The House Raid

“C-Can I think about it, for a day?” she says with a trembling voice as she averts her eyes.

Malinda whose greatness among the Ebon Wall’s soldiers is in this kind of girly state as if she’s in her young teens replying to a village boy’s confession, but as she has never experienced a true confession from someone before, until now, she’s ecstatic. It shows on her face as she returns to stare into his abyssal eyes with her azure-glittering orbs.

Xe’Reth’s affectionate smile drills into her heart of a woman who’s in a state of emotional conflict. “…If you’re honestly thinking about it, I’ll give you as much time as you want. We can meet here at my house again tomorrow if you want, or the day after that, or the day after that. Or wherever you expect me to be, I’ll be there.”

“Because I would wait an eternity for your answer of acceptance or rejection. My feelings for you Malinda are too real to be true… even if you’re someone of much higher standing than me. But I’ll wait for your beautiful words, even if they’ll be painful.”

“Xe—Xe’Reth, I’ll do as you say. I’ll come back tomorrow, in the morning, and give you my answer. I just need to hear what my family will say about me getting someone as a…” She hesitates as she averts her eyes again, but she defeats her demons and looks into his ebon eyes, “As a lover.”

‘It seems that she has already decided… Thank you, Malinda, for I’ll use you… plenty,’’ Xe’Reth rejoices as surprise color his face from hearing her words, but it immediately turns into warmth on his outer surface.

She spins around in haste, then begins to run down the dark street toward the direction of the Citadel in her heavy plate armor that isn’t for running, but she runs and runs and runs with such newfound strength.

As Malinda vanishes, Xe’Reth can’t help but sigh with a chuckle.

“Hahaha… Ahhh… I can’t believe she’s a warrior of the middle gate; she who’s so gullible, so fool-hearted, and so utterly senseless. Tomorrow morning I’ll have her around my grasp, then… then I’ll see what’ll happen from there.”

Xe’Reth slowly closes the door while he reveals a menacing grin. With a click resounding, he disappears.

The night continues with its endless wheel of transformation while Xe’Reth goes to fix something to sate his hunger. As he finishes eating, he falls asleep on his bed that has the blood stains on it since he can’t bother to change out the sheets for new ones.

The darkness continues…

......

...

A single candle stands alight on a four-legged round table inside a dark room. The candle isn’t bright enough to light up the chamber but next to the light sits Malinda. She’s on a comfy seat of luxury.

She’s currently in her nightgown with her hair let out and fragrance radiating off of her bathed body. She sits there while hugging a pillow in the dead of night. She’s having trouble falling asleep because she’s thinking of the morning that will come. That morning where she’ll go and meet Xe’Reth, to tell him her response.

She’s so nervous that all she can do at this moment is to breathe in slow and steady breaths. She didn’t even greet anyone when she came back to the castle. She just headed to her chamber and bathed herself after her handmaidens prepared everything for her. They filled her room bathtub with hot water, hard labor, but that’s what they’re there for.

After she had finished, she said that everyone could go to bed, and they did as they were told.

Malinda stares at the flickering candle as she keeps hugging the pillow, tightly. She has never had these feelings before. ‘Is this how everyone else feel when they think about the one they like?’ Malinda wonders.

She’s older than other girls to be experiencing these kinds of new feelings, but right at this moment, she’s enjoying it as she holds her pillow with one hugging arm while her other arm is on the seat’s armrest with hand over her mouth as she tries to hide her expression of pure bliss. This new feeling is making her daze in and out of her thoughts.

Feelings that she had locked away never to be opened. Her desires, that lust of wanting to feel a man’s body, Xe’Reth’s body is what she wants; to touch, to hear his calming voice praising her, and to do the acts which she has never done before.

Her breaths start to become heavier and heavier as she begins imagining his bare chest that she saw. And him touching her with his imaginative hands… his gentle hands that’ll guide her through her worries, her innocent mind of the body and soul.

One of her hands goes down to her flower, her unplucked flower which has never been touched by anyone but her. Her mind goes deeper and deeper into the swirl pool of pleasure as she begins to think about the night which will happen in a couple of days after she gives him her response.

But just as she’s about to give in to her lust of self-pleasuring, she stops.

“You’ve made me into such a woman… To actually force me to have such desires, Xe’Reth. I’ll not let you get away from me. I’ll have you take responsibility for your actions, your words,” she whispers with a slight giggle as she sits there on the comfy seat in the middle of the darkness while having such a smile on her lips.

She has him. Finally, she can be like an ordinary woman. To not hide behind her rock-solid expression of absolute control.

She leans towards the single candle so her beaming face of heat un-darkens. Her cheeks are flushed to its highest degree while she forms a circle with her lips, to blow out her gathered air.

“Uuuh.”

The now unlit candle casts darkness upon the room… and the night continues on with its transformation of the world.

......

