A month later, the promise became moot. Ashley came to her one morning, before the others had risen. She was not pregnant. Kreet tried to share her relief as best she could, but inwardly she could not. For a month she had seen a future that looked as bright as any she could have imagined - at least without Brand. But the child was not to be, and it left Kreet feeling depressed for a few days. Eventually she got over it though, and as she took a tray of ale to a table of travelers, she saw Ashley flirting with some locals and realized that something had, after all, come from the incident. Kreet now had a sister. The two had become inseparable.

She smiled at the men as she delivered their mugs, thinking about how Pelor worked in ways she could never comprehend.

“Hold on there, miss!” one of the men said, grabbing her roughly by the wrist.

“Why certainly sir! Something I can get for you?” she squeaked.

“Not much up top, girly, but that mouth looks nice and wet,” he leered.

The stranger’s partner scowled, “Garth, she’s a fuckin’ lizard! She’d nip your pecker off.”

“Naw, she’s a good girl, aren’t you?” the first said, running his other hand over her neck and shoulder. “Smooth like a snake. You wouldn’t hurt my snake would you?”

Kreet cringed. It wasn’t like she hadn’t met the like before, but this guy was really holding her tight. She tried the coy approach first.

“Sir, as much as I’d like to, I don’t think you’d fit! And I’m afraid my teeth are pretty sharp. Sorry, I’m just not really built for…”

“Nip your pecker off, I tell you,” the other man said, interrupting her.

“Ah well,” the drunk said and loosened his grip. “You’re probably right. Tell you what, you look like you’ve got a plenty big ass. I bet you could take us both!”

Suddenly his other hand went to her crotch and her eyes glowed instantly red. This was well over the line.

Across the room, she heard Red ring a bell. It was Nick’s alert and he was rounding the bar, but the other man had risen behind her.

“Now that I could go for!” he said lewdly and ran his hand along her tail.

Instinct, reflex and training took over before she even consciously knew what she was doing. Her tail lashed viciously and with full speed at the head of the man behind her, sending him sprawling against the wall, but not before she ripped a bloody gash in his thigh with a talon. She spun out of the first man’s grip and kept the arc of her tail going. It crashed against the other man’s back, rolling him to the floor. Nick was barely two steps away from the bar by then as Kreet rolled to the side and the man called Garth got to his feet. The other man began to scream, holding his leg while dark blood spurted from around his fingers.

“You goddamn lizard,” Garth spat, wiping a little blood from his own mouth. She watched him advance from her back on the floor, her tail underneath her. His arms were outstretched, preparing to grab her bodily. Her tail could do no direct harm, but she used it to push her waist high into the air. The man wasn’t prepared for this and he stopped for a moment over her.

At the last millisecond, she retained just enough sanity to retract her claws. Even so, the kick she delivered, backed not only by her powerful legs but by her tail thrusting them forward, literally threw the man off his feet and across the room to hit the door. The impact was hard enough to break the latch and send his body out into the night beyond. She was breathing hard as she sat up on the floor, trembling with rage and adrenaline.

“Holy shit!” Nick said as he got to where Kreet sat, looking around her as if to find another target in range.

Cherry arrived next, looking to the man screaming, his leg bleeding badly. “Red, get a towel. Quick! He’s passing out.”

Kreet glared at Nick as he approached, her eyes still bright red with rage. He backed up a step, “Now wait a minute Gator! I’m the good guy, remember?”

Her lips curled around her teeth involuntarily, but Ashley took her hand. She looked at the familiar face with alarm at first, but then recognition took it’s place and the fury dimmed.

“GODDAMMIT RED! WHERE’S THAT TOWEL?” Cherry screamed.

Kreet steadied herself. Slowly she began to comprehend what had happened.

“Cherry, let me see him.”

“Gator, I think you’ve killed him,” the blonde woman said, looking up at her, blood staining her hands and face.

Kreet put her hands out, kneeling to touch the man’s leg. The bloodied shreds of his pants clung to the wound beneath, and the dark blood had stopped flowing.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

She closed her eyes and sought the power of Pelor. Like an old friend from a lifetime ago, it came back to her. She had learned a lot in the years since Karl’s fall about the healing arts. Most was not magic, and had a lot to do with cleanliness and rest, but not all. She heard the sound of the girls clearing out the tavern - at least of those patrons who hadn’t already left on their own. But she was focused on the man laying underneath her hands. She felt the wound closing and the heart, though deprived of too much blood, relentlessly doing it’s job with what remained. The wound closed and the bleeding stopped.

Now she began the more miraculous step. Inside his veins, blood reproduced and increased. The red water that was his life was replenished under her hands. She visualized it. She believed it. She KNEW it. She opened her eyes, and her patient opened his.

Cherry gasped. She had never seen the Cleric’s art performed before. No one here had.

“A miracle,” whispered Ashley in awe.

“It is,” Kreet confirmed, not taking her eyes off the man. His eyes focused on hers. The new blood that pumped within his veins was pure and he was no longer drunk.

“Who are you?” Kreet asked.

“Trace. My name’s Trace. What happened?”

“You got a little drunk Trace. You and your friend,” Kreet said calmly, then suddenly looked to the door.

“He’s okay,” Red assured her as she stepped up. “Staggered off apparently.”

“You’d better go find your friend, Trace,” Kreet said, helping the man to his feet.

He nodded, but kept looking at Kreet.

“It’s okay, Sir. You’re okay. Go on, your friend is out there somewhere. You’ll recognize him as the guy with the big bruise in the middle of his chest,” Kreet chuckled, adding, “If he hasn’t broken a rib. If so, send him back here. I can help with that.”

“I… I will,” the man named Trace assured her, then he walked out into the night.

“Well, that’s a tale that’s going to be around a while,” Red said, sitting down with Cherry on the floor.

“How do you think it’ll go?” Cherry asked, taking the towel and wiping her hands.

“Oh, pretty well I think. One thing’s for sure, no one is going to be messing with Gator anytime soon!”

“I’d say not. Gator, you know who’s going to have to clean up this mess, right?” Cherry said, but she was smiling now.

“I’ll go get the mop,” Kreet sighed.