I’m in

“Might as well,” I said.

“Good,” she was quiet for a moment, listening if there was movement behind the door. “Listen up. The Master is a man with many, very dangerous and very rich friends. Friends I’d like to see relieved of their gold. I’ve been uh… infiltrating his organization for weeks, and he’s finally given me what I need.”

“And what’s that?” I said, sort of distracted by the fact the woman was still naked.

“You.”

“Well, it was very good—“

“No,” she groaned. “I mean, yes, it was, but that’s not what I meant. The Master and his rich friends like to bet on fights, **** fights. He’s finally decided to let me enter. If we play it well, we can take them for all they’re worth.”

I grunted. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“Fight.”

“I can do that.”

“And when the time comes,” she said, stretching like a cat, “break free and go on a distracting rampage.”

I grinned. “I can definitely do that.”

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“Ghatrugh,” I said.

“Karliah,” she said, shaking my hand. “Nice to uh… meet you.”

—

For the next few weeks I was trained as a gladiator by the wretch’s gladiator. The man was an aging Nord named Stalleo, a veteran of the Great War and former owner of the castle. His family was held hostage by the wretch to ensure his obedience. The cave-like hallways of the castle were filled with slaves. Many of them Khajiit and Argonians, though some of them human and even an elf. Some were sold off, others kept as servants. All of them feared the wretch and his powerful friends.

During the day, I practiced with Stalleo. At night, I was taken upstairs. We only fucked when the wretch was there, to give him the idea that was all she wanted me for. Instead, she told me about her plans. That wasn’t the name she’d given the wretch, by the way. She called herself Aleri to him, and told me his real name was Aroth Dres, an infamous slaver from a long line of infamous slavers. Since the Argonians had killed most of his family members, and he feared himself too in danger, he hid behind his moniker. Dres was obsessed with power. He treated everyone but Karliah as beneath him, though when he entered her bedroom, he’d turn into the sniveling coward he was on the inside.

She’d utterly played him, using his deepest desires and insecurities against him, which I thought was a masterful way of waging war. Within weeks of meeting him, she’d figured out he secretly liked to be dominated and belittled. In private, she didn’t even have to act like she liked him anymore. She hated him, and he loved her for it.

The Rift, as this land was called, was filled with people like Dres. Karliah herself was a thief, though she hated the way people like Dres harmed innocents for personal gain.

“Thieves used to have honor,” she’d say, which was funny to me.

But that was why she’d sold herself off as a **** to Dres. That way, she could get close to him and tear down his organization from the inside. Also, she needed money for an even bigger job which she didn’t yet tell me about.

Dres and his associates would gather yearly in a place called Faldar’s Tooth, to have their slaves fight each other to the **** in some sort of tournament. The plan was to cause some chaos, release the other slaves and take all of the prize money for ourselves, while Stalleo would finally regain his ancestral home. Seemed simple enough.

“Dres says we’re leaving in a week,” Karliah said one night, after we had scared him off with the roughest throat-fucking we’d managed thus far.

“You alright?” I grinned, as she wiped a combination of spit and seed of her cheeks.

“Yeah,” she laughed. “You are really going at it.”

“You look nice when you’re out of breath,” I joked.

“Only then?” She asked. “And here I was, thinking we had something.”

“If I was chief, I’d take you as a wife,” I said. “Though I don’t believe you’d be happy in a stronghold.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, as she laid her head on my chest. Lying there on her bed, it was almost as if we were husband and wife.

“So, what’s your big plan after taking down Dres?” I asked.

“I have a score to settle,” she said. “Someone’s wronged me in the past, and I’m finally taking my ****. I’ve been working on it for 25 years.”

“Maybe you would fit in among orcs,” I joked.

She laughed. “And when that’s done… I don’t know, perhaps I’ll take you up on that marriage offer.”

“I’d need to become chief first,” I said. “But you’d make a fine huntswife.”

“So, that would be your plan afterwards,” she asked, “become a chief?”