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A right fist crashed into a green, frog-like face with a loud crunch, shattering the cartilage of what resembled a nasal structure. Blood gushed over the amphibian features as the elf followed up with a left hook, grunting with the swing as it connected sharply with the victim’s mandible.
“Where’s Demidicus?” a second elf screamed, plunging a knife into the frog’s thigh. “WHERE ARE THE OTHER COVENS?!”
“I—I don’t know,” the frog gasped as he tried to breathe.
The first elf’s face twisted in displeasure at the unsatisfactory answer. With a cold sneer, he hoisted his boot and drove it down with brutal force onto the completely nude and shackled frog’s genitals. A guttural scream tore from the frog’s throat as the boot lifted, only to crash down again—once, twice, in a merciless rhythm of agony. Each thud was met with a grotesque squelch, the sound of flesh being pulverized under relentless pressure.
Beside them, still holding his knife, the second elf cocked his head, a flicker of confusion passing through his eyes. For a horrifying second, it seemed as if the frog, in his delirium, was parting his legs, almost inviting the next savage blow like a deranged lover welcoming an embrace. But surely, that was absurd.
Vorigan, a vampiric monstrosity with amphibian-like features, was not blessed with the fangs of his kin. Instead, his frog-like face housed a maw lined with miniature, fish-like teeth, and he lacked any kind of intimidating presence. The cruel joke was not lost on him, as even his tormentors now saw him as nothing more than a mere plaything, fit only to be toyed with and abused. Vorigan felt like a lamb led to slaughter, dreading the impending impalement that was closing in once the two elves were done. And he really didn’t want a wooden pike shoved up his ass. Or did he? No, he most certainly did not—maybe?
Despite their relentless efforts to extract information through torture, the two sadistic elf interrogators had come up empty. It wasn’t Vorigan’s loyalty—or lack thereof—that kept him from answering their questions, nor was it a lack of determination on their part. Vorigan was simply as ignorant as they came—or at least, that was what the two brutes were starting to believe.
“I said—WHERE ARE THE OTHER COVENS?!”
“West?” Vorigan answered nonchalantly, shrugging as if inviting further brutality upon himself.
This time, a metal club swung down, smashing into Vorigan’s wrist and breaking it. A loud scream escaped the toad’s lips—a sound that disturbingly resembled a moan.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed through the chamber, abruptly diverting the interrogators’ ruthless leers. Descending the stairs was a towering figure, a behemoth of a man whom Vorigan recognized as the General who had decimated his vampiric kin. Vorigan’s heart pounded as he gazed upon the leviathan-like figure, whose skin was as dark as sin and muscles rippled like stormy seas. The two elves gave respectful nods to the General before returning their full attention to Vorigan, poised to resume their cruel endeavors.
Gazing at the bulk of dark muscles, Vorigan was lost in thought as the two elves resumed their interrogation. “Where has your lord sought asylum?” One of the elves delivered a harsh slap across Vorigan’s face, jarring the amphibian from his reverie. “OUT WITH IT!” Another resounding slap echoed through the chamber. “NOW!”
Vorigan had already pointed them west, yet the precise whereabouts of the coven where Lord Demidicus had vanished remained a mystery even to him. Had he known, he would have divulged the information four sunsets earlier, particularly after witnessing the gory spectacle of the first vampire being ruthlessly impaled. The image of his fellow creatures of the night being brutally held down, stripped nude, and skewered with a wooden stake—without even the courtesy of a spit on the tip—still haunted Vorigan’s mind with recurring dread—no, lust! The thought of enduring that same cruel fate filled him with such… elation! Surely, if he had provided the answers they sought, they would have been satisfied and would have skewered him as well, right?
The relentless barrage of what felt like foreplay carried on, each blow landing with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer. Vorigan was battered, bruised, and bleeding, yet he took it all in stride. If only his tormentors had understood his amphibian physiology, they might have been taken aback by how their blows only stoked his stiffening, perverse desires.
To Vorigan, this was not torture; it was pleasure. He would have told these two muscular elves anything they wanted to hear, just to keep the beatings coming. To him, life was one long, sickening masquerade of pain and pleasure. And this interrogation? This was his idea of a royal ball! He only hoped they could keep the dance going after they eventually shoved a long hard wooden rod up his ass.
One of the interrogators paused his wondrous beating to face the imposing figure of the man. “General Ezad,” he pounded his fist to his chest in a salute, “permission to start severing limbs? Let’s see if that loosens the wretched freak’s tongue.”
“Oh, yes, please do,” Vorigan thought with such glee.
Glancing over at the imposing figure he now labeled as Cocoa Daddy, Vorigan’s body shivered and trembled—a reaction the three men mistook for fear. The General nodded. Oh, how Vorigan prayed to the Crone that this towering mass of chocolate muscle would join in on these sickening depravities.
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Vorigan might have appeared to be a spineless wimp, always avoiding confrontation, but it was all just a ruse—a cunning act of playing hard to get. He basked in the thrill of the moment as he sat bound to the chair, utterly vulnerable to the whims of his three hulking tormentors. The mere thought of losing a limb sent shivers of euphoria to his groin, a reaction his interrogators kept misinterpreted as trembling fear. But Vorigan cared little for their misinterpretation; after all, he was not only a vampire but also of amphibian lineage, capable of regrowing any amputated limb in mere moments—a trait he could suppress when desired. He could only hope that they would start with his manhood.
