Cat and Mouse

Nyx's boots were silent over the stone floor, the torch in her hand casting an unsteady light against the walls. The castle around her was quiet as the grave, each shadow a shifting knot of anticipation. Her free hand kept returning to the hilt of her sword, its blade black and broad, its weight a comfort at her hip. She'd draw it soon, she knew; the creature who had taken up residence there was far too cunning, far too devilishly hungry, to resist the adventurer who'd sprung her trap on purpose.

The town a short way down the road had grown into a bustling hub of trade, and with human activity came humanity's predators. A disappearance here, a mysterious body there—such were the growing pains of any burgeoning populace, but sooner or later, the patterns emerged. Patterns which the Guild spent no small effort tracing, and which they offered an exorbitant sum to unravel with a stroke of her witchblade. And so she'd come, and made a show of it: a round of drinks at a local inn in advance of her prize, her gear spread conspicuously about her chair, a boasting of her feats, a declaration of the time and the place of her investigation. The news would spread like wildfire, and there was nothing a succubus liked more than the thrill of stalking a stalker.

And so now Nyx walked through shadowy halls, a flame come to the lair of the moth. She was slender and athletic, graceful and strong, and possessed a lithe femininity which served all the better to her ends. Her pale skin gleamed softly by torchlight, as did her fine black hair, cut short in a practical bob that didn't quite reach her shoulders. Her trousers were snug over her slender form and tucked into high, soft leather boots, and she wore a black leather jerkin whose lightness belied its quality.

Then, she saw it: a doorway slightly ajar at the end of a corridor, a line of light spearing down the hall. A ripple of movement across it, as if whatever, or whoever, had set the light now wandered in front of it. Nyx moved quickly, the soft soles of her boots quiet over smooth stone as she reached the door and pushed through—

"—Oh! What a fright, seeing you sneaking in here!"

The woman inside the room started and jumped back and put her hand to the thin-bladed sword belted at her hip. She was like a reflection of Nyx, an inversion, similar in so many ways and yet so starkly different. Her hair was long and silver-blonde and cascaded straight down her back, her garments bright and light in color. A lit brazier set before gave her face and her eyes a fiery cast, while moonlight streaming through a wide window in the wall behind her enlivened the sheen of her hair. Her face was well-sculpted, her lips full and red, and her figure trim and shapely and evident through the snug fabric of her breeches and top.

Nyx stopped herself from drawing her blade.

"And what exactly are you doing here?"

"I might ask the same of you," said the blonde, arching an eyebrow, and let her hand fall from the hilt of her sword. "I'm here about this rash of disappearances. The name's Zelandia. I take it you're after the bounty?"

"...That's right," said Nyx after a moment. "Who wouldn't be, at that price?"

Zelandia smiled with an edge of satisfaction. "Who, indeed."

"Nyx, by the by," Nyx said after a moment. "You may have caught wind of my investigations?"

"Ah, the commotion at the Swooning Swan? You are quite bold in your purpose. Overbold, perhaps."

Nyx shrugged. "And my prey enraptured by its own cleverness. It's a trick that works quite well against them, single-minded fools that they are."

Zelandia cocked her head. "Oh?" She gave a short laugh, a playful glint in her eye. "Only if one supposes themselves so much the hunter. One might as soon find themselves the mouse who sought to bell the cat's collar." Her voice lowered, nearly purring with amusement.

"My quarry may think itself a cat," Nyx said coolly, "but in the end it's only a kitten. Or less, perhaps; some twisted vermin aspiring even to mouse-hood."

"Ooh," Zelandia said, "Such biting words! Such sharp teeth! My heart is all aflutter." She laughed again and clasped her hands over her bosom.

"And your claws as sharp as mine, I'm sure," Nyx answered, "Unless you've come to spar with wit alone against such fiends as crawl from the dark?" She stepped idly forward and stood abreast of Zelandia to gaze out the window at the silver-cast scenery beyond.

"Such would be uncommon pleasure," Zelandia said, turning to look on the same vista, "but my quarry will find the former most keen if she supposed to dispose of the latter."

"Mine as well," Nyx said, and drew her witchblade in a swift motion and whirled about to strike at Zelandia's throat.

The succubus met her blow with a blade of conjured flame and gave a crystal-pure laugh in the register of Zelandia's merriment hollowed and inverted as her guise crumbled away like dried clay. Horns sprouted from her head, thick and curved; bat-like wings unfolded at her back. A tail sprouted behind her, thin and sinuous and tipped in a series of bulbous lobes like beads on a string. Her skin grew pale and luminous, reflecting the moonlight like glazed porcelain; her eyes narrowed to feline slits, glowing with more than the brazier's reflected fire. Her garb burned away, leaving naught but slim slices of skintight black held precariously with thin straps at her hips and her breasts and slender stiletto boots on her feet. She was beautiful, sensual, otherworldly in a way that tugged at Nyx's mind even as she swung the flaming blade in counterattack.

"Well met, little mouse," she purred, and danced back from Nyx's next swing with feline grace. "It's been some time since one has come to bell my collar. Do try and entertain me."

Their blades clashed again, bleeding sparks onto the floor. Nyx made no reply to the demon but to grunt to the rhythm of black steel against ensorcelled flame, moving with a decisive finality in every attempt to find her foe's pale flesh. The demon matched her with a fluidity unknown to human limb and sinew, striking back with a strength that belied her slender frame.