...

*Bang bang*

*Crash*

“Wha-What…?” Xe’Reth wakes up from the sudden loud noises by the front door with droopy flickering eyes.

“Bring that whoreson here!” shouts a muffled voice in the next room, which widens Xe’Reth’s eyes in surprise as he tosses his blanket off of himself and jumps up from his bed in such haste. As he lands silently on the floor, he begins to run toward a chest. He opens it and takes out a dagger that he tucks into his back waist, inside so he can feel the cold steel on his buttocks.

He also swiftly puts on a shirt to cover the hilt of the dagger as he is indeed bare-chested. It doesn’t even take four seconds. Such a desperate haste he has found.

*Rattle*

The door’s handle to this room where he and his mother reside is slowly moving down.

Xe’Reth appears like a shadow in front of it. As the door opens, Xe’Reth glares at the uniform of the city guard. He recognizes the man in front of him, the man who now has flickering eyes while gaping with a surprised face.

“Xe’Reth!” the man yells as he takes ahold of him, but Xe’Reth just lets him grab him without any resistance. But before the man can grab him, Xe’Reth pushes himself forward, closing the door to his and his mother’s room, then the man grabs him with such painful grips.

There is a total of five people inside the kitchen where his ebony bow and his upper armor pieces lie on the table. Xe’Reth is barefoot while he has a regular pair of brown pants, a light-brown shirt, and the dagger that’s hidden away.

“Move,” the man orders, pushing Xe’Reth towards the man in question.

The other four men stand there by the inside of the front door, gazing at Xe’Reth with glaring eyes. They’re all heavily built men, sturdier than Xe’Reth. Their black and red uniform of the city guard displays in front of him. Though Xe’Reth has a very calm expression on him, for as long as he’s hurt and not his mother, everything will be all right.

“Look at him, he’s smiling. Know your… PLACE!”

One of the men kicks Xe’Reth right in the stomach, which makes him gasp out for air while coughing as he gains a scowl with clenching teeth. The man holding him stands behind Xe’Reth, to support him, so he doesn’t fall as if he’s a beating bag.

“Enough,” a man declares who seems to be the leader of this house raid.

“Xe’Reth, you bastard. Tell me, why is my brother in jail?” the man asks with a calm voice while standing with arms crossed, spread legs and arrogance filling his stern eyes. The man is too composed for Xe’Reth’s taste.

“Heh, maybe your fatso of a brother should know when to keep his mouth shut around an Honored Lady?” Xe’Reth says with a slight chuckle as he gains a grin.

The man who kicked Xe’Reth, looks to his leader. With a conformational nod, the man raises his fist. With a forward punch, it embeds itself into Xe’Reth’s stomach, making him groan as air exhales from his throat, making him cough in the process.

“Xe’Reth… Your answer isn’t what I’m seeking. I’ll ask you again: Tell me, why is my brother in jail?” the man asks again in that calm voice of his. He didn’t even react from the man punching Xe’Reth right in the stomach as if it’s something trivial.

“...Well… He hasn't been in there for that long, now has he? How is your brother fairing inside the prison? Is the food alright? Is he keeping himself from being targeted by masculine women? For such a son of a pig must have some appeal, right? Heh,” Xe’Reth chuckles as he taunts the man’s big brother, but he senses that he’s going too far so this will be the last time he’ll joke. For the person in question isn’t the evil one, only a henchman of his own older brother.

But nonetheless a glorified criminal.

But this time, Xe’Reth doesn’t get hurt, because the man that usually does the beating, looks at his boss for confirmation, but the boss just waves him away. This sudden stop of hits oozes worry into Xe’Reth. The boss then turns his gaze toward the door where his mother lies sleeping, which Xe’Reth witnesses with fear.

“Maybe we should use your whore of a mother to make you say the words I wish to hear, huh, Xe’Reth?” the leader asks with a new found wickedness sprouting forth on his grinning mouth.

The boss himself isn’t like his brother, he’s much more muscular as the other men around Xe’Reth. And he isn’t ugly nor handsome, he’s in-between, average. Though Xe'Reth knows those muscles are just for show.

But that smile he has on him right now causes Xe’Reth to lower his head as darkness shrouds his whole face. A stare of death beams out. They can call him whatever they want. They can do whatever they want to him, but insulting his mother, by calling her a whore?

Xe’Reth wants to tear out his vocal cords that said those words.

“Oh? So you want us to bring out your mother then, huh?” the boss asks as he jerks his head to one of the men who stands beside Xe’Reth, telling him to go into the forbidden sanctuary where his mother lies asleep.

The man that holds Xe’Reth doesn’t grip him that hard anymore because he has never seen the woman in question in the flesh, so he’s rather curious to see how she looks like. He has heard that she was once a beauty, but through this man's loose grip comes a lightning quick jerk of Xe’Reth’s arms.

