Chapter 39: Arc VII – Interlude – Chapter 39 – Pay Off

Chapter 39 - Pay Off

The next morning… or mid-morning? Afternoon? Well, it was daytime, anyway.

Jax and I woke up completely naked, bundled in each other’s arms on the floor next to the hatch of the safe room. And that was weird, because I was pretty sure that we had gone to sleep in the cots. With clothes on.

Some clothes.

Okay, rags.

The point being, we were not as I had remembered.

As I was looking about, trying to reorient myself, Jax squirmed into my view. “Hmm? This be a pleasant surprise, sure. I like wakin’ up with yer arms about me.”

Feeling her nakedness sliding against my torso caused a certain inevitable reaction, and my third leg, forgiving the rather extreme exaggeration, slapped her right in between the thighs.

She gasped in delight and her eyes sparkled in anticipation, but then she suddenly realized what I was becoming intimately familiar with and scrambled away, hurriedly turning her back to me.

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” Hess’ voice drifted from the other side of the room, and I hesitated briefly before focusing on her. Shifting into a sitting position, I saw that she had been draping a certain strip of familiar white cloth over the edge of the cot. It was sopping wet. “I took the liberty of bathing you two while you were out. I don’t know what you found to roll in, but you reeked! Pulled me out of the nicest dream, too…” Her eyes went distant for a moment, a half-smile on her lips.

I stared at the floor as I absorbed those words. She had bathed us? We had smelled so badly that Sherr Hess had decided that the only course of action… Oy…

Glancing up, I found her staring at me, her smile having progressed into more suggestive territory, and I swallowed nervously. However, after a moment, I realized that she was not exactly making eye contact, and my eyes widening further, I gently folded my hands over top of my privates.

As her cackling filled the room, it dawned on me that, in bathing me, she would have become extremely familiar with every inch of my body. While I was unconscious. And I was not exactly sure how I felt about that. On the other hand, she would not have been able to see at the time, as the fountain did not have any light sources nearby. I do not know why that made me feel better, but it did.

“It still ain’t done!” Jax wailed from the side, pulling my attention back.

I turned to look, but Hess interjected, “Bah. It’s close enough not to be embarrassed about anymore.”

“Mayhap…” Jax said dejectedly, “But I wanted to actually… Wait, how do ye know what it be close to and what it ain’t?”

“It wouldn’t exactly be much of a bath if I left that unscrubbed, would it?” she replied with an unconcerned shrug.

From Jax’s expression, it was clear that she was rapidly making the same connections that I just had, and for a moment, it looked as if she was going to unleash quite the verbal barrage. However, just as she was about to let loose, she glanced at me, and hesitating for a moment, she quipped, “Did ye at least use yer tongue?”

My eyes goggled at that.

Hess, meanwhile, roared with laughter, and quickly surging forward, she swept Jax up into a crushing hug and twirled her about, “Jax! That was brilliant!”

“Here now! Let me down, oaf!” Jax loudly grumped as her feet passed over my head.

Swinging her around once more, Hess let her fall to her feet and gripped her by her shoulders, “You’ll become an excellent seductress in no time! Why, I’ll have you know…” she paused in surprise, “Hmm? What are these?” Hess reached up, and pinched at something on top of Jax’s head.

“Stop that!” Jax complained. “What have you got hold of, anyways? I can nay feel nothin’.”

Despite my nakedness, my curiosity got the better of me, and still shielding my privates, I stood up to investigate.

Hess noticed my approach, and pulling Jax’s head down further so that I could see clearly, she said, “Here. Look at this.”

While Jax twisted and protested, I got a clear view of something quite interesting through the tangled mass of her ever lengthening hair, “Jax… you’re growing horns!”

She froze, “Really?” Fidgeted for a moment, her ears twitching nervously as she processed this news, she asked, “Do they look nice?”

“Nice?” Hess repeated quizzically. “That’s what you ask first?”

“He got a thing for the ladies what got horns,” Jax explained.

My eye ticked a bit, a little put out at having my laundry aired, figuratively this time, and I sighed wistfully. Long gone were the days of privacy and decorum.

“Does he now?” Hess grinned in amusement. Pushing her a little closer to me, she ran her tongue over her lower eyetooth, “Well, Donum? Do they look nice?”

