.
The maid trio looked quite happy to see the visitors leave, although they had avoided telegraphing that until Ryuu and Chiara left. As expected, I found myself led to the bathroom as soon as the door shut.
In response to my exasperation at the enthusiastic junior maids happily removing the kimono they had spent so much effort putting on me earlier, their senior Khortys replied, “You need to understand how happy these two are that you came home so soon, Your Highness. They’ve been enduring the teasing of their colleagues, suggesting it would be another fifteen years before we saw you again.”
“You’re happy too!” Pirkitta retorted as she slipped the outer garment off my arms. “You just don’t let people see it.”
“You need to learn to guard your emotions better,” Khortys lectured the younger maid as she took it over to drape it on the hanger and Austrydhur began untying the obi fastening the inner garment. “You are a personal maid to a princess now. You’re no longer an ordinary palace staffer.”
Austrydhur giggled a little as she unwound the cord. “I’m still getting used to it, too.”
“Does it make that much difference?” I wondered. “You all work in the same castle.”
Pirkitta’s eyes grew as she slid the inner robe off my shoulders. “It makes an enormous difference, Your Highness! A royal maid is a whole rank higher than a palace maid!”
“To be exact,” Khortys corrected, “These two, as junior maids to a junior princess, now receive the pay and prestige of senior staff maids. My own position is equal to a junior maid for a senior princess such as your mother.”
I recognized that I had brushed the tip of an entirely different world, with its own pecking order and pride.
“So it’s important to you how often I come here?” I wondered as my underthings came off. “I was told that you would be part of the king’s staff when I wasn’t here.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but that is not entirely accurate,” Khortys replied. “We are always responsible for minding your quarters. However, when you are not here, that job does not occupy the full time of three women and a man, so we work as extra hands for the King’s quarters with our remaining time. But I and Khaulmar are only equal in rank to the most junior maids of the King, and our juniors are below everyone there.”
So, when I was not present they became smaller fish in a bigger pond. I nodded my understanding as the trio guided me to a stool and began the process of scrubbing me clean.
They finished the job and let me soak in peace, but Khortys returned to the topic later, while drying and combing my hair. They had already put me in a sleeping yukata and brought me into my bedroom.
While she combed, she noted, “You need not be concerned about us when you travel elsewhere, Your Highness. Even though we are juniors in the King’s apartment, working there does have an advantage.”
“Oh?” I responded as I noticed her juniors smirk slightly. “What sort of advantage?”
“An opportunity, perhaps I should say,” she amended. “After all, the maids of the King’s apartment are quite visible to him on a daily basis. Their chances of attracting his attention are high.”
The other two made strong sounds of agreement, with Pirkitta giggling.
I had no information on how Oberon conducted his private life. The impression that Mother gave Tiana while growing up was that he basically latched on to every female he encountered, often impregnating them. She even let Tiana wonder whether daughters or granddaughters were safe. I now doubted Tiana’s fears about him, especially considering the reasonably low number of daughters he’d sired despite having ten thousand years to do it, and the advantage of a very high charisma.
But it sounded like these girls felt like they had a real chance, and welcomed it. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Khortys.
She answered with an indulgent smile. “Concubines are quite well treated, Your Highness. There isn’t a maid in the castle who doesn’t have at least occasional passing thoughts about it.”
“Would he make a maid a concubine?” I wondered. “Most fairies don’t bother with official relationships.”
“Of course, if a maid catches his eye, he simply sleeps with her,” she answered as she ended the spell and switched to a brush. “As long as she agrees, mind you. He isn’t one to force himself on a woman.”
“Would you agree?” I wondered, with heat rising to my cheeks.
She laughed. “Of course! I don’t know any other way to get a daughter from him!”
“The goal is to become expectant?” I blurted in surprise.
Yeah, I was still censoring sexual terms. I can’t help it; the Tiana is strong in this one.
“The goal is to become a concubine, Your Highness,” she explained with patience. “He only confers that title to a woman who bears him a child.”
The other two were looking on with amusement at the deep blush I had developed by this time.
“Your Highness, does this subject make you uncomfortable?” Pirkitta asked, pretending concern while blatantly teasing me.
“It’s… not a normal subject for polite conversation where I grew up.”
“You can’t talk about sex, even though you did such a thing with us?” Austrydhur retorted. She, too, was struggling to keep her face straight.