Xe’Reth pulls free from the colossi of a man and strikes with an upward swinging elbow to the man’s right jaw, which makes him grunt in so much pain. For that swing came with such force, such damage that the jaw itself have now popped out of its sockets, to dangle as he tries to howl.

“Aahhuuu,” the man wails as he tries to speak, but no words form from that dangling jaw.

“What?!” the other three men shouts as they gawk at the dashing Xe’Reth that heads toward their boss.

As a dagger’s tip presses towards a throat, the man whose throat it belongs to stand in sheer dumbfoundedness. And the man that has his hand on the door’s handle that leads into where Xe’Reth’s mother lies have frozen in place because Xe’Reth’s eyes are upon him. Eyes of killing intent, eyes that can make anyone fear for their lives.

Such a dreadful aura drowns the men, making them stunned.

“Aahhh…” Xe’Reth sighs as he gains a smile on his lips. Terrifying curves that send chills down the large men who stands in front of Xe’Reth and the boss who has the dagger at his throat.

“Tsk, I didn’t want to resort to violence, but since you brought up my mother, I can’t really let that pass, now can I?” Xe’Reth says with a tone of superiority filling his new arrogant grin. “Oh, to answer your question, I guess you wanted me to say: Oh I’m so sorry for my disobedience, brother of the fat slob. I’ll get him out of jail right this instant! …Right…?”

As the men hear that high-pitched noise that sounds like an imitation of someone being submissive, they lower their eyebrows in anger, even the boss sneers at Xe’Reth for being so bold.

“Though… you four men, don’t you tire of working for this man and his brother? You know… the Honored Lady Malinda and I, we’re very intimate. I’ve her in my embrace, and do you know what that means, men? Huh, you do, do you?” Xe’Reth asks as he begins to throw out half-false lies, but his expression shows no lies, only a proud appearance is showing while he has such a sinister smile.

“I wonder what would happen to you and your families if I were to say that you’ve been harassing the people who live here in the slums of the city and, of course, me. Especially me, for she’s rather intoxicated by my words. Just so you know, under her calm expression lies pride.”

“She takes care of those who hurts her loved ones with, you know what? I better not talk about it, for she is… No, I’ve said too much.” Xe’Reth says with misleading words as he keeps up with his expression of superiority.

“Don’t listen to him! He’s just spouting out nonsense! He isn’t in a relationship with her Honored Lady!” the boss shouts for his life with the tip of the dagger pressing at his throat.

“Hmm? Is that so? You four men!” Xe’Reth yells. “Do you want your families to disappear? To be butchered in secret? You know how nobles are, they only care about themselves, their positions, and their loved ones… For I may not be someone important, but she is. You think she can’t remove your puny families from the city? Think again, she has slaughtered many of her enemies down by the middle gate! She’s the hunter who roams to seek out her pray! No one escapes her wrath… And she’s coming over in the morning to meet me, here in my very own rundown house.”

“What do you think might happen to you guys if she finds out that I’ve been beaten up? Don’t you think she’ll worry immensely? Don’t you think she’ll seek out those who brought me harm? Men! I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourselves in my eyes! But if you don’t… I’ll butcher your families myself. I’ve killed one of your people before.”

‘Hopefully, that will scare them,’ Xe’Reth hopes.

As the men hear that last part, fright begins to set itself in their minds, for his words are like terror itself, but that last one. ‘I’ve killed one of your people before,’ makes the four men and their boss wonder what he means by it.

“What… What do you mean?!” the boss yells as he turns his head to glare at Xe’Reth who still has the dagger to his throat. A bold move since any swift movement could make blood river.

Xe’Reth’s smile turns menacing, “Ah yes, that’s right... He was your other brother, wasn’t he… boss? Well, that doesn’t matter now, because he’s long since dead. He’s rotting away in a carelessly dug grave. He was one of your brothers that enjoyed women, wasn’t he? Yes, he so liked to spend his time in the embracement of a woman, but thankfully I stopped him so he couldn’t lay his hands on my ailing mother.”

“What…? H-He’s dead? You killed him?” the boss asks with flickering eyes that make him chaotic in his mind. “You… You lie! He got a job in one of the cities in the west!”

“Ah… paper and ink can be so convenient,” Xe’Reth recalls with an emotional tone while his menacing smile never leaves his ascendant lips.

“Y-You… Y-You…! You fucking whoreso—!!!”

Xe’Reth drives the dagger into the man’s yelling mouth which silences him, for it lodges itself between the upper and lower teeth, right in the middle. The boss himself hears that awful sound as it grinds, making him shake with fright and nausea.

“Speak men! Do you understand what I told you?” Xe’Reth asks with a deep frown.

The one with the dislocated jaw doesn’t look so hateful anymore, for he’s confused by all of this. The four men had come here without knowing what would happen. They thought that they would harass Xe’Reth because he had done something terrible.

