The snow crunched under my tires before shifting to the quiet crinkle of gravel beneath rubber when I pulled into my garage-cave.

  Shutting off the engine, I leaned my head back against the headrest with a sigh. Staring up at the ceiling of my truck, I went over everything that had occurred in the last few hours.

  Being back on Earth always feels like I’ve got a million things to get done in a very short time. Even when it’s only little distractions, I thought with a small smile. Probably because I feel like I need to constantly rush because the girls might call me away at any moment for an emergency.

  That the girls might need me wasn’t really a bother, at this point I would happily relocate to Cortha full time if I was given the choice, though I’d miss having Jameson and Gloria around to talk to.

  It’d hamper my ability to earn SP if I was with the girls full time, though, I thought, blowing a sigh out through my nose. The System generates the SP I’m given as rewards from the mana used to summon me, with my ‘share’ depending on how difficult the task is that I’m given. But it still might be worth it to be able to make my home there.

  I thought about that for a moment, trying to decide if that assumption really was true or not.

  Then again, it might not be so easy to settle on another world. I could be far more open about where I got money and probably live quite happily, but it could also lead to some odd power imbalances or threats… Eh, something to worry about later. It’s not like I have the chance to change my situation right now.

  Setting aside the concerns, I returned my attention to the present and pocketed my keys. That done, I grabbed my box of supplies for the cameras I’d bought and climbed down from the truck.

  A gesture and a thought pushed Manipulate Element into the stone at my feet and the opening in the wall melted shut once more, leaving me in near-complete darkness.

  “Gonna need to expand the garage,” I muttered, moving on memory to the section of wall that held the stone door to my living space. “With Jameson being in the know about all this, I don’t have to hide my abilities from him anymore. So I can stash his car in there when he visits to keep people’s eyes off the local area.”

  Entering into my main living cave, I had to blink a few times to get my eyes to adjust to the increased light. The glowing stones I had set into the walls shed more than enough steady illumination to be able to see, but the fire in the central pit had long since burned out.

  I set the box on one of the shelves carved into the wall for now and got to work rebuilding the central fire. It didn’t need to be big, but having something going was necessary to keep the cave at a comfortable temperature.

  Might as well get things settled and checked off my list, I thought and began unboxing my new security cameras.

  It was nice having this much space, as I was able to spread everything out on the large central table to stage and prepare it all. In my old apartment, my tiny kitchen table would have been far too cluttered to try something like this.

  I was reading the camera manual over when the edges of my vision flashed before a message from someone I’d been wanting to talk to scrolled across my vision.

  Cariad

  Hey Liam! Are you free? I saw that you returned to Earth recently and wanted to take the opportunity to chat. Not that I’ve been watching your status, that’d be creepy. But I did see the alert come across when the System brought you back to Earth. But I wasn’t… You know what, I’m going to stop rambling now and just hope you don’t think it’s creepy.

  Are you free, Liam? Can I stop by?

  “Cari, you are a goober…” I muttered while grinning to myself and closed my eyes to compose my response.

  Liam

  Of course you are welcome to stop by, Cari. And no, I don’t think it’s creepy that my caseworker has been keeping an eye on my status. It’s your job to look after me!

  Coffee or tea?

  Cariad

  Coffee, please. Ooh, or hot cocoa?

  Liam

  You got it, see you in a bit.

  Opening my eyes, I hopped to my feet and hurried over to my copper kettle. Filling it from one of my water reserve jugs on the wall, I set it by the fire to heat up while laying out mugs.

  I’d swapped over to using paper mugs for my daemon guests, since they’d dissolve when touching the bare lips of Cariad or Cerebaton.

  Been a while since I’ve heard from Cerebaton, I thought while spooning hot cocoa mix into the cup for Cariad. I wonder if he’s just been busy with the shit that we dug up before. I should check on him, he’s been a good friend and he’s Cari’s boss.

  I made a mental note to reach out to my horned sparring partner and former trainer. I started rearranging the table to make space for Cariad and I to sit before thinking better of it.

  “She’ll probably want to sit closer to the fire,” I mumbled and left my camera setup on the table.

  The kettle was just beginning to rumble when I heard a faint knocking sound on my front door.

  Hurrying into the anteroom, I gestured it aside with Manipulate Element. It revealed a shivering Cariad in the snow and I immediately reached forward to catch her by the forearm and pull her in out of the snow.

