“Now this is comfort,” Kassandra sighed happily as she snuggled into my right side. Her long red-and-brown-patterned tail twined around my leg before piling onto the ground at her feet.

  My loving linguine burrowed under my right arm so that she could lay her head on my chest while forcing me to wrap my arm around her shoulders.

  Such a horrible burden, I know.

  “If we hadn’t contracted the carriage, it would have taken over a week to get there on foot, if not longer depending on the weather,” Rieka huffed in amusement from my left side, her pointed wolf ears bouncing slightly as the carriage we were inside of hit a rut in the road.

  “I’m just glad that the queen said she’d cover the cost,” Jane added from her spot across from Rieka. “I can only imagine what it would cost to privately contract a coach to carry us halfway across the queendom at speed. Let alone with the enchanted reins to keep the horses fresh.”

  “It’s not as bad as you might think,” Rieka replied, shifting in her seat and leaning into my left arm. Without hesitating, I lifted my arm up and over her shoulders and let her snuggle in to mirror Kassandra, though without the whole tail-wrapping-my-leg part. “There is a whole business around rapid transit in comfort that the nobles use. They would rather just hire the enchanted carriages when they need it than pay for and maintain their own.”

  “Except for the queen,” Kassandra interjected with amusement in her tone.

  “Well yes, the queen has her own collection of the enchanted carriages, but they aren’t all luxury ones. Many are used to transport important documents, people, and supplies,” Rieka defended, calming when I gently dug the fingers of my left hand into her hair and began rubbing the base of her ears.

  I knew that my princess loved her head scratches, but she still managed to occasionally surprise me with just how much she enjoyed them.

  Rieka, proper and refined princess of the Coldeye Queendom, melted into my side with a moan while her tail thrashed furiously behind her, rapping against the side of the carriage in a staccato beat.

  “I would be jealous, but…” Shayla murmured from her place beside Jane, the large moth woman blushing faintly as she darted her attention to me before looking back at the supremely relaxed Rieka now.

  “You did get your turn last night, didn’t you?” Kassandra teased, making the pale moth woman’s blush deepen, but rather than hide her face like she usually would, Shayla stuck her tongue out at Kassandra instead.

  “You are just jealous,” Shayla fired back, with all the maturity of a twelve year old.

  “Why would I be jealous?” Kassandra asked pointedly, dropping one hand on my crotch and giving it a squeeze. “He’s got more than enough for all of us after all!”

  Shayla’s newfound confidence lost out at my dwarf lamia’s sheer lewdness and she ducked to hide behind her hair while her wings fluttered anxiously behind her.

  “Stop that, Kass,” I chastised her, booping the dwarf lamia on the nose lightly before moving her hand off my crotch before she managed to wake little Liam up. “There is no need for you to make things awkward, and I’m sure Jane doesn’t want to hear about the bedroom exploits.”

  “I don’t know, do you, Jane?” Kassandra asked in a singsong voice, turning her slitted brown eyes to the mouse kin woman with an exaggerated wiggle of her eyebrows. “While Shayla might be too shy to give all the juicy details, I don’t mind. Would help prepare you for what is to come, after all.”

  Jane’s eyes were wide as she stared at Kassandra in a mixture of horror, curiosity, and embarrassment. I aborted the teasing by giving Kassandra another flick to the nose, making her yelp in surprise and wrinkle that cute little button at me in annoyance.

  “If she wanted to know, she’d ask. Do you have any doubt that Jane is capable of asking questions of her own?” I urged Kassandra. The dwarf lamia looked like she was about to protest when I continued. “If you keep harassing the others, I’ll just have to give your share of the sweets to them.”

  Kassandra’s pouty look immediately evaporated and she proceeded to press herself into my side even tighter while her tail squeezed my leg so tightly that my ankle actually popped.

  “I’ll be good!” Kassandra begged, her eyes wide behind the silver-rimmed spectacles she wore. “Don’t leave me out, Liam, that wouldn’t be fair at all!”

