Chapter 62: Gambling With A Goddess

Lucien grins, straightening up properly. "That’s all I ever wanted from you." He admits. Then he gives her a slow, appreciative look up and down. "Well. All I want for now, anyway."

She laughs despite herself, the sound rolling low through her chest, and something in it makes the surrounding trees seem to lean in a little closer to listen, branches creaking faintly overhead like the whole forest is eavesdropping.

He drops into the grass cross-legged without further ceremony, looking up at her, and gestures for her to join him with an easy wave of one hand.

She sinks down opposite him, folding her massive frame into the small clearing with an ease that seems entirely at odds with her size, claws sinking harmlessly into the soft earth beneath her as she settles, still amused, still watching him, deciding whether he might be night’s dinner or entertainment.

The moonlight catches along the edges of her fur, silvering it faintly at the tips, and for a moment the whole scene looks less like a business meeting and more like something out of an old, half-forgotten myth. The exact kind mortals tell their children right before warning them never to wander this deep into the woods alone, under any circumstances.

"As a businessman," he says, settling into the familiar rhythm of a pitch, "my job is understanding a client’s actual needs. Yours seem fairly simple, on the surface. Hunting. Protecting your territory."

She nods slowly, watching him.

"I can offer you more than that."

She squints, clearly skeptical.

"Prey." he says, leaning forward now, warming into it properly. "New. Fresh. Living things you’ve never seen, never tasted, never smelled before in your life. Things that would never find their way here on their own, not in a thousand years." His hands start sketching shapes in the air the way they always do mid-pitch, business instincts kicking in fully now, regardless of the fact that he is, technically, still negotiating for his own continued existence. "I’m building a trade route from the Ashlands into the continent proper, straight through your domain. Once it’s running properly, it brings new life pouring through this whole region. Caravans, livestock, traders, and everything that follows a healthy economy the way flies follow honey. I’ll personally make sure the best of it, the most interesting of it, the rarest of it, comes your way first, before anyone else even gets a look. I’ll flood your lands with things you didn’t even know existed, if that’s genuinely what you want."

"And if it isn’t what I want?" she asks, watching him closely.

"Then I stop. Immediately, no argument." He shrugs, easy and genuine. "This only works if you’re actually happy with the arrangement, long term. A client who resents the deal isn’t really a client at all. Just a future problem, waiting to happen."

She raises a brow at that, genuinely interested now, leaning forward slightly herself. "Go on, then."

"All I ask in return is passage. Permission to move goods through your lands, build whatever infrastructure’s needed to support it properly. Full oversight stays with you the entire time. Final say on everything built here, every road, every waystation, every single stake driven into your soil without exception. I handle security, keep order, make sure the whole operation runs smooth enough that nobody so much as trims a branch without your explicit blessing first. You get a busier forest and a say in every stick of it. I get a functioning trade route. Everybody eats, one way or another."

She considers it for a long moment, grin spreading slow across her muzzle, one claw tapping thoughtfully against her own thigh as she carefully considers. "I like that. Nobody’s ever actually offered me a partnership before. Usually it’s tribute. Offerings left at the treeline, whole villages hoping I’ll simply leave them alone for another season if they’re generous enough."

"Offerings are inefficient," Lucien says, shaking his head slightly. "No feedback loop. No real growth built into the arrangement. You deserve considerably better than table scraps left out for you like you’re some kind of stray cat to be appeased."

"Careful." she says, amused, watching him with fresh interest now. "Starting to sound like you actually respect me."

"I respect anyone who could end me with a well-timed sneeze," he says easily. "Mostly, though, I respect a genuinely good business opportunity when I see one, and you happen to be sitting on an excellent one."

Reading his client the way he always does, instincts sharpening further, Lucien leans deeper into the pitch. "There’s more... we have dragons back in the Ashlands. Hydras. Basilisks. Things that crawled straight out of the void and never bothered getting a proper name, because nobody who ever saw one lived long enough afterward to ask what to call it."

Her eyes gleam sharply at that, pupils narrowing to hungry slits, and she shifts closer across the grass, fully invested now, tail flicking hard against the ground like a cat that’s just caught scent of something genuinely worth chasing.

"And if you agree right now," he adds, watching her reaction carefully, "I’ll grant you hunting rights across Ashland territory itself. As much as you want."

