Intimancer

The stadium practically shook with the sheer force of the crowd’s approval.

Sade’s grin grew a touch wider and she held up both her arms in victory.  The effect would have been more heroic if she wasn’t still flat on her back, with nearly every part of her body screaming in pain.  Still, her smile never wavered.  She had won.

“By the ancestors, what were you thinking?!”  A shrill voice shouted from beyond her vision.

“Bold words coming from the woman who trapped me in the first place.”  Sade chuckled weakly.

Hattepa’s adorable face popped into Sade’s line of sight and peered down at the injured mage with an expression that was an interesting combination of worried and exasperated.  “Being rooted to the ground usually isn’t a reason to bathe yourself in fire!”  She shot back.

“Understandable, but it was effective.”  Sade said, still grinning ear to ear.  She angled her outstretched arms towards her friend.  “Care to help me up?”

The nature mage sighed before helping the larger woman back up onto her feet.  It took some work, but Sade managed to shakily walk towards where the dean and Armondo still stood.

“Seriously though Sade, are you insane?”  Hattepa hissed.

Sade simply held up her thumb and forefinger only a finger width apart in reply.  Hattepa snorted lightly and continued to help her friend walk away from the site of their battle.

“Well, well, Sade.  You certainly know how to surprise people.”  Professor Armondo said when the two of them got near.

“Indeed.”  The dean added dryly.  “As entertaining as that fight was, I would prefer it if one of my students still held the ability to walk unassisted after this.  Go to the healers young lady.”

Both women nodded and shuffled their way back to the tunnels.

“Oh, and Sade?”  The dean added.

Sade stopped to look back over her shoulder.  “Yes?”

The old mage gave her a pointed stare strong enough to impale her directly to the wall.  “I hope this won’t be repeated in your fight with young Ariwyn.”

Sade smiled sweetly.  “I have no plans for that to happen.”

It turned out that although incredibly painful, Sade’s injuries were not as serious as they looked.  That fact didn't stop the healer on staff from asking several important questions.

“Young lady, how in the world are you still conscious?”

Both Sade and Hattepa blinked in confusion.  “Uh, did you not just say my injuries were not life threatening?”  Sade asked.

The healer clicked her tongue in annoyance.  “Life threatening?  No.  Extremely painful?  Most certainly.  Young lady, approximately half of each leg was covered in first degree burns, with several places reaching the second degree.  As the nervous system has not been damaged too badly at those stages, the pain should feel excruciating.  Combined with the bruised ribs and the twisted ankle, I have to reiterate my earlier question.  How, by all that is good, are you still awake?  Even if you weren’t knocked out by the pain, I should at least expect you to be screaming in agony or at least acting delirious.”

“Ah…”  Sade replied eloquently.

Her mind raced to come up with an adequate explanation that didn’t make her sound insane or suicidal.  To call the training she and the rest of her lovers underwent as brutal would be a severe understatement.  Their bodies had been broken down and rebuild back up so many times that agony was the unofficial sixth companion to their little group.  Combined with the fact that their healer on hand had more than a few masochistic tendencies, and it came as no surprise they all had developed a well tested tolerance for pain.

“And don’t get me started on all the aphrodisiacs I had to flush out of your system.”

“Wait, what?!”  Sade cried.

The older woman stared at her with an incredulous look.  “It’s exactly as I said, I detected and removed a potent aphrodisiac while I was healing your body.  Are you telling me you didn’t feel that just like you didn’t feel all the pain?”

“I have a high pain tolerance, alright?  And I was feeling slightly hornier than usual, but nothing that would suggest I was drugged.”

The healer’s tone was flat, almost a deadpan.  “You just felt slightly horny?”

“I am young and sexually active.”

“Enough to ignore the effects of potent drugs?”

“I am very sexually active.”

The healer gave another disbelieving look and put her hands on her hips.  “I just purged enough aphrodisiacs from your system to fuel an orgy large enough to include all the competitors in the tournament, and maybe even a few of the people in the stands.  At this point, I’m half tempted to ask just what kind of stuff you took and run a few tests on their pain reduction properties.”

Sade was quiet as she thought through the situation.  She had just been drugged.  But how?  Were any of her other competitors in a similar situation?  And if they were supposedly so powerful, why did she not feel its effects?

“Thank you for healing me so thuroughly.”  Sade told the healer sincerely.  “Do you mind if I have a private word with my friend?”

“Fine by me.”  The older woman shrugged.  “But I want to keep you under observation for at least a couple more hours.  So don’t go anywhere.”  She said that last sentence so forcefully that all thoughts Sade had of walking out of the room instantly fled in terror from her words.  For someone used to dealing with strong personalities, Sade considered the feat quite impressive.

When the healer stepped out to leave the two young women alone, Sade turned to her friend.  “Hattepa… By chance did you feel anything unusual before or during our fights today?”

The coyote girl shook her head, causing her large ears to flop around slightly.  “No, nothing.  All I felt was trepidation at fighting you.”

Sade nodded and hummed in thought.  It was possible there may have been others targeted, but if Hattepa didn’t notice anything different then the delivery method wasn’t something indiscriminate like poisoning the air where the competitors all sat.  This meant it was something else, something more specific.  Sade ran through the day's events.  Aside from a hearty breakfast at home and the communal water barrel in the waiting room, she hadn’t eaten or drank anything that could have been spiked just for her.

Actually… that wasn’t quite true.

Sade looked to the side of the small infirmary and gazed across the plethora of bottles in all sorts of shapes and colors.  There were many that looked just like the little bottle she had held in her hands not too long ago.

