“If someone moves, you will find out how the lady looks inside out!”

The Sorceress spat the words with furious disdain, stomping out of the crowd. With a wave of her crooked staff, purple elemental chains shot out, snapping out towards the finely dressed human atop the podium.

By the time the villagers reacted, it was too late. The Sorceress had snatched the prized trophy, leaving the human shrouded in magical bindings, wriggling in the mud, desperately trying to escape.

The bandit leader followed in the script, inwardly sneering at the shock that had rooted the bumpkins in place. She leapt on the creaky podium the human had previously occupied. All attention was on her and the threads of power connecting her staff to the human woman.

“Do not move!” The magic-wielding maiden announced, her weapon pointed at her captive, her hand at the approaching guards. They were Doggirls mostly, and they would pose no threat to her while she held the village head captive.

To remind them of this, and with barely a thought, power crackled through her staff and into the human woman, tightening the ephemeral chains as they dug into flesh. They drove the air out of the hostage and left the human as nothing more than a wheezing bag of useless space.

Just like that, the maiden guards became as still as if they were the ones that had been chained up. It was a wonderful thing, the bond. But things needed to move. The Sorceress put the local militia out of mind and turned to the villagers.

It was easy to see how her helpers had made their way through the justifiably distracted crowd.

“The festivities have ended!”

That was the signal.

The bandits moved like clockwork. A hand would yank the nearest human’s head back and they would kick their legs out from behind, forcing them to their knees. Each bandit would then bring their knife against the human’s throat. It was a dance, one where the humans had no say in their participation, and where the maidens would be rendered helpless out of fear of their humans coming to harm.

“If any of you move, they all die!” The Sorceress intoned. It’d been a stroke of genius. The bandit leader laughed. No one would’ve believed her if she’d claimed she’d gained control of an entire village with just a couple dozen Mousegirls.

The crowd frothed, yet if any of them tried to move, the others would restrain them the moment the daggers pressed just hard enough to draw blood. The humans tried to fight, to escape, even to shout out commands. But humans were humans, and as weak as Mousegirls were, they were still maidens.

“Now step back!” the bandit leader commanded. “Move away from your humans or they will not make it to the end of the day!”

The effect her words had was more powerful than any spell she could’ve wielded. The crowd simmered in compliance, furious reluctance as they backed away from the hostages, dragging their feet, snarling, growling, barking, yowling, but obedient. And that was all she needed.

The Sorceress raised her staff to the vibrant blue sky, unleashing a minor explosion that left a cloud of white, glittering smoke. The entire crowd of maidens twitched as one, the shock nearly driving them to pounce into action. When they realized it had not been an attack but a trick, they turned to glare at the bandit leader.

She smirked. “Humans to the right, maidens to the left. Anyone tries to be a hero, and their human gets a new breathing hole… or gets scattered all over the village square.” Her bandits might not have numbered enough to get to all the humans, but it had been enough.

She made a point of charging the next shot. Her raven hair whipped in an unseen tornado of power, the tip of her staff ready for an aimed explosive release. She pointed at the captive humans, their numbers only a fraction of that of the maidens.

The glares intensified, focusing on her. That was exactly the point. Keep them focused on her and not looking for a way out. The collective hesitation drove each individual into inaction.

“Do not blame me, blame your King for leaving you to fend for yourselves the moment the feral rush came.” The Sorceress sneered, yanking on the chains and forcing the captive to roll to the foot of the podium. “Should’ve sent this little thing in exchange for some knights. Human women are so rare, after all.”

As the distraction and ringleader, it was her job to handle the crowd, to render them blind to how their chances of resistance became slimmer with every breath they took. It made it easier for the rest of the gang to slip into view from amongst the houses in the village. And the more the locals seethed and glared, the further away they would be from being able to rescue their humans.

With any luck, they’d only need to kill a handful of them before they left with their bags full and some new slaves to trade away.

“Boss!”

That was the signal of someone stepping up.

She inwardly sighed. There were always some brave idiots wanting to make a point.