  The blue-gray-skinned woman squeaked in surprise when I grabbed her, but giggled when I set her on her feet and began carefully brushing snow off of her hair. A bit of energy channeled into my Shape-Shifting created a shroud of entropic energy around my fingers to protect me from her skin using the Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment) ability.

  “Why were you just standing on the doorstep?” I asked as I gave Cariad a once-over. “You are hardly dressed for the snow, and I don’t want you freezing your butt off.”

  “I didn’t want to intrude and startle you,” Cariad said, biting her bottom lip cutely as she let me fuss over her.

  My daemon friend was dressed in her usual outfit that gave her the appearance of a sexy secretary or personal assistant. She had on a white, long-sleeved blouse with the top several buttons undone to show off an expanse of her firm cleavage. There wasn’t a bra underneath the thick white material, that was obvious from the peaks of her chilled nipples made in the cloth, but I ignored those like a gentleman should.

  Cariad’s pencil skirt was a deep sapphire blue today and it hung to just below her knee while black stockings covered her legs and tucked into the sensible, low-heeled shoes she wore. Her hands were covered by long, opera-style gloves that I knew ran up her arms as well. All of her clothes were made of a neutrally-charged material that prevented her entropic nature from burning through them and harming matter on this world. Only the skin of her face and neck, as well as the exposed section of her cleavage was dangerous to touch at the moment if I wasn’t already shielding myself.

  “Come on,” I urged, looping my arm in hers and pulling her along gently in my wake. “The kettle is warming and it’s far more comfortable by the fire than out here.”

  “Thank you, Liam.” Cariad gave me a shy smile, her sea-green eyes sparkling in the reflected light of the fire.

  As we walked deeper into my private space, Cariad’s second set of eyes flicked open and scanned the surroundings. The second set of eyes was set high on her face over where her temples would be. They were a brilliant, electric-blue color that crackled with energy as they scanned her surroundings quickly before flicking shut again.

  “You rarely open those up around me. Worried about something?” I teased gently, and Cariad blushed a darker slate color at my words.

  “I… uh… maybe?” Cariad stammered, her blush deepening. She began gnawing on her bottom lip again in worry.

  Again, I sheathed my hand in entropic energy to protect it before lightly booping her on the tip of her nose.

  Cariad squeaked in surprise, pulling back before snatching my hand with both her gloved ones and inspecting my finger.

  “Liam, you have to be more… careful. You are fine…” She heaved a sigh and released my hand to look back up at me. “Of course you are fine. You’ve managed to work yourself into the right combination of abilities to be able to protect yourself from my nature. I knew this already…”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “It’s fine, Cari,” I replied. “It’s not something you are used to, so your reaction is entirely understandable. Why don’t you have a seat and relax? You said you wanted to chat some?”

  I made the suggestion to give her back some control of the situation, since she was the one who had reached out to me—not that I would ever complain about getting to talk to Cariad. She was a friend and also someone I was intimately interested in, too.

  Despite my good intentions, Cariad’s blush flared once more when I reminded her of the fact she’d been the one to reach out to me. But she did accept my hospitality and settled onto the padded stone couch by the fire.

  “Yes, I… Well, I did have some things I wanted to talk to you about. But tell me, how have things been going on Cortha with you? Are the girls doing okay?” Cariad said, stammering her way through the first part before her voice picked up speed and she rambled into a distraction.

  “Things are going well,” I answered, turning around to check the kettle and find that it was just about to start whistling. “Rieka just had her birthday and we celebrated with her mother. They’ve been asking about you as well.”

  “Oh?” Cariad responded, her voice notching an octave higher with the single-word question.

  “Yep,” I replied, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word. “They wanted to make sure you were doing well and to hear more about you.”

  I went through the process of pouring the hot water over the instant cocoa and gave it a stir before mixing in my special addition to each cup too. I added a splash of peppermint schnapps to mine as well, before settling onto the couch next to Cariad and holding out her cup to her.

  My daemon friend accepted the cup gingerly, taking a sip and sighing in contentment at the chocolaty flavor, then making a questioning noise.

  “What did you add to it?” she asked, tilting her head to one side and making her long red hair bounce.

