Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

Tybalt woke in the late morning, and before he had moved a single inch, he began working on problems from the previous night.

“Edgard, bring up the prisoners from beneath the town. I want them housed somewhere out of sight and kept alive until I’m ready to dispose of them. Baldwin will assist you. When you’re done, present yourself to me along with the other Beastkings.”

“All Beastkings, present yourselves to me in the next two hours. I want to repair the damage that some of you have taken - and improve all of you.”

“Baldwin, help Edgard secure housing for the beastfolk who tried to kill me last night. I know you don’t have your legs right now, I’ll fix that, but Edgard can’t speak out loud, and you can, so…”

“Hieron, I want you to supervise the zombies and skeletons. The people of Whadesgart have welcomed us, so we should begin helping them fix up the parts of the town that are salvageable. We’ll be using this place as a base of operations for a while, so it’s good to try and rule with a light touch for the moment. Connect with…”

On and on. Leading an army could be tiring, but it was fortunate that he had good subordinates. Absolutely obedient ones, for the most part.

“My lord, you’re awake,” said Kistana softly from beneath one of his arms.

It wasn’t a question but a certainty resulting from superior senses.

He turned his head and kissed her lightly on the lips. She kissed him back, and after a few seconds of this, he pushed his tongue gently into her mouth and started teaching her elven style kissing.

He knew immediately, as his tongue tangled with her slightly rough one, that he would be giving her many lessons on this subject.

The arm wrapped around her dropped, and he placed his hand on the small of her back - not an especially sexual touch, not yet. Just possessive. Kistana was his now. Not just his bodyguard. His partner. His mate. A woman who was just waiting for him to decide that they were ready for intimacy.

It’s so strange, yesterday, I would have considered this out of my reach, he thought. I figured that if I brought up the idea of pulling her into my… circle like this, I’d just be forcing her. But she wanted it all the time. Even while I was looking at her, she was looking at me, and neither of us noticed. Or at least, I missed it. I thought I was good at these things.

“I’d prefer that you don’t call me ‘my lord’ unless we’re around people outside the family anymore, Kistana,” Tybalt said quietly as they separated. “Unless you’re into that sexually. If it arouses you, that’s fine. But as far as I’m concerned, to you, I’m Tybalt… your mate.”

“I… don’t know what I like, sexually, my - um, Tybalt. I will try to observe your wishes.”

“We’ll help you figure out what you like sexually,” said Vidalia from under Tybalt’s other arm. She nuzzled against Tybalt’s side until the necromancer turned and pulled her into a lingering kiss of her own.

All was right with the world.

Half an hour later, all three were dressed. They met Mariella, Dero, and Victoria downstairs for a late breakfast. Though they were in the Mayor’s home, he wasn’t present. He had already gone off to contribute his leadership to the efforts at salvaging as much of the town as could be managed.

“So, Tybalt and I are sleeping together, now,” Dero said as she sat down. She bowed her head with a slight smile. “I’m one of you, so I hope the rest of you will take good care of me.”

“I will also be mating with Tybalt,” said Kistana.

Vidalia burst out laughing.

“Good for you, Kistana,” said Victoria, smiling. She turned to Dero and became a little more serious. “I hope you actually mean it when you say you’re one of us. I think all of us are actually fairly attached to you.”

“This is going to throw some interesting new wrinkles into the schedule,” said Mariella, furrowing her brow.

“We’re getting closer to the upper limit, so the schedule is getting closer to its final form,” Vidalia said with a shrug. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure Dero is up for sharing nights with you or me or both of us sometimes.”

“That’s not - I didn’t say- ” Mariella stopped talking, blushing furiously.

“Dero, I think we need to talk about something you said last night,” Tybalt said, taking the opportunity to change the subject.

“What happens in the hot spring stays in the hot spring, Tybalt,” Dero said. “Everyone knows that. It’s like a rule. Don’t get in the way of your friend getting laid, don’t open your mouth during a con job unless you know the situation, and what happens in the hot springs stays in the hot springs. So, whatever embarrassing shit you got me to say is private. Like, if you cried out your sister’s name during your orgasm, I wouldn’t go around telling people that. I’d take that shit to my grave.”

“Wait, did you- ?” Vidalia began, looking incredulous and amused.

“You have a sister?” Victoria said.

“That’s, um- ” Tybalt began

“You seem in a better mood than usual, Dero,” Mariella observed, changing the subject again.

“I… guess I am?” the dark elf said, smiling.

“It’s the freshly fucked mood,” said Vidalia knowingly. “I understand this now. She was also swaying her hips differently when she walked in.”

Mariella and Dero laughed.

“So that’s what’s had me pissed off the last decade or so,” the dark elf joked. “Needed dick.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything about all the weird stuff you said during the act, Dero,” Tybalt said. “It was more the royal bloodline stuff.”

“Oh. Um,  yeah.”

“What royal bloodline stuff?” asked Victoria.

Vidalia shrugged and made a face as if it was a mystery, and Tybalt felt absolutely certain that she already knew. Because of course she did.

The words tumbled from Dero’s lips in a rush. Tybalt had the feeling they were painful for her. “I’m kind of sort of the last member of the dark elf royal bloodline, not that it’s a big deal now. I’m not sure how many survivors are even alive at this point, so I’m probably the Queen of all two dark elves or something. It seemed like something relevant when I was, um, talking about joining the rest of you who are with the wannabe emperor here.”

“What happened to- ” Mariella began, her expression troubled.

“The other thing I wanted to mention is about the high elf royals,” Tybalt said, deliberately cutting her off. “We don’t want to make you relive any bad memories, but since we’re meeting up with the dragon in a moon’s time or something, I thought it might be important to get an idea of what your relations have been like with them.”

