Chapter 2: The Biter
Ian locked the door and didn't feel a damn thing about it.
Marta stood in the middle of the empty foyer with her basket of bread and cheese. She looked around at the bare walls and dust-covered floor. The Voss manor used to have tapestries. Now it had cobwebs and the smell of wet stone.
"M'lord... there's nothing here," she said, clutching the basket tighter.
"There's me." Ian walked past her toward the kitchen. "Bring the food. We'll talk."
The kitchen was the only room with a working hearth. Ian had been burning broken chairs for warmth. He pointed at the bench. Marta sat. She was pretty in a soft way. Brown hair pulled back. Wide hips. Nervous eyes. The kind of woman who'd spent her whole life being told what to do by her father, by the church, by the town elders.
Ian pulled up a stool across from her. He didn't sit close. He wasn't a brute. Not yet. He just watched her.
"Your father owes me twelve silver marks," Ian said.
Marta flinched. "I know, m'lord. He's been sick. The winter was hard. We'll pay when the harvest—"
"There won't be a harvest on my land. The crown took it."
She went pale. "Then... what do we do?"
Ian leaned forward. His copper eyes caught the firelight. "I'm not here to squeeze you for coin I know you don't have. I'm here to offer a different arrangement."
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:
TARGET ANXIETY DETECTED. SUGGESTION: OFFER SECURITY. WOMEN IN DISTRESS RESPOND TO STABILITY.
Shut up, Ian thought at the cube in his head. I know what I'm doing.
He reached over and took a piece of bread from her basket. Tore off a chunk. Chewed slowly. Let the silence stretch.
"I'm going to rebuild this house," he said. "Not the Voss name. That's dead. I'm building something new. Something that doesn't bow to the Duke or the Crown or anyone else."
Marta looked confused. "But... you have nothing. No men. No coin."
"I have me. And soon I'll have more." He swallowed the bread. "I need people I can trust. People loyal to me, not the town charter. You work for me. You keep my house. You cook my meals. You warm my bed when I want it. In return, you don't starve. Your father doesn't get his legs broken by the next tax collector. And when this place is a fortress instead of a tomb, you stand beside me. Not behind me. Beside."
Marta's breath caught. Her cheeks flushed red, then pale, then red again. "You're asking me to be your... your whore."
"I'm asking you to be mine." Ian's voice was flat. No romance. No pleading. Just fact. "The word 'whore' means you get passed around. I don't share. You'd be mine alone. And I protect what's mine."
TARGET EMOTIONAL STATE: CONFLICTED. ATTRACTION MIXED WITH SHAME. THIS IS GOOD. PUSH SLIGHTLY.
Ian stood up. Walked to the hearth. Poked the embers with a charred chair leg.
"You can say no," he said without looking at her. "Walk out that door. Go back to your father. Maybe the Duke's men don't come knocking next month for the debt. Maybe the winter is mild. Maybe some farmer's boy marries you and you pop out six brats and die at forty with your hands cracked from lye soap."
He turned. The fire cast shadows across his sharp face.
"Or you stay. And you watch me burn this world down from the inside of a warm room."
Marta stared at him. The basket shook in her lap.
"You're a cold man, Lord Voss."
"I'm a practical one. Cold keeps you alive when everyone else is burning."
She was quiet for a long time. Then she set the basket on the floor. Stood up. Walked over to him. She was shorter by a head. She looked up at his tired copper eyes and saw something there she recognized.
Desperation. Not for her. For something bigger. But desperation all the same.
"If I do this," she whispered, "you don't throw me away when something prettier comes along."
Ian almost laughed. Almost. "Marta. The prettier ones are just higher-value targets. You're my first. My foundation. You don't throw away the foundation when you build the tower. You build on top of it."
TARGET DEVOTION: 76% AND RISING.
ALMOST THERE. FINISH IT.
Ian reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was awkward. He hadn't touched a woman gently in years. His hands were more used to chopping wood and strangling the occasional fox that got into the henhouse.
"I won't lie to you," he said. "I'm using you. But I'm also keeping you. There's a difference."
Marta closed her eyes. A tear slid down her cheek. Then she opened them and nodded.
"Okay."
CONQUEST COMPLETE.
TARGET: MARTA (BAKER'S DAUGHTER).
VALUE: E-CLASS (COMMONER).
DEVOTION RATING: 87% - LOYAL.
