The air in the secluded alcove tasted of dust and damp stone. Tadao's consciousness floated, a bodeless wisp of agony, anchored to the scene by an invisible tether. He saw everything from a vantage point near the mossy ceiling, a silent phantom forced to watch the aftermath of his own defeat. His body was elsewhere, slumped and unconscious, but here was where the real injury was being inflicted.
Penny knelt on the hard-packed earth, one hand pressed to her injured thigh. Her shoulders shook, not with sobs, but with a tremulous exhaustion that seemed to leach the color from her wheat-gold hair. Drake stood over her, a colossus of sweat-sheened muscle and smug satisfaction. He wiped a trickle of blood from his temple—Tadao's one, futile mark—and flicked it away.
"Look at you," Drake said, his voice a low rumble that held no warmth, only a predatory amusement. "The great protector. The girlfriend with a god's gift. On your knees in the dirt. For him."
Penny's head remained bowed. "I did what I had to."
"You surrendered," Drake corrected, taking a deliberate step closer. His shadow engulfed her. "You yielded. You looked me in the eye and you gave up. For a boy who can't even throw a punch straight. Don't dress it up in noble rags, Penny. It's just pathetic."
A spark of her old fire flickered. She lifted her chin, those bright, determined eyes glistening with unshed tears and a defiance that was already crumbling at the edges. "I love him."
The laugh that burst from Drake was short, harsh, and utterly devoid of humor. It echoed off the stone walls. "Love? Is that what you call it? You just publicly humiliated yourself to spare him a beating he deserved. You think that's love? That's enabling. That's pity. That's you admitting, in front of gods and everyone, that your precious Tadao is so weak he needs his woman to fight his battles and then take his punishments."
Each word was a precise, malicious strike. Tadao, in his ghostly state, felt them land in his own gut. He screamed at Drake, a soundless roar of fury that stirred not a mote of dust. He willed his spectral form to move, to block Drake's view, to do anything. The curse held him fast, a fly in amber, forced to observe.
"You don't understand anything," Penny whispered, but the conviction was draining from her voice, replaced by a hollow weariness.
"I understand power," Drake countered, crouching down so his face was level with hers. The proximity was intimate, threatening. Tadao could see the coarse stubble on Drake's jaw, the calculating gleam in his eyes. "I understand that you have it, and you're wasting it. I understand that he has nothing, and you're shackling yourself to that nothing out of some… childish Earth-world sentiment. It's a sickness."
He reached out, not to strike, but to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was grotesquely gentle. Penny flinched as if burned.
"Stop it."
"Or what?" Drake murmured, his fingers lingering near her cheek. "You'll surrender again? That's your only move now, isn't it? The great creator. You could make a sword that would cut this whole outpost in half. But here you are, with dirt on your knees and a broken look in your eyes, because of a boy with a cursed tattoo and the fighting spirit of a stunned rabbit."
The humiliation was a physical force in the alcove. Tadao's incorporeal form shuddered with it. The purple tattoo on his real body, miles away and unconscious, gave a dormant, sympathetic throb.
Penny's breath hitched. "Just… just tell me what you want. The duel is over. You won. What do you want?"
Drake smiled. It wasn't a pleasant sight. "Finally, a practical question." He straightened up, looming once more. "The bullying. The public training yard embarrassments. The little reminders of his place. I can stop that."
A flicker of desperate hope lit Penny's features. It was quickly guarded. "In exchange for what?"
"For a week," Drake said, as if discussing the weather. "I leave him alone. No confrontations. No 'accidental' shoves into the manure pile. No comments about his magical impotence where others can hear. One week of peace for little Tadao."
"And?"
"And in exchange," Drake continued, his gaze dropping to her mouth, then tracing a slow path down her neck, over the leather covering her chest, to her injured leg, "you provide me with a… personal favor. A token of your appreciation for my restraint."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Penny's eyes widened. "A… what kind of favor?"
"The kind a woman gives a man who holds her boyfriend's dignity in his hands," Drake said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "Nothing too strenuous. Not at first. A kiss, perhaps. A touch. Something to remind you where the real power lies."
