The Masquerade II (Explicit)

((The following story contains explicit adult material - you were warned. Thanks as always to Jon’s player for allowing me to write with him and his character.))

The fellow widely known to the Kul Tirasan Admiralty as Jon Chess heard a commotion on the far side of the ballroom. He excused himself from his conversation and began to slowly make his way towards the trouble; while he was on-mission and in disguise, he also knew that the direction of the disturbance had come from the general direction where his wife had gone after their dance.

The disturbance was seemingly over, but his attention was immediately drawn to someone with whom he recognized. The human fellow was dressed in a noble house livery Jon did not recognize, but he knew his face from the streets of Stormwind. Gyrich Harrow was well-known as a “fixer”, a fellow who worked for those who could afford to have Harrow “fix” their mistakes, usually when the patron’s selfishness resulted in the patron with trouble. The last time Jon had encountered Harrow, the fellow had been intent on beating a gnome tailor named… MacLhir?... who had been insolent enough to demand that a Stormwind noble named Count Lescovar actually pay for the clothes Lescovar had commissioned a year in the past. 

Jon had interfered, and broken Harrow’s forearm. 

Harrow had vanished from Stormwind after that; Jon had wanted to make sure that Harrow had not intended to punish MacLhir for the original offense compounded with his subsequent injury.

Jon drifted over to where a well-dressed fellow in a hawk mask was talking to Harrow in a low, angry voice. Jon noted that the fellow was bleeding from a cut underneath the mask; a tiny rivulet of blood had leaked from the covered area. He tried to place the man by his voice, but could not pick up on any noticeable accent. The room had picked up too much noise for that; the hushed tones of people discussing the Hawk masked man’s humiliation at the hands of one of the women in attendance carried well.

"This is what happens when the commoners learn to read," said the masked fellow, who was no doubt Harrow’s current employer, as he straightened his cravat, "They get ideas above their station, and think that wearing a pretty dress and knowing how to dance makes them somehow our equals. How dare that trollop reject my advances! Her display with that ruffian on the dance floor clearly indicated that she had the carnal appetite of an alley cat, but she refused my offer to pleasure her? The vixen, she should have been grateful!” 

Harrow nodded, “After all, she had managed to intrigue the attention of a respected peer of the Alliance. Any woman would be grateful to be chosen by you-”

“-and many women have been! I would have taken my pleasure, and seen that she profited by it. I am not a cad, but a gentleman, after all."  The man finished, trying the smoked Whitescale salmon on the buffet table beside him and idly approving of the pepper-crusted meat.

"I think that perhaps you should... insist. She needs to learn her place... on her knees, in front of her betters. Who knows?  Once you have taken your pleasure of her mouth... or her cunt... or perhaps her ass... you can watch while I use her before slitting her throat?"

“Yes...that damned purple-eyed whore will pay for her effrontery. Follow her, and summon me when you find her alone. She shall pay, and with luck, we shall both sample the whore’s goods before the clock strikes midnight, hey?” He added in a low angry tone that borderlined on cocky.

Jon looked around, but did not see Alia anywhere in the ballroom.  While Jon was not absolutely certain that they had meant his wife, there were simply not that many women in attendance with both the requisite eye color and temperament. When Harrow slunk off to the ballroom entrance to the gardens, Jon followed. Although he had been focused on his mission, a potential threat to his Beloved took precedence over everything else. Gyrich had a sharp knife, and knowledge of a certain venom that affected the mind of magic-using sentients. With a prick of his blade, he could take away Alia’s magic, and she was a poor hand-to-hand combatant. Entering the garden, he watched from the shadows as Harrow began to search, but he smiled. Unlike Harrow, Jon had memorized the floorplan of the establishment. If Alia was upset or even mildly disturbed by her encounter with the fop, he had a very good idea where she could be found - and not in the gardens.

In the library. 

