Chapter 7: Night Terrors
The silence of the mansion after the coin was consumed wasn't peaceful. It was watchful. Kazuma lay awake in the grand bed, the silk sheets cold against his skin. Aqua was a curled-up warmth against his back, her breathing deep and regular. Darkness slept on a chaise lounge by the window, her bandaged body rising and falling in a heavy rhythm, small whimpers sometimes escaping her swollen lips—pleasant dreams of venom and penetration.
He was almost asleep when Aqua jerked against him.
It started as a twitch in her legs. Then a low, plaintive moan, trapped behind her teeth. Her fingers clenched into the sheets.
“No,” she mumbled, the word thick with sleep. “No, go away.”
Kazuma sighed, opening his eyes to the velvet canopy above. He waited for it to pass.
It didn’t. Her breathing hitched, became ragged. She thrashed, a leg kicking out. “Get off! Get it off!”
Her voice rose, sharpened into a keening edge of pure terror. She bolted upright with a gasp that ripped through the room’s quiet. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, seeing nothing in the dark. A full-throated scream tore from her, raw and piercing.
Darkness stirred on the chaise, mumbling, “Harder…”
“Shut up,” Kazuma hissed at the waking world. He reached for Aqua, his hand finding her shoulder slick with cold sweat. “Aqua. It’s a dream.”
She didn’t hear him. The scream dissolved into frantic, hyperventilating sobs. “The sac… it’s pulsing… it’s moving… the eggs, they’re hatching inside—”
He’d had enough. The mansion was listening. Every shriek was a drop of fuel on its latent hunger. He couldn’t afford another night of her waking the dormant echoes in the walls. He shifted, gripped her shoulder harder, and rolled her onto her back. In the sliver of moonlight from the window, her face was a mask of tear-streaked terror.
He didn’t try to soothe her. Soothing was a language she’d only use for manipulation. He used a rougher dialect.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a brutal press of his mouth against hers, stealing her breath, silencing the next rising scream. She stiffened, then her hands came up, not to push him away, but to claw at the front of his shirt, clutching fabric and skin. A guttural sound vibrated in her throat, part panic, part something else.
He broke the kiss, his face inches from hers. Her eyes were wild, confused, but the worst of the nightmare had receded, replaced by the shock of his presence.
“You need to forget?” he growled, his voice sleep-roughened and blunt. “I’ll fuck it out of you.”
He didn’t wait for permission. The deal was the deal. His hands went to her hips, flipping her over onto her stomach with a practised yank. The sheer nightgown she wore rode up, baring her legs, the curve of her ass pale in the dim light. He knew she wore nothing underneath. The knowledge was a familiar, cynical heat in his gut.
She gasped into the pillow, her body tensing. He ran a calloused hand over one smooth cheek, a possessive, rough gesture. He heard her breath catch again, but this time it wasn’t fear. He spread her cheeks, exposing her.
“Kazuma—” Her voice was muffled, weak.
“Quiet.” He spat into his palm, a crude, functional lubrication, and stroked himself to hardness. The memories of the day—the rotting orchard, the buzzing, the sac’s weight in his hand—were a distant buzz. This was simple. Transactional. A way to burn out the lingering fright.
He positioned himself and pushed in. She was tight, always tight, and she let out a choked cry into the pillow as he entered her. Her back arched, not in resistance, but in a deep, accepting curve.
He set a punishing rhythm from the start, each thrust a deliberate act of erasure. The bed, a monstrous antique of dark wood, creaked in protest. The sounds filled the room: skin on skin, her stifled moans, his own labored grunts. He leaned over her, one hand braced on the headboard, the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave bruises.
The nightmare was gone from her. Replaced by this. A full, overwhelming physicality. Her cries lost their edge of panic, transforming into something sweeter, higher. She pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts, her fingers twisting in the sheets. “D-don’t stop,” she whimpered, the command a broken plea.
He didn’t. He drove into her, using her, letting the base physicality scour his own mind clean. The gold coin was gone. The house was fed. This was the only currency left that mattered between them.
He felt the telltale coil tightening in his gut, a welcome numbness. “Aqua,” he gritted out, a warning.
She understood. With a ragged gasp, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, forcing him to slip out. She twisted, her movements clumsy with urgency, and took him into her mouth before he could protest. Her lips stretched around him, warm and wet, her tongue working with a desperate, practiced need.
It was over quickly. A few sharp thrusts into the back of her throat and he came with a low groan, his body shuddering. She swallowed convulsively, taking every drop, a messy, obedient gluttony. When he pulled back, she stayed on her knees, panting, a thin strand of saliva and seed connecting her lips to him for a second before it broke.
She looked up at him, her eyes glassy. The terror was gone, burned away. A different, hungry emptiness was there instead. Her body was still trembling, wound tight. She shifted, kneeling upright, her hands moving between her own legs. Her touch was frantic, seeking the release he’d ignored.
