Chapter 65: Signed in Blood

Dawn is still a few hours off yet, the clearing lit only by moonlight and the faint, lingering shimmer of whatever old magic keeps this particular stretch of forest from ever going fully dark.

The Beast Mother sits cross-legged in the middle of it, tearing steadily into something raw and freshly killed, blood dripping in a steady rhythm off both claws and fangs, painting small dark constellations across the grass beneath her with every bite.

"You’re taking forever." She says around a full mouthful, not bothering to look up. "I already hunted two shadow-buck out of sheer boredom while you scratched around over there like a nervous mole."

She flicks her wrist without further warning, and an entire deer carcass sails cleanly across the clearing, landing with a wet, heavy thud at Lucien’s feet.

He winces down at it, nudging the thing with one boot, taking in the sheer, glistening scale of it. Massive antlers still fully attached, one leg bent at an angle nature never remotely intended.

"Thank you for the meal. Very thoughtful of you. I’m actually watching my weight at the moment, though, appearances matter, in my particular line of work, but I happen to have a friend who makes absolutely sure nothing ever goes to waste."

"The elder dragon?" she asks.

"The elder dragon." he confirms.

She chuckles, low and rumbling, licking a fresh smear of blood off one claw with obvious relish. "I was planning to hunt him myself, you know. After I killed you. Been ages since I’ve had a proper fight with something closer to my own size for once."

"Val might actually welcome the challenge," Lucien says, not looking up from his work at the moment. "He’s been unbearably restless ever since we left the Ashlands. All that pent-up hoarding energy, and nowhere decent to spend it."

Her grin widens at that, fangs catching the pale moonlight. "Good. You’ll arrange it, then. I want to fight him properly before you leave my lands."

"I’ll... see what I can do about that." Lucien gulps.

She snaps a femur clean between her jaws, sucking the marrow out with enthusiasm, and she says, almost as an afterthought, "I know you won’t dissapoint me."

"O-Of course." Lucien replies, voice squeaking only slightly.

He steps back at last from the massive fallen log he’s been hunched over for the better part of an hour now, wiping bone-dust and splinters off both palms, surveying his own work with the critical eye of a man reviewing a first draft he’s not even remotely proud of but has genuinely run out of time to properly improve.

His handwriting, if carved letters this size can even properly be called handwriting at all, sprawls unevenly down the length of the trunk, cramped in places where he’d clearly run out of usable wood and had to compress an entire clause down into half the space it honestly deserved.

"Not my finest work," he admits, stepping back further to take in the full, embarrasing scope of it. "My old lawyers back on Earth would have skinned me alive for this. But it’s the very best I can manage, given the severe, frankly appalling lack of office supplies in your domain. No parchment anywhere. No ink to speak of. Just a log, a bone, and my own unwavering commitment to proper contract law."

He hefts the entire log upright with a small grunt of effort, his rebuilt body handling the considerable weight easily enough now, and spikes it deep into the soft earth like a monument to the whole meeting.

The Beast Mother pads over at her own pace, sniffing at it once out of pure habit before actually bothering to read it properly, studying the crude lettering scratched into the wood with an old, yellowed bone stylus.

On it, rendered in his very best approximation of formal legal language, sits the complete trade agreement between the Ashlands and the Tribelands, clause by careful clause.

Lucien walks her through it patiently, one pointer finger tracing each carved line in turn.

"Ashlands gets access to specific resources and trade routes through tribeland territory, as discussed. In return, the tribelands gain access to Ashland resources in kind, plus a fair cut of all profit generated through the new routes going forward."

She waves a clawed hand at that, entirely uninterested in the finer details. "Don’t care about any of that."

"Right." He shifts down to the second half of the log instead, the section carved noticeably deeper than the rest, like he’d taken considerably more care over it. "This part’s yours. In exchange for granting passage through your lands, you get hunting access to Ashland territory at agreed-upon times, no restrictions beyond that. And the Ashlands supplies you, in turn, with unique, genuinely interesting prey pulled from across the entire continent. Creatures that would otherwise never once set foot anywhere near here in a thousand years."

She reads it over slowly, nodding to herself with each line, satisfaction settling steadily across her whole expression as she goes. "I like it."