Jon sped to the doors to the library and found that they had been securely locked. Jon approved; locked doors were the best way to keep amateurs from attempting theft or mischief. Jonathan slipped his lockpick rake and tension bar, making short work of the lock.  He slipped inside, shutting the door behind him… and a finely honed instinct allowed him to swiftly dodge away from the shut door just as an icicle shattered itself on the door where he had been standing. Jon nodded his approval; the ice lance had been aimed just so that it would have impaled the intended target in the throat. All in all, an excellent cast, and if Jon had been any slower, he would be fumbling for a healing potion from his first aid kit.

His wife was still standing there with her arm outstretched, and her other hand covering her mouth. "Sorry... I wasn't expecting someone to be the one forcing that door open...just yet," Alia apologized, suppressing a smile of relief.

Jon felt his temper rise; Jon’s profession had trained him to be observant, and what he saw infuriated him. Alia’s hair had been let down, and he could see where she had removed her cosmetics, no doubt after she had ruined it with weeping. Alia Atherton was staunch and brave, with nerves of adamantium during a crisis, but it was not unusual for her to vent her feelings once alone and putatively safe. Especially when she was angry herself.

Another part of the training was to repress his own reaction.  The instructors at Ravenholdt had been very demanding in that regard. “Get angry on your own time, but when you are in the field, cultivate a heart of stone.” So he merely grinned at his wife.

"So the janitorial staff has done what, precisely, to anger you such that you wanted to create such a gory mess for them to clean up? Also, in what world do you think a blindly-thrown ice spike was going to be a serious threat?"  He chuckled. Jon was not an idiot - he was just grateful it was not a fireball, but he had thought that Alia being Alia, and being surrounded by books and scrolls, that fire would have been an outside shot.

“If it was such a non-threat, then why did you move?” She asked, take a hesitant few steps toward him.

"Because I have no such grudge against the janitorial staff," Jon shot back, moving forward slowly. His eyes spoke of his wanting nothing so much but to take his wife in his arms.

"A little water and blood on the hardwood is nothing compared to burning the door, the doorframe, the hallway behind, and all the books between here and there down to the ground. They're lucky I have a penchant for.... protecting books..." Alia closed the distance, rushing into his arms.

Jon spread his arms wide to receive her, folding her into his embrace, the soft and curvy of her body a stark contrast to his larger, conflict-hardened frame. Her wrists tucked themselves against his chest.  "So... who do I kill for you tomorrow, Beloved?"

"...Jon...” she answered slowly, taking her time with each word, “You do understand that I am not so naive as to forget that by giving you a name, I am signing a man’s death warrant, whether he deserves it or not. You might be used to it, but I’m...I’m not, and I doubt I ever will…. As much I appreciate your devotion, the man undeserving of the label is not worth the time." She looked up at him with a look Jon couldn’t quite place, but for him or her assailant he couldn’t say, "But, if some poor fate was to temporarily meet his anatomy...." 

Jon smiled wide. "You know how much I hate... HATE... making promises I won’t keep... but I promise that I won't kill him for his affront to you. I reserve the right to kill him if he takes any other action, either overt or covert, at my discretion."

"...I suppose it's better than nothing." Alia took a deep breath, letting the brief burn for air in her lunges expel the simmering anger in her veins before letting it out again. See the best in everyone, even if they don’t deserve it. The reminder from her past matron echoed in her head. “Dalen.” She said finally, “He said his name was Ross Dalen. He’s one of the Lords of Springthaw, I think.” 

“Was that the buffoon in the hawk mask?  

“Yes, that is he. Has a sizable wine stain on his garments, a red right cheek, and a cut from my ring.”

“He deserves death just for his fashion sense… but I will allow you to grant him clemency, mi corazon” Jon said, using the Kul Tirasan endearment. Thank you for telling me.” He kissed the top of her head.

She laughed half-heartedly, stepping back and gently taking his mask with her, "Look at you... Who knew street-rats could clean up so well? I mean..I knew, but I digress." The faintest of smiles graced her lips as she took in all of him, playing with the mask in her hands. "I still think it's ridiculous that you had to go through so much effort to look different, only to wear a mask hat just screams-" Alia put his mask up to her face adopting an unconvincing deep voice, "'Oh look, I'm the Rook, secret spy and assassin to the Lord Admiral! Why don't you come closer and tell me all your secrets or I'll cut your heart out with a spoon'!” She dropped the act, “I mean, it’s hardly subtle.”

