by Hondo Jinx
Dan decided to put an end to the meeting.
“Nope,” he said. “I won’t reconsider. And that is my final answer. Tell the duke, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, that he can go fuck himsel—”
“Fulgeezi!” Blivet shouted, and the world exploded.
A bright flash blinded Dan, a loud cracking sound filled the air, and an invisible train slammed into his chest.
Dan hurtled through the air, wracked with crackling yellow agony. His muscles seized, his jaws clacked shut, and he slammed into the ground, convulsing helplessly and growling with torment as he pulsed in and out of consciousness, twitching between a downpour of sizzling sparks and a void of pitch-black darkness.
A scream cut the air, and the worst of the agony whipped away.
Dan gasped, flailing on the ground. He was still hurting from head to toe, half-blind from the bright yellow flash that still lingered like a ghost over his vision. His muscles jerked and spasmed, beyond his control. His nostrils were full of smoke and the smells of burnt flesh and scorched hair.
Through sheer will, he rolled onto one side and tried to draw his sword, but something was wrong with his weapon. The pommel was bent at a strange angle and—holy shit!—his clothes were on fire.
He was on fire.
No sooner had this thought registered than a heavy cloak closed over him, muffling the flames. He felt hands pressing the cloak into him, extinguishing the fire, and heard Parus saying his name.
And then Dan’s brain slid pieces together and understood what had happened—or some of it, anyway.
Fucking Blivet.
All that muttering had been incantation.
Ambassador, my ass, Dan thought.
Blivet was a sorcerer. An assassin. The Duke of Harrisburg had sent him to put a leash around Dan’s neck or a lightning bolt through his heart.
Parus pulled away the cloak he’d used to extinguish Dan. “Are you all right, Master Dan?”
“Yeah,” Dan lied. In truth, the bastard had cooked him pretty good. His whole body hurt, his heart was out whack, sputtering and racing, fluttering and flailing like a bird trapped in a chimney, and a mantle of darkness hung atop his field of vision, threatening to close over him.
He had no way of knowing for certain, but he would have bet his fortress, valley, and the shirt off his back—if it hadn’t been burned to ash—that he was teetering on the brink of zero hit points. That would mean that Blivet’s bolt had done over 140 hit points of damage. What fucking level was that asshole?
“Where’s Blivet?” Dan growled.
“I threw a dagger,” Parus said. “Sunk it into his neck. He disappeared.”
“Sir,” one of the half-orcs said from behind Parus, “Garl is dead.”
Dan forced himself to sit up.
Shit. Blivet had killed one of my men. I will make that fucker pay.
But sitting up had caused the room to start spinning, and the hovering mantel of darkness lowered a notch.
Too fucking bad. Time to get tough. You have to lock down the castle and make sure Blivet is really gone.
The table was burning. Blivet and briefcase were gone.
One of the half-orcs had been roasted alive.
A crack ran down one of the stone walls, which was discolored in strange reddish hues and smudged with soot.
He tried again to pull his sword, having forgotten in his confusion that the bolt had destroyed it.
He growled, struggling onto his feet. Again, the world tilted around him.
Parus steadied him. “Perhaps, Master Dan, you should remain seated until we can summon Lady Holly.”
“To Hades with that,” Dan said. The mantle of darkness now framed his entire field of vision. As he spoke, the darkness tightened until it was like looking down a long, black tunnel.
Parus was speaking, but his voice was too faint, too distant to understand.
“Sound the alarm,” Dan ordered. “Everyone on high alert. Guard my wives. Especially Holly and Thelia. High-value targets. Don’t let that son of a—”
The tunnel of darkness tightened, puckering up like Blivet’s mouth, and shut out the world as Dan passed into unconsciousness.
8
Upon a Troubled Brow
Dan brooded upon the throne, wearing his crown upon a troubled brow.
His wives and Tatiana surrounded him. Only Ula was absent, the hobgoblin warrior woman showing her love by hunting his would-be assassin.
