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“So what sort of monster d’you need killed, then?” Lambert asks the duke. He’s frankly surprised he’s talking to the actual duke - usually in situations like this, he gets to talk to some underling’s underling who makes it very clear that even a duke’s bum-wiper is entire miles above a mere witcher in status.
“I have no idea what type of creature it is,” the duke sneers. “It is infesting my hunting lodge and I want it gone; is that not enough?”
Lambert raises an eyebrow. “It makes a difference whether it’s a nightwraith or a nekker,” he points out dryly. “I charge differently, for instance.”
The duke sniffs and gestures, and a functionary minces forward and holds out a heavy velvet purse to Lambert. “I trust that will suffice for whatever the creature might be,” the duke says.
Lambert opens the purse just enough to catch the unmistakable gleam of gold before pulling its neck shut again. “This’ll pay for near enough anything, aye,” he says slowly. It will overpay for almost anything, in fact, except a fucking higher vampire.
“Then I trust it will cover both your fee and your discretion,” the duke says haughtily. “Such an infestation is hardly becoming of my house’s reputation. Get rid of it quietly.”
Well, that explains the gold. Maybe. Lambert nods. “Alright. I’ll get rid of whatever’s in your hunting lodge.”
“And then I trust you will remove yourself from my lands,” the duke adds, waving a dismissive hand.
“Sure,” Lambert says dryly. He certainly doesn’t want to stick around; he’ll start being tempted to shove this pompous ass’s head into a privy, or something to that effect. “One monster removal and I’ll be on my way.” He nods curtly, turns, and leaves the audience chamber, a footman opening the door and closing it again behind him with a final-sounding little click.
He’s almost out of the manor, taking a certain vicious pleasure in the dirt his boots leave on the so-pristine carpets, when someone says, “Hsst! Master witcher!”
He turns to find a young woman with something of the look of the duke about her beckoning to him from a side corridor. “Please,” she adds, and Lambert narrows his eyes and follows her.
“I cannot say much - I dare not delay you long - only listen, please,” she begs once they’re around a corner. “It isn’t a monster. Please, please don’t slay her. It’s a curse.”
Lambert’s eyebrows go up. “A curse?”
“A curse that ought to have struck another,” the woman says, and then they both hear the approaching footsteps, and she looks around in a silent agony of indecision, meets his eyes once more, gasps, “Please!” and vanishes down the corridor, moving faster than Lambert would have thought anyone could in skirts.
He lets the supercilious footman who finds him there usher him out the door, pretending he took a wrong turn, as if he couldn’t retrace his own damn steps with his eyes shut.
A curse, hm? And one the duke really doesn’t want to become public knowledge. A monster the duke wants dead and his probably-daughter doesn’t.
This smells like the sort of political bullshit Geralt usually gets involved in, gods all damn it.
But he took the coin - the purse is heavy in his hand - and now he’s curious, so he heads for the hunting lodge. It’s a good two days hike from the manor, even at a witcher’s ground-eating trot, but the second day is entirely through a rather nice forest, one that doesn’t seem to be infested with nekkers and drowners and similar annoying little monsters.
Which is odd, actually. It’s a protected hunting reserve, and usually those are fucking teeming with monsters.
Add that to the list of disturbing aspects of this damn contract, then.
The hunting lodge itself is, of course, not so much a cabin in the woods as a whole fucking second manor. None of the windows are lit, and there’s a very strange smell around it, something musky and animal with the sharp edge of Chaos. Lambert sure as hell doesn’t like that.
He makes sure he’s got a decent assortment of potions lined up on his belt and his silver sword is loose in its scabbard, and leaves his pack hidden under a thick gorse bush where nothing ought to bother it. Then he goes around the back of the manor and scrambles up on the roof and slips in through a window that he can jimmy open with a few moments’ careful work. If the monster - or cursed creature - thinks he’s going to walk in the front door like a fucking idiot, it’s got another think coming.
Inside, the hunting lodge is dark and quiet; there’s clearly no one here but the monster. Lambert prowls slowly down through the unlit corridors, silver sword in one hand and the fingers of his other hand crooked to summon Quen at a moment’s notice, but nothing leaps out at him from the side passages or attempts to drop on him from above.
At last he reaches the lodge’s great hall. The smell of musk and Chaos is so thick he could cut it with his sword, and he can hear something breathing, long slow deep breaths like a sleeping bear.
He would like to think the monster’s just a bear, but - no. Bears don’t smell like Chaos.
Warily, he pushes the hall’s door open just wide enough that he can slip through it, silent as only a witcher can be.