Jon offered to take the mask back, which Alia relented to. He looked over his mask as he took it. "Subtly has its place - but to those who get the message, they need to see that there is more to the Lord Admiral than her arcane prowess and the mercantile fleet."

“I'd hardly call one of the greatest fleets on Azeroth merely 'mercantile'! Still, I shouldn't let you keep the other fine women of the nobility waiting." Alia muttered with a bitter sigh.

Jon stopped her with a tender kiss, which went on quite some time. Alia melted into the kiss with a moan, gripping his dress jacket for support as she was pulled back into his arms. When he reluctantly released her and allowed her to draw a new breath, he said, "There are no ladies, noble or otherwise, which need me more than you do now, Beloved."

She bit into her bottom lip, "Maybe, but I'm not the one with the information." A slim hand snaked up his chest and around his neck, tugging at the tiny hairs at the start of his hairline, "Besides, what about all the gentry out there?" Her lips pressed against the crook of his neck and chin, tentatively, almost asking him for permission, "Who's going to keep an eye on them?"

"They can be watched over without the beauty of my wife tempting them into ungentlemanly behavior," snarled Jon into her ear as he started nibbling upon the lobe. "I am the only one who is allowed to partake like so..." He leaned her back in his embrace and began to nip and bite her neck, slowly descending from her ear to her shoulder via her sensitive, swanlike neck. Alia’s breathing became heavier as desire long denied stirred back to life deep in the pit of her stomach. She whimpered her protest but did not fight him. Alia liked to tell him no, and for him to continue anyway. Jon didn’t always understand it, but he didn’t disapprove of the sweet honey the begging elicited from her cunt either. On their first sexual encounter together, they had agreed on the word ‘Rook’ to mean a hard stop. Unless she gave the word, he knew she was engaging in her mock show of modesty, and that he was allowed, if not encouraged to continue.

"Jon- Jon, please...Jon don't. Stop. Not here in the library." Alia bent her head down to devour his lips with hers, speaking against them while moaning into his mouth, "What if Dalen comes back looking for me? Or a guard? Are you really going to let someone see me- see us- like this?"

Jon explored her mouth briefly before parting for air. He continued his explorations, kissing and biting her throat, sucking hard to mark her as his own. The shiver ran all the way down her spine and his growl was wolf-like, hungry with approval. "I doubt he’ll be sending anyone after you…” he said, lying about Harrow and his patron’s plans. “Anyone coming through the door gets one of my lances... and I will personally apologize to the cleaning staff for the mess.” Jon cupped her breasts through her dress, exulting in their perfection of shape, their sensitivity, and how he loves feeling her nipples grow hard underneath his lips. “And what better place for us than a library, any library, even though I doubt they have any Steamy Romances...Just as long as you can be quiet.” With that in mind, he lifted her breasts out of the dress and lowered his head to partake. “Can you be quiet, my butterfly?”

“Yess-ah!” Alia felt the breath vanish from her lunges as Jon took her pert breasts into his mouth. She wanted to tell him to stop, that they had work to do and that such distractions could wait until they were home. That all went blank when he bit her vulnerable skin just so. She hated how he could get under her skin so easily, but despite everything at risk she didn’t care. It all felt too good. It had been too long since she had felt this way. Too long since she had him this way. She just couldn’t say no. Alia gave in. “Dammit. Come here.”

Her deft fingers pulled him flush against her. She pulled Jon by his collar and by his belt, working the buttons loose in a frenzy. Jon could feel her hands shove the belts and sash off his person, hitting the ground with a soft thud. Her fingertips continued to grab him from his waist to his collarbone, pulling the fabric of the coat and tux jacket off his shoulders and letting them join the others on the floor. She leaned in close, placing the harshest of kisses on his throat before clenching the ascot with her teeth. She slipped a lone finger around the folds of his neck, tearing it loose before pulling it off altogether. Now left in his dress shirt and pants, her hands tugged him back, her nails leaving visible track marks down his already scar-abused chest. She shuffled backward locked in passion with him until he drove her back into a table laden with books, quills, and parchment. They found a new home on the floor when Alia’s hands gripped the wood and threw them out of the way.

