§
The conversation I awoke to was… somewhat suspicious, I guess I would say? And all in furtive whispers.
“Will you behave please? The Mistress is right next to us!”
“That’s! Why! We’ve been separated since forever! And Lady went and got hurt right away, before I can even have any time with her! I gotta play!”
“Lady Tiana isn’t hurt, My Lady, she’s just exhausted. I and Miss Mireia have both given her [Restoration], so she should recover soon. And would you please not put your hand there? And please don’t do that!”
As they flirted, I quietly checked my babies. I was confident I had shielded them from the majority of the [Purification], but I had passed out anxious over whether I might have harmed them. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found them still in my womb, unharmed.
“Ah, she’s blushing! Even though we’ve already done so many things together. How about here?”
“Aaaha…”
“My Lady Ceria, you’re supposed to be a noble daughter! Please behave yourself!”
“I don’t think that means much at all to her, Miss Mireia. Aaah…”
“Just a couple months ago, I was just an ordinary adventurer who turned tricks on the side. I’ve heard of adventurers becoming nobles, but I’ve sure never heard of a hooker becoming one. You can’t just turn me into a noble girl by saying it’s so. Mmmm…”
That last sound ended with the smacking sound at the end of a kiss.
Melione breathed out and in heavily, then confessed, “Miss Mireia, we may end up doing something embarrassing in front of you… ah… or I suppose now we’re already doing something embarrassing…”
“I’m sure Lady wants us all to get along, Miss Mireia. Why don’t you join us?”
“Perhaps I’ll just give Lady Tiana another dose of [Restoration] and leave…”
“Are we sure that it’s not a burden on Lady? Our mana comes from her, right?”
“I’ll close my connection to her first and use my own mana then.”
“Close your connection? You can do that?”
Now that the conversation had turned less questionable, I decided it was time to admit that I was already awake. Before I opened my eyes, I noted, “It’s not a burden on my pneuma. When you draw your mana through me, you’re using your own pneuma to borrow my wider and more efficient mana pathways.”
“Lady!” Ceria cried out and glommed onto me. The lights were still on, so I could see it was a very naked Ceria who had just let go of a very naked (and slightly flushed) Melione to do so. The distinct feel of skin on skin, both of her bosom pressing my arm and her hands clutching my waist and cupping my breast, informed me that I was very naked as well. Melione pressed up behind Ceria’s back to reach over her and stroke my skin as well, probably to assure herself that I was alive and alright.
At least Mir still had her clothes on. She was sitting on the edge of my bed, looking tremendously relieved. “My Lady, I think you are going to find quite a few people upset with you tonight. I insisted that everyone leave you alone to rest, but I’m sure you’re going to get an earful in the morning.”
Speaking of my bed, I was indeed in my bedroom in the castle. While Mireia spoke, Ceria had started nuzzling my ear.
“Can somebody tell me why I’m naked?” I asked.
“Lady Ceria,” Melione and Mireia said as one.
I had to let out a small laugh. They had only just met and they were already in perfect sync. Well, they are, in some ways, kindred spirits.
“And the hellspawn? What happened to her?” I asked as I sat up, detaching from the other two.
Mir answered, “I couldn’t see her after you fell, but her beast went wild and made a run at the aircraft. Pasrue drove it off with her onboard weapons and it ran away, faster than anyone could pursue it. It didn’t seem to be behaving as a controlled creature at that point. Probably, the hellspawn was dead or unconscious. I don’t believe she fell from it.”
I let out a small sound of frustration. “So she might still be alive.”
“You didn’t kill her?” Melione asked, sounding a little surprised. She’s more acquainted with how pragmatic I, or at least, the old Tiana, can be about killing.
“I was running out of strength, and that creature was probably A-class. I had to retreat. Even I have limits, Miss Melione.”
Ceria made a disapproving face, like she didn’t like hearing that. Was I an invincible warrior or something in her eyes?
Probably, I am.
Mireia continued, “There turned out to be a large number of gidim in the air. They appeared after you caught the hellspawn, so she must have been cloaking them. The fairy warriors helped us clear them out.”
That was a relief, anyway. But I ‘caught the hellspawn’, did I? Not ‘the hellspawn ran into me’? I should probably correct that idea later.
After a moment during which the three glanced at each other as if asking each other what to do next, Mir declared, “I would really like to stay here with you, but you told me to stay with Rod tonight.”
“Yes, I did,” I nodded. “And you should still do so.”
She glanced over to the table, where a tray of rice balls and peach wedges waited. “He made us eat dinner while you were unconscious, and had a platter of snacks brought up to feed you once you woke. Shall I stay until you’re done? I could feed you if you are still too fatigued.”
I took a moment to use my fairy ability to sense space and time to determine the hour. It was an hour and a half before Midnight.
“Go to him now. And,” I put a hint of [Vampire Charm] into my voice before completing, “spend your own time, properly in his embrace, without me in the way. I really want you to claim your rightful place in our family.”
She pressed her lips together. “I could feel you trying to push that on me with a bit of magic, My Lady.”
The pink-haired heroine could feel the [Vampire Charm] that nobody but another vampire should be able to detect? I suppose it made sense, given her otherworldly origins and alien magic. I colored a little bit at having been caught, but decided to deflect it with a change of subject.
“If you call His Highness ‘Rod’, then I insist that you call me ‘Ti’. It may not be how the law sees it, but as a royal concubine, you’re going to be my wife, for all intents and purposes.”
Mir dimpled. “Not ‘fellow wife’?”
I reached out and stroked her cheek. “If I have any say in the matter, I would have you simply be my ‘wife’.”
