Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of the witcher. Those are property of Mr Sapkowski and I using Netflix series canon mixed with the books and my twisted version of the lore.

Warnings : This part can trigger because I suggest non consensual sexual behaviour. Gore and blood. Geralt whump.

Thx aaronk1 for the fav. Seems like the first person that isn't a bot in a while, so welcome :).

Beauty and the beast - part 4

Pulsions

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He had to fight back in his own mind to disrupt the illusion and this was almost not enough. He saw that wounded Yennefer get on her feet and jump at him. He barely had the time to shield himself with Quen. He took the blow this time and almost fell backward. He needed a few steps back to keep his balance. Inside, the emotional pain was shaking him.

The bruxa had a slumped posture now but she was still standing, with the help of the stone pillar behind her. Her long dark hair was partially hiding her face and the black blood was dripping on the snow from the deep cut going in diagonal from her shoulder to her belly. The sweet copper skin of the sorceress slowly vanished - as the illusion broke in his mind - revealing the pale one of the female vampire.

This was painful to witness in many ways. This was cruel by any mean. Everything was too fresh for him, and al he could feel was loosing Yennefer again, even if he knew this was just a construct induced by the bruxa's mind control. He gather all his mental strength to block everything.

Nivellen was about to go down the stairs but Geralt stopped him.

- "Don't ! She is dangerous. Now, more than ever."

- "She is no threat to me. She is welcome here. You are unnecessarily hurting her." His friend replied.

One step down. Geralt looked at him in disbelief.

- "I wouldn't say unnecessarily. She attacked us."

- "She was afraid of you."

One more step.

The bruxa turned her head toward Nivellen. Geralt could read in her body language. She was fighting the need to attack her protector and he easily knew why. She was weakening and she needed blood to continue this fight. The reason was dictating to stop and to prove herself capable of holding back her instincts but she couldn't. She wanted the witcher dead very badly. He had to try to open Nivellen's eyes on the situation.

- "Look around you, my friend. What is this all about ? She told me she killed for you. The city is empty because of her, not because of the war. How many did she kill in the name of love ? What mayhem did she provoke ? If you allowed that, you are responsible too."

- "I accepted that. Yes. I am responsible." The witcher blood ran cold. This was the worst scenario possible. "I have nothing left, Geralt. Don't force me to live forever alone when she wants to be with me."

The bruxa finally move toward Nivellen, going up the stairs in a wobbly station, on step at the time.

- "My love. I will never leave you." She said.

The beast man looked at her. Even his animalistic face couldn't hide the love in his eyes. Geralt clenched teeth.

- "She was kind to me." Ciri's voice came from his back.

He sighed. The girl was too naive but also pure of heart. In this situation, that did help.

- "She is a monster." He replied back, shaking his head slowly.

- "And so are you, witcher." The bruxa spat at him, turning angrily in his direction.

He put his sword upper in a preventive defence move.

- "I never said I wasn't."

Vereena looked at Ciri and smiled.

- "You are different too and they will hunt you for what you are. They are hunting you already." Her eyes sidled to Geralt an instant before coming back to his protegee. "He will come for you some day. He cannot protect you."

She made an uneven step down the stairs, toward Ciri this time. This was unexpected. She was going against her survival instinct.

- "You are like us, in a different shape. I can feel it. I can see it."

One more step down. Ciri made a single step backward.

Geralt saw the change in the bruxa eyes just in time, as she succumbed to her hunting instinct one more time. Her face distorted as her bestial appearance was taking over. She jumped from where she stood. She was all fangs and claws out. His sword wasn't in the best angle for an interception and Ciri was too close. He casted Quen full force around them and the bruxa bounced out of the protection with as much energy as she used. His next blink there was a sick noise and gurgling scream, as she had been pushed back into a long metal pole.

The vision was disturbing and Ciri clenched to his side. The female vampire was impaled in a weird angle, her feet barely touching the ground and she was trashing desperately. The night was echoing her screams turning into shrieks. Behind her was standing Nivellen with a devastated expression. He was holding her it that position and wasn't letting go. He had made the pole out of thin air, and doing so, he was saving them. But Geralt understood his aliment.

Ciri put her face in his side, hiding from the disturbing view. He grunted in pain as she jolted his cracked ribs. The adrenaline was hopefully blocking some of the pain. He put a protective arm around her.

Soon the bruxa calmed down. She had lost so much more blood trashing around, pined to the pike. Her pale skin was turning grayish under the dark rivulets covering almost all her front.

- "My love... Why ?" She wailed painfully. She stopped moving.

- "You tried to kill her. You tried to kill Ciri. I understand that you would have killed her if she had stayed. She is innocent and good. You can't do that." The beast man replied, his eyes and voice full of tears.

