To be honest, I had only the barest of ideas of what to expect of something called the ‘royal baths.’ Most of my preconceptions were based on the castle itself mixed with the public bathhouses we’d been to, and I thought I had a pretty decent idea of what to expect.

  I still managed to fall short.

  The castle itself was made of granite, a solid stone with durability in spades, but within feet of the doorway, the whole room became white marble shot through with strands of gray that reminded me of Gemma’s gown.

  The entryway was just a wide room with a wall about ten feet in front of the door that had openings on either side. I knew immediately that this was to block line of sight from the doorway, and wondered if it was to give more privacy for those bathing from their guards.

  Rieka followed in right after me, taking my arm as had been her habit today as she went by and towing me along to the left of the divider while the other girls followed closely behind. I could hear Kassandra excitedly talking about the hot pools to Shayla and urging the moth woman to start bundling her long hair up because she wouldn’t want to wait when she saw them either, but didn’t let the mischief macaroni distract me.

  We only made it three steps before I stopped letting Rieka drag me while I stared at all that white marble, and instead took over leading her.

  My princess shot me a small, indulgent smile, and leaned her head on my shoulder. That simple gesture made my heart thud faster.

  We turned the corner and I almost tripped when I saw the true extent of baths that were termed as ‘royal.’

  The room itself was easily a hundred feet long and maybe forty feet across. Multiple pools steamed away recessed into the floor, with a whole row off to one side that had frost gathering on the tiles around them rather than steam, leading me to guess those were cold-plunge pools. Statues of wolf kin in different poses stood about the room, with a dozen of them grouped by the doorway with their arms outstretched like they were holding out offerings to some divine being hovering in front of them.

  Gold lined the walls and floor in sweeping, abstract designs that somehow incorporated the natural striations of the marble into an artistic image. Steam drifted up from the heated pools, adding another layer of gauzy distraction to combine with the white marble and the gold filigree.

  Light was supplied by enchanted stones much like the ones Kassandra made for us to use while delving into the ruins, but these were far more elaborate. Carved spheres of crystal the size of my head hung from chains or were supported in the hands of statues, while pillars were studded with several smaller stones sunk into carvings that threw artful shadows about the room.

  “So ostentatious…” Rieka said with a sigh, giving my arm a tug before unwinding her grip.

  I glanced down at my princess to find her unbuttoning her shirt already, without a care in the world. I blinked, stared, and blinked again before I noticed the sly grin on her face and heaved a sigh.

  “Don’t tease me too much,” I protested playfully. Rieka just giggled at me, pulling her shirt open and revealing the soft curves of her breasts encased in the white lace of one of the bras I’d brought over from Earth for them.

  My princess didn’t say anything immediately, just stepping past me with her tail awag to hang her shirt on the outstretched hand of one of the statues.

  “I’d say ‘get comfortable’ but I see Kassandra is already doing that,” Rieka said, unhooking her bra with fluid grace like she’d been doing it her entire life rather than just the last few months.

  The motion and her words were enough to prompt me to turn and see that in the time it had taken for Rieka to get her shirt and bra off, my dwarf lamia was stripped of her clothes entirely, leaving acres of pale, freckle-studded skin exposed to the steamy air of the baths.

  “Come on, Liam!” Kassandra urged, removing her glasses last and tucking them into her dimensional pouch before she hung that on the extended hand of the statue she’d draped her clothes on. “I’ll help!”

  “No you don’t!” I protested with a laugh, only to fail to dodge in time when my mischievous lover lunged for my pants.

  She got hold of my belt before I could stop her and set to work stripping me while the other women laughed.

  Kassandra giggled the entire time as she playfully wrestled me out of my clothes, only pausing to study my naked body once I was down to my boxers.

  “You don’t have to stare,” I protested, only for Kassandra to turn serious for a moment.

  “I just wanted to make entirely sure you weren’t hurt in that fight earlier, Liam,” Kassandra said, her tone firm. “Princess Margaret might be a bit of a hot-head, but she’s no slouch with a sword. I wanted to believe you wouldn’t hide an injury from us, but I was still worried…”

  The earnest concern in her voice had me moving before I even needed to think about it.

  Taking a knee to bring myself more to Kassandra’s height, and she didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around me in a tight hug.

