The Conquerors Bloodline - Chapter 305: The Khan 3

Sienna’s eyes sharpened to pinprick holes glaring down at him. “I don’t like your insinuation there.”

“Of course you don’t. You wouldn’t be the leader of an infamous extremist faction if you didn’t.” Parc shifted slowly between the bodies of the remaining leaders. Lingering moments long on the Albain’s once more. “Of course, a smart leader would know that no matter what, not every person following them will be completely taken with their methods. Doesn’t matter what you do, it’s just to be expected. You didn’t like Ghira’s docility, so the moment you took over, well, you shifted all that good faith he’d built up and turned it into fear and hatred.” He lifted his hand, closing it tight like he was crushing the insect that was Ghira’s will between his fingers.

Sienna cast him dangerous glares, her throat nigh thrumming with feline annoyance. “Ghira’s methods were slow, ineffective. Nearly ten years I had been with him and we had gotten nowhere but dead ends. Humans don’t care about kindness and nonviolence. They respond to fear. Too true, powerful presentations that they are not the only creatures on Remnant who can fight back against their hateful actions. So yes, I did disagree with his methods. But I didn’t betray him.” She scoffed.

Parc took a second to posture himself, hands behind his back, fingers locked and pacing back and forth, head down slightly, smile to his face. “Betray, betray, betray. Not a word I’m fond of, won’t lie. I don’t know much about what happened when the flag was swapped, nor did I personally know him.” He knows his daughter though, and his wife, both to highly intimate degrees.

Taking a second to breathe, he inspected the expressions of the other leaders. Cold. Undaunted. One though, a man with a single rhinoceros horn protruding from his forehead, had a more doubting look to him. The guards were as ever, stoic and unshaken, seemingly ignoring everything he said.

Parc bobbed his head and shook.

“We’re getting off track, madame High Leader. I wasn’t speaking about any betrayal to Ghira in the first place. Just about you and how much you trusted those ears at your hips and whether or not you believe any one of them is willing to press a dagger into your side. To sever away that little throne of yours and steal it for someone else.”

She rested into her seat, eyes growing hallowed and cruel, “I trust them.” Huffed Sienna, looking to her sub-leaders, “more so than I trust you.”

“Well, no shit on that front. I wouldn’t trust me with a newborn baby and yet I have one back in Vale.” He chuckled, not daunted about revealing too much, a weakness, knowing full well that that very weakness was guarded by a literal glacier colder than Jacques Schnee’s love life with his wife. “Though, it sure would be a horrible tragedy to discover some budding traitors in your midst though, wouldn’t I-”

“Enough with this gaff.” The rhinoceros man stepped forth, his form hulking and horn polished to a dangerous glint, tip sharpened to a fine point. “I will not stand for you sowing discord in our ranks. Not some know-nothing foreign br-”

“Fossil Ferous, forty-seven, born July eighth, nineteen seventy-two. Height, six foot seven, two-hundred and four centimetres for you smart ones. Current weight, ninety-four kilos, three less than you were last month after Pebble forced you onto that paleo diet you so revile but force yourself through due to your efforts to keep your relationship going for Coin and Asher.”

The man’s eyes widened, his porous lips widening to say, “how do you-”

“Pity though. Considering she’s just being diagnosed with breast cancer not three months ago. Six months, the doctor said. Without treatment of course. Which she hasn’t been getting because if she did, she wouldn’t be there for your children. Not for Coin, not for Asher, not for anyone.”

Fossil’s eyes staggered, as they stared down at Parc he couldn’t help but feel his spine shrivel, shivering as the boy’s dagger-like eyes glared deep into his soul. Reading each and every notion in his body… no, not just his body. Those connected to him as well. Secrets that not even he was privy to. He staggered, back, being caught by two of the fellow sub-leaders who whispered to him.

“He’s playing games, Fossil.” The woman on his right said, a girl with odd, chitinous plating across her shoulders and hips, black, shiny, wrapping tight around her body causing the skin to dimple like the glorious point of stocking on plump thighs. “He’s messing with you.”

