A cloud-soft sensation on my jaw woke me. It was just a gentle brush of sensation, the barest of movements but against an area that was extremely sensitive and unused to such attention.

  My eyes popped open and my brain came online immediately. When I didn’t see or sense anything dangerous near me, I took in a slow breath through my nose while my mind registered my surroundings.

  A beautifully decorated room with high ceilings and elaborate, hand-made furniture scattered about. Soft blankets were bunched over me and the sunlight was already streaming through a nearby window to paint a long line of gold on the hardwood floor. And not the least was the beautiful woman in my arms.

  That’s right, I thought. I’m in Rieka’s room because she dragged me off to have her wicked way with me after the party.

  I smirked, remembering the events of last night and what I’d learned about myself while pleasing my lover.

  Surprising how my opinion on kids has changed from ‘that’ll never happen to me’ first, then to ‘maybe someday,’ to finally ‘as soon as my girls are ready.’ We really need to have a solid conversation about all this soon, too.

  I took another deep breath in through my nose, soaking up the feminine scent of the woman in my arms mixed with the faint smell of herbs riding on the ozone tang that followed Rieka everywhere.

  I was on my side, arms wrapped around my sleeping princess while she dozed against me. The sensation on my neck that had woken me initially had been the feeling of her downy wolf ears flicking in her sleep, which I recognized now that I was actually awake.

  We’d made a mess of her rooms the previous night, one that I knew she enjoyed immensely from not only her vocal affirmations but the still-faintly-burning scratches on my back.

  I need to tidy up before Lorelai arrives, I thought, blinking slowly. Unless Rieka wants to just say ‘fuck it’ and stop hiding this.

  I considered that for a moment, wondering whether Rieka’s desire to keep things under wraps around her family was something that bothered me. I knew she had her reasons and I didn’t doubt they were good ones. If anything, I was mostly just curious about her motivations for it.

  I didn’t think Rieka concealed our relationship out of shame. Or that she had any regrets regarding it. If anything, I was more certain that the reason she held back on just how involved we were was more to do with what she viewed as her duty. My princess was always more reserved in public, after all.

  Should do my part to make sure her image is maintained, I decided at last and lifted my head to look around before twisting to look down at the sleeping woman in my arms.

  Rieka was buck naked, her pale skin reddened in spots from my attention last night. The only covering she had was the thin blanket that draped over us both, and it didn’t hide any part of her body, really.

  A quiet huff of exhaled breath warmed my chest, and was immediately followed by a gentle pressure as Rieka snuggled in closer to me. Both her arms were held in front of her, fists to her chest and shoulders rounded like she was burrowing into me. Yet, despite the movements from both her and myself, my princess slept on.

  I couldn’t help the smile that her trust and obvious affection brought to my face. The arms I had around her gave Rieka a gentle squeeze before one hand shifted up to finger-comb her sleep-and-sex mussed hair.

  Rieka huffed again, letting out a quiet whine before stretching under the blankets, her little feet poking mine as first that little stretch turned into a full-body wiggle that ended with her tail thumping the bed under the blanket.

  “Morning,” I murmured into one pointed ear.

  Rieka let out a quiet, happy sigh. I felt her lips connect with my chest a moment later, making a gentle smack-pop of a kiss when she pulled back.

  “Good morning, Liam,” Rieka murmured, her voice rough from sleep. Her wolfish ears wiggled and bounced, tickling my jawline again as she got comfortable once more and draped a leg over mine comfortably.

  “Should we be getting up?” I asked her gently, the hand combing her hair shifting up to trace the edge of Rieka’s ear.

  The sensation made her shiver and moan quietly, nuzzling into my chest for a moment and rolling her head to guide my fingers to the base of her ear.

  I obliged my lover and moved to gently scrubbing the small muscles at the base of that expressive appendage with my fingertips. Rieka sighed happily, her eyelashes dancing against my bare chest while her shoulders did a slow, happy roll.

  She didn’t answer my question right away, which was an answer all its own. My princess seemed to be content to just lay there for now, and I was happy to oblige her.