The Sorceress charged her reactive barriers as she mentally went through the list of names they’d scouted out as the likeliest troublemakers. Would it be the village leader’s sister, the Harpy? The Elf in charge of the farmers? She hoped it wasn’t some kit, thinking they had some big boots they had to fit into.

Killing children always left her with an unpleasant taste.

Her inner musings nearly made her miss one of her stronger maidens turn into a shrieking meteor. The Hound flew through the village square as if gifted with wings, crashing through the wall of a nearby house.

A plume of dust rose from the impact, and no sounds followed from within.

There was an abrupt silence, and the Sorceress instantly knew this was no courageous bitch with an overblown ego.

The maiden that had attacked the bandit was a wild creature of power and muscle that loomed nearly three meters in height. Deathly white hair, predatory feline blue eyes, and a body built for violently tearing things limb from limb. White fur covered the maiden’s arms and legs, and wickedly sharp alabaster claws tipped every digit.

“No. Touch. Rick.” The feline creature growled with the force of a rumbling mountain, long silver striped tail angrily lashing back and forth.

If the simplified words hadn’t been clue enough, the black collar upon the feline’s throat marked her as feralborn. For all the Sorceress’ genius, for the life of her, she just could not imagine how a human could survive encountering such a creature while at their most savage, let alone bond with them and break the feral curse.

Not without a small army, one clearly not present.

And yet there was a human right there, almost forgotten and clearly ignorable as he stood next to the maiden. The bandit leader focused on this ‘Rick’ fellow, trying to get the measure of him. He was a man who would’ve been handsome had he been allowed to rest and freshen up. Unfortunately for him, he looked like he’d spent the past month being dragged through every bush, tree, and river in the kingdom. Yet despite the bags under his eyes and slumped shoulders, there was a calmness to him the Sorceress could not understand.

He was surrounded by bandits, any of which could kill him. Yet he was no more tense than if he’d been taking a stroll.

“Monica…” the man whispered, the weariness dripping through every syllable. “I told you to hold back.”

The feline pouted, deflating slightly and turning to look at him in… concern? “Bad maiden not dead. Only sleeping. Held back.”

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Not the point. You broke the house, the locals won’t-.”

“You!” The Sorceress called out, snapping back to action. “Tell your monster to let herself be chained or I’ll burn your village leader to a crisp!”

Even if the feline was feralborn, they were all taught to obey their partner. And humans always cared about their kind above all others.

Still, out of all the blunders and all the fuck-ups, the worst mistake one could make was not knowing who the strongest bitch around was. Someone’s head would roll for having missed this. If the situation couldn’t fall back under control…

The human looked at the wriggling worm of a woman and shrugged. “Well-.”

“Listen to her, my love! Human blood must not spill!” The overly nasal and shrill voice grated against the Sorceress’ soul.

It was a woman that had stumbled her way out of the crowd of human captives. The face was foreign; her face sculpted out of symmetrical sharp angles and disapproving rosy lips. Her hair was a waterfall, running down her shoulders and framing the profound abyss within her cleavage. It was a woman who’d have fit in finely dressed amongst nobles, or entirely naked within the cheapest whorehouse.

Yet the woman was here, in a dusty hamlet, wearing a crude, cheap wool dress that held onto her lustful body with shame. The Sorceress idly considered tearing the clothes away, if only to relieve them of the sin of staining such perfect curves.

The bandit leader caught herself before she forgot her circumstances further. The human woman was such a powerful distraction the Sorceress would have suspected her to be a maiden.

“Please have mercy!” The woman proclaimed, clasping her hands together and kneeling half-way between the humans and the Sorceress. The blue-haired beauty wore no enchanted collar, and her eyes shone with none of the telltale signs of a maiden fighting against the feral curse.

This could only be a human.

And yet, could she truly be this dumb? Normally, the bandit leader would’ve ignored her. She had the village head under her boot, after all. But that feralborn maiden had stilled the moment this woman had stepped out. Would this aid her in suppressing the monster? A quick glance confirmed the other villagers were tense but complying, most of them eyeing the humans. The bandits closest to the humans were not moving an inch away from the hostages. The others were slowly circling behind the newest threat.

