The guards saw us long before we were close enough to pretend they had not.Two at the sagging gate, one on the wall walk above, another shadow halfway up a broken tower. Not proper soldiers. Their stances were wrong. Feet too narrow, grips too loose, eyes flicking instead of scanning. Retainers wearing uniforms they had never earned.

Tamsin was gone. No sign of her in the reeds. No trace of her in the bond. Just that quiet, functional absence that meant she was doing her job and I was expected to behave.

So of course I opened my mouth.

I unhooked my tail from Master’s leg and let it sway slow behind me, lazy and disinterested, the way predators move when they know the food will come to them. I walked a half step in front of him, eyes half lidded, smile thin and sharp. “Evening,” I purred, voice carrying through the damp air. “You boys lost or just squatting where you should not be squatting.”

The nearer one stiffened. Leather armour, mercenary style, patched with bits that did not match. He shifted his grip on his spear, trying to look like he had authority when all he had was a wall that was not his. I saw his eyes flick from my collar to Master’s sword, then back to my face.

He swallowed.

Then he made a MISTAKE

“Road is closed,” he barked, mustering his courage. “Turn your owner around and take yourself, PET back to the Mire. We have enough stink here without your kind bringing more.”

It hit like a nail hammered straight through my ribs.

PET, STINK, MY KIND

The words crawled under the damp fur where the rain had already done its work, hooked into the shame and twisted. I felt the panic spike for a heartbeat, that horrible memory of arches and guards and their choking, retching as my scent turned them inside out. The humiliation burned. Then it FLIPPED.

The shame SNAPPED clean in half and something else surged up through the crack. Dark. Hot. Eager.

Protective Fury Check: d20 (15) + 5 (bond to Master threatened) = 20 → Triggered

The world narrowed. Rain became static. Torchlight smeared into streaks. The only clear things left were Master at my side and the man who had called him my owner like an insult and me his animal like I was a problem to be handled.

Bad move. My body moved before my thoughts caught up.

Spear Attack One:

Attack Roll: d20 (19) + 3 Proficiency + 2 Strength + 4 Copper Iron Spear = 28 → Hit

The distance between us vanished in a blur of wet stone and muscle. I surged forward, boots slapping the mud, and the spear became an extension of my spine. The tip punched into the gap between his ribs with a wet crunch, sliding in under the leather plates like the armour had stepped aside out of respect.

Damage Roll: d8 (7) + 2 Strength + 4 Weapon Quality + 6 Protective Fury = 19

He never even finished his breath. The air left his lungs in a soft, almost surprised sigh as his knees buckled. I yanked the spear free with a twist that made something inside him tear, hot spray splattering my cowl, my collar, my cheeks. The second guard started to shout. What a poor idiot, idiot I thought before I began an UNCONTROLLABLE laughter.

Spear Attack Two:

Attack Roll: d20 (13) + 3 Proficiency + 2 Strength + 4 Weapon Quality = 22 → Hit

I stepped through the first man as he dropped, pivoting on my heel, tail flaring out for balance. The spear came around in a sharp horizontal arc, the haft humming through my hands. It buried itself just under the second guard’s chin, point punching into the soft flesh beneath his jaw and scraping the back of his skull from the inside.

Damage Roll: d8 (5) + 2 Strength + 4 Weapon Quality + 6 Protective Fury = 17

His helmet rang as the body tried to remember how to stand. Then it forgot. He toppled sideways into the mud, spear still buried in his throat. I planted a foot on his chest and ripped it free, PANTING, pupils blown wide, blood mixing with rain on the blade.

Above us on the wall walk, the third guard froze for a breath too long. Then his brain caught up with his eyes. He inhaled. Shouted.

“ALARM!”

His voice cracked, high and ugly with panic, but it did not matter. The word did what words always do in rotten places. It woke everything. Somewhere inside the fort, a bell started clanging, wild and uneven, the sound of someone yanking a rope like their life depended on it. Shadows scrambled behind the battlements. Boots thundered. Steel flashed. Voices rose.

The quiet, tense approach was gone. The peaceful, talk it out option was dead in the mud with the man who had called me pet. I stood over the bodies, spear dripping, ribs heaving, tail lashing like it was trying to claw the sky open. The fort woke around us with a roar of metal and fear.