"Perhaps you take your sport too seriously," the demon teased as they parted again, circling each other warily, "but I shall make you squeak again before the end!"

Nyx drove forward, and the succubus, despite her taunting, inched backward in reply. Blow for blow she matched Nyx's bladework, trading attack for counterattack, thrust for parry, yet she began to lag by degrees, the precession of their rhythm favoring the human huntress. At last the pattern broke, a late parry missed its beat entirely, and Nyx's witchblade made contact, scoring into the succubus's arm just below her shoulder. There was a loud sizzling, an eruption of smoke, a scream of anguish as porcelain skin burnt black.

"Do I satisfy you now?" Nyx grunted, and lunged forward to press her advantage.

"You will. Oh, you will!" the demon cried, and met Nyx with a new ferocity that sent the huntress reeling backward in turn. The swirling flame of the her ethereal blade grew brighter, hotter; wisps of fire like streamers trailed in its wake as she rained blow after blow down on Nyx, who found herself suddenly scrambling to ward it off. An opening appeared in her defense, and the succubus's tail snapped forward and coiled around Nyx's leg like a bulbous-headed viper. With a jerk, it upended the hunter, tossing her to the cold stone floor and sending her black sword clattering from her grasp to land by the brazier, glowing faintly red where had the magical flames had bitten at it.

"No!" Nyx hissed, and rolled to her feet, but the demon was upon her, and the point of the burning blade alighted beneath her chin. It blistered her skin, brought sweat rolling in droplets down her neck. She tottered backward and the succubus advanced, stealing away her retreat. At last her back pressed against cold stone, the wall of the chamber behind her and the fiery point at her throat.

"I do love a feisty one," the succubus said as she looked Nyx up and down. "To see your kind struggling against oblivion in such a frenzy for life—it makes my heart sing."

Nyx fidgeted, coiled her muscles—

The succubus made the slightest push of her flaming sword-tip to quell that notion.

"Ah! Your defiance pleases me, little mouse, but still yourself a moment. We must discuss our terms. Oh, yes, you are far from finished, if you so choose."

"What do you mean, demon?" Nyx spat. "Speak plainly or end me and be done with your games."

"Oh, but I wouldn't dream of ending you—not when there is such sport yet to be had. A simple offer, if you have ears to hear it."

Nyx hesitated. A succubus's game was bound to be amusing for one party alone, and dealing with devils was shorthand for sowing the seeds of one's own destruction for good reason. But the only other choice...

"Fine," she said through gritted teeth, "if your word is true, demon, then I'll hear out your offer."

"Lies are the work of the basest spawns who cannot appreciate the refined delights of twisting pure truth to their ends." The succubus's voice was hard; she seemed almost wounded by the accusation. After a moment, she smiled again and licked her lips and continued on in familiar tones of poisoned honey. "If you wish to leave this place, all you need do is ask—but not until I say so. That's your test. Doesn't that sound easy?"

Nyx suspected it wouldn't be. Or at least, that the demon had no intentions of making it so. A contest of will, no doubt. An opportunity for the succubus to employ her sweet seduction at full power and revel in the sight of Nyx struggling with all her might to bring the request to her lips. Even now, Nyx couldn't deny the stirrings she felt at the graceful contours of that otherworldly form. But no matter what further lusts the succubus stoked in her, she knew she would never forsake herself for a temporary carnal pleasure. And, well, she wasn't exactly spoiled for options.

"I accept."

"Good," the succubus cooed, "Now, before we start, I think it's time to... motivate you. You've been such excellent sport, it would be a shame not to reward you, don't you think?"

She extinguished her blade and sauntered forward, hips rocking like the stormy sea, eyes blazing like the bleeding morning sky. Nyx couldn't help the inclination to shrink back at her approach, but her shoulders met cold stone again before she could take half a step. The demon, for a blessing, seemed more amused than offended by her attempt at outranging her grasp. She continued closing the distance with deliberate, ringing steps until she was standing nearly nose-to-nose with the victim of her affections.

Even from that distance Nyx could feel the heat bleeding from the succubus's skin, smell the heady wafting scent of spices that didn't exist. Smiling, the demon reached out to slide a hand along Nyx's cheek and pulled her gently in by the corner of her jaw.

"Remember," the succubus said a hairsbreadth away with a softness that barely outranked a whisper, "there will be so much more where this came from if you but ask."

Their lips met, and pure emotion lanced through Nyx's chest. To call it a mere kiss would be an obscenity. It was shocking as the deepest profanity, glorious as the most exalted divinity. Soft and hot and slick to the extreme. A gateway to a world of sensation, well-fortified yet swung tantalizingly open, urging her to venture past the boundaries of propriety to claim it for herself. Her heart pounded. Her mind raced. She knew she shouldn't reciprocate. That was exactly what the demon was counting on, inviting her down a one-way path to her own destruction. But still...

A wave of heat and lightness washed through her. A temporary pleasure would be just that. Temporary. An offer as fleeting as the moment it promised, a singular opportunity to sample a forbidden fruit more exquisite and sublime than any she could ever find elsewhere. Dangerous, yes, in the extreme. But what in Nyx's line of work wasn't? She was a capable huntress. The very best. Her body and mind alike trained to be agile, sharp, powerful. She was more than a match for a mere kiss. More than deserving of the full pleasure this briefest sample of her prey had to offer.

