§
Honestly, Robert Stewart would disapprove of my behavior, wouldn’t he? This is basically a boss taking advantage of her subordinate, isn’t it?
I had no excuse for my behavior. That was my thought as Khortys guided my hands and mouth around her body. My fangs remained grown, and I needed no further stimulation. With the elven beauty giving herself to me, I could satisfy my issues and fulfill her primary desire with no need for any extraneous activities unrelated to vampiric nutritional requirements. At any moment during the time that I let my lips and tongue explore, I could have moved to a suitable tender spot and begun feeding.
Instead, I didn’t stop her when her hand slipped across my body and she teased, “I’ve played with naiads in their aquatic form before, Your Highness. I already know the secret.”
Perhaps I didn’t stop her because I was wondering What secret?
Oh. That secret.
I wear a pareo in this form because certain anatomical features are sort of hidden in plain sight behind practically invisible watertight seals.
Yes. For proper employer-employee relations, I should have grabbed her hand and stopped her, that very moment. My sexual harassment prevention training turned out to be not worth a damn. Completely ineffective. I moved to her face and claimed her lips instead, while I enjoyed how perfectly her breast filled the palm of my hand. She had indeed been taught well by the naiads she had met over the years. Her fingers were… very skillful.
So I continued kissing as an alternative to stopping her. It felt like an excellent alternative. Her tongue was also quite skillful.
For a bit, I felt a touch of guilt toward my husband. But after the first time he watched Mireia feed me, Rod told me that Mother taught him not to feel guilty about taking concubines, because neither vampires nor fairies could ever be monogamous. I was guaranteed to play with my food in the long run, so we should just accept each other and approve of each other’s loves.
He enjoys watching me with Mireia. I wasn’t doing anything he didn’t want me to do.
Without pausing her hand, Khortys broke the kiss to whisper into my ear, “Your Highness, you don’t seem to understand how desperately we want to pay back the pleasure that we owe you. You’ve never let us repay you before.”
Was that how it was? I guess, maybe it was? Perhaps I had to accept it. After all, she had barely started and it was pretty clear to me already that Mireia and I barely knew anything compared to this woman. We had a lot to learn. We were just a couple of dumb kids fumbling around in the dark, barely knowing what to do with each other, weren’t we?
Soon, I couldn’t concentrate on kissing anymore, and just rested my head on the sand, letting her continue. That prompted her to move her kiss down my body a little.
“You have such beautiful breasts, Your Highness,” she crooned softly then began doing amazing things to them as well, before exploring further.
Later, as I lay as limp as a wrung-out washrag, she returned to my lips and gave me a gentle kiss, then whispered, “Now, I can feed you. But Highness, please take me as your Servant.”
I stared at her for a moment, then asked, “Did you truly, truly understand what Diur told you?”
“I understand,” she affirmed.
I honestly wasn’t sure what I was going to do as I began. This was different from converting Father’s Servants. Replacing their lost master was a clear benefit for them. Yes, new Servants received clear benefits too, in a longer lifespan and powered-up magic, but did a surrender of freedom on their part justify it?
The mechanics of my species itself works against what ethics should be answering.
Then Khortys grabbed the back of my head to hold me in place, determined not to let me stop. She made it happen herself.
Later, as I brushed her hair and watched her sleep, I realized I needed to cover her up, which would be difficult in this body. I called out to Immortal Mother.
<You’re still quite fragile, so let’s wait before letting you transform. I’ll send her teammates to dress her.>
I softly replied, “Can you send towels for her and some clothing for me with them?”
<You should be able to manage the raiment I made for you.>
I rolled my eyes and went back to stroking the elven maid’s hair while watching her sleep. I would have tried to put her suit and wrap back on, but they were laying out of reach, so I stayed naked in solidarity with her.
Which is why, to my consternation, I was nude when Amelia showed up along with all five remaining maids! I sprang up to a sitting position and barred my chest with a protective forearm.
They came to play, it seemed. Naturally, since they had been in swimwear before. But while they teamed up to rescue their fellow maid from the monster, Amelia gave my lack of swimwear a playful smirk and asked, “Maybe I should go without, too!”
“Amelia!” I protested as she teasingly tugged at the tie of her wrap. “The Fairy King might show up!”
“Oh, he left us here and went back,” she said, as she continued peeling it . “He said he would return when it was time to bring us back.”
Desperate to stop her, I concentrated on my raiment. To my relief, the pattern Immortal Mother had left in my head was still working. The bikini top and pareo returned.
“Awww…” Amelia teased as she finished slipping the wrap off and dropped it. She stayed in the same state of dress as me as she waded into the water to join me. The maid crew were happily toweling off the sleepy Khortys, preparatory to putting her bikini back on her.
“Wait one moment,” I told Amelia. “I need to say something private to Pirkitta and Austrydhur.”
Amelia mock-pouted, then waded toward the fountain instead. Wanting to see how warm the water became, I guess.
My other two maids left their boss to the other three and came into the water to huddle close.
Keeping my voice low, I told them, “Khortys persuaded me to form a blood bond with her.”
Their eyes lit up, confirming that she had been speaking for them as well. I added, “Please keep it to yourselves and tell her to do so as well when she wakes up.”
Pirkitta wondered, “Why, Your Highness?”
“I don’t want my sister hearing about it,” I said, my eyes going momentarily in the direction of Amelia. “And I frankly don’t want anyone else to ask me. I have very mixed feelings about it. You may tell His Majesty, of course.”
