“Will people want to trade if all the fruit looks like this?” Jesse asked after clearing his throat, clearly truly disgusted by the rot I couldn’t see.
“Once it’s out of the barrier it’ll look normal,” Fern clarified, “it’s a pretty simple parlor trick, the kind of thing elves use on Halloween when they realize they’ve forgotten to get any real decorations.”
Not going to lie, it was interesting to discover that they celebrated Halloween, if only because it made me think about all the other celebrations.
I’m not sure why, but for some reason my brain got kind of fixated on sexy Santa’s helpers for a while there. Short red skirts and push-up bras with white lining, candy cane-colored thigh-high socks, and a sexy-
“You okay there, Dax?” Jesse chuckled, jerking me away from my little fantasy, “You got kind of drool-faced.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, “I just realized that… the bed’s missing.”
“Nice save.” Jesse quietly joked.
“So, where is it?” I asked before getting to my feet, ignoring the fact that Jesse clearly at least had some idea of what was going through my head.
“I’ve repurposed it,” Cassie proclaimed with a smile as she walked over to one end of the shelter where a string hung from one of the trees, “observe.”
Then she pulled the string.
Now, I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but I didn’t imagine that it was the string breaking followed swiftly by the roof collapsing in on itself in a domino-like fashion.
And then the long line of shirts collapsed, forming a sort of fabric wall along the trees instead of the shelter which, like I said, had pretty much completely collapsed.
Needless to say, Cassie was absolutely shocked, she didn’t seem upset at all, which I was happy for, just really surprised.
That was more than could be said for Fern though, who looked to be on the verge of tears as she slowly approached the broken shelter.
My first instinct, naturally, was to comfort Fern, but Cassie actually beat me to the punch, walking over and putting her arm around her shoulders before I could so much as open my mouth.
“Do you mind giving us a few minutes?” Cassie asked somewhat embarrassedly, “I’ll be able to get it all fixed up by then.”
I was kind of surprised with being asked to leave, though if I’m being completely honest I was more than happy to exit an emotional encounter with a person I’d basically just been yelling at.
Granted, I had nothing to do with the tears, but there was still a part of me that felt retroactively guilty.
“Ten maybe?” I suggested, gesturing for Jesse to follow me as I backed away towards the beach.
“Sounds good,” Cassie replied, doing her best to console the actively sobbing Fern, “see you then.”
“You did so well with the harbor,” Fern meekly muttered while I struggled with whether I was actually supposed to be leaving, “and the second I decide to help out I end up breaking the whole thing…”
“Oh, it’s not like that.” Cassie reassured, waving me off, “Accidents happen.”
And that was the last thing I heard before disappearing into the trees with Jesse, multiple pangs of guilt chipping away at me as I did.
It was good that Cassie was actually taking care of Fern, sure, but from what I’d heard she’d been doing that on the boat they’d escaped on too.
“Hey, Jesse?” I said once we were out of earshot and on the sun-bathed sand.
“Yeah, Dax?” Jesse replied, sounding somewhat thrown that we were using names.
“Remember when I said I loved this game?” I asked before flopping down a few feet from the water’s edge.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Yeah…” I trailed off, looking out at the seemingly endless ocean, “I don’t know if I’m so sure about that anymore…”
CHAPTER 14
“So you’re tellin’ me you hate the game now?” Jesse asked after a few minutes of silence on the hot sand.
“I don’t hate it,” I replied, shaking my head to drive home the point, “not by a long stretch. It’s just that it’s kind of… I don’t know, it’s socially exhausting.”
“You’ve met a grand total of five people,” Jesse chuckled in an attempt to cheer me up, “and most of them have been lettin’ you do what you want.”
“Yeah, but I’ve just chucked a fit at the two I’m closest too, present company withstanding.” I said, deciding to add that last part so he knew I didn’t take him for granted.
“Dax, buddy, people are goin’ to argue, and yes, sometimes you’re goin’ to have to get in the middle and pull ‘em apart, but with that comes so many benefits.”
“Like what?” I asked as I got to my feet and spawned in a bed, finally having decided that there was no reason for me to be sitting on the ass-burning sand.
“Like respect for instance,” Jesse replied, “do you think Cassie thought much of you before you decided that enough was enough? Hell, I’m pretty sure respect is the only reason you got to have that tumble in the jungle with that merchant chick… Book? Paper?”
“Paige,” I clarified with a little laugh before flopping down onto the bed, knowing that Jesse was deliberately messing around for my benefit, “I can see where your mind went there. But I guess you’re right, I know where I stand with everyone now at least.”
“You didn’t before?” Jesse asked as he sort of sunk into the sand and soaked up the sunlight.
“I had some idea, yeah,” I replied, “but the truth is I sometimes have a hard time tellin’ if people are just being friendly to me because of societal pressure or if they genuinely like me.”
“I s’pose I can understand that,” Jesse said with a knowing nod, “although, you really ought to work on that. You can’t be defined by the people around you.”
“Thanks, inspirational meme.” I joked.