Fire blazed in Nyx's chest as she leaned into the kiss, reaching out in reciprocation, sliding her arms up that soft, muscled back, volleying back against that searching tongue, returning the motion of those plump velvet lips. The succubus moaned softly into her mouth and molten glory blossomed in Nyx's belly, dripped through her core, gathered somewhere below her beltline. The demon seemed at once both pliable as warm putty and imposing as a towering oak, indulging every excursion, rewarding every inroad. Nyx could have everything, if she but reached for it. Shed every shred of clothing standing barrier to that feather-soft caress, melt into the endless depths of her embrace. Enshrine that moment forever.

After an all-too-fleeting age, the demon broke away with a sigh of satisfaction that sent another thrill through Nyx's body. To be so desirable, for her own body to satisfy such a perfect creature... she shook her head to rid herself of that passing madness, to remind herself that there was no glory in eliciting such approval. No future in playing into her hands. And yet...

The succubus laughed lightly, standing back at just enough distance to take in every detail. "Such sweet enthusiasm," she cooed. "You flatter me with your delight. And that was barely a taste." She licked her lips as if savoring the lingering essence, smiled as if she'd already won.

"So," the demon said, "our contest. Tell me now, little mouse, what is your deepest, truest desire?"

Nyx's head swam. For every intrusive fantasy she tamped down, another sprung up in its place. Her thoughts were jumbled fragments adrift on tides of passion trying to puzzle themselves back together. She tried to steady her breath. Tried to come to terms with a strange reluctance gnawing at her heart. She opened her mouth, closed it again, took another second to gather her iron will against that all-too-tempting surrender.

"I want you..." she panted in a strained tone, and the rest of the sentence died on her tongue. She took a deep breath, falling back to the last bastion of her conviction and rallying forth, "to let me..."

Her cheeks burned. A sensation filled her gut of glass about to shatter, worsening with every syllable. The demon bit her lip, narrowed her eyes, fanned her wings just a little. The air between them rippled as if a great blaze had gone up along the solid stone floor, but Nyx's vision of her opposite was crystal-clear as she drank in the view with shameless intensity. The curve of her horns, crowning her as sovereign of seduction and otherworldly danger. The sculpt of her face, the slope of her shoulders, the pendulous depths of her breasts clad in slim-cut black more titillating than banal nudity. Her slender naked midriff, the straps clinging tight across her hips and dipping well past parallel between them. Her swishing, sinuous tail with its bulbous tip peeking out mischievously behind thick thighs and powerful calves, the angle of her ankles in their stiletto heels. Her smile of invitation and approval at Nyx's unabashed gaze.

"I want you..." Nyx tried again, breathing as if she'd sprinted there from the depths of the Seven Hells themselves. Her head spun, her mind filled with cloying heat, and she felt herself teetering on the brink of the abyss lurking behind those blazing crimson eyes. The fulfillment of desires yet undreamed of, pleasures still uncharted. The undivided attention of a being honed to the utmost pinnacle of amorous perfection, all hers to beckon with a word.

"...to... I want..."

The succubus bit her lip, leaned in the smallest fraction. Nyx's stomach lurched as if she'd missed a step. She breathed deep against the crushing weight in her gut, the growing urgency below her hips. Something was deeply wrong, and she couldn't quite recall exactly what. But if it was so important, why had it eluded her? What was she trying so desperately to worm free of? The succubus's smile was a golden ray burning through the fog, illuminating the single way out. All she had to do was say it.

"I want you to..."

Her tongue had the power to bring her anywhere she desired. To solidify the liquid potential of promise. Why was she struggling so to simply say some words? Flittering, ephemeral things, well within her grasp. One syllable, and then the next. She could do it.

"I want you..."

The world shrank to the beating of her heart, the glinting of those wide, red eyes, the fires licking at her loins.

"...to..." Her lips moved nearly without prompting from her sluggish, mired mind,

"...kiss me."

A shock ran through her at that pronouncement, the feeling of a line indelibly crossed. Of a fate sealed. Of sweet, long-suffering relief. The weight of shackles released. Everywhere seemed to unclench, to welcome in a flood of anticipation and desire that washed through her at the succubus's satisfied grin.

"Your words compel me," the succubus said. "I shall savor them, as I shall savor you."

Something screamed in the deepest recesses of Nyx's mind, but she had no ears to hear it.

The demon curled her finger in a beckoning gesture and Nyx felt an overwhelming sensation of command. Forward and upward it drew her, and she had no choice but to obey, a mandate so compelling that gravity itself yielded its primacy as she rose into the air to meet her mistress's demand. The succubus smiled and reached out as if to caress Nyx's cheek, and made a swift slash with one clawed finger instead. The strap of Nyx's jerkin split and peeled away, exposing one unmarred shoulder to the open air. The demon paused one moment to let the implication sink in and continued disrobing the captive huntress in the same manner, slicing thick leather like tissue with talons that skimmed over delicate skin so gently as to leave nary a scratch in their razor wake. Nyx quivered as the fabric secured around her breasts was shorn apart, letting them spill free. Gasped as the probing touch jerked downward and sheared through the metal of her belt buckle like soft cheese. Hot, sharpened fingers slid around her hips, hooked into her trousers, slashed down even through her boots in one swift pass and discarded it all with casual ease. The succubus bent in, trailing her way down Nyx's bare, squirming midriff until she hovered right between her hips, then seized that final low-cut shred of silken concealment in her fangs and tore sharply downward. It ripped free and fluttered to the ground like a discarded handkerchief, and the demon rose back to her full height to appreciate the sight before her.