  “I wouldn’t hide something like that from you girls,” I murmured into her hair, squeezing her tight. The fact that we were both mostly naked was easily put aside by the need to reassure her.

  “Good, because I’d need to absolutely dismantle my sister if she did hurt you somehow,” Rieka said as we separated. “Go on and wash up. Since I stalled Mother with this excuse, we’ll need to ensure that we are actually cleaned up before we take tea with her.

  “But what if I want to get dirty,” Kassandra whined playfully, refusing to let go of me when I went to lean back and release her.

  “What you do in your own room is up to you, Kass,” Rieka said with a roll of her eyes. “We do need to keep up a bit more appearances here.”

  “Hopefully not too much of one,” Shayla said quietly. “I don’t think Kass would be able to without bursting into flames.”

  “As long as it’s not anything explicit in view of the servants, we should be fine,” Rieka replied.

  A sharp smack on my ass made me straighten suddenly, and because Kassandra was still clinging to me, I lifted her into the air automatically. The dwarf lamia squealed in surprise or excitement—I wasn’t sure which—so I just slung an arm under her waist and used my Dimensional Pocket trick to remove my underwear so we could go into the bath with the other girls in a group around us.

  It turned out that the first of the pools was just warm water and flowed constantly from a spring on one side of the room to the other. The sides were sloped so that you could walk right down into it, kneel and wash, then walk up the other side to go and soak in the other pools.

  Rieka showed us the low stone bowls that were concealed by the statues that held washcloths, soft scented soap, and other bathing items.

  I did my best to ignore all the naked flesh around me, but Kassandra’s insistent clinging to me made it very difficult to think of anything else. When my dwarf lamia decided it was her job to wash my hair—and press her wet breasts into my face in the process—all the other girls decided to join in.

  Shayla and Jane each claimed an arm, both blushing faintly but not hesitating to jump into the mix, while Rieka worked my chest. I almost jumped out of my skin when Valda’s hands landed on my back, but she just acted like it was normal, chatting with the other girls while she gave me a quick scrub down and then kneaded the muscles in my neck for a minute or two, being very careful of the sharp talons on her fingertips.

  Once all of us had washed up, we migrated over to another of the larger soaking pools and settled in on submerged benches. The marble felt so smooth that I half expected to slip and slide right off, but the bottom of the pool was fine sand and that gave me enough traction I could brace myself comfortably.

  Kassandra remained draped on me, alternating between snuggling with me and using me as an anchor with her tail so she could float and enjoy the warmth of the water. Parts of her were better than others at floating, but I did my best to not let that distract me.

  Once we were settled in, Rieka began walking us through what to expect with her mother at tea later that day. I listened in, letting my girls plan and figure things out. Valda offered to sit with Shayla and Jane to help the two non-nobles feel more at home, while Rieka and Kassandra ensured they knew what to expect and what might be expected of them during.

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  “It’s unlikely that she’s going to ask more than general questions if it’s over tea,” Rieka admitted, sitting just to my left with one leg crossed over the other and her long blonde hair piled on top of her head, held in place with a delicate silver comb. “I expect that mother will want to have a formal meeting either tomorrow morning after breakfast or tonight after dinner, it depends on whether or not she has other plans blocking those times out.”

  “I imagine she isn’t too happy with your sister being so pushy earlier,” Valda murmured, cupping some of the hot water in her hands and dumping it over her chest with a happy sigh.

  “No, she will not be,” Rieka agreed without hesitation. “Margaret had a point to be made, but making a huge fuss over it like she did not only undermined mother since she already recognized Liam, but also prevented the conversation that she wanted.”

  Rieka frowned thoughtfully at that, staring down into the water while her hands fiddled with her sodden tail in her lap.

  “I probably shouldn’t have insisted we refresh ourselves,” Rieka said after a moment of silent thought. “It was unnecessary, given how soundly Liam trounced Margaret, but I was upset…”

  “I was upset, too,” Kassandra said, using her tail around my waist to pull herself back out of the center of the pool and onto my lap. “Liam could have gotten hurt just to satisfy her idiotic pride, and that is not a trade I’m happy to make. Just glad that you insisted on it before I had to…”

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t have gone over nearly as well,” Rieka agreed before giving her head a shake.

