Chapter 5: Kragor’s Past
The cavern’s deep chill retreated near the geothermal spring Kragor had tapped. Steam rose in ghostly tendrils, condensing on the rough-hewn ceiling. Alaric found him there, a mountain of shadow and sinew in the vaporous gloom.
Kragor was bent over the stone catch-basin, drinking directly from the flow with the profound, unthinking thirst of a bull. A threadbare bedsheet, stolen from some ruined city domicile, was knched loosely around his hips. It did little to conceal the formidable silhouette beneath; the heavy hang of his balls, the thick outline of his soft cock resting against a thigh like a dormant weapon. Water sluiced through the dark hair plastering his chest, tracing the gullies between muscle.
Alaric leaned against the stone doorway, the cold seeping through his jacket. “Good time?”
Kragor straightened, water dripping from his chin onto his chest. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hand, the gesture strangely human. “A start,” he rumbled. The sound vibrated through the steam. “It was… necessary. To release that primal pressure. Centuries of wanting, coiled up. It needed a target.”
“And the target?”
“Unconscious. Ruined.” A flash of teeth in the dark. “He’ll be out for a day, maybe two. His body isn’t built for that kind of worship. Not yet.” Kragor adjusted the sheet, the fabric straining. “He took it well. Screamed pretty.”
Alaric’s eyes were analytical, missing nothing. “The texts from your tomb, the scrolls we deciphered… they spoke of you taking queens to your bed. Before the Witch’s blessing. Before the… change.”
Kragor’s gaze, which had been distant, focused on Alaric with a sudden, palpable weight. “Women have their uses. Strength in battle. The capacity to carry a legacy in their womb. I respect that.” He turned, leaning his bulk against the basin, the stone groaning. “But the blessing… it didn’t just make me taller. It peeled layers back. Let me see what I truly craved.”
He looked down at his own hands, flexing them. “The solidity of a man. The density of muscle. The way a warrior’s body is made to withstand force, to bear weight.” His voice dropped, became a conspiratorial growl. “And they’re bigger sluts, once you break their pride. Every fucking one of them. All that arrogance, that pretense of control…” He chuckled, a low, rolling sound. “It melts. It always melts. Turns to begging. To greedy, moaning need. Nothing is sweeter than hearing a proud king, a famed knight, sobbing for my seed, begging me to plant my child in his gut.”
Alaric absorbed this, his mind cataloging. “Is that the goal? Heirs?”
“In time,” Kragor conceded, pushing off from the basin. The sheet gaped, offering a shadowed glimpse of coarse hair. “A king needs a line. But first,” he said, his tone broadening with ambition, “a king needs a court. A harem. My own collection of broken, beautiful things.”
“So Adrian is just the first.”
Kragor laughed, a full, booming sound that echoed off the cavern walls. “Adrian is a welcome receptacle. A first, delicious taste. But Kragor the King-Breaker does not dine once and call it a feast. I need variety. Different flavors of pride to crush.”
“What’s the next move, then?” Alaric asked, folding his arms. “More random destruction? Scavenging the battlefield for likely candidates?”
Kragor began to walk back toward the living cavern, his stride casual, predatory. Alaric fell into step beside him, a tiny shadow in his wake. “The destruction is not random, little planner. It is the plow that tills the field. We target the next city. A major one. The chaos, the fear… it draws certain types to the surface. The proud defenders. The arrogant heroes. They come to stop the monster.”
He paused, turning his head, nostrils flaring subtly. “And the Witch’s gift lets me smell them. Their sweat, their testosterone, the particular pheromone cocktail of a male who was made to be mine.” He inhaled deeply, as if sampling the air of the cavern itself. “I’ll know my next bitch the moment the wind shifts. He’ll smell like challenge. And he’ll end up smelling like me.”
He stopped suddenly, forcing Alaric to halt. Kragor leaned down, the immense, heat-radiating bulk of him crowding Alaric against the cool tunnel wall. The musky, post-sex scent of him—adrenaline, sweat, sex, and raw power—was overwhelming. Alaric’s breath hitched, his analytical composure cracking for a second as he stared at the forest of Kragor’s chest, so close he could see the individual droplets of spring water clinging to the hair.
Kragor’s voice was a whisper that carried the weight of a rockslide. “You enjoy watching. Planning. That’s your use. But remember your place.”
Then he was moving again, leaving Alaric pressed against the stone, heart hammering. Kragor strode back toward the nest of furs where Adrian’s pale form lay crumpled and still. As he walked, he hooked a thumb into the knot of the bedsheet, scratching idly at his heavy balls through the fabric, a gesture of pure, unthinking ownership.
A slow, cocky grin spread across his face, visible in the dim light as he glanced back at Alaric once more. It was the grin of a predator who had just remembered the entire world was his hunting ground.