If a fight broke out, the entire hamlet was sure to turn into a bloodbath. She and her maidens would win, but how many would she lose? It could very well prove to be a crippling blow for her.

That sealed her choice.

“Better do what she says.” The bandit leader aimed the charged shot at the blue-haired woman. “Or your wife will get to be in several places at the same time.” The Sorceress kicked away the village leader for one of her maidens to handle.

The feline had locked her gaze with the bandit leader’s, a shiver ran down the Sorceress’ spine. But if the maiden didn’t attack, that would be enough.

“She’s not his wife!” A voice called out from the group of gathered local maidens.

Annoyed, the Sorceress prepared to command silence.

In the split second she’d turned away from the feralborn monster, her shields flared out and shrieked under the strain of the blow that would’ve torn her body to pieces. The taste of static lingered in the air, the shields flared again, and this time they cracked.

Acting on instinct, the Sorceress aimed her charged shot towards the source of danger, putting as much thrusting force into it as she could. The instant she realized it was the feline, she shifted her aim towards the human and let loose.

It was exactly the right move to make. The feline recognized the threat and jumped to block it with the same impossible speed with which she’d reached the Sorceress. The impact may or may not have hurt the monster, but the power within it was enough to blast her off nearly all the way back to the human’s side.

The exchange had happened so quickly there was still dust settling from the spot the feline had burst into her attack. The Sorceress startled as her thoughts caught up to her. She’d seen Tigresses fight and none had moved with such speed and brutal power. Where had this freak come from!?

If she’d not prepared her shields, she’d likely be dead right now.

But that was the difference between a feralborn oaf and a genius like her. Now that she knew what the maiden was capable of, she would not underestimate her. She kept her staff aimed directly at the human, ignoring the unnerving feeling of just how calm the man remained throughout.

There was no need to bother aiming at anything else. No bonded maiden could ever allow their human partner to die. It was as imperative to maidens as breathing. Even now, the Sorceress felt a trickle of concern for the slave they’d stashed away at the edge of the village.

“I warned you.” She growled under her breath.

While her staff was still trained on the human, she used her free hand to aim at the human woman. The dumb lover. The Sorceress let loose a raw blast of elemental fire, quickly moving to strengthen her shields. Another attack would come, she was sure.

Yet nothing happened. The feline tilted her head in apparent confusion and the human… hadn’t even twitched.

It wasn’t until the Sorceress realized she’d never heard the human woman scream that she felt a feverishly hot hand falling onto her shoulder. “It’s really rude to ignore a woman like that.” The voice whispered into the Sorceress’ ear. Heat spread from the point of contact like burning oil, her whole person seizing up in sudden stiffness. The fingers danced lightly up the Sorceress’ shoulder until they wrapped around her throat. “You really hurt my feelings there, not even looking me in the eye…”

Her body was lifted off the ground like she weighed nothing. Her eyes fixed on the golden gaze of the blue-haired woman. She tried to summon her power, but the slick heat running through her body blocked any attempt to pool energy.

“Can’t let you try any more of your tricks.” A cruel smirk spread across the blue-haired maiden’s perfect lips, fingers tightening and choking the air out of the Sorceress.

The bandit leader grasped fruitlessly at the arm, holding her in the air. It was as if her own arms were loose strings, unable to summon any strength. Her eyes bulged further, lungs burning with the strain.

Where were her maidens? Why weren’t they attacking this bitch? But she caught sight of it, a spear being chucked and bouncing off the perfect skin as if it had hit a stone wall.

“MINE!”

Blessed air exploded into the Sorceress’ lungs. She heaved, the heat suddenly gone, but her body left like a puppet without strings, weakened beyond measure. Her knees hit the ground, her brain whirled, confusion, shock. She couldn’t question how or why, but she had to move, fight, get the upper hand back.

The white furry backhand caught her squarely in the shoulder. The world turned into a blur of whirlwind motion. She’d flown across the village square like a doll that a petulant child had tossed aside.

