We soon learned that—surprise—dead things tend not to have much Life Energy, and what little they have fades quickly. So we had just enough scattered through the varied corpses to encourage Fekinell’s leg to reattach itself, but little else. The arm I had destroyed would have to be regrown the hard way.

  The question was in what that way might entail. Based on what I had seen thus far, Fekinell had all the monstrous firmware she needed to regenerate the arm on her own, given food and time, but as we had neither, discussions soon turned toward methods to hasten that process.

  My bread and butter approach was instantly rejected. We all knew what regrowing a limb did to me, they argued, and putting me into that kind of resource deficit would put us in a terrible position. To paraphrase, it was the equivalent of draining the cleric of their entire gamut of spell slots for the sake of one heal. I could recover, of course, but without Arx to add to the swirling maelstrom of sexual… recombinatory… whatever-the-hell we had going on, that would take a long time.

  I felt they were overstating the issue. It was only an arm. I could knock one of those out with half my reserves. Easy.

  However, Fekinell was terrified of what the attempt might do to her. I could tell. Every time it was mentioned, her eyes widened half a millimeter and her breathing would hitch just a little—by her standards, practically wallowing in a puddle of her own piss. And who could blame her? There were plenty of monsters that got on less than well with healing spells, and if my merest touch was enough to cause spontaneous combustion, she apparently got on with me about as well as nitroglycerin in a rickety train car. Why was anyone’s guess, but it was what it was.

  But if Life Energy genuinely was all she needed, there were other ways of providing it.

  Lynnria clutched at her chest. “No!”

  “That be what they’s for, bairn,” Jax growled, exasperated. “Ye knowed that when ye made ‘em.”

  “What if she bites me? I don’t want to turn into a husk!”

  “She ain’t gonna bite ye.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  Jax groaned. “Fekinell, tell the wean ye would nay bite her.”

  “I would not bite her,” Ell returned with her customary deadpan.

  Somehow, it lacked sincerity.

  “Technically, your breasts are only magical containment matrices,” Mia said over Lynnria’s strangled noises and accusatory pointing, “so she could never drain the rest of your body’s Life Energy that way. There is a slight risk of one of them popping, though.”

  “That’s even worse!”

  I snorted. “Priorities, much?”

  I said that, but I knew we would never convince her. Silly as it may have been, given that she could replace them at will, Lynnria had developed an attachment to her newfound bosom that only someone with her particular trauma could understand. She would never willingly put them at risk—not that many women would, come to think of it. Still, Jax was right: Lynnria needed to come to grips with the fact that her breasts were a part of her Class functionality. They fueled her spells… and when necessary, us.

  On reflection, it felt like we had been circling that topic quite a lot recently. Lynnria accepting who she was, what she was, her sexuality… The list went on. It was almost as though someone out there was trying to make a point.

  But I knew Lynnria. She was not some prude. She was just… sensitive when it came to opening up around other women. Slow to trust. Loath to allow physical contact.

  You know…

  Like someone who had been mutilated at the hands of her own matriarchal Clan.

  Still, she was out here in the buff, tits out and proud. She knew the others lusted after her just as much as me—or Jax did, anyway. Mia kept her cards close to her chest and Fekinell was… just a wooden plank of emotion. Yet Lynnria did not hide. Yes, her clothes had been stolen, and yes, she was still having some issues with oversensitivity, yet she did not hide.

  She was Dolilim! And she wanted us to know it—even if it was in her own special way.

  “No, I think you’re right, Lynnria,” I began.

  “Thank you!”

  “You shouldn’t be giving out such a precious resource to just anyone.”

  She tilted her chin into the air. “Exactly.”

  “Especially when even I haven’t had a taste.”

  “That’s just the point I’ve been trying to—”

  Her eyes flashed wide.

  “I mean come on!” I exclaimed, fully committed to the bit. “Do we have a pecking order in this Clan or don’t we? If anyone should have the privilege of sampling anything first, it should be me. Then comes Jax… then Arx, Xyn… Mia, then you—”

  Lynnria jerked. “What?! Why am I behind Mia?”