  Another roughly ten minutes passed with a mixture of yawns, snuggles, ear-rubs, and kisses, before Rieka finally sighed and pulled back to look up at me. I’d felt it before but now I could see again, the only thing Rieka had on: the choker necklace I gave her the previous night. The silvery metal and gemstones gleamed in the dim light that reached the bed from the window, shimmering like her sky-blue eyes as she looked up at me lovingly.

  My princess’ eyes gave another bleary blink to push away the last of her sleepiness, then gave me a sweet smile.

  “Yes, we should probably get up and at least tidy the room. I’m surprised that Lorelai hasn’t already tried to bustle in here…”

  “I did lock the door last night,” I reminded her. “I know you were distracted with other things, but I figured that was best.”

  “Indeed,” Rieka said, eyes scrunching up with a widening smile. “You are a clever one, Liam. I am so glad we kept you.”

  “Kept me?” I shot back with a disbelieving laugh. “I seem to remember you and Kass begging me to help you.”

  “Yes, we did a very good job to ensure that you stuck around. We ‘kept’ you,” Rieka replied with a haughty smirk that didn’t make it to her eyes. Instead, those bright blue orbs sparkled with a mixture of mischief and love. “And we did so in the best way possible: by making you want to stay.”

  “Well, that I can accept,” I replied graciously, leaning in to rub my nose tip-to-tip with Rieka. “Come on, we should get up before—”

  A thunderous pounding on the door to the suite made me jump in bed and Rieka yelp in surprise. The thumping reminded me of the way police officers would pound on a door—something I was unfortunately familiar with given how shitty a location my old apartment was built in—and all of my instincts shifted from ‘lazy, happy, bed time’ to ‘fight-or-flight’ immediately.

  Rieka swore, her body stiffening against me. But my brave princess didn’t remain surprised for more than a moment. Her hand immediately lifted to touch her necklace and I knew she was reaching into the mana-imbued metal that I’d set into the back of the choker to ready a spell in case someone burst into the room to attack us.

  The pounding stopped a moment later, and I heard something from behind the door that both reassured and annoyed me.

  Giggling.

  “God damn it,” I growled and unwrapped Rieka from my arms.

  “What is it?” Rieka asked, her voice still tight with fear and surprise.

  “The girls,” I sighed, flipping the covers back and hopping to my feet.

  The strange look that my princess gave me, told me she hadn’t heard what I did. Which was when I realized that my Shape-Shifting had done it again by altering my body before I could consciously ask it to. A gentle push with my mind reverted the changes that had altered and improved my hearing.

  “I heard giggling out there, a giggling that we are both very familiar with,” I responded.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Rieka groaned and threw her head back into the pillow. If she had been a less mature woman, I’m sure my princess would have kicked her feet under the blankets in a miniature tantrum. But in the end, she did not give in to that desire.

  Instead, Rieka sat up in bed and sent the blanket cascading down her front. This exposed her full breasts to the cool air of the room, along with the red marks from my previous nights’ affections.

  “Of course our pesky friend decided to scare the daylight out of us…” Rieka grumbled, glaring down at her feet under the blankets.

  “I’ve got it,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I’m sure she’s just feeling lonely since she didn’t get a chance to get her snuggle-share yesterday.”

  “Likely,” Rieka grumbled, but I could tell from her tone that she wasn’t actually upset. More just mildly annoyed with having her slow morning interrupted.

  Leaving my princess to finish getting up, I strode across the large room to the doorway just as another thunderous bout of knocking picked up again.

  “How the hell does someone so small make so much noise—nevermind, I should know better than to ask that kind of question,” I muttered.

  The door to Rieka’s room actually had an elaborate key lock as well as a metal bar set into the door. Neither would have held up under a concerted effort to break them, but that wasn’t the point of small locks like that. It only took a moment to twiddle the dial to unlock the door and then slide the bar out of the way.

  No sooner had the door begun to open than Kassandra burst through, giggling like mad. My dwarf lamia lover sped into the room, her scaled tail undulating rapidly as she raced forward.

  “Wake up! Time to greet the day and share again!” Kassandra cheered, her hands going over her head while her mess of red curls flared behind her like a cape.

