Chapter 12, A definitive meeting
I slinked into that wooden barn she dares to call a headquarters, my steps silent even on the creaking planks, my tail twitching behind me with the kind of tension that turns air into knives. The whole place smelled of old timber, ink, smoke, and Mireclaw’s perfume of ambition that made my fur bristle along my spine. She’d arranged the barn like some mock council chamber, crates stacked like thrones, maps pinned to beams, candles fighting against the dim.
My ears flicked as we entered, picking up every shifting board, every breath of the guards outside pretending they weren’t listening. She always keeps her little audience close. She likes being watched. It makes her feel important.
Master stepped in first, and I was already sliding behind him, tail wrapping around his hip with an instinct I’ve stopped pretending to control. I could feel the pulse of our bond like a hot wire under my ribs. I pressed closer, claws lightly brushing his belt as if to remind the room whose shadow I am.
She was waiting in the centre of the barn, hands clasped behind her back, posture straight, gaze sharp. Black cloak, cat ears perked, that ridiculous smug calm she uses like armour. My throat purred with that low, dangerous laugh before she even opened her mouth.
Perception check 13 +2 = 15.
The scent of the Crimson Swarm went into Black Fang and the flicker in her scent tells me she knows more than she’s ready to say. A little fear. A little excitement. A lot of calculation. My claws slid across the wooden floor as I circled around Master, stepping toward her with a slow sway of hips, tail curling like a serpent. My voice dropped into that soft edged sarcasm.
“So here we are again. Your little barn throne room.” I tilted my head, letting a manic smile stretch sharp. “You wanted Master to come crawling back to fulfil your precious deal. Push against Black Fang for you. Fight your war. Make you feel safe.”
Her ears twitched. I smelled the shift in her heartbeat.
Insight check 10 +7 = 17.
She’s not just wanting the push. She wants credibility. She wants the city to see Master taking her side. She wants proximity. Authority. Maybe even… the fantasy of a collar given by him. My tail snapped once, sharp enough to echo. I stepped right up to her, claws grazing the front of her table, eyes glowing with that Nemu like intensity that always makes rivals flinch.
“You keep asking for things from him,” I whispered, leaning close enough for her to feel the heat of my breath. “And every time you open your mouth, I want to tear your throat out for thinking you’re allowed to want anything he gives.” Her jaw tightened.
Intimidation check 18 +9 = 27.
She faltered. Not visibly. But her scent wavered. A tiny break. Enough. I turned slightly, making sure she could see the way my tail slid around Master’s waist again, possessive and absolute. “You want him to push Black Fang.” I smiled too widely. “We tracked the Swarm into their turf. Master decides what happens next. Not you.”
He didn’t give her the satisfaction of hesitation. Master scratched his forehead, slow and deliberate, his tells never for anyone but himself, the mask of a man who’d seen too much. Then the sharp echo of his hands clapping, like a judge’s gavel, dragging silence through the barn’s throat.
“Right.” His voice always sounds steady, cold, unyielding, the world’s weight slumped in every word. “Mireclaw, you stated you’d been planning, so I assume you can muster up at the very least a handful, if not more. We’ll be pushing north now. Not later. So your wet dream is certainly coming true.”
The shadows twisted over her face, sharp chin tilted, feline ears twitching with predatory calculation. Mireclaw didn’t move from her seat. Her black tail flicked, too slowly, the way cats stalk dying prey. Her mouth curled, a smile made of knives and honey. She liked the way he took command, even if it ruined her schemes. Her voice spilled out, slow, venom laced through velvet, “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if your shadow here was ever going to let you off her leash, Master.” Her green eyes flicked to me, daring, needling, as if she’d already counted the ways she’d carve me out of the picture.
“I’ve got seven in the barn ready to move, three more in the market shadows. Every blade loyal, or close enough, and none of them ask questions unless they want to bleed. Black Fang turf is crawling with the Swarm, but I trust you’ll clear a path. You want a war? Then let’s show them how Vigilance handles upstarts. Unless, of course, your little bodyguard here needs time to brush her fur and mark her territory.”
My claws scraped the table. I leaned closer, tail wrapping around Master’s arm, letting her see exactly how little ground I’d ever surrender. “Don’t talk about territory, Mireclaw,” I purred, voice trembling on the edge of a growl and a giggle, “not unless you want to find out whose claws are sharper. Or whose bite leaves a mark he won’t forget.”
She just grinned wider, eyes fixed on him, always hungry, always calculating. The air was thick with the taste of rivalry and promise, a storm coming, and I was the thunder on its heels. No one would touch him while I breathed. Not even her. Especially not her.
The barn tightened around us like an old wooden coffin, every board groaning with the anticipation of something sharp. The lanterns guttered, shadows swallowing and regurgitating our silhouettes, stretching Master’s tall frame into a long, jagged cut across the floor. My ears twitched, following the rhythm of his footsteps as he closed the distance to her. My tail coiled around his leg, then unwrapped when he moved beyond my reach, tension snapping through me like a bowstring ready to break.