  Mia arched an eyebrow. “Come now—Lolita! You cannot honestly think you outrank me.”

  The in-no-way-a-Lolita-in-question looked like she wanted to argue that point, but ultimately caved to seniority. “Okay, but what about Xyn? She’s barely even in this Clan!”

  Mia turned to me. “Agreed.”

  I winced. “Yeah, I regretted that one as soon as I said it. But she put in a pretty good showing last time. It’s hard not to earn points when you’re that hot and that good at BJs.”

  Did I just say that out loud? I should not have said that out loud.

  The antlered brunette with rage-highlights narrowed her eyes and cracked her knuckles—which meant I would either soon be extraordinarily lucky… or dead. “I see.”

  “That one also be a full goddess-made Lilim what could whip the lot of us blind, wean,” Jax put in, crossing her arms.

  Lynnria deflated.

  “Well… yeah. But whistling dicks, Donum! It’s my—” With a strangled tone, she lowered her voice, as though fearing someone might overhear. “It’s my breast milk! If anyone should… should get to try it first, it should be me!”

  My eyebrows shot into my hatband, both at the suggestion and the choice of label. Does it really count as breast milk? I mean, I guess… technically.

  “She’s got ye there, Master,” Jax said.

  “It’s a reasonable argument,” Mia agreed.

  “I don’t want to drink breast milk,” Fekinell deadpanned. To whom, I had no idea. One of the corpses, maybe? The rest of us had been thoroughly sidetracked. I really needed to keep better track of that punishment game of ours.

  Recovering quickly, I lowered my chin into my knuckles, making a show of thinking it over, then pronounced, “Oh, alright. If you insist. Go ahead.”

  Lynnria looked from face to expectant face. “What, now?”

  “Yes, obviously now—cluster tits!”

  “Just a nip, love. We gotta know how it tastes.”

  Lynnria backed away. “But… but what about what’s in them? What about the Demon Queen’s essence?”

  “Your breasts have—fucked off! I have a banana!—have relaxed, so it is safe to assume they have finished processing their contents,” Mia explained eagerly. “Everything within should now carry your unique Energy signature.”

  I glanced at her. “Jax, I understand, but why are you so interested?”

  She jumped like I had swatted her backside. “I—I simply need to know whether the Skill is functioning as intended. It’s only the six Words.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And I am anxious to see its potential. As you are well aware, concentrated Life Energy has tremendous catalyzing properties which may be used to fuel any number of interesting effects.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “As the purveyor of Lynnria’s Skills, it is my responsibility—”

  “—to see if the wean’s tit milk be up to snuff,” Jax finished.

  “Exactly.” Mia jerked. “Er… colloquially speaking, of course. Er, m-my lord.”

  “Colloquially. Right.” I turned to Lynnria. “Well?”

  “Well?!” She fidgeted a moment longer, tail lashing and hands wringing, before settling her shoulders. “Fine. I’ll just… h-how do I—”

  Glancing down, she made a few abortive attempts at grabbing herself while leaning over and stretching out her tongue, but it was not working. She had neither the heft nor the flexibility to meet herself in the middle.

  It was plenty of fun to watch, though! Especially once her antics got Jax curious, and the situation devolved into a gyrating contortionist battle. I can confidently report that between the two, only my First’s tongue could reach her boobs, if only their fleshy tops. She was unable to get the nipple angled right for self-stimulation—something to do with how full and buoyant the surrounding flesh was. She was disappointed, but I counted it as a win.

  However, Mia eventually lost patience.

  “Oh, for—just load some onto the back of your claw!”

  “Like I would for my skill?”

  Nodding—and swearing under her breath—the bunny-eared Dolilim stepped forward to guide the younger girl through the process, which involved simply pressing the back of her finger against the underside of her nipple. Within moments, a dewdrop of clear liquid had collected onto the purple-tinted enamel.

  My cock pulsed at the sight of it.

