jeriendhal | Halloween Prompts: A Monster's Reward

For

lilfluff's prompt of "the aftermath of Tez subjecting the neighborhood kids to his idea of a haunted house."

Tez waited patiently in his chosen corner of the dungeon, listening the nervous giggles as another group of children made their way down the stairs, trying to tiptoe quietly as they whispered loudly to each other, guided by the blood red mage lights lining the black stairwell. When they reached the bottom he listened closely as they expressed their disappointment at finding the cell open and empty.

"Some monster! There's nothing here!" a boy exclaimed.

"Well, Miss Maria did say he might have escaped," a girl noted, her voice pitching up as she stepped cautiously into the cell. She gestured to the snapped open shackled hanging from the back wall, the metal torn and twisted as if some great beast had broken loose. "Look, here's where it got away."

The others followed her in, looking about. "Well, if there was a monster here, he's long gone now," another boy said, relaxing as it became obvious nothing was going to jump out of the shadows at them.

Instead, the lot of them fairly leaped into the air as Tez pulled on the tough thread and slammed the cell door shut behind them, the lock automatically snapping home. "Oh, I'm still here," he announced in his most specular tone. He stepped forward a half pace, letting the carefully positioned light catch the tips of his ears as his eyes flashed catlike in the dark. He raise a hand, sticky and damp from the combination of syrup and red paint from Maria's art supplies, making a fair imitation of blood. "Won't you come play with me?"

The chorus of screams made a most satisfying counterpart to the children's desperate attempts to pull open the locked door. Tez made some deep throated laughs as they struggled, until one of the brighter ones finally realized the bars of the door were just wide enough for a sufficiently motivated child to shove themselves through and dash back up the stairs. In a moment the dungeon was clear and quiet again as the thumping and screams stopped long enough for them to pause at the table Maria had set out with cider and sweetmeats.

Tez retrieved the cell key from his pocket and unlocked the door,leaned back against the wall again, grinning to himself as he waited for the next batch to come down. After perhaps fifteen minutes Maria herself appeared, dressed in a fetchingly tight leather suit with numerous brass buckles and dyed blood red, provided by a leatherworker friend, who had also crated the leather demon wings strapped to her back.

"I think that was the last batch for the night," she reported, her high heels clicking as she stepped into the cell, sipping a mug of warm cider, another in her left hand.

"Did I put on a good show for them?" he asked, taking the second mug and drinking a gulp. His laugh had proved most effective, but Tez had to admit it was a bit rough on the throat the fourth or fifth time around.

"Let's just say your suggestion of having a few spare sets of trousers did come in handy, she said, laughing. It did some delightful things to the straps crisscrossing the cut out that displayed her cleavage. "It was wonderful."

"Shall we go upstairs and call it a night then? I want to wash off this gunk from hand," he said to her. She answered by putting her mug down and stepping close to him, pressing him against the wall. His own half-empty mug dropped to the floor with a crack and a splash as she kissed him hard on the lips, grabbing his wrists and pinning them over his head. his delighted mmmm... turned into a mmph! as he felt the wrist irons hanging from the wall snap and lock around his hands.

"I think my pet monster needs some punishment for frightening all those poor children," Maria purred as she broke the kiss, her arm wrapping around his shoulders as her hips pressed against his.

"This is punishment?" he asked, tugging lightly at the irons.

"Oh, it will be," she replied. He let out a squeak as her hand slipped under his artfully ripped shirt and her fingers began to play along his ribcage...