Into the Fire
Twenty One
The rain had dwindled to a soft drizzle when Eve landed a ways outside the village and let Iain go. “We’re a good mile away so we can let Irena, April and Montsho out so they can be seen too.”
He nodded and reached for the line of pokeballs on his belt. “Bring Dominique and Scheherazade in so we can brief on how this should go. Think you can teach April how to fly anytime soon?”
The blue haired Megami-sama shrugged. “She can ride on one of her constructs now. We’re working on teaching her a flying spell, but even when she’s mastered it she’s not anywhere near as effective a combatant as me, Dee or Shay.”
Iain gave her a hard look. “She has to fight to get better, Eve. I want her put into the rotation as soon as possible. That means Irena and Montsho too.”
“What about our newest addition’s misconception about who is in charge?”
He shrugged. “We’ll break it to her gently, but the truth is I’m never really sure who commands this little group. It seems to change regularly.”
Eve smiled slightly. “Noticed, did you?” Her smile broadened when he nodded. “We all play to our strengths. I don’t think Montsho will be ready for command anytime soon.” She waved to Dominique and Scheherazade, who headed in for a landing.
“No, but that’s because of her conditioning. There’s nothing really wrong with her.” He pressed the buttons on his pokeballs and red beams shot out to coalesce into his missing harem. “Ladies, we’re outside a village and since Irena is in charge, she needs to be out and about for the trip in.” He looked at Irena. “You’ll also need to be a grownup.”
The chibi Sanctuary Goth nodded and grew to her adult size. “Um, I think Scheherazade should be overhead and Dominique should cover our rear.” She gave Iain an inquiring look.
He smiled at her. “First, don’t be hesitant. You don’t think about things, you want them. ‘I want Scheherazade on overhead sentry duty and Dominique will cover our rear’. If you’re a shujaa major, you need to sound authoritative. I’d also suggest putting Montsho in the lead. Villagers should be impressed by Tyrannodames and it keeps Eve’s and April’s abilities hidden and in reserve.”
Irena nodded. “That sounds good. Eve, make it happen.”
“That’s perfect. Remember, Irena, Eve is your sergeant and she and Dominique are vastly more experienced than you or me. April and Scheherazade are also experienced and never forget that Montsho knows Sanctuary and its customs. Seek their guidance when you need to and listen to them if they make a suggestion. You don’t have to do what they suggest, but they won’t make a suggestion without a damned good reason. After all, fucking with you here could get us all killed. “
Eve watched him for a second before turning to the Sanctuary Goth. “Then I have a suggestion. Don’t forget to listen to Iain. He knows things we don’t.”
“I won’t. Eve, get everyone moving. April, keep an eye on my male.”
The Duelist scowled for a second and then blanked her face. “Of course, mistress, I’ll take care of it.” She cast an eye in his direction. You are my male too.
He winked back at her.
The mud was deep enough to turn the walk into an exercise in punishment and everyone was glad to see the first rooftop appear through the trees.
The village was a collection of houses laid along a grid of streets. The weather changes over the centuries had made sun dried brick impractical since it tended to dissolve in heavy rain. Now the houses were mostly concrete with stone roofs. In spite of the rain there were people moving around in the village.
Iain glanced at Irena. “Montsho might be able to quickly find whoever is in charge here.”
The Sanctuary Goth looked at the Tyrannodame. “Can you?”
Montsho’s eyes flicked back and forth between hers and Iain’s. “Yes, mistress, I can.”
“Then go find her. I’m not excited about standing around waiting for them to notice us.”
“I go.” Montsho turned and sprinted for the village.
April bumped him with her shoulder. “Are you going to delta bond her too?”
“I’m not aware that Tyrannodames evolve into anything, except maybe a Penance.” He scratched his chin idly. “And I haven’t heard anything about her being a better addition to the harem than she is a potential spy for Sanctuary.”
“She’s bonded to you, right?”
“She is, but an alpha bond doesn’t really do squat about her potential loyalty to Sanctuary, especially not one that’s only a day old. What’s the Cosmic Awareness say, Eve?” He chuckled when she glared at him. “Nothing, huh? Then I guess it’s up to us to decide what the hell happens after she teaches us Swahili.”
Dominique folded her arms over her chest. “What do you think?”
“I think I brought her into my bubble. That kind of limits my options. She’s become real to me and killing her at this point for any reason other than self defense would give killing anyone else inside my bubble more justification than it has now.” He grimaced. “I really don’t want to open up that door in my psyche. Some things are better left alone.”
“Can you delta bond her?”
“I don’t know. I did it to each of you by way of an evolution and Tyrannodames don’t evolve.”
“Maybe you evolved us as a result of delta bonding us.”
“I don’t know,” he said with a strained note in his voice.
Scheherazade’s ears went back. “People are coming. A lot of people.”
Montsho appeared, looking distinctly unhappy. She was leading an elderly looking Rapitaur in her quad form. Large portions of the fur on her equine body were almost completely white and she was tiny, being that she was pony sized in her centaur shape and not any taller than Dominique. Behind them were a few dozen pokegirls and pokewomen of varying races followed them at a short distance.