  It was mesmerizing, calling to me. Me and me alone. A swirling pool drawing me into the depths of that perfect… perfect nectar. Ambrosia. Mead. Heaven on a nail.

  Except… I was not the only one.

  Jax had taken an unconscious step toward the pair, actually hissing at herself once she realized. And I was surprised to discover Fekinell at my shoulder, outwardly emotionless as ever, yet fixated totally upon the drop. I had not even heard her stand.

  Mia looked back at us and grinned. “You see? Look at their faces. See how they stare. They would not be reacting this way were it yet dangerous. You have distilled it for them, a liquor of enriched Life Energy.”

  “A liquor, huh?” Lynnria repeated distantly. “I—I think I like that better than… than… I think I… …milk.”

  It was only then that I noticed how fascinated she was, more so even than the rest of us. She was looking at that drop like… well, like it was me! Her pupils started dilating in proportion to her claw creeping upward, and I caught the telltale flair of her nostrils scenting the air. I doubt she had room for conscious thought after that. Something about its aroma dissolved whatever remained of her self-restraint, and she sucked her finger into her mouth.

  Instantly, she twirled in place, dropped to one knee, punched the air, and shouted, “HOT damn!”

  The rest of us needed to give that one a few seconds to breathe.

  “I knows a reaction like that when I sees it,” Jax said with a backhanded thump to my chest.

  “Well, yeah. Anyone would,” I agreed. “It’s like she just took a shot of pure grain alcohol.”

  Or a line of cocaine.

  “Donum!” Lynnria sprang to her feet and started dancing in place, shaking her hands palm-down like she was trying to summon the ghost of Liberace. “Donum and Jax! Mia! All of you c’mere. Three above, you gotta try this!”

  Huh. I had been hoping this little game of mine would loosen her inhibitions a little—at least enough to allow for practicality. This was almost too fast.

  “Wheeey!” Jax crowed with joyful anticipation as she side-shuffled her way forward. “I knows me that jingle jumper, too. Nothing like having yer head blasted off to summon the lads for a round. Eh, wean?”

  “Lads, Mistress?” Fekinell asked from behind. “I don’t understand. We are none of us lads.”

  Jax frowned disapprovingly at her subordinate. “None of yer lip, cunt. Everyone’s a lad when their belly’s to the bar.”

  That was about the best way to sidestep that landmine of a subject.

  “And speak for yourself,” I added quietly.

  Jax waved me forward. “Here, Master. You first.”

  I nodded and quickly took my place in the queue. Too fast or not, I was not about to miss this, but I wondered just how Lynnria intended it to go down. Was this a self-serve kind of situation? Was I meant to drink directly from the tap? But she soon answered my question by dolling out a drop onto her finger. Seeing it a second time did not dull its magnetism in the slightest. I had to take a deep breath to steady myself, and I knew that had I been even vaguely peckish, the urge to lunge for that tantalizing bead would have been all-consuming—a thought which would soon turn prophetic.

  Before I had even finished licking my lips, Fekinell dashed to the front and sucked Lynnria’s nail straight into hers.

  “Oi!” Jax deftly removed her half-boot—with which I thought she meant to whip Fekinell’s exposed back—but she instead sank her bared foot directly into the woman’s ribs. It was as brutal a tactic as it was unexpected, but it worked. And the opportunistic thief was quick to roll away, clutching at her side.

  “Damn, Jax!” I looked from Ell to her… and then to her dangling boot. “What the hell was that?!”

  She ignored me.

  “Bloody sneak! All that bowing and scraping… Mistress this, Lord that, and what happens? First chance ye get, yer snatching yer lord’s supper right off his plate. And here ye said ye did nay want any!”

  “I’m sorry, Mistress,” Ell gasped. “It was so beautiful… I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Beautiful, nothing! Pig! Gutter rat! Did ye even stop to savor the flavor?” She slipped her boot—more of an ankle brace, really—back over her foot with disgust. “Ain’t fit to sully me leather with ye.”