“Hattepa, do mana potions taste sickeningly sweet to you?”

Her friend shook her head emphatically.  “Ew, no!  That sounds almost worse.  The mana potion they gave us was super bitter… and maybe somewhat musky.  But not disgustingly sweet.”  The young woman seemed to snap out of her mild rant about the taste of mana potions and looked down at her friend in shock.  “Wait… You don’t think…?”

Sade nodded her head slowly.  “I believe so.”  She reached out and gently grabbed her talented friend's hand.  “I need to request another favor from you.  I fear whatever is going on, it is not quite over.  Please warn Rick and the others.  You will find them in the contestant viewing area.”

Hattepa nodded her head once and dashed out of the room.  Sade would have to find a way to reward the girl.  She had gone above and beyond fulfilling the last favor Sade had asked of her, and the dark skinned mage had no doubts she would complete the other with equal fervor.

Plus she was cute, super cute.  Sade had to spend most of the school year fighting the temptation to take the coyote girl in her lap and stroke her all over until the young beastkin was little more than a moaning puddle at her feet.

Sade briefly wondered if she still had residual aphrodisiacs coursing through her system or she really was just that naturally horny.  She sighed.  It was more than likely the latter if she was being honest with herself.  Her monstrous libido had only risen with each new member added to their group, and showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

After a few minutes of silence, she heard the door to the infirmary open behind her.  Sade’s mind was swirling, so she had her eyes closed to keep out any distractions caused by the healer fussing around in her makeshift workspace.  She greatly enjoyed the woman’s surly demeanor, but it was still annoying to deal with when there was thinking to do.  It was because of this that Sade was surprised by what happened next.

There was a minor impact at Sade’s shoulder, followed immediately by the most excruciating pain she had felt all day.  It was like every muscle in her body had decided to seize up and unclench at random intervals while her bloodstream simultaneously decided blood was too pedestrian and swapped the liquid out with molten lava.  Because of all the spasming, Sade flopped off the bed and once again, her chest was the first thing to catch her fall.

Through the tears streaming from her eyes, she saw a figure step around the bed to face her.

“It seems she is still awake.  How surprising.”  A cultured male voice spoke.  He sounded almost bored, like nearly electrocuting a woman in an infirmary was a regular pastime.

“She had managed to win her match despite being drugged enough to render her nothing more than a rutting beast, and her resilience surprises you?”  Another person replied, this one high pitched and feminine.  Sade knew that voice.  If her body wasn’t uncontrollably twitching on the floor with aftershocks from the attack, she could maybe place exactly where.

“I still think we should kill her.”  The man suggested casually.

“And I told you our plans require her to be alive for the moment.”  The woman shot back.  “While your services are exemplary, I do not pay you for your advice.  Now hurry up and knock her out, we need to leave this place.”

“Right away madam.”  The man said crisply.

Even though the haze of pain, Sade knew that her time was running short.  She needed to do something, anything, to get free and back to her friends.  If failing that, she could at least make taking her as painful as possible.

The man stepped forward until he was looming right above her.  Sade felt the tingle of magic forming from where she suspected his hands to be.  It was now or never!

Summoning all the willpower and control she still had, Sade shoved her body forward.  Her mouth opened wide and she bit down as hard as she could the moment her teeth hit the man’s ankle.  The man screamed in pain and kicked his leg back in an effort to dislodge her.  Sade held on as best she could.  Eventually there was a tearing sensation and her head fell away to impact against the floor.

She spat out the sizable chunk of bloody flesh still between her teeth and grinned.  Try to capture me and I will bite your bloody ankles off!  She thought with sadistic glee before diving forward to tear away at the other leg.  Sade could freely admit to herself that she was an incredibly spiteful bitch when the situation called for it.  And the situation almost certainly did call for a bit of spite.

The man’s screams rose even higher as he fell down onto his back, Sade still gnawing at his leg with gusto.  With each passing second, she could feel more and more control coming back to her body.  Letting a dark chuckle escape between her bloody teeth, Sade flopped her arms forward to grab hold of the man she planned to maul piece by piece.  Her hand connected with his thigh and she dug her nails in deep before hoisting herself forward.

She saw his face then.  He was fair skinned and clean shaven with distinctly pointed ears poking out of dirty blond hair resting atop his delicate head.  His handsome face was twisted in a mask of pain and terror as Sade continued to claw her way up his prone body.  The sight made Sade’s grin stretch wider.

With a final pull, she had made it halfway up his mauled legs.  Raising her hand high, she let a trickle of magic flow through her arm and out each finger.  It wasn’t a complex spell, but it was about all she could do for the moment.  She brought her hand down as hard as she could, letting the conjured magical claws dig deep into the elven man’s groin.

His screams once more rose in pitch, almost dipping down to soprano.  The sound was music to her ears.

A slender foot collided with Sade’s ribs, sending her flying off the man and slamming back against a nearby wall.  Sade coughed.  It felt like Tyr had attempted to punt her over their house.  Just how strong was this person?  She groggily raised her head to look at the woman who was now standing over the screaming man.

“Get up!  We need to leave.  Now!”  Ariwyn’s mother barked before tossing a small bottle onto the man’s chest.  She looked up and glared balefully at Sade.  “I will deal with this whore myself.”

Sade coughed again and felt some liquid dribble out from the edges of her mouth.  Whether or not it was spittle or blood, she didn’t know or care.  The corners of her lips twitched upwards as she raised a single finger in what her wonderful betrothed had told her was an incredibly rude gesture from his world.

“Fuck… you…”  She said weakly before the elven noblewoman waved her hand and the world turned black.