The Tyrannodame stopped in front of Irena and gestured at the Rapitaur. “Mistress Irena, this is Sandra and she is the village elder.”
Sandra bowed to Irena. “Mistress, we are very glad to see you. Our regular visit is way overdue. We don’t know why, either.”
Iain realized that the villagers were all staring at him. Even Sandra was sneaking glances in his direction. He began to have a sinking feeling in his midsection.
Montsho eyed the Rapitaur. “Mistress, the regular patrol for this area undoubtedly came from Wellham.”
Do not tell her about the Zombabes. Eve and Iain shared an amused glance, neither of them quite sure which of them had sent that to Irena first.
“Oh.” Irena paled slightly. “Wellham has been quarantined. There won’t be anyone coming from there anytime soon.”
Sandra looked thoughtful for a second and then sighed. “We thought there must be something wrong. That’s why we’re so glad you came along when you did. We need your help, major.”
“We’re on a mission of our own and can’t stay for long, but with that understanding I will do what I can.” She blinked when several members of the crowd shouted joyfully. “What is the problem?”
Sandra pursed her lips and visibly hesitated. “We are but a small, poor village, mistress. We have nobody here with a pet and are dependent on a regular patrol from Wellham which, as I already said, is very overdue.” Her eyes flicked in Iain’s direction again. “It is good that you have a pet because we have several villagers who have gone feral since the last patrol came through.”
Scheherazade’s ears went flat and her muzzle wrinkled in a silent snarl that let her teeth show. “You expect us to share our male with you?”
The Rapitaur gave her a dismissive look. “I expect Major Irena to do her job protecting us. Letting her male tame my feral villagers and anyone else who needs it is a small enough price to do so and is customary.”
Montsho grabbed Sandra by the back of the head and shook the Rapitaur violently. “While it is part of the normal duty of members of the DCWS to help keep villagers from going feral, we are shujaa. Mistress, shall I break this one for her presumption?”
Sandra’s eyes went so wide that the whites of her eyes showed.
Eve shook her head. “Let her go, private. No matter what we decide, she has the right to demand our aid.”
The Tyrannodame let Sandra go so abruptly that the Rapitaur staggered. “Yes sergeant.”
April glanced at Iain. His face was completely blank, but his thumb was on the slide safety of his shotgun and his index finger was caressing the trigger guard. She started to say something when his eyes met hers and he shook his head almost imperceptibly. I get to be the whore this time. She winced.
Irena glanced at Eve. “Well, sergeant?”
Eve carefully didn’t look at Iain. “Letting your villagers go feral was stupid. If you can’t take care of your villagers you don’t have any business running the village.” She scowled. “But, as Montsho pointed out, our duty is clear and we don’t need the trouble that ignoring it would bring.”
Irena made a cutting motion with her hand. “Your ferals had better already be in restraints. Let me be clear, we are not going to waste our time catching them because you were too damned lazy to do so. And if anyone so much as scratches my male, I will leave the bones of everyone in the village to bleach in the sun.”
Sandra’s eyes flickered but she didn’t otherwise respond to the naked threat. “The dangerous ferals are in cages and I will have them put into restraints before your pet goes to them. Some of them are loose. I’ll have them rounded up immediately, major. As for my villagers who are close to going feral, I’ll have a room set up for taming them.”
“We are leaving in the morning. If you can’t catch them before then, they’re going to stay feral.”
Sandra bobbed her head in assent. “I’ll put people to work on that immediately, mistress, and I’ll have others prepare quarters for you and your unit. When can we expect your pet to begin his work?”
Irena threw a concerned glance at Iain before scowling at the graying Rapitaur. “When he starts,” she snarled. “You just be ready. Now take them and get out of my sight.”
The Rapitaur backed up and turned, waving to the other villagers. “Come on. Nobody is to stay behind and pester the pet. Move!”
They watched the group leave.
“Iain?”
He shook his head at Dominique’s querulous tone. “I’ll do what needs done, but I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice was so flat it was a monotone. “We need to know where we are in relation to Sanctuary and this is the price for that information. I’ll need a bunch of stamina potions. Check to see if the village has a supply and we’ll take them in recompense, even if they’re the standard ones and taste like crap.”
Montsho cocked her head. “I do not like this.”
Iain looked faintly surprised. “Oh? What’s wrong?”
“You are our male. Sharing you with them does not feel right.” The Tyrannodame showed her teeth in a feral grin. “I do not understand why this matters to me, but it does.”
Eve patted Montsho on the shoulder. “It matters because you’re one of us now. We don’t want to share him either, but he’s right. He has to do this. It does mean that we’ll have to consider hiding him before going into any other villages.”
