The Romancer Opalbane
Episode Eleven: Worst... Heart's... day... ever!
Finally, the lively music, the loud laughing people, and all the couples got to Alessandre. Through his drunken haze, he wasn't exactly sure if he was in his usual cathouse for Love is in the Air day, or in a more modest tavern with an actual date. It was too good to be true. He pressed Opalbane up against a wall and grabbed her ass.
"Hi pretty lady." he smiled.
Opalbane looked shocked for a moment, but it was very brief. She wrapped her arms around Alessandre's neck and hugged him tighter against her. "Shtop sayin' that Al," she hiccuped and moaned against him when he kissed her.
"Hey, you two! Get a room!" some human shouted and nudged Alessandre hard in the shoulder. Alessandre was too absorbed in his date to turn around. He didn't see the human man's eyes bulge when he looked at Opalbane's face. Then the guy rushed out of the bar eagerly.
"Why did I give you wine?" Alessandre started laughing and kissed Opalbane again. The loud music roared over their conversation and many others in the tavern.
When he was done, Opalbane came up for air and said, "Because I ashked you nicely. Plush you forget that we aren't in my room. No manaburn candles, so I can really get to you." Opalbane smiled at Alessandre's dazed expression and kissed him hard.
Opalbane was a different woman now. She was in a breathtaking black dress, standing on her own stable two feet–well, the alcohol didn't help exactly, but still she was mostly standing–and she was using her powers freely. Alessandre felt her slip in and out of his mind as she read what he wanted at whim, but Alessandre didn't object to the invasion of privacy. The capable shadowpriestess got him more wine whenever he needed it, and as a result, he'd probably drunk far more than he would have normally. And, she also used it to guess his desires as well.
"Oh, you have a very dirty mind, Alessandre. But we can't do that here, up against the wall." Opalbane observed coyly.
Alessandre flushed a dark grape color. "You weren't supposed to see that." he admitted. "Besides... we really can't."
Opalbane raised a disappointed eyebrow and blushed a rose color. "Did I ever tell you that I'm an alchemist? It's just a little hobby of mine, but I gleaned every corner of Azeroth for the rarest potions... I can make you something if you have a problem... you know, because of your little accident in Silithus?"
"Shh," Alessandre squinted his eyes shut and shook his head at her. "Tha's a secret, Moonlily. Shh."
"Oh, right." Opalbane giggled.
"Besides, I don't have any problems like that. Actually, since then I've gotten better. Waaay better. Oh, man I wish I could show you."
Opalbane smiled. Someone at the bar across the room just got engaged and the barkeep led everyone nearby in a cheerful toast.
"You could shhhow me." Opalbane tried not to slur her speech but she was failing. How long had they been drinking? She'd left for the Trade District this morning, she could see through the curtained window that the sun was setting.
Alessandre kissed Opalbane some more. The heat between them was intense, and Opalbane almost thought she heard him purring... but she was probably just drinking too much and imagined it. He pressed her harder against the wall. He was taller than her and didn't realize his own strength at the moment. Opalbane slid up along the wall, off her feet a few inches.
Alessandre let his hand slide down Opalbane's backside and under her thigh, and began to lift her leg around up over his hip...
"No." Alessandre exhaled a tortured breath and backed away from the excited drunk shadowpriestess.
"What?" Opalbane challenged. She started to sound angry.
"I said no... I'm sorry Moonlily. I can't do this to you, to the mission. I mean, I want to, but I just can't do it to you this way. Not after what I went through today. You see, I almost lost you and I didn't realize how strongly I felt–"
"You bastard!" Opalbane screamed at Alessandre and pushed him hard into the middle of the room. Some people nearby looked around.
"Why can't you sleep with me?" Opalbane shouted. Everyone in the bar got quiet.
Alessandre blinked through his drunk haze, trying to understand what was going on. What happened to the gentle priestess he was feeling up a little while ago?
Then Opalbane looked around herself, presumably for her drink and couldn't find it. She tried to grab for one, and it clearly didn't matter that it wasn't hers, but its owner guarded it jealously. Then, Opalbane's eyes got wide and she pressed two fingers on both hands against her temples.
"Riiight, she's a shadowpriestess." Alessandre suddenly remembered aloud.
The person blinked, as if they were seeing Opalbane for the first timeand then generously handed her their drink. Mind Control is a powerful spell.
Glass in hand, Opalbane took a step towards Alessandre, and began to pitch the contents at him, but then she stopped. She drained the glass.
"Oh, yea, and she's also an alcoholic." Alessandre recalled to himself just in time before Opalbane finished the cup of whatever it was and threw the empty glass at his head. She had amazing aim for a clothie.
Alessandre had more than enough agility to dodge eventhough he hadn't really been ready for it.
"Why do you keep teasing me? Do you think this is some kind of game? I love you dammit!" Opalbane stole another drink, this time it was surrendered easily by a frightened patron. She attempted to throw the contents in Alessandre's face again, but then, as if she'd already forgotten what she just did to the previous glass, Opalbane took the time to decide whether or not it was worth wasting the alcohol. Of course, she chose exactly the same way she did before and then threw the empty glass at Alessandre a second time.
"You... love... me?" Alessandre whimpered, surprised. He looked grateful at first, but then the drained glass zipped past his head, and looked terrified.
"Yes, you stupid, stupid man. I love you so much! I'm going crazy trying to get you to just... just like me. I even got Willypearl to give me this dress. She wanted me to give you some red underwear too, but that really creeped me out, so I said no, and–"
"Oh, thank Elune you didn't." Alessandre interrupted her, remembering the nasty trick he played on Wisthera and her boyfriend involving red underwear from Willy's Secret during Winter's Veil. Another heavy glass whipped past his head.