At the other end of the hall, lying before the unlit fireplace, is an enormous something. It’s furry, he can tell that at least, and at least as big as a bear. It doesn’t smell like anything he’s ever encountered before.
It’s also apparently asleep.
The sensible thing to do would be to spring upon it now, while its back is to him and it’s mazed with sleep, and put his sword through its heart and then cut off its head. That usually kills pretty much anything short of a higher vampire, and this isn’t one of those.
But -
Please don’t slay her. Please!
Damn his soft heart.
Lambert clears his throat.
The monster before the fireplace wakes at once, surging to its feet. It is as big as a bear, and as furry as one - he might think it was a bear, except for the smell of Chaos and the enormous curling horns rising from its head.
And also the fact that it speaks.
“Witcher,” it says, in a clear beautiful female voice. “Oh, thank the gods.”
“What?” Lambert blurts. Monsters aren’t usually glad to see witchers.
“Wait -” she holds up a clawed paw. “Don’t speak; if you say any more the curse will force me to act. Only be swift, I pray you. I will not fight you, not of my own will at least.”
Lambert frowns. Monsters don’t usually ask to be slain, and they certainly don’t promise not to fight. Well, shit.
It is a curse, then. And Lambert’s not quite enough of a jackass to kill a cursed woman who’s trying so very, very hard not to become the monster her curse has made her.
Vastly against his better judgment, Lambert says, “I have come to free you, lady.”
The cursed woman flinches as though he had struck her, and then she leaps, moving far faster than anything that large ought to be able to, and one clawed paw strikes his sword out of his hand as the other lands on his chest, knocking him to the floor and pinning him there. She doesn’t bite his throat out, though. Instead, sounding as if she is fighting against something with every word, she growls, “I must - ask you - four terrible boons. If you refuse - I will slay you, or you - must slay me.”
“Understood,” Lambert says, feeling a rather unfamiliar upwelling of respect. He suspects she was fighting the curse for every word of that warning, and that can’t have been easy or pleasant.
She shakes herself and growls again, and when she speaks next the words are lilting and honeyed and nothing like her previous tones. “Fair knight, if you would lift my curse, give me to eat your faithful horse.”
Shit. Lambert moves very carefully, stretching until his fingers touch the hilt of his sword, forming Aard with his other hand. He doesn’t have a horse. If this doesn’t work, he’s going to have to kill her. Picking every word warily, he says, “I travel by shank’s mare; my boots are all the horse I have, but you may eat those, if you desire them.”
The monstrous form shudders, and Lambert feels his medallion vibrate hard against his chest. And the cursed woman pulls away from him to claw his boots off his feet - not actually drawing blood, for which he is grateful - and devour them, her jagged teeth shredding them to tiny pieces. Lambert is very grateful that he has nice thick socks. Blessings on Eskel’s habit of knitting all winter.
The cursed woman hunkers down once she’s destroyed his boots, clawed paws braced on the floor.
“Alas,” she says, in that same lilting tone, “the horse is not enough; give me your faithful hounds withal.”
Lambert’s hand closes tightly around the hilt of his sword and he thinks hard and fast. “I have no hounds to keep me warm on winter nights; my cloak is all the hound I have, but you may eat it, if you desire it,” he says, though he winces as he says it. Gods, if he did have a horse and hounds - fuck, this is a nasty curse. He can’t imagine she wants to eat a bunch of poor dumb animals who didn’t do anything wrong but obey their knight-master, and any knight who’d actually let her is the sort of jackass Lambert would enjoy beating the crap out of.
He rolls to the side to let her tear the cloak from his shoulders, and once that’s been shredded - Lambert briefly mourns the very nice wolf pelt that Geralt gave him - it’s apparently enough, because another shudder goes through that huge furry form, and Lambert’s medallion almost shakes itself out from under his tunic.
That’s two boons. Lambert’s starting to get a little worried about the third and fourth.
The cursed woman takes a deep breath. “Your hounds my hunger do not slake; give me your faithful hawk to eat.”
Well, thank fuck. Lambert feels like he’s starting to get the hang of this. “I have no hawk to hunt for me; my arrows are all the feathered killers I have, but you may eat them if you desire them.”
The cursed woman pulls the quiver from his shoulders and shreds the arrows into splinters, though Lambert notes she only eats the actual fletching. Damn, he put a lot of time and work into those. But better them than his skin.
Lambert is still going to hunt down whichever mage cast this curse, when this is over, and make them eat their own gonads, though. What sort of sadistic fuckery is this? And why does it make her rhyme? Seriously, all mages are absolute fuckers.