  “You are lucky I don’t zap you for that,” Rieka grumbled from her spot on the bed, still bare to the waist but sitting upright.

  Kassandra slid to a stop halfway to the bed before slithering in an about face. Her mischievous gaze landed on me a moment later, and she was off and moving once more.

  “Liam! Save me from the mean princess!” Kassandra squealed. She launched herself into one of her familiar flying tackles as soon as she got within range.

  Well used to my lover’s antics, I stepped to one side and caught her as she flew past. My heel made a sharp squeaking sound on the polished wooden floor as Kassandra’s momentum carried me into a turn. I let that momentum spin me about, and in the process ended up with Kassandra’s thick serpentine tail wrapping around my hips. She laughed brilliantly, burying her face in my chest while her arms went around me, squishing her own large bust into my bare chest.

  While I was buck naked, Kassandra had obviously taken the time to bathe and change into her more everyday clothing of a short skirt and off-the-shoulder blouse topped by an under-bust corset. Today her outfit was a mixture of an earth-brown that matched some of her scales and a sapphire blue that contrasted with the red in her tail and hair.

  “You’d deserve it if she did,” I laughed, crushing the giggling lamia to my chest. “Such a troublemaker.”

  “We tried to get her to wait longer,” Shayla admitted, peeking around the door with her feathery antennae bopping side-to-side.

  “Gods of magic, did you bring all of them with you, Kass?” Rieka grumbled even louder from the bed.

  “Yep!” Kassandra laughed, turning to look over her shoulder at the wolfish princess. “I figured that the odds of me being invited in for another threesome were low enough that it wouldn’t hurt, and I would be less likely to get zapped if there were witnesses.”

  “I see nothing,” Jane said brightly, bouncing past Shayla into the room.

  The mousy scholar’s long tail wiggled playfully above her head, its tufted tip dancing like an amused snake to match her mood.

  “Agreed,” called Valda from still out in the hall. “I’m rather distracted by Liam’s state of undress, so I wouldn’t even notice if our esteemed host decided to get even with a pesky friend.”

  I glanced up to see that Valda, while still out in the hall, had pushed the other door open to look into the room with a wicked grin of her own. The scaled woman’s eyebrows were up while she studied my bare form appreciatively.

  In the past, I would have probably been rather embarrassed to be ogled so openly by a woman. Now, after months of positive affirmations from my lovers and confidence built on training my body until it responded exactly how I asked, when I asked, I could only smile back at her.

  Plus, it’s not like this is new to Valda, I thought with a grin. The girls have welcomed her into the fold like she was one of them for weeks, and Kassandra’s actions in the baths the day we arrived were only further proof of that. And I can only assume that the fact Valda never complained means that she’s okay with it too.

  Thinking about the mischief my dwarf lamia had caused in the past brought my mind back to the troublemaker currently wrapped around my waist like a belt and I looked down to find Kassandra watching me, her eyes soft behind her glasses and her cheek gently rubbing against my bare chest.

  “You really were intent on causing as much trouble as you could, weren’t you?” I asked, stroking her hair with one hand.

  “Yup,” Kassandra chirped, smiling. “We can’t let things get too comfortable, can we? Just because we are in the castle doesn’t mean that we can get complacent.”

  “Complacent my ass,” Rieka grumbled from her spot on the bed. “You could have waited another hour so I could wash and dress before invading my room. Come on in, Valda, Shayla. You might as well stop hanging out in the corridor since two of your number have already invited themselves in.”

  “It’s not like the sight is anything new to any of us,” Kassandra said with a laugh. My dwarf lamia unconsciously echoing my thoughts brought a smile to my face, though I couldn’t let her get away with the trouble entirely without punishment.

  Shayla had made it into the room with Valda close on her heels when my open right hand smacked down on Kassandra’s butt, earning me a yelp and a squeeze from the dwarf lamia.

  “Better close the door,” Jane advised. The mousy woman’s nose wrinkled from her grin as she watched me administer another smack to Kassandra’s butt. “Otherwise, you might draw the guards down here to ask odd questions.”

