What else could I do?
I was angry and frustrated. Serana did not want to follow Vilja and Aela, but we did not catch up with them withal before we arrived in Windhelm. The vampiress was quite reluctant to take ship to Solstheim in pursuit, though I reasoned that I had yet to follow up reports of a cult of assassins originating there, which had already made several attempts on my life. It had something to do with my being Dragonborn, and thus it was a practical diversion, and mayhap had some connection to her quest to defeat her family’s designs besides (I doubted that, as well, but…). Yet she argued that the vampire problem was of greater import, and did I not owe it to Mjoll?
“We must find my mother – she will know of the Elder Scroll we require. She may even have it.” Abed in my clammy, near-empty house in Windhelm, the vampiress curled around me, as if seeking warmth. “Besides which,” she remonstrated, “thou must cure thyself before she will have thee back.”
I did not know what she meant.
“Thou art a werewolf. Vilja cannot abide that. And it may be… dangerous, whence we go. My family… that is, my father and his minions, will not welcome either of us, never mind if he knew that we seek my mother.”
“They do not get along?”
She snorted. “Not for… a long time.”
“Very well,” I conceded. “I shall have you to myself a while longer. We will go to Castle Volkihar first.”
She bestowed a throaty growl, rolled atop me in our double furs; tried to shove her prehensile tongue down my throat as she grabbed the back of my head in both hands. I started, gasping as one of her sharp fangs pricked my lower lip; did I taste blood? Yet, all thoughts fled save the amatory.
That had been a few days ago, but my guilt had returned, and my frustration only intensified as, earlier this day, during our sacking of yet another bandit enclave found upon the way, Serana raised a dead male orc to fight at our side. Ordinarily, this would be of no consequence – she had done it often enow, much to my discomfort – but it betided that I had already stripped this one, as is my wont, partially to degrade such villains, but also to more easily denote those we had already looted, should we come upon them again later.
Curiously, the necromantic act of raising this particular male caused his member to swell to what I assumed were exaggerated proportions – but Serana assured me his cock was likely normal size. Thus, although I was sufficiently fascinated to test if it still worked normally, we were beset by yet more bandits, and, unfortunately, such spells do not last long; the corpse shortly turned to dust. Still, I demanded of Serana if she could make them last longer.
The vampiress smiled wickedly. “Thou art a shameless slattern,” she accused. Nonetheless, I could tell she was as intrigued as I; fangs protruding, she licked her lips.
We crept deeper into the cavern, came upon a room with a bandit sitting at a table, apparently supping, whilst another stirred a cooking pot nearby. Both had their backs to us. My bow already cocked, I loosed a poisoned shaft, knocked a bottle of wine off the table to shatter on the stone floor. Such was my speed (despite questionable aim) that I had another shaft on its way ere the brigand had half-risen from her seat. The deadly orcish arrow punched through the back of her head, emerged from her forehead; blood sprayed across the table and her last meal as she slumped in her chair (apparently, the poison would have been superfluous withal). Serana’s drain spell had already begun to suck the life from the other rogue as I fired again, striking him in the back, then in the chest as he whirled; he collapsed after a barely a step.
Bandits were seldom a challenge any longer.
Once we cleared the outlaws’ cave, we carried a body with the fewest injuries – a Dunmer male, whom Serana had drained and shocked to death with lightning – to a room with several beds. Excitedly, we shed our armour; I sat on the edge of a cot as Serana cast her spell. Bent at the waist, the body rose in the air, as if suspended from the reanimating modest cock that swelled and lengthened before our eyes. Blue magic swirled as the corpse stood upright, emitted a moaning sound. Dusky skin blistered in spots where the lightning had arced, and it still smoked slightly, stank of burnt flesh.
The spellcaster could direct such thralls to attack enemies, so why not…? “Come thou hence,” the vampiress ordered.
“Unnnhhh,” it groaned, obeying stiffly.
Serana sat next to me; cool skin of her naked thigh against mine shocked and thrilled me. We both reached for the erect penis; each with a hand around it, stroked.
“Unnnhhh.” A singularly unattractive noise, it, along with the blank stare, revealed naught but unintelligent obedience. The cooling member and its erstwhile owner displayed none of the usual reactions.