The cursed woman shudders again once the arrows are gone, and drops her head; her curling horns are inches away from Lambert’s face. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut and her body is curled in, every inch of her radiating shame and misery. “You slake my hunger, noble knight, yet I am still not satisfied; lie with me as a man with maid, until dawn sees me made your bride.”
Oh holy shit.
Lambert suspects that even the sort of sick bastard who would give her his horse and hounds and hawk to save his own skin might hesitate at that. She doesn’t look like a woman at all, and most people are hesitant about fucking any sort of monster, even the human-shaped ones.
Good thing Lambert’s a witcher, then. He’s not Eskel, who has something of a reputation among the more amiable monsters of the Continent, but a bit of fur and claws isn’t going to put him off, not when he’s gotten this far. He’s going to break this fucking curse.
“Alright,” he says, and her eyes fly open, dark and fathomless as they meet his in astonishment. “Let me up, and let’s find a more comfortable spot - that hearthrug looks thick enough. And I should get my armor off. Fucking in armor isn’t comfortable at all.”
She stares at him for a long moment. “You - but I -” Oh, she’s got her own voice back, that’s good.
“Hey, it’s alright,” Lambert says, as gently as he can. And then, because he is an irredeemable ass, he adds, “I was gonna stab you one way or t’other; might as well be with my third sword as anything else.”
She makes a strangled sound of scandalized astonishment and then starts laughing, sitting back on her haunches and covering her face with her great clawed paws and shaking with mirth. Lambert suspects it’s at least half sudden release of tension, not true humor, but hey, laughing is better than crying by a long shot.
He sits up and puts his sword away and starts unbuckling his armor, considering as he does whether he’ll need any potions for this. It’s well after dark, and night is relatively short at this time of year - he’ll probably be able to fuck all the way til dawn even without a potion to keep him going. Might not be a bad idea to have a Maribor Forest handy, though, just in case.
She’s mostly stopped laughing by the time he’s piled his armor neatly to the side. “Come on, then,” he says, grabbing a Maribor and a dagger, just in case. “Although really that’s a very stupid phrasing on the part of that curse. I’ve met a decent number of men who genuinely would rather just cuddle than fuck. Pretty sure that’s not going to cut it, is it, though?”
“No,” the woman says sadly, rising onto her hind feet. She is taller than Lambert in this form, especially with her horns rising above her furred ears, and broader, too. He reaches out and touches her arm; the fur is thick and surprisingly soft.
“Well then,” he says, and leads the way over to the hearthrug, which is a bearskin.
“I think, given your claws, you’d better just lie down and hang onto the rug,” he says thoughtfully. “I don’t fancy having my back torn to shreds.”
She nods and lies down, fisting her paws obediently in the fur of the rug. Lambert kneels down between her legs, setting potion and dagger off to the side and stroking a hand over her furred stomach. “Ever done this before?”
“No,” she says, very quietly.
“Well damn, this is a fucking terrible start. Look on the bright side, pretty much anything else’ll be better,” Lambert offers, and wins another startled giggle, which sounds very odd coming from so large and imposing a monster. “An’ I know I joked about stabbing you, but sing out if anything hurts, yeah?”
“I will do so,” she promises. Lambert nods and runs his hands down her torso, enjoying the feeling of fur against his palms. It’s not sexual, but it’s certainly sensual, and he’s a witcher - some days a good gust of wind is enough to get him going. She sighs beneath his hands as he pets her, and relaxes bit by bit, the rigid tension flowing out of her until she’s softly pliant under his touch. A monster trusting a witcher not to hurt her - that might be the weirdest part of this whole bizarre situation.
She’s not shaped like a woman - no tits, and her hips don’t broaden at all, her joints don’t work the way a human’s ought to. Her mouth is not shaped for kissing, not with the jagged sharp teeth set into a blunt muzzle. Which does limit Lambert’s options a little, if he doesn’t want to just spread her legs and stick it in. Which he doesn’t. He’s not into pain in bedsport, either for himself or for his partner. He gets enough of that on contracts, thank you very much.
Which this technically is, but still.
After a moment’s thought he stretches out, sighing softly at the feeling of her fur beneath him, and nuzzles against her throat. It’s soft and warm and he could fall asleep right here, if it weren’t for the curse. As it is, though, he reaches down between them and slides a hand between her legs, and thank fuck she’s shaped like a woman would be there, or close enough. She’s absolutely not ready to be fucked, though.
She makes a startled sound and shivers under him, and Lambert grins and rubs his cheek against her fur and settles a little more comfortably, fingers working with immense care. He can take his time. They’ve got til dawn.