- "She... She moved away... I couldn't stop..."

- "I know what you feel but this is wrong."

- "I killed before, my love. You didn't care..."

- "Yes you did, and I looked away. But not this time. If you want us to be free you have to gather the strength to control yourself." He stopped speaking for a while. His hands were shaking as he maintained her up. "This is just the two of us, my love. Just let them go. I am forever yours." He finally whispered.

Vereena looked at them and seemed sad. Geralt was wondering what she was thinking, what she had seen in Ciri to want her so badly.

By now, he knew that she probably read the girl's mind as much as his. He would need to gain Ciri's trust more than he had for now, for her to reveal even a portion of what the bruxa discovered. He wasn't sure what he wanted to know or not. Maybe not everything. Maybe just more about her journey since the fall of Cintra and what was exactly that Nilfgaard wanted with her, in order to protect her more efficiently. But the fact was danger was everywhere, even where he didn't anticipate.

To achieve that kind trust though, the current situation was a decisive piece. Everything that he did and said was building that link between them and he could feel the young girl still unsure about the irrepressible and violent nature of the bruxa, even with Nivellen's words. She was more traumatised by the pain he inflicted her and more empathetic toward the beasts and their cursed love. If he just stepped in and kill that monster on the spot this would be seen as an act pure cruelty. He needed to react to her behaviour, like he did with Quen before. So he waited and observed.

For a brief moment, no-one moved. Everyone was suspended to the bruxa's conclusion to Nivellen's request.

He made some quick calculation there. Between the two fatal wounds she suffered and the blood loss, there was only one option left for her to theoretically survive now. She had to agree. But of course she couldn't... There was something more for her to persist on her track. This was something that totally eluded him.

Her body began to shake, worsening the wound made by the pole going through her chest. Her sad expression turned slowly into a blank stare. The shaking intensified. Her eyes blenched. Soon, dark blood was slowly pouring out from every cuts and facial orifices - tainting her pale skin even more. Her body twitched suddenly and her limbs slowly turned on their joints, in an unacceptable way. Her head was the last part to do a full turn, until front and back were almost reversed.

She grabbed the pole with both hands and pulled her way forward in a sickening sound of breaking bones and painful howls. Geralt pushed Ciri away. He needed the space to intervene.

- "My love. Look at what you were force to do. See. I told you the witcher would destroy us. We cannot let him go. Other will come. I just want to stay with you. I… I love you so much…" She wailed. Nivellen seemed terrified but he couldn't move.

Geralt knew she was simply playing with his feelings now, in order to drink his blood and heal from the wounds before it was too late, so she could fight back. He didn't hesitate when she tilted her head in a weird angle to bite. With the witcher potion still running in his system, he moved faster than anyone could anticipate. He got the bruxa by surprise also, beheading her in a swift move. His friend's scream was a desperate one, as he witnessed with horror her head roll down the stairs, in the snow. Geralt understood that the feelings were real, despite what she was and what she did, but he couldn't risk Ciri's life, nor let this situation continue if new humans tried to settle back in town. Vereena had proved several times now that she couldn't control her pulsions. And now was the final act.

The pole vanished in Nivellen's hands and the bruxa's body fell forward, directly down the stair and lied there in a heap, next to her own head forming a weird upside down composition. Dark veins ran rapidly on the pale skin as an accelerated decomposition was starting. Geralt moved away - and pushed Ciri back with him. The next second the body bursted suddenly into flames. And behind that wall of fire, Nivellen screamed and contorted in pain as he transformed back to human form.

He fell back on the stair, breathing hard and crying at the same time. His clothes were now too large for him and he was lost in them. Geralt looked at the familiar face and figure that the years and the sorrow had changed a bit. Be he recognised him. How old was he ? Fifty ? More ? He seemed way older.

Nivellen let himself slide down the stairs and kneeled in front of what was left of Vereena. He didn't register the cold, even when the dropping clothes exposed half of his body to the elements and the winter night. He touched the dark marks on the ground and sobbed. Then he plunged his hand in the smoking ashes and he took a full fist of it. He opened it, looking at him, his green eyes full of tears. The dark powder flowed through his fingers and partially flew with the soft wind.

- "This is wrong... Wrong !" He cried.

- "She was a monster." Geralt spoke softly, trying to justify himself now, more than explaining.

- "Not to me." Nivellen calmed down but he was utterly defeated.

- "The town. It was her. It has to be done."

Nivellen looked at the ashes again and began to speak in a low tone.

