The Morning
The cellar always wakes before I do. The sandstone walls breathe cold in long, slow draughts, and the dark presses its fingers against my ears until they twitch. My tail unfurls first, stretching along the inside of the deer leather bed roll, brushing against Masters thigh like it’s confirming that he is still exactly where I LEFT HIM. Only then do my eyes slit open, blue catching the yellow flicker of the single lantern hanging from its nail.
The whole place smells of dust and old barley sacks and the faintest trace of iron from the tools stacked against the wall, but underneath all that is him. Warm. Steady. MINE. His breath rises against my collarbone in soft pulses, each one a territorial marker that I drink in with a slow, wicked curl of my lips.
I don’t move at first. I lie there in the same roll we slid into, pressed so close I can feel every shift of his ribs. My ears give tiny, instinctive flicks, adjusting to the quiet above the stone ceiling. Gresha’s gravelly muttering leaks through the boards somewhere above. The Blackfang grumble like restless mongrels. Tamsin is gone off to whatever corner she thinks is safe from me. SHE IS WRONG, but that is her problem.
Down here, though, there's only the lantern’s heartbeat and Masters sleeping warmth, and me curled around him like something dangerous pretending to be harmless.
My tail coils tighter around his leg, possessive even in the half-glow. The moment I feel the psychic hum, the soft, invisible thread that ties me to him, settled and unbroken at ten feet or less, my nerves loosen. I nestle my face against his throat with a soft laugh that never reaches sanity. The laugh is just for me, because this is my favourite moment: when his not awake yet, not thinking, not guarded. When the world hasn’t touched him, and I get him first.
My claws slide lightly against the leather bed roll, not digging in, just marking proximity. The lantern sputters as if it fears me. Good. It should.
I shift my leg over his, drawing us closer until the roll becomes a cocoon that we made together instead of a blanket someone stitched. I feel the rise of his chest again, the soft exhale against my cheek, and something warm and wicked stirs in my ribs.
I whisper against his skin, barely a breath, but sharp as a blade in intent.
MINE
My ears fold back in a slow, pleased motion as I feel him stir the tiniest bit. My tail tightens again, a warning to everything outside these walls that he belong here in my arms until I decide otherwise. The cellar listens. The stone listens. Even his heartbeat listens.
I stay there, wrapped around him like a jealous shadow, waiting for his eyes to open so I can be the first thing they see.
The moment his eyelid snaps open, it is like a blade flashing in the dark. One sharp gleam of awareness, cutting through the cellar gloom. I feel it before I fully see it, the shift of his breathing, the pulse flicking faster under his throat where my cheek rests.
My tail is coiled tight around his leg, far too tight to pretend innocence, muscles flexed with that instinctive morning possessiveness I never bother to hide. His mutter brushes past my ear in a low, rough sound, something about my tail, about how constricting it is, and the corner of my mouth curves in a slow, wicked grin.
My ears dip and twitch, alert and triumphant in the same motion, catching every sound that leaves him. The lantern trembles on its hook as if it understands the change in the air: he is awake, and I am already wrapped around him like a snare pulled taut.
I lift my head just enough to look at him properly. His eye is open now, the pale light catching in it, sharp and thoughtful even in the first breath of waking. I drink it in greedily. My fingers slide along his side beneath the bed roll, tracing the warmth I nearly lost to sleep. The roll pulls tighter around us as I curl in, half a stretch, half a claim.
His eye. His breath. His movement. Every tiny shift belongs to ME in this moment.
A soft, breathy laugh spills out of my throat, cracked at the edges the way dawn laughter always is for me, manic and delighted. My tail tightens another inch without my permission, clutching his leg as if I’m afraid he’ll vanish into the stone if I loosen even once.
“His eye opens like he’s sensing danger,” I murmur, brushing my nose against his jaw, voice low and greedy. “And the first thing he notices is how tight I’m holding him.”
My claws graze the leather bed roll again, a restless, territorial scratch. Above us, the footsteps of Blackfang shift, restless in their own morning fog. Tamsin is nowhere nearby, good. Gresha and her dogs can wait.
Down here, the cellar is cold stone and lamplight, but he is warm beside me. The bond hums steady. My tail refuses to let go. I breathe against his skin, savouring the way he wakes, the way he focuses, the way I am the first thing he sees in the half light. The only thing that deserves to be here with him before the world intrudes.
I tighten my hold and whisper a single, quiet truth into the small space between us, fanged with devotion. “He is awake, and he is mine.”