  “I don’t know…” I hedged, turning a smile to Jane and Shayla. “What do you girls think?” I didn’t bother asking Rieka, as the wolfish princess was still off in her happy land of head scratches and snuggles.

  “It was just a bit of teasing,” Shayla said quietly, being the first to speak up. She was still blushing furiously and peeking up out of the fuzzy ruff that circled her neck, but my heart swelled at how kind the moth-winged woman was.

  “Like Shayla said, it was just some teasing,” Jane agreed a moment later. Glancing at the mouse kin woman, I could tell that she’d wanted to string it along for a bit more to get back at Kassandra, but in the wake of Shayla already forgiving her it was impossible to justify.

  “Okay. Give me a second then.” I shifted slightly and used Shape-Shifting to split my right arm at the elbow. One half continued to snuggle Kassandra, while the other dug into my Dimensional Pocket ability before producing a small plastic tray full of misshapen, chocolate-colored nuggets. Before Kassandra could strike, I offered the box across to Shayla, who accepted it curiously.

  “What are these?” the moth woman asked, peering through the clear plastic at the goodies inside. Her nose wiggled furiously as she sniffed the air, clearly able to detect some of the scent from within the package.

  “Some of my favorite cookies of all time. They are called ‘boiled cookies’ by some people, but I prefer the name they had when I first learned about them, which was ‘Chocolate No-Bake’ cookies,” I explained while reversing the Shape-Shifting to restore my arm to normal.

  “You know, Liam,” Kassandra purred in my ear while rubbing one hand over my chest. “Your powers open up all sorts of fun options for experimentation. I’m surprised that you haven’t tried them on us yet.”

  I stared down at her for a long moment, only darting a quick glance to check on Jane and Shayla, who were still trying to figure out how to open the package and too distracted to hear what the dwarf lamia was suggesting.

  “Because I enjoy being with my girls as they are. If there is something that you might want to try, just let me know. But this is the body I know best, and the one I’m the most comfortable with.” I answered her before pressing a kiss to my mischievous lover’s head. “Why? Are you bored of me already?”

  “Never,” Rieka mumbled from my left, apparently not so lost in her distraction that she missed out on the conversation.

  “What she said,” Kassandra giggled. “Now, can you show us how to open up this package? I think Jane is going to go crazy if she doesn’t get to try them soon.”

  And indeed, Jane was glaring at the shaped plastic package with enough fury that she looked like she was trying to melt a hole in it.

  “Okay, so the package opens like this…”

  <><><>

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “For all that this is a luxury way to travel, it’s still pretty bumpy isn’t it?” I asked while continuing to finger-comb through Rieka’s hair as she sprawled across my lap.

  We’d spent most of the day traveling at this point and were getting close to the first of two rest stops along the route. Rieka had been more demanding than normal in her requests for affection, but I chalked that up to the fact she was shielded from the public eye for once being inside the carriage. Kassandra still wound around my right leg, but she’d shifted to set her back into my side so she could read while we bumped along.

  “It’s the best we can do. I know mother has some people researching different ways to alter the structure of the carriage to make for easier riding, but it’s a slow process. It’s also just a matter of comfort rather than national security, so it doesn’t get a ton of funding,” Rieka answered, her voice only a little slurred from the affectionate caresses now.

  “It still rides far better than the merchant wagons I rode on with my parents when I was younger,” Jane interjected over the top of her own book. “Those were ridiculous and very uncomfortable. I would usually try and build myself a bed in the back out of clothes or blankets just to see if I could lower the rattling down.”

  “That’s right, you mentioned once that your parents were merchants, right Jane?” Kassandra asked, peeking over top of her book.

  “Mine were as well, but we never really traveled by caravan,” Shayla tossed in as well.

  The moth woman was the most disconcerted of the group currently. She was glaring halfheartedly out the window at the moment, but I knew why it was she looked upset. The rattling of the carriage was too much for her to do any decent work with her art, so she was bored and unwilling to lose herself in a book.

