TRC - Book III: Lord of the Glass Desert (Male x Monster Girl)

Chapter 6

Quick squick warning. If the scene toward the end with Kashka and the Bull makes you uncomfortable feel free to skip it. There is no crucial information you will miss by doing so. I can't say more here without it being a spoiler but I tried very hard to make the scene palatable.

-Blu

Kashka slowly opened her eyes. Surprised she was even alive, the cat-girl reached down and gingerly prodded her stomach where the mage hit her. Curious why she wasn't feeling any pain, the woman lifted her head and looked down at her body. Where she expected a huge bruise, the skin of her belly appeared normal. The cat-girl also noticed her belt was missing along with her sleeping potions, vials of poison, and lockpicks.

The bed she was lying in seemed ordinary, but the roof above her appeared to be canvas. The mage was supposed to be going out into the desert. Was this his tent? No, she wasn't on a bedroll on the floor. She was lying in a bed. Though Kashka had never slept in a tent before, she knew they were mobile shelters, and a wooden-framed bed made no sense in that regard.

Flexing her legs, she guessed someone had given her an excellent healing potion. Bozun's potions always left her a little sore, as though it stopped just before healing her completely.

That, or she wasn't in pain because this was the afterlife.

For some reason, she felt the world beyond this one could do better than canvas tents. In her belly, light cramping reminded her it was empty despite her healed body, reinforcing the belief she was still alive.

She pushed the discomfort in her stomach from her mind. If she was alive, she needed to get back to Bozun before he determined she ran away. The assassin had a way of making sure anyone trying to escape him ended up dead. Though unsure how he accomplished this, she assumed it was similar to how he dealt with girls captured while on assignment. Whatever the mechanism, it often resulted in everyone nearby dying as well.

Moments later, she had the grim realization that if she returned, Bozun would kill her anyway. A small part of her mind entertained the idea he might forgive her and give her another chance, but she knew the man too well. Forgiveness was not something he did. The women working for him were disposable, and he reminded them of this constantly. As he said, he didn't need broken blades.

The cat-girl closed her eyes. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. The only thing changing was how she chose to die. Remembering the feel of Bozun's fingers digging into her scalp and the look of rage on his face made it an easy choice. He would make her death as painful as possible and use it to keep the other girls in line by showing them the price of failure.

Sighing, she realized the only thing left was how she chose to spend her last bit of time in the land of the living. She wished she could see her mother and sisters one last time, but that was impossible. Her mother died protecting her kittens from slavers. Kashka and her sisters were quickly rounded up afterward and sold off at the slave market here in Fazal. She hadn't seen her siblings since then and probably wouldn't recognize them if she did.

After a few months of intensive training, Kashka spent a handful of years as a young woman's pet. As the girl approached marrying age, her father began looking for his daughter's future husband and saving for her dowry. Days before she came of age, the man decided that a cat-girl was an unneeded expense. She was sold to Bozun shortly after.

Kashka scowled at the memory of training to become an assassin. The transition from a pet and companion to a living weapon was difficult, and the punishment for mistakes was severe. Bozun beat her nearly to death then poured a healing potion down her throat, reviving her so she could continue her lessons. She learned those lessons extremely fast and, combined with her natural abilities, became a stunningly good assassin in a short time.