“Does it have to…you know? Might as well just let them hang out at this point.”

“Relax, dearie. You’ll be out of the dress soon enough, but - hmphf - before that, you need to remind he’s lucky to have such a beautiful girl.” Renee pulled Anya’s dress tight, carefully forming it around the corset beneath. The rabbit could barely feel her abdomen, and was sure that at any minute her newly-sensitive breasts would leap free from the perilously low neckline of the dress.

It had been a few days since the encounter with the Blanchets, and Anya felt she could not risk delaying her visit to Yvon’s bedchamber any longer. She had let her contraceptive hexes fade - not that she could maintain them in any case, as Yvon held onto her knife within the house - and the familiar cloying buzz of heat had crept into her body. Over the last two hours, Renee had bathed, brushed, painted, and scented her, and she was at last presentable for the slaughter.

“Just remember, dearie, your mother, your mother’s mother, and back down the line to when we all walked on four legs; they all faced the same as you.” Renee tied Manon’s dusk-blue ribbons around Anya’s ears, and finally fastened the claim-seal around her neck.

My mother, Irina. I was fourteen when I did the math. After I was born, six litters in forty-four months. Rabbits are pregnant for seven, so…

“Anna? Listen to me, Anna. You will be alright. Sofia will have warned him not to mistreat you, and he listens to her.” Renee took her hands, and then leaned into her ear. “If it comes to it, he keeps your knife in the top left drawer of his writing desk.”

Before Anya could respond, she was led into the halls of the manor. Her eyes were unfocused - there could have been no one watching her hesitant footsteps, or the entire citizenry of Tyre, and it would not have changed the sense of nakedness that clung to her skin.

“Head held high,” Renee whispered. “You’re not some wretched mistress, and even if you were, you must not act it.” Her warm fingers tightened around Anya’s palm, and the rabbit tried to straighten her spine.

They reached the door, and Renee’s last words of encouragement flew past Anya like hollow wind. A pair of hands on her back, and it was over.

She had stood in this room before, when she had first met Yvon’s brother after the second assassination. But now the lake beyond the balcony reflected only tenebrous clouds, and darkness seemed to well from every corner to devour the scant light cast by the candelabra. Yvon sat at his desk, his loose evening robe lending him the appearance of a hulking bat. His nose twitched, and he twisted in his chair. For a moment, Anya imagined he would simply pounce and bear down on her.

“Come closer. One more step. There, stop.” He held up his fingers in a rectangle, as if framing a portrait.

“Perhaps Ms. Beaufort was onto something. In this light, Anna, the blue of your ribbons pairs wonderfully with your fur.”

His eyes slid from her face to her waist and dress, carefully detouring around her bosom.

“Call me Anya, please. If we’re going to shag, you might as well.”

“As you wish, Anya. The bed in the other room is made up, if you would like to prepare yourself. I have a few items to finish up.” Anya saw that he was writing a letter

“By the way, I realized I ought to apologize for my poor behavior over that claim-seal business in the slums. You acted impudently, but I let my temper take the lead, and responded in a way that was wholly undignified. It will not happen again. Of course, I expect in turn you will not make a habit of circumventing my decisions.”

Even his apology is a negotiation. Insufferable man.

Anya nodded, and began to step across the room, keeping to the edge of the prince’s light. The room was tinged with his unaltered smell, and her abdomen clenched at a whiff of sexual pheromones.

She reached the door to the bedroom proper, then changed her mind, padding to Yvon’s side. The top of his desk was around the level of her shoulders, and she saw that next to the letter was a draft with half the lines crossed out. Behind them, a ledger-book was open, showing dozens of rows of tiny, precise handwriting.

“What are you working on?”

“Does it matter at all to you?”

“Yes, in fact.”

Yvon threaded his fingers and pushed out his hands in exasperation.

“The Finance Minister - one of those tail-biting curs on the hunting council - wishes to impose a royal tariff of twenty-five percent on all goods sent to Rus. He has some moronic scheme about using the revenues to pay for the care of indigent veterans. I am writing to inform him that his proposal is madness, there will be no trade at all under such conditions, and he will have no money for the veterans he so loudly claims deference to.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“What could we possibly want to buy? A quarter of our bucks are dead, and we will lose many more this winter.”

“Porcelain, furniture, clocks, perfumes, clothing in the latest Gaulish fashions. Sell a few at a discount to the high nobles, and within the month every aspiring blue-blood in Rus will need his or her own.”

“And the finance minister wishes to extract his cut.”

“Precisely.”

There was something scribbled in the corner of the draft, and Anya stood on the tips of her paws to examine it.

“Hey! Is that me?”

Yvon’s hand moved to swipe it away, but Anya leaped up to pull it closer. It was her from the chest up, rendered in meticulous perspective in the clothes she had worn in Parisi, although Anya felt Yvon had made her face far too severe. Well, and her bosom was not that full.

Yvon blushed, his inner ears turning red as cherries.

“A diversion. Nothing more.”

“Are you trained? It’s fine work.”