The attack had everyone on tenterhooks. After all, Blivet might rematerialize and strike again at any moment. Or he might already be lurking within the castle, waiting to strike. He could have polymorphed into a mouse or a bird or one of the several thousand red elves who had recently joined the ranks.
“The attack changes everything,” Dan said.
“Irrevocably,” Holly agreed. “In tomorrow’s meeting with Razah, you must do whatever you can to sway the Jungle Kingdom to our side.”
“Um, please pardon the interruption,” Tatiana said, her voice quivering with concern, “but by ‘Razah,’ I assume you mean Prince Razah.”
Dan and Holly nodded.
“Cancel the meeting,” Tatiana said.
“Impossible,” Holly said. “Blivet’s attack means war. We need the support of the Jungle Kingdom.”
“They won’t help you,” Tatiana said. “King Fazul Kah’Dreel already formed an alliance with the Duke of Harrisburg. And Prince Razah is a monster. He cares only for power and pain, and he practically lives in the fighting pits. The fact that the king is sending Razah of all his sons tells me the Jungle Kingdom will not help you. But Razah might throw you into Hell’s Canyon!”
“We have to try,” Dan said, and when Tatiana started to object, he held out his hand like a traffic cop. “Enough, Tatiana. I appreciate your concern, but without the Jungle Kingdom’s help, we have no buffer. And trust me, I won’t be stupid about this.”
“What we really need to do,” Nadia said, “is parlay with the duke.”
“Parlay with the duke?” Dan said, and slammed a fist on the stone armrest. “That fucker tried to kill me. I’ll chop his head off. That’s how I’ll deal with him.”
Nadia laughed. “Spoken like a true barbarian, husband, but chill. I don’t mean the Duke of Harrisburg. I mean the Duke of Pittsburgh.”
Dan nodded grimly. The Duke of Pittsburgh had sent a bird inviting Dan to meet on the southern border, where Freedom Valley met the Interior Sea.
“I don’t like it,” Thelia said. “We trusted one duke, and he almost killed you. What’s to keep the Duke of Pittsburgh from finishing the job?”
“I will accept his invitation,” Dan said. “The Duke of Harrisburg is our enemy. That doesn’t make the Duke of Pittsburgh our friend, but maybe we can unite temporarily against a common threat. That would beat the Hades out of fighting a two-front war.”
“Free me, husband,” Petronia demanded again from her stone plinth. She had been raging back and forth, shaking her golden chains since they rolled her into the throne room. “I will teach your enemies to fear the night. Break my chains, and I will bring you Blivet’s head by dawn.”
The throne room doors banged open, and Agatha ran sobbing into the room. Two half-orcs followed, one rubbing his jaw, the other stumbling and shouting for the beautiful cyclops to stop.
“It’s all right,” Dan told the guards. “I will see Agatha.”
The half-orcs didn’t need to be told twice. They limped out of the room and closed the doors.
“I’m sorry if I hurt them,” Agatha said, bowing before the dais. “I heard what happened and rushed straight here, but they wouldn’t let me in. I had to see you, had to know you were okay.”
“It’s okay,” Dan laughed. “And I’m okay. Thanks to Parus and Holly.”
Agatha’s eye was rimmed with tears. Her lower lip jutted out, trembling. “If anything had happened to you, I would have thrown myself off the balcony.”
“Um, no,” Dan said. Agatha’s gus
hing affection had always amused him—until now. “I lead a violent life. If I get killed, you may not kill yourself. That’s an order. Understood?”
Agatha nodded, sniffing.
“I need you to stick around and make swords for my son,” he said. “Ah, which reminds me. Can you fix this?” He called her forward and handed her the twisted, unrecognizable remains of his sword.
Agatha turned the bent, warped, and discolored blade in her pink hands then frowned. “I’m sorry, Master, but no one could fix this. Not even my sisters.”
“Shit,” Dan grumbled. He’d had the sword for a long time, ever since leaving his old world. It had once held the spirit of his mentor, Wulfgar.
“But I could melt it down and make you a better sword,” Agatha said, brightening. “A much better sword.”
Dan smiled. The sword had been reforged once before, after Griselda had broken it. “Thanks, Agatha. That would be great.”