  She turned to me finally, face full of remorse. “I be powerful abashed by this, Master. Powerful abashed. But she’s me own Servant. I gotta be taking the responsibility.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Oh, good grief.

  “I deserve nothing less than a full—”

  “No.”

  “Blast it! Why not?” Whining, she clutched my arm—quite the compelling argument when you have cleavage—and pouted. “Just a quick tanning? Please? She were so bad! What if she hurt the bairn?”

  Rolling my eyes, I spared a look for the actual victim of this crime. “She didn’t hurt you, did she, Lynnria?”

  “Huh? Oh, uh… no, no. I was just surprised, is all.” She was distracted, staring down at Fekinell. “Look, Donum. Her arm.”

  Spinning, I zeroed in on what she was talking about instantly. How could I not? It was as though Ell’s arm had come to life, its various flaps and meat chunks seeking and grasping for its missing piece like a humanoid slime mold—just as Lynnria had described. Squidgy was a pretty good word for it… but I would have called it The Thing.

  Oh… oh, this could be bad. This could be real bad.

  But before I could get too worked up about it, the ‘silvery blood’ Lynnria had reported emerged from Fekinell’s severed bone. There was only a little at first, capping the exposed stump like a miniature pool of mercury, but then a great glob of the stuff shot out and started shaping itself into the semblance of an arm… just not Fekinell’s arm. There were too many spikes and weird pustules, and it kept shifting its pieces around like it was trying to remember what an arm was supposed to look like for that. After a few moments, it settled into something roughly feminine, but too sinewy and with fingers ending in five-inch metallic spikes. It honestly reminded me of the Witchblade gauntlet.

  None of which was in any way reminiscent of the Thing.

  “Okay, what the fuck, Ahnbe?” I said finally.

  “Ye know what she be, Master?”

  “Is that the liquid metal you were talking about?” Lynnria added.

  “Well, sort of. To both questions.” I sighed. “None of this works with any of the patterns I know. The pieces are there, but they fit together at all the wrong angles! She’s got memory loss, emotive and self-control issues. That’s one thing. She feeds on Life Energy and has… call it snake fangs, which is another. She’s afraid of healing spells and bursts into flame when I touch her. Which… who knows? And now this? If Ahnbe took inspiration from my head, like she said, then it wasn’t from just the one monster. She scrambled them all up.”

  Fekinell looked up from where she had been examining her hand. Her face was giving… mild constipation? “The Destroyer created me from the Lord’s memories? How can that be?”

  “Like I said, it’s only what she told us.” I paused. “Well… more implied, really. You had to be there.”

  “I wasn’t there?”

  “Well, yeah, you were, but…” I groaned. “Look, talking to goddesses isn’t like having a normal conversation. They yank things out of your head and reply to what should have been passing thoughts. It’s very frustrating.”

  “But how could Sire have passing thoughts of monsters that the Destroyer did not know?”

  I shifted, suddenly nervous. “I’ve… been around.”

  We needed to change the subject. That line of questions could lead to bad things in a hurry. Fortunately, Mia was there to fill in the gaps.

  “Our lord has attracted the attentions of more than one of the Five, creature. Do not be surprised he controls territories beyond your ken.”

  Jax looked at her strangely. “He controls territories now?”

  Mia shrugged. “Figuratively.”

  Then she twitched and swore.

  “And who are you exactly?” Fekinell asked, rising smoothly to her feet. If Jax had injured her, she showed signs of neither discomfort nor annoyance. She had received her due and moved on. “You rose from spell-wrought flesh not a day gone, yet you speak as though you’ve seen ages pass.”

  Jax snorted. “She’s the one what wrought the spell.”

  Fekinell took a moment to let that sink in. She might have even inhaled somewhat. “I serve masters greater than I realized.”

  I could have argued that point, but it was a matter of semantics. From her point of view, we probably looked like a band of holy warriors, one step removed from the divine itself. And I suppose we were, from a certain point of view… kind of. Except this particular band was a bunch of idiots intent on slutting it up across the countryside. And the goddesses were not much better.

