Jameson, Gloria, and I hung around the house for another hour, shooting the shit and discussing future plans. Jameson pointed out several structural points that he recommended I reinforce that I’d missed in my initial building work, and complemented me on the grates to keep animals out as well. Gloria continued to compliment me on how cozy the home was and repeated that she was happy that I had somewhere safe to stay now rather than my old apartment.

  All too soon, though, I had to take my friends back into town. Now that they knew where the house was, they promised to swing by and visit but only after confirming that I was in and not having a ‘sexy party’ as Jameson joked.

  Dropping them off in front of Gloria’s family bar, Jameson gave me a bro-hug with a solid slap on the back.

  “Proud of you, dude,” my friend said, his voice low enough that only I could hear it. “If things go bad or the place ends up too cold, you come stay with me. I think you’ll do fine though.”

  Louder, he continued.

  “Make sure that you don’t drag your heels too much on introducing us to your ladies, or else I’m gonna start looking for the Bigfoot renditions of some Barry White music for you to set the mood.”

  “Asshat,” I replied with a laugh, returning his single-digit salute as he trotted over to his car and hopped inside.

  “Liam, thank you again for showing us your place,” Gloria said when I turned back to her.

  My friend and sole employee hadn’t stopped smiling since the shock had worn off seeing my new place. That smile had done a lot to reassure me that my friends were not only okay with, but embraced and approved of my choices.

  “Any time,” I said with a one-shoulder shrug, trying to play off how much her words were reassuring me. “You can see why I put off sharing for so long. It’s got a long way to go still, but it’s comfortable considering how much I got used to going without.”

  And it’s only going to get more comfortable when we get the chance to shop around the capital on Cortha, I added silently, my smile never faltering.

  I’d seen a few things in the Ironclaw capital that would have been nice to have, but with my assignment of ‘distract Rieka’ I hadn’t had time to do much other than memorize a few names. I’d used them to distract Rieka a few times, and the princess had told me each time that she could probably get me a deal through her family. Rieka never exploited her family name for discounts, and the fact that she’d offered to do it for me on more than one occasion had startled me enough that I’d just agreed to wait.

  Focusing back in on Gloria, I held my arms out to offer her a hug, something Gloria happily accepted.

  “I’ll get the new pieces listed in the shop tonight, Liam,” she promised when she stepped back, still smiling.

  “Do it when you have time,” I countered. “No need to rush them out tonight, unless you are really after that commission on them.”

  Gloria’s blush answered that question, but I didn’t pry. I’d intentionally set her pay high so that she’d do her best for it, and the frequency of sales was more than enough to continue to swell my bank account. I wasn’t rich, but I definitely wasn’t poor either.

  “About that, actually,” Gloria said, pushing forward in spite of her blush. “My Uncle Leo heard through the family grape-vine that I had a job managing an online store and looked it up.”

  Uh oh, I thought, but kept the concern off my face while still listening to Gloria talk.

  “He was really impressed with the original pieces there, and reached out to me a week ago to see if the creator would be willing to create a line for his store.”

  I blinked in surprise, and it must have shown on my face because Gloria’s smile widened into a grin.

  “My uncle runs a small jewelry shop up in Estes Park,” Gloria explained, guessing at the source of my confusion. “Mostly rings and pendants, things to sell to tourists there to visit the Stanley Hotel or the other sites in the area. I helped him set up an online storefront as well and it doubled his business—”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said quickly, holding up a hand to cut off the explanation that was rapidly growing in speed the longer I let her ramble. “I need to keep my own storefront stocked and you’ve been doing such a good job managing it that it’s hard to keep things on hand.”

  Gloria nodded quickly, still smiling.

  “I told him that it would be something that would take time and he seemed fine with that,” Gloria replied. “He even said that he’d set up a redirect to your site as well as post a sign saying where he got the pieces. I think it’d be good for sales to have a physical storefront where people can handle the merchandise and see the quality before buying it. A lot of reviews from Bitsy have been stating that it was higher quality than expected, so we have a reputation for good work already but there are going to be a lot of folks who won’t buy jewelry online…”

  “Sounds like an idea to me, then,” I said firmly. “I need to look at my supplies and see what can be done. Why don’t you contact your uncle for me and ask what sort of jewelry he was thinking about stocking. No reason for me to start making earrings if he wants rings or necklace chains. I might also have some new ideas of things that I can sell soon too. In the meantime, I’ll work on getting our back stock built back up for the Bitsy store.”