Master exhaled sighing deeply, through his teeth. Not shock. Not fear. Annoyance.

The sound cut through the noise in my head like a match struck in a dark room. He looked at the spreading blood, the scrambling silhouettes on the wall, the idiot on the tower still yanking the bell rope like that would conjure someone who would save him. Then his gaze slid to me, just for a heartbeat. Calm. Cool. Measuring the damage like a detective stepping into a crime scene he had already seen a hundred times before.

“Funny thing about doors,” he murmured, voice low, pitched so only I could really catch it under the bell and the shouts. “You try knocking, they send you a clerk. You let the blood answer, suddenly the important people show up.”. He sighed, like a man who had been forced to work overtime in a world that stubbornly refused to stay civil. Then he moved.

He did not run. Master never ran unless the building was actually on fire. He simply shifted his weight and cut left toward one of the cracked curtain walls where the stone had slumped in on itself. There was a low outcrop of broken masonry there, a collapsed segment that had spilled rubble outward like a stone wave. Perfect cover for someone who intended to live through this.

Acrobatics Check: d20 (12) + 5 Athletics + 3 Tactical Genius = 20

He slid over the broken stone with an easy, practised movement, coat flaring, boots finding purchase with unhurried precision. In a breath he vanished behind the fractured wall segment, crossbow already coming to hand, using the ruin as a shield against the murder hole angles and the arrow slits above. I saw him glance once to make sure I was still within that sacred distance. Less than ten feet. Always less. The bond hummed hot and tight between us, letting me feel his calm settle into tactical lines, into angles and lanes and collateral.

Then he let me go. He had cover. He had sightlines. He had a field. Which meant I had permission. The fort screamed around us. Boots pounded toward the gate. Arrows rattled into hurried notches. The bell rang and rang and rang. I turned back toward the opening, spear spinning once in my hands, blood washing away under the rain, tail high and wild.

Fine.

If they wanted the suicidal one

they were about to get her.

The first arrows hissed out of the dark the way insults sometimes do, sharp but lacking the weight to matter. I saw their iron heads glinting in the torchlight, sloppy shots from hands that were shaking too much to aim properly. They struck my kite shield with a clatter that barely jolted my grip.

d20 Defence Roll: 14 + 4 (Copper Iron hardened Alloy) + 4 Dex = 22
Arrow Attack: 12 → Miss, deflected

The metal rang, sparks spat, and I snarled. Not a polite growl. Not a warning. The sound tore up my throat like something rabid chewing its own chains. My ears flattened under the cowl, tail snapping behind me like a whip eager to break something.

Another arrow came low, scraping mud as it flew.

d20 Defence Roll: 17 + 4 + 4 = 25
Arrow Attack: 10 → Miss

It struck the shields reinforced mid section and splintered, iron shards scattering across the soaked ground. They DARED to shoot at me. They dared to stand above Master. They DARED to breathe in his direction. I could feel the fury coil in my ribs like a living thing with claws. And then the night cracked open.

Master’s bolt fired.

There was no warning. No shift in air. Just a quiet, cold exhale from behind the rubble and a flash of copper iron leaving the crossbow at a velocity the wall torch could barely catch.

Attack Roll (Master): d20 (18) + 3 Dex + 4 Weapon Quality + 3 Tactical Genius = 28 → Hit
Damage: d10 (10) + 4 + 3 = 17 (Critical head penetration due to material difference)

The guard on the walkway jerked as though someone had hooked his spine and yanked. The bolt went straight through the lacquered headpiece, punched out the other side in a shower of wet shards, and embedded itself in the planks behind him with a deep, final thud. His body slumped forward over the parapet before sliding down like discarded cloth.

Master did not miss. The sight of it ripped a laugh from my throat, high and sharp and trembling at the edges.

Then I moved. One sprint, two, then a leap into the stone like gravity owed me money.

Athletics Roll (Wall Run): d20 (17) + 2 Str + 6 Acrobatics + Feline Agility = 25

Boots slapped the wet surface, claws dug in just enough, tail streaming behind me like a banner of violence. I vaulted the broken stones, climbed, ran the wall at a diagonal, and crested the parapet in a blur of teeth and breath and steel. The world fell away behind me.

THEN...