Looking concerned, Austrydhur asked, “Will Pirkitta and I not be allowed to…?”
I sighed. “I meant anyone other than you two. Of course, I wouldn’t take her and not you.”
I couldn’t say yes to one and no to the other two, could I?
They both beamed and returned to Khortys.
§
Another day began. Huade turned another one minute and twenty six seconds older. I awoke again to snugglies from Little Jia and the pixies.
I caressed the slight roundness of my tummy, sensing the lives within, and grew a bitter smile. No visit from the HR manager while I slept. Did she not hear my prayer, or did she decide it shouldn’t be answered?
My daughter, my little sister, the true owner of my body… Given the choice, I would have let you keep this role. They could have moved my soul forward in time and made me your daughter some day instead. You didn’t deserve to have your life stolen away.
I would at least like to know why.
From knowledge inherited from Senhion, I knew that elven women would have less need of the bracelets than my human servants. They seemed to have natural abilities similar in some way to Mireia’s skill set from her old world. Even so, it was by no means perfect, it just allowed them to not turn into bubble-headed goofs while wallowing in the bond, the way Ceria wanted to do whenever she didn’t need to be serious.
But Immortal Mother noticed my concerns anyway and gave instructions to Kanon. Khortys appeared in the morning wearing a bracelet. The other two already had theirs as well, despite not needing them yet.
In the process, Amelia and the maids became acquainted with Kanon and received a tour of my small world. I was of course still imprisoned in Grandmother’s home, while she and Immortal Mother pushed me to exercise and temper my body. I couldn’t transform anyway, so I wasn’t going anywhere.
I was beginning to get a grip on the meditation technique I needed to use to refine my physique. Unlike spiritual cultivation, done while sitting still in a peaceful manner, this was meditation I had to practice while exerting my body. It put me in mind of the “runner’s high” and similar moving trances. Rather than pulling in spiritual strength to fortify my vessel, I was packing additional pneuma into my body to strengthen its grip on my soul.
And then it was time for Pirkitta to feed me. I did not allow the raven-haired elven maid to ‘repay the pleasure’ though, because Amelia and the other maids stayed to watch! And they got naked when she did!
After feeding, I was embarrassed, and anxious that Amelia would be repulsed, but once the maids were carrying their sleeping comrade to shore, she simply waded toward me and hugged, pressing her fairy-blooded beauties and their silver-dollar-sized roses against me.
“I’m still available!” she told me with twinkling eyes.
“I’m not going to feed on you.”
To tell the truth, my fangs were slightly twinging again. Those lovelies were just begging for a bite.
“There’s other things we can do,” she noted with a playful tilt of the head.
“Amelia…” I was at a loss for words, then reverted to old Tiana to say, “You should wait for your first time with your fiancé!”
“Oh, we took care of that already,” she answered with a mischievous smirk.
“What?” I gasped.
She giggled and squeezed me again. “Technically, the real wedding was the summoning ceremony anyway. Back when they made the hero summoning ceremony, ‘betrothal ceremonies’ weren’t the custom yet. Either you were married or you weren’t, so I’m already married. Your mother warned me not to wait for the public wedding to consummate it.”
I just stared at her, my mouth agape. Not the least bit of embarrassment chattering away about such things… Was my pristine image of her a lie?
My astonishment brought on abundant jiggly giggles from her.
She assured me, “It was my first time, and I’ve never been with any other man. And we’ve only had a few more times after the first.”
This has never been mentioned in the books, so it must have happened after I came to Huade. Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked, “When did this happen?”
Chatter mode on. “Your mother warned me that my role as the ‘sacrifice’ put me in danger of actually dying, like if I was seduced or raped before consummating the marriage. The summoning ceremony was originally a demonic warrior summoning which killed the girl. When our side stole it and turned it into the hero summoning, the sacrifice became his wife instead. But if I was taken by another man before we consummated the marriage, even involuntary intercourse would kill me. So your mother wanted me to complete the marriage and ensure that I only had to avoid voluntarily cheating on him with other men. Of course, Ryuu was a very unattractive man at the time, so I refused to do it.”
I had to ask. “Only men?”
She nodded. “Yup. It’s a man’s stuff that’s the problem.”
“Amelia!”
I didn’t ask her to more precisely define ‘stuff’.
“I changed my mind after the first time you rescued me,” she said. “I made the decision while they were carrying me off. But I didn’t have an opportunity until after you went back north to save him. When I heard you arrived in Bray, I rode a hippogryph up there and sent for him to join me in the local lord’s castle. Apparently I just barely missed you. I arrived right after you left.”
“Weren’t you in school?”
“It was the break between semesters already. And I only spent a night in Bray. Anyway, we shared a few more nights after you rescued me from Ilim Below, and a few more since then. Lady Chiara and I shared him in your castle, when we told him about his pregnant side chick.”
My eyes bugged. “Together?”
She dimpled and shrugged. “We were supposed to just lecture him and things sort of happened.”
Part of me wanted to say ‘harem bastard!’, but I have to be honest and recognize I’m sort of the same.
She kissed my cheek and whispered into my ear, “Chiara taught me how to play with girls, too.”
“Amelia!”
I think I convinced her eventually that I wasn’t going to have sex with my sister, but I’m not confident. I now fear, between my brothers and Amelia, that the ward magic Mother put on them to stop fairy charm from affecting them isn’t effective against Elder charm at all.
Also, Chiara? She’s a princess, you know?