  Gloria had started nodding as soon as I suggested she ask her uncle what he was looking for, and that nodding only got faster as I continued while her smile grew wider.

  “Thank you, Liam. Uncle Leo was one of the main ones to encourage me to get my business degree and I really respect his opinions on a lot of this,” Gloria said, launching herself at me for another hug.

  I didn’t respond, just hugged her back before she bounced off to her car as well.

  That went well, I thought with a smirk as I got back into my truck and turned to head back to my mountain retreat. Now I just need to get some work done and survey that stream on my property…

  <><><>

  Arriving back on my property, I went straight to the little trickle of a stream that wound down out of the rocks on my property. It was a good few hundred feet from my little cliff-house, but it was still a good sign to me that water was close enough to the surface that I had high hopes for finding an underground waterway to supply my home.

  I stomped over the partially-frozen ground with a single-minded focus, already spreading Manipulate Element into the ground under me as I reached into the stream and sought out a specific element. The little trickle of water had a sandy bottom to it, even though it was only a few inches deep where it bubbled out of the rocks, so I was already hopeful to find something.

  My magical senses sparked off of something in the sand at the bottom of the little stream almost immediately and I had to choke back a happy laugh.

  Reaching out with the magic, I seized at the sparkling motes and called them into my hand like I had when panning for gold. What came surging out of the sand was not the gold that I was familiar with.

  The flakes shimmered in a different spectrum to what I had been expecting. Rather than the bright, yellow-gold flakes that I’d found before, instead the flakes were a far paler, almost buttercream yellow. Thankfully, I recognized what I had in my hand almost immediately, thanks to the exhaustive research I’d gone through regarding precious metals and how they were found.

  “Electrum?” I murmured in wonder as I lifted my hand out of the icy water to study the small mound of flakes and nuggets.

  I’d learned a while back when first studying to see if I could summon gold to me while panning in the river that gold and silver were found together often, usually in a naturally-occurring alloy called electrum. It was something that was common enough that ancient peoples had used it in coinage too, and a large proportion of natural silver collected was as a byproduct of gold mining.

  “Well shit, that changes my plans again,” I muttered, and sent my Manipulate Element down into the earth again to see if there was more in the sand and silt of the stream. “If there’s electrum on my land, then I might be able to build a mine. Unless this stream flows out of the national forest that backs up against the plot and that’s where the vein is…”

  My voice trailed off because my spell had picked up something entirely unexpected.

  Footsteps. From inside my concealed house.

  The pile of precious metal in my palm vanished into my Dimensional Pocket and I spun on my heel, hurrying back to the house as my mind spun over who the hell could be inside my concealed home.

  It only took me three panicked steps before I realized the most likely culprits for this bout of home-invasion, and another two steps to check the pressure of the movements to confirm who it was and I blew out a sigh of relief. But I didn’t slow my rush to get inside.

  I’ll check the stream later, I promised myself, when I don’t have a guest waiting.

  A quick tap on the door slipped the latch aside and I stepped into the warm confines of my cave house. The fire was already crackling merrily away, despite the passage of time saying that it should have burned low or out while I’d been gone dropping off Jameson and Gloria. But I knew why that was, and my guest turned with a bright smile on her slate-gray face.

  “You are back! I’m so glad, Liam,” Cariad said brightly. My daemon caseworker was dressed in her usual outfit of a dark pencil skirt and white blouse with stockings and long gloves covering her legs and hands to shield me from the entropic energy that ran through her very skin.

  “Cari,” I said with a smile, stepping inside and pulling the door closed. “You surprised me, but you are always welcome in my home.”

