Chapter 41 - Dreams and Dreamers

“‘Stits…” Arx swore under her breath as she gazed upward.

“Thank you,” Mia replied absently, her own eyes parallel to the Do-lilim’s.

For a moment, Arx continued staring up at the giant tree. It was as big around as a house and looked like it had once been tall enough to stretch to the clouds. However, it seemed to have rotted through and broken at some point, leaving only the stump in its place. Not that it mattered. What was left was easily tall enough to tower over every other building in town.

However, the Faen’s words were so incongruous, they managed to briefly pull her attention away. “Sorry, what?”

“F-fuck my… fuck my oatmeal!” Mia’s head jerked a couple of times, then she took a quick breath and clarified, “For the compliment, I mean. I never used to think much about it, but now that there’s someone to appreciate them… It’s a thrill to be able to attract his attention, isn’t it?”

Arx opened her mouth, but too many replies crammed into her throat all at once, leaving her momentarily speechless. While she certainly agreed with the sentiment, as far as she was aware, she had not been complimenting anything. Her manner of swearing was just something she had picked up as a child and never put much thought into.

She had found it funny how the red women's banter changed when their clients were not around… though, her newfound affectation had not met with the smiles she had intended. ‘Crass and improper’ they had called it. Unfitting of one of her lineage. If anything, that had only solidified the habit.

Especially after…

Her eyes refocused as the old wound sealed itself once more. That business had been ancient history even before her new life had begun. Why was she thinking about it now?

Doesn’t matter.

For now, all she cared about was straightening this creature out. Complimenting her tits? As if. They were so pale, you would think the girl had never seen a day of sunlight in her life. Even her sister’s had more color.

Just because they’re a little bigger than mine?

A twinge of jealousy flared within her at the silent admission. To have gained as much as she had—and through quest, no less—only to lose out the minute some ridiculous Faen came along? It galled to say the least. She was not even a real person!

On the other hand… this creature did have a certain allure. In her own way.

The thought filled her with a heady swirl of desire. Visions of laying the shorter woman to the ground danced behind the Siren’s eyes. Of peeling the filthy rags from her body. Taking those soft orbs into her mouth, glowing in the moonlight. Trailing her tongue down past her naval. Tasting her honey.

While he watched. Or better yet… rammed into her!

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Mia said, intuiting at least some of her thoughts. “You’re quite lovely and plenty large yourself. I doubt you’ve had much trouble snagging his attention.”

Arx narrowed her eyes, her private fantasy dissolving in an instant. The words had sounded reassuring and complimentary on the surface, but she had detected the smug condescension underlying them readily enough.

“You’re right, I haven’t,” she agreed with an evil grin. “And more than just his attention.”

Mia’s eyes flashed, and her lips peeled back over her fangs before she could stop herself. “That was uncalled for. I long for him every bit as much as you ever could, but with no body to call my own? At least, leave me my pride.”

A dismissive snort puffed from the white-haired woman’s nose. “Don’t taunt the Shepherdess if you don’t like getting scratched,” she returned. “Besides, you seem to have body enough. I see no reason you can’t tempt him with it.”

“It isn’t the same.”

“Hmm…”

Silence returned as the pair turned their attention back to the tree. Despite the apparent rot, it was not truly dead. There were plenty of branches scattered at random about its length sporting new growth. However, what was concerning Mia the most was not the tree itself so much as the thing it had supplanted.

It had appeared in the very same vacant lot the monolith had until just recently occupied. In fact, she was not altogether certain whether it had not once been the monolith. The bark of the tree did retain a certain blackness. And she could easily see the Words of what doubtlessly described skills shining amongst its limbs.

What could this mean?

As first blush, this changed nothing. The roots of the tree would function to search for the Core just the same as had the weight of the stone. Heresy, no matter your outlook.

Was this because she had disapproved? Trying to make her feel better about it? And why a tree?

Hmm. Now that I think about it, there is a certain similarity to that one room…

“I can scarcely imagine what this must have been like in its prime,” Arx said wonderingly, breaking into the Faen’s thoughts. “I didn’t know a tree could grow to be so large.”

“They exist,” Mia informed her. “Far to the north and across the Shallow Desert, there are vast groves of them.”

“The Shallow Desert… I’ve never heard that name for it before. Fitting.” Arx scented at the wind once more, then smiled as though from a sudden epiphany. “Dearest must have seen these groves from his Floating Isles.”

