A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

After Emily's newest slave had changed course, Erik decided to ask about the state of the ship, "Is there anyone else onboard, Emily? Anything happen that I should know about?"

Still sulking a little from earlier, Emily shook her head and pointed nonchalantly to the captain, "This guy was the only one, and we had no problems with him."

She gained a malicious look in her eyes, "In fact, he tried to make sure Emma and I were alright when he saw us being escorted by two thuggish-looking vampires. Which was naturally the perfect moment to enslave him."

Erik chuckled and thought, 'I wonder what she'd be like if she didn't have a little sister to love' before asking about the vampires, "What's this about vampires?"

Waving her hand in dismissal and her voice dripping with disdain, she said, "Just some trash we used as temporary pack mules. We tossed them overboard after ensuring the ship was clear."

She giggled viciously, "I ordered them to swim to the bottom and wait for death."

Erik shook his head and chuckled at her actions. Yet, he did need her to remember who was in charge, "That's fine. Just remember to save the excessive cruelty for people that deserve it."

Emily scoffed, "And who determines whether they deserve it? You?"

He raised an eyebrow. It seemed Emily still didn't fully grasp the situation she was in now. "Of course me. After all, I am your master."

Anger flared in Emily's eyes when she heard what Erik referred to himself as "Fuck you! I refused that little bitch's offer of slavery! I am no one's slave!"

Erik didn't care about the disrespectful way she talked to him, but hearing her call Elora a bitch set him off. He knew Elora probably deserved to be called that and worse, but that didn't mean he would tolerate it.

Fury flashed across his face to match Emily's before he grabbed her by the throat and pushed her up against the wall in one quick move, too fast for Emily to react to. She gasped in surprise.

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Not letting her recover, Erik spoke with anger, "Listen up, Emily. I may have some sympathy in my heart for you and your sister, but Elora is my partner. My wife. My confidant. All that, more, and everything in between.

So if you dare to call her a bitch one more time, I won't hesitate to punish you. Severely. Understood?"

He didn't squeeze hard enough for Emily to actually lose any oxygen. Yet, he knew panic would still set in because, unfortunately for Emily, she would need to grow in power before aetherium would start reducing the need for oxygen as it did with food.

Only Runebound gained an increasingly reduced need for oxygen early on.

She still looked at him defiantly, however, "What the fuck are you doing! Let me go, you asshole!"

She tried to break free or cast magic, but the covenant wouldn't allow her to hurt the person she was supposed to serve. Only if he tried to do anything sexual would the covenant allow her to resist, but torturing or even killing her was fine.

Such was the danger of agreeing to a covenant without adequately considering the wording.

But despite being able to breathe relatively freely, Erik's mighty hand on her throat, the anger in his eyes, and her inability to do anything about it caused her defiance to slip away slowly.

When he didn't receive an answer, Erik narrowed his eyes and began squeezing a little, "I asked if you understood." Feeling his hand around her throat and realising he really could kill her if he wanted, she quickly nodded in a panic.

Seeing her react positively this time, Erik released her, and Emily sank to the floor while coughing a little. He crouched down and grabbed her chin, "I must admit to being impressed about your refusal to be enslaved and resisting your darkness alone instead.

But even if you are no slave, you are still a servant, according to our covenant. And that makes me your master.

You don't need to call me that, though. I'm not unreasonable. In fact, you can call and talk to me however you like. Just so long as you remember, I'm in charge and won't tolerate any disrespect towards Elora. Are we clear?"

Emily was still coughing while looking at him with various emotions: anger, fear, and embarrassment were there, but also something else.

Yet before he could think more about this last emotion, Emily interrupted his thoughts, "Yes, I understand…"

While still holding her chin and making her look into his eyes, he nodded, "Good girl. Serve me well, and I'll treat you the same."

He smirked, "Maybe you won't even want to leave me when these ten years are over."

Emily scoffed without hesitation as she scowled at him, "Fat chance of that."

Keeping the smirk on his face, Erik released her chin and stood up, "We'll see about that. Anyway, trying to learn how to sail this boat was a good instinct. Keep up the good work while I try to find out where your sister ran off to."

He turned around and left the cabin while Emily watched him leave with that same mix of emotions before she went back to learning about this boat. Only now, with much less enthusiasm, because she was ordered to, despite her original desire to do this.

As Erik walked, he thought about how lucky they were that Seraphina decided to help them in the end.

Not to mention the fact her information helped immensely with Katya; she had also told them that the second-rank guard that was permanently assigned to this boat had a problem with sneaking off to the whorehouses. Apparently, he was dissatisfied with his post.

According to Seraphina, the chances this guard was present on the ship during the day were minuscule, which was one of the main reasons they dared to take this boat.

While Emily probably would have been able to deal with this guard, it was uncertain how much of the boat would have been left afterwards.

He arrived at the yacht's main living room, complete with a bar, various sofas and a pool table. Once there, he found Emma sitting on a couch with a red face while staring at her feet. Clearly, she was still embarrassed about earlier.

Erik grinned and snuck closer to the cute girl. Lost in thoughts as she was, Emma didn't notice him until he crouched next to her and said, "What are you thinking about?"

She yelped, "Ah!" But quickly calmed down when she saw it was Erik, even though her face became even redder, "S- Sir, you startled me. About earlier, I- I'm so-"

But Erik stopped with a raised hand and smiled, "Don't worry about it, Emma. You know our covenant doesn't include sexual activity, right? I can never order you to have sex with me, and I wouldn't be interested in that either."

He may have been harsh to Emily just now, but there was no reason for him to be anything but kind to the cute Emma.

Emma nodded shyly, "I- I know, Sir."

Erik grinned, "Good!" Then he stood up and began walking away, "Now I need some rest. That fight took a lot out of me."

But before he could leave, Emma quickly said, "Wait!"

Erik raised an eyebrow and turned around. Seeing him wait, Emma continued, "Uhm, is Miss Elora alright?"

He couldn't help but smile at her question. Emma truly was a very kind girl. Most of the time, anyway. She seemed to have her own rules about who deserved her kindness, as Liam never got any of it. Not that that was surprising.

Seeing Emma was still waiting for an answer, Erik said, still smiling, "Don't worry, she's fine."

At the same time, he touched his connection with Elora and could feel it stretch across multiple kilometres. He wondered exactly how long it could stretch.

He knew it could stretch farther the stronger the connection was. Still, he wasn't sure what an average length was or how strong their connection was compared to other fairies and their protectors.

But he did know what would happen when the limit was reached.

*********

Meanwhile, Katya's helicopter continued its journey over the English Channel, the rhythmic thumping of the rotor blades cutting through the air. They had already been flying for over an hour and were now more than two hundred kilometres from London.

Katya was sitting in the pilot seat; Enzo acted as her co-pilot, and the back was filled with the rest. Elora sat in a corner, looking a little bored, while Seraphina sat beside her. Around Elora's wrist was a strange band that was supposed to disrupt her usage of aetherium.

She really wanted to experiment and break it open, but she was forced to curb her curiosity. These people probably wouldn't allow her to tinker with it.

She couldn't even inspect it magically because it actually did disrupt her aetherium flow!

These kinds of methods did exist on Söl and the rest of the universe, but finding them in a recently awakened world was surprising.