Vorigan felt a surge of elation as he tried to spread his restrained thighs open wide, his eyes longingly fixed on a table filled with an array of knives and other instruments meant to cut, pierce, and twist his insides with perverse pleasure. He was particularly eyeing a large butcher’s knife as he felt his squashed and brutalized balls tingle. Sadly, it was not meant to be.
A retching sorrow and annoyance overcame Vorigan as he watched one of his tormentors move toward the stairwell to retrieve the gleaming butcher knife. But before the elf could lay his hands on it, a tendril of darkness shot out like a striking viper, snapping the elf’s neck with a stealthy crunch. And before the lifeless body could even hit the ground, it was snatched up into the stairwell, out of sight. The General and the remaining elf interrogator remained blissfully ignorant of the gruesome act that had just robbed Vorigan of one of his toys.
~
Aurelia lay within the confines of her prison cell, her blood drained to prevent any violent outbursts. The thirst was maddening, and she longed for Bowen, yet dreaded him seeing her reduced to what resembled a mummified corpse. The thirst. Curiously, Vorigan had avoided the same fate, likely because so few recognized him as a vampire. Oh, how appearances can deceive.
Her captivity was tediously mundane, marred only by the regular siphoning of her blood. Aurelia was a captive audience to Vorigan’s incessant beatings, which were his secret delight—a fact unknown to all but her. Even the other vampires who frequently tormented him were oblivious to his perverse enjoyment. Perhaps her nonjudgmental awareness was the reason for his unwavering loyalty to her and her alone.
“How did it come to this?” she sighed to herself.
The battle at the coven was hardly a battle at all—it was a slaughter. The Kingdom of Slaethia, which Aurelia had once destroyed herself, had miraculously risen from the ashes over the last hundred years and aligned itself with the Ascended Empire. Ruled by a council of ascended gods, this empire boasted a formidable collection of champions.
Aurelia knew she would not have been defeated if not for their intervention—yet she had been, by a fairy of all creatures. Galen, a rather tall fairy about the height of a dwarf, with dragonfly-like wings, had battled her for three hours until she finally succumbed. Though no champion herself, Aurelia took a shred of pride in standing toe-to-toe with someone often referred to as the strongest champion. She had heard whispers from the guards that he had departed Nyxoria, heading off to another moon to do the bidding of the Ascended. Even Aurelia couldn’t fathom the number of moons, wars, and uprisings the Ascended were embroiled in across the Moons of Völuspá.
Now would have been the perfect time to make her escape, but the constant blood draining had left her powerless and exceedingly weak. With more whispers of two other champions arriving tomorrow, accompanied by an airship fleet to escort her to the Ascended Empire, any hopes of escaping on her own were dashed.
Despite her sharp perceptiveness, the overwhelming thirst dulled Aurelia’s senses so much that she failed to notice the disappearance of one of the interrogators.
“Soldier! What’s keeping you?” bellowed the General.
There was no response from the missing man.
A sinister smile cracked across Aurelia’s worn face, revealing the dormant monster within, now ravenous. Relief seemed near as she noticed a tiny tendril of darkness slithering from the top of the stairwell—a stealthy observer visible only to vampiric eyes. Regrettably, she had missed witnessing the elf’s murder, lost in daydreams about Bowen, but now her attention was razor-sharp.
Aurelia had once concealed her emotions for Bowen’s soul from the coven, an effort now rendered pointless as the coven had dissolved into a mere shadow of its former glory.
“It’s no use, human,” she whispered teasingly. “You’ll be dead before you return to your pitiful Slaethia. My beloved Bowen will see to that.”
General Ezad and his partner, his lover, Anlyth, were a formidable duo, though the concept of lifelong bonds like marriage was foreign in this realm where no one died from old age. Yet, nothing could sever her bond with Bowen, not even death. Aurelia relished the thought of defeating Anlyth before Ezad; imagining the pain it would cause him soothed the relentless ache of her thirst. Her anticipation of reuniting with Bowen and witnessing his next move kept her from slipping into the insanity brought on by the thirst.
There was no doubt in Aurelia’s black heart that her beloved would make it through that dungeon and return to her. She had waited nearly two hundred years; what were a few more moments?
As Ezad turned towards Aurelia’s cell with a smirk, he was oblivious that her smile was far more sinister than his. The other interrogator paused his assault on Vorigan and approached the stairwell cautiously. Despite their ignorance of Bowen’s presence, the sudden silence stirred their suspicions.
The true terror began as the second interrogator approached the table of knives and other torture instruments. A writhing mass of inky tendrils and tentacles descended upon the elf, who let out a scream of terror and pain that seemed to chill the very air. General Ezad spun around, his face contorted in horror and fury as he charged forward, massive fists raised to deliver punishing blows. But before he could intervene, a goopy tendril of tar-like substance snaked around the elf’s lower jaw, wrapping it in a web of sticky tentacles, and yanked.
With a ghastly tug, the jaw was ripped free and hurled toward the oncoming behemoth. Ezad swatted the detached jaw aside with a flick of his hand, only to be knocked back as the still-screaming elf was thrown into him. The two tumbled in a tangled heap, the elf’s howls of pain echoing throughout the room. The General shoved the wailing elf off him and surged to his feet, but it was too late. A tentacle had already coiled around his neck, pulling him close.
Aurelia’s laughter was the only sound that pierced through the elf’s horrid howling.