He watched, catching his breath. Her face contorted, beautiful and absurd in the moonlight. Her hips jerked. A soft, keening whine built in her throat. Then she stiffened, her back bowing, and a clear liquid spurted from her, pattering onto the silk sheets beneath her knees. She collapsed forward with a shattered sigh, her body going limp.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing. The scent of sex and jasmine and old wood mingled in the air. The mansion seemed to drink it in, the shadows in the corners deepening.
From across the room, Darkness’s voice, thick with sleep and something darker, slurred, “That… sounded vigorous. Are you… quite finished?”
Aqua didn’t answer. She’d already rolled onto her side, her eyes closed, falling almost instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep. Kazuma looked over at Darkness. She was watching them, one eye visible in the moonlight, gleaming with a profound, lonely envy.
“Go back to sleep, Lalatina,” he muttered, lying back down.
“Sleep is… elusive,” she whispered. “The welts. They itch terribly. A deep, burning itch.” Her hand drifted to her bandaged neck, scratching gently. The motion was slow, deliberate. An invitation.
Kazuma stared at the canopy. The house was quiet again. Aqua’s nightmare was exorcised. His own tension was spent. But the quiet wasn’t restful. It was the quiet of a predator waiting, sated for now, but always watching, always tasting the air.
It was the quiet of a predator waiting, sated for now, but always watching, always tasting the air.
Kazuma woke to an empty bed. The space beside him was cool, the silk sheets tangled into a nest. Sunlight, pale and dusty, cut through a gap in the heavy velvet drapes. He listened. No screaming. No crying. Just the profound, listening silence of the house and, faintly, a voice from down the hall.
He swung his legs out of bed. His body ached in a dozen small places, a ledger of yesterday’s exertions. He pulled on his trousers and shirt from the floor and padded out onto the landing.
The voice grew clearer. Aqua’s, but strained, focused. “...and may your wounds close, and your flesh be made whole, and all that junk…”
He followed the sound to a guest room. The door was ajar. Inside, Darkness lay propped on pillows, her torso bare save for bandages. The angry purple welts from the wasp stings mapped her skin like a cruel constellation. Aqua knelt beside the bed, her hands glowing with a soft blue light, pressed against Darkness’s ribcage. Sweat beaded on Aqua’s forehead.
“It’s not working as fast,” Aqua muttered, more to herself. “The venom’s still in there, deep. It’s like trying to clean mud out of a thread.”
“I can feel it,” Darkness breathed. Her eyes were closed, her head back. “A lingering burn. In the marrow.” Her expression was one of deep, pained concentration, verging on pleasure.
Kazuma leaned against the doorframe. “Morning.”
Aqua jumped, the healing light flickering. “Don’t sneak up on me! You’ll break my concentration and I’ll have to start over.”
“Just making sure you weren’t trying to convert her to your useless cult.” He pushed off the frame. “I’m making food. Don’t wear yourself out.”
Downstairs, the kitchen was a cavern of cold stone. He moved through the familiar rituals: stoking the fire in the hearth, filling a pot with water from the pump, digging out last night’s hard bread and a wedge of cheese. The sounds were small and domestic, a fragile claim on the oppressive space.
He sliced the cheese thickly, tossed the bread onto a grate over the fire to toast. The water began to simmer. He threw in a handful of oats, stirring mechanically. The smells of scorching bread and bubbling porridge slowly pushed back the residual scents of venom and sex.
Footsteps shuffled behind him. Aqua slumped into a chair at the rough wooden table. She looked drained, dark smudges under her eyes. “She’ll live,” Aqua announced, her tone implying a great personal sacrifice. “But it took three full Heals. I’m completely empty. I need sustenance.”
“You mean you’re hungry.”
“I mean my divine mana vessel is critically depleted and requires replenishment!” She snatched the piece of toast he held out, biting into it with a frustrated crunch.
He ladled porridge into two bowls, sliding one in front of her. He left the pot simmering for a third serving. She ate with a speed that was neither graceful nor goddess-like, shoveling the bland oats into her mouth. Color slowly returned to her cheeks.
He ate his own portion standing by the fire, watching her. “The nightmares. Gone?”
She paused, a spoonful halfway to her mouth. She looked down into the bowl. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “For now.”
He grunted, finished his food, and wiped the bowl clean with a finger. He filled the third bowl, sprinkling the last of the cheese on top. “Don’t wander off. We’ve got rent to figure out.”
He took the bowl and a spoon upstairs.
Darkness was sitting up now, a thin sheet pulled over her lap. The worst of the swelling on her face had receded, though one eye was still partially bruised. The welts on her torso were now pink, healthy scars. She looked at the bowl in his hand like it was a foreign artifact.
