Beau Helps Out

The remaining group was trapped in the bloody sawdust of the tent, hemmed in by Crownsguard while the dead were quickly covered with tarps and the carnival folk were aggressively counted. Nott stayed in a tight crouch, her eyes darting to the performer’s exit every few seconds. She kept expecting Yasha’s massive silhouette to fill the flap, dragging the dwarf girl and the devil-toad behind her.

Caleb stood beside her. He was too close, his posture mimicking casual exhaustion, but she knew the rigid set of his shoulders. He was shielding her from the sightline of the nearest guard. A few paces away, Jester was whispering increasingly convoluted theories about cursed sheet music, while Fjord tried to patiently gather actual facts from the remaining carnies. Molly was being aggressively shoved into iron shackles, and Gustav just looked like a hollowed-out ghost of a man.

Then the canvas flap parted. The young guard who had followed Yasha stumbled back into the tent. He was alone, breathless, and flushed crimson.

“Watchmaster! The big woman is gone! She’s gone!”

The man looked pissed as he snapped, “You three, go with him. Search for her.” Then he glared at their group, “Drag those three down to the stockade.”

Nott felt a sharp jolt of admiration. Of course the terrifyingly sexy barbarian had slipped her guard and vanished into the dark. It was the smartest move anyone had made all night. But beneath the respect came a bitter little pang. Yasha was gone, taking all that towering strength and that big, beautiful cunt out of reach.

It was a filthy thing to mourn in a room full of fresh corpses, but Nott’s cursed body did not care. Some deep, shameful part of her had already marked Yasha as hers. That was how the hunger worked. If Nott wanted a woman badly enough and spent enough time near her, then sooner or later the world seemed to bend toward the same crude ending: Nott’s hands on her hips, Nott’s cock between her thighs, Nott panting apologies and obscenities while she fucked her open.

She hated that.

She loved it more.

Since this happened, wanting was claiming. With opportunity and weak restraint, she always got inside; a barmaid, a farmer’s daughter, a warm stranger. It started with panic and shame, then heat, until the first wet push when her body remembered what it had been made to do.

The Watchmaster was talking to the rest of them gruffly, “-as for the others, don't go far. You may be innocent, in which case you have nothing to worry about. However, we have an investigation to complete, so I would ask that you stay in the city and wait until you are called in.”

“You will be questioned, and when this investigation is completed, regardless of how long it may take, you are not to leave Trostenwald.”

Caleb, bless his kind and self-sacrificing heart, tried, “If I could just contribute one word, the forty or so people who are outside and the rest of us will vouch for this one, the colorful one. He saved many people's lives. Don't take my word for it. There's everyone outside.”

"Well, unfortunately, that is not for me to decide. The Lawmaster would have to be appealed to. If you wish to come with us, we can bring you along with us to the stockade and you can speak with her. Then, perhaps, she may grant you leniency, but I can give you no guarantee."

Beau looked entirely unintimidated by the surrounding guards as she tsked, “Why don't you just question us right now? I'm confused on why you don't just do that now.”

The human’s tone was dry and withering as he rounded on the monk, "Well, we could do this instead. We'll have you arrested, put you in the stockade as we question the rest of you."

Jester immediately lifted both hands, palms out, “No, no, no, that’s okay! We can go to the stockade. Voluntarily. Like very helpful, very innocent people who are just going there because we want to explain how innocent we are.”

Fjord gave Beau a sharp look before stepping in beside Jester, “Aye. No need to make this any messier than it already is. If the Lawmaster is the one who can sort this out, then we’ll come along peaceably, say what we saw, and be done with it.”

Outside the tent, Molly, Gustav, and Bo were led away back into town with Jester and Fjord following close behind. Nott and Caleb, being a pair of itinerant hobos who generally liked to avoid town guards and town jails in particular, casually started in that direction before drifting off to the side. Caleb slipped his hand into Nott’s and there was a little flash of magic as Frumpkin appeared and quickly chased after the rest. His eyes were closed and she guided him along as he saw through his cat.

This was their Cat Eyed Shuffle trick which they usually used to do little recons of **** merchant stalls, open windows, behind counters, and any other soft little opportunities people foolishly left lying around while in public.

Nott was half way to following the group back into town at a more sedate pace when with a sniff, she realized she was missing one of her ripe puss- er, lovely ladies. She looked back around and she caught both Beau’s scent and heard some commotion from the other side of the tent. She quickly turned and led her blind boy in that direction.

Steering him through the damp, manure-scented shadows of the carnie’s encampment behind the big tent, Nott peered into the gloom. Her darkvision cut through the night easily, framing the chaos unfolding ahead in a distinctly pathetic light.

A heavy draft horse, eyes rolling in panic, bolted away, dragging a rattling wooden cart blindly into the dark. Two Crownsguard broke off from the perimeter and tore after it, shouting and waving their spears.

For a second, it looked like a perfect distraction.

There was Beau, crouching in the dirt next to the hulking, grotesque silhouette of the devil-toad and the trembling, pretty dwarf woman. Nott watched the monk lean in, looking entirely too confident.