  “Can I have some breast milk now?”

  Lynnria’s fist collided with my ribs.

  “Don’t. Call it that,” she growled. “And no. The moment has passed.”

  My face warred between disappointment and pain. “Awwouch…”

  “Don’t give me that. I didn’t hit you that hard, and you’re not even hungry.” With a sniff, she waved Fekinell ahead. “Lets get going. We still have Arx to rescue.”

  Fekinell complied, back-stepping a few paces before turning around. “And who is Arx?”

  “My fiancé’s second wife,” Lynnria replied. “You’ve met. She was the tall one with gray skin and spiraling white horns.”

  “I have met no one fitting that description.”

  “Yeah, you definitely have memory problems.”

  “I have no such impairment.”

  As the pair rounded the corner, Mia trailing after—complaining the while about her abandoned research—Jax turned to me.

  “Spot of good thinking, that, Master. Me Servant’s got her arm fixed and Lynnria’s had her paps tapped. I’ll bet ye a ha-copper she even thinks it were her idea. Yer getting better at spinning us round to yer liking.”

  I sighed, rubbing at my yet-tender ribs. There had been another scenario under consideration, one representing an escalation of our bed play. I would have toyed with Lynnria’s emotions like a puppeteer, yanking here and pulling there. Comfort to settle her, happiness when our thoughts aligned, pleasure when I saw fit to reward her. Combined with my looks, it would not have taken much before she was putty in my hands. She probably would have even enjoyed the experience… but I had balked at the last second. It had felt so sleazy. Slimy and manipulative. So I had quietly slipped the idea into my back pocket for another day.

  “It’s a skill borne of necessity, Jax.” Adjusting my hat, I said, “Come on. Let’s not fall behind.”

  The path beyond was not dissimilar to what we had found on the opposite side. Hedges, flagstones, gravel… a maze. So many mazes.

  Honestly, what was the point of a maze? It was not like they were difficult. Okay, yes, they could be made difficult, but without some implacable foe hot on our trail or the risk of certain death should we tarry, all they were good for was slowing us down. We did that just fine all on our own.

  The only big difference between this one and the last were the ever-present rows of flowers and odd vorpal bunny, the latter of which we were leaving quite the trail. To be sure, they were nowhere near as thick as they had been at the entrance, but they continued to harry us at regular intervals, no matter which direction we traveled.

  From my observations, they obeyed a proximal hunting stratagem. Whatever got close enough, they jumped at. Or some of them did. A little voice in the back of my head, buttressed by the path’s entrance riddle, insisted there were more hiding in the flowers, waiting for one of us to stumble from the path. ‘Tread with care,’ as it were. My theory was that the ambushers had been designed to test and punish just such a lapse: the first leaps out, forcing you to dodge, then the rest ripped you to shreds while you were on the back foot.

  But with Fekinell in the lead, that never happened. Her reaction speed was too fast, allowing her to snatch anything that flew at her with the ease of a child falling on its face. She did not even need to look—like she had eyes in back of her head.

  Which was possible. It was not like I had checked… though they would have needed to be extremely small.

  Anyway, before the little beasts even knew what had happened, they were between her teeth, drained, and discarded without a care.

  Yet not without consequence.

  Fekinell was changing. To be sure, it was only by minute amounts at a time, and no surprise; those rabbits contained little in the way of Life Energy. But change, she did—a shift here, a touch there.

  It was the hair to first clue me in. Not that it was growing—it would have taken me ages to catch something so subtle—but that it was growing the wrong color. Instead of the chartreuse of her natural tresses, her roots increasingly showed evidence of a polished silver beneath.

  And having noticed that, I became hyper-aware of anything else I might have missed. Changes to her stride, the way her hips moved, the set of her shoulders, all showing signs of progressing strength and dexterity. Her skin became smoother, visibly softer. Her profile started filling out. The lines of her face blunted their edge, granting her a youthful yet maturely seductive mien. None by great measure. Probably little more than a single Stat point’s worth—in the physicals for sure and likely in Charisma—but obvious, once I knew to look for them.