“I can assure you, Rove Bhramara,” the woman paused, head darting his way, eyes cautious and breath stuck at the back of her throat, “thirty-two, born September fifteenth nineteen-eighty-seven. I am far from kidding.” He looked at her, making her tremble before smirking and casting to Fossil. “Haven’t you noticed how tired she’s been? How she always goes to bed after warming up your meal after a long day. Or how she’s already in bed. Never noticed that foul smell of vomit coming from your bathroom in the night. Or how when you sleep with her—which, with how much you work, isn’t often—she’s always out of breath so quickly? I can tell you, it’s not the pleasure doing that. It’s the pain.” Trailing a hand to his chest, the smile drops from his face, “haven’t you noticed those bumps, here and here?” he pointed to a point between his pecs, once at the bottom, once near his nipple. “Tumours. Horrible little things. Slowly eating her way. Waiting for the time they finally metastasize to the rest of her body… Of course, they could have already moved. She hasn’t been to the last two of her checkups so…”

Fossil clasped a hand over his stomach, feeling it churn with sick, without looking to the other sub-leaders he hunched over and stumbled towards the exit. Sweat cloaked his brow like rain in the night as he charged unsteadily out of the room without any more words shared. Parc followed him, eyes sorry, but emotions stagnant. ‘Necessary evil’ he told himself. She may never have told him till it was far, far too late for them to truly fix their relationship.

It didn’t remove that horrible taste of bile rising at the back of his throat. ‘Feel sick with myself.’ He didn’t let himself show his self-disgust, just kept watching the man back as he trod heavily and urgently away. With a silent sigh, he turned back to Sienna and her compatriots, their entire forms on alert.

“While I find it distasteful having to use a woman’s debilitating sickness as an example.” Parc rolled his hand as he paced, “I think it presents enough about my expertise on a nice, polished silver platter. Simply put, I know more about you than you know about yourselves and each other. I know how madame Rove enjoys drinking cold chicken soup after a particularly vigorous session with her favourite toy, cools you down you think. Just makes you excited for another round.” The woman flushed, shallowly hidden by her clothing and chitinous platings.

“Or how sir Arusha forgot his wallet at home today, like how he’s been forgetting his keys, or to clear his weapons at the gun range. Can’t imagine that feels great. Knowing something one day then not knowing a thing the next.” The elderly Arusha trembled, the curled ram horns protruding from either side of his head were dirty in the grooves, he’d forgotten to clean them that morning with a brush. He’d looked at it, its harsh bristles, but simply didn’t know what they were used for.

“Or-”

“Alright. Enough.” Sienna stood, towering narrowly over her companions and stopping Parc before he could go any further. “You’ve proven your point.” That he had, she glanced to her companions, the two women were nervous, red in the cheeks, fearful about what Parc knew about their personal lives. Not just what they did with their bodies, but their families. This boy, his knowledge didn’t lean to just them, as proven with Fossil. He had eyes further than was comfortable for any of them. “Clear the room.” She dismissed, falling back into her seat, not resting hunched with arms on her legs.

“Sienna, you can’t be-” The other girl, a poofy sheep girl with a natural fur collar and fur popping out of the seams of her loose-fitting robes tried to say.

“No, Candy. He’s making it clear how much he wants this to be a private matter.” Glaring down at Parc, she scowled heavily. “He’s getting under your skin and it’s working. At this point, you’re all compromised in this discussion. You’ll just be playing into his hand the moment he brings up something you don’t want anyone but yourselves to know. So clear out. Now.”

The puffy sheep girl hesitated, soon nodded her head and joined Rove and exited slow step by slow step. Arusha went dazed, but shook his head to dart around and follow after the girls once he remembered what had just happened. The Albain’s were the slowest, taking their time to glare daggers in Parc as if pondering whether to take him out then and there.

“Fennec, Corsac. That includes you.” The two bowed their heads and left. Not before clicking their tongues and growling Parc’s way as they did. Corsac lingering the longest. He could smell Lady on him. That vile stench that once captivated him so.

“You as well.” Sienna didn’t lift her head to them, but the guards knew she was talking to them. Silently, they took their leaves, loyal, even if displeased.

As the door clunked shut in the distance, leaving but two bodies in the chambers. Sienna began to growl, she felt up a long metal chain on her wrist, a bracelet, her weapon. Cerberus Whip, a familiar type of weapon to him, even from the distance between them he could see how fine those links were, and those arrow-shaped daggers doubling as the bracelets accessories. Certainly not as strong as his own chains, but not something he wanted to deal with.

Esdeath had whipped him enough for one lifetime to realize that.