  “I appreciate that,” Cariad said, stepping up to give me a careful hug that ensured not to touch me with the bare skin on her face or exposed by the top four buttons of her shirt being undone. “I know I should have warned you before I arrived, but I just got done with my workday and stopped by on a whim. I got your favorite take-out to make up for inviting myself in.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted you to wait outside anyway, it’s far too cold out there for how you are dressed,” I answered warmly.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I didn’t need to mention the fact that having a daemon lingering around my front door would have been a bad idea, even this far out into the country. The downside of the more rural setting was also that neighbors tended to shoot at things they didn’t understand, something that I could appreciate after the number of strange monsters the girls and I had run into on Cortha.

  Just glad that there isn’t anything like monsters here on Earth, at least none that I’ve run into, I thought wryly before focusing on my guest.

  Cariad was beckoning me toward one of the benches by the firepit where a row of red paper cartons sat waiting for us. I didn’t even need to see the logo on the front to know they were Panda Express and my stomach immediately let out a hungry rumble.

  Cariad’s smile got even wider as she started opening them up, unleashing a cloud of fragrant steam from the contents.

  “Dig in, Liam,” she encouraged, selecting one of the square cartons for herself and opening it to reveal orange chicken before grabbing herself some chopsticks.

  I had to smother a laugh at the sight in front of me. An extra-dimensional being was eating Chinese takeout in my secret cave-house right now, and nothing about this felt weird at all to me.

  Deciding to embrace it, I plopped down right next to Cariad and leaned forward to grab a carton myself, opening it to reveal broccoli beef that my stomach made a frantic bid to crawl up my throat in order to grab it out of my hand.

  Cariad sniggered and offered me her chopsticks.

  “Eat, before your body rebels, Liam,” she insisted, so I took the offered utensils from her.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you out to see me?” I asked, fishing out a large piece of broccoli dripping sauce and stuffing it into my mouth while Cariad got herself another set of chopsticks. I felt a little wiggle and a soft pressure against my thigh, so I glanced down while crunching through the vegetable to find my daemon friend snuggling her skirt-clad hip into mine.

  “I wanted to check on you now that the paperwork from that mess you found was handled,” Cariad said without looking up, her chopsticks working quickly to hook a large hunk of orange chicken out of her carton and popping it into her mouth with a happy hum, being careful to not touch the wooden sticks to her lips.

  “Huh,” I muttered in thought while watching her chew. Cariad quirked an eyebrow at me in question, so I elaborated. “Was just thinking that chopsticks are probably the perfect utensil for most foods for you and Cerebaton… I’d been thinking that I should ask if you can bring by some dishes of that magically neutral metal that you had me make jewelry out of.”

  Cariad blushed, her cheeks darkening from a slate blue color to a dark sapphire while she nibbled on the tips of her chopsticks, the contact with her lips causing the wood to smoke and dissolve as a result.

  There must have been something on my face that gave it away because she blinked a moment later and looked down at the pitted wood and groaned quietly.

  “Damn it,” Cariad murmured, stabbing the chopsticks into her container of orange chicken and fishing out another hunk. She popped the sticky sweet nugget of chicken into her mouth and chewed with a belligerent grimace on her face.

  “I was just teasing, Cari—” I started to say, my amusement dropping away in the face of her irritation, but she stopped me with a wave of one gloved hand.

  “No, it’s not… I’m not upset about you teasing me, Liam,” Cariad mumbled around the mouthful of chicken. She kept her hand up to hold me at bay until she swallowed and cleared her throat before continuing. “It’s more that I’m realizing how inconsiderate I and Mr. Cerebaton have been… whenever we visited you in the past, we just used your utensils and dishware, not caring that it would damage them beyond saving.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, still trying to reassure her, but Cariad continued.

  “It is to me, Liam,” Cariad said firmly, locking eyes with me. Her dark, sea-green eyes were intense as she studied me from only inches away. “It was inconsiderate to invite myself over and simply use your things, even more so when we both knew how tight your budget was. If you don’t mind, I’ll do exactly as you asked and bring some dishes with me next time, if you still want—”

  Now it was my turn to cut her off, and I did so without hesitation.

  “Of course I want you to visit, Cariad,” I insisted, frowning now. “You and Cerebaton are always welcome. I think of you both as friends and hope that the same goes in return.

  Cariad’s frown immediately reversed and she beamed up at me.