“Anything for you, Dan,” the cyclops said, clearly very excited at the prospect. “I’ll set to work at once!” And just like that, Agatha rushed from the throne room, carrying the pitiful remains of his trusty sword.
“You just hit the jackpot,” Nadia said.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “She’ll do a great job.”
“Not just a great job,” Holly said. “Agatha adores you. She’s going to make this sword her One True Forge.”
Dan didn’t understand. Based on the confused expressions of most of the women, he wasn’t alone.
“Each cyclops chooses a single item in her lifetime to become her masterpiece,” Holly explained. “Agatha will use all of her skill, all of her secrets, and, legend has it, she will be assisted by the spirits of her ancestors. The sword will be superior in every way, the finest thing she will ever create.”
“Wow,” Dan said. “I don’t need anything fancy, though. She should wait and—”
“Agatha loves you with every fiber of her being,” Holly said with a knowing smile. “For her, this is not a sacrifice. It is an honor.”
“All right,” Dan said. “Now, back to the business at hand. When I ride out to meet the Duke of Pittsburgh, I’m going to visit the valley tribes and raise a barbarian horde.”
“Think they’ll listen to you?” Nadia asked.
Dan nodded, remembering what Wulfgar had said when Dan reached eighth level. If Dan preached blood and fire to the barbarians, they would receive him as if he had a 25 charisma.
Twenty-fucking-five.
In other words, godlike.
“They’ll listen to me,” he said.
Thelia pointed to Dan’s chest, where blood had once more soaked through his bandages. “You’re bleeding again, husband.”
After Blivet’s attack, Holly had lifted him from unconsciousness with her healing spell. Then she cast a heal significant wounds spell, which she had gained since coming to Freedom Valley, and used two of her scroll’s cure grievous wounds inscriptions. Dan had stopped her then, despite sensing that he was still missing about half his hit points.
“We still have three inscriptions on the scroll, husband,” Holly argued, bringing it up again—and undoubtedly hoping that her sister-wives would back her up… which they did, instantly.
“Stop being a knucklehead,” Nadia said. “What if Blivet teleports back into the castle and hits you again?”
Dan shrugged. “Guess I’d better duck this time.”
The other women jumped in, several of them talking at once, insisting that he allow Holly to heal him, regardless of the cost.
“No,” Dan said. “Look, I appreciate your concern, everybody, but I’m fine. We might need those spells later. I’ll heal in time.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance, husband,” Clarissa said, speaking up for the first time. As usual, the striking, silver-haired woman’s shapely breasts strained against a snug bikini top, the scales of which matched the silver hue of her serpentine lower half.
“Oh?” Dan said.
Clarissa gave a little bow and slid up to the base of the dais, offering a characteristically lascivious grin that exposed a pair of slender, bright white fangs. “I possess some skill in the healing disciplines,” she hissed.
“Awesome,” Dan said, studying the beautiful snake woman, who had largely kept her distance since Dan had usurped the throne.
Was Clarissa a naga or a lamia?
Nagas were part human, part serpent. Lamias had the upper body of a human and lower half of a beast. Did nagas ever have the upper body of a human or only the head?
He wasn’t sure, but it was an important distinction. Nagas could be good or evil. Lamias, on the other hand, were always evil.
Regardless of Clarissa’s alignment, she had come to Dan through a dueling pact and understood that betraying him would result in instantaneous death by burning. So despite the revived paranoia Dan felt in the wake of nearly being killed by an “ambassador,” he decided to trust his mysterious new wife. “I would appreciate your help.”
Clarissa smiled and gave a slight nod. “Of course, husband. It will be my pleasure to ease your suffering. Please remove your jeans.”
Dan cocked a brow. “How does this healing magic of yours work?”
Her snake eyes stared hungrily at his crotch. “The spell changes the nature of my venom. I will have to bite you, but first, I will generate numbing enzymes in my saliva. They will anesthetize the area. You will feel pressure but not pain.”