When dawn does break, they both feel it: Lambert because his medallion jumps against his chest, the woman in a full-body shudder that frankly feels amazing around Lambert’s prick. They’re on round two - Lambert’s been drawing everything out as long as he damn well can, to make this easier on both of them - and Lambert is rather proud that he has managed to bring her off a couple of times, despite everything. She’s a lot more relaxed than she was to start with, too. Or she was. As the curse breaks, she cries out in pain and convulses, and Lambert pulls out fast and backs up out of range, because if she flails and hits him with those claws, well, she might not mean to injure him, but he’ll still end up bleeding.
This has been a bloodless contract thus far, and frankly Lambert would like to keep it that way.
The woman doesn’t scream, but the sound she does let out as the Chaos sweeps over her is a horrible grating thing, low and agonized, that kills his arousal deader than a blown-up nekker. Thank fuck it doesn’t last long. The fur fades away, the claws shrink to nothing, the muzzle flattens and the horns turn to dust -
And a lovely young woman, pale-skinned and dark-haired, lies curled on the bearskin rug, panting for breath.
Lambert edges closer carefully. There’s a decent chance she won’t remember anything, in which case a naked witcher will scare her witless. There’s another decent chance she will remember and will still react badly. He won’t blame her if she decides getting fucked by a witcher was, in fact, worse than being cursed in the first place. Or, well, he’ll be a bit offended, but he won’t be surprised.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
She opens dark eyes and blinks up at him for a moment, then slowly sits up, looking down at her own body in astonishment and rising joy. “You have broken my curse, sir witcher,” she breathes, and the awe in her expression as she looks at him again makes Lambert feel weirdly twitchy.
“‘S kinda my job,” he points out awkwardly.
“My father hired you to free me, then?” she asks, eyes widening in hope.
Lambert hesitates. Given her resemblance to the woman who begged him not to slay the monster, he’s going to guess she’s also the duke’s daughter. Gods, the man’s a prick. “Well. Uh. Not…exactly.”
Her eyes narrow. “Please tell me what he did hire you to do,” she says, voice flat. Lambert winces.
“He paid me to get rid of ‘whatever is infesting my hunting lodge’,” he admits. “Your - uh - I’m guessing she was your sister, is the one who told me it was a curse. She asked me to break it.”
“Ah,” the woman says, and closes her eyes for a moment, but not before Lambert sees the sheen of tears. She takes three slow, deep breaths, and then she opens her eyes again, face as calm and composed as if Lambert hadn’t just told her her own father paid to have her killed rather than saved. “I suppose the…dishonor of the method of breaking the curse would have an adverse effect on the family’s reputation,” she says sadly. “I do thank you for breaking it, sir witcher; I did not wish to die a beast, nor to slay and eat any who came to try their luck at freeing me.” She hesitates for a long moment. “I have no coin, nor any goods save what are in this house, and I know not if they would be of worth to you, but I will pay you in any manner you please, if you will bring me out of this duchy and to some place where I might beg sanctuary - a temple, perhaps?”
Lambert knows exactly what she expects him to demand as the payment of his choosing. He can’t even blame her for the expectation - a lot of men would expect her to be their doxy for the length of the journey, specially given what it took to break the curse, and would probably make it as slow a journey as possible, too. But unless it’s for cursebreaking reasons, he genuinely does prefer his bedmates willing, not just gritting their teeth and enduring. Means he doesn’t get his end away with other people much, but hey, he’s got two hands and a really good recipe for slick.
“Your jackass father overpaid me so’s I’d leave the duchy soon as I dealt with the problem,” he says bluntly. “I figure getting you out of here counts as removing the fucking infestation, don’t you? We can loot this place for anything small and valuable - call it your damn dowry - and get you a horse or something once we’re far enough away. Sound good?”
“That sounds…immensely kind of you, sir witcher,” the woman says, looking warily relieved. Lambert nods and stands, offering her a hand up.
As their hands meet, his medallion shivers again. The woman flinches.
“Well shit,” Lambert says, frowning. “There’s still some curse left? But you’re human again!”
The woman closes her eyes, frowning. “Give me your horse to eat - but it accepted your boots instead. Your hounds, your hawk - and glad I am you did not have them, for to devour such would be a cruelty indeed; far better I should eat fur and feathers than some innocent creature. Lie with me as a man a maid - that you did, and kindly too, for I took no hurt of it, and for that I thank you.”
Lambert’s eyes widen in horrified realization. “‘Until dawn sees me made your bride’ - I have to fuckin’ marry you to break it all the way.”
