Two days had passed since the Nightripper.
The deeper they pushed into the heart of the Blackthorn Forest, the heavier the silence became. The hunting roars of wild beasts had vanished. The world shrank to the hollow whistle of wind through the rotting canopy and the occasional, jarring shriek of a carrion bird.
They moved like phantoms through the thicket. Kaspar took point, his eyes narrowed to vigilant slits as he navigated the treacherous ground, steering them clear of poison-mist sinkholes and the foul-smelling nests of aberrations.
"How much farther?"
Helene's voice drifted from behind him. Soft, but threaded with the undeniable rasp of physical exhaustion.
Kaspar halted. He shaded his eyes, calculating the distance to the jagged, dark mountain range on the horizon. He muttered a curse into his stubble before turning back. His tone remained professional, but his dark eyes instantly dropped to the hem of her cloak.
"If the gods are blind and we don't step on a Legend-class beast, we'll see daylight at the other edge in about seven days."
A damp gust of wind swept through the trees, catching Helene's heavy gray cloak. The slit of her combat skirt fluttered back, flashing a long, flawless stretch of pale calf and thigh, marred only by a few splatters of dark mud.
Kaspar clicked his tongue, his teeth slowly dragging over his cracked lower lip.
Just one strong gust of wind... or what if I just grabbed the fucking thing and ripped it up?
They had faced two more skirmishes in the past forty-eight hours. Nothing as lethal as the first night, but Helene had delivered the killing blow both times. And every single time she raised her hands to cast, Kaspar got to devour her.
It wasn't the full, naked glory of that first night—just violent flashes of bare thighs and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath her tunic. But for a starving street dog like Kaspar, those accidental glimpses were enough to keep his mouth permanently bone-dry.
He knew the reality: with a flick of her wrist, this woman could freeze his blood solid. Yet, Kaspar had noticed something deeply addictive. Helene didn't seem outraged by his hungry stares. The filthy jokes, the lewd, borderline-insolent jabs he deliberately dropped around the fire... she let them all slide off her freezing, aristocratic facade.
No glaring. No threats. No rejection.
For a predator like Kaspar, that silence was an open door. A mute grace period allowing him to strip her bare with his eyes over and over again.
They finally stopped to rest on a jagged rocky outcrop. Rurik immediately sat on a boulder, silent as a grave, his thick fingers clamped around his axe haft. Daniel stalked the perimeter, his shield raised high, radiating barely contained aggression.
The window of opportunity had cracked open.
Kaspar unhooked the waterskin from his belt, casually popped his stiff neck, and sauntered over to where Helene rested against a flat stone.
"My Lady… drink."
He flashed a crooked, calculating grin, holding out the skin. His abyssal eyes were already tracking the line of her outstretched legs.
Helene slowly lifted her gaze. The wind had tousled her dark hair. She offered a faint, exhausted smile—a micro-expression so devastating it made the mercenary's chest physically tight. Wordlessly, she took the skin.
As she tilted her head back to drink, the pale column of her throat worked in a hypnotic rhythm. A single drop of water escaped the corner of her lips. It traced a slow, wet path down her neck, slipping beneath the collar of her tunic and vanishing into the deep, shadowed cleft between her breasts.
Kaspar swallowed hard. Fuck. I'd cut a man's throat just to lick up that single drop.
"My Lady has been walking all day. Your muscles must be screaming."
Kaspar murmured. His voice dropped an octave, slipping effortlessly into the oily, rough purr of the Arkenstadt brothel pimps.
"The road is still long. Let me loosen those limbs. The dancers in the capital praise my hands to the high heavens."
He didn't wait for permission. He crouched directly beside her rock—close enough that the intoxicating scent of snow-cedar and warm, feminine sweat filled his lungs.
His calloused, scarred hands reached out and clamped firmly around her bare ankle.
Ice-cold.
Her skin was freezing, yet impossibly soft, like polished marble. The shocking friction of his rough palms against that flawless silk sent a violent jolt of pure lust straight to Kaspar's groin.
He held his breath, bracing his jaw. He fully expected a vicious kick to the teeth that would send him tumbling into the dirt.
Nothing happened.
Helene sat motionless. Her emerald eyes gazed indifferently out over the dark valley, and her leg didn't flinch back a single millimeter.
Fuelled by that silent tolerance, Kaspar's hands slid higher. His rough thumbs dug into the tense muscles of her calf, kneading with genuine skill before dragging agonizingly slow up her shin... creeping inexorably toward the bare, white expanse of her lower thighs.
"Kaspar!"
A lethal, guttural snarl exploded behind him.
Daniel had returned. The knight stood frozen, his armored glove crushing the hilt of his Oathblade so violently the leather groaned. His eyes burned with a sickening mix of rage and absolute revulsion as he stared at the filthy mercenary hands defiling his lady's flesh.
Kaspar flinched, yanking his hands back as if the porcelain skin had burned him.
"Daniel! Jesus, can't you walk like a normal fucking human? You nearly gave me a heart attack,"
Kaspar hissed, cold sweat suddenly beading on his neck.
Daniel didn't even look at the mercenary. His jaw locked, teeth grinding audibly, he turned his agonizing gaze to Helene. Pure torment burned in the knight's eyes. He was silently begging for an order. Pleading for the command to draw his sword and sever the bastard's hands at the wrists.
But Helene merely blinked. She gave Daniel an almost imperceptible shake of her head. The look she bestowed upon her loyal knight was one of cruel, absolute serenity. No anger. No disgust. Just a freezing command to stand down.
Daniel looked like he had been gutted.
His grip on the sword hilt failed, his hand dropping to his side. His heavy breastplate rose and fell violently as he suffocated on his own unquenched rage. He bit his inner lip until he tasted copper, spun on his heel, and marched back to the perimeter—fleeing a humiliation he could no longer stomach.
Kaspar let out a long, shaky breath. A slow, victorious smirk carved its way across his face.
He turned back to Helene and resumed his "services." This time, he kept his hands strictly to her calves, pretending to focus intensely on the massage.
But from his kneeling angle, he didn't need his hands to go higher. He just needed her to move.
And she did.
In one brief, fluid motion—as if his thumbs had hit a particularly tight muscle—Helene drew her knee up. It was a slow, almost voluptuous stretch.
The heavy cloak rode up. The slit of the skirt fell wide open.
Kaspar's greedy eyes were magnetized to the gap. Through the parted silk, he caught a raw, unprotected view of her high inner thigh—the impossibly soft, sensitive skin that never saw the sun. It led straight into the dark shadows between her legs. Lust hit him with the force of a physical blow. His mind warped so violently he swore he could smell the heavy, wet musk leaking from the slick folds just inches away from his face.
Kaspar froze, forgetting how to breathe. His hands went dead still on her calf. Blood surged brutally into his cock, painfully stretching the coarse wool of his trousers against his thigh.
And then. With calculating, silent mockery.
Her leg extended again. She closed her thighs with elegant, devastating grace. The heavy cloak cascaded down, burying the carnal wonderland and restoring the untouchable propriety of the Imperial Countess, as if the exposure had never happened.
Kaspar swallowed a dry lump in his throat. Slowly, almost submissively, he dragged his eyes up to meet hers.
Helene was looking down at him. Calm. Unbothered.
It was the freezing, haughty gaze of an apex predator tossing a bare bone to a starving dog, just to watch it drool. The look commanded him without a single spoken word: You get exactly what I allow. No more.
"Enough, Kaspar."
Her voice was distant, drifting like cold mist over a frozen lake as she calmly but firmly pulled her leg from his grip.
"Let us continue."