Chapter 1: Whispers from the Forbidden Network
Arthur Watts set the scroll on the cold stone table with the reverence of a man laying an offering before an altar. He stepped back, clasping his hands behind his back as he waited for his Queen's acknowledgment. The reports of Vale's frail defenses, the movements of the White Fang, the slow decay of Atlas's pride.
Salem did not look at him. Her white hair fell in perfect curtains around her face as she stared at the far wall, her eyes unfocused. The silence stretched. One heartbeat. Two. The faint pulse of the fortress itself seemed to hold its breath.
"There has been a development in the northern territories," Watts tried, his voice measured. "A settlement that might prove useful."
She raised a single finger. The gesture stopped him mid-thought. Her fingernail, pale as bone, caught the dim light from the braziers.
"Your reports are thorough, Arthur. They are meticulous. They are," she paused, tasting the word, "boring."
Watts stiffened. He had spent three weeks compiling that intelligence.
"Is there something I might do to better serve your interests?" he asked.
Salem finally turned her head. Her eyes were not the mirror of hatred he expected. They were flat. Dull. The eyes of a woman who had seen every possible thing and found none of it worth seeing.
"Go," she said softly.
He bowed. When the heavy door clicked shut behind him, Salem released a breath she had not realized she was holding. She rose from her throne, her gown whispering across the black stone as she walked to the table where the scroll sat. The screen glowed, patiently waiting.
She had watched him carve the world with these devices. Watched him speak across oceans and summon images from distant cities. He had called it progress. She called it an opening.
Salem picked up the scroll. Her pale fingers traced the cool metal as the screen brightened. She had never bothered to learn the mechanics. Arthur had always been her hands for such things. But the device was simple enough, and boredom was a patient teacher.
She pressed a few icons, and the screen bloomed with color. The Dustnet opened before her like a thousand windows into a world she had seen only through reports. Shopping catalogs. News feeds. Argumentative forums filled with strangers screaming into the void. She scrolled through it all, absently, searching.
Her thumb stopped on an image. A broad chest beneath a tanned bull neck. The photograph was candid, a mercenary posing before a campfire somewhere in the northern wilderness. The caption read: Horse faunus, all the stamina of the beast turned to man. WARNING: Explicit content.
Salem's eyes narrowed. She tapped the image, and the screen shifted to a professional layout. The site called itself Hunks of Remnant. A gallery of photographs, all catalogued by species. She scrolled through the thumbnails. Bear faunus. Wolf faunus. A griffon faunus with wings that must have made him a nightmare in close quarters.
She tapped the horse faunus profile.
Ruben Bakker. Twenty-nine. Six-foot-four. The photographs were arranged like a portfolio. In each one, he wore less. The first showed him in full tactical gear, standing with a rifle slung across his back. Horse ears, tall and dark, rose from his head with an alertness that spoke of constant vigilance. His tail, thick and coarse, hung behind him.
The second photograph stripped him to leather trousers. His torso was a map of scar tissue and dense muscle. His chest dipped and swelled with every breath, broad pectorals shadowed by the low light of whatever campsite the photographer had commandeered. The trousers did nothing to hide what they carried. A heavy, unmistakable weight pressed against the worn leather, straining the seam.
Salem's throat tightened. She scrolled down.
The next photo was the third and final one. He stood with his back to the camera, looking over his shoulder. His tail swept aside to show the full curve of his arse, thick and round as a stallion's haunches. The leather trousers had been pulled down to his knees. Behind him, his cock hung heavy and long between his thighs, thick as her forearm, the skin dark and veined. It swayed slightly with the motion of his stance, an animal weight that demanded attention.
"Impressive," she murmured.
The words sounded strange in her own ears. She had not felt a pulse of interest in decades. Maybe longer. The eons had drained her of desire along with everything else. But this image, this raw display of horse flesh, scratched something deep and primal that had lain dormant.
Salem settled onto the stone bench before the table. She set the scroll upright, its glow illuminating her pale face. With one hand, she scrolled through the remaining photographs. Four of them, each more graphic than the last. In one, he lay on a bedroll, fully erect, his long shaft curving toward his navel. The head was dark and swollen, slick with a bead of moisture. His horse-tail was lifted, exposing everything beneath.
"Look at you," she whispered. "So eager. So much to give."
Her other hand drifted to the high collar of her gown. She loosened the silver clasps one by one, letting the black silk fall away from her shoulders. The cold air kissed her bare skin. Her breasts, pale and full, rose and fell with a breath that was no longer steady.
She spread her legs beneath the gown. The fabric pooled around her hips as she settled deeper into the stone seat. Her fingers found the heat between her thighs, and she gasped. She had been dry for so long, a desert that had forgotten what rain felt like. But now, looking at that thick, hanging cock, she was wet. Slick and ready and desperate.
"What would you do with a woman like me?" she asked the screen. "Would you take me against this table like the beast you are? Would you bend me over and mount me, fill me until I forget my own name?"
The image did not answer. But the fantasy painted itself behind her closed eyes. She saw him towering over her, ears flattened with hunger. His hands, calloused and strong, gripping her hips. His tail pressed against her stomach as he drove into her, long and thick, splitting her open.
Her fingers worked faster. She found her clit, swollen and aching, and stroked it in slow circles. The coil tightened in her belly.
"I would ride you until you begged," she breathed. "I would take every inch, swallow it all, feel you spill inside me. And then I would make you do it again."
The scroll seemed to glow brighter, as if the screen itself was listening. She arched her back, pressing two fingers inside herself, imagining them as that thick horse cock, deeper and wider than anything she had felt in centuries.
"Fuck," she gasped. The word felt obscene on her tongue. She liked it. "Fuck me, stallion. Break this cold little cunt open."
She came with a shuddering cry, her body convulsing against the stone. Her thighs clamped around her hand as wave after wave rolled through her, washing away the numbness. For a few glorious seconds, she was not the Queen of Grimm. She was just a woman, trembling and spent, her heart hammering in her chest.
The orgasm faded. The silence returned. The castle walls loomed around her, cold and empty and eternal.
Salem looked at the scroll again. Ruben Bakker stared back at her, his heavy cock still hanging between his thighs, his expression unreadable. She traced her finger down the curve of his shaft on the screen.
"Perhaps," she said softly, "it is time I knew what the world tastes like again."
She did not know where he was. She did not need to know. She had eternity to look. She had power to travel, minions to command, and the names and locations that Arthur's reports had catalogued. The first drop of rain had fallen on the desert, and the thirst was back.
She would find him.