I cleared my throat, feeling rather nakedly on the spot. For good reason. But from the way she had glossed over their appearance, either there did exist kinds already that had such ornamentation, or the various forms that they took were so diverse that seeing someone with them would not raise any eyebrows. I felt some relief in that, if for no other reason than that Jax would not be put on the spot in public. Provided my reasoning was sound.

As to the question at hand, instead of answering Jax directly, I opted to simply describe them for her benefit. I, at least, could opt to exercise some restraint, after all. They were little more than nubs at the moment, three-sided pyramids with the broad side facing forward and the somewhat dull points just beginning to curve back. They were otherwise dark to the point of being just shy of black in color.

Reaching up to look a bit closer, I asked, “Do you mind if I touch them?”

Jax seemed confused by the question and glanced at Hess for help, but she seemed just as mystified at Jax’s lack of understanding. “Well?” Hess prompted.

“A-aye?” she responded uncertainly. “Ye can touch whate’er ye please, M-m-m…” Giving her head a light shake, she tried again, “Mu-mu-mu…”

“It’s fine, Jax,” I cut in.

She frowned unhappily, but she nodded.

“What’s this then?” Hess asked curiously.

“Oh,” I began, reaching for one of Jax’s horns, “she has a bit of an odd stutter sometimes whenever she…” Jax gasped loudly the moment my fingers made contact with the bony protrusion, and her mouth agape, she began to tremble and quake.

“Please!” Hess exclaimed with an incredulous smirk. “You’re faking! I’ve been holding you this whole time and you didn’t even twitch!”

Jax made no reply save a halting whimper, and as her eyes began to screw themselves up into her head, I released her, fearing she might fall. The second I did, she let out a mournful cry of protest, but then caught herself and straightened. Blinking a few times as her breathing steadied, she glanced back and forth between us, “What were that? What happened?”

“What happened?” Hess repeated. “He grabbed you by the horn and you acted like he had your clit by the teeth!”

Jax snorted, “Don’t talk mince. Everybody knows that ain’t a real thing.”

I do not know that I had ever seen Hess’ face display complete and utter shock before that point, but it was plastered all over it now. She stammered for a moment, at a loss, before turning to me.

I shrugged, “Don’t look at me! She used to keep company with… an uneducated bunch.”

Jax looked back and forth between us, frowning, “Ye ain’t serious?”

Hess’ slowly lowered her head into her hands and groaned. Finally, taking a deep breath, she faced Jax. Grabbing her shoulder, she pulled her close and leaned down to speak directly into her ear, “Jax, sweetie. It’s right… here.”

The thump from Hess’ middle finger thwacking against Jax’s privates was clearly audible. Jax immediately began to squeal, and cupping her crotch, she slowly sank to the floor, her cry of protest descending in pitch along with her.

Hunching over slightly in empathetic pain, I frowned at Hess, “That was not exactly necessary, was it?”

She spread her hands, unconcerned, “What better way to teach than a little bit of pain?” Turning to look down at Jax, who had curled up into a fetal position, she continued, “Two lessons here. The clit is real. And it is extremely sensitive.”

“Yes, okay, Hess,” I said, squatting down to comfort Jax. “Maybe, in the future, we could lean away from physical assault in our lessons?”

She shrugged, “She used to be a man. If she didn’t even know about the clit, she probably didn’t even know that women feel just as much pain as men down there. Now she does.”

“Worse!” Jax wheezed. “It be so much worse!”

I blinked a few times. I had not known that either.

 

After a few minutes, Jax had calmed down enough to sit up again. And a few minutes after that, I had managed to convince her not to murder Hess in her sleep. I hoped.

During the conversation, I had been steadily taking note of any further changes to my companion’s appearance. They were more subtle this time. Which made sense. She had spent far less time in torpor, after all.

Other than the horns, her ears where becoming sharp and stuck out from the sides of her head at about a finger’s length, and they had begun to twitch up and down in time with her facial expressions. It was kind of cute, I decided. She was otherwise mostly unchanged. A bit more roundness here and there. A softening of the features.

Jax paused in her tirade to look at me. Letting out a bemused huff, she asked, “Well? Do I pass muster?”

I cleared my throat, embarrassed at being caught, but Jax seemed happy that I was checking her out. “You’re beginning to look… better,” I replied.