The red-tipped brunette glanced up at her. “I doubt that.”

“Doubt all you like. I’m going in,” Arx announced, heedless.

Mia shifted her gaze from the woman’s receding form to the base of the tree. A couple of roots had twisted about an old outgrowth that had since rotted away, leaving a hole in its wake. It was just large enough to allow a person inside without difficulty, though she noticed Arx having to duck. Those horns certainly lent a great deal to the woman’s statuesque appearance, but they were not without their inconveniences.

She just hoped her own did not grow much larger. Her antlers, not her breasts. She felt confident she could still pull off some additional heft in that department, herself.

Her body might well have been copied from that of a goddess and thus undoubtedly pleasing in its own way, but she was growing increasingly discontent with it. Hers was an undirected beauty. Unintentional.

Yes, her skin was smooth and her form symmetric. How could she be less? Such traits were hallmarks of those born in a state of perfect and perpetual health. However, there had never before been a purpose to her body’s existence beyond that of a vessel to contain her consciousness.

Now? She wanted to be sexy! Captivating. She wanted her lord’s member to tighten uncomfortably within his clothes at the merest sight of her.

To never again witness his back turning away.

The tingling sensation of her breasts twisting and stiffening at their tips pulled her out of her little fantasy, and she took a breath to steady herself. Criminy… This is getting to be torture!

With a sigh of resignation on her lips, she raised a foot to follow… and immediately found herself stepping out of a dark tunnel.

Confused, her eyes swiveled about. She seemed to be standing on a raised platform somewhere along the jagged, upper lip of the tree’s innermost trunk. The center of it had been hollowed out by time and, resting some ten to twenty hands below them, the cavity had filled with rain water.

Arx was standing to one side, her chest heaving. Strangely, a number of tears had appeared along the edges of her blouse, and she was covered in welts. As though from combat.

“I was right,” she said with a growing smile. “He is here.”

“He… he is?”

Mia approached the lip of their platform to look down. The pool beneath had been cast into shadow by the hollowed shell around them, but that did nothing to obscure its clear waters. She could see every nook, every knotted whirl below its surface. And sure enough, a man was there.

His muscled back appeared as though through a glass lens, magnified and shining. Moving with a casual grace beneath the still waters.

Abruptly, her eyes crossed, and—

The water was at that perfect temperature. Just warm enough to feel like a caress against the skin but, so long as I did not exert myself too much, it was not so hot as to be uncomfortable.

I never wanted to move again. This was heaven. I just allowed the water to flow about me, letting it fill my lungs only to expel it, and the stress of the day, without care. But my relaxation was soon disturbed by the sound of splash behind me.

Surfacing, I turned to find a woman floundering about, coughing and sputtering. She did not seem to have the ability to breath the water as I did and, with her black, skin-tight dress binding her legs, she was finding swimming difficult.

Confidently, I stroked toward her until I could nestle her soft form into the crook of my elbow then pulled the two of us over to a log that was conveniently floating nearby.

For a few moments, she seemed disoriented, but then she scrubbed some of the mud from her face and looked at me. Whatever she saw there, her eyes widened in shock.

“Hello, beautiful,” I rumbled, the bass of my voice causing tiny ripples to appear in the water. “And here I thought I was already having a nice day.”

Her mouth opened, but the only thing that came out was a nervous little giggle. She was beginning to shiver, I noticed.

Concerned now, I pulled her closer to my warmth. The water was cold, after all. A slip of a girl like her would catch her death in a pond like this.

Silence stretched between us. But not the awkward kind. We were simply lost in one another’s eyes while the afternoon breeze moaned through the branches above. God-rays slanted through the shadows of our hollowed out pool. The deep blue of the water, so rich and vivid, seemed pale and insignificant when viewed from the glorious reflections within her eyes.

Icy blue nearly to the point of being gray. Yet ringed with red. Familiar to me, but no less enticing for it.

“M-my lord?” she whispered finally, her gaze twitching as she searched my face. “Is… is that y—?”

I silenced her questions with my lips. There was no need for words.

She did not fight me. Not even for an instant. Instead, she pressed herself to me all the more. Eagerly. And with growing hunger. Her fingers crawled over the swollen muscles of my arms, her claws raked uselessly down the ridges of my back, and into my firm buttocks.

I returned the favor. She was so incredibly soft. So deliciously curved. My fingers sank into her skin, into the smooth, graceful orbs of her own backside. The mounds of her chest were crushed indelibly against the hardness of my own.

