Chapter 26. One Downed Hound
As the younger twin of Lady Nox, alongside her poorer and thus imperfect aesthetic features of icy pale blue eyes, which were almost white, Sephora had lived in her older sister Seraphina's shadow for quite some time.
After Sephora had, what she believed for the most part, gotten over her mother issues - deriving from lack of attention and affection that her sister always seemed to receive from her- the younger twin had kicked back and realised the two-tier favoritism may be a good thing for her.
While she seemed innocent and childlike as a defense, and these days, a default.
She had indulged herself once or twice with various servants. Only those she deemed to be of her tastes and her own aesthetic; being so imperfect with her pale eyes, she never imposed such strict conditions on anyone she deemed fit to pleasure her.
Of course, her prim and proper older sister had no idea. Since Sephora had always acted so innocently and just seemed to be endlessly flakey.
Of course, the Raven Queen knew nothing about this and were she ever to find out…. The mere thought of that put the fear into Sephora. She had never known. That itself was the very reason she had gotten good at sneaking around.
Long before the twins' official 18th birthday months ago.
The realisation had come to her long ago now. Who would ever consider that innocent younger sister of engage in such things?
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Princess Sephora does not merely flirt — she orchestrates.
You see, for each of her, "favourites" has been drawn in with her cold and calculating, cunning, of course with precision. Although it is not entirely out of cold calculation, but from a complex interplay of her own young desires. Her will for rebellion against her mother, the Queen of the Raven Kingdom... and a mother who never sees her. Not truly, although the idea that she knew this at all... was one Sephora hoped she would never come to know. It was also an instinctive power the young princesses had some skill in - sheer manipulation. Not to be completely unexpected from a daughter of Lady Nox.
She knows who she wanted to tempt, when she would do it, and why — mostly, this was just because she could. For all of Princess Sephora's youth, she plays a very old game with her temptations.
Princess Sephora may be the youngest, however, is no fool — using the disinterest of her mother and lack of attention, she's weaving a web. All of these... relationships she has, they each serve different purposes. While some like Aerick Thorneblayde, a knight of the court, is indeed a risque thrill just because, others are far more strategic. Everen and Sylen, the brothers of the Velwraithe family, and the former the Commander of the Royal Guard - already mated... those are power leverages. Yet, Corvin Mourhollow, always seems to manage to never fall under her spell, yet in a spell of his own, gives Sephora an emotional grounding her mother never could.
Of her favourites, there are a few notable names:
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Favourite: Lord Sylen Velwraithe
Lord Everen Velwraithe's younger brother and Commander of the Royal Guard, he is one of Sephora's most dangerous favourites — both because of his rank and because he was once only her and Seraphina's fencing and combat tutor, and still is. Eventually, after her 18th, he caved to her charm - partly because he was unmated anyway and in a moment of desperation for an in with the royals. Perhaps securing a way to take control of the Velwraithe's from his brother with Royal support in the future... even if an unusual way, eventually he wasn't complaining.
A battle-hardened man in his late thirties with light grey specks on the tips of his wings, Sylen was generally quiet, reserved, and almost always unyielding — the kind of man who believes he cannot be shaken... and yet Sephora seen this as a challenge and made a mental mission to unmake him. Make him hers and keep him under her influence.
{Time Jump to 6 Weeks Earlier}
Initially, it was just a slight touches here and there, where her hand touched his shoulder with fingers that lingered a little too long after 1-2-1 sparring. The way she looked at him when he believed she wasn't looking. Then when she began to spar in scandalously tight leathers, when it was combat sparring, whispering taunts with a half-smile:"Show me how to disarm, Commander. I do so enjoy you when you make me take you sword," or "Is this close enough for you, Commander?"
At first, Sylen rebuffed her with terse silence and quick removal at every point. Her persistence — her beauty, her wit, and also her determined audacity — began to completely unravel his composure. When she would be under one of his grapples, she had begun choosing moments to let him overpower her, lean too close to him in inappropriate ways. Which eventually became too familiar, and Sylen began begrudgingly to look forward to sparring lessons. One night, after a private lesson in the Ravenwatch courtyard, she for once had pinned him after a sparring session. It has appeared that night she hadn't held back and she wasn't letting him win. Sylen's instructor and sparring instincts had kicked in. Using his body weight to try to pin her again.
Through Sephora's slight frame, compared to his and her quickl movments she managed to duck. Before catching his leg, in a move he himself taught the girls for opponents bigger than them. She jumped on top of him and straddled his stomach with the most smug expression, complete with a smirk. She leaned close and he hesitated... just as she kissed him. Her blood-red lips were as soft as they looked. His lips were rough and he hadn't been touched by a female for a very long time. And for a moment, the Commander kissed her back, passionately. The princess lowered her straddle, on top of an area that suddenly began to rise, and with it it brought all of Sylen's honour surging forward, and he tore away.