“You didn’t have to,” she said, her voice still rough.
“I did,” he said, placing it on the nightstand beside her. “If you starve, we’re down a tank. The next job would be harder.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “Always pragmatic.” She picked up the spoon, her movements stiff. “Thank you.”
He stood there for a moment, watching her take the first careful bite. The silence between them was different from the one downstairs. It was heavy with yesterday’s shared violence, her public degradation, his cold calculation. It was a silence that didn’t need filling.
“The itching stopped?” he asked.
She nodded, swallowing. “Mostly. It’s just… sore now. A good sore.” She looked up at him, her gaze direct. “The job paid?”
“It paid.”
“It paid.” He watched her scrape the last of the porridge from the bowl. Her hands were steady now. The profound weakness from the venom was gone, leaving only the impressive latticework of scars. She set the spoon down with a precise click.
She didn’t look at him. Her fingers traced the raised line of a sting on her collarbone. “The gold will keep it quiet. For a week.” A statement, not a question.
“That’s the deal.”
Silence stretched. The house listened. Dust motes danced in the sunbeam crossing the bed. She finally lifted her gaze. There was no shame in it, only a stark, open want. “Last night,” she began, her voice low. “When you were with Aqua. The sounds. They were… vivid.”
Kazuma said nothing. He knew this road.
“The healing is complete,” she continued, each word deliberate. “But the soreness is deep. In the muscles.” She swallowed. “A firm touch. It might… help the stiffness.”
He understood the translation. The politely framed hunger. She was asking to be used, to have the memory of the wasp’s violent penetration replaced by a more controlled, human version. She was asking for more.
He looked at her—the noble crusader with a body map of fresh scars, sitting in a borrowed bed in a hungry house. It was a simple transaction. A distraction. A way to quiet two kinds of ache.
“Fine,” he said, his voice flat.
He locked the bedroom door. The click was loud in the quiet. He walked back to the bed and pulled the sheet from her lap. She didn’t assist or resist, her breath already coming quicker. The scars were pink against her pale skin.
He wasn’t gentle. Gentleness wasn’t what she’d asked for. He pushed her shoulders back down against the pillows. His hands were rough on her hips, turning her onto her stomach. The new scars met his palms. She buried her face in the pillow with a shuddering sigh.
He took her from behind, with the same pragmatic efficiency he’d used on Aqua hours before. There was no kissing, no pretense. This was about pressure and friction, about the deliberate exploitation of a need they both understood. The bed groaned. Her stifled cries were different from Aqua’s—deeper, guttural, punctuated by sharp inhalations that were almost like sobs.
He focused on the mechanics, on the tight heat, on the way her body clenched around him. He thought of the forty thousand eris, now mostly spent. He thought of the next job, still unknown. This was just another type of work.
When he finished, he pulled out and away. She lay utterly still, her body trembling with aftershocks. He cleaned himself with a corner of the sheet and pulled his clothes back on.
“The stiffness should be gone,” he said, unlocking the door.
A muffled, grateful sound came from the pillow.
He left her there, descending the stairs back to the kitchen. The empty porridge pot sat in the sink. Aqua was at the table, but she wasn’t resting. She was staring at the rough wood grain, her fists clenched.
“It’s not fair,” she said, her voice tight, not looking at him. “I’m the one who had the nightmare. I’m the one who purified the nest. I used all my magic on her. And then you go up there and… and I can hear it.” She finally glared at him, her eyes blazing with unshed tears of frustration. “This house is awful, the jobs are disgusting, and everything here is just so… vulgar!”
Her voice was climbing, threatening to spiral into a shriek that would feed the walls. Kazuma looked at the two dirty bowls in his hands. He saw the tremor in her shoulders, the raw, unfocused anger born of exhaustion and fear.
Talking would be useless. Reasoning was a language for people who weren’t living day-to-day on a knife’s edge.
He set the bowls down on the table with a dull thud.
In two strides he was in front of her. He didn’t grab her shoulders or try to shake her. He simply framed her face with his hands and kissed her.
It was deep, consuming, and utterly silent. A physical full stop to her rising tirade.
She gasped against his mouth, shocked stiff. Her hands fluttered in the air for a second, lost. Then, slowly, they came up and wound around his neck, pulling him closer. The anger melted out of her posture, replaced by a pliant, yielding warmth. A small, desperate sound vibrated in her throat.
He broke the kiss, one hand sliding down her back, over the curve of her hip. He gripped the soft flesh of her ass through her dress, a hard, possessive squeeze she always craved. She moaned, her forehead falling against his shoulder, all the fight drained out of her.
“The vulgarity pays the rent,” he murmured into her hair, his hand still kneading. “Now shut up and help me clean these bowls.”
She nodded, silent, her arms still loosely around his neck, holding on as if the floor had shifted beneath her.