Fei had even cut Laura in half, and he had watched as her body was incinerated in front of him. For whatever reason, Laura’s response to being “killed” was to give him a titjob together with her twin sister. Probably because they were succubi.
The Twins were identical, save for very minor differences. Both of them had incredibly beautiful and attractive figures. They had curves as far as the eye could see. Tits larger than their heads. Fleshy thighs thicker than their waists. Long white hair past their asses.
Nathan had to admit that while he found them irritating, he enjoyed looking at them. They were even more enjoyable to hold on to.
Both Laura and Maura stared at him with broad grins and curved eyes. The way to tell them apart was their eyes: both had red eyes, but Maura’s sclera were pitch-black.
Of course, Maura also wore a black dress. At least, she normally did.
Right now, both Twins wore the same outfit: a tiny pair of blue shorts that strained to contain their asses and a tube top that barely covered their breasts. Nathan plainly saw that they still didn’t wear underwear, given how poorly their clothes covered them.
Also, Maura was wearing an apron.
“Are you cooking?” he asked her, staring at the strange steel appliance she stood in front of.
The appliance looked like a big box with a flat top and a hood. The knobs along the front looked like much larger versions of what Nathan saw in Kadria’s kitchen. Thick meat patties fried on top of it, spitting juices from time to time, and smoke billowed into the air.
That explained the smell of grilled meat.
“Yup. Nothing better to do on a weekend than grill up some burgers,” Maura said. She snapped some tongs together.
“Burgers?” Nathan asked.
Laura and Maura stared at him.
Kadria snorted. “Hamburgers are a very modern invention. I don’t think he knows what you’re using, either.”
“Oh my god,” the Twins said together.
“Goddess,” Nathan corrected automatically.
“Fuck that bitch,” Laura said. “Literally.”
Nathan tried not to think too hard about what she had just said.
Laura grabbed Nathan and dragged him over to Maura. The two Twins sandwiched him and directed his attention to the strange steel thing.
“I can’t believe we’ll get to see your first time eating a burger,” Laura said. “Like, will you react like little kids do when they first bite into a cheeseburger? Or will it be more like when you stick your dick into a girl for the first time?”
Nathan wanted to scratch his head in discomfort, but he found his arms restrained by the busty succubi next to him. Instead, he stared at the delicious meat in front of him.
“So, what is this?” he asked.
“It’s an outdoor grill. I think they call it other things elsewhere. When we went to Australia as exchange students, they called it a BBQ,” Maura said.
Nathan refrained from asking what an Australia was.
“So, it cooks things?” he asked.
“Yup. It runs on gas—although we’re using magic in here—and creates flames. The meat tastes so much better. Although, I guess you cook everything with flames in your backward little world.” Maura tilted her head.
As she shrugged, she flipped the meat patties. Nathan watched as fat dripped through grates in the grill. Flames licked the meat, intensifying the smoke and smell.
“Gas,” he said slowly. “Wait, you mean something flammable?”
His mind churned.
Laura crouched down and opened the bottom of the box. Inside it was a big metal container with bright labels on it.
Nathan stared at it.
“This is full of propane gas,” Laura said. “You could get other ones, like electric ones. But Dad always used to rant about how gas was the only way to grill.”
“Those were the days,” Maura said, her voice dripping with disdain.
“Oh, absolutely. Loved coming back home to a house that smelled of booze, cigarettes, and the fifty women he’d fucked since we last saw him.” Laura smirked. “He made good burgers, though.”
“The best.”
Nathan ignored the Twins as his mind tried to comprehend what he was staring at.
“If this gas is flammable, what would happen if…” Nathan snapped his fingers, staring at the canister.
Everybody stared at him.
Then Kadria laughed. “Well, somebody is getting ideas for cruel new weapons. What, did you tire of your flesh-eating flood? Or the explosive geyser minefield?”
“This is stable, right? But if something sets it off…” Nathan licked his lips.