“I’m bein’ serious,” Jesse replied with a stern tone, “you spend too much brainpower panickin’ about what people around you are thinkin’ you’ll… well, you’ve been doin’ it.”
“How do you mean?”
“That thing you do where you start fumblin’ and bumblin’ over yourself whenever you get too excited or flustered,” Jesse clarified, “you’ve been doin’ better, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve still got a ways to go.”
For a second there, I kind of felt like he was saying I wasn’t doing enough, but my slightly ‘improved’ brain was quick to take the criticism in stride.
“I guess…” I sighed, “I guess I’ll just have to do better then.”
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Jesse lightheartedly jabbed, “melanoma on the other hand…”
“I’ve been out here ten seconds,” I chuckled, “seriously, I’m not that pale.”
“Eh, agree to disagree.”
For a while after that we just sat there, enjoying the sun and calming crashing of the waves, Jesse occasionally shuffling, me thinking about where things would go from that point and wondering how the girls were doing.
I didn’t get tons of time to think about them though as, near silently, they both came down and jumped onto the bed on either side of me.
“You didn’t tell us you got a bed.” Fern said, clearly somewhat offended but no longer upset.
“Heh, yeah, I was hoping to surprise you guys,” I half-lied, “but then I didn’t want to detract from the work you’d already done.”
“Which is code for ‘I got distracted and forgot’, yeah?” Cassie asked accusatorily, smirking as she did so.
I hesitated to respond to that, mostly because I was kind of embarrassed, but then I remembered what Jesse had been saying not five minutes beforehand, “Okay, you got me,” I said with a smile, deciding that I wasn’t actually that worried if they got annoyed, “but in all fairness your whole setup was very distracting.”
“I suppose that’s fair.” Cassie chuckled, “Have you been enjoying your little sunbathing session?”
; “It’s been quite nice actually, yeah,” I replied, “how about you two? Fences and structures all mended?”
“Yep, yep, yep,” Fern said cheerfully before turning her attention, and somewhat sly smile, to Cassie, “we’re starting to get quite close.”
“You can say that again.” Cassie added, sharing in Fern’s smile and gaze as she did so.
That’s when most of what Jesse had said about basically working on making less of an ass of myself went right out the window, leading to me looking between the two with a very noticeable gawp.
What? I’d only recently started working on getting more confident and assertive, it’s not like anyone could wake up and go full James Dean.
I knew I was going to only improve though, and as the girls went on smiling at each other I got an opportunity to rediscover the reason why I loved the game.
Sure, both me and my little harem had a long way to go, especially considering the merchants were going to come back at some point and we kind of had to impress them, but we were getting on at a decent pace.
Okay, so maybe the rekindled love of the game was because the girls were properly getting along which, to me, could only mean fun things in my future.
Very fun things.
END VOL.2
BUILD-A-HAREM
SUCCUBUS
ZACHARIAH DRACOULIS
CHAPTER 1
So, there I was, sitting on a bed between two gorgeous women. I’d been working on my confidence you see, which had naturally made me slightly more... appealing, especially considering the fact that I’d convinced both of them to start playing nice.
What I was I doing with that newfound power? Why, I was forcing myself to look out at the beach in an attempt to focus on anything but the fact that they both seemed more or less ready to make the beast with three backs.
To be fair, I was already pretty socially exhausted, and I was still trying to get over the fact that they had been arguing and crying about ten minutes beforehand.
It all felt very… unnatural.
“Hey,” Jesse said, pulling me out of my trance-like state, “weren’t you going to scan Fern?”
I wasn’t sure why Jesse had decided to bail me out, since I’d met him on that very beach not so long ago he’d seemed to revel in the fact that I got kind of awkward when sex was on the table.
That being said, I wasn’t about to let the opportunity slip through my fingers.
“Oh yeah,” I finally replied as I shuffled off the end of the bed, “I totally blanked on that, thanks.”
Unsurprisingly, the girls seemed a bit confused, but at the same time they were willing to accept Jesse’s words as truth.
“Alright then,” Fern said, moving from the relaxed seated position she had been into a more suggestive pose, pushing her breasts together with her arms as she leaned toward me, “do me.”
“Sure thing.” I replied coolly, successfully masking the fact that I’d just swallowed a walnut-sized lump.
Now, as you know, I had been going to a lot of effort to make sure I was less dorky and more confident, but I still had a ways to go, and that was only made clearer by the fact that my hand was slightly trembling as I raised it.
The truth is, I hadn’t really gotten a decent look at Fern’s chest since she’d come to the island with Cassie, even after our little beachside tumble, and that was mostly due to the fact that it was hidden by a whole lot of buttons.
However, at some point while she was in the jungle, the top few buttons of that thin white shirt had come undone, creating a V-line so deep that I could see the outline of her sensible but still enticing white bra.
I managed to focus though, and, after a few seconds, I’d scanned her and started going through her long list of information.
She was certainly willing to do more than Cassie when I’d first scanned her, which I simply chalked up to the fact that I’d scanned Cassie earlier in the piece, and, based on how much she’d been working on the garden, it looked like she was going to achieve them by herself without much help or guidance from me and unlock a whole plethora of fun new things.