“I am not some stuffed toy to be hidden. If I’d thought about it, I’d have realized that Sanctuary had to have some stupid procedure like this or the whole place would have fallen apart a while ago. It has become custom or law, and in either case we have to play along or we’ll stick out way too much.” He rubbed his eyes. “Although having Montsho with us gives us a layer of camouflage that nobody, not even I, could have anticipated, the truth is that too many stories about us bucking custom could very well result in someone with access to the right information putting facts together in a way that could prove detrimental to us. So we can’t just snatch someone from the village and wring them out for the information.” He squared his shoulders. “Let’s get this over with. After all, those ferals aren’t going to fuck themselves.”
***
The Doggirl slid out of bed and padded for the door without as much as a farewell. After a day of taming strange pokegirls, Iain was used to it and didn’t pay it any mind as he opened a stamina potion and sucked it down, forcing himself not to gag at the putrid flavor. He checked to make sure his weapons were still next to the bed where he’d put them after they’d taken his other stuff away to clean the filth off of it. He’d insisted on keeping the shotgun and his Harris knife, but his pistol was in his pokepack and was gone along with his extra ammunition.
He got up and stretched slowly, testing each muscle for new pain and winced when fresh claw marks on his back began bleeding again. Next he rechecked his shielding to ensure that what was happening here wasn’t bleeding over into his harem. This wasn’t their fault and he did not want them experiencing everything with him. He had a feeling it would color his relations with them if it did, if only on his side. Then he went to the wash stand and used a washcloth to give himself a quick whore’s bath. “Why on earth didn’t anyone think about putting healing magic into stamina potions?” He raised his voice enough to be heard outside. “Next.”
The door opened and a slender brunette wearing a brightly patterned top and skirt came in, carefully shutting the door behind her. Iain spoke before he turned to face her. “What’s your name?”
She smiled. “Jumoke.”
Iain’s face went carefully blank when he saw her. “I see. I’m going to have to be blunt about this. I know you’re a Dildoqueen. Who do you expect to be the boy?”
She swayed forward and spoke in heavily accented English. “Why, I think we both can be, but I want to be the one on top today.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work out. If that’s the only way you’re interested in taming with me, please leave immediately.”
Jumoke stopped in front of him, carefully keeping eye contact the whole time. “I think you’ll like this.” She leaned closer. “In fact,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I can promise that you’ll love it after a while.”
He gave her a flat look. “I know you’re using your abilities on me. It’s not working.”
Jumoke pouted. “I was promised a taming and a taming I’m going to get.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t promise you anything and I am not going to let you do what you want to me against my will. I wouldn’t do that to you and you’re not going to that to me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You must be new to Sanctuary, human. This isn’t the leagues anymore. You are not in charge here and you don’t get to make those decisions. Pokegirls make all the decisions here and you just have to live with the results like we do everywhere else. So get on the bed and let me see that sweet ass of yours.”
Iain leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. “No.” Jumoke breathed a thin spray of dust into his face. Magic surged inside him and the dust particles sparkled briefly as they were incinerated before they could touch his skin. For an instant, Iain wondered how he’d done that. “Now you’ve crossed the line. Get out.”
She hit him in the forehead with all her strength, smashing him backwards to crash into the wall hard enough to shake the building. Magic see-sawed through him, swirling without guidance as he stumbled blindly forward. The impact had left him partially stunned and he wasn’t really aware of what was going on anymore.
Jumoke grabbed him by the arm and spun, slinging him at the bed as she giggled. “A little violence is a fun spice, don’t you think, sugar?” She pushed her skirt over her hips and stepped out of it, revealing her growing erection. She stepped onto the bed and straddled Iain’s chest before dropping down to sit on him and grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head to feed her cock into his mouth. “It’s time for some fun, sugar.”
Iain gagged when the cock hit the back of his mouth and panic and rage exploded through him. Magic surged along the path his emotions left, almost gleefully following this new course. His teeth and jaw hurt and he did the only thing he could think of.
***
Eve glared at nothing in particular. “I think next time I’ll demand that we station a guard outside the hut where Iain is taming. We kept Scheherazade with him while he was working through the ferals and I don’t like the fact that they insisted that having one on duty for the non-feral pokegirl tamings would scare them off. I should never have given in on that point.” She looked out the window at the moonlight. “He’s been going all day and still they’re bringing him pokegirls to tame. He’ll need to get some sleep soon.”
“I’m monitoring his state through my delta bond with him. If I sense anything happening I’ll teleport straight to his side and at that point I don’t give a damn who I scare.” Scheherazade shrugged. “If they don’t like it, they can go to hell.”
Irena sighed. “He’s shielding pretty tightly. I guess if something happens his shields will drop enough for you to know something is wrong, right?” She threw herself backwards as the Dread Wolf took a halfway serious swipe at her.
“Don’t taunt me, girl. I’m not a happy wolf right now.”
Eve shook her head. “I’m focused on him. If anything bad happens, I’ll know it and we’ll all go after him.”
Irena cautiously moved back to where she’d been sitting. “Please don’t forget me, April and Montsho when you teleport.”
“Mistress, I can teleport.”
Irena started to glare at the Tyrannodame and forced herself not to. “Montsho, that may be true but you aren’t delta bonded to Iain and therefore you don’t know where to go, do you?”