  “Well, that’s good to know. We’ve got the funds to start investing in a few more business ventures, so it might be worthwhile for you to contact your respective parents about it. Jane, where do your parents trade?” Kassandra asked.

  “Actually out this way,” Jane answered, flicking her book closed and setting it in her lap. “They make trade runs between the Coldeye Queendom and the Emirates to the west. I’m not a big fan of the Emirates, so I’m glad that they aren’t bringing me along anymore.”

  “Oh? Why is that? You don’t like the heat?” Kassandra set her book aside now and devoted her attention to Jane entirely.

  The mouse kin woman looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment, her long tail laying draped across her lap and bouncing in anxiety before she smoothed it down and answered.

  “That is part of it. I don’t mind the heat too much, but I prefer the more temperate environment around Juneau. I’m also not that comfortable around the folk there. They have some really strange beliefs on what a person’s place in the world is.”

  I noticed that Shayla was nodding along and made a questioning noise in her direction.

  “My family traveled through the area, so I know what Jane is referencing. The Emirates are heavily invested in a caste system, so it's literally impossible to improve your station above that of your birth. It’s one of several reasons that I’m glad my family kept moving when we were traveling,” Shayla answered and I grimaced.

  Caste systems were something I understood peripherally from back home, mostly how they crushed people underfoot and made life extremely difficult for those on the bottom of the pile.

  “Yeah, and they had a severe break between the predator and prey species of kin, too,” Jane continued with a sigh. The smaller woman squared her shoulders before looking directly at Kassandra. “You probably remember how nervous I was around you when we first met?”

  Kassandra nodded once, her expression neutral. I remembered what Jane was talking about as well. The mouse kin woman had been very jumpy around my dwarf lamia. I’d just chalked it up to the political and rank differences at first, but it sounded like there was more.

  “That’s partially due to my experiences in the Emirates. Since it's a hotter climate in general, there are a lot of full lamia there. And they weren’t exactly friendly to most of those they viewed as ‘prey,’ to put it simply,” Jane said with a sigh.

  A quiet growl rumbled in my throat at what she was insinuating and made both Rieka and Kassandra twitch in surprise before I got it under control. Thankfully, Jane didn’t notice and continued her story.

  “My parents had a strong trading partnership with a textile merchant who shipped all over the Emirates. So we traveled there fairly often. We always had plenty of guards, so never had to deal with bandits. But the people in towns were… less than kind. I got separated from the group once because I saw something I wanted to look at, and a gang of young lamia seized the opportunity to harass me.”

  “You don’t have to explain further,” Kassandra jumped in, holding up a hand reassuringly. “I know that some of my brethren can be assholes, especially with the size difference. I’ve dealt with a few regular-sized lamia, and they always look down on my family for our status as a dwarf breed. It never went beyond words though because of my rank.”

  Jane’s large ears wilted to either side of her head and her tail hung limply as she gnawed on her bottom lip. The normally perky girl looked really worried, and I couldn’t have that. Jane was supposed to be bouncy and happy all the time, it was part of what made her who she was.

  “Jane.”

  Speaking her name got the mouse kin to look up at me, the worry still present in her eyes.

  “I know that we are going to be near the border of the Emirates, and that probably has you worried,” I began. “But if anyone tries to cause you problems, you let me know. I’d be happy to tie some folks’ tails in knots if they harass any of my girls. I’m your protector, and I’m only a call away.”

  I punctuated my statement by raising my right arm from around Kassandra to display my bond tattoos, which got a small smile from Jane. The tufty tip of her tail began to wiggle and bounce again while her large mouse ears slowly unfolded.

  “It’s irrational, I know,” Jane sighed. “But any time I end up around lamia after being surrounded by those bullies, it scares the hell out of me. I’ve just now gotten used to Kass, partially because she’s so obviously different than they were.”