"Then you just need to sign here." He points to the bottom of the log with real ceremony. "And here."

He offers her the bone stylus with both hands. "Admittedly a little tricky to actually write with."

She looks at it for a moment, then looks at her own claws, still stained dark from breakfast. She simply presses one massive, blood-soaked hand flat against the wood instead, leaving behind a perfect, gruesome handprint stamped directly beneath the contract terms, five long claw-marks trailing off the very edge of the log entirely from the pressure of it.

"Hm, that works too," Lucien says, unbothered by the method, already mentally cataloguing it as the single most memorable signature he’s ever personally collected, and he’s closed deals with actual royalty before. "Technically more binding than ink, if you really think about it properly. Much harder to forge, for sure."

She tilts her head at the log, studying it once more.

"Where’s the other clause? The friends-with-benefits one you mentioned."

"That one," Lucien says, smooth as silk, "is more of a... private agreement between stakeholders, strictly speaking. Separate documentation entirely. Off the record."

She laughs at that, low and knowing, and steps toward him with slow, deliberate purpose, wiping the back of one hand across her mouth as she goes, smearing fresh blood in a long streak across one cheek in the process without seeming to notice or care.

"I’d like to discuss that particular clause." She purrs, "Right now, in fact."

Lucien looks her up and down properly, thoroughly, appreciatively, entirely undisturbed by the blood streaked across her face or the very real, ongoing possibility that this whole conversation ends with him as the next carcass laid out in this clearing.

"It’s really rather simple, at its core," he says. "As one of my close friends, I offer all of myself toward ensuring you’re happy. Content. I can’t promise to solve every single problem you might have." A slow, easy grin spreading. "But I am very, verygood at handling a select few of them. Personally."

Her tail swishes once, sharp against the grass, a fresh glint sparking behind those black-hole eyes, chest puffing out just slightly with something that might actually be anticipation now.

She begins circling him slowly, the same way she did at the very start of the night, except the hunger threaded through it now has shifted entirely. No longer the patient calculation of something deciding whether or not to kill him outright, and considerably more dangerous in an entirely different, more interesting way.

She twirls her tongue slowly around one fang, considering him properly. "Does the Void Mother receive the benefits of your friendship as well, out of curiosity?"

"She does," he says easily. A little smugness edging on his lips. "Taken advantage of it more than a few times now, actually. Seems quite satisfied with the overall service, from what I can tell."

"How exactly would you know that?"

He smirks at the question, entirely too proud of himself already. "Well... the screaming my name part tends to be a fairly reliable indicator, in my personal experience."

She chuckles at that, rolling her neck with an soft crack, blood-flecked fangs bared now in something caught neatly between a smile and an outright warning.

"In that case," she says, voice dropping, "I’d like a taste of those benefits myself. Right now, if you’re willing."

Lucien beams at the offer. "That sounds absolutely lovely. If you happen to have a river or a waterfall nearby to clean up first, I’d genuinely love to—"

She pounces before he can finish the sentence.

The impact hits him like an actual battering ram, driving him flat onto his back in an instant, the two of them crashing together into the dirt in an explosion of torn grass, dead leaves, and displaced earth flying out in every direction at once, a small fresh crater forming beneath them both from the sheer force of her landing alone.

The log contract wobbles dangerously in its socket a few feet away, entirely forgotten now by both parties, negotiations having clearly moved on to considerably more physical terms.

He huffs the air back into his lungs in ragged gasps, wheezing out a laugh anyway despite it.

"Playing dirty, are we. I can do dirty."

"I also like to play rough."

Her claws extend slowly, and she drags one down the center of his chest in a single, lazy stroke, leaving a thin, stinging line in its wake across his skin.

He shudders hard, grinning up at her through the sensation, the thin sting already fading fast beneath the sheer novelty of it all.

"Lucky for you," he says, voice a little rough now, "the benefits include that too, as it happens. Full package. All the extras."

She bellows a laugh, the sound rolling out across the clearing. Her claws are still resting lightly against his chest, the thin line she’d drawn already healing dark against his skin, and she drags one fingertip slowly through it, almost thoughtful about the motion.

"Good. I want to know everything. Start to finish."