  “Oh we can just put up a sound barrier,” Rieka suggested, her pouting shifting to an evil grin. “I’d hate to have Kassandra miss out on her proper discipline.”

  The dwarf lamia in my arms ignored her friend’s teasing, instead melting against me with a quiet moan at the third smack.

  “And that’s all you are getting,” I advised her, hefting the serpent woman’s coils higher around my waist.

  Kassandra whined in protest, pouting up at me like I’d just stolen her cake right off the plate in front of her.

  Shayla shook her head, smiling to herself as she slipped the door closed once Valda had entered the room, clicking the locks back into place.

  “So,” I said, waddling past the other three women toward the bed. “Did you ladies all have a good time last night?”

  “Could have been better if you weren’t being monopolized,” Kassandra said sulkily. “But I guess it does set a precedent that means we can monopolize you on each of our birthdays.”

  I expected my other girls to either chime in or protest, but none of them did. When I glanced at Rieka, I saw that my princess was smirking at Kassandra. A look toward Jane and Shayla showed me that the two were biting their bottom lip and blushing, respectively. Valda was the only one who was just smiling, watching the byplay without joining in.

  “All right, Kass,” I said when I reached the bed. “Down, please. I do need to dress.”

  “But Liaaaaaam,” Kassandra whined, pouting up at me. “If you put pants on then I can’t—”

  Kassandra cut off with a yelp, her serpentine tail tightening around me hard enough to make my back pop. Despite this, I still heard the quiet zap of electricity that told me Rieka had finally administered a bit of her own discipline to her frustrating friend.

  Kassandra uncoiled from around me with a grumbling sigh, arms crossing under her full bosom and settling into a full on pout.

  “You are all no fun,” Kassandra complained.

  “No,” Rieka countered, sweeping the blankets out of the way finally and swinging her legs over the side of the bed to stand. “We are just realistic. You cannot expect to have burst in here like that and actually get to steal Liam away for your own use, can you?”

  Rieka stood and stretched, showing as much reservation about her nudity as I was earlier. And my princess deserved to be proud of every inch of her glorious curves. Slim and athletic, Rieka gleamed like a polished statue in the morning light, her bushy plume of a tail stretching out as well before she relaxed with a sigh.

  “I didn’t come in here just to harass you two,” Kassandra grumbled, still pouting but that was fading as she stared hungrily at me while I summoned a pair of pants from my Dimensional Pocket and pulled them on.

  While I didn’t like wearing pants without underwear, I didn’t have a spare clean pair on hand, and the local version of men’s underclothes on Cortha was not comfortable. So I’d make do for now.

  “Oh?” Rieka asked, walking to the water basin against the wall and using a cloth to wipe herself down. “What else did you want then? I refuse to believe that pestering us wasn’t a primary motivator for you, but I will accept that you might have had a secondary goal.”

  “Well I didn’t have a secondary goal,” Kassandra admitted, discarding her pout almost immediately. “But Valda did! She said she had some stuff she wanted to talk to us about.”

  Rieka moved from the water basin to her dresser and pulled out a pair of her riding-style pants in a crisp, snow-white color and a set of plain white panties to dress in.

  “Well then, if Valda thought it was important then I forgive you,” Rieka said with a smirk, getting a ‘hey!’ from Kassandra and another pout from the serpentine woman.

  “I appreciate your understanding, Rieka,” Valda said, gesturing toward the sofa. “I hope that it is nothing, but I’ve been hearing some concerning things the last few days and even more came to a head at your party…”

  Rieka held up a hand to stop her and the scaled woman obliged.

  “Let’s get comfortable first,” Rieka said, gesturing toward the chairs by the cold fireplace. “I expect that Lorelai will be arriving soon with a breakfast cart, let us get some tea and food then talk in earnest.”

  Nods went around the room, but Jane pulled her spell rod from her belt. The mousy scholar bounced to the window and pushed it open before flicking her rod and casting a spell that ruffled everyone’s hair.

  “Freshening up in here, it still smells a bit… colorful,” Jane explained, grinning and wiggling her eyebrows at Rieka, who blushed furiously in response.

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