The Kitty Cat's Mates (ManxMen)

13 | A Hag Dressed in Porcelain Skin

I just love Lullaby of Woe composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz from The Witcher. Go ahead and check it out.

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"But one soul lies anxious, wide awake," the woman sang, dressed in nothing but her bare skin as she sat in front of her dresser, "fearing all manner of ghouls, hags and wraiths."

She was beautiful with porcelain skin and red lips, baying with elegance and brilliant charm. She continued to hum, combing through her flowing black hair while staring back at the leathery grey hag in front of the mirror.

Then there was a knock on the door. She stopped.

"... Who dares interrupt me?"

"L-lady Beatrice, I have come to converse with you regarding an important matter," said the man on the other side of the door.

Beatrice proceeded to comb her hair. "If it isn't that important, then let me be. Or I shall have your foul blood feasted on this very night if you shall have made a mistake, Ratt," she spat.

"I-it's about the ghouls," the man, she called Ratt, stuttered.

Beatrice placed her comb down. "What about them?"

"There seems to have been a problem, madam."

She slightly sighed, letting in a momentary pause before she waved a hand in the air. There was a small breeze that blew into her room.

Beatrice brought her tender fingers on the tanned and black-haired man's cheek, who stood beside her with his black eyes as blank as space.

"Clothe me," she uttered.

The man robotically moved to take a silky red robe. He then slipped it into her slender figure and planted a pair of shoes on her feet.

Beatrice tied the robe's knot, not failing to chuckle as she tried to tease the indifferent man. "Always so serious," she said, wrapping her arms around him before tiptoeing to place her lips into his. The man did nothing as her mouth lowered out of his lips. She was sexual with her actions. That was until she reached for the man's throat—before her teeth dug deep into his neck and as she sucked all essence out of him.

The strange man fell on the floor, face, and eyes as indifferent and lifeless as it was before.

Beatrice exhaled. "Such a bore," she said, as she stared apathetically at the corpse of the person who she had just held not even a day ago.

Beatrice then sauntered towards the door. She opened it and stared at the shorter man with the huge front teeth and rodent ears. "Lead me to Fargus," she said.

The man nodded, scant feet bobbing and scurrying to keep up with the woman. They walked through the long halls, down the spiraling staircase, and as they did, so grew the loud noises of tortured screaming and spine-chilling roars. Metals clanked, and the sound of beating hammer echoed through the walls.

They headed towards the deep dungeons of their cavern, passing through rows of iron bars that kept shivering and trembling men and women covered in grime and sweat. She creased her nose against the odor.

"What happened?" she asked, almost as if she was about to kill. Her eyes stuck onto the back of a specific man.

The man snapped around, eyes bulging out of his skull. "M-m-madam! T-the, uh, the—" his trembling worsened.

"Has your tongue twisted into a knot that you have forgotten how to speak clearly?"

"O-o-one of the beast escaped, m-my lady," the man immediately answered.