  And having noticed that, I realized the other thing I had missed—that all of us had missed. We had not been taking Gems of Power from Ell’s victims. I could not have said why. We just somehow knew it to be pointless and moved on without a second thought.

  I stopped.

  “Ell?”

  Halting mid-stride, she hastily scurried forward to kneel, a knight at the summons of her liege. “Fekinell, if it pleases, my lord.”

  I grunted. Right. “Are you still hungry?”

  “Yes, sire.” There was no hesitation.

  I blinked, at a loss. She had to have eaten at least fifteen of those creatures by that point. “Okay, but… are you less hungry than before?”

  “No, sire.” A slight pause. “But I might resist the light’s call, should my lord wish.”

  “The light?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  I waited, but it seemed we had been meant to understand from the name alone.

  “Explain, please.”

  “Sire?”

  I sighed. “What is the light?”

  “What—” Her brow furrowed fractionally. “I… don’t know, my lord. I simply hunger for it. It’s all around. I can sense it hiding in the flowers. The executioners, I think.”

  There were murmurs from the girls at that revelation, but I kept my face impassive. It was only what I had suspected.

  “Fekinell,” Lynnria cut in, “do we have this light?”

  “Yes.”

  Her answer was just as instant, but the lack of honorific felt stark. And from the way Lynnria’s jaw worked, it was clear she felt she had been slighted.

  “So you hunger for us.” She glanced at Jax accusingly, gauging her reaction.

  Yet Fekinell only laughed. Well… she puffed a bit, but that was practically a guffaw coming from her. We waited, but again, she did not seem particularly inclined to explain herself.

  “What’s so funny?” Lynnria asked finally.

  Fekinell looked up, I think with disbelief, but her face gave away nothing. “Your joke.”

  Another lengthy pause came and went with nothing forthcoming.

  “I’m beginning to like this one,” Mia announced, smiling.

  “Ye would,” Jax grumbled before turning to her subordinate. “Ye gonna make me take off me boot again, cunt? Tell the girl what I sense in ye. Tell us why ye’d ne’er feed on her, nor the rest of us, besides. And none of yer bowing and scraping shite, neither—we know that part. Tell us like ye did nay serve.”

  “Like I did not…” Fekinell’s mouth worked for a moment, visibly struggling to get her head around the concept. “That—It’s a nonsense question, Mistress, like asking why I wouldn’t jump into a campfire to fend off an evening breeze.” She glanced at me briefly before averting her gaze. “All of you… burn in my eyes.”

  “Interesting,” I muttered. Clearly, some of us burned more than others. Still, this was doing absolutely nothing for my monster theory. I had heard of nothing like it. “Isn’t this just Life Energy, though? We all saw what that droplet did with your arm.”

  She hesitated, flexing her metallic fingers a few times in thought. “I think… partially? But there is more to the light than Life, sire. The light gives me strength.”

  I nodded. Now we were getting somewhere. “And what about raw meat? You said you craved that before.”

  I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to ask for the sake of thoroughness.

  “I was mistaken,” she replied quickly.

  “Mistaken?” My eyebrows rose in question. Then, a beat later, I added, “Explain.”

  I was learning.

  “I did not understand what I was craving, sire, only that living flesh had it. Raw meat was the only thing that made sense.”

  “As I suspected.”

  This, at least, was more familiar. I had seen lots of werewolf and vampire stories with the newly turned fledgling raiding grocery stores for raw hamburger. Which was dumb… for werewolves, anyway. Nothing about being a carnivore meant you had to eat things raw. The only thing cooking did was make meat easier to digest, letting you absorb more of its nutrients before passing it. But it was visceral and wild, and of course, vampires had a whole other thing going on. So Fekinell’s confusion was on-brand for the genre.

  The next most-logical question was whether she might crave other people—people not us. It was not outside the realm of speculation to assume this burning phenomenon was some kind of protection Ahnbe had laid over our party. Or Layers. I had the most among us, so that tracked. But I discarded it as fruitless.