His voice hits me before the stretch does, that low morning roughness brushing along my ears and making them twitch sharply. “Nice to see you as well Kitten,” he says, and I watch his gaze settle on me with that maddening calm logic he uses like a shield.
His eye opens fully this time, really looking at me, and my tail coils tighter around his leg as if defying his tone on instinct. Then he says it, that dry, factual nonsense only he could dare to use right now.
“So are you going to get off me? Cat girls do need four thousand calories a day and Alderians only need two thousand which means… oh, you must be hungry.”
He says it like he is lecturing a scholar’s hall, not pinned beneath a snarling, clingy creature in a half lit cellar with her arms wrapped around him like rope.
Inside my head, I bare my teeth. My master speaks in facts because he believes the world will obey him if he names its laws out loud. Maybe he is right. Maybe that is why I cling to him so tightly in the first place.
But out loud, all I let slip is a cracked laugh, sharp, high, delighted, the kind that makes the lantern flame tremble. “You think hunger is why I am on you,” I purr against his throat, my tail tightening defiantly instead of loosening. “You… logic dripping out of your mouth like that is adorable.”
My ears flick back and forward, restless, territorial, drinking in every sound he makes. I don’t move off him. I don’t even pretend to consider it. I shift instead, sliding my leg over his hip to hold him in place, pinning the bed roll around us like a cage I refuse to unlock.
Hunger. Yes. Every cat girl needs it. That constant burn of calories and instinct. But this… this is something else entirely. If he truly believes nutrition is the reason I’m wrapped around him like a vice, then he understands nothing about the way my heart claws at my ribs for him.
I let my forehead rest against his, eyes wide and bright in the lantern glow. “You are lucky,” I whisper, voice trembling with mania and devotion in equal parts. “Because I am hungry… but not for food.”
The lantern flickers across his face as he speaks, that maddening calm slicing straight through the storm in my chest.
“Either way we have a long day ahead now don’t we. For one we have to debrief the Black Fang… or have you forgotten we’re marching down to the Fighters Guild tonight and taking the bounties on their heads?”
His voice carries the weight of plans and consequences and all the grim inevitability that comes with marching toward trouble on purpose. It is exactly the kind of sentence my master would choose first thing after waking. Logic dropped like a stone into my lap. Reality tugging at the edges of the bed roll that still wraps around us.
My ears flatten then flick up again, agitation rolling through me in a thin electric line. Forgotten? Forgotten? My claws flex against the leather bed roll, not digging, just tasting the idea of defiance.
Inside my skull, where only I hear it, the thought sharpens: My master is speaking of work before he’s even sat up. Work. Plans. Others. Those Black Fang mutts upstairs breathing our air like they matter. It makes something cold stir in my ribs for a heartbeat.
But out loud, the words come out low and rough, threaded with that manic affection that never quite softens. “I did not forget,” I growl softly against his jaw, tail tightening around his leg like a rope marking territory rather than restraint. “I remember everything when it comes to you. Even the things I wish I could tear apart just to keep you to myself.”
I shift, not getting off him, just moving enough to glare up into his eye that’s still open on me, catching every detail. My breath brushes his cheek as I speak, the cellar’s stale air bending around us.
“The Black Fang can grovel for their debriefing when you’re ready,” I say, voice dripping with a smug, dangerous amusement. “And the Fighters Guild will still be there tonight with their pretty little bounties taped to their skulls.”
My ears give a twitch, sharp and feline, at the thought of marching down to a building full of people who think they’re strong enough to put prices on others.
I nuzzle closer, refusing to move away from him whilst just inhaling his scent madly the way a cat does in remembrance.
“You set the pace,” I murmur, tail curling tighter still. “I follow. But do not pretend I am letting you go just because the day is long.”
His voice strikes first, that soft command sharpened with ownership. “Good girl.” The words drop straight down my spine, hot and electric, and before I can even think of snarling or purring or biting, he pulls me into a tight embrace.
My master’s arms lock around me, and the world collapses to nothing but the heat of him, the stone cellar, the lantern light trembling at the edges of our shape.
I sink into him immediately. No hesitation. My nose buries itself deep against the side of his neck because that is where his scent burns warmest, where the bond hums loudest, where I can drown in him before morning steals him away. My ears flatten, not in fear, but in desperate, greedy relief, and my tail coils tight around his leg until it aches.
He holds me..., just for a few seconds longer..., the moments stretching slow and heavy. Those are the seconds I hoard.