He didn’t raise his voice. He never needed to. His words always came out like the exhale of a man who’d dug graves before breakfast and accepted that the earth doesn’t care who fills them.
“Oh, one more thing,” he said, stepping forward, the noir weight in his tone thick as smoke in a detective’s office. Each syllable dripped the cynicism of a man who’d had his trust burned out of him long ago. I felt my spine arch with anticipation.
Mireclaw watched him approach, green eyes bright with venomous calculation, tail flicking like she already knew where she wanted this to go. Ambition made her pupils too sharp. She believed she understood him. Believed she could steer his judgement. Believed she still had the power to negotiate.
Then he moved.
His hand slammed her against the barn wall before she could even inhale to disguise her surprise. I watched his fingers lock around her collarbone, watched the dust explode from the planks behind her, watched her breath punch out of her chest with a soft sound she tried to swallow. His unarmed strike was clean, controlled, inevitable.
Unarmed strike roll 10 +2 = 12.
Plenty to rattle her skull against these half rotten beams.
Her eyes widened just enough to betray the truth she’d buried under arrogance, she’d forgotten who broke the Vigilance Council. She’d forgotten he wasn’t her political toy. She’d forgotten he’d killed her colleagues without trembling.
His voice dropped lower, the kind of low that belongs in back alley confessions and interrogation rooms soaked with rainwater and regret.
“Next time,” he murmured, breath cold enough to sting, “don’t waste my time by pretending you know something when you don’t. And certainly don’t do it to try and steer things your way, doll. I don’t dance to anyone’s tune.”
Her ears flattened. Not from pain. From recognition. He wasn’t bluffing. He never bluffed. He never needed to.
He leaned in closer, the grim weight of a man who’s crawled through enough blood to have stopped counting corpses. “Let’s not forget I was the one who killed the other two members of your cosy little Council of Three. The only reason you’re High Watcher is because their throats were warm when they hit the ground.”
It was noir brutality in the truest sense. A man who saw power as a ledger and made sure the ink never smudged.
Mireclaw’s reaction wasn’t fear. Not exactly. Fear would have been simple, clean. Her expression twisted with something more sinuous: a mixture of anger, admiration, and poisonous desire. Venomous, calculating, ambitious. She thrived under pressure. She lived for it. She inhaled danger like perfume.
When she spoke, it came out soft, green eyes gleaming like broken glass in the lanternlight. “You’re right, Master.” Her voice purred, but the venom curled beneath every syllable. “You were the one who killed them. You were the one who tore down the council. You were the one who put me where I am.”
A smile cut across her lips, thin and serpentine. “And I haven’t forgotten it. I never forget debts. Or power. Or men who carve futures with their bare hands.”
She tilted her head, pushing just slightly against his hold, testing the boundary like a cat testing whether the trap is worth chewing through. “But if you think I misled you to manipulate things, then you don’t know me at all. I gain nothing from sending you chasing ghosts.” Her green eyes flicked toward me, just briefly. “Unless someone is clouding your judgement.”
My claws flexed. My tail coiled into a question mark of impending violence.
Her voice sharpened. “I told you everything I knew. Everything I could know. You wanted the truth. I gave it to you. If you want me to keep bleeding information, I will.” Her smile widened. “But don’t mistake ignorance for deceit.”
She leaned forward just enough for her breath to brush his throat. “I don’t lie to you. I don’t need to. The world moves the way I want it to without tricks.” I didn’t let her finish that pretty little monologue. I stepped forward so fast the floorboards didn’t have time to creak. My spear clattered softly against my back, my body sliding between them with feline precision, tail snapping behind me like an executioner’s whip. My hands pressed against Master’s chest just enough to reposition him behind my shoulder.
I bared my teeth. The laugh that came out of me cracked like a broken music box, too delighted, too sharp, too unstable. “You talk like you think he listens to you,” I hissed, ears flat, voice trembling with that perfect fusion of mania and devotion. “You talk like you think you get to be part of the equation. Like you think what you feel matters.”
I stepped closer to her pinned form, nose nearly brushing hers. “You don’t get it, Mireclaw.” My tail slid back, curling tight around Master’s wrist. “He’s mine. His time is mine. His decisions are mine. His path is mine. You don’t get to steer him. You don’t get to manipulate him. You don’t get to breathe in his direction without my permission.”
Her eyes narrowed, venomous, calculating, still daring to hold steady under my gaze.
I let the smile stretch too wide, a crescent of teeth and threat. “And if you ever try to pretend you know more than you do again... I’ll rip out your tongue before you can purr another word.”
The barn held its breath. Mireclaw’s tail twitched.