Trepidation seized Nyx's hammering heart, terror at the thought of disappointing this transcendent creature with every imperfection of her mortal frame laid bare. But the succubus couldn't have seemed more pleased. Her expression was reassuring. Warm. More than a little hungry.

"And now... your kiss."

The demon made another slashing gesture and Nyx found herself cast suddenly downward, but there was no rough landing for her. Instead, the very stones, or perhaps some intervening magic, received her tumbling body as lightly as the softest bed of feathers. She skidded to a stop in the pooled light of the brazier and the succubus leapt after her like a wildcat. Their bodies twined together, skin against exposed skin, muscle against squirming muscle. Nyx reveled in the press of the demon's midriff, the softness of her breasts, the feeling of strong thighs wrapping around her own and spreading them irresistibly apart. She couldn't help but let out a gasping moan as the succubus dominated her, pressed herself into her, adamant grasping fingers shackling her forearms and pinning them to the floor, blazing ruby eyes gazing deep into her own.

And then they kissed.

Or rather, the demon kissed her. Nyx's say in the matter was over. The demon's lips were soft, creative, splendorous as before. Ravenous, passionate, unyielding. That same bolt of sensation she'd felt in their previous engagement speared through Nyx's chest, but this time the succubus dug in with a voracity as if she meant to consume it. The deep, teasing sensuality that had tempted Nyx to partake in their first embrace now ventured forth instead, dove into her, searched her, scoured her for her own vaulted treasures. Her heart pounded and she moaned again into the demon's mouth as she was plundered, explored, assailed with unspeakable delights with no opportunity to refuse.

Amidst their tangled reverie, she felt it; a stirring deep within, a heretofore unknown circulation deviating from its path. A sharp tug inside her body. Something, somehow, being teased out. Pulled free. A tendril of energy. The current bent and distorted, snaked into her chest, up her throat, out her mouth to spill over the succubus's lapping tongue.

The demon gave a muffled cry of pure sensuality as she drank it in and worked her prey increasing fervor, bending that flow of energy. Coaxed it, corralled it, brought it streaming out of Nyx and into her waiting maw. Draining her.

Nyx panted, wide-eyed, arching her back beneath the demon's iron grip. Her emotions swelled at the perversity and shame of her very vitality being ripped free of her, the glory of providing sustenance to such a perfect being. The coursing energy quickened in response, enlivened by the intensity of her passions, amplifying them even further in a feedback loop to feed the succubus more and more and more. She squirmed and gasped as her dominating lover grew ever hotter against her, ever stronger, softer, more ferally powerful. As strength drained from her limbs, as her life's essence was devoured in her ultimate surrender.

Something strong and hot wrapped around one naked thigh. The demon's tail, spiraling inward like a growing vine. Higher and higher it crept with intention she couldn't mistake or deny, could hardly hope or prepare for. Anticipation flared and the flow of energy thickened in kind as it tickled and teased, encroached upon the inside of her thigh in its deliberate ascent. She whimpered into the demon's kiss, bucked her hips in desperation and failed to budge an inch as it slid ever closer, its radiant heat bathing the throbbing juncture of legs spread forcibly apart by the demon's own sinuous grip—

"MMMPH!"

The first contact of it sent her into conniptions, toes curling, thighs quaking, eyes rolling back as she disgorged the greatest knot of energy yet. The demon sucked it greedily down and worked her tailtip in a slow, feather-light circle, driving out another burst of essence from her lips, and then another. She shuddered and gasped at the exquisite stimulation, straining against the demon's unbreakable grasp with every agile stroke, her pulse pounding in the throbbing crest of her open, unbarred entryway. The circling, stroking, teasing motion continued until she was near delirious with need. And then, as her muffled complaint reached a crescendo, the bulbous tip met her lower lips and slithered inward, plunging into her depths.

She squealed into the succubus's mouth, clenching around the appendage as the thick, slick string of bulbous beads burrowed one by one through her hot, moistened folds. It was a pleasure like nothing she'd ever known, filling and stretching her, stroking and sliding against her clamping inner walls. Each serpentine motion of it sent another wave of ecstasy through her, drove another mass of energy up her throat and into the waiting gullet of her devourer. She was powerless against the invasion, her ravishing, her utter desecration, and the thought of it only drove her to new heights of bliss, new depths of surrender. She writhed in blissful agony, lost in a roar of sensation while her own vitality gushed out of her like a raging river. But the succubus was insatiable in her hunger, merciless in her attentions. She worked her tail harder, faster, building up her victim even higher, winding her even tighter, stoking her passions to a fever pitch. Nyx felt a rising storm within herself, a cresting wave, a tsunami about to make landfall. Her eyes widened, her muscles quivered, her muffled moans grew ever higher and sharper, and she gripped the tailtip thrusting inside her like a desperate, needy vise. There was nothing she could do to stop it. No way to hold it back. She could only lie there, pinned and plundered, as the succubus worked her inexorably toward the point of no return. Closer, closer, right to the precipice, holding her there for one excruciating moment, two, stroking and teasing with modulated ferocity before hurling her suddenly past it in a frenzy of motion, deepening the swell with the twisting of her tail even as the waves began to break—