"Do not tempt me, child," he growled, storming off walking in a funny way. Sephora remembered the feeling of his member growing, though her tight practice battle-leathers.
Yet, Sylen still lingered slightly after her training after that, and he still watches her with conflicted intensity. Sephora finds the edge thrilling. Toying with Sylen not only out of attraction, but because she knows: if he ever gave in, he would fall hard and it could risk the entire honour of House Velwraithe, they would be disgraced. He might even be killed by her mother for taking advantage of her.
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Favourite: Sir Aerick Thorneblayde
{3 Months Earlier}
A knight and royal guard regularly assigned to both Sephora and Seraphina, Aerick had always been fond of both princesses. In his dreams, he wanted either of them as a mate, fully in a ceremony. Perhaps as a deed for being a heroic knight of the kingdom — but he'd wanted and his wants came with hers fast, reckless, breathless — as if passion were a race to be won. Sephora, by contrast, wanted her to surrender.
As always, with the younger princesses scheming and cunning, she knew how to make him fall, not just into bed, but to his knees.
On the mid-month night of the dark moon, she stole his blade. Midway during the monthly ceremony, while everyone else was busy — daring him to chase her through the dark corridors of the palace. Into a secret passageway in the castle, which he hadn't even known existed. Briefly, he considered the security implications of these not being known or patrolled...
When he finally caught up to her in one of the passages, grabbing her by the wrist that held his knife, she had been barefoot this whole time, an obvious smirk of victory clear across her ice-white eyes, glinting with mischief.
"Oh, no! Aerick, you caught me," she cried in a playful whine, stepping forward and guiding his hand on hers with the knive to the flow of her dress by her thighs. "What will you do with your prize?" Breathing into his jugular, as her other arm wrapped around his waist. He heard the tear of her dress as the pointed blade cut through the fabric. Revealing her, he glanced down... she wasn't wearing any noble undergarments... his member twitched, growingly.
Aerick reached for her like a starving man, but she stopped him, catching his moment of hesitation and placing his blade against his palm, then guiding it to her collarbone, trailing it slowly downward until it rested at her breasts.
"I want to claim you... I want to be claimed by you Sir Aerick, not hunted," she whispered. "Be my first..."
That broke him.
With his free hand, he began to undo his armor, especially at his lower parts. Sephora helped remove his gauntlets and torso coverings gladly. He dropped the blade onto the floor and lifted her with both arms, whispering her name like a secret prayer. "Princess, I will claim you if you wish it." He was not much older than her, perhaps 23.
They didn't make it back to the rest of the festival and neither of them wanted to. Their tryst unfolded beneath the castle, in a larger secret compartment of a passageway the guard had never known. A single silver tapestry, drenched by the moon, from a tiny entry, hung in the otherwise empty space.
The knight ripped it off of its hold and lay it on the ground for the princess, so she would not dirty. Instead, she caught Sir Aerick by surprise and had grabbed his dagger once more. "Sit." She commanded, "Your princess tells you to sit." She placed the point of the dagger at the tapestry now on the floor.
"Yes, Princess." He gulped, his member now free and erect, and the princess eyed him fully and barely able to hide her excitement, with one eyebrow arched. He did as he was told.
She considered for a moment, "Sir Aerick, is that yet... ready for me?" She pointed the dagger tip at his member.
"Yes, your majesty." Was the Knights reply.
"I will mount you, and I will conquer you, and you will accept this gift."
The rest of their evening was spent with tangled limbs, gasping promises, bruised kisses — and at last, she stopped running from the idea that she belonged to him.
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Favourite: Corvin Mourhollow
Young Corven is from House Mourhollow, a lesser noble house with old ties to arcane scholarship and intelligence networks. Of the Raven Harpy Kingdom, he was somewhat of a prodigy in his ability to track, both in raven and human form. His older brother Aerlan Mourhollow was a legend, he fell in a border incursion 3 years ago, with another harpy clan. They still sang songs about Aerlan, his brother... and as for the little brother. While he is quiet, pale, as all Raven's considered beautiful are, he was oddly cute, with gunmetal grey eyes. Although it was rumoured to be more dangerous than he appears, not a warrior, but a tracker and a good one for his age.