THEN...

THE BOND SNAPPED

There was no warning. Just an instant of living in Master’s orbit and the next heartbeat crashing into a void where he WASN'T. 10 FT. TOO FAR... TOO FAR... I HOWLED, GROWLED, PURRED, TOO FAR... TOO FAR...

Bond Check: d20 (4) → Fail

The pain hit like someone had thrust a hot nail through the centre of my chest. My breath shattered. My vision warped. My claws dug into the stone in a blind panic.

HE WAS GONE.

GONE.

GONE.

AND IT WAS ALL THEIR FAULT.

Somewhere below the wall a man screamed something panicked and stupid. I didn’t hear the words. All I heard was distance. All I felt was loss. My mind convulsed around the emptiness where Master’s presence should have been, and the emptiness filled itself with something feral and blind.

“YOU!” I shrieked, voice cracking through the rain. "YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME!"

The guard nearest me TRIED to raise his shield. TRIED. miserably, LIKE THE WEAK Alderian he was.

Attack One:
d20 (19) + 3 + 2 + 4 = 28 → Hit
Damage: d8 (8) + 2 + 4 + 6 = 20

The spear went through the shield first, punching a round hole in it like it was wet bark. The tip slid through his chest next, straight through leather, straight through ribs, straight through his breath. His eyes bulged as I jammed him against the battlement.

He wheezed something like “wait”.

I did not hear it...

Attack Two:
d20 (15) + 3 + 2 + 4 = 24 → Hit
Damage: d8 (6) + 2 + 4 + 6 = 18

I ripped the spear free with a manic twist that tore half his rib cage open, blood hot on my hands. He fell. I followed him down like a hammer. My claws found his throat. My knee crushed his sternum. I drove the spear down again and again, laughing, screaming, sobbing, the rain washing nothing away.

“YOU DID THIS” I snarled, jamming the spear into what was left of him. "YOU BROKE IT," I snarled, "YOU BROKE HIM AWAY FROM ME!”

The fort roared with alarms.

I roared louder.

Every step away from Master made my pulse misfire, made my breath tear ragged, made the world dim at the edges. The bond wasn’t just GONE. It was RIPPED. Raw. WRONG.

AND EVERYONE WAS GOING TO PAY for the distance.

ALL OF THEM

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM

The laugh started as a tremor in my ribs, a tiny shiver under the skin where the bond had torn open. Then it CLIMBED. HIGHER. SHARPER. It clawed its way up my throat, dragging splinters of breath with it. The sound that spilled out of me was not human and not beast, something manic and glimmering with teeth, a jagged ribbon of hysteria that scraped the inside of my skull raw. My tail lashed in wild arcs, ears twitching in broken jerks, and the laugh kept rising, spilling, cracking into the night like someone had slit open madness and let it pour.

It echoed off stone, bounced along the battlements, tangled with the dying rasp of the man beneath me. It filled the space where Master should have been, filled it badly, like a bandage soaked in blood. I leaned back on my knees, head tilted, laughter shaking my shoulders, spear dripping in a steady rhythm like a metronome counting down the world’s sanity.

Perception Check: d20 (18) + 5 = 23

The sound finally fractured into breath, and the world slid back into focus in thin slices. My pupils tightened. My ears pivoted. My tail slowed its whipping to a tense, twitching hook.

SILENCE

Not the quiet before a fight. Not the soft stillness of a watchful wall. The heavy, suffocating silence of a place whose defenders were already gone. Every outer guard was dead. The two at the gate. The crossbowman Master had opened like a tin lid. The ones who had tried to draw bows. The man beneath me whose blood soaked into the mortar in slow, dark threads. The others, scattered in twisted heaps along the walkway. The battlements held only corpses and the rain.

My lips curled into something that was almost a smile, almost a snarl, too jagged to be either. The laugh throbbed behind my teeth again, ready to spill, ready to spread. The fort had wanted to bark warnings into the night. Now the walls answered only with death.

The rain had gone thin, almost mistlike, dancing on the stone as though the whole world were holding its breath. My pulse was still a broken metronome in my throat when I felt him step out from behind the rubble. I didn’t hear his boots. I didn’t see his shadow first. I SENSED, SMELLED him. The bond snapped back into place like a dislocated limb forced into its socket, hot and violent and right.