Her eyes open. “Oh. Yes. That - that makes sense, given -”
“Given?” Lambert prompts when she hesitates.
“Given that the curse was meant for my sister, who refused the sorcerer’s suit most rudely,” the woman sighs. “My eldest sister, not, I expect, the one who begged you to rescue me.”
“Well she sounds like a piece of work. She and whoever cursed you probably deserved each other,” Lambert says, scowling, and hunkers down again. “Right. Well. I’ve gotten this far; I’m not gonna leave this curse half-broken, unless you’d rather be dead than married to a witcher. In which case I guess I - uh -” He doesn’t want to put a sword through her heart, but he’ll do it if he must. Witchers do the dirty work no one else will, after all. This is just more of the same.
And if he’ll hate himself worse than ever afterwards, what does that matter? He already knows he’s a monster in human form.
“I think I would rather be married to a kind and clever man, witcher though he may be, than be dead or returned to that beastly form,” the woman says firmly.
“Well. Alright.” Lambert genuinely was not expecting that. “Then - uh - hm. I don’t think there’s a temple near enough to reach before nightfall, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to marry while it’s still dawn, or near enough, which means now. So. Uh.” He rises and holds out his hand again.
She takes it, letting him pull her to her feet.
“I marry you,” Lambert says solemnly, and she echoes him half a beat behind. “I marry you. I marry you.”
His medallion jerks like a fish on a line, and the woman gasps and sways; Lambert gets his free hand under her elbow to hold her steady.
“It’s gone,” she breathes. “Really gone.” And then to Lambert’s blank astonishment she throws her arms around his neck and pulls him down and kisses him, unpracticed but enthusiastic. Lambert, not being an idiot, puts his hands on her waist to hold her steady and kisses back.
She pulls away after a long moment, blushing prettily. “Gracious! That was dreadfully forward of me, I apologize.”
“We’re married,” Lambert observes, very dryly. “I think you’re allowed.”
She laughs, a lovely burbling giggle. “I suppose you’re right.” And then she goes even pinker and her eyes go wide. “Married, and I do not even know your name!”
“Lambert of the Wolves.” Lambert raises an eyebrow. “I’m guessing you’re a de Roggeven, given your jackass father…?”
“Milena de Roggeven - or rather, I suppose I am now Milena of the Wolves?”
“I…guess you would be, yeah,” Lambert agrees, rather baffled at the thought. He doesn’t know of any other witchers who’ve gone and gotten themselves married, which means he has no idea what the usual protocol is. “So. Um. Let’s find you clothes - and hell, maybe someone left a pair of boots here, if I’m real damn lucky - and then get the fuck out of here?”
“I think that I will be much happier when we have left my father’s duchy,” Milena agrees. “By all means, let us be on our way.”
There aren’t any boots in the hunting lodge, but there are a pair of decent shoes that fit his feet well enough, and Milena has a whole wardrobe, so they bundle several of her fancier dresses into a sack to be sold once they get out of the duchy - they’re expensive things, and will probably pay for a horse and tack and a decent amount of coin besides - and Lambert raids the pantry for spices, since those are costly and easy to carry.
They’re on their way before noon, Milena in her plainest clothing with a walking staff in her hand and a pack on her back, Lambert with a much larger pack on his and a sack slung over his shoulder.
He keeps glancing over at Milena in baffled wonder. She seems happy, despite - well - everything.
“How are you so cheerful?” he blurts at last, when she actually starts humming a jaunty tune.
She smiles up at him. “I am free of my beastly form and my terrible curse, and my husband is a man kind enough to break the curse gently and clever enough to keep me from becoming a murderer; I am free, too, of my father’s cruelties and expectations. And it is very like a tale, you know, the valiant knight rescuing the lady fair.”
“I ain’t never been called a knight before,” Lambert observes. “Witchers don’t, generally.” He hesitates. “Once we’re out of the duchy, if the shine rubs off and you decide being married to a witcher ain’t what you want to do with your life, tell me, yeah? I can drop you at a temple. Probably be a better life for you.”
Milena smiles wider. “Perhaps it would, but I think I will stay with my husband,” she says contentedly, and starts humming again, a happy bouncy little tune.
Lambert boggles briefly. But hey, maybe being married to a witcher is better than being cursed into a beastly form and terrible actions. Certainly he’s got no complaints on his end. Coming out of a contract with a pouch of gold, a sack of saleable goods, a decent selection of spices, and a very pretty and apparently enthusiastic wife is the sort of thing that simply doesn’t happen to witchers.
He’s going to enjoy his good fortune while it lasts.
(And they lived happily ever after, to the end of their days.)