“There’s nothing much to tell,” Dero said. “We were distantly connected. We didn’t see each other that often, only at shared festivals and for cultural exchange. They didn’t lift a finger to help us when a coalition of religious fanatics united to wipe us out. But they didn’t join in or anything, either. There were humans, dwarves, and wolfmen in the army that attacked us, but no elves.”

“I suppose this was before beastfolk and humans were opposed,” Kistana said quietly.

For a moment, Tybalt questioned how that could be true given the timeline as he understood it, but the conversation was already moving on.

“So, there’s no grudge?” Victoria asked.

“I felt some bitterness at the time, but that’s long since faded,” Dero said. “I don’t live my life fighting other people’s battles, so it’s hypocritical to expect other people to do that for me.”

“That’s good, since you’re the one who actually knows them,” said Tybalt.

“I’ll admit I might enjoy seeing the face of the High Elf King at finding out I survived - there used to be a little rivalry between our families, and I think that’s why the dark elves lived separately - but he was supposed to be pretty old even then, from what I remember. That was centuries ago. Even elves die of old age eventually, no matter how well preserved they look up until the end.”

“That brings me to another point I wasn’t sure how to bring up. The Princess we met wasn’t living. That is, she didn’t give off any life force. I can sense that. So I think she must have been undead.”

“The fuck?” the dark elf muttered.

“Yeah. At the time, I didn’t want to bring it up in case it messed up our negotiations with the dragon. If he didn’t know, maybe he wouldn’t value her as much if he found out. But now I’m wondering…”

“If the whole Royal Family is undead?” Dero finished.

Tybalt nodded.

“Well, I never noticed them acting like your usual undead, Tybalt,” she said. “But I know there are higher, more functional types. Types with egos even bigger than humans, for instance. Like liches.”

“And vampires,” Tybalt said, deliberately ignoring Dero’s phrasing. “Revenants. There are only a few types that could manage to retain such a life-like appearance successfully. It takes either being a specific type of undead or using powerful magic - which, again, is only available to a few types of undead.”

“Frankly, I’m still trying to digest the part about Dero being royalty,” said Victoria.

“Me too,” said Mariella.

“Do you have a preferred style of address?” asked Kistana.

“Yes,” the dark elf deadpanned. “Your Royal Darkest of the Dark Elves-ness, Dero the Great, Protector of All One Dark Elf. No, I don’t have a ‘preferred style!’ Call me Dero. You know my name, and we’ve been hanging around each other for months now! I am the last scion of a deposed family. The royal blood isn’t worth a damn thing anyway.”

“Except that my children with Dero will one day claim the dark elf throne,” Tybalt said, matching Dero’s initial deadpan tone.

“Really?” asked Kistana seriously. “Because that sounds like an interesting mission worthy of- ”

“No,” said Dero.

But at the same time, Tybalt said, “Maybe.”

They both looked at each other across the table for a long moment.

“If it’s worth anything, it might be something to consider,” the necromancer said finally.

“It probably isn’t,” Dero muttered. She paused, then added, “But we do have an army. Growing all the time. So, maybe someday…”

“Did you already know Dero was royalty, Vidalia?” Mariella asked.

“What? Me? N-No!” the foxgirl protested feebly, taken off guard by being suddenly drawn into the conversation.

“You’re a terrible liar, Vida,” said Victoria, shaking her head.

“It’s hard to get better when you immediately rat me out if I try, Vicky,” Vidalia grumbled. “Where’s the sisterly loyalty?”

“I kind of figured from your reaction that you must have seen it in a vision,” Tybalt said.

“You probably decided it wasn’t important, right?” Dero asked.

“No, I knew that if Tybalt didn’t treat you like a royal, you’d like him better,” Vidalia replied. “You don’t want to be put on some high pedestal. You want to live your life. The royal title is just baggage… except that maybe, someday, it will be relevant again.”

Everyone around the table nodded with understanding at that.

Dero wasn’t a Queen, not really. Not yet.

But somewhere out there was her lost homeland, overrun by enemies.

“For what it’s worth, Kistana, you probably have some royal blood yourself,” Tybalt said. “The Huntsmaster line of Beastkings are likely somewhere in your ancestry, or you wouldn’t randomly end up with a unique class that’s clearly related to theirs.”

“My Elders always said I was a mutant,” Kistana replied hesitantly.

“That could be true,” Victoria replied in a gentle voice. “But it’s also what they would say if you actually were royalty, and they didn’t want to owe you fealty.”

The catgirl looked stricken, but the others kept on talking.

“So, you not only have a harem of beautiful women, but it’s all noble girls, chiefs’ descendants, and lost royalty,” Dero said.

“I didn’t do that on purpose,” Tybalt replied honestly, trying not to smirk.

“He has the favor of the greatest god, Dero,” Kistana said gently.

“Undoubtedly we are a reward for his tremendous virtue,” the dark elf deadpanned.

“Fate does move in strange and intriguing ways,” Vidalia replied with a little wink.

“I’m going to go fix the mummies that dragon messed up while the rest of you plot how to recover your lost stations,” Tybalt said, pushing his bowl away and rising. “Even though I’m planning to use this port as a base for a while, we still have a bunch of towns to subjugate.”

“There’s no rest for the wicked,” Dero replied just as he managed to make it out the door.

Outside, all of the Beastking mummies awaited him.

“Master, thank you for summoning us,” sent several of them at once telepathically.

“You mentioned making improvements?” asked Stanislaw in a wary tone.

“Yes,” the necromancer said. “If I can manage it… You have been excellent heavy forces among my undead army. But if I can figure it out, it’s high time that you resumed your roles of prominence among the beastfolk.”