I turn west the moment the minor trade route curves away behind me, leaving the sandstone slabs and the rumble of carts and the distant lanterns of Advantage for the open steppe. The rain is still falling hard as I push off the grass verge and strike out across the rolling grassland, but it no longer feels like an enemy. It is just water now, cold and steady, washing the worst of the mud from my bare legs while I move low and fast on all fours for the first mile. My tail streams behind me like a dark wet flag, flicking every few strides to keep perfect balance when my injured thigh threatens to buckle. The wound burns hotter than ever, red streaks climbing toward my hip under the soaked bandage, but I bare my fangs and keep going. I will not stop for pain or fever or the screaming emptiness where the bond should be humming warm and constant in my skull.

The steppe opens up around me, wide and empty under the low clouds. Tall grass brushes my belly and the rags of my light blue trousers, soaking them darker. My dark blue tunic hangs in tatters off one shoulder, clinging cold to my small chest, but I do not care. I keep one claw tracing them as I crawl, pressing hard enough to feel the metal bite. Master, I whisper into the rain, voice hoarse and raw. I am coming west. Off the road. Into the hills. The goblins are dead. They went down too fast, too pathetic, but they gave me the seconds I needed. I am still yours. Still your kitten. Still your wife. The bond is gone and it feels like someone has ripped half my chest out, but I will find you. I will wrap my tail around you so tight they will need an axe to cut me off.

The rain starts to ease after twenty minutes. First it thins to a drizzle, then to nothing at all. The clouds stay low and heavy, but the steady drumming on my back stops. I lift my head, ears swiveling forward, blonde hair dripping heavy strands across my face. The sudden quiet feels strange after so many hours of noise. I shake my head hard, sending water flying from my ears, and push on. The steppe grass is wet but no longer slippery. My claws find better purchase. My tail curls once around my waist, possessive and insecure, squeezing until the pressure reminds me I am still here, still moving, still Master’s property.

The land begins to rise after another half hour. Low sandstone hills lift out of the grassland, their pale rock glowing faint silver in the clouded moonlight. I climb the first slope on all fours, tail lashing slow and deliberate for balance, claws scraping shallow grooves into the stone. Every movement pulls at the wound in my thigh and the deep bruises across my ribs, but I do not slow. The hills grow steeper. Scrubby bushes and stunted trees appear in the folds between ridges. I skirt wide around anything that might hide a patrol, ears forward, nose working the damp air for any trace of steel or horse or Redstone banners. Nothing. The escape at Advantage has pulled every guard back toward the village. For once the clan’s arrogance works in my favour.

I reach the true sandstone mountains just as the last of the drizzle dies completely. The rock here is rougher, layered in pale bands that my claws grip easily. I scramble up a narrow gully, tail flicking for perfect counterweight, until the ground levels out on a small ledge halfway up the slope. A dark opening waits in the rock face ahead, a cave no taller than I am, maybe eight feet deep, the entrance half hidden by a overhang of stone. I creep closer on all fours, nose testing the air. Dry. Empty. No animal scent stronger than old droppings and dust. No fresh tracks. Perfect.

I slip inside.

The cave is small, barely wide enough for me to stretch out fully, but the floor is flat and the back wall curves away from the entrance so the wind cannot reach me. I crawl to the deepest corner and collapse onto my side, tail curling tight around my injured leg like a living bandage. My blonde hair falls across my face in wet ropes. My ears stay forward, listening to the quiet drip of water from the overhang outside, but no footsteps follow. No shouts. No lanterns sweeping the hillside. I am alone. Truly alone for the first time since the elves dragged us apart.

The emptiness crashes over me again, harder now that I have stopped moving. The bond is still gone. No calm steel voice in my head telling me I am good. No warm brush of his thoughts against mine. Just silence. Black, screaming silence. I press my face into the cold stone floor and bite back the sob that tries to rip out of my throat. My claws flex against the rock, leaving shallow scratches. Master… I found a cave. Small. Empty. Safe for now. I am west of Advantage, in the sandstone hills on the border of Redstone Hold. The rain has stopped. I can think again. But the bond… it still feels like part of me is missing. I keep seeing you being clubbed down in the cavern and the silence afterwards and it makes me want to claw my own chest open just to make the emptiness stop.