“Better?” Jax repeated, her face falling a bit.

I winced. I knew it had not been a particularly politic way of phrasing it, but truthfully, Jax had been… well… homely would be the best I could describe it. Now, she had progressed into something approaching… plain? It was an improvement. Still, one should not just come out and say that.

Of course, I was not at all happy with myself for making such judgments about her in the first place, especially considering how intimate we had been with one another lately. But most of my attraction to her had been a result of her rather enthusiastic want of me rather than anything to do with her physique. Now the question was in trying to put that into some semblance of a compliment that would not result in physical injury.

“He’s saying you aren’t exactly the shiniest fish in the pond,” Hess supplied bluntly.

Oh, fuck me…

Jax’s lip curled up, and her eyes took on a dangerous glint, but Hess kept going, either oblivious or uncaring. Possibly both. “What’s your Charisma at now?”

Jax growled low in her throat. Hess was already skating on thin ice, and this was not helping matters. But after a moment, she took a breath to calm herself and muttered, “Five.”

“Five?” Hess repeated, incredulously. “But you two just entered the Fifth Layer, didn’t you? And you get one Charisma per Layer?”

Jax was giving one of the walls a thousand-yard stare and absently drilling a hole in the floor with one of her claws. Answering through her teeth, she said, “Aye. Ye have it aright. I started from one.”

“Oh no…” Hess groaned. “You must have been hideous.”

Jax slowly turned her head to look at me, murder writ large across her being. However, I had suddenly decided that the wood grain in the flooring was absolutely fascinating.

Getting no help from me and unable to contain her anger any longer, Jax surged to her feet and stalked over to Hess. “Aye! I were. I were hideous, ye flamin’ weapon! But I did nay care. It weren’t sommat I ever thought to worry over. Who’d ever want a forsaken Bandit, anyway!?” she choked out, tears starting to leak from her eyes as she shouted.

I sucked in a breath at what she had just admitted to. It was her secret to tell, but angry as she was, she probably had not intended to let that slip.

“Bandit?” Hess repeated quietly. “You were cursed?”

“Aye, cursed and cast out! Livin’ in the Allenwood like a bunch of animals, me and me… thems like me. And then comes Donum, all doe-eyed and innocent. Fresh cast from on high, he was, and stinkin’ o’ wealth. So we catches him, binds him. And the others, they tells me to feed him up. Says nay, did I. Look at his fat. Let him starve, but they says nay. We feed him up so as to maybe get him to tell us where he got his gold stowed away. He had such things on him already. Maybe he got more! And then after… then after…” she stopped to breathe for a moment, her tears falling freely down her face now. She looked visibly sick at what she had been about to say, but she shook her head and marshaled on.

“And when the soldier-men came to slaughter us, left me to die in a puddle o’ me own blood, did Donum come. Pitied me, he did. Saw me great scar and me mottled face and me bent nose and cared not a whit! Heals me he does. Binds me to his self. Dashes me red badge o’ shame to the wind like it never were. And why? Why does he do it? Cause I fed him, says he. For all I done, for all I were, that one act o’ kindness…” her voice broke over the word, and she sucked in another shivering breath.

“So don’t think ye can shame me for me looks! I got enough. Enough to get what I need. Got it when me Charisma were only four, did I. And the next Layer, it’ll be six. And then seven. And soon, I’ll be prettier than ye can even dream of. And I ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

As Jax finished, standing there with her chest heaving, staring Hess down, I realized that there was a subtext at play that I was missing. I mean, I thought that I had been following her speech well enough, even if my own perception of my motives had not been quite so altruistic. But it felt like it had sort of gone off the rails there at the end. Why would she be going anywhere?

Hess stood silently for a while, her arms crossed, before finally sighing in resignation. “Fair enough. But you can’t blame a girl for trying. Hmm?”

Jax snorted and spinning on her heel, she walked away.

Apparently, that was that?

 

Some time later, the three of us had decided to head over to check out the treasure we had earned.

As we walked, the way highlighted by my half-buff, the silence had settled on us like a pall. And the longer it extended, the heavier it began to feel. I did not like it, I decided. Not one bit.

And unfortunately, I was coming up totally blank on ways to possibly break through it. Other than making myself look like a fool, that is.