Nyx's scream erupted into the demon's ravenous kiss as she climaxed, as those towering waves of sensation came crashing down at last and she came harder then she ever had before, harder than she'd dreamed possible, back arching, thighs clenching, vision swimming, every muscle seizing, energy erupting through her lips so violently she thought the succubus might burst in her effort to take it all in. But the demon continued on, quaking and groaning atop her in the throes of her own climactic frenzy, spurring Nyx onward, wringing out her release for every ounce of ecstasy she could give, force-feeding herself every available scrap of her victim's essence. Every pump and twitch of the demon's tail was a starburst behind Nyx's eyes, each twist and plunge a scream of bliss swallowed whole. Again and again she orgasmed, crested through peak after peak, squealed and convulsed in sweet torment, fed her life's energy to that perfect, ravening maw until she thought she would have nothing left to give. It seemed to last for ages before the onslaught finally began to ebb, for a blessed eternity before the slender weight lifted from her hips and her wrists and her chest and the roiling tail stilled at last within her.

At long last the succubus broke the kiss, withdrew her tail, and rolled off her body to lay beside her, staring upward at the moonlit ceiling and panting in satisfaction, humming with the dizzy glee of both lover and gourmand indulged far past the point of satiation. Nyx felt the errant tendril of energy withdraw to its former depths inside her, repaired in its circulation but reduced to the barest trickle. All it seemed she had the strength to do was lay lack, legs still spread, hips jolting in aftershock after aftershock more violent than any mundane climax, heart beating almost through conscious effort.

After some time, she saw the succubus push herself up in the corner of her vision and kneel beside her. As she gazed up at her, Nyx could sense her own lifeforce brimming within that shapely body. There was a radiance to her, not of physical illumination, but an aetherial sort that touched none of her senses and rang all the truer for it. She looked as if she'd swallowed the sun.

But the spell was broken. All that was left to Nyx's mind was the simple worldly allure of the demon's shapely body. Considerable, but by no means overwhelming. Steeling herself, she reached out a searching hand, found her witchblade blessedly close. She seized it by the grip and, with the greatest of efforts, brought it up and across her body to stab directly at the demon's perfect, heaving breast.

The succubus reached out one hand and caught the broad, black sword mid-thrust.

"You truly are something, aren't you?" she said in a tone torn between admiration and derision. "You shouldn't have the strength left to lift this at all. Unfortunately..."

She squeezed the naked blade in her grip. The razor edge that had sizzled at mere contact before did not bite into her flesh, but curled like ribbons between her fingers until the whole thing fell away in a heap.

"...I'm a little different when I'm not hungry."

Nyx blinked her heavy-lidded eyes, casting them about for the exit. If she willed it, surely she could draw up the last remaining dregs of her energy, imbue herself with the adrenal power not just to stand but to—

She barely raised her head before a powerful hand on her chest pinned her back down against the floor.

"Oh, to still grace me with your sweet struggles!" the demon exulted, and grabbed Nyx's shoulder to heave her up into a face-to-face kneeling position, and supporting her more than a little to keep her upright.

"What a shame it is that our playtime must come to an end," she said, and sighed. "Would that I could spend ten times ten millennia locked in our embrace, my dear, defiant mouse. But, fortunately..." she continued, mirth dancing across her face, "your kind is nearly as fun to dispose of as you are to use up."

Strong fingers hooked the corner of Nyx's jaw and pulled her in again, bringing her within striking distance of those velvet lips. The succubus smiled in the deepest amusement, and then opened her mouth and inhaled.

Deeply she sucked in the air between them. Deeper. Even deeper. She seemed to have a sudden thirst for it that couldn't be slaked by all the atmosphere contained within the room. Her magnificent chest pushed out as she packed her prodigious inhalation into herself, though not nearly as much as Nyx would have expected. Her breasts rounded out, her nipples speared through the thin fabric nominally containing them, her thin midsection went ever-so-slightly wider. Then, suddenly as she'd began, she stopped, gave a final little giggle, and pulled Nyx into a kiss.

Ragged and run-down as she was, Nyx could still feel glory in that contact. In the eagerness of her embrace, in the—

The succubus blew.

Nyx's eyes went wide and her cheeks went wider at the sudden crash of air between her lips. Hot and voluminous and staggeringly powerful, it poured down her throat before she could even think to resist it, filling her chest in the space of an instant and cramming itself in even beyond her maximum. It was like drinking in a hurricane. She gave a muffled groan and squirmed feebly in her captor's grip, but never in a thousand years could she wrest herself away or repel the onslaught rushing out from between those crimson lips. Her cheeks bulged to a comical degree, her stomach pushed out further than she could ever imitate unaided, her naked breasts lifted and separated and rounded out with swirling pressure in imitation of the demon's own. Within moments she reached the limits of her natural size and then, without pause, began to stretch.