  The motion made her pointed wolf ears flop back and forth cutely, as well as sent a distracting jiggle through the rest of her anatomy. I’d long since given up on suppressing my body’s natural reaction to the miles and miles of exposed flesh around me, and instead I was just focusing on not staring at any of the girls. I didn’t care if they ogled me back, but I ultimately didn’t want any of them feeling uncomfortable around me.

  Rather than continue to gripe about her sister or the situation, Rieka apparently decided to change subjects and instead turned her attention to Jane.

  “Jane, while you are here, you are more than welcome to use my family’s library to do whatever research you want, though I’d appreciate it if you gave it a look to see if there is any more information about what we’ve recovered from the human-era ruins. I don’t expect us to have anything Juneau doesn’t already have, but you would know better than me on that front.”

  The little mouse kin woman gave Rieka a crooked smile and nodded, her normally fluffy pseudo-pompadour soaked and sticking up in odd shapes at the moment giving her a rather adorable mussed look.

  “I’ll see what I can do. Are there any restricted sections I should be aware of? Juneau had that one section reserved for the graduate students that requires a pass.”

  “No, no pass needed,” Rieka said with a shake of her head. “I’ll have Lorelai take word to the librarian that you are to have run of the place. My mother has a private library that she keeps delicate information in, but that’s more the family histories and kingdom legacy paperwork than anything we’d be interested in.”

  Jane gave another nod of understanding, one hand going to rub at her chin in thought.

  “It’s too bad we have to go back to Juneau,” the mousy scholar murmured thoughtfully. “I know that the situation with the Emirates to the west isn’t too good, but I can’t help but wonder if they might have had similar discoveries in their own territories that their libraries might have information on.”

  “Or the Queendom of the Glass Stars,” Valda suggested, scooping another handful of water to pour over her muscled chest. “They have a long history as well and are on good terms, it’s just a pain to get through the northern mountains at any time of the year. Detouring around through the Duchy of Sarbor would be an option, but also puts us closer to the veldt and the tribes out there. I can’t imagine Sarbor isn’t getting hounded as well, if not more, since they also share a border with the raiding tribes but don’t have passes to help channel the raiders.”

  “Or the Glass Stars,” Jane conceded with a nod. “Honestly… I feel like I’ve learned so much more from independent study and our missions in the last half-year than I would normally expect to learn in multiple years of study at Juneau.”

  “Same,” Shayla said quietly, her wings fluttering slowly behind her, stirring the hot water as she lounged back against the side of the pool.

  The moth woman’s luscious figure was on full display, her rounded breasts floating happily in the water as she luxuriated in a bathtub easily large enough for her to stretch out full length. Since I also struggled with finding large enough tubs—until I made my own back on Earth—I could empathize with her desire to sprawl out like that.

  “I’ve learned some from Juneau,” Shayla continued without opening her eyes. “But for all that they talked up their great library and the art courses… Well, I would be upset if I had to pay tuition and hadn’t gotten that grant because of my light magic.”

  “Oh that grant was likely created to bring in more users of rare magic like yours so they can study it,” Valda admitted, raising one clawed hand out of the water and using the sharp talon on her index finger to stir patterns into the water in front of her.

  “Which is understandable,” Shayla admitted. “But also annoying. They pretended to have so much they could teach me, but if it wasn’t for Liam, I’d hardly be improving at all.”

  “How is your improvement my fault?” I asked, sneaking a hand under the water to give Kassandra’s bum a pinch. The dwarf lamia didn’t squeal or jump, instead her eyes went hooded and she smirked up at me.

  That’s not a good sign, I thought. Whenever Kass gets that look, trouble is afoot.

  “Saying it’s your ‘fault’ implies I have a problem with it,” Shayla said, her eyes finally opening to look my way with a frown on her lips. “Your books on glass, refraction, and light have helped me understand my magic more than anything Juneau has. I suppose I’m just upset that they misrepresented their ‘wealth’ of knowledge.”

  Valda didn’t say anything in response to Shayla’s words, but I could see the lizard-folk woman nodding along in agreement. I figured that she agreed with the moth woman about disappointment, especially since Valda’s own style of magic use wasn’t exactly conducive to the more formal-mage training that the girls seemed to be doing at Juneau.

  “I’ll admit I’ve questioned it, too,” Kassandra murmured thoughtfully. “I don’t know how much more we could get done if we didn’t have to go to classes, whether a mastery is really worth it. Rieka and I don’t really need one because of our noble station, and while I don’t want to speak for you, Valda, I assume it's the same?”