The problem with catapults was that he’d never come up with a type of ammunition that worked well enough. If he flung these at enemies, and they could explode, then…
“Uhhhhh, I’m going to close this,” Laura said, doing exactly that.
“What, not looking forward to him ramming one of those inside you next time you fight him?” Kadria cackled. “Maybe I should teach him some chemistry. Show him the real way to have some fun.”
“That’s not fair! We’re treating him to hamburgers, and he’s learning how to blow us to pieces next time we want to have some fun with him,” Laura whined.
“If,” Maura muttered. “Can’t say I’m too keen on being blown apart.”
She smirked at him. Her free hand wandered over his crotch, which was still bulging from the presence of all the nearby succubi.
“And he’s so willing that I think we can have fun with him anytime we want,” Maura added.
Laura rolled her eyes. “Sure, we can fuck, but that’s different. I want to see the look on that catgirl’s face when I ride him in front of her.”
“You’re that keen to be chopped in half again?” Nathan asked.
“Oooh, is that what you’re into? I figured you to be the vanilla type, but with the added thrill of lots of hot, steamy babes.” Laura pressed herself against him. He felt her hot breath on his ear as her hand slipped inside his pants and stroked his prick. “But if you’re up for something a bit more hardcore, we can do that as well. A bit of domination play with you and your pet. Maybe hang us on the wall, mmm.”
“Honestly, the pair of you are worse than that horsegirl,” Kadria interrupted.
She glared at the Twins, who stuck their tongues out in return. But the busty succubi pulled away from Nathan.
A raised eyebrow and smirk from Kadria caused him to slip his cock back into his pants. He didn’t want any hot grease getting onto it. That would hurt. A lot.
He knew from experience.
“I thought you were making hamburgers out of meat, not yourselves,” Kadria said.
The Twins tilted their heads in confusion.
Kadria held her hands up. “The two of you are the bun, and his dick is the meat.”
“Ohhh,” the Twins said together.
“I can’t believe you didn’t get that.”
“We fuck. You can keep the metaphors.” Maura rolled her eyes and checked on the bottom of one of the meat patties. “Plus, I think ground dick would taste pretty bad.”
Nathan pretended she hadn’t said that.
“You really are as bad as the horsegirl,” Kadria groaned.
Nathan frowned and stepped away from the succubi. Laura pouted at him, but took the opportunity to summon more food.
Bread rolls, pickles, and strange, colorful containers appeared on a small wooden table. Nathan didn’t have the slightest clue what any of them were, so he simply watched as he stood next to Kadria.
“Does Fyre bother you?” he asked.
“Oh? Why do you assume I’m talking about her? Isn’t there a far more important horse in your life? A certain unicorn that you’ve been avoiding thinking about?” Kadria smirked.
He scowled at her. “Do you need to be intentionally annoying?”
“No, but it’s more enjoyable. Tweedledee and Tweedledum took away my schtick of flirting with you
and rubbing your cock. So I need to be the bitch,” she said.
Nathan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He suspected those nicknames were insulting, but he didn’t recognize them.
“You are talking about Fyre, though?” he pressed.
“Maybe. She’s an interesting specimen. Whenever you enter the same room as her, it’s like everything else ceases to exist. ‘Terrifying’ is perhaps the word I’d use for her,” Kadria replied. She poked Nathan in the stomach. “But, even if she convinced you to bed her, I suspect you’d only use her as a substitute for your adorable little unicorn. Why not simply ask Ciana to join you?”
Nathan scowled. Unbidden, memories rose to the forefront of his mind.
“Ah,” Kadria said, her smirk vanishing.
“Don’t do that,” he snapped.
“Succubi,” Maura drawled from nearby. “And we’re all good ones. We can’t turn our shit off, you know. Your emotions just bubble up to the surface and we see them, like little clouds around your head.”
Frowning, Nathan tried to change the topic. “But I could learn mental defenses to stop that?”