They had heard nothing about their boss's brother going to jail for the boss picked them up at their houses. But now when they’ve heard the words that have come out from Xe’Reth and their leader… they are alarmed, for they’ve families of their own that need to be taken care of.

If something were to happen, who would look after their kin?

The men gulp as they see this new monster in front of them.

“B-Boy… Y-You said that we can redeem ourselves?” one of the men asks in desperation, not daring to look into his boss's eyes… for he is finished. His big brother is in prison, and he's here in such a pathetic situation.

“Indeed. I’ll forgive you for your previous transgressions… But only if you beat this man to death, and then dump the body,” Xe’Reth says with the dagger still in the man’s mouth. He even gives a slight vibration that makes it dig in between the boss’s teeth.

“Aaahhh!” he moans.

Why kill this man himself when someone else can do it? To put all of the blame onto someone who’s expendable.

“Mmmmmrrrhh! Aaarrrhhh!” the boss growls in anger, pain, and in fright because these four men aren’t that loyal. They’ve just been given money to keep this wretched man from harm, so of course, they wouldn’t risk their lives for him.

“Are you serious…?” one of the men responds, ogling with his flapping eyelids.

But Xe’Reth retorts, “I’ll count to three. If you haven’t started beating this squealer to death by then, your families will cease to exist. And don’t think that I can’t take you guys on if you were to jump me. But you won’t… Because why care for this man? This man and his family have given the poor people their wrath, their disgusting ways of petty robbery and distortion. The city guard is completely rotten to the core. You know this, don’t you, men?”

“Do you think such a family deserves to live? They’ve raped and deprived people without being caught. Do you men honestly believe that this man and his brother deserves to live? They’re finished, because, well… I’ll use my lover’s power to make his big brother suffer the same fate.”

“He, his older brother, and the younger brother who’s now dead. They’ve forced me to kneel, beg, and made me do things that I wouldn’t do in my wildest dreams, but survival is my forte, sadly,” Xe’Reth sighs, remembering what they made him do… But it wasn’t so bad, Xe’Reth is just exaggerating because these four men don't know squat.

Xe’Reth was mostly being harassed by the oldest brother, but now?

“Sigh… I’ve talked too much, so I’ll count to three. If you don’t come and grab him within those three seconds, consider your families done for,” Xe’Reth smiles with calmness as he jiggles the dagger in the man’s mouth.

“One…—”

The three men leap towards their boss with dead-set eyes while the man with the dislocated jaw comes slower, to help with the beating. As the four come to the two, Xe’Reth pulls the dagger out, then kicks him forward.

“Stop you disloyal bastards! I’ll make your families get butchered even if I have to do it myself! I swear!” the boss rages, but that doesn't help at all, he just pours more grease into the fire.

“Sto—!! No—!! Plea—…”

The men begin to beat him…

The boss’s face takes damage, his teeth break apart, and his nose bleed. His rib cage caves in on himself since these barrages come with full fury. His body is getting kicks, punches, and more verity of blows, until he lies there on the floor motionless, a big bloody mess, and all Xe’Reth can think about is… is that he needs to clean this mess up after they’ve left.

“Heh, well that wasn’t so hard, now was it? Do try not get caught when you dump him somewhere, where he can’t be found; burn him preferably. By the way, if you think you can blame this on me, think again. I did nothing, you four alone killed him.”

“Now take him out of my sight and dispose of him—Go! And if I ever see you four again in my presence, I won’t show you any kindness,” Xe’Reth threatens as he waves his dagger towards the broken door. Though, Xe’Reth hopes that none of the other inhabitants heard the things that transpired here. Most likely they did, but he just puts it out of his mind.

…

The four men leave with a sheet-covered body that drips blood which had been given to them by Xe’Reth. Because they can’t carry a body in the dead of night, all exposed. Well, the darkness does cover everything, but Xe’Reth didn’t want to take any chances of them being discovered so he gave them the bed sheet before they could leave.

Xe’Reth gazes at the men hurrying away... moving towards the... nearby graveyard?

‘Oh, brilliant idea! They must have disposed of a body before... Like myself,’ Xe'Reth compliments.

He has now killed two of the fat slob’s brothers.

Even if he didn’t actually murder the boss of the four men, he did order them to do it nonetheless, and that’s like killing the man himself. But the four didn’t think like that, they only thought that they killed him, and not Xe’Reth, for they aren’t the smartest cobbles on the street, only bouncers.

‘Hopefully, they won’t be my undoing,’ Xe’Reth sighs with worry, squinting down at the floor while scowling.

He begins to clean the blood. But as Xe’Reth scrubs, his peer travels to the broken door and gains a cunning idea. Grinning, he picks up his dagger, to stare at it, then disappears into the bedroom to plan out this new act of trickery…

The dark night then continues its cycle…

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