Still, I pulled it closer for a taste, which was unpleasant; it needed a wash. I grabbed a bottle of wine, dumped it over the shaft and dark, bulbous head, splashing my lap in the process. Serana and I tongue-bathed the cock; she slipped it into her mouth, raked her fangs along it. Feeding it to me, she bent to my crotch, lapping at the spilt wine running down my ready sheath.
I moaned in time with the animated corpse. “Unnnhhh.”
Sadly, I barely got the stiff organ down my throat before the body disintegrated in a puff of dusty magic – which was neither an agreeable sensation nor taste. Experiment concluded we turned to one another.
Afterward, I felt anxious, unfulfilled. I do not know if it was due to our inability to have congress with a corpse; whether I simply needed male company; the fact that I lay next to what was essentially a dead, cold being; I missed Vilja and/or Aela; or altogether something else. I suddenly knew what I needs must do, however.
XVIII The Treatment
Castle Volkihar lay on a distant island of its own, thus I again had time to try to think.
Despite my lupine constitution I felt tired as never before. Even so, my ennui did not quite overshadow my thoughts of hunting or tumbling; I understood at last one of the twin’s comment about his mind being continually ‘clouded with the hunt’. Moreover, I fuzzily understood that I was hurting people, in more ways than simply killing and eating them – or fucking them to death. Elda, for example; despite my finding out that the reason my bounty had been so low was because I could not have been convicted of murder – there being no direct proof of my having killed her – I felt no better. (As an aside, when it occurred to me that Aela had not slain me when we fucked ere I became a werewolf, she assured me it was because she had learned to control herself with humans; I was intrigued, but did not wish to inflict further harm ‘experimenting’.)
I had not even loved the whore, yet I felt remorse. Why, then, did I not feel more guilt about harming those I did love? For I was hurting loved ones, was I not? I loved Vilja, or at least, I wanted to know how I felt about her without a ‘clouded mind’. I wanted to know how I felt about Aela, too – even though I still doubted I could have her, beyond what we already shared. I had wanted Mjoll, too, barely gotten to know her; now could never know her – though I mayhap could have – because of what I was. I wanted to experience others – very well, I wanted to fuck others – and sample more of what life offered, but I could not, because of what I was. I began to recognise my obsession as virtually all-consuming, yet could not tear myself away from the carnality.
Moreover, I had taken two children off the streets; what kind of life could I give them – was I giving them – living this way? I was avoiding home, as I did not trust myself near them. So, what was the point? Why did I adopt them, if I was not able to care for them? Withal, were I to try to have some kind of home life as a werewolf, how long before I… hurt them? I had even moved us all to Solitude to keep them from harm in the war – Whiterun being in the virtual centre of the conflict, having seen battle once already – and yet I seldom saw them.
I no longer wanted this life. Thus, I made up my mind that, as soon as we were done at Castle Volkihar, I would go to Ysgramor’s Tomb and perform the ritual to cure myself. I did not know that the choice would be denied me.
Rowing a dinghy to its island, my first glimpse of Castle Volkihar as it emerged from the mists was unfavourable: A hulking half-ruin, brooding over its island like the huge stone gargoyles bracing its wide main staircase. Further exploration only confirmed my first impression. I felt appalled that Serana had spent her childhood in this dreadful place; it had to have been worse than mine, although she did not seem affected by it, other than, at times, waxing wistful in her remembrances. Yet, I will not dwell on the edifice herein. I needs must only say that we found Serana’s mother, Valerica, and the Elder Scroll, but in order to do so I faced the choice of trading a piece of my soul or becoming a vampire.
Despite Serana leading me to believe that only a vampire lord could turn a werewolf, she had obviously lied, for she now told me she could do it herself; I was furious at her deception.
“How could you lie to me?” I hissed.
Deep in the bowels of the half-ruined fortress, we paused in an ancient crypt. Water trickled steadily down the slimy green stone of the walls, collected in dead pools here and there on the floor. The air was dead, smelled of putrefaction, mouldy antiquity.
“I didst not lie,” she objected.
“No? What would you call it, then?”
“I didst not know.”
I scoffed my disbelief.
“I sayeth true,” the vampiress insisted. “I studied the subject, whilst we were apart.”
I said nothing, scowled instead.
“It is… personal.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is… intimate,” she emphasised. “Turning is like… like making love – ‘fucking’, as you humans are wont to say.”
I suspected it was more like fucking than making love, as Vilja (my heart thumped at the thought of her) had differentiated a while ago.
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