We did not need to breath. There was only the kiss. Tongue exploring tongue. Lip to lip. Cheek to cheek. Stretching into eternity. But then her legs began riding up my own, seeking higher purchase.

I rose to meet her.

The base of my rod nestled against the slick heat between her legs, and she almost sobbed at the contact. Lazily, I slid my way backward, savoring every finger’s width of delicious friction. Her folds came alive against my hardness, seeking to draw me into her, but she could find no purchase.

Nor would I give her the satisfaction. Not yet. Just before lining up my tip with her entrance, I paused, drawing out her anticipation, then reversed course. Simply dragging along the outside of her lips.

Over and over, I repeated this. Each time, her cries of frustration rose higher. Plaintive. Begging. Her claws dug into me. She bit at my tongue. She screamed.

Finally, I allowed our kiss to end, just to see what she might do.

Her eyes had gone mad with lust. Her lips curled over her fangs, snarling with anger, but she was panting so wantonly, it only made her all the more enticing. Then she took my length into her hand.

Immediately, I crushed her to me, trapping her arm between us, and she gasped, betrayed. Yet still she squirmed, seeking to draw me in. I was having none of it. My arm was as steel, unyielding and firm.

Eventually, she realized the futility if it, and she looked up once more, her eyes swimming with need and frustration. Tears began to shine within her eyes.

“Pl-plea—“

Abruptly, a pair of feet thumped onto the log we had been resting against, sending a new set of ripples through the still lake. I let my eyes drift upward but slowly. Enjoying the sweeping lines of this new, gray-skinned goddess until I met her eyes. They seemed to sparkle with an indignant sort of rage, peering down at us over the generous mounds of her chest.

The one in my arms hissed at her with naked threat. It was a long and slow sort of thing. Wild, yet no less full of meaning. To interfere was to lose an arm. Or worse.

Amused, I hooked her lower jaw with my thumb, and she instantly bit down. But when her teeth found no purchase, she began to lick… and then to suckle upon me. Lewd, ecstatic moans began escaping her throat until she became lost within a fantasy of her own making.

And the hand encircling my manhood began working in tandem.

“What is this?” the other rumbled, her black eyes hard.

I quirked an eyebrow and let an easy grin slip over my features. “Well, now. I suppose that depends on you. I was just enjoying a nice little soak in this pond before the two of you showed up, but you are welcome to join me.”

She sucked in a breath as my words passed through her, as if their vibrations had each individually caressed her body. Her anger became uncertain. Brittle. Until her once confident posture drew in on itself.

“That might be f-fun. Or… or no, I…” She paused to allow her eyes to rove my form. I could see the battle playing out behind them. “No, this isn’t… it isn’t right. Not like this. I want… I want…”

The other froze, a look of horror stealing over her features. “No, don’t!”

“I refuse this!” the gray one shouted. A sudden wind rushed through the hollow, fanning her beautiful white hair into a frenzy. “I want my Donum!”

*****

Torpor released me gradually, awakening dormant muscles one at a time. First a toe. Then a leg.

Faded remnants of dreams danced behind my eyelids while I waited. Endless hallways. A ghost town. That one heist thing in Ecuador, but where all the money had been replaced by chewing gum.

That had been weird. But pretty cool.

Especially once Arx had shown up out of absolutely nowhere to start kicking everyone’s ass. The ending in particular still stood out for me. It had been so beautiful. So vibrant with color. But right at the climax, I had been hit by this strange wave of sadness. It was nonsensical, as dreams often were, but emotions tend to be slow in listening to reason.

However, before that, and much more distinctly, I recalled having a conversation with Mia. And that, at least, had felt quite real.

Hmm… I hope she got around to distributing my attribute points.

A deep breath stretched my ribs before I could stop myself, and I waited, bracing for the inevitable. But strangely, no pangs from my many injuries came to punish me. I felt… fine. More than fine, actually. I was hale and healthy in a way I had not been for quite some while. Though, I was feeling a tad peckish.

New fantasies began spinning themselves out of the remnants of my dreaming mind, enticing me with bowls of blackberries and cream. A faceless waiter handed me a toddy with a twist of orange peel on a toothpick. One of those fancy balls of clear ice clinked in the glass, and I pulled the rich aroma of alcohol and bitters deeply into my lungs.

Ah… I can almost smell it. That sharp, yet decadent sweetness.