“We’ll be back in Mire Point eventually,” he says, voice calm in a way that mocks the chaos inside me. My claws curl faintly as I breathe him in again, committing every heartbeat to memory.
“Alas the world doesn’t sleep nor stand still.”
Then his arms loosen. Reality pulls at him. The day begins its assault.
When he stands, the sudden loss of him is like cold water being thrown over my nerves. The bond remains solid but the space between us widens enough to make something sharp twist in my chest. I hiss under my breath as I peel myself off him, tail lashing once behind me.
I drop onto all fours the instant I leave the bed roll. My palms hit the sandstone floor with a soft, predatory thud, ears twitching violently as I try to steady the instinct screaming at me to cling harder. Shaking myself out is the only thing that stops me from lunging right back into his arms. Fur, cloak, muscles, all snapping back into readiness.
Dust scatters. The lantern quivers. My claws scrape once against the floor.
Then I rise, slowly, spine unfolding, tail swaying low and tense. A snarl curls out of my throat, not at him, but at the world that dared interrupt the warmth he gave me. The day may not sleep. But neither do I when he leaves my arms.
The ladder then groans as he climbs first, every rung creaking under the weight of purpose he carries like a second spine. I follow instantly, claws clicking against the wood, tail brushing the rail as if warning the world above that I am coming whether it wants me or not.
The cellar hatch pushes open and the inn’s muted morning gloom spills around us. Heat. Dust. The gentle stink of last night’s ale. And standing on either side of the room like mismatched bookends are two Black Fang guards.
I step up beside him, ears high, tail swaying in a slow, dangerous crescent as I take them in. Hard leather gambesons bulk their torsos, scarred and overused. Over that sits copper iron plate, the distinct Oakwood Vanguard alloy: tougher than plain iron, sharper, lighter, harder to crack, but still a breath beneath steel.
No smith outside the Vanguard knows the recipe. They wear it like a badge, though they aren’t worthy of such craftsmanship. Their copper iron barbutes glint in the lanternlight, slit visors hiding whatever stupidity lives behind their eyes.
Each one carries a copper iron heater shield strapped to their arm, polished enough to show they know Master will inspect them. Short bows hang at their hips and copper iron short swords sit in plain scabbards, eager for mistakes.
Their gear is good. Not elegant like steel, not noble, but solid, practical, brutal, the kind of kit meant for men who expect trouble and rarely win clean.
As soon as I clear the top of the ladder, both guards adjust their stance. They glance at my master first, because only idiots wouldn’t. But then their gazes twitch to me, and that’s when I roll for perception, senses sharpened by jealousy and the need to assess threat.
Perception check: 11 + 5 = 16
What I see in their stance makes my tail lash once, slow and slicing.
Neither one looks at him with challenge or arrogance. Good. They’ve learned something. But one of them lets his gaze hang on me half a heartbeat too long, uncertain, wary, maybe remembering stories of what I’ve done in this very region. The memory flickers across his posture like a shadow.
I move closer to my master, brushing against his side deliberately, staking the claim as openly as I breathe. My tail curls around his leg again, not tight, just present, a coil of living warning.
My voice comes out soft and cold, the tone that makes grown men reconsider their life choices. "They stand straight today,” I whisper, eyes narrowing. Both men stiffen at my words. Good. Let them.
I lean in just enough for him alone to hear the purr threading through the growl. “You lead. I watch. And they obey.”
The common room hits us with its stale warmth as we step out from the cellar hatch. Early light pushes through shutter slats like pale knives, cutting faint shapes across the long benches and rough wooden tables we start dragging into position. My master moves first, deliberate and methodical, and I follow at his shoulder, tail brushing his cloak, ears flicking to track every sound.
The innkeeper shuffles over, half awake, muttering his apologies as he sets down the same miserly spread as last night. Boiled water in cracked clay mugs. Hardened bread that could double as ammunition. Salt fish that smells like a drowned regret. Dried meat and fish jerky so brittle it snaps like bone.
My nose wrinkles, ears flattening for a heartbeat. Grey Hollow prides itself on being a military shipyard, yet somehow it never has actual food. Only rations pretending to be meals.
The sound of heavy, goblin boots stomping across floorboards announces the arrival before the smell does. Gresha Ironfang crashes down onto the bench opposite us like she’s trying to break it on principle.
Her Steel Plate clatters, studs knocking together with the graceless confidence of someone who has survived too much to care about manners. She looks like a boulder carved into goblin shape: scarred, solid, utterly unrefined.