"Okay, it's okay," Beau hissed, her voice carrying clearly in the crisp night air. "Toya? Hey, come on, let's get out of here, let's go."

Wait, what? Why was she doing that?

A valiant rescue attempt? It was ruined by the three remaining Crownsguard standing not ten feet away, staring at the monk with flat, unamused expressions.

"Excuse me?!" one of the guards barked.

Beau froze. From the shadows, Nott could actually see the moment the monk’s brain misfired.

"Ey!" Beau blurted out, throwing her hands up with an incredibly ****, awkward grin. "I was actually just looking for the loo?"

Idiot. Beautiful, stupid idiot.

The closest guard exchanged a dry look with his partners. "She was with the group in the tent, right?" He stepped forward, resting a heavy hand on the hilt of his sword. "You're going to the stockade, my dear."

"No!" Beau snapped, but she didn't run. She just stood there as the three guards closed the distance, pulling heavy iron manacles from their belts.

Nott’s breath hitched. She expected Beau to bolt. She expected her to fight. Instead, the monk just let them slap the heavy shackles around her wrists.

"I'm trying to get the girl," Beau protested, sounding genuinely indignant as the lock clicked shut. "I was trying to free the damn girl!"

"Yeah, sure, and why were you doing that?" the guard grunted, grabbing the center chain and yanking her forward. "Walk."

They started dragging her away, leaving the young dwarf and the monster behind under the watchful eyes of the perimeter guards. Nott let out a slow, tense breath. It was over. The monk was pinched. Time to fade back into the shadows and cut their losses.

Then, Beau’s shoulders dropped. Her stance shifted.

Nott recognized that sudden, coiled tension. It was the wind-up before a strike. Kill them all, a dark, vicious little voice in Nott’s head whispered with sudden, glittering glee. She actually liked the idea. Just snap their necks, slaughter the Crownsguard, and walk away clean. Bad Nott. But gods, what a beautiful, violent maniac to have in your corner.

Still fully shackled, the human violently twisted her body. She threw a vicious, two-handed elbow straight into the ribs of the guard holding her chain, following it up with a clumsy, restricted bash toward the face of the second guard. It was the athletic equivalent of an aggressive hiccup: completely futile, entirely bound, and gloriously reckless.

As the guards wrestled her down, cursing and swinging the heavy wooden shafts of their spears, Beau twisted her head back toward the terrified young woman.

"Run!" Beau screamed, blood and spit flying from her lip. "Run! Go! Run!"

Toya just stared with wide eyes and sank back into the bulk of the giant toad-man.

Nott stood paralyzed in the shadows beside Caleb, a complicated knot of frustration, raw arousal, and awe tightening in her chest.

Beau was a complete idiot. She had slipped the guards, had a clear path to freedom, and instead of running for the hills, she had tried to save a pretty young woman and a big dumb toad-man. She was the kind of idiot who ran toward cages, and she was absolutely going to get herself killed.

She clearly needed a keeper. She was too damn reckless to survive on her own. She needed mama Nott to watch her back, keep her safe, and ruthlessly fuck that aggressive energy right out of her with a big, fat cock until she learned how to behave.

Nott blinked hard, a cold wave of nausea and shame suddenly crashing over her. Gods, what the fuck is wrong with me? She physically recoiled from her own thoughts, slapping a mental hand over her traitorous, lecherous brain. Beau was beaten down by armed guards, and Nott was standing in the shadows fantasizing about domesticating her like a breeding animal. The curse was a rot. It was poisoning her mind from the groin up. Bad Nott. Terrible, filthy Nott.

"Nott?" Caleb murmured, his voice thin and disoriented. "What is that noise? What’s going on?"

Nott sighed, watching the guards finally drag the bruised, kicking monk away toward the stockade. "Beau," she said, her voice dropping into a flat deadpan. "Got herself pinched."

Caleb let out a long, exhausted breath. "Scheisse," he muttered softly, his shoulders slumping.

They followed along as Beau was brought to the stockade, keeping well back and out of sight.

Outside the stockade, Nott held Caleb’s hand and kept his body steady while his mind followed Frumpkin through the building’s shadows. She only caught the scene in scraps from Caleb’s low, distracted murmurs: Gustav taking the blame with his head bowed, Molly somehow talking himself out of irons by backing the carnival master’s story with one perfect silver-tongued lie.

Then Beau was dragged in and it was all about to crash down.

But Fjord and Jester came up with some absurd sob-story about Beau having a little sister who’d died causing her to act out. Performing well enough despite the hot monk being sort of slow on the uptake that the Lawmaster decided not to keep her, but Beau’s little rescue attempt had soured whatever patience she still had. Molly was released, Gustav and Bo were kept below, and the rest were no longer merely “don’t leave town” suspects. Jester, Fjord, Beau, and Molly were being sent back to the Nestled Nook under watch, confined there until the Crownsguard decided what had really happened. The moment Caleb whispered that, Nott tugged his hand and started back ahead of them.

If their temporary meat-shields were about to become heavily monitored liabilities, she and Caleb needed to make some decisions.