of his own small cock. It was his nectar, but it was different now—thicker, more potent, a honey-like substance catalyzed by the raw power he had just taken.
He caught the drop, his movements reverent, and brought it to his own mouth. He turned back to Damask, rising to his knees, and sealed his lips to his Dom's. The kiss was not one of passion, but of precise, alchemical transfer. Damask could taste the subtle manipulations in the nectar—the trace elements Petunia had drawn from the cave's moss, the specific enzymes he had catalyzed to target the raw, gritty nature of his Gristle Seeds. This was not just a gift; it was a prescription, a dose of pure, super-refined fuel administered by a master of his craft.
He could feel it, a warm, clean fire spreading through him, reinforcing the fragile structure of his own nascent power. He pulled back, the taste of sweet, absolute loyalty on his tongue.
The Dom and the Fem stood, recharged, a single, two-bodied weapon ready for the long road ahead. The pride would be reforged, one brutal, beautiful fuck at a time.