- "I know. But I don't care..." He sniffed. "I found her in the wood nearby about three months ago. She was wounded. I took care of her and... we bonded. For the first time in many years I met someone who didn't see the monster in me. She didn't care about my appearance or my past. She saw my repentance, my suffering and my loneliness. She saw that I wasn't afraid of her in return. We freed each other from our misery in a way. But..." His voice dropped again.

- "She needed blood to survive." The man nodded. "She began to kill people down there."

- "Not at first. I offered my blood to feed her, as I couldn't die."

- "But this wasn't enough." Geralt guessed. "Is that why she killed them ?"

He was sad and angry but he wanted the truth. He wanted to know what was a construction of his mind, what was a trick of the bruxa and what was Nivellen involvement in all this. This part was personal. He knew how much he was fragile on his memories. He couldn't accept that he was played that way to the point that he didn't know anymore what he had done and what he felt for his friend.

- "It could have been enough." Replied the man slowly. "The problem was she saw how the people treated me in the town. She followed me. She observed. She felt their disgusted and their fear. I lied to you when I said people adjusted to my condition. But there was a reason for that." He sobbed. "I wanted you to see me as before, when we were friend. When you helped me. When you were visiting me from time to time. Not as what I became… I understand why people saw the monster in me, and I accepted it. But Vereena couldn't. So she began to avenge me from something she shouldn't have. Ten deaths were enough to scare them but not enough to make them go. And she was a powerful bruxa with amazing telepathic powers. When Nilfgaard marched on Cintra, she used the fear from the war, the superstitions upon the Wild Hunt and the crime I committed to get in their heads and haunt their nights. Two weeks and she had the town emptied in a panic. The area has been declared cursed and nobody come anymore since then. I didn't approve any of this, but the truth is I have never been happier since there were just the two of us. And then you came… I told her to hide and that you would go eventually. But she felt inside of me that the contact with other humans was precious to me and she was jealous of you Geralt. She tried to scare you."

- "I am not human. I am a mutant." corrected the witcher.

- "I don't see it as such."

Geralt flinched. He didn't want to see the parallels but they were jumping at his face. He let a displeased growl escape his throat. He didn't need another human being that could crawl under his skin.

- "She didn't try to scare me." Ciri said, walking forward, cutting his spiralling thoughts.

- "She saw something different in you. She was pushing all her instinct for you. She was curious. She told me she wanted to know more about you."

That was strange thought to Geralt but almost expected about that cintrian princess. Too many things were revolving around her. If even monsters were attracted to her, she had to have something very special. He was observing the teenager with curiosity too now, but the next explanation of Nivellen cut through him like a knife.

- "But she couldn't let go with a witcher I was attracted to a long time ago, especially when she felt the fire in me reborn, just in a few hours."

- "You what ?"

- "Don't make me say it again, Geralt. The thing is I don't love you per se and I had feelings for you once, but this means nothing today. I loved her. You are just… game."

- "Your bruxa got into my head and pushed images of us. You played with that as if it was real." Now the anger was taking the front stage in his mind.

- "It wasn't to you. But it was to me. I told you. I know you never loved me. But..."

- "Why did you try to make as if it was something then. She tried to scared me and you tried to get a piece of me in the process. What was this, Nivellen ?"

- "I am so sorry Geralt. I am much like my Vereena for certain things. You shouldn't have come here. We should have stayed alone forever..."

Geralt felt like there was still something concealed there, but Ciri was the one who asked the burning question.

- "Wait. You said you deteriorated the temple a long time ago. I guess it has been rebuilt since. Why people were still fear about that."

Nivellen looked at her and his eyes watered again.

- "I am so sorry I lied." He got up slowly, his whole feature was pleading. "This is not what I did. And this is not what people feared from me."

- "What did you do ?" Geralt growled.

- "I... am a monster. I am much like my Vereena for certain things..." He repeated but this time it clicked in Geralt mind, and apparently in Ciri's too.

She walked back. He was sick. He took her hand. She was shaking. He guided her to Roach who was still waiting in the stables. He helped her on the mare and put his bloodied sword in its sheath. He walked slowly toward the main gates, trying not to puke in disgust.

- "My friend !" Wailed Nivellen in their back. "Please end me. You cannot leave me like this. I can't live like this."

Geralt was furious. The word friend was the dirtiest thing in his mouth now.

- "You are mortal now. Do it yourself." He spat at him without looking back.

I hope this was ok. I spent a long time rereading this but this doesn't feel very fluid to me still.
I wanted to continue with the big dialog between Ciri and Geralt but I prefer to make it in its own chapter to introduce Kaer Morhen, which is the next story.

I don't know when I gonna post it. I have just chucks of it for the moment.

See you more or less soon then.