"No." The word was automatic, a reflex. But it was weak.
"Think about it," Drake pressed, his tone deceptively reasonable. "One week. He walks through the outpost with his head up. He trains without me there to 'correct' his form. He sleeps through the night without wondering when the next humiliation comes. All it costs is a few minutes of your time. In private. Where no one else has to know. You can keep your noble sacrifice pure for him, and he gets to have a taste of a normal life. Seems like a fair trade."
Tadao wanted to vomit. The curse translated his revulsion into a strange, cold tingling in his phantom limbs. No, Penny. Don't. It's a trap. He'll never stop.
Penny was staring at the ground, her mind visibly racing. He could see the conflict warping her expression—the disgust, the fear, and that terrible, insidious hope. The hope that she could actually fix this, could actually protect him. It was the same hope that had made her step into the duel. It was her greatest strength and her most exploitable weakness.
"Just… a kiss?" she asked, her voice so small it was almost lost.
"To start," Drake said, a slow smile spreading. "Consider it a weekly subscription. One week of peace for Tadao, one… friendly encounter for me. We can negotiate the specifics each time. Keeps things interesting."
"That's… that's not a deal. That's extortion. That's you owning me."
"It's a partnership," Drake corrected smoothly. "You want him safe. I want… amusement. Our interests align. For now." He let that hang in the air, the unspoken threat of what would happen if the deal broke. "Do we have an understanding?"
Penny closed her eyes. A single tear escaped, carving a clean path through the grime on her cheek. Her hands, clenched in the dirt, trembled. Tadao saw the moment her resolve broke. It wasn't a snap, but a slow, painful erosion. She saw a week of peace for him. A week where he could smile. A week where the constant, grinding pressure of Drake's presence might lift. She saw it, and she wanted to give it to him so badly it overrode every instinct screaming at her to run.
Her love for him, twisted and leveraged by Drake's cruel calculus, became the instrument of her submission.
"One week," she whispered, not opening her eyes. "Just… one week of you leaving him completely alone. No contact. No words. Nothing."
"My word is my bond," Drake said, and the irony was so thick it poisoned the air. "Do we agree?"
A long, shuddering breath. Then, a barely perceptible nod.
The confirmation was all Drake needed. He moved with the swift, assured grace of a predator closing on wounded prey. One large hand came up to cup the back of Penny's head, his fingers tangling in her hair, not gently. The other clamped on her shoulder, holding her in place. He didn't ask. He didn't hesitate.
He kissed her.
It was not a kiss of passion, or affection, or even basic desire. It was an act of claiming. Drake's mouth descended on hers with a brutal possessiveness, his lips forcing hers apart. Penny made a muffled sound of protest, a weak mmph! that was swallowed by him. Her hands came up, fluttering against his chest, pushing feebly.
Tadao's ghostly consciousness recoiled. A white-hot spike of pure, undiluted agony lanced through him, followed instantly by a treacherous, unwanted heat that pooled in his nonexistent groin. The curse awoke, feasting on the violent cocktail of betrayal and helpless voyeurism. He was forced to watch, his perspective zooming in as if by a malicious director, to the intimate, horrible details.
He saw the way Drake's tongue invaded Penny's mouth, a slick, dominating thrust. He saw the shocked dilation of Penny's eyes, wide open and staring at nothing. He saw the tense line of her neck, the way her initial resistance melted, not into pleasure, but into a numb, paralyzed acceptance. Her pushing hands stilled, then fell to her sides, fingers curling into the dirt.
Drake's free hand, the one not holding her head, began to move. It slid from her shoulder, down over the reinforced leather covering her back, a rough, possessive stroke. Then it came around to her front, palming the curve of her breast through the stiff material. Penny jerked at the contact, a full-body flinch, but Drake's mouth on hers stifled any cry. He kneaded the soft flesh, his thumb finding and circling the peak of her nipple until it grew taut and prominent even through the leather.
A low, guttural sound vibrated in Drake's throat. He broke the kiss, but only to trail his lips down her jaw to her neck. Penny gasped for air, her chest heaving.