Rumour also had it that Lady Elsedra Mourhollow, Corven's mother and a regular in Lady Nox's court due to her paunchaunt for her secrets and knowings about the noble families, had floated the idea of Corven being wed to one of the twins and been discussing it with Lady Nox for some time. It seemed she was unsuccessful, for the moment. That wouldn't stop Sephora from trying to sample the goods before their time.
Sephora conveniently met him during an autumn hunt. He did not smile when she flirted. He did not rise when she challenged his poise.
This initiated her first, somewhat prey drive...and so, she pursued him more.
Unlike the others like some lower castle guards, Corven never touches her. They more often share long conversations instead — sometimes in public gardens as friends while being chaperoned during the day.
After midnight, sometimes in the shadowed corners of the great library. He knows riddles, and she loves to solve them, it was a strange way of flirting between them but to most, including Corvin's uncle in the guard who sometimes allows him in. He and Sephora have been friends since childhood for this very reason - Lady Nox believed it would be good for their social development if selected young nobles were allowed to play with her royal daughters.
Corvin also sometimes called her "Your Silence," claiming that her mind speaks louder than her voice.
There was alwasy a tension between them — intellectual and emotional.
It remains unconsummated. Not out of prudence, but because Corven wants her to choose him willingly over all of the others, even though he knows of her... appetites since her 18th, not wanting her to seduce him. That is a mystery to Sephora, and it drives her wild.
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{Back to Present Day}
While Ingram was up in the living quarters cooking; clink's, clang's and the bubbling of water in pots could be heard somewhere in the floor above her.
Sephora had built up the courage, eventually, to go over an investigate the body of the werewolf she had saved from… whatever had happened in the Ancient Forest.
Sephora sauntered up to the unconscious werewolf, strapped down onto the table. It was only now, that she could really see the definition in the muscles of this males abdomen with matching arms bulking with their power, even in human form, As the younger twins eyes surveyed top to bottom she noticed that he had and quite the defined V-line. The Doctor had placed a sheet over the males lower half, in a bid to keep him from neither loosing nor accumulating too much heat.
She could not resist the temptation to reach out and run two of her black nails down his torso gently, so as not to wake him. He hadn't woken yet despite the talking, but physical touch could be different; and Sephora knew this well. It could trigger an adrenaline response and jolt the body awake in order to save yourself from whatever harm was about to befall you. For this reason, she assured her dragging touch was as light as one of the feathers on her wings. The contrast between the pale skin on her fingertips, decorated with her midnight black talons, and this male's bronzed skin.
Without being covered in blood… despite his injuries. This male was the most exotic and enticing creature that Sephora had ever seen. Realising that it may be difficult to get another chance like this, where the werewolf was truly out, Sephora gently cupped the males bicep that was closest to her. She had to close her eyes and take a breath as she felt warm all over and knew that just this male's physique was awakening her more basic instincts. At that, she withdrew her hand and remained like that. Taking two breaths before re-opening her eyes.
Now is NOT the time to be curious of such things! She chastised herself. It was not in her voice, but in her mothers voice that these thoughts rang out clearly and severely.
With that she shook of the impulse to remove the sheet all together. It was gone as quickly as it appeared – like a large wave crashing onto the shores of a beach. Refusing the will to check the power in this male creatures legs and the power of whatever lay in between those. That is if werewolves even have one of THOSE.
She giggled at her own thought, as for all she knew about that… they may do something different.
Besides, where the Doctor had buckled up was just below the top of the V-lines and the sheet was snuggly hugged between the stiff leather and his abdomen. In the back of her mind she worried that such an action like unbuckling or simply yanking the thin blanket off of him may wake him up. That in itself wasn't worth it.
Sephora thought to herself, it would be safer to have him in the old dungeon before investigating this werewolf more… personally. The images which sprung to her mind were lascivious and she purred internally at some of them.
With thinking, I have to get a hold of myself, this creature was bloody and on deaths door not so long ago. There will be plenty of time later.
At that she turned and walked to the cabinet, with the drawer the Doctor had pointed towards. Opening out, she found needles wrapped but filled and ready to go for sedation, it was a concoction from a group of herbs found around the mountain. She grabbed one. Unwrapped it and jabbed it into the bicep of the sleeping male.
While the werewolf had not so much as twitched, Sephora wanted to take precautions that he would be out for the count. Ensuring that the plan to sneak him in, through the castle and in, to the dungeons below.
Walking to the window she looked up and the moon would be rising. Somewhere above the trees. The Doctor had said the full moon was some nights ago, so this wolf wouldn't be at his complete strength, but he would be at strength if he were to wake up. The younger princess felt calm and sure that she had made the correct decision to inject him with the sedative now.