So, instead, I just decided to do some post-condensing maintenance. I had points to assign and skills to think about, after all, and true to my gender, I would much rather busy my hands than worry about emotions. They would work it out eventually, I figured.

Running through my stats, I quickly assigned my points according to my default array, adding little pluses to the last four attributes. Otherwise, the rest of the page looked much the same as the last time, save for the fairly large bump to Jax’s Loyalty rating. Apparently, she had somehow slid into the mid-eighties without my noticing.

I nodded to myself. I was going to have to pay close attention to her behavior for a while. So far, I had not noticed anything new, but we had not been awake that long. She was still certainly capable of getting pissed off. That much was clear.

Now then… what to take as a new skill…

“What did you mean before when you said you ‘got it’, Jax?” Hess asked suddenly, shattering my concentration. Apparently, she had decided to bash through the awkwardness with her characteristic lack of tact. “I thought you said you weren’t finished developing yet.”

“I got one mouth, don’t I?” Jax replied haughtily without missing a beat. “What do I need with two?”

That little exchange, and the abrupt shift in mood that came with it, caused me to suck in a breath, and a bit of spittle went down the wrong tube.

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Hess ignored my coughing fit, “But you’re missing out! Did you at least let him diddle you a little?”

Jax slid a contemptuous look at Hess, “Missing out, nothin’. I be lilim, not some paltry lass what’s got to have her bits tickled to have a good time.”

My attempt at self-induced apoplexy intensified, and Jax paused to look back at me in concern.

Hess went on speculatively, “Hmm… if it’s anything like when his aura starts to build…” her voice quavered for a moment before she mastered herself, “But what about now? It sure felt like a vagina when I was washing you. You’re sure…”

“I said it ain’t, did I nay?” Jax interrupted, turning back to frown at Hess. Sighing, she drew aside her improvised breechcloth — really just her old waistband with a long bit of left over scrap tucked through and hanging down the front. What was left of her top had mysteriously vanished over the course of the night. Pointing, she explained, “Look, since yer so curious. It don’t even open yet.”

Squatting down curiously, Hess nodded, “Hmm… you’re right. Donum…” She paused, finally noticing me, “Donum, quit jesting over there and come look at this.”

“Coming…” I wheezed out weakly. “Coming…”

 

Once we arrived back at the Tongue-Flower room, Hess busied herself with examining the still-locked treasure for traps. I did not know what exactly she was looking for, per se, but she seemed to have a method.

While we waited, Jax casually leaned back against my chest, which prompted me to start sporting a goofy little grin. It was the kind of thing a girlfriend might do in a moment of quiet, and I was feeling a little sentimental about… whatever it was that was developing between us. That lasted right up until the point when, without looking, she pulled aside my still damp loincloth and began to gently fondle me.

My throat tightening, I nervously glanced between Hess’ turned back and Jax’s hand, unsure what to do. Finally, I muttered, “Jax, what are you doing?”

“Relax,” Jax whispered. “Just some breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” I repeated just a tad too loudly.

“Hmm?” Hess sounded. As she turned to look at us, Jax adroitly positioned herself to shield me from view. “You wanting to go hunt, huh? That’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. I think we’ll try to clear the town today. After that, we may try for some of those… uh… ‘sheets’ or whatever you called them.”

I nodded jerkily, agreeing without really thinking about it. Jax’s hand was still wrapped firmly around me. “Uh huh. Yeah. You’re right. Of course. Have to wait.”

Hess tilted her head curiously but eventually dismissed us and turned back to her task.

As soon as she did, Jax turned around and pressed herself against me, grinding against my hardness, “Look at me diddies, Donum. I think they filled a bit, do ye not?”

I did not reply, just concentrating on not breathing too loudly. This was insane! Of course, with her rubbing the damned things across my chest like that, it was hard not to know exactly how large they were. If I were to put a name to it, they probably were not even A cups, but she was right, they had filled out just a tad. Her chest area now had a degree of padding to it that had not been there before, which served to push out her nipples a little.

Of course, Jax was using this to her full advantage, “Mmm… do nay say nothin’. I can feel yer pleased.” A shiver rolled up her spine as she said it. Looking up at me, her mouth started to gape open in her need. She wanted more, I realized. And she meant to have it. Dropping to her knees, she engulfed me into her mouth.

