Piko - Where every story finds its reader

The stable master laughed when Rex presented the transfer document, a wet, phlegmy sound that spoke of too much cheap wine and casual cruelty. "Trash taking trash! Your father has a sense of humor after all, boy."

Kedrik_ bull of a man with scarred knuckles and broken blood vessels across his nose_hoved the document back at Rex without reading it properly. "Take the worthless thing. One less mouth wasting my feed budget."

Rex bowed with perfect humility while internally cataloging every detail about this man who would be dead within the month. Silas's first kill. Good practice for someone disposable.

"Thank you, Master Kedrik. I'll ensure... they don't burden you further."

The stable master had already turned away, bellowing at another slave about mucking stalls. Rex found Silas in the far corner of the stables, arms full of filthy straw, the oversized stable boy clothes hanging off her malnourished frame. Those green eyes_he ones that would glow gold after the Pact_racked his approach with the wariness of prey that had learned predators wore many faces.

Rex gestured once. Silas dropped the straw and followed without hesitation, the perfect obedient slave. They walked through the estate's stone corridors in silence, Rex maintaining his reformed-son posture while internally mapping the routes he'd memorized over two weeks. Servants passed them without interest_rash and his trash property, beneath notice.

His room in the servants' wing was small and isolated, exactly what he'd needed. Rex locked the door with the iron key, tested the frame to ensure no gaps, then pulled the room's single threadbare curtain closed. The oil lamp cast dancing shadows across walls that had heard Caelus's screams more than once.

"You can drop the act now." Rex's voice was conversational as he activated [Void's Veil] at maximum strength. "We're alone."

The cold pressure of the Void filled the room like winter wind. Silas remained frozen in her submissive pose, head down, hands clasped. But Rex had spent years studying micro-expressions in victims who'd thought they were hiding fear, desire, calculation. He saw the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her breathing had changed.

"You're female," Rex continued, settling onto his bed with the ease of someone stating obvious facts. "You're Beastkin. And you can speak perfectly well when you choose to."

The silence stretched for three heartbeats. Then Silas's hand moved with controlled speed toward something concealed in her rags_ blade, Rex noted with approval. Her voice emerged hoarse from disuse but steady.

"How?"

"The binding under your shirt is visible to anyone who knows what to look for." Rex gestured at her chest. "Your movement patterns are too controlled for the clumsy stable boy act_ou compensate for enhanced reflexes. And your features..." He tilted his head, studying her with clinical precision. "Subtle, but the bone structure around your eyes, the way your pupils dilate in low light. Feline heritage, I'd guess. Probably half-blood, given you've hidden it this long."

Silas's hand tightened on the concealed blade. "What do you want?"

"To offer you a transaction." Rex smiled, but there was nothing warm in it. "Tell me, Silas_hat is your name, isn't it?_ow much longer do you think you have? Three months before Gaius decides the mute stable boy looks entertaining enough for his particular tastes? Four months before Kedrik beats you a little too hard and you don't get up?"

He let the words sink in, watching her face remain carefully blank. Good. She'd learned to hide reactions. That would serve them both well.

"I can show you what I am," Rex said, gesturing at the space around them where [Void's Veil] thrummed with visible power. The System interface materialized in his vision, invisible to her but its effects tangible_he cold pressure, the wrongness that made mortal instincts scream heretic. "The Church would burn me for this ability. Just like they'd burn you for what you're hiding."

"Fellow heretics," Silas said softly. Her hand moved away from the blade. "That still doesn't answer what you want from me."

Rex leaned forward, elbows on knees, and dropped every pretense of the reformed boy. His voice became the serial killer's calm recitation of facts. "You have three months, maybe four, before you're raped or murdered or both. That's not pessimism_hat's pattern analysis based on Gaius's escalating behavior and Kedrik's increasing boredom."

He pulled a piece of parchment from beneath his pillow, covered in his careful handwriting_ystem knowledge about blood rituals and Primordial pacts. "I'm offering you the [Pact of Subservience]. Total loyalty to me in exchange for awakening your dormant Beastkin bloodline. You'll be strong enough to kill every person in this stable if you choose. Strong enough to survive."

"Total loyalty." Silas's voice was flat. "Another form of slavery."

"No." Rex met her eyes directly. "Slavery is the legal fiction that says you're property. The Pact is a choice_our choice_o bind yourself to someone who sees your value instead of your expendability. But make no mistake about what I'm offering. You'll follow my orders without question. Keep my secrets even under torture. Become my weapon in the shadows."

He held up the transfer document. "I already own you under their laws. I could force this. But the Pact requires willing consent, and I need pieces on the board who choose to serve because they recognize what I am, not broken slaves who'll fail when tested."

Silas studied him for a long moment. Rex recognized the calculation in her eyes_he same cold assessment he'd used countless times himself. She was measuring survival odds, weighing known horrors against unknown promises.

"What happens if I disappoint you after the Pact?"

"Then I'll have made a poor investment," Rex said honestly. "And we'll both suffer the consequences. I'm not offering salvation. I'm offering a transaction between monsters."

The silence stretched. Rex waited with perfect patience, the same stillness he'd used watching victims decide whether to run or freeze. Silas's breathing evened, and something shifted in her expression_ot hope, but recognition. She saw past his child's face to the predator beneath.

"The other option is death," she said finally. It wasn't a question.

"The other option is death," Rex confirmed. "But at least this way, you'll be strong enough to take some of them with you."

Silas extended her hand, and Rex noted the slight tremble she couldn't quite suppress. Not fear_nticipation.

"I accept your Pact." Her voice was steady now, stripped of all pretense. "Make me strong enough to repay every beating, every humiliation, every year in this place."

Rex took her hand, feeling the rough calluses and old scars. "The transformation will be agonizing. The Void taint rewrites your bloodline at the cellular level. You'll feel everything as your body changes. This is your last chance to refuse."

Silas's grip tightened, and Rex caught the glint of small claws extending from beneath her fingernails_lready present, just carefully hidden. Her eyes held the same predatory focus he'd seen in his own reflection back on Earth.

"I've survived worse," she said, and the smile that crossed her face was sharp enough to cut. "Begin."

Rex released her hand and pulled his knife from his belt, heating the blade in the oil lamp's flame. The steel glowed red in the dim light while Silas watched with eyes that reflected like a cat's, already predator rather than prey.

"Strip to your undergarments," Rex instructed, his voice taking on the clinical tone of a surgeon preparing for a delicate operation. "The runes need to be carved into your shoulders and upper back. Then we'll see what you really are beneath all that fear and pretending."

The System pulsed: [SUBJUGATION OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFIED: Silas (Beastkin) Willing Participant Confirmed]

Rex smiled as Silas began removing her binding with steady hands.

Finally, he thought, watching the knife blade glow brighter. Let's see what kind of monster you become when someone gives you permission to stop hiding.