  There were only three possible answers. One, everyone burned with some kind-specific light that drove her away. Two, assuming it was tied in with Layers, she would naturally avoid stronger people and prey on the weak. Or three, it was specific to our group, thus everyone else was fair game. But if there had been a single constant through this whole scenario, it was that Fekinell was as ignorant of her condition as the rest of us. We would find out when she did. So I set it aside.

  “In that case, I’d like to ask you to… hold off on draining your kills,” I said. “These are supposed to drop an Average Rank I each, and whatever you’re doing seems to rob them of Power as well as Life. I suspect that’s the missing component you were talking about.”

  Jax gasped. “Oh, shite! I’d nay e’en noticed.”

  “I hadn’t either,” Mia ground out. It was the tone of a woman who had just discovered which of the neighborhood dogs had been using her flower garden as a toilet.

  Notably, no one doubted my conclusion. Now that I had mentioned it, it was as obvious as gravity. But what interested me was how efficient the process was. Ahnbe had somehow created a method that bypassed the entire Layering system—torpor, stat points, and all—allowing this… thing of hers to advance in a completely fluid and dynamic way.

  But at what cost?

  Fekinell looked stricken. Well… she looked mildly afflicted, but you get the idea. “All of them?”

  I glanced at Lynnria. “50/50 split?”

  That seemed the best idea to me. The rest of us could eat these, even if it took ten times as many to achieve the same effect, but we were not hurting for alternatives. She was the only one who genuinely needed them, so I saw no reason not to be generous and let the two share these between them.

  However, the little princess was less than thrilled by my suggestion.

  “You would ask me to split our earnings with a servant?!”

  Oh, for the love…

  “No, I’m asking our servant to split her earnings with you. But if you feel that offended by it, I see no reason you can’t do your own hunting. Please,” I gestured, “take the lead.”

  Lynnria made a choking sound, then tilted her chin haughtily.

  “I would love to. But as I am without arms or armor…” She mimicked my gesture. “Please, continue Fekinell. And do kindly refrain from eating everything in your path this time?”

  If either of us had earned or lost any points with Fekinell through that exchange, she gave no sign. She merely bobbed her head, then hastened to her place at the vanguard. And as they moved ahead, Mia once more trailing after—this time grumbling something about the misuse of her domain—Jax sidled up to me.

  “And here we be again. Ye keep twirling the wean about yer finger like that and soon enough, I’ll not be the only one calling ye Master.” She bit her lip. “I hope she do. Just the thought be making me wet.”

  Jax had quite the imagination. Nothing about that exchange had screamed, ‘dominate me, Daddy!’ Nor would I have wanted it to.

  But I kept my reply simple.

  “As opposed to…?”

  Laughing, she swatted my backside. “Come on, mate. Let’s find Arx. She’ll be pining for it by now, and I want a taste of her when she gets an eyeful of that sexy new arse.”

  I was looking forward to that as well, but not for the same reasons. Or not only those reasons. With Arx at my side, we could finally make some headway in claiming the first third of Xhinn’s grand prize and getting out of here. Frankly, I was tiring of all these riddles and psychoanalyzing every little thing that crossed our path. I had been promised dungeon crawls, damn it! Where were the chests overflowing with treasure? Where were the dark underground caverns steeped in mystery?

  Which was when Her voice popped into my ear.

  “Oh, but you have crawled into a cavern steeped in mystery, my Gift. You have opened chests overflowing with treasure. Or did you not appreciate the pun?” The sky cracked with the distant thunder of her laughter. “But very well. I shall endeavor to make your next adventure more… traditional. Perhaps you’ll be satisfied once you’ve gotten your feet wet.”

  “Master?” Jax’s voice lanced through my consciousness, as though I had fallen into a daydream without realizing. “Be ye coming? Ye be looking like sommat stepped over yer grave.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Sorry. It’s nothing. I’m right behind you.”

  What the hell did that mean?!