  “Instant cider mix,” I answered, taking a sip of my own drink. “I’ve discovered that mixing the two makes for a really flavorful combination. I used to think it was decadent, but it’s something I picked up from my mother. She liked to do it when the snow was heavy on the ground.”

  I snorted at the memory, the idea that mixing two drink powders together felt ‘decadent’ just reminded me of how poor I had been. But the fond memories it brought up made it worth it still.

  “It tastes delicious,” Cariad murmured, taking another sip while holding the mug with both hands.

  Glancing at my friend out of the corner of my eye, I saw her darting glances my way. I had a guess as to what was making her nervous. So, I decided to do something that would either make her more nervous or relax her, and I was hoping for the latter. I didn’t like it when anyone was nervous around me.

  Setting my mug down on the edge of the central firepit, I bent down and gently hooked Cariad’s legs. She squeaked in surprise again as I used my grip on her lower legs to gently turn her in place so her feet ended up in my lap.

  “Relax, Cari,” I urged and began unbuckling her shoes. “My home is your home. You clearly have something on your mind and I’m not going to be upset regardless of what you want to talk about.”

  Cariad bit her bottom lip, clutching her paper mug with both gloved hands, but she didn’t resist as I removed her shoes and began kneading her feet. In fact, she let out a contented groan as I got to work.

  “Oh, that feels so good,” Cariad moaned, wiggling the toes of the foot I had in my hands.

  Score one for me, I thought. Every woman loves foot rubs.

  Cariad remained silent for another minute, enjoying the foot rub and her hot drink for a bit until she finally broke the silence.

  “You remember what we talked about before? About the… attraction between us?” Cariad said, her tone hesitant.

  Just as I was hoping, I thought. But I didn’t voice my hopes aloud. Instead, I waited and when she continued to hesitate, I spoke up.

  “I remember you mentioning that you needed to check and make sure it wasn’t going to interfere with your position as my caseworker,” I replied, not looking up from my work. Cariad seemed to get more nervous if I was looking at her, and I was hoping for good news so I didn’t press her.

  “Yeah,” Cariad said slowly. “I’ve been… distracted lately with that quite a bit. So I did the digging and pulled official records and guidelines. It took a bit of time to get them since I didn’t want to rush into the office of Internal Affairs and just demand to know if I’d get in trouble for being intimate with my Traveler… no way that wouldn’t be awkward as hell…”

  Cariad trailed off into a small, crazed giggle and I smiled as well.

  “It would have been cute as hell to see,” I said, tugging on one of her toes and making it pop quietly. Cariad moaned, a low and sultry noise that sent a thrill down my spine, but I restrained myself.

  “Cute for you, maybe,” Cariad mumbled. “But it would have absolutely ruined my credibility in the office.”

  “Which is why you had to make the regular inquiries to get the guidelines and research things on the sly?” I answered, glancing her way quickly to catch the nod from the daemon.

  “Yes. I wanted to inquire on the sly so that if things were forbidden, then it didn’t get back to the wrong people,” Cariad said quietly, her blush back once more but she wasn’t gnawing on her bottom lip now, so I counted that as an improvement.

  “And? What did you find?” I prompted gently, moving on to tugging on her other toes. Only one of them popped and Cariad let out a quiet whimper at that, but didn’t moan again.

  “Well…” Cariad hedged at first before continuing in a rush, as if she needed to get it all out before something choked her. “So the guidelines around relationships between DSR personnel and Travelers are pretty heavily defined. Especially that of the caseworkers and the Travelers they are in charge of. Relationships aren’t forbidden, in fact they encourage close relationships with the Travelers we are assigned in order to ensure they follow DSR guidelines. I had to dig into the documents pretty deeply to find specifics about more physical relationships and they are defined as acceptable only between the primary caseworker and their Travelers as long as there is no conflict of interest between other Travelers in the caseworker's network…”

  Cariad’s voice trailed off, losing steam as she spoke until the last part was a whisper.

  “So,” I said quietly, still not looking up from the foot-rub I was giving her. “You would be okay to have a relationship with a Traveler under your guidance as long as it doesn’t cause friction with another Traveler under you.”

  “I’d prefer on top of me,” Cariad muttered, almost quietly enough that I missed it. But her sudden stiffer posture and how her skin abruptly darkened to an almost midnight blue would have caught my attention regardless.