I DIDN'T THINK

I LAUNCHED

One heartbeat I was crouched over a corpse, breath steaming in the cold air, and the next I was slamming into Master with all the ferocity of something starving finally tasting its food. My arms wrapped around him, claws curling into his cloak, tail coiling around his waist so hard it shook. A ragged gasp tore from me, half laugh, half sob, all instinct, my ears pressed flat then instantly lifted again as adrenaline and relief tangled into something feral.

And then his hand touched the back of my head.

His fingers slipped under the edges of the cowl, brushed the base of my ear, and scratched.

The world did not soften. It fractured.

It broke open in colours and pressure and memory and sensation, a fever dream crashing through my skull like lightning forced into flesh. My ears twitched hard against his palm, my breath stuttered, my ribs clenched like I was about to dissolve. Every nerve in my spine lit up white hot. The bond glowed behind my eyes like a furnace door flung open. For a moment the fort wasn’t a fort, the rain wasn’t rain, the bodies weren’t bodies.

Everything smeared.

Everything melted.

I saw shapes that weren’t there, echoes of moments that hadn’t happened yet, versions of Master standing in places that weren’t this world, my own shadow stretching long across impossible landscapes. I saw myself laughing in a room full of broken mirrors, my reflection multiplied, eyes wide and wild, tail arched, spear dripping gold instead of blood. I saw Master’s silhouette cutting through fog that had a pulse.

The bond throbbed like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

I clung to him harder, breath shaking, mind spiralling through visions that tasted like memory and nightmare stitched together. My claws trembled against his back, my tail tightened around him in a desperate coil, and I buried my face into his chest as the fever dream rolled through me again in a pulse, bright and violent.

“Master...,” I whispered, “Master..., my master" voice raw and cracked, every syllable a vow and a confession. The stone under us. The blood around us. The silence of the dead outer wall. All of it bent and twisted around the centre of the only thing that mattered: his presence holding me together while the world around us felt like it was dissolving at the edges.

The rain eased to a thin silver veil, almost gentle against the brutality it fell upon. The courtyard of the ruined fort looked like a painting done by someone who hated the world. Bodies lay where they had fallen, sprawled or slumped or folded in on themselves, blood mixing with the wet grit until everything glistened dark and rust coloured. The torches along the wall flickered in the damp wind, their light crawling over broken shields, iron arrowheads, snapped spear shafts, and mud turned almost black where it soaked too deep.

Right in the middle of that quiet aftermath, right in the eye of the storm of violence we had carved, he stood. And I clung to him. Master’s cloak brushed across the soaked stone, my tail wound around his waist in a greedy coil, ears pressed against his chest one heartbeat and flicking up the next. The corpses around us were cooling reminders of how fast everything had gone wrong for them, but the moment he scratched behind my ears they faded into unimportant scenery.

His fingers moved slow, deliberate, sliding under the cowl to rub the base of my right ear. My knees softened. My breath hitched. My purr came out rough at first, like a broken motor sputtering back to life, then settled into a deep, rolling vibration that travelled from my ribs into his. I tipped my head into his hand, eyes half closing.

The fort smelled like blood and wet stone, but his scent cut through it, anchoring me back into my body. My claws curled gently against his chest, not gripping, just holding.

Then he shifted his touch lower...

His hand drifted down my spine, fingertips skimming through fur until they found the base of my tail. My whole body jolted, a little involuntary twitch that shot straight through to my toes. The muscles in my back unspooled. My tail flicked once, then lifted, curling around his wrist with an instinct I could never fully suppress.

The purr deepened, turning into a low rattling hum that echoed against his ribs. My knees gave out properly this time, and I rolled sideways in the mud without shame, tail looping around his arm as I twisted and stretched on the wet stone like some pampered creature in a hall of corpses. My cowl slipped askew, ears flattening then popping upright again as I arched my back, purring louder with every pass of his hand.

Spoilt, shameless, adored, and perfectly content in a slaughteryard.

The dead watched with empty eyes. The rain traced silver lines across the blood. And in the middle of it all, I sprawled at Master’s feet, tail curled around his wrist, purring like I owned the ruins and everyone who had died in them.

The change was so sudden it hit like a snapped bowstring.