Larger and larger she swelled on the endless exhalation, rounder and tighter, burning with shock and mingled confusion at the realization of what was happening to her. The succubus was... blowing her up. Inflating her like a living, breathing toy. Force-feeding her a flood of spiced breath so monumentally vast and unstoppable that she had no recourse but to expand to accommodate it. It was a humiliating reversal of roles, the opponent who had sucked down her vital essence so greedily now turning her own stolen strength against her to pump a very different internal bounty back into her in return. An indignity just as invasive as the extraction of her energy had been, the forceful inundation of her interior to reshape her from within.

And yet... there was something profoundly, horrifyingly sensual about it. About being packed so unnaturally full with the demon's hot, sweet breath. About the feeling of it rushing down her throat and spilling into her belly and her breasts, pushing out into her ass and her thighs, tickling beneath her skin as it invaded every extremity with irresistible force. The sensation of stretching to contain it all. Of being so utterly dominated by her adversary, the very picture of feminine sexuality. Visions of how tight her skin would stretch, how it would grow hot and taut to contain such an overabundance. How enraptured the demon would become with her, adoring her every inch, every bulging contour as she prosecuted this most intimate method of disposal...

"MMMMPHH!"

No! She wouldn't become another notch on this monster's belt, some unnamed, unnumbered victim discarded in the most ignoble way possible. But even as she struggled with renewed vigor, there was precious little she could actually do. No feat of strength she could pull for all she'd honed her body in anticipation of mortal struggle, no method she could conjure up to extricate herself for all the quick thinking and resourcefulness that had taken her so far in her career. She groaned again as her once-slender frame continued creeping out in all directions and tried to push herself away before she became completely incapacitated, but the demon's grip on her body was more unbreakable than even the ensnaring of her mind had been. That otherworldly form provided no purchase for her enfeebled flailing, alabaster skin smooth and impervious as fine marble against the clawing of her fingernails, soft fingers ensconcing her jawline as securely as bars of adamant. And with every passing instant, the succubus was blowing her up bigger, fuller, tighter on one uninterrupted breath.

Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Her belly continued filling out like an overfull wineskin, bulging until it met the demon's blazing midriff. That feeling of heat and slender strength she'd reveled in just minutes ago was now taunting reminder of what she'd become, a harbinger of what lay in store. Her breasts joined her distended stomach in reaching out with perky points growing ever stiffer from the tickling swirl beneath. Together they made contact in competition with the demon's own and kept on going, filling up the space between them and pushing her slowly backward to accommodate the growing bulk of her own body. But that wasn't all. Her ass expanded to a degree that would have tested the integrity of every garment restraining it if she hadn't already been divested of every stitch of clothing. Her thighs spread slightly from the forces within, her calves tingled with the first trickles of pressure reaching so far out from her core, even her arms began bulking up toward eventual immobility.

And still that unbroken rush continued. She couldn't tell whether it had been seconds that felt like minutes since the contact of those velvet lips, or minutes that felt like hours. Her unwilling journey from slender to gravid and beyond continued, her breasts absolutely turgid and her belly so voluminous against her captor's slender midsection that she was pushed nearly prone. Her knees skidded, her thighs spread, her bulging belly made contact with the hard stone floor and began lifting her up on its mass. And then, at last, the succubus pulled away.

"How's that for round one?" the succubus said with a grin, and pressed a finger to Nyx's lips to trap any response or release of captured breath and kindle new dread within. "Such an intimate moment, don't you agree? The ultimate saturation of your self with my gift, no nook or cranny of your body unexplored. A sensation unlike any you've ever felt, and the privilege of indulging it to the absolute limit of what you can withstand. Is that not truly delightful?"

A muffled groan was her only reply.

"Indeed, little mouse" the demon purred, "and to think we've hardly begun."

She giggled and drew in her next breath.

Harder and faster it flooded in, the new rush of hot, sweet air, as if the demon was rushing toward some far-flung destination, as if she found wielding the full force of the power she had over her victim just as alluring as dragging out those teasing moments. She certainly found fulfillment in the exploration of her tongue, letting out small, staccato moans of satisfaction, humiliating her with such unopposed intimacy in the midst of her total domination, her tender desecration.

Pressure built within Nyx, making each moment more fraught as she expanded to ever-more fantastic dimensions. Steadily she rose up on her own burgeoning flesh until she was laying totally horizontal, and further still until she matched the height of her kneeling captor. Soon enough, her arms and legs were splayed in total helplessness. Her sensitive breasts made contact with the floor and bloomed beneath her with horrible sensuality against that age-smoothed flagstones. Her mountainous belly went turgid with the strain, bearing her ever higher aloft. It felt as if she'd had her mouth stuck on the end of the great pumping bellows of a blast furnace and left there just to see what would happen, to swell and swell and swell until...

She groaned again and flailed her arms and legs as much as the pressure within her would allow, but that only seemed to spur the succubus on, to entice her to deliver the rest of her payload with suck quickness that Nyx thought she might erupt from the sheer speed of it. In short order, the demon completed her exhalation with another sound of deep contentment, and pulled back for a view of her handiwork.

Surely, Nyx thought desperately, that must be the end of it. Hope flickered that her ultimate defeat was to be blown up to immobility and left there for however long it took before she could move under her own power again.