Montsho blinked. “I am so stupid. I should have thought of that.”
April smiled at her. “Of course you’re not stupid. You don’t have any understanding of bonding, Montsho. Sanctuary Goths can’t bond other pokegirls to them and so there’s no way you could know what the various bonds can used for.”
“You are very kind, April.”
“No, I’m not. You screw up and I’ll let you know all about it. But not knowing something that you couldn’t possibly know about isn’t your fault.” She smiled. “I don’t know lots of things I couldn’t know anything about and it doesn’t bother me a bit. Don’t let it bother you either.”
Montsho laughed and broke off with a startled look that faded when April laughed too.
A piercing scream rent the air and faded. Seconds later another scream ripped through the night.
Scheherazade vanished as Eve threw open the door. “Shay’s gone to Iain. We need to see where the screaming is coming from. Come on!”
People peered from doorways but didn’t come outside as Eve and the others raced in the direction of the screams. They came to a house set a little ways apart from the rest of the others in the village. A small crowd of pokegirls was standing around the building and just outside the front door was Sandra. The Rapitaur had an expression of frustrated anger that only increased when she saw Irena. She turned to face them, blocking the doorway with her body. “Major, I insist that your pokegirl let me into this building immediately.”
Eve summoned her armor, shield and sword. “Iain and Shay are in there.” She raised her voice. “Get out of our way, Sandra. You can follow us inside but everyone else stays out. Corporal April, you and Montsho watch our backs once we’re inside and enforce my ruling.” When the Rapitaur was too slow to move, Eve shoved her out of the way as she pushed into the building.
Iain’s lower face was shiny with blood and more blood ran down his chest. He was nude, sitting on the bed in a pool of blood and holding his kukri while a conspicuously clean Scheherazade was leaning against the wall. A pokegirl wearing a brightly colored tropical top and nothing else was curled up on the floor next to the bed in a second pool of blood that slowly spread out from the center of her body.
Eve headed for the pokegirl only to stop when Scheherazade put out a hand. “Let her die.”
“What the hell happened here?”
“Iain will explain it.”
The Megami-sama turned back to the bed. “Well?”
Iain kept watching the pokegirl on the floor, unconsciously twisting the blade he held as he spoke. “The Dildoqueen over there informed me that she was going to be the boy tonight. I told her that if she demanded that she’d have to leave. She insisted. She’s stronger than I am and held me down to have her way with me. When she shoved her dick inside my mouth, I bit it off. That incapacitated her long enough for me to get my knife and cut off the rest of her penis and her testicles. Now I’m watching her bleed out.” His voice was eerily calm but his eyes blazed with anger.
“That’s murder!” Sandra stared at him in shock.
“No, it’s not. I’m executing a rapist.”
The Dildoqueen whimpered softly and Eve paled. “Iain, she’s suffering. Does she really deserve that?”
He dropped the knife on the bed next to him and slid to his feet to stand over the Dildoqueen. “I suppose not.” He picked up his shotgun from where it rested against the wall next to the bed. The safety clicked off as he pointed it at the pokegirl.
“Iain,” Eve began but broke off when the shotgun roared as Iain put a three round burst into the Dildoqueen’s skull. The pokegirl’s head disintegrated, spraying the room and everyone in it with blood, bone and brains. The corpse shuddered and a stink filled the room as its bowels relaxed and voided.
Iain surveyed the splatter on Eve and then glanced around the room. “Whoops. Sorry about the mess.” Sandra looked down at herself and turned faintly green before suddenly throwing up. He eyed her dispassionately as her torso heaved. “I think I’m done taming for tonight.”
Scheherazade wiped briefly at the gore on her fur. “I think so too. We all need a bath.” She looked around. “Where is the rest of your gear?”
“I don’t know. Sandra’s people took it from me a while ago. I was told it needed cleaned and when I protested I was ignored. It’s likely that they intended to misplace it so we have to stay here for another day or so while looking for it. It’s a pretty standard village trick to keep around visitors they don’t want to leave.”
Eve shook her head and turned to Irena. “I think we need to take Iain back to our room and clean up while Sandra finds out what happened to his stuff and gets it returned to us promptly.”
Irena nodded. “Montsho, go with Sandra and make sure she stays motivated to find Iain’s stuff quickly.”
The Tyrannodame was wiping off her skin with her hand and licking it clean. She looked up and grinned broadly. “I’ll be my pleasure, major.” She cocked her head. “Sandra, walk or get pulled.” The Rapitaur wiped her mouth and staggered out the door, closely followed by Montsho.
Eve pulled off her dress and tossed it at Iain before creating a new one. “Use that to wipe off the worst of the gunk. Do you have any clothes at all?”
He dropped the shotgun on a clean part of the bed, turned the dress inside out and began scrubbing his skin with it. “I have plenty of clothes. I just don’t have any of them here.”
“Will you wear my dress?”
He stopped wiping off the blood and looked her over. “I don’t have your cleavage and that’s a lousy yellow for me, but if the option is wearing that or getting attacked by horny pokegirls while I wander around without clothes, I’ll wear it with pride.”