“Not against us, even with decades of experience. We are succubi,” Kadria said. Then she raised an eyebrow. “Why does the unicorn bother you so much? I already recognize two of your former trigems, and you don’t even feel the slightest pang about sending them into danger.”
A chill ran down Nathan’s spine. The red and violet eyes staring at him held a gentle expression, but they belonged to a monster. Kadria had killed all of his Champions in his world. Both Narime and Jafeila had died at her hands.
“You remember them, but not what happened afterward?” he asked Kadria slowly.
She raised an eyebrow. Then pursed her lips.
“My record of your world isn’t that perfect. Things happened quickly once I broke into your fortress,” she said.
“She died. Protecting me,” he said flatly.
None of the Messengers said anything. The meat crackled on the grill. A loud spitting sound and the clack of metal on metal indicated that Maura was removing the meat.
“And? Didn’t all of them?” Maura said.
He scowled at her.
She rolled her eyes as she dropped a metal platter of meat onto the table. Her red and black eyes pierced him.
“The whole ‘tortured, edgy hero’ thing is cute in a way. Laura fantasizes over that shit. But you’re not going to get any sympathy from us,” Maura said, hands on her hips. “People die. You have a new unicorn now. Do you know the things people would do for the chance you have? If I could redo my old life, I wouldn’t waste time worrying about things going wrong. I’d just fuck and kill every person on my list.”
“You’d use the same list for both killing and sex?” Kadria asked.
Maura paused. “I guess I’d need three lists. One for killing. One for fucking. One for both.”
Next to her, Laura finished preparing… whatever she was making. She had put the meat patty between both halves of the bread, slathered pickles and what looked like relishes on them, and then closed the whole thing up.
“Hamburger time,” Laura said, carrying it over to him.
Nathan took the opportunity to leave the difficult topic behind. Maura’s words had given him something to chew on, however. He disliked the way she put it. Ciana wasn’t a toy that could be replaced. She had died, and the one in this world was an entirely different person.
But she was right that worrying about the past didn’t help him in the future.
He picked up the hamburger in both hands and stared at it.
“So it’s like a sandwich?” he asked.
“A burger is not a sandwich,” Laura said, annoyed.
Sure, Nathan thought.
He bit into the ‘burger.’ He chewed.
Then froze.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled around a mouthful of sauce and meat.
“Oh man, that was definitely a face to snap a pic of,” Maura said with a grin. “Good thing we have photographic memories after changing. Gonna have fun remembering this one.”
He swallowed and stared at the hamburger. Technically, it wasn’t that amazing by itself. He had eaten meat patties like it. The bread roll was similar to what he’d eaten before. And the relish was extremely salty and sugary compared to what he was used to.
But all combined, it made for a meal unlike anything that he had ever eaten.
He demolished it, while the Twins giggled at him and nibbled at their own burgers. Kadria watched.
“Going to ask nicely for one?” Laura teased. “Maybe if you bend over and let us watch Nathan rail you, we’ll serve you a fresh one.”
Kadria rolled her eyes. She held up a hand and a wholly formed burger appeared in it. There was lettuce on it, and the relish was white, but it was definitely a burger.
“It won’t taste the same.” Laura pouted.
“Yes. And all the better,” Kadria drawled. “After all, this burger wasn’t cooked in your love juices.”
Nathan froze mid-bite.
Fucking what?
“Huh. We should try that next time,” Maura said. She pulled down her shorts, revealing her bare slit, which was dripping wet. “Although I think cooking oil works a lot better.”
Thank fuck.
Nathan swallowed his bite and glared at Kadria.
They polished off the food. Nathan tried to summon a wooden chair to sit in, but the moment he began to focus his power, the entire world shimmered.
“No, no, no!” Laura screamed. “Don’t do that.”
He stopped, and the world returned to normal.
“That didn’t happen last time,” he said.
Laughing, Kadria summoned a chair for him.