  “Then I’ll do just that, Liam. I’m sorry again for being so inconsiderate in the past. I’ll make it up to you,” she replied before going back to her food with a happy hum.

  I wanted to refute the necessity of that, but the happy way that the daemon was humming and swaying next to me convinced me it was better to just let it go. So I focused on my food and enjoying the company of another friend, specifically one that knew just how weird my life had been.

  Easy and familiar conversation flowed between us, with Cariad catching me up on what amounted to ‘office gossip’ at the DSR, and I discussed my plans for my cave-house while the girls were in transit back on Cortha. Cariad and I spent the next half hour talking while we worked our way through the takeout. I didn’t ask how she’d gotten her hands on it this time, since it wasn’t possible to order in for delivery this far out into the countryside. My daemon caseworker had mysterious ways about her and I would rather chat with her than interrogate her about something as mundane as takeout.

  “I wanted to apologize again for being so abrupt when we ran into each other in the ruins,” Cariad continued, having moved on a crispy shrimp dish while I tackled the Mongolian beef and we split the large carton of lo mein. “Things were just such a rush and the situation…”

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said when she trailed off. “You know I’m happy to help you all and as soon as I saw what was in there, I knew it was something that needed to be reported up.”

  “And we are thankful for it,” Cariad murmured, fishing out the last piece of shrimp and popping it into her mouth before setting her empty carton on the edge of the fire pit with a contented sigh. “I think Mr. Cerebaton is working on some kind of bounty or bonus for you, it’s just taking time because he has to get it passed by the board first. They aren’t arguing whether it should be given, mind you, just how much.”

  The grim, satisfied smile on Cariad’s face told me just how she felt about this board, so I didn’t press on that. I had more than enough coming in to be very comfortable right now, anything extra would be just that, extra.

  Especially since they can’t pay me in SP so I can boost my Shape-Shifting up to the master rank, I thought while chewing still. Despite my friend’s smaller stature, she’d clearly been even hungrier than I was, having demolished her half of the food while I still had over half a carton left.

  “So what’s next?” I asked when the silence stretched on, fishing out another bite of sauce-drenched meat. I glanced down at Cariad to find her watching me, a soft smile on her lips.

  “Hmm?” she mumbled, blinking rapidly for a moment before giving herself a shake, making her bright red hair bounce and sway intensely.

  “Was asking what was next on your list of things to do?” I said once I finished chewing. “Are you still exclusively my caseworker or do you have more projects now? I hope that you are getting credit for how well things have been going with helping me out.”

  “Oh yeah, that,” Cariad blushed faintly but pushed herself upright fully once more and straightened her shirt. This had the unintended effect of drawing my eyes to the soft, slate curves of her bust and the dark shape of what I was almost positive had to be a nipple about to slip into view.

  Clearing my throat, I pointedly looked away and used the moment to set down the last of my food while Cariad began talking.

  “I’m still just your caseworker at the moment, we don’t often get new Travelers into the System, at least not spontaneous ones like you. They normally follow established account lines. I’m happy to be exclusively yours right now.”

  That statement sent my mind down a path that I’d been trying to avoid and my pants tightened noticeably. I spoke without thinking, the words just falling out.

  “I’m glad that you are mine then.”

  Cariad stiffened next to me and I cursed myself internally for just spitting that out there. We’d danced around the obvious attraction between the two of us for a while, and I’d only just developed the ability to touch Cariad even for short amounts of time. She knew that I had figured out a way to do it, and expressed her interest in me subtly. Apparently my own attraction was obvious enough that my other girls knew about it too, judging from the conversations that I’d had with them as well.

  “Liam?” Cariad asked, her voice shaky but I could detect a faint touch of hope. “Can… Gods I hope this doesn’t ruin the mood, but can I kiss you?”

  A fuse blew in my brain, but it power cycled quickly as I parsed what she asked and why.

  She can’t just spontaneously kiss me, I thought. I have to reinforce myself, she knows that it’s a power protecting me.

  That realization sent a warm bloom of affection into my chest. Even in the heat of the moment, Cariad was wary of doing something that might hurt me.