“Well, that’s not the same…”
“It certainly was the same for me,” Khortys declared while rolling up half my hair in order to put it into twin buns. The maids at Mother’s mansion would often do the same thing with my hair, even adding the little cloth covers just like in cosplay; it’s apparently a common practice for sleep in Doria.
As I grew redder, Pirkitta giggled and nodded. “It wasn’t just the same for me! I don’t think I’ve ever had a more intense orgasm!”
“Tell me about it!” Austrydhur, who was on the other side, doing the same to the other half of my hair, agreed. She wriggled in a slightly disturbing fashion as the two exchanged notes on their experiences for several sentences that I don’t want to repeat.
I was becoming very aware of how the girls had only donned simple light robes over nothing else after bathing me. And of how thin those robes were. And how well contours poked through, especially as they became firmer…
I pouted. “You guys are doing this on purpose!”
“Is it not okay for your meals to take the initiative?” Khortys wondered with a playful smile as she slipped a red brocade cover over the bun. She handed its twin across to Austrydhur, then pulled her belt loose. Her robe fell open to reveal the tip of a perfectly shaped B-cup.
Elven bodies are living works of art. As I enjoyed the sight, she swept the other side open to reveal the rest.
“Weren’t we going to tell her, first?” Pirkitta wondered. Khortys pooched her lips out slightly, the corner of her mouth quirking.
“That’s true,” she admitted, although she said it while stroking my cheek.
I was sorely tempted to lean forward and enjoy it more thoroughly, but I had to ask. I lightly settled my hand over one, instead.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“His Majesty’s offer,” Khortys answered as my thumb played. “He gave the three of us an option that would guarantee we become concubines in the future.”
“And it has something to do with this?”
“His Majesty told us, if we became your blood slaves, he would ensure that we didn’t suffer negative effects, and he would get us with child and make us his concubines.”
Okay, that killed the mood just about as fast as anything could. I dropped my hand and fought to not get angry.
“Your Highness?”
I considered it and wondered if this was the law of unintended consequences operating. Did he tell them such a thing as an assurance that they didn’t have to fear feeding me, not considering that it sounded like a great opportunity to them?
“Becoming a blood slave is not trivial, Miss Khortys. I’m sure His Majesty meant to reassure you. I don’t think he expected you to view it as an offer.”
Pirkitta shook her head. “Your Highness, His Majesty told us that bonding with you would be different from being a normal vampire’s slave. And he told us that you would become stronger with more blood slaves. He really does hope that we do it.”
I frowned, then shook my head. “For now, I’m going to say no. At least, I want you three to seriously research what you’re asking me to do to you.”
The two younger ones both looked disappointed, but Khortys nodded. “Of course, Your Highness. We will do as you ask. But I would like to ask one thing from you.”
“Alright,” I nodded. “What would you like to know?”
She had switched from my cheek to my arm with her caresses. “I am confident that His Majesty knows how to counter the negative effects of becoming a blood slave. So, I must take your concern with a grain of salt. But, does His Majesty understand the differences between a normal blood slave and your blood slaves correctly? Would we really age more slowly, and become stronger in magic?”
I wanted to retort about an elve worrying about aging, but I remembered that they would indeed look like Niaela eventually, even if it was over a thousand years until that day.
“The part about aging more slowly is true for any blood slave,” I told her. “The magic power-up is a special perk for the Servants of El… of fairy vampires. And I do indeed receive an advantage to my magic as well. If you know spells and skills, I’m able to use them.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she told me. “If that much is true, then I am ready for it, whenever you are ready to accept me.”
I was at a loss for a moment, then shook my head. “I insist that you wait, and you think much longer about it. I refuse to treat it so lightly.”
“I understand,” she replied, although she looked a little disappointed.
I was profoundly irritated at Oberon at that moment. The lure of becoming a royal concubine must have been awfully powerful. He shouldn’t have dangled it to tempt them into something so serious. Why had he done it? Concern that I needed to become stronger because of the demons? Or was it a gift to his mother?
Either way, the mood really had been killed thoroughly, and Pirkitta knew it. She worried, “Are we still going to feed you tonight, Your Highness?”
I contemplated the young elve from head to toe. Her slender figure, with teenager hips and teacup breasts, was just barely hinted through the thin robe she was wearing. Maybe the mood hadn’t been entirely killed.
With my eyes looking up in thought, I said, “I suppose it depends upon how well you can stimulate my appetite.”
She giggled and bit her lower lip with a coquettish smile. Moving her hand to the knot of her robe, she asked, “May I give it a try?”