  “Thank you, I am beautiful but I never will object to being reminded of it,” Kassandra said primly and Jane rolled her eyes at the other woman while smothering a laugh.

  “We aren’t going to be very close to the border of the Emirates, but the towns might have some lamia in them. If there are, I’ll be sticking really close to you, Liam. I hope that is okay?”

  “What did I just say, Jane?” I teased her back, getting a smile from the smaller woman. “You need me for anything, whether it's to put a kink in some idiot's tail or just be big and scary, you just let me know. I’m here to look after all four of you. That’s why you ladies spend so much mana on my goofy ass.”

  “That and it looks good in those pants!” Kassandra murmured, leaning back to smile up at me from amongst the nest of curls.

  “I blame that on having to stay in shape so I can keep up with you all,” I shot back.

  “Sure,” Rieka drawled from where she was sprawled across my lap while my fingers toyed with the tips of her ears. “Nothing at all due to the other way you ‘keep up with us’ is it?”

  The fact my wolfish princess was making a lewd joke startled the heck out of me, and I just stared down at her as she rolled over to look back up with one icy-blue eye and a faint blush on her cheeks.

  “I can neither confirm nor deny that statement, my lady,” I said after a long moment, and Rieka’s lips curved into a small smile. She wiggled in place a moment later and I felt her fingers brush over the growing bulge in my pants, right under where she was draped and thus out of sight of the others.

  “Liam,” Rieka said huskily while her tail flicked up to bat at my shoulder with its fluffy mass of platinum-blonde fur. “I want to monopolize you for a bit when we get to the way-station. Your princess wants to be spoiled in the baths again.”

  “Oooh, damn!” Kassandra groaned, her sudden profanity drawing the blinking attention from the other two girls in the carriage. “That’s a brilliant idea and I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it first!”

  “What is?” Shayla asked, her head tilting while her fluffy antennae stroked the air curiously above her head.

  “I’ve traveled this way sometimes with my parents. I’m fairly certain the inn that is at the way-station has private baths you can reserve.”

  “It does,” Rieka chuckled, the fingers of the hand stroking over my bulge increasing in speed as she continued to run her nails over me. “And I intend to reserve a room for just me and Liam so he can keep pampering me like this. Sorry, girls.”

  “Dibs on tomorrow night then!” Kassandra called immediately, provoking a giggle from Rieka and a roll of the eyes from Jane.

  “I don’t mind,” Shayla said with a shrug, her antenna balling up before stretching out fully once more. “I did monopolize him all of last night after all, so I would be quite the hypocrite if I complained. We’ll still be sharing a room though, right?”

  “If that’s what you want,” I answered for the girls. I knew that the initial plans had been to share rooms for security, since again I was the only guard with them. But I didn’t want to make things awkward for any of the girls.

  Also, like hell am I going to admit to Rieka’s mum that her daughter and I are fucking like a pair of bunnies whenever we get the chance, I thought. My goal is to ensure they are all safe and happy out here. The fewer guards with us, the less we stand out. And Jane is the only one who might get awkward sleeping in the same room together, even though we do it when we camp.

  Jane was quick to shoot that worry down though, with the mouse kin woman being the first to confirm that she preferred it if we all stayed in the same room of the inn.

  “Mainly, it means we can have a nicer room,” Jane said by way of explanation, as if that was the only reason she might have for wanting to stick close. I knew there was more to it though, based on the faint blush on her cheeks as she darted the occasional glance between Rieka and I as the princess continued to sprawl on my lap.

  ALSO! Next chapter is a pancakes chapter, so look forward to it (or skip if that's your thing) but wanted to give you the standard warning. All you will miss is fun times and some character development, no major plot points will crop up, I promise.

  Discord! Feel free to hop on and chat or ask questions.

  website for links to my other work as well as updates on this one. It has links to all the other places to find this work too!

  Patreon! Additional advance chapters will be available there as well as art and some future projects I'm working on.