Her mouth falls open at that, ears pinning back flat in something caught between disbelief and raw, entirely unguarded want. "You’re serious?! I’ve dreamed of hunting the Ashlands for eons. The stories alone... beasts twice the size of anything found here, blood that actually burns, prey that fights back with real teeth instead of simply running the second they catch my scent on the wind." She catches herself mid-sentence, visibly composing her expression back into something more dignified. "I’d never dare risk the Void Mother’s wrath, though. She doesn’t share territory. Ever. Not with anyone, regardless of standing."

"Lucky for you," he says, smirking now, "she and I are very close."

"How close, exactly?"

"Intimately."

She squints hard at that, then bursts out laughing. "I can genuinely believe that, given what I’ve personally watched from you this past week alone."

His eyes widen, delighted by the admission. "And I haven’t even gotten to the friends-with-benefits clause yet, for the record."

She chuckles, and he extends a hand across the space between them. "Deal, then?"

"Sure..." she says, extending her own clawed hand to meet his, the two palms an almost comical mismatch in size against each other. "Why not."

Then she blurs, there one instant, entirely gone the next, and reappears directly in beside him before he’s even registered the movement properly, claws pressed flat to his throat now, voice dropping low and genuinely dangerous. "Deceive me, and I’ll devour you whole. The instant I catch even a hint of it, whatever the reason."

"Honestly..." he says, not flinching, "might be my preferred way to go now, after meeting you tonight."

She fights back a laugh. "Confident with your words, aren’t you?"

"Confident about a lot of things," he says. "Would genuinely love to show you, should the opportunity arise."

She bellows a full laugh, loud enough to send a nearby flock of night-birds scattering hard into the dark overhead. "You’re a madman. I love it, honestly." She pulls back slightly, tilting her head, sizing him up in a way that makes him distinctly, sharply aware of every inch of skin currently exposed to the cold night air. "But I’m not that easy to win over completely. Want to bed me? You’ll have to beat me first, fair and square."

"That sounds like a challenge."

"It sounds like your death."

"Then it’d be a worthy one, all things considered." Lucien smirks, eeys trailing tthe Beast Mother’s curves.

She grins wider still at that particular answer, something dangerous and genuinely delighted flickering behind her eyes now, like he’s just told her exactly the right thing without fully realizing it himself.

She rises to her full height in one smooth motion, rolling one shoulder, then the other, joints popping audibly in the quiet clearing, every motion deliberate and precise, the stretch of something that has never once, in its entire existence, needed to rush toward a fight.

"Most mortals," she says, watching him rise to meet her, "beg. Or run, more often than not. A rare few try to bargain their way out of it entirely... offer me gold, land, their firstborns, whatever they think a goddess might actually want in exchange for their life." She tilts her head, studying him properly now like a puzzle she’s only just realized might have considerably more pieces than she originally assumed. "You’re the first one who simply... agreed. Without hesitation."

"I’m an optimist." Lucien says, spreading his hands. "Also, statistically speaking, I’ve survived considerably worse odds than this just this month alone."

She cackles again, wiping away a tear, lifts him clean off the ground by the throat in one smooth motion, studies him a long, considering moment, claws pressing just short of actually breaking skin. He’s clearly suffering under the grip, air wheezing thin and ragged through his throat, and him smiling anyway, like the discomfort is simply the ordinary cost of doing business at this particular level.

Something almost fond crosses her face at the sight of him.

She pulls him in close and kisses him.

Long, wet, devastating, the kind of kiss that seems to reach straight past his mouth and rearrange something fundamental behind his ribs entirely.

Her claws still resting light against his throat the whole time, a quiet reminder threaded through the sudden, violent affection that she could end this, and him, in the very same motion if she felt like it.

He kisses back anyway, entirely too enthusiastic for a man technically still being held aloft by the neck at the time.

She releases him at last, and his whole face lights up in response, eyes practically glowing, knees gone visibly unsteady beneath him.

"Is it normal to feel like the sun just exploded directly inside my brain right now?"

She shakes her head, laughing freely now. And then, without a shred of warning, drops him and drives a fist straight into his chest before he even fully touches the ground.

The blow catches him mid-fall, full force behind it, and launches him clean across the entire clearing at a speed that turns the surrounding trees into a single smeared blur of green and black.

He tears a long, smoking trench through the earth as he skids, bounces once, twice, limbs flailing uselessly against the sheer momentum, and finally slams hard into the trunk of a waiting tree at the far edge, bark splintering outward around the point of impact in a wide spray of shredded wood and torn leaves.

He coughs once, and clearing goes quiet again after that, save for the last few leaves drifting slowly down for trees.