Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

Chapter 14: Mutant Priest

[? Monsters – Ruelle.]

CORA WALKED OUT WITH THE CAKE just as the Legatus and his Aide were leaving. "What was that about, my Lord?" Aya voiced from beside her. Rafel engaged his eyes to the backs of the soldiers and replied, "Nothing significant. Mortal business as you know, slave, can be a trip. I have decided to assist the General, Ian Noguri in his quest to overthrow a ruling dynasty.

That was he, and his aide." Aya smiled when Rafel winked at her.

She and Lord Master had gotten closer over the past few days. He sweetly called her 'pet' and 'slave', terms of endearment any mortal may see as weird. Let the realm of Eldoria fight their wars. Even if the entire kingdom were to burn, Emberfall would be untouched. A haven. A dark Eden.

However, she knew Lord Rafel had a plan. He always did. General Ian Noguri just knew only his part in it.

"Can we celebrate now?!" Cora called loudly.

She proceeded down from the Day Room to a darker lounge area with banquettes arranged against the dusky walls. This room was shrouded in candles and dancing shadows. Grinning, Rafel and Aya followed her in. He noticed his pet had a tub of pickled ice in her hands. Three bottles of fine Eldorian red wine waited on a black-glass table as he sat.

Lowering the shelf of cake beside the bottles, Cora sank also into the banquette nearest to Rafel's with so much feminine grace it actually amused Rafel.

"Why does His Grace smirk?" Cora blinked, catching on it.

"Nothing. Just nothing." Rafel opened his legs for Aya to kneel between them. "Sometimes you behave like a girl. Other times...you don't."

Cora only smiled. "Should my Lord ever feel the need to confirm if I'm a girl, he's very welcome to."

She rubbed her ass sensually into her seat, and a second later, they all burst out laughing. Rafel was still smiling when Aya served him a glass with two ice cubes sloshing within. Taking a small sip, he turned his eyes down to her.

"Where is our Little Raven?"

"In her room, my Lord," came Aya's soft reply.

"Ah! So that's why the cake is missing a huge slice?"

Corazón laughed. "My baking is second to none, Your Grace."

"I see that, love. Fetch me a slice, pet. On your knees!" Rafel ordered low to Aya, emphasizing on the last part.

When she returned with a tiny creasing on a paper plate, Cora stood from her end, walking over to Rafel's side and sitting beside him, sidling close until her ribs brushed against his side. She fed him the cake from her long, blue-painted fingers. As the icing met his lips, Rafel growled low at the cold sweetness.

"You like, Your Grace?" Cora licked at her thumb, right after Rafel.

"Very much," he admitted. "I'm loving this celebration."

Cora grinned. And below, Aya placed her small hand on the bulge lining her Lord's blue slacks. She began rubbing casually. With Cora still feeding him cake off her fingers, Rafel relaxed into the pampering from both women. Aya rubbed some more before finally stemming the courage to pull down Rafel's zipper.

He offered no resistance. And she put her hand in, pulling out the heavy meat of his cock.

It was nicely girthy in her palm and Aya became entranced as she stared at it, turning it this way and that, playing with it with her fingers.

She let it rest a moment and it bobbed right back up.

"Umm," she sighed. She could never get tired of this view.

Cora, blushing in spite of herself doused her fore fingertip in icing from the cake before putting the same finger down on the broad nob of Rafel's cock. She rubbed the sugar all over him and he jerked.

"Fuck, Corazón!" Rafel grabbed her by the throat.

She giggled, spooning his side, halfway into his lap, and with a blue gaze full of lustful fire, she looked down at Aya, ordering the Succubus for the first time.

"Lick it!"

Aya Naamah promptly dove down, the pink velvet of her lush tongue sweeping out to run over the sides of Rafel's cock. Up to the tip. She coated him with icing everywhere. And then she went down deep on him, taking him in her mouth until his length gouged out her cheek.

Aya shook her head on him, Cora's hands guiding her.

"Uumm, soo good," she muffled against Rafel's groin.

Cora pressed her head down. "You beautiful slave! You like your Master's cock, huh?"

She laughed when Aya gurgled.

Rafel stopped nibbling into Cora's neck when he felt eyes on them. He pulled up his head and impassioned yellow eyes widened when he caught Ravenna standing by the entrance into the Lounge, staring at the succubus between his knees, sucking him off like her life depended on it.

Her entire youthful face was red. Her rare saintly beauty evident.

Rafel abruptly lunged to his feet.