"All this, and you're only halfway there," the succubus said, as if reading Nyx's mind. "Is that not exciting? Everything you've felt, every inch you've grown, every swirl of my breath beneath your skin will be repaid again before your grand finale. And so much more intense it will be as you creep closer and closer to the edge, with ever more of you to feel it all." She slid one taloned finger over the side of Nyx's taut stomach, making her quiver in her desperation not to flinch enough to drive that point disastrously home. "Think of it. The anticipation. The trepidation. The secret, shameful thrill of being my perfect plaything. It's near enough to make me envy you."

She drew in another impossible inhalation, held it for an instant, leaned in with all the allure of a lover's first embrace. And let it all burst free again.

Once more the torrent of spiced breath came flooding in through her lips, surging into her like an entire raging river funneled directly down her throat. It was pure, unrestrained pressure. A horrible, delightful inundation. Thrills of tightness raced across her stretching skin in prelude to the succubus's taunting promise, chased by spikes of pleasure at that pervasive inner caress. She clenched her muscles for all she was worth as if it would somehow slow the progress of the demon's vicious assault, tried to find some way out other than the unlikely mercy of her sadistic captor. But it was far past time for that. Grow, came the wordless command. Fill. Bloat. And so she did.

Her transformation continued apace, every passing moment adding another inch to her girth, and each one more dearly fought. The succubus raised herself into a deep bow to reach her now and her stomach stretched so taut that her full weight resting on its apex barely flattened its curve. She felt an ominous pulsing, a gradual slowing of her expansion. A hope against hope that the demon's strength was beginning to flag, a smothering suspicious of something quite different...

Once more the demon pulled away, and silenced Nyx with that magicked finger to her lips.

"You've done well to hold so much," she said in her silken voice. "Not everyone can. Trust me." She giggled. "And it would be poor thanks for the bounteous meal you've granted me to destroy such a lovely toy so unceremoniously." She tapped her finger to her chin in thought. "Hmm, how about this: I'll let you go if you can withstand, oh, three more breaths? Half-breaths, to make it sporting. Maybe even a quarter. Quite the challenge still, I'm sure you'll agree. But isn't that what you mortals love? Those hopeless bids, those desperate deals, those knife-edge bets with just enough room to bring the full of your determination to bear and swear each and every one of you that you'll be the one to beat the odds. To have the scales tipped so tantalizingly in your disfavor. Oh, that heady brew of your defiance!" She sniffed the air and drew in what Nyx knew was more than just the atmosphere of the room. "My vow is unbreakable, don't you know. Do you accept these terms, oh intrepid mouse? Will you seek to bell my collar yet?"

A dreadful calculus spun through Nyx's mind. If two had been halfway, then one plus half and half and half... Maybe, just maybe, if she drew upon all her strength, if the demon had misjudged her resilience by a fraction or overestimated her own potency in her pride. But, like the covenant that had brought her low to begin with, the choice had already been made. It wasn't as if she could stop the demon from blowing her up any further without accepting, and it would spell her certain doom to rebuff it.

She nodded.

"Oh, yes," the demon trilled, and clapped her hands in glee. "Scurry. Struggle. Defy me as I fill you!" She drew in breath once more, shorter and shallower this time, and kissed Nyx again.

The first moment made clear the futility of Nyx's hopes. A renewed rush of air greeted her the second those velvet lips sealed over her own, blowing into her with a force and speed alike to her initial offering. Inch by turgid inch she inflated to unreal dimensions, her body beginning to creak faintly as she bloomed beyond any sort of limit she should rightfully have been able to withstand. She couldn't discount the possibility that some unknowable enchantment was keeping her together even now, granting her the stretch and the pliability to contain it all, to extend the succubus's perverse enjoyment and to be released at her whim and burst her at the moment of her choosing. But binding spell or no, she could feel all too well the limits of her body creeping up on her, the growing reluctance of her skin to stretch against the volume pumping into her. The pressure building inside her as the unflagging flood of the demon's sweet breath found less and less room to accommodate it. And she still had two more breaths to go...

She squirmed and groaned anew against the succubus's lips, but there was nothing she could do but lie there, a living receptacle for all she had to give, growing rounder and rounder, larger and larger, no matter how much she strained to do it. She was nearly as wide as she was tall now, her arms and legs jutting stiffly, her belly rock-hard beneath her, her nearly-spherical breasts making her a turgid tripod. The visions she'd had at the outset came creeping back to her, of her body going shamefully hot and taut in the throes of its terminal expansion, of the demon's rapturous gaze as it happened, her whole being aching with a traitor sensuality she would never dare admit. Prophecies made manifest, the final horizon resolving into focus as she was pumped and pumped and pumped, seemingly without end.

But just as she thought she might have been tricked, that the demon might renege on the deal and go on blowing forever, she pulled away, placed that finger on Nyx's lips once more, launched into another series of purring exultations as if she'd pried open her victim's inner thoughts.

"You can feel it, can't you?" the succubus said, eyes blazing, words spilling from her perfect lips with the speed of unrestrained passion. "The limits of your skin, the end of your endurance. That inevitable looming conclusion that will see you creaking, surging, straining the slightest hairsbreadth from the edge. Quivering at that final threshold. And then, when the moment comes, one little puff beyond. No matter how hard you fight it. And, oh, how you'll fight! All the way from the tip of your nose to your clenching toes you'll struggle in vain to hold it in, to find the slightest wisp of extra room inside yourself. With every bit of your conviction you'll seek to hold out one extra second, one fractional moment. But you won't. You'll be so acutely aware of every last iota of air entering you, so utterly helpless to stop yourself from becoming a shower of scraps at the touch of my lips. You're going to burst for me, and you'll know exactly when it's coming. Know you can't do a single thing to escape it."