Eve smiled at him and pulled her dress over her head, summoning a new one on her body herself as she folded it up. “Do I need to heal you?”
“I’ve got a lot of scratches from overenthusiastic partners with long fingernails or claws, but nothing that can’t wait.” His eyebrows went up at her expression and, for the first time since they’d come to rescue him, he smiled faintly. “You can relax. Apparently she wanted oral as a warm-up before the anal main event and went for my mouth first.”
He took the clean dress from Eve and pulled it on. A smile appeared and he turned around to bend forward slightly. “Does this make my butt look fat?”
Dominique shook her head. “Let’s get you back to where we’re staying.”
He looked at her for a second before picking up his shotgun and handing it to the surprised Archmage. “You take this or I’ll be too tempted to use it on the next bitch who asks me when her turn with me is.”
Dominique tucked the shotgun in the crook of her arm. “Considering my mood right now, I’m not sure giving it to me will protect anyone asking that particular question, but I’ll try not to shoot anyone on the way back.”
Eve gestured towards the door. “Shay, you’re on point. April, you cover our rear. Irena, Dominique, you two help me keep people from bothering him. Now move, ladies.”
Everyone formed a protective cordon around Iain as they walked back to their house. When they were inside, Iain rubbed his face and suddenly looked exhausted. “I don’t suppose there’s a tub in here somewhere, is there? I need a bath in the worst possible way. I don’t even care if the water is cold.” He swayed slightly where he stood. “I’m so fucking tired.”
Dominique leaned the shotgun against the wall. “I’ll show you and I can heat the water.”
“Thanks. I’d like it if you stuck around while I bathed. Right now I do not want to be alone with all of them out there. I’d probably get spirited away if they thought they could get away with it.”
“I’ll keep you safe.” Dominique took him gently by the arm and led him out of the room.
Eve watched them go before turning back to the others. “I don’t care if Iain thinks he doesn’t need to be kept away from villages, ladies, because that’s exactly what we’re going to do from now on. He protects us and we protect him and that’s the way it’s going to be. If we’d been there we could have kept him safe from what happened tonight and so we’re going to make damned sure he’s not put in that position again.”
“I agree.” April idly flipped through some cards she held. It was a nervous habit she’d developed. “He could have been killed before we got to him. That is not acceptable.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “But what do we do about him? You know he won’t like our decision to keep him safe. He might even deliberately put himself into a similar situation just to prove he doesn’t need our protection.”
Scheherazade shrugged. “Eve is right. If he goes into other villages he’ll be expected to fuck the girls there and we can’t be sure we’ll be fast enough to protect him from what could happen, what will eventually happen to him without us around to protect him. The only way we could stop it is by murdering anyone who gets close to him, and that would call a lot of attention down on our presence. If I have to hold him down while someone else goes into any village for information, I will and he can just be pissed off about it.”
“I think we’re going about this all wrong.” Irena smiled nervously when the other three pokegirls turned to stare at her. “I do.”
April’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”
“While we need to be finding out where we are in relation to Sanctuary while we travel, what we might also consider is also looking for someone who has been to Sanctuary. If we can find a teleport capable pokegirl who has teleported to the capital, she can teleport one of you there and then we don’t have to worry about Scheherazade giving Iain a massive hairball from him yelling into her fur while she pins him down. We can go straight to Sanctuary without having to fly all the way there. We also won’t have to worry about him fucking every pokegirl between here and Sanctuary.”
Eve smiled warmly. “That’s a great idea, Irena.”
“Without trying to give insult to anyone, I’ve noticed that sometimes you fighting pokegirls tend to get caught up in the fighting mindset a bit more than you should. I saw it a lot while I was training as a Night Nurse.” She shrugged. “I was never an enthusiastic combatant, so I try to think of solutions that don’t involve me potentially dying as my first option. I know that sometimes combat is the best choice, so I’m really glad you three are my sisters to keep me out of the thick of the fighting.”
Scheherazade chuckled. “That was a pathetic attempt at a save, but I’ll let it pass. When Montsho gets back we’ll find out from Sandra if there’s anyone here like that.”
Eve settled down in a chair. “I doubt it. If they had a teleporter, Sandra would have definitely sent them to Wellham or Sanctuary when her people started going feral. She’s been a bitch to us, but that’s because she does look out for her charges as best she can and Iain was her only recourse.” Her mouth turned down. “And we all know she’ll never get them back if they went to Wellham, not with the problems going on there.”
“And if they’d gone to Sanctuary, there would have been a human here and Iain wouldn’t have been attacked by that Dildoqueen.” Irena scowled. “I don’t suppose I can carry out my threat to kill everyone here, can I?” She turned hopeful eyes on Eve.
“Don’t be silly. Even if I were willing to consider exterminating the village, we all know that Iain wouldn’t allow it.”
“He would if it were one of us who’d been attacked.”