"See?" Drake murmured against her skin, his breath hot. "Not so bad. A small price."
His hand left her breast and journeyed downward, over the flat of her stomach, past the belt of her leathers. Penny froze, her breath catching again, this time in fear. "Drake, no, that's not—"
"Shhh," he hissed, his fingers finding the junction of her thighs. Even through the thick, protective material, he pressed the heel of his hand firmly against her. He began to move his hand in a slow, grinding circle. "Just a touch. Part of the deal. Let's see how much of a sacrifice this really is for you."
Penny squeezed her eyes shut, turning her face away. A choked sob escaped her. But her body, traitorously, was responding. Tadao, forced to witness with supernatural clarity, saw the subtle change. The tense line of her thighs relaxed, just a fraction. A faint, damp patch darkened the leather where Drake's hand worked. Her hips gave a tiny, involuntary stutter against the pressure.
Drake felt it too. He chuckled, a dark, knowing sound. "There it is. That's the truth no noble speech can hide. Your body knows where it belongs. Who it responds to."
He increased the pressure, the rhythm of his grinding palm becoming more insistent. Penny's breathing grew ragged, turning into shallow, quick pants. Her hands, still in the dirt, clenched into fists. She was biting her lower lip so hard Tadao thought it might bleed, trying to stifle any sound that might escape.
The conflict on her face was a masterpiece of torment. Revulsion, shame, humiliation—but underneath it, a creeping, undeniable physical reaction was breaking through her will. Her cheeks flushed. A soft, shuddering moan was trapped behind her clenched teeth.
Tadao felt his own phantom body burning with the curse's feedback. The humiliation was fuel. The sight of Penny's reluctant arousal was the spark. A powerful, degrading surge of mana—useless, trapped mana—flooded his real veins miles away, and with it came an intense, prickling arousal that made him want to scream with self-loathing. He was hard, painfully so, in his unconscious body, because his girlfriend was being groped by his bully. The curse made him a participant in his own cuckolding, rewarding his agony with a vile physical thrill.
After an eternity that lasted maybe a minute, Drake finally withdrew his hand. He brought his fingers to his nose, inhaling deeply with a theatrical flourish, a smirk playing on his swollen lips. "Mmm. Definitely worth a week of good behavior."
Penny crumpled forward, catching herself on her hands. She was trembling violently now, breaths coming in ragged hitches. The front of her leathers was visibly damp. She couldn't look at him.
Drake stood up, brushing the dirt from his knees. He looked down at her with the satisfaction of a man who has just broken a valuable tool and confirmed it still worked. "Next week, same time. I'll find you. Think about what you might offer for Week Two. I'm open to suggestions."
He turned to leave, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder. "And Penny? Clean yourself up before you go see him. Wouldn't want poor Tadao to get the wrong idea about where his peace of mind comes from."
With that, he strode out of the alcove, his footsteps fading into the distant sounds of the outpost.
Penny was alone. She stayed on her hands and knees for a long time, head hanging. The tremors slowly subsided, replaced by a frightening stillness. Finally, she pushed herself up to sit back on her heels. She looked at her hands, then slowly, with a movement that seemed to cost her immense effort, she brought her fingers to her own lips. She traced them, her expression blank, haunted.
Then her gaze dropped to the damp spot on her leathers. A fresh wave of shame visibly washed over her. She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders beginning to shake with silent, wrenching sobs.
In his ghostly prison, Tadao could only watch. The curse's grip on him began to weaken, the vision fading. The last thing he saw was Penny dragging the back of her hand across her eyes, smearing tears and dirt, her features hardening into a mask of grim, shattered determination. She was already rebuilding the walls, crafting the lie, justifying the betrayal.
It's for him, he could almost hear her think, the thought as clear as if she'd spoken it. One week of peace. I can endure this. For Tadao. It's for him.
The alcove dissolved into a swirl of darkness, and Tadao's consciousness was sucked violently back across the distance, towards the inert shell of his body, carrying with him the searing, inescapable knowledge of the deal struck in the shadows, and the wet, hungry evidence of Penny's submission still cooling on the leather between her legs.