She partly wondered, while glancing back at him on the table, if he would change into his wolf form right then and there. Unconscious on the table. As all the stories had said they are unable to control their form and their minds return to that of a rogue beast all together. Even Ingram had been told those stories – hence why the werewolf was now strapped onto the table in his surgery. Unconscious or otherwise and even then, he was not sure it would hold.
"Sephora!" Ingram called quietly, appearing back at the top of the stairs, "Could you assist me in the kitchen to set up for dinner? I know you sometimes help the chef at yours with pastries."
With a lingering glance at the werewolf she just injected with a medical sedative – that wolf wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. He was one downed hound. The princess looked back at him and nodded. Instantaneously presenting a wide and sweet grin on her face, "But of course, Ingram. You have already done so much to help me." She motioned at the dress.
The Doctor motioned for her to follow him up to the living quarters, and the scent of devilled eggs and cooked venison (a fancy name the nobles used for deer) meat lingered in the air. Its scent grew stronger and stronger as she climbed the squeaky wooden stairs; the food was cooked well and Sephora's mouth began to water as her stomach growled. At the sound, she clutched her abdomen; she hadn't realised how hungry she was at all. She had missed the late lunch and went to the forest, so hadn't eaten anything since breakfast this morning.
Ingram laughed at Sephora's honest expression, "She won't be long now, there's only a few more thing's to do. Can you put the plates out." He pointed to the cupboard.
"Of course," Sephora repeated happily. The faster she laid out the plates the faster she could eat, "Umm… Ingram, who is your mate? What is it like to be finally, truly be mated and how did you come to be mated with your mate? Is she the one you decided on?"
The Doctor busied himself with finishing the cooking and plating up the food as he spoke, while Sephora laid the cutlery on the table, "Ah… you're nervous about being mated to whoever is decided for you based on the politics of the day, I guess?"
Saying nothing in response to him, Ingram chuckled without humour before responding, "I am married and mated happily to Maven's younger sister."
This caught Sephora off guard and she stopped momentarily to listen, after laying down the second fork in the set of cutlery. "I did not know Maven had a younger sister." The Princess was now beginning to draw parallels between the old servant woman she knew well from the castle, herself, and Seraphina.
"That's right!" Chimed the Doctor, "Morgan is my mate's name. She is a nurse for both the Royal & Noble guards and spends most of the days at the barracks, tending to injuries from friendly, or aggravated sparring. It's not a surprise you haven't met Morgan." As he turned to hand Sephora two plates of food to set down, he caught her eye, "Also like you, she forgets to eat when she's too busy. My silly Morgan, so I've to take care of her that way... you also need to clean yourself."
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Her hair now dry, after the shower to clean the blood and ichor off herself, from the cosy heat in Doctor Flitting's modest house in the noble quarters, Sephora's hair once again hung straight with those black bangs on either side. The loose-fitting dark green dress of some noble draped around her, embossed with a coppery-toned wire around the breast area. Attempting to emphasize shape.
With Ingram mentioning and talking about his mate who would be returning home soon, Sephora wondered if this dress was one of hers. It would never be something the Queen would allow her daughter to wear. Too colourful and colour was common.
As the King passed shortly before their hatching, the Princesses had never gotten to see how their mother and father interacted as mates. More so, it was a point of curiosity for them, as their mother barely talked about their father at all and altogether did her best to avoid the subject.
"Alas," The Doctor continued, " I didn't choose her as my mate. My father did. He believed it was best to have his only son marry into another medical family… which made sense at the time. As you know, most mates are political for Harpies. Especially for one like yourself - royalty. I'm sure your mother will choose wisely and have her reasons."
Sephora's next words shocked the Doctor, "Since you did not choose her as your mate, do you like her?" It had been on her mind, what if her mother chose a mate she didn't like or even get on with? She would still be expected to do a duty and produce heirs... she had her favorites that didn't mean she wanted a mate she would hate.
"We had to get to know one another, but yes, over time, we have grown extremely fond of each other. That's what it means to be mated. You work as a team." The Doctor glanced at the table, "Sephora… set another seat. Maven will be around and I have enough food for 4 of us. You will want to persuade her by getting her in a good mood, having eaten, to try to help you with that problem of werewolf logistics."
Just as he said that, the sound of the door downstairs opened, "Ingram! You will NOT believe the day I've had with two new members of the guard." There was a lilt to this woman's voice.
From the look in Ingram's eyes, Sephora knew without a doubt, his mate had come home. It was then that she decided that she wanted someone, her mate, to one day look at her like that. Even if it was none of her favorites. She would do everything it took to make that happen.