  The lizard-folk woman nodded in silent agreement, and Kassandra continued.

  “Shayla is already more than able to support herself with her art, considering I saw two pieces of hers hanging here in the palace on our way in.”

  Shayla blushed a deep red at that, but a small, proud smile marched across her lips. Under the water, I reached out with my foot to affectionately rub her calf, and she turned that smile my way.

  “I’m the only one who would really benefit from the mastery,” Jane said with a shrug. “I’m common born, and while it’s my dream to be a historian and travel to do research, without a mastery from Juneau to open a lot of doors, I won’t get far.”

  “Unless you can establish yourself as a credible scholar without it,” Rieka insisted, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and peer around me at where Jane was sitting. “The research and findings we’ve been bringing back from the human-era ruins will go a long way to helping that. Especially with Liam here to help translate it all.”

  “Yeah, that translation power of mine is pretty handy,” I said with a laugh. “I’ve been doing some research back on Earth how to use it to turn a profit deciphering things, but it’s been busy enough getting my house set up and my business locked in.”

  “Have you finally taken the chance and invited the friends you told us about to visit?” Kassandra teased, shifting to float on her back again, still using me as a tether-point with her tail. The position aimed her bare nether-region directly at me while her luscious breasts gleamed distractingly.

  I pushed those thoughts down and focused on answering her question, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore those distractions the longer I sat there surrounded by so many beautiful women.

  “Yeah,” I said, coughing to clear my throat. “Jameson and Gloria thought it was a really cool setup, and Cari even dropped by for dinner.”

  “Ooh, had dinner with the cute daemon woman?” Kassandra cooed, her grin turning salacious. “How did that go? Were you able to woo the lovely lady? Expanding your pool further?”

  The rapid wiggling of her eyebrows made several of the girls giggle at Kassandra’s salacious remarks, but the looks of curiosity on all their faces told me they earnestly wanted to know.

  “A bit?” I said, wanting to answer them but also not wanting to jinx myself. “We kissed, and she’s interested, but we have to take it slow. She wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to get her or me in trouble.”

  Rieka nodded sagely at that, shifting to lean back against the edge of the pool once more, mirroring Shayla with her arms up on the edge.

  “That is smart,” Rieka said. “Since she’s in a position of authority with you as her client, there might be issues there if she gets intimate with him.”

  “I don’t care if she rides him into the sunset,” Kassandra cut in as soon as Rieka paused. “She seems like a really interesting person and fun! I imagine she’ll have a few interesting stories about Liam that he’s too shy to tell us as well.”

  Under the water, I could feel Kassandra’s tail shifting, her grip on my leg changing as she slowly drew herself closer to me. I didn’t react, not wanting to encourage her causing trouble at the moment.

  “I don’t have any problems with her either,” Rieka said. “And I agree with Kass, it would be good to get a chance to talk to her.”

  “She seemed excited to want to talk with you,” I said, coughing when I felt Kassandra’s hand close around a certain part of my anatomy under the water. The dwarf lamia continued to drift idly, not moving very much but also very pointedly ‘holding’ me. “So that might be something to look forward to.”

  “Good,” Kassandra cooed, her hooded gaze meeting mine. “But for the moment, I have something else I’m looking forward to.” She gave me a meaningful squeeze, her smile growing wider by the second. “Can you guess what it is, Liam?”

  Before I could answer, Rieka spoke up. She sounded resigned rather than annoyed, and her words made Kassandra perk up even further.

  “Look, if you absolutely cannot wait until later then just make sure you go back to your rooms first. Also, I’m calling dibs on him tonight then.”

  “I can make that work,” Kassandra purred throatily. “Come on, Liam. Seeing you absolutely school Princess Margaret earlier has had me wound up this whole time, and seeing you sitting here so calmly while surrounded by naked beauties isn’t helping it.”

  “If you insist,” I said, giving my dwarf lamia a smile.

  Jane piped up as I stood and scooped a giggling Kassandra’s torso out of the water while her tail writhed around my waist.

  “It’s not like we can’t call him if something happens. Also, dibs on tomorrow morning then, Liam. I’ll leave it to you how you want to wake me up.”

  “Noted,” I said, my voice already low enough that the mouse kin woman’s affected indifference promptly melted into a furious blush and an excited grin.

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