Pop! His cock sounded wetly, as he suddenly pulled out of Aya's mouth.

Confused, the curvaceous raven-haired she-devil spinned around to see the source of the interruption. Ravenna shivered barefoot. Her sex scent was open to Aya and Rafel's demon senses.

"What is it?" Rafel near shouted, unceremoniously pushing his straining cock back into his pants.

It couldn't zip up so he left it that way.

Ravenna wrung her hands, averting her eyes from his fierce ones. "I f–found a crow pecking at my window. This was strapped to its thigh. I believe it's a message from the Queen by the golden seal on it."

Rafel bounded for her and snatched the strip of paper from her grasp. He growled low as he tore at the seal, reading its contents in a second.

'Dear Earl, this is Giselle. We need you at the bank of the Nokmaar. There's been an incident. I need you, Rafel. Godspeed.'

The letter was simple. It conveyed exactly the right amount of urgency.

Sensing his cock still sprung like a damn fist below, Rafel quickly spun to face Cora who was now on her feet also. He only glanced once at Aya who was wiping at the corners of her mouth with her sleeve, and Ravenna, who frankly had never seen a sight so brutally erotic in her life, before swiftly focusing on his dark witch Chamberlain.

"I need a swift dressing, Corazón. The Queen has requested my presence at Nokmaar."

Cora nodded, knowing exactly not to ask questions. Emergencies like this spared no time for info dumps. "What colors are we thinking, Your Grace?"

"Black and gold," came Rafel's solid reply. "Make it loose around the crotch."

Cora nodded, immediately pushing out two fingers and rolling her wrist in a circular motion in front of Rafel. Blue light shimmered in the air, glowing with magic all over his body. Invisible threads of obsidian spun out of thin air, coating his tall silhouette.

And by the time Cora stopped waving, Rafel stood crisply dressed in dark pants, a darker grove shirt, overdone in a gold-embroidered trenchcoat, its high collar brushing the back ends of Rafel's ginger hair.

She took the liberty of spicing up his feet in bold alligator-skin boots.

"I hear Nokmaar is swampy," she offered. "Godspeed, Your Grace. We will remain at Emberfall, and await your return."

"Thank you," Rafel said, slinking into the shadows in the Lounge.

His [Shadow Self] was already equipped, and pulling on dark mana, he retreated into the shadow realm of sentient blackness he controlled, portalling straight to a place he had only ever seen as a blight on the Eldorian map.

The bog of Nockmaar.

Rafel arrived in record time. Two minutes. For a journey that was supposed to last two day's ride by horse.

He rematerialized into the long shadows cast by a massive Weeping Willow with gnarly roots sunken into the moist ground. Quickly looking around, he found the small riverine town covering the left area, with taverns bearing CLOSED signs up their windows, and little wooden cabins along the muddy street paths.

Nokmaar was built near the River Nokmaar, hence its name. A river that was black as death and rumored to eat it's own fishes. Only crocodiles swam in its depths.

Rafel walked away from the Willow tree, taking the shortest route into the village. He soon found a company of the Gold Cloaks, the Queen's Royal Guard, by the swampy bank of River Nokmaar. He moved straight for them. The armored knights cleared the way for him as he approached, and Giselle, seeing him, rushed out, stopping just short of hugging him.

"Thank the gods! You're here early. I know I asked on short notice, but thank you for doing this, Rafel. It means a lot." The Queen said into his chest.

Giselle's long golden robe swept the ground in her train and the ends were dirty with mud.

"So, what do we have here, Your Majesty?" Rafel spoke loudly, adopting a formal tone and pulling her little grasping hands from his chest.

Giselle briefly stumbled on her feet but quickly caught herself. She followed behind Rafel who was already moving to the line of frozen corpses, covered with makeshift blankets in a sorry mess by the black river's bank.

"I so hate coming here!" Giselle kicked her feet in the dirt.

She watched quietly as Rafel bent low, looking in his brooding element as he pulled back the body coverlet on the first corpse.

It was a man.

The face was astonishing. White. Pale, pleading eyes that saw nothing.

Something moved just underneath the skin.

"What happened here?" Rafel asked again.

"I was hoping you could tell me, Your Grace," Giselle replied. "All I got few hours ago was a call about a Wiccan Temple in Nokmaar whose Vicar had gone mad. I arrived to these drowned bodies. We are still pulling out others from the deep, but River Nokmaar is not the kind you swim in. So we have taken to hang back and let the crocodiles spew out the ones they can't eat. Body count is at 18 so far.