“I don’t mind pain,” Dan said, standing and unbuttoning his jeans, “but where, exactly, do you plan on biting me? I can be as kinky as the next guy, but I’m not interested in taking fangs to the ol’ war club.”
Clarissa laughed, her oblong pupils swelling. “The thigh is the best place to administer the healing bite. That is why I ask you to please remove your jeans. Removing your pants might save you from additional discomfort should tightness result. Some males respond spectacularly to this ministration.”
“This bite is going to give me a hard on?”
Another smile, another nod. “Envenomed erections are superlative in size and rigidity.”
Dan laughed, glancing around the room. Most of the people in attendance had seen his dick. Holly, Nadia, Thelia, Zamora, and Petronia had all done a lot more than just see it.
The others—Clarissa, Chloe, and Tatiana—could look away if they wanted. Though judging by their gleaming eyes, he doubted they would.
“All right,” he said, and pushed his jeans down.
“Ugh! Why didn’t you warn us?” Tatiana gasped, mock-offended. “You’re not even wearing undergarments!”
Dan grinned at the lovely she-panther, who, despite her protestations, stared directly at his manhood, the golden eyes practically bulging from her pretty face.
“Barbarians always go commando,” Dan said.
Zamora tittered gleefully overhead. “Thank goodness for that, Master!”
“Show off,” Nadia laughed.
Thelia tittered, sounding very much like the sweet, simple girl he’d rescued from Roderick’s Raiders.
“Please be seated, husband,” Clarissa said.
Dan dropped into his throne and spread his legs.
Clarissa slid forward, gave him a smile that was one part sexy and one part sinister, and said, “This venom affects your cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous systems, but do not be anxious. Regardless of these sensations, the bite heals.”
“Go for it,” Dan said.
Clarissa pressed in between his legs, pulled back her long, silver hair with one hand, and lowered her mouth to his inner thigh about halfway to the knee.
The lovely sweep of Clarissa’s back, naked save for the thin bikini strap, narrowed to a tiny waist that flared erotically into full hips and an incredibly shapely ass shimmering with silver scales. From there, things got complicated, her beautiful ass melting into a wholly serpentine lower half, upon the coils of which she now sat.
“First, I use saliva to desensitize the site,” Clarissa hissed.
>
For several seconds, the serpent girl mouthed his thigh, kissing, licking, and sucking softly. Was she really numbing him or just trying to arouse him? After all, she was a monster girl, and while monster girls varied in many ways, they were united in their obsessive thirst for human seed.
Staring at the seamless union between her shapely ass and serpentine lower half, Dan had to wonder how sex with Clarissa would work. She wore no clothing on her lower half, yet he saw no slit, no opening, no happy place to stick his business.
Hmm, he thought as she sucked his leg. They could figure that out later, if he went down that path. And the longer he stared at her, the better going down that path sounded.
“Does that feel pleasant, husband?” Clarissa asked. She turned her face and laid her cheek against his thigh. Then she closed her eyes and started licking him lazily. Her tongue, he was pleased to note, was human.
A little long, maybe. Okay, a lot long. But it was pink and didn’t fork like a snake’s tongue, and these facts made him relax a little.
Where she licked, his skin started to tingle. So did his crotch. Not that her venom was kicking in. Any red-blooded man would feel tingling if a gorgeous woman in a string bikini knelt submissively between his legs and licked his thigh.
It was a little awkward having several other women gathered around watching him, but that was a turn-on, too.
Let them watch, he thought, feeling himself starting to grow hard.
Then Clarissa opened her mouth wide—really, really wide—and sunk her fangs deep into his muscular quadricep.
Dan stiffened, sat up straight in his throne, and managed—barely—to resist the urge to push the snake-woman’s head away. As promised, there was no pain, but it still freaked him the fuck out to feel her slender teeth penetrate his flesh.
Clarissa’s head bobbed up and down in a subtle pulsing motion.
She’s filling me with venom, he thought, and again beat back the urge to shove her away.
A pleasant warmth flooded into the meat of his thigh. Seconds later, the warmth coursed through his blood stream, riding his veins as it looped through his body, lighting up his entire circulatory system like a Christmas tree.