“Are we… happy?” Fern asked as I went on scrolling, hiding my eager grin as I did.
“Hmm? Oh, oh yeah,” I replied with a nod, closing my palm and letting it swing down beside me, “really happy. However, it might be an idea for you two to get a little more work done on the garden.”
Cassie and Fern shared a confused look at that, then, surprisingly, Cassie decided to question it, “Are you alright?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie replied with a shrug, “it’s just that I figured we could… I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Come on, Fern, we’ll take the bed.”
“I can just-” I started as the girls jumped off the bed, stopping when Fern waved me off.
“It’s fine,” she clearly lied, “we’ll just use this one.”
“Oh… alright, guess I’ll see you…” I trailed off after the two, with relative ease, picked up the bed and started moving towards the jungle, “later.”
I didn’t get a response, unsurprisingly.
“I fucked that up, didn’t I?” I asked Jesse once I was sure the girls were well and truly gone.
“Eh, I wouldn’t say that,” Jesse replied without moving from the spot of warm sand he’d grown quite fond of, “I don’t think you were ready for it either.”
Naturally, I was somewhat offended by that, and I was more than happy to let him know with a slightly snarky “What do you mean?”
“I mean you know you weren’t ready, too,” Jesse said matter-of-factly, “the logistics of it alone are enough to set any man off his game. That’s why I pulled off that sneaky trick with the ‘you need to scan her’ thing.”
I wanted to argue, I really did. I wanted to tell him how I was positive I could handle something as simple as a threesome, but the truth was that I didn’t know if I could, and there was a big part of me that was worried if I screwed it up I’d have made things worse.
“Quit thinkin’ about it, would you?” Jesse chuckled, “Seriously, you fixate on shit more than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Piss off,” I half-heartedly huffed in response, “I was just thinking you had a point.”
“Course I have a point.” Jesse replied proudly.
“Aren’t you just the most modest lizard,” I joked, “but seriously, I really do think I’d have messed it up. Can you imagine how either one of ‘em would’ve reacted if I’d given the other just that little bit too much attention?”
“I cannot,” Jesse said before looking over to me, “although I will say that it’s a good thing that you can recognize it. Confidence is all well and good, but bravado’ll spin you around and fuck you up the ass before you can say ‘hey, does this drink taste funny to you’?”
Getting past that mental imagery, I managed to give him a nod and a smile, “Thanks.”
Jesse never responded to that, instead opting to continue bathing in the slowly setting sun on the hot sand.
“So, what do I do now?” I asked, having been staring up into the jungle after the girls for at least thirty seconds.
“Well, and this is just a spur of the moment suggestion, you could check on that.”
“Check on…” I trailed off as I turned to see what Jesse was looking at, “what…”
It was a galleon, a properly massive ship that made the Vengeful Fae seem no bigger than Huckleberry Finn’s raft, and it looked to be heading right for the waterway at a surprisingly quick speed.
“Two ships?” I chuckled as I walked towards the bend that would lead me to the waterway’s entrance, “Seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it?”
“This one seems a bit… different.” Jesse replied after he’d gotten up and shaken off the sand that was clinging to his belly, “Notice how it’s still goin’ full speed?”
I hadn’t, but once he pointed it out it did become obvious that, unlike Seastrider, the Captain of the vessel hadn
’t given the order to at least bring up a sail.
And that’s when I noticed something else.
“There’s no one in the rigging,” I said as I started to pick up my pace, watching on as the ship hammered through the entrance of the harbor, “look, Jes-”
“I see it,” Jesse interjected concernedly, “it ain’t slowin’ down at all.”
My amusement at having a second ship come in had started to turn into panic as I realized that the massive vessel could absolutely destroy the harbor we’d worked so hard to build.
“What do we do?” I asked as we came to a stop at the mouth of the waterway, having no way to catch up with or slow down the ship.
Jesse wasn’t in a position to respond though, his mouth hanging wide and unable to form words while the galleon continued on its seemingly unpreventable course of destruction.
And then, without warning, it jerked left, its wide hull smashing and exploding against the cliff it had rammed, sending large chunks of wood and the unmistakable screams of dying men across the island in a spectacularly terrifying and brutal display before it sort of bounced off the rocks and peeled towards the other side of the water.
We couldn’t see any blood or gore from where we stood, but it was easy to imagine the chaos that was unfurling as the ship beached itself on a patch of rocks and sand, its sails getting ripped to shreds as they became entangled in the trees.
The harrowing exhibition didn’t stop when the ship did though, no, instead the wood continued to creak, roar, and break as the weight of what was once a mighty vessel cracked under itself, large vertical splits appearing up the length of the hull as it broke apart.
“It um…” Jesse muttered, “it occurs to me now that you could’ve used the toolbox to sort of… slow it down some.”
“That’s uh, that’s really useful information,” I replied, failing to take my eyes off the wreckage as I did, “definitely not something I could’ve used before… that.”
Jesse went to respond with something snarky, I could feel it, but instead he sighed and nodded, “Yeah, that’s probably my bad.”
Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection Page 13