I had not known, before that point, that it was possible to be so aroused and panicked at the same time. With her working at me like that, I almost did not care that Hess was staring right at us. And that lasted right up until I realized that Hess was staring right at us! I froze like a deer in headlights.

Jax came loose from my erection just long enough to lick me from base to tip before diving back in, and I shuddered, eyes still locked with Sherr Hess. There was no sign of the brash confidence or the cunning temptress she usually projected. Instead, she was just biting at her lower lip, watching us. After a moment, she seemed to reach a decision, and silently pacing forward, she straddled Jax’s head and claimed my lips for her own.

I was not sure how long we stayed like that. I think my brain shorted out, to be quite frank. But eventually, I just figured… fuck it? You know? So, I leaned into it.

“Mmmmaaah~ Donum…” Jax whispered, panting as she came loose from me again. “Yer startin’ to feel so… Hess!” Jax leapt to her feet and pushed Hess away, “Yer foulin’ it with yer… with yer…” Jax seemed to lose her train of thought, glancing back and forth between my erection and the gigantic woman, and after a moment, she resumed her assault on me, all pretense of secrecy abandoned. Her need was paramount.

Hess’ breath was still catching from our kiss, but she pulled her lips into a smile as she watched Jax’s enthusiasm, trying to reassert her self-assured front. “I’m fouling it?” she asked, glancing at me.

“Uh… I uh… I’m not too sure. Oh…” I started, my voice quivering in an effort to speak. “She feeds on emotions, you see. Haha… ooh… S-seems to r-really like this!”

“Emotions?” Hess asked, her eyes drifting down to Jax’s bobbing head. She considered for a moment before saying, “So what happens if I do this?” Stepping closer again, she locked eyes with me and spread her legs. Slowly, she began to rub herself over top of my stolen underwear.

I could not look away. My gaze was helplessly drawn to the slowly spreading dampness staining the cloth that had formally been my own. Hess started to smile at my reaction.

Jax began swatting behind her limply for a moment, but when she found she could not reach, she came loose again, “Stop it, Hess! Yer mixin’ up the flavors.”

“Am I?” she asked distractedly, still looking at me. However, her breath quickened when she caught sight of my now fully exposed and swaying appendage. “Do I taste different then?”

“Course ye do, nyaff.” Jax began to rub her nose and cheek over the length of me while she was talking, unwilling to pull away from the center of my arousal, “Now go away! I want Donum pure!”

“But that’s not fair,” Hess replied, her voice becoming faint. Slowly, she dropped to her knees, splashing the shallow water. “I… I dreamed of…” She gasped, slowly leaning back as she worked herself harder, “All night, I dreamed…”

Watching Sherr Hess slowly losing her internal battle to her own self inflicted ministrations all while Jax continued to work at me was too much, and I began to seize. Jax greedily sucked my orgasmic fluid down her throat, pulse after pulse, mewling in delight all the while. She remained there as I softened, taking whatever else she could from me until I finally staggered back, weak in the knees and panting for breath.

“Ahh~ It be like yer lust made liquid form…” she whispered, her arms wrapped about herself and quaking. Slowly, her quivering began to slow and even out into snake-like undulations. After a moment, her eyes slid over to where Hess was laid, knees spread wide and bowed to the floor, still furiously working at herself. Jax moistened her lips briefly as she watched before glancing at me.

“Have at it,” I said, waving at her vaguely. “I’m spent.”

But Jax shook her head and spoke in a breathy voice, “She don’t want me…”

My eyes rapidly twitched back and forth between the two women, bewildered, “Uh… but… you said… and then the argument earlier?”

“She feels neglected, Donum,” she explained, still with that sleepy tone of voice. “Why do ye think she picked a square go at me?”

“Neglected?” I repeated, struck dumb. Hess had been toying with me pretty much since I had met her, and we had been playing at flirting with one another. But neglected? That implied an expectation that had not been fulfilled. And I could not see what she might expect of me, unless… Had she been letting my aura continue to affect her? Probably, knowing her.

And then I had another thought. It was possible that it had kept on while she slept. If it required her to consciously shut it out first, then it might have built up over the hours like a leaky tap. She had heavily implied that she had been having ‘nice’ dreams, after all.

Hurrying over to her, she had almost shoved the cloth from my underwear into herself by that point, thrusting her hips into the air, desperate for more stimulation. “Hess? Can you shut out my aura? I think you may have let it go too far!”