"Umm, Moonlily, maybe you should just calm down–"
"I AM CALM!" Opalbane thundered, and her shadowform flared up. "Why do you keep rejecting me? You sleep with everyone else. Do I have to beg you to like me? Is it so horrible that I wish you would just finish what you started? What in the Legion is wrong with you, you STUPID IDIOT!"
"Hey, keep her quiet, or else I have to throw you both out." the barkeeper warned. Then he added in a cocky tone, "I would have done it sooner, but a hot Night Elf chick in a see-through dress like that yelling for some guy to do her is pretty hot."
"Yea, good entertainment." some other guy at the bar added, and Alessandre shot them a 'Yea, you know I'm the man' proud smile.
But his 'I got it like that' look didn't last very long. He tried to walk back over and calm Opalbane down but then she thrust open her palm and electric blue power leapt through the air like lightning from her hand to Alessandre's chest. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground in pain.
"Dear goddess!" he complained aloud. "She's flaying my mind... and I think I like it." A sick smile stretched on his face.
Opalbane scowled. Alessandre recognized that face. It was the same deadly anger that used to sizzle in her sultry features before he went to her during Winter's Veil. That was when Alessandre realized the truth in Opalbane's words. She really had changed a lot since he intervened that night. Had he changed too? How did he feel about her?
But Alessandre never got the chance to even think it.
"I'm Priest Faltheriel." the Blood Elf entered the tavern then and bowed before Opalbane. His eyes were no longer green. Opalbane had raised her arms above her head, reading a painful Mind Blast spell to cast on her disappointing date, but Faltheriel thrust his pale hand out and silenced the shadowpriestess.
Opalbane turned on him in angry shock. Her shadowform flared. Alessandre saw Faltheriel, and tried to get back up, but the Mind Flay had drained more from Alessandre faster than he thought Opalbane was capable of. The petite woman really could have killed him if she wanted. And that got Alessandre eerily excited, which was even more distracting to him in this situation.
"Now then, I think we can have a normal conversation. If you want that unworthy cutthroat dead, I have plenty of friends who can take care of him for you. But... as for your other needs, I think you'll find that since the Sundering, the Highborne always have been... how shall I put this? Better men. Why don't you come with me, Bloodthistle."
Alessandre thought he was going to be sick. "Hey, you jackass! Don't talk to my girlfriend like that." Alessandre realized that he just called Opalbane his girlfriend. Was that true?
Faltheriel took a step in Alessandre's direction and was going to say something smart assed to him too when the Blood Elf's hands began to tremble. Alessandre recognized it as the same uncontrollable shaking he'd observed in the Blood Elf when he had him cornered in the house in Cutthroat Alley.
"That sexy mana again..." Faltheriel muttered to himself and began to search the room with hungry eyes. "Who are you, dammit! I can't take being teased like this anymore!" then he began to inhale ragged breaths and looked desperate. For a brief instant, Alessandre thought he could see the man's blue eyes flash to green. Then, Alessandre repeated to himself again, It's just an addiction... by Elune, it can't have anything to do with me personally, can it? It occurred to Alessandre then that he didn't know which was worse, a Blood Elf hitting on him personally, or a Blood Elf hitting on his leftover mana.
Opalbane's eyes went wide. She shuddered at Faltheriel from under her shadow form.
"Alright, now all of you freaks had better leave my tavern!" the barkeeper threatened. Faltheriel stopped midstep and snarled at the man, like a rabid dog.
"No one is going anywhere with my charge."
Everyone in the tavern turned at the voice. Priest Benactus entered the room with twenty armored guard from the Cathedral of Light. Alessandre silently thanked Elune that the Stormwind Guard wasn't among them, or else the authorities would get involved, and who knows what powerful people in Stormwind might hear about it? And then, Shadowstep knew some of those people and would not be happy to hear that one of his agents slipped up.
At the sound of Priest Benactus' voice, Faltheriel straightened up instantly. He cleared his throat and composed himself.
"Thank goodness I found her, Priest Benactus. This rogue was giving her a hard time." Faltheriel's hands trembled when he pointed accusingly at Alessandre, and he had to make himself stop. The Blood Elf carefully folded his hands behind his back. Alessandre tried not to meet the other Elf's eyes.
When Priest Benactus approached Opalbane, she dropped her shadowform instantly and began to cry. "Daddy. I was so scared," she started to say, and let Benactus hug her. Alessandre panicked. The affects of his drink were replaced by raw fear. Opalbane had reverted so far to her old self without the demonic rune and manaburn candles in the last few hours. And he'd let her have a drink! Alessandre wanted to smack himself on the forehead. He now understood that Benactus had kept Opalbane locked up in her cell-like room for a good reason. Just whose side was he on?
"Thank you, Faltheriel. Gentlemen." Priest Benactus nodded at both the Blood Elf and the handsome Night Elf rogue in one gesture and nodded for both to join he and Opalbane outside. Alessandre wondered how in Azeroth he was going to get out of this one.
The bar was as quiet as death when the three of them and the guards left.
"Benactus, I'm sorry, I–"
"Not here." Benactus warned Alessandre, cutting him off. He sounded very angry.
They all walked under the heavy guard to the Cathedral of Light. Alessandre worried about his fate as Opalbane snuggled in closer under Benactus' protective arm. Had she really reverted to her cultist self again? Would she defend Alessandre before Benactus if it came to that? Faltheriel kept inching closer and closer to Alessandre, and the Night Elf tried his best to walk near Opalbane as they went along. He hoped that Faltheriel would assume it was Opalbane's mana he was sensing, and not try to jump on him.
"Hey, do you want to go somewhere after this?" Faltheriel quietly asked Alessandre. The poor gorgeous Night Elf rogue threw up a little bit in his mouth, then politely said No.