I roll onto my back, staring up at the rough ceiling, tail twitching slow and restless across my stomach. My mind turns to what comes next, even though my body is screaming for rest. I need to heal first. The infection in my thigh is spreading. I will have to find proper water, maybe some herbs if I can recognise them in the dark, and clean the wound properly before it poisons me completely. Food after that. The bread and apples I stole will not last long and my body is burning through everything just to keep moving. Shelter is already here, but I will need to make it better, drag in dry grass or leaves for bedding so I do not freeze when the night turns colder.

And then the real plan. I need information. Someone who has seen a calm human with a redstone steel sword, travelling alone or asking questions about a missing cat-girl. I need to get closer to the border forts or the mining settlements without being seen. I need to decide whether to push deeper into the hills where patrols are thinner or risk the roads again once I can run properly. Most of all I need the bond back. I need Master’s thoughts in my head telling me I am still his good girl, still his wife, still the only thing he is allowed to own completely.

I curl tighter into a ball, tail wrapped twice around my waist, claws lightly kneading the stone as if it were his cloak. My ears flick once, listening to the quiet outside. No pursuit. No danger. Just the soft drip of water from the rocks and the distant call of a night bird somewhere on the steppe.

I close my eyes but I do not sleep yet. I think. I plan. I whisper his name over and over until my voice cracks.

Master… I am in the cave. I am safe for tonight. Tomorrow I will heal. Tomorrow I will eat. Tomorrow I will start hunting for you properly. But right now I am still yours. Still your kitten. Still your property. And I will never stop until the bond snaps back and I can feel you again.

The cave is small and quiet, nothing but the faint drip of leftover rain from the overhang outside and the sound of my own ragged breathing. I crawl to the back wall and collapse onto my side, tail curling tight around my injured thigh like a living bandage, trying to hold the heat and the swelling in check. My blonde hair is still dripping, plastered across my face and neck, and the rags of my dark blue tunic cling cold and heavy to my small chest. The light blue trousers are little more than torn strips now, leaving most of my legs bare to the chill air. 

The bond is still gone. That silence is worse than the throbbing in my thigh, worse than the deep bruises across my ribs, worse than the infection burning under my skin. I cannot feel Master’s calm thoughts brushing mine. I cannot hear him calling me his good girl, his kitten, his wife. The emptiness sits in my chest like a black hole, sucking every other feeling down into it until all I have left is the raw, yandere need to find him and wrap myself around him so tight he will never be able to breathe without me again. My ears twitch forward at every tiny sound outside the cave, tail giving a restless lash against the stone floor, but there is nothing. No pursuit. No lanterns sweeping the hillside. Just the quiet night and the knowledge that the goblins are dead and I am still alone.

I lie there for long minutes, claws lightly kneading the rock as if it were Master’s cloak, eyes half closed while my mind turns over what comes next. I need water first, proper clean water, not muddy puddles. I need to clean the wound in my thigh properly before the red streaks climb any higher. I need food that is not stolen bread and sour apples, something warm if I can manage it, though the thought of eating anything without Master’s hand on my head makes my stomach twist with spoilt, unstable resentment. I need shelter that is safer than this, somewhere I can rest without the risk of the floor giving way or a patrol stumbling across me. And then the real plan: I will head deeper into these sandstone hills, away from the trade routes, away from Advantage, and start hunting for any sign of him. A calm human with a redstone steel sword, asking questions about a missing cat girl. Someone who has seen him. Someone who can point me south or west or wherever my instincts keep pulling me.