Nyx could only watch as the succubus drew her promised breath, as she smiled and leaned in to part her sealed lips with the press of her own.

The hot surge was gentler this time, and all the more ominous for it. It was the demon's recognition of how little Nyx had to go. A bid to keep her favorite toy intact for just one more dear moment. And even this much was utterly irresistible. All Nyx's capacity to defy her vanquisher accounted for nothing as she was driven tenderly, mercilessly, to that promised landmark. The point where she could stretch no further. She grew one more quaking, laborious inch before the succubus backed her up against the final wall of her resistance and then pressed her into it ever more insistently, the pressure within her unspeakable and her skin taut as a bowstring, that moment arriving when she could absolutely hold no more. When she, at last, would burst. When—

The demon broke the kiss abruptly and pulled away just far enough for Nyx to see her smile broaden. She had no words for her this time. She merely gazed into Nyx's eyes, caressed her swollen cheek, took in the slightest sip of air that Nyx could feel as a tiny draft across her face. And then, one final time, they kissed.

The succubus exhaled with the power of a hurricane, and yet barely a whisper of air entered her victim. The pressure within Nyx met her at the threshold, firing back with a force she never could have imagined. She gathered all her remaining strength and fervor one last time and strained with all her desperate might to match her assailant, to press the demon back. And slowly, gradually, miraculously, she felt the flow reverse. The succubus's own cheeks puffing out, Nyx overpowering her foe at last, hope flickering at the demon's miscalculated arrogance of the tiny breath she'd drawn. She pushed harder, emboldened by her partial victory, by the fractional slackening of the unbearable tension inside her as she gave her all. The succubus fell back further, cheeks laden with more air taken from the defiant huntress than she'd sipped in her bid to burst her...

And then, suddenly, it all ground to a halt. Nyx regrouped and heaved every last drop of resolve and willpower, every scrap of stubbornness against her fate into the assault, but was met with an iron wall of resistance. No matter how she tried, the succubus would give no further ground. For an endless instant they hung in the balance, neither making way. And then the succubus made her own push, creeping in its progress yet utterly unstoppable, forcing back every bit of air Nyx had blown into her. Nyx's eyes went wide, unable to even flail for the pressure inside her as the demon brought them back to where they'd started. The succubus giggled with amusement, with the taunting ease of recapturing prey that had never truly outranged the reach of her claws. And then she blew.

A tiny puff of air pushed through Nyx's lips, and her body trembled and her skin sang as the demon brought her again to her absolute limit before withdrawing just as subtly, pulsing and throbbing with modulated force. Making her dance right on the edge. Ever so slightly out. Ever so slightly back in. The succubus began to moan with the pleasure of her play, muffled cries of ascending passion that resonated in the cavern of Nyx's overfull body, growing higher, more rapturous, more ravenous for that final triumph as she teased herself with its denial. Closer and closer she drove both of them toward climax and ruin, ecstasy and annihilation. The greatest of pleasures, the deepest of degradations. Until finally, inevitably, she could restrain herself no longer.

Once more the succubus pushed a wisp of sweet, scalding breath through Nyx's lips, and Nyx knew this time that there would be no pulling back. No more teasing, no final reprieve. Her cheeks bulged, her heart pounded, every fiber of her being tensed in futile defiance as she billowed outward the final hairsbreadth she'd had to spare, but she knew that it was over. That it had always been over.

That she was going to burst.

She shuddered with the terrible thrill of it, the anticipation and the dread, the ultimate indignity of her destruction at the hands of her quarry. The utter helplessness of her situation, the complete lack of recourse or escape. The sheer, overwhelming intensity of that final, fateful breath. She groaned into the demon's kiss as her skin creaked ever louder, keening with the strain as she grew tighter rather than larger, quivering against the feather-light influx she couldn't hope to contain. It trickled into her with agonizing slowness, intolerable steadiness, insatiable cruelty and sensuality, pushing her right to the brink and then one step beyond. One iota of air more than she could withstand. One hot, sweet, fatal little puff. Her eyes went wide as it pushed through her lips and she gave one last little squeak of utter humiliation—

And exploded.

A crack louder than thunder reverberated through the ruined keep with no flash of lightning to illuminate it as the overtaxed, overinflated, overconfident huntress detonated with a blast worthy of any artificer. The succubus was thrown bodily backward, wings splaying to catch her midair as she rode out the momentary hurricane of her own captive breath unleashed. She alighted gracefully on the floor near the scattered coals of the blown-out brazier and giggled with the thrill of it, the raw, unbridled glee of bringing such a spirited opponent to their final climax. The sheer, sweet, sensuality of their contest, the eroticism of that last, exquisite surrender. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, breathed deep of the swirling atmosphere laden with the scents of Nyx's doomed struggles, the dregs of her scattered essence, and let out a low, luxurious moan.

"What a delectable little mouse," she purred, and gave a breathy giggle. That one would keep her sated for a long, long while. It had been so worth the waiting, the scheming, the breadcrumbs she'd laid out. And when she did eventually find herself wanting for more...

Zelandia would have a very urgent letter to deliver to the Guild.