How come she could do it and he couldn’t? While he wasn’t particularly good at using his ascended magic to manipulate reality in her mental world, he had been improving.
“This isn’t their mental world. It’s the same thing as my room,” Kadria said.
The Twins ran around the little fenced garden, poking at the fake walls as if to test that they weren’t going to fall down.
“A frontier fortress for their minds,” Nathan said, remembering her explanation. “So why did everything go wonky when I tried to do something?”
“Because it’s hooked into your mind. Unlike me, the Twins don’t have anywhere near the influence over you. You voluntarily let me in when we made our pact. They snuck into your binding stone, and are essentially a parasite. While they are here, you are far more powerful.” Kadria grinned. “I shouldn’t tell you this, given we’re all Messengers, but this is the perfect time to make them your plaything.”
Nathan looked at the Twins. They chattered to each other as they repaired a hole in a fence. It looked like a black void had appeared. Neither of them looked threatening.
Against his better judgment, Nathan said, “If they attack again, I’ll consider it.”
“How soft of you,” Kadria said.
“Allies can be more beneficial than enemies.”
“I’d be careful of ever considering them allies. That requires them to be capable of conscious thought.”
He rolled his eyes. Despite Kadria’s constant insults, Nathan didn’t feel the Twins were that stupid.
“And are they really a threat?” Nathan asked.
“If they had the power, they’d turn you into their toy in an instant,” Kadria said, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t allow their blather and massive tits to let you forget that. I am working with you. They find you amusing.”
“But they don’t have the power.”
“No. Especially not now. You’ve stabilized the world too much. That’s why I’m here,” she said.
With a flick of her wrist, Kadria summoned a physical map of Doumahr. It floated next to them.
Sensing that something was happening, the Twins ran over. They bounced up and down on their heels, which caused their chests to do very distracting things inside their tight tops.
>
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen the Empire that big in ages,” Maura said. “Is that why we can’t use the portal anymore?”
“What?” Nathan asked, eyebrows shooting up.
“Yeah, yeah, lap it up. Even with a cascade, we probably couldn’t appear again right now. The activity level has dropped super hard.” Maura scowled. “It’d need to be a huge cascade, like the one that we used last time. Some big, external event.”
“Why external?” Nathan asked. “Don’t the portals generate their own energy?”
“Because Messengers are beings of disruption,” Kadria said. “You’ve stabilized Doumahr by stopping the current wars. The Empire has conquered the Federation and scared Trafaumh into a ceasefire. Without chaos, we don’t have any cracks to slip through.”
Nathan frowned. “But that’s only going to make things worse, isn’t it? Arcadia is still in turmoil. The Spires are angry over the cascade that happened. And the Empire is on the verge of civil war. There are plenty of ways to create chaos for you.”
“Unfortunately, yes. I had hoped that you would be able to settle matters, and then we could slowly build up our influence in the world.” Kadria bit her lip and stared at the map. “But I underestimated the contingencies put in place to prevent stability.”
A memory from a past conversation clicked in Nathan’s mind. “Those super-powerful magical beings you mentioned? The ones that exist between worlds?”
Laura and Maura gawked at him, then at Kadria. “You told him about our boss? Seriously?”
“You all work for the same person?” Nathan asked, surprised given the animosity they showed toward each other.
“Person is a relative term,” Maura said drily. “Describing what we work for hurts my head. He can appear as whatever or whoever he likes. He’s not even a he, really. We just call him that because that’s what he shows himself as to us.”
“What’s his name?” Nathan asked.
“Something you don’t need to know,” Kadria said.
The Twins nodded.
“Names hold power. It’s wise not to speak those of the truly powerful,” Kadria said, her expression darkening.
“But he’s trying to destabilize the world,” Nathan said. “I take it I should be worried?”
“You should be preparing. Fortunately, you are. And you’re suppressing panic at the same time. Right now, chaos is your enemy.”
Heretic Spellblade 3 Page 6