April gave Irena a flat look. “But none of us were and even if it’s Iain we don’t do that sort of thing. I can’t hold my children with hands completely free from blood, but I can and will hold them with hands that haven’t been stained with the blood of people who didn’t deserve to die by my hand.” She smirked. “I don’t care if they’re completely innocent, just that they’re innocent of anything that would make me want them dead.”
The Sanctuary Goth sighed. “I know. I just don’t like the idea of them getting away with what they did.”
April’s glare didn’t soften. “Iain killed his attacker. They don’t use pokeballs here so they don’t have the contraceptive effect to count on. Did it occur to you that because of that, when he killed the Dildoqueen, he probably orphaned some kits? Since we’re talking about a Dildoqueen, it could be a pretty large number if we include the one’s she’s sired along with any that she might have had herself. The village will have to find them families to take them in and raise them. That’ll be a drain on their resources right after they lost one of their adults. It’s pretty likely that she contributed to the village’s survival and so I think we can call the village punished”
“I hadn't thought about it that way.”
“Most people don't, Irena. Just don’t mention it to Iain or he might consider having us adopt them.”
Scheherazade grinned toothily. “I don’t think so. They’re not in his bubble and we’ve just seen what he’s willing to do to anyone outside it.” Her smile faded. “Of course, I would have killed her myself if he hadn’t told me to not get involved while she bled to death. I should have so he didn’t have to kill her.”
“Enough.” Eve looked at each of them in turn. “We all made mistakes, but they end here. You are not to bring the topic up. If he wants to talk about it, that’s fine but you are not to broach the subject first.”
“I can’t accept that order,” April said quietly. “I’m his beta and it’s my job to make sure he’s functional. That could mean I have to bring up what happened.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Who made you his therapist?”
“I did. I’m the most qualified to do it. Irena’s not trained in therapy. Night Nurses and Nursejoys either don’t have enough empathy or they have too much. You’re the maharani and your job is to keep the harem battle ready, not the tamer. Dominique is too wrapped up in her magic to give his psyche the attention it deserves, Scheherazade doesn’t have the head for it and Montsho,” she shook her head dismissively, “doesn’t have a clue about tamers or therapy. I was beta for my first tamer and I’m Iain’s beta. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”
“Beta’s have other responsibilities too. Can you carry those out?”
“What, running the harem when you’re incapacitated or pregnant? I can. Can I plan training regimens? I can do that, too. Can I get along with harem members that hate your guts? When and if it becomes an issue I’ll be able to do that as well. Nobody sees a simple Ingénue as being a threat to her position and the fact that I’m a Duelist now won’t change that since I don’t have a confrontational personality.”
Eve smiled slightly. “Not confrontational, are you?” Her smile faded and her mouth set. “You seem to be arguing with me about my orders regarding Iain pretty well right now.”
April met her gaze levelly. “Fine, when it’s about Iain and his wellbeing I can be confrontational. That’s actually a good trait in a beta.”
“And if I say no to you being beta?”
“Eve, I am already doing the job. Iain talks to me when he’s got problems. You can’t forbid him from coming to me and I am not going to let you forbid me from going to him.” The Megami-sama started to speak and April held up her hand to stop her. “I don’t want to hear it. Either you’re upset that you didn’t get to give me this position or you’re upset because you think you should be doing this job. I don’t really care which it is, but we both know you’re smart enough to look past it and know that neither of those is a reason to let Iain suffer.”
Eve glared at her for a moment before sighing. “You’re right and you were right to confront me about being right. That doesn’t mean I like it, though.”
“Are we done here?” Scheherazade brushed at the drying bits of Dildoqueen on her fur. “I need a bath and so does everyone else. If this crap dries it’ll be a lot harder to get out if I wait until Iain is done than if I tolerate the cold water from the canteen while it’s still wet. Is someone willing to spray me down with it and I’ll return the favor?”
Irena shrugged. “I need to clean up too and I haven’t done my shivering for today. It should be in Dominique’s pack.”
“Don’t be outside too long.” Eve motioned toward the window. “Whether she deserved it or not, executing a member of the village is going to breed bad blood against us and I don’t want any of us apart for a single second more than we have to be. I should have thought about that before Montsho went off with Sandra, but if they try to take her we’ll hear the fight.” She looked at Irena. “I also want to be gone from here right after daybreak, unless Sandra knows someone here who fits our teleport criteria.”
“We’ll be careful.” Scheherazade shouldered Dominique’s backpack before she and Irena headed outside.
Eve was getting up when a nude Dominique appeared in the doorway to the room. “Is something the matter?”
“I need you or Scheherazade right now. Iain’s got one blown pupil and his speech is starting to slur. The back of his skull is slightly soft to the touch. I think the Dildoqueen hammered his head against the floor to get him to cooperate and gave him a concussion or a subdural haemotoma.” Dominique ignored the water dripping from her body onto the floor. “I’ve got him propped up so he can’t drown but I’m afraid to move him until he’s healed.”
Eve headed for the bathroom, closely followed by April. “Why didn’t he say anything?”