"You, my dear sweet love... are overdressed." Jon murmured, forcibly spinning Alia around and pinning her body under him against the table. She only squirmed against him as he leaned over her with one of his throwing knives still on his person. He cut where the strings of the corset-backed dress were tied off, then used his fingers to jerk them loose. Jon kissed and marked each inch of additional flesh revealed, then slipped a hand underneath the fabric to grope her breasts. Alia gasped, arching her hips and grinding her ass against his hard cock still trapped in his trousers. He pulled away from her to leave a trail of bites down to the small of her back, each one more prominent than the last. He pushed down the expensive fabric over her hips and onto the floor as he went, leaving her only clad in her lingerie when he was done. Jonathan took a moment to appreciate the sight before him; his lovely wife had bought some new lingerie for the evening, it seemed. Under her gown she had worn a black, Mageweave floral mesh confection that supported and enhanced her delectable breasts and pulled in her waist. It continued down her body and arched just above her shaven pubic mound, while continuing down her sides to secure her black silk stockings. Although Jon was sure that the ensemble had included matching panties, he was not surprised to see that she had “forgotten” them, leaving her cunt exposed for his enjoyment.

"Now this is a sight to captivate men, my Beloved," Jon said, and Alia felt his hands turning her over onto her back, "Albeit one I refuse to share for the betterment of mankind. Let them find their own goddess to worship - I have mine." He boosted her to the top of the hastily-cleared table, her legs spreading themselves instinctively. "And I worship my goddess with whole heart..." Jon resumed kissing her pale, flawless body, working his way across from her magnificent breasts to her smooth, shaved public mound like a beast near starved to death. Some of his bites were beginning to bruise, and they were strikingly framed against the mageweave lingerie. Alia heard him whisper something, the words swimming in her mind as it reeled with need. They were more terms of endearment, his breath tickling her skin as her toes curled the farther his fingers slid against the smoothness of her skin. So close now. She gasped in anticipation. A firm bite to the innermost part of her thigh made it more akin to a yelp.

“You promised you could be quiet.” Jon’s hands left her thighs and ran down along her legs, messaging the flesh as he kneeled to undo the buckle on one heel, then the other, pulling the shoe off and placing soft kisses on the top of her feet. Then her ankle, up her legs and under her knee. He marveled anew that this talented, powerful, intelligent woman had accepted his proposal and married him. She adored and desired him, he could see it in her eyes, even though he was... well, even though he was what he was.

“Jon- please,” Alia’s voice broke into coherent words,” I need you.”

“And you didn’t need me before?” He grinned wide, standing up to undo his belt. She blushed, rubbing her thighs together and sliding his shirt off, and letting the remaining hidden weaponry clatter the ground one by one. 

“I always need you. You’re just never around to notice. Always off to this job or that mission.” She blushed, pressing her palms against his chest. The anticipation was obviously killing her.

Jon shushed her, letting his hands trace the soft skin of her breasts, enjoying how her nipples seemed to shout at him for attention. The attention made Alia jump and gasp, arching her back to display herself to him. The cups fell from the movement, Jon brushing the fabric lower down her body, letting gravity and his mouth pull the lingerie from her chest. He caught his breath at the sublime sight of his wife's breasts; not only were they perfectly formed (in Jon's opinion) but quite sensitive to his touch, to his lips, to his rough-by-design or his tender, gentle attentions. He unsnapped the one-piece and let it gather around her hips, as it no longer was useful; Jon had already been appreciative of Alia in her lingerie, but teasing had its time and place. And that time and place was neither here nor now - Jon hungered.

Alia's hips could not keep still, squirming and bucking, they ground her vulnerable flesh roughly against his cock. Strangled moans escaped her lips, her skin startlingly hot against his lips. She brought her hands up to cup his face, losing her fingers in his hair. "I need you now..."

"Well... then you need to not be angry when I tell you something..." Jon said, reaching down to spread her legs apart and out of the way, rubbing the head of his cock against her responsive, swollen, very well-lubricated cunt. "...do you promise?"