My tail curls tighter around my waist, possessive and needy. Master, I whisper into the dark, voice hoarse and trembling with that dark, twisted devotion that only he ever gets to see. I am in the cave. Small. Empty. Safe for tonight. Tomorrow I will heal. Tomorrow I will eat properly. Tomorrow I will start moving again. But right now I am still yours. Still your kitten. Still your wife. Still the only thing you are allowed to own completely. The bond is gone and it feels like someone has torn half my soul out, but I will find you. I will climb you like a tree and bury my face in your neck and purr until the bond snaps back into place. I will be good. I will heel. I will never charge ahead again if you just come for me.

I close my eyes, letting the fever pull at the edges of my thoughts. My ears stay forward. My tail stays wrapped tight. The stone is cold against my cheek but I do not move. I am too exhausted, too hurt, too full of that clingy, controlling need to let go even for a second.

Then the floor gives way.

There is no warning. One moment I am lying still, the next the rock beneath me simply vanishes with a deep, grinding crack. My eyes snap open, ears shooting straight up, tail lashing wild for balance as the entire section of floor drops out from under me. I twist mid-air like the cat I am, trying to turn, trying to land on all fours, claws out, body curling tight. The fall is long and black. I have time to scream his name once – Master! – before I hit.

Water.

Deep, icy water that rushes up around me in a violent splash. I plunge straight down, the shock of the cold driving the air from my lungs, but my instincts save me. I hit the bottom on all fours, knees and palms slamming into smooth, submerged stone. The water is only waist-deep here, enough to cushion the worst of the impact but not enough to drown me. Pain explodes through every bruise and cut. My thigh wound tears wider on the jagged rock, sending a fresh cloud of blood into the dark water. My ribs feel like they have been kicked again. But I am alive. On all fours. Cat. Still moving.

I surge upward, breaking the surface with a gasp, blonde hair streaming water, ears flat against my skull, tail whipping behind me to keep balance in the current. The underground river is shallow but fast, carrying me a few feet downstream before I dig my claws into the rocky bed and haul myself out onto a narrow ledge. Water pours off me in sheets. My chest heaves. My vision swims black at the edges from the pain and the fever, but I force my eyes open.

Cat vision kicks in instantly. The cavern is vast, far larger than the little cave above. Pale sandstone walls rise high on all sides, streaked with mineral veins that glow faint silver in the total dark. Stalactites hang from the ceiling like teeth. The underground river flows through the centre, black and swift. The air is damp and heavy with the smell of wet stone, old rot, and something alive. Something wrong.

I turn slowly on all fours, tail low and tense, claws splayed on the wet rock. My ears swivel forward, listening. My blue eyes glow soft in the darkness, pupils wide and predatory.

Then I see them.

Giant rats. At least a dozen of them, bigger than any I have ever seen, the size of large dogs, grey fur matted and patchy, red eyes glowing back at me from the shadows along the far wall. Their long yellow teeth glint in the faint phosphorescence on the rocks. They are snarling already, low and guttural, hackles raised, claws scraping the stone as they fan out to block the ledge. One of the largest rears up on its hind legs, nose twitching at the blood in the water, and lets out a wet, aggressive hiss that echoes through the cavern.

My tail lashes once, hard, spraying water across the rock. My ears pin flat. My fangs bare in an automatic snarl as the fever and the pain and the yandere panic all crash together into one burning, possessive rage.

I am trapped at the bottom of a deep cavern with no weapons, no Master, and a pack of giant rats that have already smelled the blood on me.

The giant rats snarl and the sound bounces off the cavern walls like knives on stone. I am still on all fours on the narrow ledge, water streaming off my soaked rags, tail lashing once behind me in a vicious arc that sprays droplets across the rock. My blue eyes glow bright in the dark, pupils slit wide, fangs already bared so hard my gums ache. The bond is gone. Master is gone. These filthy vermin think they can bare their teeth at what is his? At me?

Rage explodes through the fever and the pain like black fire.

I scream, raw, unstable, yandere savage, and launch straight at the nearest rat before it can finish its hiss.

