The feeling starts in her chest. It's [i]warm[/i] and it's [i]wet,[/i] like someone snuck up behind her and shot her full of Ambrosia. It tingles as it floods through her body, down her arms and into her fingertips, turns funny in her stomach and threatens to bubble up into something fierce and terrible like laughter that would ruin everything if she let it out. 

It sinks lower and deeper, slowing its spread even as it builds in intensity. It reaches hips and she has to bite her lip to keep from letting anything out. It pushes lower still, and becomes a fire. Her thighs clench. Her head buzzes. It is so [i]warm[/i]. It is so [i]wet.[/i] Her fur ripples in waves from the shuddering muscles underneath. Her skin tingles, and even the heavy, suffocating air in the room feels good where it touches her. Bella's fingers curl inward and clench tightly enough to draw blood from her palms. Even this feeling is ecstasy. 

Her eyes, half-lidded and useless, find Odoacer standing across the room from her. In a blink, she's crossed the room and broken the intricate circles of hidden defenses with nothing but her own raw power. In a ragged breath, she's broken the admiral herself. Bella's indomitable glare and feral snare crush Odoacer's will like a rotting grape, and her ears fill not with the sounds of impending battle, but of sobbing pleas for forgiveness. Forgive her, Praetor! She knew not what she did! Forgive her, please!

She will consider it. But in another turn of her head she's back in a dark room on Tellus that's so heavily misted with perfumes that nobody save Zeus herself could enter and think clearly. But Bella is in charge. She is tall and strong and proud, and at her feet the Master of the Kennels is a quivering mess. The whip is singing beautifully in her hand, and his cries of pain are an accompaniment worthy of Nero's golden theater. His back is bleeding from thirteen different lashes and for once there's no vomit-inducing smell but just the rush of her blood and the feeling of the wave building inside of her again and lighting her on fire when he whimpers that it was his fault, all his fault, he called her 'worthless' but the word was really 'priceless'! She could not be sold because she was invaluable and irreplaceable! So please, please, please forgive him!

She does not consider it. With a step, Bella has planted her heel in his back and the Master becomes the bottom step of the staircase leading to the throne of Tellus. Bella's tail swishes as her hips sway with each confident step up. She would never dare do this, but today it feels like her right. Step by step, she ascends. Her body is drowning in that wet fire feeling, which drips off of her claws with the color of blood. Intoxicating. Good. Good! She reaches the chair. It is not the Empress she finds waiting there, but the Princess. Redana... Bella's smile splits her face and she pulls the Princess down onto her knees and it feels so good to see, yes that's right that's where you belong, good girl, now you'll--

All at once, Bella is brought back into the banquet and the feeling of tension and war. She lifts a hand to squeeze her temple and shake her head, without regard to how it makes her look. What was that? What [i]was[/i] that? She shivers; she's found her insides again and they've dammed up the wave inside of her, but they've filled themselves with ice to do it. Was this the wine? Nngh, what did that bitch put in there? Bella snorts irritably and forces her eyes shut. Breathe, damn you! Breathe!

[i]hhhhhhhhffffffffffff[/i]. Wine and and sweat and shit and blood and misery and stress. She holds it all on her chest. 

[i]ksshaaaah.[/i] She lets it out. Her mask slips back into place without any further effort. She is calm. She is perfection. She is ready.

"I'm glad you realize that," she says with no small amount of effort to keep her voice from shaking, "Don't fall behind."

She is coming, Princess. Your Bella is coming to bring you home.