This time she looked a little charmed, even though I hadn’t used the skill at all. Perhaps the invisible [Fairy Charm] I had theorized? Although I’ve been trying to suppress that, now that I know it’s there.
She smiled, then leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Reacting swiftly, I got my hand behind her head to hold her there longer than she probably planned. Finally, I let her go.
But I didn’t like the slightly sad shadow in her eyes, so I said, “No guilt. You aren’t guilty of anything. You didn’t steal him from me. And you are doing me an enormous favor, just by existing and being in love together with him.”
She gave me a wry, still slightly sad smile. “But I caused that myself.”
“Your wizardry did, but not by your own intentions. That fault lies with your former masters in House Parna. So call me ‘Ti’ and be happy with Rod.”
With a slight sigh, she started, “My Lady…”
“Ti.”
“Ti.” she echoed, finally conceding.
“Much better. And it is way, way better than calling me ‘the Mistress’. I don’t want you doing that.”
Her brows peaked. “You heard me?”
“I did indeed. It’s what you called Parna’s wife or granddaughter or whoever was the woman in House Parna with power over you in slavery. I don’t want you using such a word for me.”
“But I want to use it, in order to erase my old Mistress from my mind. She is a horrible memory.”
My lips twisted. I remembered Elianora’s advice not to reject my Servants’ desires too often, but I had to keep this line drawn, at least partially. “To my face, in private, I’m Ti. To the public, I’m Lady Tiana for now and Her Grace later. But I’ll allow it in your heart and around those close to you.”
She still looked sad, but she agreed, “Yes, My… Ti. I’ll do that.”
I briefly used my [Fairy Sense] to confirm, then said, “Go to Rod, now. He’s still awake.”
She leaned forward to kiss me again, then left the room. Keeping track of her, I confirmed that she went to the right place, then tried not to pay too much attention to her and my fiancé after that.
In the meantime, I had a couple smirking onlookers to deal with.
“That was wonderfully sweet, My Lady.”
“Lady, I almost barfed up sugar.”
“I’m jealous though,” Melione said while pushing her tits into my back.
“And I’ve waited long enough. I need my share of you, now,” Ceria declared while squeezing up to my side.
“I suppose it has been just barely long enough for you two to feed me,” I admitted. “It wouldn’t be, if you weren’t my Servants.”
“Oh, we’ll do that, too, My Lady,” Melione cooed into my ear, sounding very un-Melione-like.
“There’s that thing about babies, you see,” Ceria explained while again finding my breast with her hand. She began gently and methodically massaging it.
“I already told you. I’m carrying twins.”
“Oh, but we’re talking about why you’re carrying twins,” Melione purred while cupping the other and lightly caressing, while tracing my tip with her thumb..
Ceria, what have you been teaching my sweet Melione?!
“There’s only one way to make babies,” Ceria noted in a smug voice.
Actually, turns out there’s more than one…, I wanted to reply, but her lips were occupying my mouth at that moment.
“No more saying you have to wait, because you’re saving your virginity for your fiancé,” Melione concluded. “That’s no longer true, is it?”
Ceria’s lips remained in the way, so I couldn’t answer. Meanwhile, Melione’s were kissing their way slowly down my neck, then continuing lazily down my body, pausing for a while to suckle at my bosom.
A slowly developing but relatively short time later, after her mouth descended further, I got a very clear answer to my question concerning what Ceria had been teaching her.
§
I ended up giving quite a lot as well as receiving before it was finally time to grow my fangs and feed on them. Before that, Ceria took it upon herself to teach me things she assumed I didn’t know, since of course she had no idea about the cornucopia of information for the average modern young Earthling that is internet porn. The lessons took quite a while, and involved both direct demonstration and coaching while I was with Melione.
She also promised to teach me plenty about satisfying a man, but I insisted I didn’t need such lessons.
“Are you sure? A whore is probably the best possible teacher for these matters,” she noted.
“I don’t want you calling yourself that,” I told her, firmly.
“It’s just describing myself honestly,” she said. “I’ve earned more that way over the years than I have adventuring.”
That surprised me. “I knew Bruna did that, but I thought you opposed it?”
“I’m only opposed to her doing it when Mom might find us out,” she explained. “I go along with her, the rest of the time. We’re a team.”
They both needed to stop, in my opinion. I would arrange some way for Bruna to get her mortal mana without doing it, so Ceria wasn’t tagging along. But I left saying so until later.
With both of them now sleeping it off after feeding me, I turned my mind to the other troublesome matter, the hellspawn lurking somewhere out there.
After finding myself a yukata, I slipped out the french doors and stood on the balcony, staring at the first quarter blue moon, just beginning to set in the valley to the west.
My pneuma was only beginning to recover, so I couldn’t push it, but I couldn’t rest easy, knowing that the hellspawn was still out there. I spread my [Vampire Sense] in order to cover a square mile or so, deliberately avoiding the castle interior so that nobody likely to notice me doing it would know.
I started with the square mile to the south, then deliberately swept it westward, then northward…
In the mountains to the north, I found her, on the ground on a wooded slope, clearly in a bad state. The nue was nowhere to be found.
Her head jerked upward as my [Vampire Sense] centered upon her, focusing to create a true vision of her, complete with audio. She was naked except for a few belts and straps holding tools, and she was huddled in a recess too shallow to call a cave. And she had very visibly been crying, which was not a thing that demons are known to do. Of course, hellspawn are half-human, and it is a very human thing to do.
Then she uttered a word that froze me on the spot.
“Mistress…?”