With ragged breaths, the Sorceress challenged the onslaught of pain. But even as she fought to get back up to her feet, she could only stare in bewilderment as the feline clawed at the blue-haired maiden. “You stupid cat!” the other one declared, seething, blocking the claws that should’ve gouged her arms into ribbons and merely getting light scratches instead.

“Rick said my turn!” The feline replied.

“Know your damned place!” Came the response.

The bandit leader hadn’t just been thrown around and toyed with. She was being ignored. But she wasn’t about to distract the two idiots ducking it out with one another. All she would need to concern herself with would be the human. Surely, he was the key to solve this quickly. By now, the rest of the gang should have surely gotten hold of him.

But as the world stopped spinning, she saw her maidens were scattering into the wind, shrieking in terror as if chased by the Royal Knights. Even some villagers were desperately scrambling to escape.

The source of the terror was a singular figure, one standing next to the origin of all her troubles. It was undoubtedly another maiden. She wore a very heavy hooded cape, her features hidden within the darkness of the dull brown cloth. The leader of the bandits sensed the influence of dark elemental energy spreading through the village square like an oil stain.

She flinched as the hooded figure turned its focus her way. There were glowing red eyes underneath the hood. Panic, horror, and dread washed over every part of the Sorceress’ sore body.

But she was not some bumpkin farmer raised in the ass end of the kingdom. The beings that ruled the Red Circle were far superior. None who had met with them would find this paltry trick menacing. The Sorceress shattered the gaze's effects with but a smidgen of effort. The recoil alone made the hooded figure stumble back several steps and nearly fall.

The hooded maiden was nothing but a weakling.

“Enough of this!” the Sorceress proclaimed, raising her staff. The elemental energy coalesced into a sphere of violent crimson, purple flames licking at the edges as the air simmered with impossible heat.

With a flick, the power shot at the human.

“Rick!”

“No!”

Four voices screamed out in unison.

With no moment to spare, the spellcaster turned to her two opponents, charging her next attack as heavily as she could push it. With the human dead, their bonds must have snapped. That alone should give her room to breathe while the maidens handled the backlash.

She took aim at the blue-haired one. The brute she could handle easily, but the other one had hampered her powers she could not afford to ignore. But the maiden was durable, so that left her with only one option.

The binding spell shot out, dozens of ethereal chains wrapping the curvaceous maiden in a shower of sparks. Her target rolled across the ground in sudden panic, trying to fight off the spell as it quickly wrapped more and more around her body.

Something caught the Sorceress’ attention. Two shrunken bat-like wings that innocuously lay upon the maiden’s back, now revealed thanks to the torn clothes. “A Succubus!?” What was one doing here!? The kingdom had a kill-on-sight bounty on them! “Sister, I am fighting against the kingdom! Help us!”

The Red Circle would undoubtedly grant her a favor if she could bring back the maiden blessed with agelessness!

“I’m not helping anyone but myself!” With a snarl, the Succubus’ body glowed crimson, the chains began sizzling as the spell started crumbling far faster than it should have.

Faster than any of her teachers had shown. It would have been awe-inspiring under a less dire situation. The Sorceress panicked, now certain they’d inadvertently stepped into a Dragoness’ lair. Fighting the brute might have been possible, but against a maiden clearly skilled in undoing spells? A charmer at that? Her own gang, filled with weak-willed rabble as it was, could become a potential tool in the hands of the Succubus as well!

At least the monster had ignored them, preoccupied with fighting off the rest of the gang. Each swipe would down whoever had dared to get close.

The only solution was to retreat, now before the villagers figured out they had the advantage and took it. To warn the Red Circle and pray for mercy. Now while she-.

“Die, you traitorous whore.”

Pain exploded from the Sorceress’ side. A knife had sprouted from her ribs like an arrow. She stumbled, turning to face the attacker, breath escaping her in gasps. A maiden with violently pink-haired and wild purple eyes. The gaze of a woman that held the screams inside rather than letting them out. Untold fury burned within the eyes of the maiden that by any other measure would’ve been forgettable and just one more face in the crowd.