The Vicar's entire congregation it seems.

So, what do you think it is?" Giselle observed Rafel with a studious gaze as he dropped the blanket, rising to his feet.

"A mutation." Rafel said simply.

"A mutated Priest? How did you come of it?"

"There are slash marks on the neck of the first victim. A huge chunk of his torso missing from where the Crocs got him. But he was already infected before he hit the water. He just had to die for the virus to take over. Hence, the drowning."

"Infected? Is the virus in the water?"

"No. This is a disease not from earth. It's Hellborn—which is why I'm guessing your Gold Cloaks have had little luck catching the culprit. In the body of our beloved Vicar is the original mother host. The infection of a Black Rose can only be extinguished by Hellfire. From Hell it was born, and only a weapon of Hell can destroy it.

The Vicar must burn. Along with these other bodies. We find him. We end this."

"Oh, we've already got him."

That made Rafel turn back to Giselle.

"Where is he?"

All around, few watching townies and Gold Cloaks watched the Queen and the taller, mysterious Earl engage in a private dialogue. It was mostly whispers, but everyone was eager to be done with the rank of death fucking up the already sour river.

They kept watching as Giselle led Rafel a short distance away from the bank of the black river to the sturdy rise of gray rotting wood that served as patronage to the faithful worshippers of Nokmaar. "He waited for all his congregation to gather before infecting and drowning them," Giselle said. "There he is!"

She pointed to the closed doors of the Temple where Rafel found a lean man nailed to the very wood of the chapel.

He was punctured in the wrists, ankles, every visible joint Rafel could see, his throat, and also several lining his forehead. It was an appalling sight.

Despite the man still being in smart crimson priestly robes, his body was nothing holy. He looked like a plant demon had possessed him. Or like he was being digested by a carnivorous tree. Half his crucified body was a ghastly mess of vegetation leaking out his skin.

His fingers were shrubs. His legs were roots. One eye socket was busted, and in its place bloomed a single black rose flower. His body was serrated in oozing bark that leaked green pus down to the damp earth.

Rafel heard one of the proselytes retch in the corner.

There were many reasons Hellions weren't allowed in the mortal realm. This was one of such.

Hell blood and mortal blood did not mix. And when it did, the offspring was frightening. Like the plant-ridden body of this mutated Priest.

Fuck knows where he'd gone to get bitten by a Black Rose larva!

"Right! Let's get this over with."

Rafel began walking close to the nailed man.

"Careful!" Giselle called, a safe distance behind. "He pukes!"

'I know,' Rafel was tempted to say. But he couldn't get infected. He was not mortal. It was both his boon and his woe.

Rafel stopped walking a feet away from the horrifying crucifixion depicting both man and plant in a messy hybrid. "Whoever you are in there, I am sorry," Rafel whispered. And then he clicked his fingers. Red hot flame shot up into his open palm. People around gasped as he sent his palm towards the mutant priest, hurling the ball of flame to the chapel.

The flame struck the foot of the wooden Temple, kindling rapidly like peat doused the building. It was no ordinary fire. It was Hellfire. And the smallest spark was like a comet, obliterating all in its path. It consumed both crucified priest and infected building in roaring intensity. The inferno burned and burned, claiming the whole chapel in giant flames that lunged up to the grainy sky.

"Toss them in!" Rafel ordered the Gold Cloaks, nodding to the line of corpses.

Giselle moved to his side, and both of them along with the entire swampy village of Nokmaar watched as the hurled bodies thrown in seemed like added fuel to the furnace. The fires burned until the earth around the pyre was hissing and giving up steam.

Rafel's body was warm with the radiance and he stood a good twenty feet away.

Half an hour later, and the fire was still going strong. Giselle was glued to Rafel's side. He looked down at her petite form. For all the divine magic within her, the Fey Queen was encased in a frail nature.

"You shouldn't be coming to these kind of places without backup." Rafel spoke softly to her.

"Well, I'm glad I have you." Giselle returned, folding the more into him.

Rafel sighed and looked back into the fire. He knew when Giselle was distracting from a topic. She had rushed to a scene of potential death, just to save a muddy stain of a town. Now, Rafel might not know what exactly the Nova Imperia dynasty might have done to piss off General Noguri. But he was sure of one thing. The Queen did care about other factions in her Empire.

Whether or not she cared enough to go to war, was another matter entirely?

Rafel settled his amber eyes on the crackle of the lapping flames. One thing that was constant in his life—Fire.