She mewed, nails digging into the palm of her hands. She was practically panting. "Yes," She whispered.

"Last week I stopped taking the contraception..." he whispered in her ear, ramming his cock roughly to the hilt, almost effortlessly, into his wife. And then again. And again. "I love you," he whispered, his tenderness at odds with the almost cruel way he drove into her, his hands mauling her nipples, his scrotum slapping against her ass. "If you scream when you cum, I will have to breed you, Beloved."

Alia went to say something but never got the chance; the only sound that left was a scream in pleasure. She trembled around his cock, shaking. She was purely animalistic in her need, thriving solely on sexual need, her cunt-honey dripping down her thighs.

"Yes, just... like... that..." Jon gasped as her velvet-soft flesh gripped his cock like a vise.  No more talk; Jon tried to focus on anything but the sensations her tight grip was evoking in his body.  Just a moment longer, he prayed, having long been a proponent of the philosophy let his partner climax first, but her reaction threatened to banish every iota of self-control.

He didn’t need to wait long; Alia knew she was close —so damned close—that she could almost see its approach. Right there in front of her in Jon’s eyes. Her violet lost themselves in his green as her pleasure rushed those last few falling steps. She crashed, the warmth trickling up her body like raindrops in reverse. There was a scream, and it took her time to realize it was hers. Her legs shook as she collapsed in on herself with nothing on her mind except the bliss. She became afraid that she might fall off the desk, but a part of her didn’t care, because something so perfect, so thrilling, so wondrous as this moment couldn’t be stopped by something so impermanent.

“I warned you of your punishment for screaming…” He joked, feeling her crest, the wave of her orgasmic pleasure, and knowing it was time to finish inside her. Jon accelerated his thrusts to a hard, almost violent pummeling, with nothing but lust as his own need - the way she liked to be taken when she came. He felt her cunt contract and milk his cockshaft as she exploded, and Jon released, feeling each thrust culminate in a thick rope of hot, sticky semen filling his wife’s womb. He growled like a wolf as he spent himself, holding her almost crushingly close to himself, and she welcomed it enthusiastically. The two became one, and they fell together to the floor spent, Jon capturing Alia’s lips in kiss after kiss, murmuring endearments.

Until the telltale sound of someone trying the library lock betrayed the imminent arrival of intruders.

“Ruh-roh!” Jon said, springing to his feet. 

“...what do you mean ‘Ruh-roh’?” asked Alia, shaking the post-orgasmic bliss from her mind and struggling to command her limbs to move so soon. “Fel damn it Jon… I told you others might come!”

“I don’t care if others come… just so long as my Beloved came,” teased Jon, tossing her gown to her where she lay on the floor behind the desk upon which they had climaxed so hard. “You might need to get dressed, though…?” he added as he pulled on his trousers and drew his fighting blades. Jon chuckled at the anger and annoyance in his wife’s voice and eagerly wondered how she would demand making reparations. Judging by how red Alia's face was with pure mortification, Jon willingly accepted the idea that he’d be sampling Stormsong clover by morning.

The door to the library opened, and the two men he had half-expected stepped into the room. Gryrich Harrow had drawn a thin but no doubt razor-sharp rapier, and a rather thick parrying dagger. His employer had not yet removed his hawk mask, and stood behind Harrow, his own longsword not yet drawn.

“Gentlemen… Well, sot and footpad, at least… this is a private encounter, and I will thank you to re-lock the door on your way out,” Jon demanded, clearly enjoying himself.

“Ah, I see you have claimed your whore after all… well, under the circumstances I will take ‘sloppy seconds’... while I fuck the whore on top of your bleeding corpse,” angrily retorted Lord Springthaw. “Gyrich, pin his corpse to the wall for me, and I’ll let you claim what is left when I have finished with her… any hole you like. You may even make a new one to futter if that is your taste.” 

He took a long step forward, placing his mask on the table, and had not noticed that Harrow had frozen in place, his face having gone deathly pale.