The attacker pulled the knife out, the Sorceress stumbled a step, reeling.

The pink-haired one lurched at her.

The knife slid straight back into her chest. A thread of blood followed it as it pulled out and then struck back into her gut, pulling out and threading right back into her soft body. Everything moved so slowly, again and again, each strike like the blow of a Giantess, sewing her chest with holes. Green light coated the… scalpel?

Was she being attacked by a Rapha? A healer!?

Panic pushed through the confusion and numbing shock.

With not enough focus to prepare a spell, the Sorceress' staff unleashed a burst of raw, uncontrolled elemental power. The explosion tore the pink-haired psycho away from her, and experience immediately superseded the Sorceress’ instinct to mend the wounds. To heal would be to expose herself to further attacks. She needed to reposition.

With trembling, bloodied fingers, she reached into her belt.

She unleashed the contained teleport spell. The world blurred, and she collapsed onto the roof of one of the nearby houses.

Away from any immediate danger.

“Not today.” She wheezed out the words, lungs screaming in agony. The Sorceress struggled to cast the healing spell, her powers slipped through her control like water between her fingers. It was a struggle to give it the proper shape, to fuel it, to have the spell self-realize rather than crumble or lash out.

But even if her teachers had deemed her a failure, they'd been nothing but thorough. A little pain would not stop her, merely slow her down. Soon, the flickering light and relief that washed over her told her of her success. The maiden focused on the wounds on her chest before she drowned in her own blood.

Flesh knitting itself back together screamed with pain, and she could do nothing but clench her teeth to suppress the screams. She was no healer. This was not her specialty. But what was the alternative? To be captured and become a slave again? To be killed?

Every moment was a fight that she was so very close to losing. The roof tiles around her were becoming blurred, the blue sky above spinning in a twister of white and blue, lifeblood pooling and dripping down against the mud-made masonry.

A shadow covered half the sky, obscuring the sun.

The red-eyed hooded figure, shaking like a leaf. The pale maiden’s body was half-burnt, the tattered cape billowing in the wind, revealing the deep burns covering nearly every inch of exposed skin. She had the eyes of a starved creature, inhaling the Sorceress' bloody scent with barely suppressed delight, pupils fully dilated.

The maiden licked her lips and opened her mouth, fangs gleamed with thirst.

A Fledgling? Here? Shouldn't they be on the same side?

No time for questions. She was going to die to a pathetic weakling if she did nothing.

With a wheeze, the Sorceress pooled her energy; the blood proving a better conduit than her bare palm. She unleashed every bit she had left within her in another desperate blast. Even half-dead and nearly empty, it proved an effective tactic against the Fledgling, and she got to watch the maiden shriek as she fell from the slanted tile roof, screaming, barely able to slow the crash down below.

The Sorceress coughed and laughed in triumph, though it was not lost to her how the human had been bonded to not just a Succubus and that monstrous feline, but a Fledgling as well.

No matter, he was surely dead. The monsters bonded to him would doubt start feeling the weight of the feral curse.

Even if she lost everyone from her gang today, she would rebuild. She would not let herself die in some tiny forgettable village.

With no elemental energy left to her name, the Sorceress tried to draw what she could from the environment. Normally it would've been futile, but there had been too much fighting and death. There was enough for her to scrape out for herself. She fueled the healing spell with those bare threads.

With a gasp, she felt her lungs finally close. She coughed, spitting blood. Still heavily wounded, but at least not drowning.

She turned to look down at the village square, at the chaos, and immediately spotting something that made disbelief wash over her.

The male was alive.

He looked as nearly dead as she was, but there was the pink-haired bitch right next to him tending to his wounds.

Anger boiled inside the Sorceress.

She weakly clenched her fists. But she could do nothing, not like this. She had to live, survive, and inform the others, call for reinforcements and finish this human off before he could disrupt their plans further.

There was a heavy growl behind her.

The familiar frigid chill of death washed over the Sorceress.