TOKEN ACQUIRED: 1 LOW-GRADE SUMMONING CRYSTAL.
INITIATING TITAN MANIFESTATION...
Ian felt a jolt in his chest. Like his heart skipped a beat and then got punched by lightning. The cube in the basement pulsed. He could feel it through the stone floors. A vibration that climbed up his legs and settled in his skull.
"Stay here," he told Marta.
He walked fast to the basement stairs. Took them two at a time. The obsidian room was glowing now. The blue cube had turned a sickly yellow-green. In front of it, a crack had opened in the stone floor. Steam hissed out of the fissure.
Then a hand came out.
It was huge. Maybe the size of a wagon wheel. Skin the color of old parchment stretched over knuckles that looked like they could punch through castle walls. The fingers were long and thin. Wrong proportions. Like a child's drawing of a hand but made real and angry.
The arm followed. Then the shoulder. Then the head.
Ian had seen drawings of Titans in old manuscripts. Smiling things. Eyes empty. This one wasn't smiling. Its face was pinched. Suspicious. Its eyes were small and beady and darted around the room like a rat in a trap. It had no lips. Just teeth. Lots of them. Small and sharp and crammed together in a mouth that opened vertically instead of horizontally.
The Titan pulled itself fully out of the fissure. It was only about three meters tall. Small for a Titan. But in that basement, it looked massive. It crouched to avoid hitting the ceiling and stared at Ian.
TITAN SUMMONED: "BITER" CLASS.
HEIGHT: 3.2 METERS.
WEIGHT: APPROXIMATELY 400 KILOGRAMS.
SPECIAL TRAIT: ACCELERATED JAW REGENERATION. CAN BITE THROUGH STEEL PLATE.
PERSONALITY: NERVOUS. HUNGRY. LOYAL.
QUIRK: AFRAID OF THE DARK. WILL WHINE IF LEFT ALONE.
The Titan whined.
It was a high-pitched sound. Like a dog that got its tail stepped on. The massive creature shuffled its feet and looked at Ian with those beady little eyes.
"You're afraid of the dark," Ian said flatly. "You live in a basement. In the dark."
The Titan made a chittering sound and pointed at the fissure. Then pointed at Ian. Then made a gesture like it was hugging itself.
SYSTEM NOTE: IT WANTS A NIGHT LIGHT.
Ian rubbed his temples. "I conquered a woman. Did something I'm not proud of. And my reward is a three-meter rat with anxiety."
The Titan's vertical mouth opened slightly. A long tongue flopped out and lolled to the side. It looked... hopeful.
Ian sighed. "Fine. What do I call you?"
The System chimed.
SUGGESTED DESIGNATION: "GNASHER."
OR YOU MAY ASSIGN A CUSTOM NAME.
WARNING: TITANS RESPOND TO NAMES. NAMING CREATES STRONGER BOND.
Ian looked at the Titan. The Titan looked at Ian. Its tongue was still hanging out.
"Gnasher," Ian said. "You're Gnasher."
The Titan's beady eyes widened. Then it made a sound that was somewhere between a purr and a rockslide. It shuffled forward and lowered its massive head. Ian instinctively reached up and touched its forehead. The skin was hot. Fever-hot. And slightly sticky.
BOND STRENGTHENED.
GNASHER: LOYALTY LOCKED.
Ian pulled his hand back. Looked at the creature. Then looked at the stairs leading up to the empty manor.
One Titan. One woman. One broke lord.
It wasn't an army. But it was a start.
He walked back upstairs. Marta was standing exactly where he left her. She heard the thumping footsteps behind him and turned. Her face went white when she saw the three-meter monster hunched over in the doorway to the basement stairs.
"What... what is that?"
"That's Gnasher. He's our first soldier. He's afraid of the dark and he needs a night light."
Marta stared. Gnasher waved. It was a clumsy wave. His long fingers smacked into the doorframe and cracked the wood.
"...I've made a terrible mistake," Marta whispered.
"No," Ian said. "You made a smart one. Now let's figure out where we put a three-meter rat so the neighbors don't see him."
He walked toward the back of the manor, toward the old stables. Gnasher shuffled after him, hunched and nervous, occasionally whining when they passed a shadowy corner.
Behind him, Marta picked up her basket of bread and cheese. She looked around the empty manor one more time. Then she followed.
Because what else was she going to do? Go back to her father's cramped house and wait to starve?
At least here she'd starve with a monster.