She made no reply. Her eyes were starting to go vacant, but her gaze followed me as I approached.

Jax came to stand next to me, her posture fluid and loose, and she began to rub against me almost like a cat. It was almost like she was high. “Mmmmah~ So much. I can feel it beatin’ against me. Growin’ fierce.”

I looked back and forth between them for a moment, indecisively. From the way Hess was looking at me, it was pretty clear what she wanted, but I could not figure how I was supposed to do that without ‘getting ahead’.

Jax hooked a leg around my thigh and began to grind herself against me. “Claim her, Donum,” she whispered, gently kissing my arm. “Claim her as yer own. Bind her fast. Make her me sister, true…”

“What?” I tore my eyes away from Hess writhing in the still waters to stare at Jax. She was not really paying attention to me. Her eyes were half-lidded, and she was taking deep breaths through her open mouth and letting the air escape again in faintly exultant whimpers. “Jax, I don’t have any slots. You know that.”

She looked confused for a moment, and her head lolled back like she was going to faint. And for just a moment, before she caught herself, it looked like her shadow was coming unstuck from her. Focusing on me again, she smiled, “Take her then. Claim her for me…”

I shook my head, “Take her? Just like that? I haven’t even taken you yet.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, as if she had just realized what she had said. Briefly, she glanced down at Hess and then, in a clearer voice, said, “Touch her. She wants yer touch, Donum.”

Touch her? Just that? I could do that. Giving Jax a quick nod, I squatted down. Hess’ eyes had never left me, and they were beginning to shine in anticipation of the end of her beautiful torment.

Smiling nervously, I said, “Okay, then. Here goes.”

Rolling my shoulders a couple of times for the sake of confidence, I held my hand out and gently placed it on Hess’ knee. The second I did, her hand, damp from her own lubrication, shot out and clamped around my wrist like a vise. I grunted in pain as her impossible strength ground my bones together, and slowly, her exultant voice rising in pitch the whole way, she began to pull me toward her waiting center.

Whatever was left of the lust-fueled, drunken fervor Jax had been in vanished as she saw that, and she shouted, “No! Me first! Me first, Donum!” And she reached down to take my other hand and hurriedly thrust it between her legs. The second I made contact with the smooth cleft waiting there, her back hunched and eyes almost crossing, she moaned hard and loud. Instantly, all five of her combat shadows spun into existence and began writhing on the ground.

A scant second later my other hand met the veritable swamp that was Sherr Hess’ groin, and she began to convulse. Spasming, her back arched out like a crossbow, and then moments later, she curled into a ball, dragging me with her all the while. Meanwhile, Jax had me similarly trapped, and as the two of them writhed in orgasmic bliss, I ended up contorted to such a degree that I ended up face first in the muck.

“Ow…” I burbled into the water. “Ow, ow, ow…”

 

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” Hess apologized for the third time.

“And I been sayin’ ‘sorry’ don’t cover it!” Jax replied, crossly. “Ye let yerself go too far. Should have let go o’ Donum’s aura a long time ago. And look! Hurt him, ye did! Twisted his arm ‘til he was like to drown!”

“So did you!” Hess returned sourly.

“I’m fine, really,” I said quietly, rubbing at my arm.

“Only because I were so drunk off o’ yer lust, I could nay think straight!” Jax growled, ignoring me.

“And you didn’t have to absorb all of that, did you?” Hess returned. “You could have stopped, right? Or walked away?”

That finally brought Jax up short. Bringing her knuckles together, she began to fidget. “Ain’t so easy as that…” she muttered defensively. “I ain’t used to just not feeding. And lust be a strong temptation.”

“So you can turn it off, then?” I asked curiously.

She looked at me, finally. Eager to divert the topic, “No more than ye could not feel the breath o’ the wind against yer skin… But I can pull away. Guard against it.” She frowned, “Ain’t an easy thing to describe.”

“Alright then,” I said, nodding. I did not understand, of course. I could barely even imagine it.

At the very least, this incident, and the subsequent argument, had given me a clearer look into how my aura seemed to be affecting them. After a while, perhaps a couple of hours, they began having difficulties in ignoring sexual thoughts. Or perhaps it would be better to say that such thoughts became more prominent and difficult to let go of again. However, it was at least controllable in that there needed to be some sort of trigger to set it off. If they never had the thought in the first place, then they should be fine. And once we got into a fight, it would reset, of course.