  So I did what I needed to. I pushed on my Shape-Shifting as well as the Elemental Alignment sub-power to infuse the skin of my face, mouth and hands with entropic energy. The effect cost a steady stream of mana, but I only needed a thin layer of it to protect me.

  Rather than waste time, I turned and caught Cariad’s cheek with one hand, making her flinch at the contact but then nuzzled into my touch before our lips met.

  Cariad’s lips tasted faintly of the sweet sauce that her food had been cooked in, and the sharp tang of power that I had come to associate with entropic energy as it dissolved matter. The flavor tasted like ozone smelled and I lost myself in that kiss.

  The faint vibration of a moan into the kiss drove my lust a notch higher for the beautiful creature in front of me even as her second set of eyes, electric-blue and set right at her temples, blinked open to stare at me in surprise before hooding.

  It felt so natural to connect with Cariad like this, I ignored the sensation of my mana spooling out of me, draining toward empty, and I struggled to care about the fact that I could get hurt by her touch when the protections ran out.

  Cariad’s hands on chest felt as hot as a furnace through our clothes, but when she pushed on my chest, I pulled back and gave her space.

  “Liam…” Cariad panted, her second set of eyes slipping closed once more while her primary eyes blinked rapidly. “We can’t… continue. Not yet.”

  My chest tried to implode at her denial, only to stop just in time when she added on the conditional. Before I could ask, Cariad began to mumble out an explanation.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, physically or professionally,” she explained rapidly. “I… I don’t know if this is even allowed… I want it—badly—but I need to make sure that taking this step isn’t going to cause problems.”

  The heat in my chest was back and I stroked her cheek delicately with my thumbs before leaning forward to give her one last peck on the lips.

  “All right, Cariad. I won’t push for anything that you aren’t ready for—” I started to say but she interrupted me with a laugh that sent her sweet-scented breath all over my face and made my pants even tighter.

  “Fuck that, Liam!” Cariad exclaimed. “I’m more than ready for it. I’ve wanted you for months now! Seriously though, I need to check the DSR policy… I don’t want your case to get handed off to someone else who isn’t going to look after you just because of a moment of passion. And I definitely don’t want to risk you hurting yourself on me.”

  Her voice dropped in volume, quiet enough that I would have missed it, but my body’s natural reaction and utilization of Shape-Shifting to tune my senses on the fly dialed up my hearing in time to catch it.

  “Or hurt yourself in me…” Cariad muttered under her breath, her cheeks darkening in a blush again as she looked away.

  That statement was just surprising enough that it broke me free of my lust fog enough that I realized my mana was dangerously low already. So I released my grip on her face and most of the spell. The change in touch brought Cariad’s eyes back to the front and I booped her gently on the nose with one still-protected fingertip, making her eyes cross to look at the offending digit.

  “Then I’ll wait,” I said firmly, locking eyes with her and smiling. “The girls already approve of you, they made sure to tell me that a bit ago. They want to get to know you better, too.”

  Cariad’s blush deepened, but so did her smile and she nodded.

  “I’m glad…” she murmured faintly. “I’d love to get the chance to talk to them too.”

  The tension still lingered in the air between us, an almost palpable desire. Cariad’s eyes traced down my front and landed on the tent in my pants. I followed a similar track down her front, noting the twin bumps in her shirt that showed her own arousal as well.

  “Liam…” Cariad said, her voice cracking faintly. “I should go… If I stay here right now, I’m going to do something stupid.”

  “Hi, I’m Stupid,” I said cheekily, surprising a laugh out of the otherworldly woman before I continued. “Truthfully, if you think you need to go, then I won’t stop you. Do what you need to do, and I’ll wait and train so I get to do more than just kiss you when the opportunity arrives.”

  Cariad bit her lower lip at that, clearly torn with desire, but she stood immediately and nodded before she made a gesture with her right hand, tearing open a ripple in reality and stepping through it, leaving me alone once more.

  Taking a deep breath in, I blew it out slowly, throttling my disappointment and arousal with the knowledge that this was just a temporary thing.

  She wants you as much as you want her, I reminded myself firmly before standing to gather up the garbage from dinner.

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