The Duelist answered. “He may not remember it happening. I’ve seen cases where severe head trauma causes loss of memory of the incident. It’s a lot more common in humans than in us since we tend to be a lot tougher than normal humans.”
The bathroom was really one of the bedrooms that they’d dragged the tub into since the building didn’t have an actual bathroom. Dominique had used rune chain to web Iain in place in the bathtub by running the links around his body and then around the body of the tub. His head was lolled back and he was mumbling nonsense at the ceiling of the room. He didn’t seem to be aware when they came in.
April pointed a card at Iain and white light leapt from it to engulf him and then fade away. “I’ve healed him. He should be stable enough to move now.”
Iain blinked and tried to lift his head. “I fucking hurt.” He moaned softly. “My head is on fire. What happened?”
Eve gathered him into her arms as Dominique dismissed the rune chains. “You hit your head.”
He blinked owlishly at her. “That was pretty stupid of me. I hope I had a good reason for doing that, because this fucking hurts like hell.”
Eve poured healing magic into him as she carried him into one of the bedrooms and laid him on the bed. “You didn’t do it on purpose. The Dildoqueen did it to you.”
He grinned lazily up at her. “It was like magic. One instant her head was there and then, boom, it was gone. That was so cool.” His gaze sharpened slightly. “I’m hurt, aren’t I?”
She smiled and perched on the edge of the bed. “You were bleeding into your brain. Right now your body is reabsorbing blood that is trapped in your skull and you’re going to feel bad for a little while longer.”
“It was that bitch, wasn’t it? I vaguely remember her hitting me in the forehead and then me hitting the wall behind me.” He smiled viciously. “But I fixed her dumb ass.”
“Yes, you did.” Eve gripped his hand and went back to using her healing magic on him. “You’re going to be fine and you should be completely recovered when we leave at sunup.”
***
They’d stopped and landed for a quick lunch while April scouted ahead of them on her Black Skull Dragon with Dominique flying in close escort. Scheherazade had bolted down her meal and was now flying patrol over them while they ate. Eve was sitting next to Iain and she handed him a chunk of bread and a piece of cheese. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, Eve.” He started worrying at the bread. “I’m glad the rain finally stopped.”
“So am I. Is April your beta?”
Iain sputtered and choked on a bit of bread that went down his windpipe. Once his coughing was under control he swiveled around to stare at Eve. “Sorry, for a moment there I was busy trying to breathe. What did you just ask?”
She took a piece of cheese and nibbled on it daintily. “Beta, Iain. I want to know if April is your beta.”
He started to say something and stopped abruptly as his brow furrowed in a thoughtful frown. “You’d know if there had been any sort of official designation of her as the beta, but she has been working to get me to face my feelings for what I’m doing and helping me to stay functional as a tamer.” He took a bite of bread and chewed. “So she has been doing that part of a beta’s job. What brought this up?”
“She told me to mind my own business when I gave her an order about you. When I asked why she thought she could disobey my orders, she told me she was your beta.”
His eyes narrowed. “What order?”
She hesitated and quickly spoke when his jaw set. “I told everyone not to bring up what happened to you in the village. I wanted them to wait for you to be ready to talk about it and not to nag you. At that point April told me she was your beta and that she couldn’t accept an order like that from anyone.”
“You had no business giving any orders to treat me with care, Eve. I trust everyone here except Montsho not to tear gaping holes in my psyche unless it’s necessary for some reason.” He looked down at the bread. “And Montsho isn’t going to try anything like that because it would never occur to her that I doubt things since she doesn’t second guess what she does and so doesn’t think anyone else does. I envy her for that.”
“You went through something pretty traumatic for a human, Iain.”
“I fucked so many women that I have friction burns and bruises on my cock, Eve. I didn’t like it because I’m not into casual sex and I’m definitely not into sex with strangers who can accidentally kill me. I was really cautious while doing it, but it didn’t traumatize me a whole lot.”
Eve gaped at him. “You were almost raped.”
“Eve, the fact is that there was penetration, however slight, and that means technically I was raped. She put part of her dick in my mouth and then I bit it off and swallowed it. Shit happens and life goes on. However, I would like to point out that I promptly killed my rapist and I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt over it, either. In fact, I’m pretty fucking pleased that I am the one who got to recycle her soul.”
Eve gave him a startled look. “You swallowed it?”
He chuckled. “I’ll admit it was a reflexive action but in retrospect nobody else in our little family spits, so why should I?”
She flushed red and looked around guiltily at where Irena and Montsho were eating together. “Not so loud.”
He dropped his voice. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Thank you for caring. What about the fact that you were badly injured?”
“It’s a chance I take every time I get around anyone with any measure of enhanced strength. Granted that Dildoqueens only have twice the strength of a strong human, but she caught me off guard. I learned my lesson and I’ll be taking Montsho’s restraints along with me next time.” He frowned and checked his pokedex. “Speaking of which, it’s been two days since we were at the village. We need to find another village and check our progress. We could have come a good thousand miles in that time and a few degrees off track could mean a lot of distance to make up.”