My claws hit first. I slam into its side, teeth sinking deep into the thick fur at its throat. Hot blood floods my mouth. The rat shrieks and thrashes, claws raking my already torn shoulder, but I do not let go. I twist my head hard, fangs tearing through muscle and tendon until something vital snaps. It goes limp under me. I rip my mouth free and spin toward the next one, tail whipping for balance, blonde hair flying wet across my face. My thigh wound screams as I push off the rock but the pain only feeds the fire. These things will not touch me. They will not keep me from Master. Nothing will.

The second rat lunges low, trying to get under my guard. I drop my shoulder, let it glance off the bruised ribs, and drive both sets of claws straight into its eyes. It howls. I keep driving, pushing it back until its spine cracks against the cavern wall. Blood and fluid run hot over my hands. I yank my claws free and spin again, ears pinned flat, tail lashing so hard it cracks against the stone like a whip.

Three more come at me at once. I meet them head on. One gets my fangs in its face. Another I bat aside with a clawed forearm, opening four deep gashes along its flank. The third tries to leap onto my back but my tail snaps around its throat mid air and yanks it down hard enough that its skull bounces off the rock. I stomp on its neck until it stops twitching. My breath is coming in short, snarling gasps. Blood, theirs and mine, coats my arms to the elbows, mats my blonde hair, drips from my chin. The infection in my thigh feels like liquid fire but I do not slow. I cannot slow. Every rat I kill is one less thing between me and Master. Every drop of blood I spill is proof I am still his. Still the Fang Shadow. Still the price the world pays for ever thinking it could take what belongs to him.

The pack hesitates. Six down already, bodies strewn across the ledge and floating in the shallow river. The rest, eight, maybe nine, circle wider, red eyes glowing, long yellow teeth bared. They are bigger than any rat I have ever seen, the size of large hounds, but they are still meat. Still nothing compared to the emptiness in my chest that screams for Master’s voice, for his hand on my ears, for the bond to snap back into place.

I charge straight into the middle of the pack.

Claws and teeth and tail. I become a storm of blonde hair and copper iron and feral rage. One rat gets its jaws around my calf and I drive my knee up into its throat while my claws open its belly from sternum to groin. Another leaps for my face; I catch it mid air, slam it down, and rip its throat out with my fangs in one savage shake of my head. Blood sprays across my collar and I laugh, dark, broken, lovestruck, because this is what I am without him. This is the terror coiled at the Silent Emperor’s side. This is the price.

I lose count after the tenth. My movements turn sloppy with exhaustion and blood loss but the yandere fire keeps burning hotter. I tear through them like they are paper. A rat tries to flee up the rock wall; I leap after it, claws sinking into its back, and ride it down to the stone floor where I finish it with my teeth. Another tries to bite my tail; I whip it around its neck and strangle it while my claws open its chest. The cavern floor becomes a slaughterhouse, bodies piled, blood running into the river in dark ribbons, the copper stink thick enough to taste.

I stand in the middle of it all on all fours, chest heaving, blonde hair matted with gore, ears still pinned flat, tail lashing slow and victorious through the carnage. My wounds are worse now, new gashes across my arms and shoulders, the thigh wound torn wide open again, but I am still standing. Still breathing. Still his.

Then the air changes.

A low, guttural growl rolls through the cavern from the far darkness, deeper and heavier than anything the smaller rats made. The surviving vermin freeze, then scatter sideways like they have seen death itself. I lift my head, blood dripping from my chin, blue eyes narrowing.

From the shadows at the back of the cavern, something massive moves.

The mother.

The mother comes out of the dark like the cave itself is vomiting up its worst nightmare.

She is massive, bigger than any of the others, shoulders as wide as Master’s chest, grey fur matted with old blood and filth, red eyes glowing like hot coals. Her jaws hang open, yellow teeth longer than my fingers, strings of drool thick as rope dripping from her chin. The smaller rats scatter the instant she appears, squealing and vanishing into cracks in the rock. I stay exactly where I am on all fours, blood from the pack still hot on my claws and face, tail lashing slow and vicious behind me, ears pinned flat to my skull. My blonde hair is plastered to my cheeks with gore and river water. The fever burns so high my vision keeps flickering black at the edges, but the yandere inside me is wider awake than it has ever been.