Her yellow eyes flick from my master to me, lingering on me with the wary distance of someone who has watched me explode before and expects the same any moment. She grunts. “Mornin’. If we’re callin’ this mornin’.”
My ears twitch, unimpressed by her volume at this hour. I slide closer to my master on the bench, tail automatically curling around his leg, a soft coil that announces territory without words.
“Gresha,” he says, calm, controlled.
She nods back, all rigid deference. “We ready for debriefin’? The lads’re nervy. Word’s out the Fighters Guild wants any Vanguard walkin’ their street to kneel on command. Heard they been roughin’ up a few members for fun.”
My tail snaps once behind me, a sharp whip of irritation. The innkeeper flinches at the noise. I fix Gresha with a stare, pupils narrowing. “If the Fighters Guild thinks my master kneels, they’ve mistaken this vassaldom for a circus. Don't they know who HE IS ?”
Gresha forces a tight grin, tusks flashing. “Aye. Thought you’d say somethin’ like that.” She grabs a strip of jerky, bites into it, winces at the salt, then powers through because she’s too stubborn to show weakness. “Black Fang’re outside on standby. Ten of ‘em. Heavy bows n’ copper iron sharp. They’ll march behind you when you give the word.”
My master nods, thoughtful, weighing information like stones in his palm. He always thinks three moves ahead. Gresha respects that. I adore it. Others fear it.
The goblin glances at me again, more careful this time. “You… uh… slept alright?”
I tilt my head slowly. Very slowly... My ears rise, tail curling tighter around my master’s leg.“I slept exactly as I chose to,” I say, voice soft enough to be dangerous. “And no one disturbed us.”
Gresha straightens immediately. “Didn’t say they did.”
The tension hums for a breath, then my master shifts beside me, and the room recalibrates around him.
He speaks with that even tone that makes even my pulse steady. “Finish your meal, Captain. We’ve a debrief in ten minutes. Fighters Guild after dusk.”
Gresha nods sharply, scraping back her bench. “Aye, my lord.” She then stomps off to bark at her Black Fang, and I watch her go with half lidded eyes, tail curling protectively, possessively, around the only person who matters.
The world is moving again. Plans forming. Enemies bracing. And I sit at his side, ready for whatever foolishness dares to meet us next.
The common room settles around us the moment Gresha’s boots stomp out of earshot. The Black Fang muttering fades through the walls, the innkeeper goes back to pretending he’s invisible, and the whole world seems to slide a little farther away.
For the first time since waking, there is quiet.
I sit close to him on the long bench, tail curled around his leg in a loose, slow loop instead of a defensive knot. My ears ease back into a relaxed angle, twitching only when the inn’s old beams creak or when a mug thuds somewhere out of sight.
The boiled water steams faintly between our hands. It smells like nothing. Like morning pretending to be gentle. He lifts his mug first, steady and methodical, the way he does everything. I mirror him, imprinting, letting the warmth seep into my fingers. I take a slow sip, ears lowering in contentment as the heat rolls down my throat.
The hard bread cracks when he breaks it. I watch the crumbs scatter across the table, more fascinated with the small movement than the food itself. I tear off my piece with quiet defiance and chew through the stiffness, eyes drifting to him every other heartbeat just to confirm he hasn’t moved an inch away.
No words. No orders. No expectations. Just a rare stillness settling between us like a soft blanket nobody else gets to see.
My master sits in that calm way of his, posture grounded, mind always active behind those eyes even when he pretends to rest them. I love the stillness because I know how deliberate it is. He chooses calm the way some warriors choose weapons.
I lean just slightly into him, shoulder brushing his arm, not pushing, not demanding. Just being there, breathing the same warm, dusty inn air. My tail sways in a slow, rhythmic pattern, the kind that would be a purr if it had sound.
I take another sip from my mug. The steam coils under my nose. My ears tilt, listening to the low quiet around us. No Black Fang barking orders. No guild threats echoing in alleyways. No world trying to pull him away.
Just him. And me. And the faint scent of dried fish. He looks ahead, thoughtful. I watch the line of his jaw, the morning light catching against his cheek, the slight redness above his brow that always shows when he’s been thinking too hard even in his sleep.
There is calmness here. A real one. The kind that makes my muscles unwind without me realising it. The kind that makes the bond hum soft as a heartbeat.
I rest my hand on the table, close to his, letting the warmth of his presence bleed into my skin. For a few breaths, nothing happens. And it is perfect.
Soon after Master heads towards the common room of the inn.