Yvon shook his head. “Certainly the Clary firstborn has no time for such frivolity.”

“But someone must have taught you.”

He ignored her and took the paper from her hands, carefully arranging it in its former position.

“Leave me be. Such things as tariffs and trade should be far from your concern.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Anya leaped onto an empty corner of the desk, sitting so that her legs dangled over its side. “I’m supposed to be raising your cubs, right? I feel I ought to know what their father does all day.”

Yvon furrowed his brow, and the shadows encroached further across his face.

“Anya. The raising of an heir is a delicate matter, more so when the mother’s position is…borderline. There are wet nurses, governesses, tutors, et cetera.”

Anya’s heart dropped.

“What do you mean?”

“To be born a half-blood is damning enough. In a sense, to allow them to develop an attachment to their mother would only increase their burden.”

The candelabra flickered.

Come on, say something. Push it back for one more moment.

“Sand off the edges of their soul. So they can turn out just like you.”

Yvon appeared struck unawares, and merely sunk in his chair.

“You have a frustrating habit of being correct.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the rustling of leaves outside. The darkness pooled in Yvon’s eyes.

“Now I am in no mood to write letters.” He leaned forward and looked to her. “Do you still wish to see it through?”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“If the time is not yet right-”

“No, no. I’m here now. Might as well.”

Yvon looked away, out to where the moon peeked through silver-laced clouds. His face betrayed anxiety.

“Everything alight?”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

Yvon collected himself and rose from his chair, opening a drawer to tuck a book under his arm. Beneath where it had been, Anya saw her knife.

“Planning to do some light reading?” The book was titled Discourse on the Method.

“Something to fill the time while we wait for…well, you will see. Sofia prefers I read aloud to her, and I may do likewise for you if you wish. Here, lean back.”

He gently cradled her in his arms and lifted her off the table. His hands felt enormous on her back, and the heat-weight in her belly seemed to quicken at his closeness.

In the next room, he placed her belly-up onto a towel strewn over a large four-poster bed. There was a household shrine in the corner of the room with a large statue of St. Hughbert and Morgana, their gold-leaf eyes catching stray strands of moonlight.

His hands are shaking.

He reached under her outermost dress and released her corset, then lifted the layers of her dress one by one. She felt a cold breeze on her newly-revealed groin.

“I will go slowly, but you need to tell me if it hurts, understand?”

“No need. When the pain comes, I can bear it.”

He looked at her curiously, then got down on his knees, face level with her groin. His hands came forward to her inner thighs, rough, hot pads brushing against her soft underfur, and he applied the slightest pressure to spread her legs. His breath was hot, but his nose was cold, ice cold…

Just like-

Clammy hands, crawling over her body.

The memory reared up, and it felt as though a frigid dead hand was pushing through her abdomen, twisting her organs to mush and spreading crackling ice through her body. She gasped for air, but her throat was clamped tight. The hands on her felt alien, wrong; she needed to get out.

“Umph!”

She realized she had kicked Yvon with both paws, and as he staggered backwards she saw a superficial claw-mark on his cheek.

Shrugging off her clothing, she tumbled to the floor, and dashed on all fours to the desk. The knife found her palm, and she drew it across the back of her hand as she crouched low to the floor. Enkidu’s presence coalesced around her, sinuous claws forming a protective cage as he sensed her terror. Yvon appeared at the bedroom door, face masked with fury, pawsteps like low drums on the wood.

Do I even want to know.

“Heartbeat. With me.”

I was taking a well-deserved rest, and dreaming of a world where metal spires pierce the sky and naked apes catch gods in books.

She slapped the knife against the desk, and Enkidu reluctantly surged forward, snaring Yvon’s heart between his many fingers. Anya felt its vitality, now quick and erratic. The pain inside her own chest writhed in response.

“She found the knife. Of course she found the knife. Anya, what in the name of Morgana’s cunt is wrong with you?”

“Stop.”

“If I had an ounce of sense, I’d - argh!” He fell to the floor, clutching his chest. Anya held her palm out, making and unmaking a fist.

Pump. Pump. Pump. She guided his heartbeat, keeping it steady enough for him to rise to his knees. Focusing on the flow of the arts helped force the pain away.

“You have my heart.” He exhaled, the anger slowly fading from his face. It was replaced with something like awe.

“Sorry, sorry. Nu yobana, I’m so sorry.” Tears flowed now, running off her face and onto her exposed bosom. The pain was going numb now, pushing deeper, becoming just another layer in the filthy sediment of her mind. She creeped backwards, towards the doorway.

“Wait. Even if you were not as naked as a beast, servants would see if you flee, and the rumors would be impossible to dispel. Let me call Renee. You can leave via the back corridor.”

“I can…I can get myself together. I can get ready, and we can try again.”

“Anya. I think we are done for tonight.”

He pulled a handkerchief from his robe and tossed it to her.

“And take this. Tears do not suit you.”

He disappeared into the bedroom, and Anya heard the servant-bell ring. And then the darkness was rushing forward, cascading in heavy waves over the balcony and pouring out of every corner, until she was wholly swallowed up.