But there was something else in there, sort of flirting with the rest. More an undercurrent than anything, it was acrid. Harsh. Less refined. Though… perhaps a bit smoky? Like something just set to roast over a slow flame.

My lips parted as I drew in another breath, wishfully sampling at the air. I could smell it, I realized. Beyond a simple dream, somehow the scent of food was all over the place! Fruit. Honey. Even that weirdly acidic aroma.

But overlying it all was the spicy sting of whiskey. It was so strong, it kind of reminded me of being in the tasting room of a distillery.

Bizarrely, the realization caused my groin to tighten in response… and for a good deal of the fog to clear from my mind.

Waaaait a minute…

Just as my synapses were finally beginning to fire, a previously unnoticed weight shifted on my hips. “Mmmh~”

My left eyebrow twitched, and I cracked my eyelids open just enough to let in a bit of light. Dim—and blue—though it was, I could still make out an ephemeral, semi-opaque cloth draped overhead and the four corners of bedposts. Which… was neither the tasting room I had imagined nor the upstairs balcony I should have awoken on.

The weight shifted yet again, this time accompanied by an extremely pleasant suckling sensation along my manhood.

“Come on…” a woman’s voice whispered, and when I glanced down, I found her mounted atop me with her back turned. Slowly grinding away. “I know I felt ye stir. Please… wake up, me master. Need it so bad…”

I was shocked. But also completely unsurprised. Which is a strange emotional pairing, but no less accurate.

The last time I had awoken from slumber, I had caught Lynnria masturbating to the sight of my morning wood. I remembered feeling embarrassed for her—despite privately enjoying the scene—but that shame had been tempered by the realization that my lilim would never have stopped at a mere flick of the bean.

I had been right, it turned out. And now I knew precisely where that scent was coming from. How perverse was I becoming to crave a thing like that so strongly?

That aside, I was confronted with the realization that this was a form of sexual assault.

Technically.

I had been unconscious. It counts.

Not that I was planning on pressing charges. Waking up to a smoking hot red-head gyrating on top of me was pretty low on my list of things to get upset about. Practically non-existent, in point of fact.

Also, this particular red-head had something of a blanket permission slip.

“Please,” she moaned again, arching her back so as to address the ceiling and causing her unruly hair to fall between her shoulder blades. For a moment, she pulled her hands away from my thighs to cup her breasts and shuddered into my pelvis. “By the Master’s eyes… so hungry.”

I worked a tongue in a mouth gone suddenly dry. I had thought myself inured to the deprivations of these lilim. I had been chased. Seduced. Bargained with. Begged. But to see one actively beseeching the heavens? For me to wake up and pound her senseless?

More than that, however… I could feel her hunger. There was a hollowness, papery and thin, tracing its way through our connection. Flitting about the edges of my Core. My own seemed to recognize it in kind, and the two began to mirror one another in dance like a distant campfire reflected against a still lake.

My groin pulsed, and the lilim gasped as her own greedily devoured the additional length. “Yes! More! Please,” she whimpered, then leaned forward to clutch at my leg. Her upper body writhed against me, tickling and teasing the fine hairs below my shin with the distended tips of her chest. “Aye, there ye be… yer feelin’ yer Jax now. Can hear her calling fer ye. Ah~ Mercy’s breath.”

I did not say anything. Not that I could have. Whatever thoughts might have been swirling within my mind evaporated.

All that remained were visions of the lilim in my lap. The fine ridges of muscle playing along her spine. The smooth taper of her waist flaring out at her hips. The plush yet wondrously toned cushion of her backside nestled into my lap. Her pleas for me to awaken. To stiffen. To fuck her.

My cock roared to life. In the same instant, the whole of her body seized and contorted. The tunnel within her clenched at my length, crawled along it, greedily sucking it ever deeper. But I had only just started.

Taking firm hold of her wondrous backside, I twisted, toppling her over so that I could mount her properly. And as a special treat, I decided to activate the Hammer of Glory. We had been too long apart, and I wanted her to remember this.

Just as I was coming to my knees, the flow of raw pleasure lanced through our bond, and she let out a long and tortured moan into the bedsheets. Whatever orgasm she had just endured was suddenly jolted to another level, making it look like just the foreshock of the earthquake to come.