The common room holds its breath the moment he steps forward. Ten Black Fang goblins stand in a jagged half circle, armour clattering, eyes fixed on him like they’re staring at the edge of a storm. I stay at his side, tail brushing his leg, ears angled forward to drink in every word he shapes.
He doesn’t rush it. He lets the silence settle like dust. Then he begins.
“At dusk,” he says, voice low, calm and cold enough to cut stone, “we walk to the Fighters Guild.”
The goblins straighten. The air tightens.
“They're enemies of Clan Bogclutch, our clan”
His gaze sweeps over the room, slow, sharp, unforgiving. Every goblin flinches beneath it, even if they won’t admit it later.
“They think no one will challenge them. They think no one is coming. They think people like us bow, or kneel, or look away like every other upper-class pathetic authority”
The silence grows heavier. I can feel their pulses in the air.
His voice drops, quiet enough that the room leans in to catch the words.
“They’re wrong.”
He steps forward a single pace and the goblins recoil like the air itself moved.
“At dusk, we don’t negotiate. We don’t posture. We don’t give them the option to run screaming to their Guildmaster. We walk into their headquarters and we butcher every last one of them.”
A breath. A heartbeat. The weight of promise.
“No survivors. No second chances. We end their rot tonight.”
The goblins vibrate with barely contained hunger. Some grip their shields tighter. One whispers something like a prayer. My tail curls, proud and possessive, as my master’s voice drops to a measured, noir drawl.
“And when it’s done… when their arrogance is bleeding in the street… you ten get your reward.”
The goblins blink, stunned. Rewards are not expected. Not for them.
“When we return to Mire Point,” he continues, “you rotate out for a full week. Rest. Freedom. Leisure.”
Now they stare like he’s rewriting the laws of the world.
“You’ll get time in the Fur Cat District. The parks. The arena. The Goblin Cult Temple. Even the Alderian theatre, if you want to pretend to be civilised for an evening.”
A ripple of laughter bursts from them, rough and raw.
“You earned it,” he says simply. “And when you come back, another ten will take your place. Every Black Fang gets their due.”
The goblins slam their fists over their hearts, armour clanging like war drums.
“For the Master of Mire!” they roar.
The inn shakes with the force of it, dust falling from the rafters.
I stand at his side, tail winding around his leg, watching them tremble with devotion he forged with blood and clarity.
My voice slips out in a low, razor edged purr.
“They’ll follow you into fire,” I whisper. “And tonight… they’ll light it.”
His hand closes around me suddenly, forceful, commanding, and every muscle inside me snaps tight in an instant. My tail coils, my ears shoot up, and a sound escapes my throat before I can stop it, a sharp, startled, instinctive chirr that any cat makes when grabbed by the scruff of their world.
“Of course my dear kitten,” he says, voice low enough to drag a shiver through my spine, “but for now let’s rest. There’s plenty more to do before dusk.”
Then his fingers slide behind my ears.
The reaction is immediate, primal, uncontrollable. My knees soften, my breath stutters, and my ears fold into his hand like they were engineered for his touch alone. A sound bubbles up, a deep rolling purr that vibrates through my ribs and makes my tail lash in spirals. Just pure, raw instinct flooding every nerve.
Pampered. Claimed. Spoilt utterly rotten and knowing it.
My head tilts sharply into his fingers, involuntary, desperate, needy in the way only a creature born to bond can be. The goblins watch with the same respectful fear they would show a predator fed by its master, half awe, half understanding that if he stopped scratching, I might tear the walls down out of frustration.
He turns back to them as I settle against his side, still purring, still unable to stop the small, involuntary twitching of my ears.
His voice returns to that dry, noir tone, the one that sounds like ash and authority.
“For now, rest,” he tells them. “Make sure you’re all ready for tonight. And when we finish, we leave this rotten town and head back to Clan lands.”
The Black Fang erupt in a chorus of affirmations, fists to hearts, armour clattering like ritual thunder. They don’t laugh. They don’t smirk. They don’t chatter. Because they know what they saw wasn’t weakness.
It was ownership.
It was loyalty.
It was the bond that terrifies the world more than blades or numbers.
My purring grows softer, more controlled, but still present as I press my forehead lightly against his shoulder, ears still trapped under his fingers, body humming with warm, animal satisfaction. Even in silence, even in calm, every instinct in me curls around him, protective, content, tethered.
Tonight will be violence. A cleansing. A message.
But right now, in this dim common room filled with goblins and dust and cheap rations, he scratches behind my ears and the world dares not move without his permission.