  Rather than call attention to her Freudian slip, I cleared my throat and continued to speak, but I couldn’t help the small smile that appeared on my face.

  “Since I’m the only Traveler under you right now,” I gave her feet a squeeze and Cariad gasped. “Then you have a clear path if it’s something you want to pursue. Right?”

  “It might affect my future assignments,” Cariad said hesitantly. “The guidelines specifically state if a close relationship like that develops and the caseworker in question pursues it, they won’t be assigned new cases so they can fully commit to managing the Traveler. Especially if the Traveler in question has gone so far as to take measures to return the attention, such as acquiring abilities to remove the… barriers between species.”

  Cariad’s blush couldn’t get any deeper at that point, but I knew she was trying. Her toes were wiggling under my hands like nervous fingers fiddling with the buttons on a shirt, and it was honestly adorable to see how my normally confident friend was so shy right now.

  “So you’d end up stuck working with me for the foreseeable future and only me?” I asked gently.

  It was hard keeping a lid on my desire right now, as I’d been attracted to Cariad for almost as long as I’d been with her. It was honestly the danger presented by her entropic nature that had kept me from expressing interest soon. Only once I’d seen the opportunity to be able to touch her without melting like sugar in the rain did I let myself hope.

  “Only until you start bringing in more Travelers,” Cariad murmured shyly, still looking down at her steaming, half-full mug. She darted a look up to meet my eyes and a small smile fled across her lips. “You remember how I told you most Travelers get their start, right? From family members that give them a boost.”

  “Would that bother you? Being stuck with me?” I asked, giving both her stockinged feet a gentle squeeze that forced a contented groan from her.

  “Not at all, Liam,” Cariad moaned, her head lolling on her neck for a moment before she sat up straighter.

  My friend shot me a look that was somewhere between determined and hungry then. She twisted in place to set aside her paper cup. Turning back, she pulled one leg away from me and pushed the other over my lap and followed it across.

  In one smooth motion, Cariad settled over top of me, her legs straddling my lap and her pencil skirt sliding up to catch about her hips, leaving her long legs exposed and revealing that her stockings went all the way up. I caught a glimpse of a sky-blue thong through the dark material, but then it was gone as Cariad settled on top of me.

  The scent of an aroused woman filled the air as Cariad wiggled to make sure she was comfortable, grinding against the rising erection that she was now seated on top of. I steadied her on my lap with my hands on her hips, pulling on my Shape-Shifting but holding it ready at the moment. My only defense against the entropic nature of her body was my Shape-Shifting (Elemental Alignment) ability, and I had to consciously guide it, but I didn’t want to waste my limited supply of mana just yet.

  “The important question is,” Cariad whispered, her hot breath washing over my face as she stared down at me intensely. “Do you want to pursue something with me? I am not going to get jealous about your other girls on Cortha, but I’ll be a bit demanding when you have free time if you let me.”

  Cariad’s blush was riding high on her cheeks now, but her shoulders were squared in determination while her hips continued to grind against me. I could feel the heat of her sex through the barrier of her clothes and mine, and my body was responding in kind already.

  “You already know the answer to that question, Cari,” I replied, staring up at her intently. The softness of her gloves stroking my cheeks felt like two warm clouds, and Cariad moaned hotly.

  “You know I’ve been daydreaming about this ever since that kiss?” Cariad panted. “I’ve watched you develop from a confused and lost man into the confident powerhouse you are now… I can only see you growing further in strength until you can challenge the other Traveler dynasties… And I’m the lucky girl who was assigned to you early on, who got to see the early stages of the titan and the kind man that you are in private…”

  “Cari,” I murmured, the single word sending a shiver through her body. “Do you want this? Tell me plainly… because if you do, I’ll happily take you to bed right now. And I don’t care if you melt my sheets away.”

  Cariad let out a giggle that was halfway between aroused and hysteric.

  “We’ll need to get you some special sheets,” Cariad insisted, her second set of eyes flaring open. Their electric-blue glow bathed my face in warmth as I felt her gazing into my very soul with them. “I don’t want to risk you overdoing it and hurting yourself, but I want you so bad right now. We can figure out the rest but I’ve been daydreaming about this since that kiss…”

  “Happily,” I growled, lust coloring my voice while my hands shifted to the front of her shirt and began to work the buttons.

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