And… I could feel all of it. Though faintly, as from distant echoes. Her body was connected to mine in both a literal and metaphysical sense. I could feel the aftershocks, the plateaus, the spasms. I could feel her catching breaths, her convulsions, the heady rush of endorphins flooding her mind. I could feel her flesh clamping onto my cock, seeking to draw every scrap of essence from me.

The whole of her was laid out before me like an ocean of the faithful, chanting mantras in worship to the sensations I was pouring into her.

Far from distracting, it only served to heighten my own state of arousal. For of course, she too was influencing me. I could feel her own skill trickling through my blood. Subtly fanning the fires of my passion.

She wanted my eyes to crawl over her body. To fixate on the ripples I pounded into her backside. To shiver at the music of her cries of ecstasy. She wanted me to desire her. To see her as the most glorious woman that ever could be.

Rather than fight them, I embraced these feelings. She was my First. I wanted to love her and every inch of her.

“Ah~ fuck me eyes!” she yelled wretchedly. “Come! Fill me! I can’t wait anymore. Three above, please!”

Her outcry sent a shiver down my spine, and my groin tightened precipitously. I was close.

Taking firm hold of her hips, I began to pound in earnest. Her passionate wails—each laced with inhuman undertones—rose even higher and thrummed through my chest. Her nails pierced into the bedding as she sought the traction to match my vigor, thrust for thrust.

My eruption came upon me far too slowly, to the point it was almost painful. I had been teased and prodded by Lynnria for what felt like days. My reunion with Arx had been cut short by the collapse of the labyrinth. I had even suffered under the Lust Ailment.

In short, my balls were about as blue as they could get, and now that the pressure valve had been released… Well, when that sort of thing happens, the result tends to be…

Dense.

There might have even been some crying involved.

For some while after, we lay there panting, just enjoying the afterglow. I had collapsed listlessly over top of her, but she did not utter a peep of complaint. She seemed content to let me enjoy her softness… though as often happened when we coupled, she had yet to release me, so I would not have been able to move even if I had wanted.

It was probably for the best. I was still feeling a dull ache down there, and my post-coital softening had reversed course way too soon. Usually, I would have put that down to having been backed up so long.

But this time, there was something else. It was a pleasant sort of feeling, akin to the satisfaction of munching on a bag of peanuts after a particularly long day. Or the feeling you get when the appetizer tray is first placed in front of you.

Life was flowing, if only a little. And not a bit of it had come through my mouth.

“Jax…?” I began hesitantly. “Did I manage to fill you up with that? Like at all?”

My question was met with a short bark of laugher. “Nay. A good one though it were, ‘twere not near enough fer that, me master. I were near to hollow and long knackered besides.”

Her nether-lips squeezed at my still-sensitive manhood, and my lower back clenched in helpless response.

“I’ll be needing… one or two more, I’m thinking. When yer up fer it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Because I was already ‘up.’ Watcher’s eye… what is wrong with me?

I felt like some kind of newly turned vampire staring at an exposed neck. The craving was undeniable. Real in every respect of the word. I was hungry. Had been hungry. And here I was at the buffet line.

Then again… it was only sex. And while it was a bit weird, Jax was hardly some unwilling participant.

Still confused but slowly coming to terms with it, I lifted off of her so that we might reposition then, when she rolled to her side, I hoisted her leg over my shoulder. My hips began to rock once more, but with a leisurely pace this time. And rather than pleasure, I switched to my comfort setting.

I wanted to pamper her, a bit.

“So, I’ve been gaining Life through sex recently,” I began in a conversational tone.

“Mmm~?” she replied. “Truth to tell it, that be a bit of news I’m glad to be hearing. It ain’t easy to keep ye fed proper. Be there aught else to it? Other emotions yer feeling or feeding?”

“No, just the sex, so far. You think I’m becoming like you then?” I asked, somewhat dreading the answer but steeling myself all the same.

She chuckled in between gasps of delight. “Ye be the male to me female, if that’s what yer asking. Bigger than ever or I be a tube.”

“That wasn’t exactly—” I paused. “Am I?”

“Aye, that. Proper hnn~ don’t stop!”

“Oh… neat,” I replied simply. Then I resumed my steady rhythm.

I had to suppose this was yet another question only time could answer, but at least for now, it seemed I was still mostly human. Just with certain dietary… quirks. And if Jax were to be believed, whatever I was becoming was quite ostensibly masculine.

While my thoughts wandered, so too did my eyes. There was not much to see, though. Just the bed and the fine mesh curtains drawn about us. Were it not for the steady blue light, I would have thought us in some bordello suite.