Harrow looked at Chess and stared at the three long dragon claw scars stretching across his chest. He opened his mouth like a gaffed fish, and closed it again. He did not recognize the face, but like many, he knew who had scars like that - an assassin known as the Rook, whose skill in the use of poison and venom was the stuff of legends. They say to cross the Rook was to cross Death itself, and Death would have been far more forgiving.

“Yes, Harrow… come and earn your purse. Feel the effect of the poison dart I shot you with near the buffet before you went to the gardens to search for the lady. Have you noticed the burning sensation in your joints yet?  If not, let's get your blood circulating with a bout, and you soon will,” said Jon, both of his hands filled with his daggers. He glided forward across the floor at a leisurely pace, circling to his left. 

Harrow took a long step away from his patron, and sheathed his rapier and dagger. “Lord Springthaw… I quit your service. Good luck.” Having said that, Harrow opened and shut the library door, hoping against hope that he could find an apothecary and an anti-venom antidote in time.

“That was… disappointing,” declared Chess, turning to his next target.

Lord Springthaw drew his longsword, and desperately attacked, feigning an attack to the high outside line, and then swiveling his wrist to send the blade towards Chess’ thigh. Jon moved forward like a leopard, using his left dagger to defect the longsword’s attack while stepping inside Lord Springthaw’s arms and spinning, slamming this right elbow into his enemy’s left eye and rocking him backward a step before dancing out of reach.

“Tell me again how my wife is a whore, you split-faced buffoon,” Jon snarled. “Tell me exactly how you were going to hide behind your thug while you used her?”

Ross Dalen shook his head to clear it. He could feel his eye start to close from swelling. “I… apologize for any misunder-” He attempted to say, but Jon had not waited for him to finish his sentence, but had rather lunged forward to bind the stationary longsword with his crossed knives, and kicked Ross in the most tender spot a male had with all the force he could muster.

Jon stepped back as Lord Springthaw fell, vomiting his half-digested buffet snacks on the hardwood floor. I guess I WILL have to apologize and tip the cleaning staff thought Jon as he stomped hard on the fallen fellow’s knee, feeling the gratified pop of dislocation.

“Rook…husband... enough.” spoke the Magna, who had dressed herself once more before coming out from behind a bookcase. “You promised-”.

“Except in self-defense… which this clearly is!” caveated Jon.

“This may be many things, but it clearly is NOT self-defense,” she corrected. While she might acknowledge in private that while Jon was technically correct, she also knew that if Jon had entertained any doubts about Lord Springthaw’s ability to mount a credible threat, Jon would have left him as a cooling corpse on the first pass. “He has been shown the error of his ways.”

“...very well, Beloved. To please you…” Jon knelt and slit the left nostril of Ross Daren, Lord Springthaw. “As for you… be thankful for my Beloved’s clemency; the nose will scar unless you pay a healer well.  A notched nose is the Kul Tiran sentence for a convicted coward, after all… it gives your face needed character.”

Chess walked Alia to the library door and opened it for her. She passed through, getting just past the door frame when she paused. Turning on her heel, she motioned for Jon to wait, keeping her eyes on the shoes she had yet to collect. She hovered above the groaning man, slipping on one delicate heel, then the other. She made a show of setting right many of the fallen papers and books, before picking her skirts up to leave. There was a satisfying crunch when Alia kicked in Springthaw’s nose before stepping over his broken body and out the door. Jon, trying not to let the wicked grin be too obvious, turned and said, “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. Understand that.”

Jon and Alia returned to the ballroom, and Jon watched from afar as Alia made her apologies for leaving so early. Jon considered that he had kept his promise to his wife… but leaving Springthaw alive was an unacceptable risk; Springthaw was the sort of bullying poltroon who would revise the history of the night, have enough influence to make it stick, and look to spend far too much gold on an act of suitable revenge. Jon had said that he would kill Springthaw if he ever saw him again; what he had not said was that Springthaw had coincidentally signed on as a volunteer to benefit from Jon’s testing of a binary poison, with one part in wine and one part in cheese, and when the two parts mingled in the ingester’s stomach, the combination would prove painfully fatal. Jon smiled, pondering which wines and cheeses to give to the Springthaw household in Harrow’s name as an apology.

  Science demands sacrifice, after all.