She whispered back, low and cold. “Then keep your Master close, kitten. Because the moment he asks me something you can’t answer... I’ll be right there to offer him the truth you fear.” My claws clicked against the wood. War between us wasn’t brewing. It had already begun.
The barn’s air was heavy with the stink of ambition, old sweat and the lingering rot of betrayals that had never quite finished bleeding out. My shadow swallowed up the gap behind him as he stepped forward, boots echoing off loose boards, that unflinching stare pulling every eye in the place into orbit. Mireclaw watched him approach with all the grace of a coiled adder, but I could see her calculation flicker, barely a breath, but she wasn’t nearly as invulnerable as she acted. Not with Master in the room, not with me standing between her claws and his throat.
“Oh, one more thing,” Master muttered, voice like the scrape of a knife. No flair, no threat in his words, just the calm certainty of violence long since paid for. His hand closing on the front of Mireclaw’s cloak. Before she could so much as hiss.
Mireclaw’s claws scratched at his wrist, but it was more pride than pain. Her green eyes blazed, furious, but somewhere behind the fury there was a flicker of something else, recognition. A cat cornered by something it couldn’t quite out-think.
“You’d better have some Embercrack tea, Mireclaw,” he said, dry, cold, eyes never leaving hers, all business as always. Mireclaw, ever the perfect viper, didn’t let her pride stumble. She nodded once, tight-lipped, reached under her desk, and produced a battered tin of leaves. No trembling now, just the cold, mechanical assurance of a survivor. She made the tea herself, hands never shaking, though the steam seemed a little thinner, the clatter of the cups a touch too loud.
He didn’t drink it, no, he simply handed it to me, a gift meant to remind Mireclaw that she was nothing, that she couldn’t even keep her own offerings from my claws. My tail wrapped greedily around his leg, ears standing rigid, every sense on fire with delight as I took the cup and drained it in one quick, greedy motion. Embercrack tea, strong, bitter, a flavour that danced on the knife edge of pain, caffeine and whatever else the Embercrack scum liked to lace it with.
And then it hit me.
The world went electric. Every heartbeat was a drum, every sound a bullet whistling past my head, every shadow alive with predators and secrets and possibilities. I twitched, tail lashing wildly, the fur on my ears bristling with adrenaline. My ears felt like antennae for every lie ever spoken in this rotten barn. My claws flexed uncontrollably, I wanted to pounce, I wanted to kill, I wanted to sing and scream and laugh until everyone here remembered my name, remembered why they feared me, why Master kept me so close. My breath came in short, sharp pants, tongue flicking across my lips. I spun once, twice, nearly tripping over my own twitching feet.
Hyper-vigilance was an understatement. I saw every blink, every twitch, every pulse in Mireclaw’s throat, the flutter of her eyes as she glared at me with hate and terror and the unmistakable flavour of envy. She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to be me. Too bad, there’s only room for one in this story. I giggled, a ragged, high-pitched sound, and slammed the cup down on her table so hard it nearly shattered. “Delicious,” I purred, voice half-laugh, half-threat, “just the way I like it, doll. You want to watch me twitch, Mireclaw? Keep staring, you might learn something about losing.”
Mireclaw’s mouth twisted, fury and frustration buried under that cunning mask. She straightened her cloak, cleared her throat, claws clacking on the table as she retook her composure, as if she hadn’t just been manhandled and humiliated in her own headquarters. “We’ll push on Black Fang turf in a moment, then,” she said, tone measured, eyes never quite meeting Master’s now, always darting sideways to check for my next move. “My blades will follow your lead, Master. No more delays. I’ll have runners ready at both flanks. The Swarm doesn’t know we’re coming, and if we move now, we can take the intersection before sunset. The only thing I need from you.” a sly look, a twist of the knife “is to keep your little pet on a leash. The last thing I need is her drawing blood on my people before the Swarm even sees us.”
That last jab was for me. I showed her my teeth, twitched my ears, and wrapped my tail tighter around Master’s leg. But then his hand reached down, slow, deliberate, that detective’s calm threading through the static of my mind, and he scratched me behind the ears. Every nerve lit up. Possessive heat bloomed in my chest, a burst of manic, wild love. My claws dug into his cloak, not quite breaking skin, but marking him as mine in front of her, in front of anyone who might ever think to take him. I leaned into his touch, purring sharp and low, looking Mireclaw straight in the eyes with a smile that promised ruin.
“He doesn’t need to leash me,” I whispered, voice velvet and steel, sly, wicked, “because there’s nothing in this world that could drag me away from him. Not you. Not your blades. Not your dreams of power. So keep your eyes off what you can’t have, Mireclaw. I’ll be watching.” My tail flicked, my laughter sharp and broken, echoing in the rafters. “If you step out of line, I’ll be the one tightening the noose. Remember that next time you think you’re in control.”
The storm was coming. And I was already dancing in the thunder.