She snarls. The sound rolls through the cavern like thunder.

I snarl back.

Master’s property, I hiss through bloodied fangs, voice cracking with unstable, possessive rage. You do not get to have me. No one gets to have me except him.

I launch straight at her throat.

My leap is clumsy, my torn thigh gives way at the last second, but I still hit her like a spear. Claws sink deep into the thick fur under her jaw. I lock my legs around her neck and bite. My fangs tear into the soft flesh beneath her ear and I shake my head like a terrier with a rat, ripping, worrying, trying to find the big vein. Hot blood floods my mouth. She screams, a wet, gurgling roar that vibrates through my entire body, and rears up, slamming me against the cavern wall. Stone cracks against my already bruised ribs. Pain explodes white hot through my chest but I do not let go. I dig my claws deeper, tail whipping around her throat for extra leverage, snarling and tearing like the feral thing I become when the bond is gone and the emptiness screams for Master’s voice.

She shakes her head violently. I lose my grip on one side and she twists, jaws snapping shut around my waist.

The world goes dark and wet and crushing.

She swallows me whole.

One moment I am tearing at her throat, the next her throat muscles clamp around me like a living vice and drag me down in one powerful gulp. My arms pin to my sides. My legs kick uselessly. The pressure is insane, slick, burning muscle squeezing the air from my lungs as I slide down her gullet. Acid already stings my skin where the rags have torn away. The smell is rot and bile and death. My ears flatten so hard they ache. My tail is trapped against my back, thrashing wildly inside her throat, trying to find anything to grip.

Master… Master… the bond is gone and now this thing is trying to digest me before I can reach you…

Panic explodes into something darker. Something yandere. Something that has never known limits.

I scream inside her stomach, raw, unhinged, possessive fury that echoes in the tight, burning dark. My claws come free first. I rake them across the soft, pulsing wall of her gut in long, savage slashes. Flesh parts like wet paper. Hot acid and blood pour over my arms. I twist, driving both hands deeper, tearing, gouging, opening her from the inside like I once opened Voss’s throat for Master’s pleasure. My fangs sink into the muscle next. I bite and rip and swallow the chunks I tear free, choking on blood and bile but refusing to stop. My tail lashes harder, the tip finding purchase and whipping like a blade. Every movement sends fresh agony through my own wounds but the pain only feeds the fire.

I will not die in here. I will not become meat for some filthy rat while Master is still out there waiting for his kitten.

The mother rat screams. The sound is muffled and wet around me, her whole body convulsing as she tries to cough me up. I keep cutting. My claws slice wider, deeper, opening a ragged hole through muscle and membrane. Stomach acid burns across my chest and face but I keep going, snarling Master’s name with every rip.

The cavern light suddenly floods in as my claws tear through the final layer of her side. I shove my head and shoulders through the bloody gash, gasping, coughing, half-blinded by the sudden air. The mother rat is still on her feet, staggering, roaring in agony as her own insides spill out across the rock. I keep cutting, widening the hole, until I can drag my hips and legs free. I tumble out onto the cavern floor in a flood of blood and bile and half digested smaller rats, landing hard on all fours.

The mother collapses beside me with a wet, final thud. Her red eyes are already glazing over. Her massive body twitches once, twice, then goes still.

I stay on all fours, chest heaving, covered head to toe in gore and stomach acid that burns every cut and scrape on my body. My tail lashes slow and exhausted behind me, flicking chunks of flesh onto the stone. My ears are still pinned flat. My blonde hair is matted dark with blood. The copper iron collar gleams wet and bright around my throat, the only clean thing left on me.

I look down at the dead mother rat, then at the carnage of the smaller ones I killed before her, then at my own shaking, bleeding hands.

A broken, lovestruck laugh bubbles out of my throat, dark, unstable, spoilt and triumphant all at once.

My tail gives one final, exhausted lash against the bloody stone.

The cavern falls silent except for the soft drip of water and the slowing trickle of blood from the mother’s ruined side.

I stay on all fours, panting, wounded, feverish, but alive.