The icy glare of the feralborn feline pinned her in place. The monster loomed over her, the rumbling sound she emanated akin to a collapsing mountain.

“No…” the spellcaster wheezed. “No, please, no!”

A white claw reached down with a slow but unshakeable strength. The feline gripped the Sorceress’ neck, effortlessly raising her up into the air, so they were level with one another, so that the bandit leader could stare into a furious, snarling, murderous beast with two fangs larger than her thumbs.

“No. Hurt. Rick.”

With the maiden’s feet dangling from the air, the feline squeezed slowly. In that last moment, the Sorceress recognized the overgrown fangs, the oversized claws, the deep stripes. This was no mere Tigress but a Sabertooth.

The Sorceress did not even feel her vertebrae shatter.

Her corpse went limp.

The Sabertooth unceremoniously threw it off the roof. The feline maiden shifted her focus to the village square. She smelled the blood, fear, and anger. There were still others that were trying to resist.

Inhaling deeply, the maiden pooled her power through her belly and let out an earth-shaking roar. The fighting died on the spot. Villagers and bandits alike looked up at the maiden in horror.

The bandits were the first to react. They ran.

***

---

***

Eva raised her head from the still warm corpse of the Sorceress. She cleaned the blood from her lips, fighting against the smooth, bittersweet taste. The Sorceress had been strong, and now that the Fledgling drank from her, Eva felt her sanity returning.

With it came disgust, but it was more a gesture of propriety than a genuine emotion. Then came hate at herself for succumbing to the thirst again. Yet she could not deny it had been enough sustenance for her wounds to heal themselves; the burns were receding and her chalky white skin itched.

A shiver ran through her, the sensation of eyes focusing upon her. From the comforting shade the house provided, she peeked at the source: Rick.

The man sat ragged, bruised, and slightly burnt, hurt but not in immediate danger. His tired and half focused eyes were on her as if he could see exactly where she was, even while the shadows clung to her like a cloak.

The bond had saved him, pushed her to cover him from the worst of the attack faster than she would’ve otherwise been able to react.

Now free of the near-compulsion, bile climbed up her throat. Again, her instincts had gotten the better of her again.

The hand of the foulest creatures this world had ever seen had reduced her, the former scion of Bavtha, to a lowly maiden, a Fledgling, a parasite.

Trapped inside a body that wasn’t her own, pulled every which way by desires that were just as foreign.

Within her, the Eva's instincts salivated at the fear and blood that lingered in the air, a delicious meal ready to be feasted upon until she’d burst. The maiden instincts paid close attention to Rick, the one that was bonded to her, a treasure within her pocket, one under constant threat of being stolen. And in the center of it all was what little remained of her humanity, fighting against what she knew was an impossible war.

There were ways for a human to be turned into a maiden, but not the other way around. There was no future for her.

Yet, looking at Rick, she could only hesitate.

A human able to bond without the enchanted collars? An impossible thing for but a handful of people in the world.

Eva felt like the first time she’d laid eyes upon a pure elemental dragonstone.

The crafting material was infamous for its volatility. Used properly, it would create enchantments of incredible power. But that same source of wonders could bring unparalleled ruin if one made the tiniest mistake.

And here she stood, with the carving knife, hands shaking in fury.

 

---

 

So time for explanation. "Alchimia Rex" is Volume 4 of [Monsters and Maidens] (or Book 2 to be more precise).

But Book 1 is not mandatory reading material.

Book 1 is one I love dearly, yet also have to acknowledge that it has some big issues (the multiple PoV's were neat, but the narrative and plot weren't tight enough to pull it off. And the pacing felt too sluggish often. It took dozens of chapters to cover what would've normally taken just a few).

Ergo, Book 2 is meant as an entry point for new readers.

It will refer to events from Book 1, but it will be entirely self-sufficient (and yes, there's been a time-skip with the ending of Book 1 and the start of Book 2).

More than anything, I'm trying to apply the lessons I've learnt over the past year.

I'm changing the standard format around to make it more Rick-focused and I have been working my butt off to give it a tighter plot/narrative.

 

Merry Christmas!