In this case, however, Hess had been exposed, off and on, ever since the Tongue-Flower battle the previous sunset. That had been at least twelve hours ago. If Jax and I had not been off hunting rats for a large part of that, it might have been even worse. And that worried me. I could not turn it off, after all. What happened when we got back to civilization? How was I supposed to mitigate this thing? At least Hess could ignore it, if she remembered to. But Jax?

This was going to require some thought. Perhaps I could invest in a skill of some kind? It seemed like a waste, though. Getting a skill just to mitigate the effects of another? I was not so flush with points that I could give that much consideration. On the other hand, Jax had two now. Ever since the Lady had left her in the lurch last night, she had been unable to buy another. Maybe if she could burn it off in some way… It was a thought.

“Enough dawdling,” Hess said abruptly, and slapped her knees. “We’ve got a chest to open.”

“Right…” I said, fishing for the Keys we had acquired.

Hess abruptly looked away, not exactly eager to be reminded of what lay beneath my crotch pocket.

For some reason, this seemed to amuse Jax, “Yer tank’s all full? Can nay take any more?”

Hess looked at her seriously. “My reservoir for…” she swallowed and took a steadying breath, “for Arousal is so full that it’s actually starting to bleed over into Indulgence. I hadn’t thought that was possible.”

I paused, “Indulgence? Isn’t that the booze one?”

She nodded, “So I had thought.”

My eyebrows lifted a bit. Maybe this whole incident had not been so bad. Most of her abilities were tied up into that pool, after all.

And from the way that she was looking at me, Hess seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion.

“Absolutely not!” Jax said, stepping between us. “Ye got a right to him, sure. But ye got what I ain’t! I’ll not have ye usin’ it when I can nay.”

Hess blinked a few times, piecing together Jax’s meaning. However, when she did, she gasped and began to rock back and forth. Shaking her head a few times, she said, “I uh… let’s change the subject? I don’t… You’re right, Jax. I don’t think I can handle it right now.”

Frowning with concern, I handed her the green Key that Jax and I had acquired. “You’ve blocked me out, right?”

She nodded once before explaining, “Doesn’t make what’s there any weaker, though.”

I sighed, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about this. I had thought, when I had bought the skill, that I would be helping you out. This… well, it’s gone too far.”

She smirked at me as she got to her feet, “Oh, don’t worry about it. You haven’t done anything I didn’t want you to.” Gently patting my cheek, she continued, “It’s just… I may be a hedonist, but I’m only mortal. There are limits. Now then.” Slapping the sides of her face a couple of times, she twirled on her foot and paced over to the chest. Pausing for a moment, she clapped her hands and quickly rubbed them together, “Please… mama needs a bound weapon! Come on, baby…”

As Hess knelt to unlock the treasure, Jax came to stand next to me, “I ain’t a mortal.” I blinked, diverting my attention to her. She appeared to be thinking something over rather seriously. Finally, she admitted, “But I still need a way to contain yer gifts, Donum. Else, I’ll make a fool o’ meself like me near sister. And sooner rather than later.”

I nodded, “I agree. But we’ll talk about that later.”

With a click, the latch holding the chest closed fell away, and Hess tossed lid open. The second she did, there was a thwoop and an arrow shot out of the container, lodging right in Sherr Hess’ breast. Staggering, she plopped back into the water, staring at the protrusion in shock.

“Hess, ya goon!” Jax swore, insulting even as we rushed forward, “I thought ye checked it for traps?”

“I did!” she cried, reaching up to tear the projectile away. However, as soon as her hand made contact, it dissolved away, as if it had never been. The wound was still there, however.

“Flick the ‘stits?” she swore, thunderstruck.

Just then, rather quietly, we heard Sherr Hess’ voice — tinny, as though it had been recorded on an old phonograph drum — float through the room, “Bound weapon? Why, I’d give my left tit… left tit… left tit…”

All three of us exchanged glances, and as one, we all looked over at the little spot of blood slowly staining the wrap right above Hess’ left bosom. And then slowly, their gazes traveled up to me. I just smirked.

“Uh huh…”

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