“You found a safe room?” I asked.

“Aye,” she drawled listlessly. And without elaboration.

“What happened to the others?”

She groaned at the question, as though annoyed at having to summon the energy to keep talking, then dragged her wrist upward just long enough to twitch a few times, indicating somewhere over my shoulder. Task complete, her hand dropped to the bedsheets once more, spent.

I smirked before twisting around. Lynnria and Arx had been dumped without ceremony or care in a loose pile right next to a white door decorated in gold filigree, though I noticed Arx in particular had been contorted into a spectacularly uncomfortable-looking pose.

“Really, Jax?” I said. “You know that’s going to come back to bite you.”

She took an excessively deep breath. “Mnnshouln’ve lef’ me danglin’… bloody rope then!” she slurred weakly, rushing so as to get it all out in one go.

“You’re still holding a grudge over that?”

She only managed a shallow huff in reply.

Hmm… might be overdoing the comfort a bit.

Thus far, I had not played too much with the Hammer’s response settings. I could shift between different ones, yes, but there did not seem to be any sort of dimmer switch built in. My options were on or off.

Though, Mia had mentioned something about developing a finer degree of control since having practiced it to Low Intermediate skill levels. So I decided to experiment.

First, I tried to moderate her comfort levels by only using short bursts, but she was already so relaxed by that point, she was well on her way toward falling asleep. While it was tempting to just let her, I would feel obligated to stop, and that would not do at all. I could not let her go to bed hungry.

Plus, there was no telling how long Arx would be out.

Maybe Lynnria? I shook my head.

Instead, I began interspersing brief jolts of pleasure and happiness into the mix. It was fascinating to watch the little twitches on her face. She would just start to gasp from the onrush of pleasure before a heady burst of joy would take its place, tugging the corners of her mouth upward. And then I would comfort her for a while, lulling her into complacency before starting over.

“Nnnstop!” she moaned finally. “Yer putting me head in a melt, ye sleekit bastard.”

Whatever that means. Though, stop was clear enough.

“Don’t like it?” I asked.

“Didn’t say that,” she said, slowly beginning to rock her own pelvis to enjoy me all the more. “Ye was making me crazy is all. Keep on, and I’ll ne’er let ye go again. Just ye watch!”

I grinned. “Tempting…”

For a moment, I just watched the play of her muscles dancing along her ribcage. The near unconscious flexing with her every breath, rolling through her center and down into her hips. Damn, she’s hot.

She gasped suddenly as a micro-orgasm rippled through her, heralding another small burst of Life flowing through our connection. While she was quaking, I paused my thrusting so as to avoid overstimulating her. And to drag a finger through the shining fluid between our crotches.

Fucking hell, that’s fantastic, I thought, rolling it about my tongue.

“What were it?” she panted. “What ye was thinking just now?”

“You taste like a whiskey cocktail,” I informed her.

“The hard stuff, ye mean? Aye, I know it,” she informed me. “No finer nightcap, or strike me blind! But nay, I wanted to know the bit before. What made me shiver so.”

“Just how sexy you are,” I said, smiling. “You have really nice abs. I like watching them move.”

“Really?”

The suction along my member redoubled then began to pulse in sensuous rhythm, and she ran a hand down the length of her body.

“Yer a strange one not to glory at a pair like these,” she said, pinching slightly at her nipples. Then she tilted herself so as to show off her backside. “Nor even the swell of me arse?”

My face contorted for a moment as I tried to resist her provocation. I was not quite ready to blow again. Not just yet.

“No…” I managed, but then I hastily corrected myself. “Or yes. But those are just the obvious things. When a woman is genuinely sexy, they have a million and one places to catch a man’s eye.”

She smiled fiercely, then grasped my collar to pull me down. “Not a woman,” she reminded me with a purring sort of growl.

Then her lips welded themselves to my own and, for some while after that, our quiet lovemaking returned to its fierce beginnings.

At least, until the others started waking up.

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This seems to be working out rather well, so far.  I've had plenty of time with this release schedule to start developing a backlog.  Chapter 42 is already underway, so I imagine that given time, I can maintain a steady rhythm of chapter releases for you guys even with holidays and other interruptions.  

That'll be particularly nice once it comes time for my editing cycle.

Anyway, hope you all are enjoying things.  

As ever, I wish you well, and many a happy days to you.  Until next time!