“We’re not on any kind of schedule, Iain. The trip will take as long as it has to.”
One of his eyebrows rose. “Now you sound almost exactly like Scheherazade and Dominique did last night. Sanctuary knows Dominique and Scheherazade’s names and they know I have a bluebonnet haired Megami type in my harem, even if they may think your name is Danielle. If that DCWS recon unit we got Montsho from gives a detailed enough report on us it might raise a flag somewhere. We need to move as fast as we can, Eve, and to do that we need to know where we are so we know where we need to go.”
She shook her head in a swirl of blue and white. “Maybe you should have Lucifer in your harem. She thinks ahead like you do.”
Iain grabbed her hand. “I want you and I’m lucky as hell to have you on my side and in my life, Eve.” She sighed and snuggled against his side. “And you are very good at planning ahead.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The fact that all three of you gave me pretty much the same response suggests you have been planning, just not where I could hear it. The question then becomes what have you been planning and why don’t I already know about it?”
“Iain, I need you to stop being so damned perceptive! There are some things you might not want to know about.”
He slipped his arm around her and she stiffened. “I take it this is something that would make me upset about if I had a clue as to what it was?”
“Do you know how hard it is to stay annoyed at you if you’re holding me?” She slowly relaxed against him when he winked. “Yes, I think you do.”
He chuckled. “I was hoping it was something like that. Now, I had a question?”
“You’d probably want to lecture all of us if you knew what we were planning.”
“How about you don’t keep it a secret and let’s find out.”
“Let me try to find a good way to say this.” Eve was silent for several seconds. “Part of the nature of most pokegirls is to want to protect their tamer. None of the pokegirls in your harem are any different in that regard, not even Montsho now that she’s bonded to you. We discussed it amongst ourselves and none of us are happy with what happened to you in the last village. So we decided that we weren’t going to let it happen again by finding a way to keep you out of any villages we have to have dealings with. If they don’t know you exist, they can’t demand you tame the villagers.” She waited for a moment. “Scheherazade is willing to hold you down if it becomes necessary, but I’m hoping for something a bit more peaceful. Are you upset?”
“You don’t want me to go into villages so I don’t have to fuck strange pokegirls.”
“We’re more concerned about you getting hurt again. You are well within your rights to have sex with any unattached pokegirl that you want to.” There was a distinct edge to her voice.
“But you don’t want me to have sex with strange pokegirls.”
She smiled weakly. “Already you know me so well, Iain. No, I don’t want you fucking strange pokegirls. I know it’s wrong to want to keep you all to myself, but I want you to stay within the harem. We are your family after all.”
“I like your plan. Let’s do it.”
Eve blinked in surprise. “But you said that you weren’t a prize to be hidden.”
“That was before a Dildoqueen almost beat my brains out, shoved her dick in my mouth and said I’d love it once I got used to it.” He smiled slightly. “I can learn. It just takes a while sometimes. Feel free to be smug about that.”
“All I feel right now is relief, Iain. There are times when you terrify me. How can someone so smart be so inconsiderate about his own safety?”
“Huh?”
“You set your skin on fire, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, I did.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know that I can’t do what passes for normal magic here. I haven’t tried to do that since.” He glanced at the sky and Scheherazade doing lazy orbits around their lunch spot. “I think it’s time we moved on.”
It was almost sundown when they located a suitable looking village and landed for the night several miles away from it. Eve looked around at the group. “Irena, Montsho and I will go into the community. Dominique, you’re in charge.” She frowned. “No, April, you’re in charge.” Eve gave the Duelist a grim smile when she jerked in surprise. “He already knows about it and if you’re the beta, then you’ve got the whole job.”
April nodded slowly. “I’ll take good care of him.”
“I never doubted that. We’ll be back as soon as we can make sure nobody is going to try to follow us back here.” She gave Iain a slightly defiant look. “Do you have anything to say about the arrangements?”
He gave her an amused smile. “I’m the useless tamer, remember? As long as I get my warm milk and a story before bed I should be fine.” The smile vanished. “You ladies be careful. All of you are kind of important to me and we’ve already learned the locals can be tricky.”
Montsho’s tail smacked against a rock hard enough to crack shards from the stone. “If by tricky you mean they’re lying, deceitful bitches, I agree.”
“Someone’s been corrupting you.”
“I have my male. They want my male. They will not have my male unless they lie enough to convince my mistress to loan them my male. Therefore they will lie. My mistress is too smart to fall for their lies, so they will be deceitful in order to try to get her trust, just as Sandra’s people were when they took your equipment. The fact that they will lie and try deceit, instead of throwing themselves on my mistress’ mercy, shows they are bitches and stupid ones too; since appealing to my mistress’ mercy is the best way to get her to loan them our male.”
He blinked. “I stand corrected. They are lying and deceitful bitches or at least are going to be if they aren’t already.”
April grinned at the Tyrannodame. “How on earth did anyone think you were dumb?”
Irena hugged Montsho one handedly. “They did it by convincing you that you were dumb, so you acted dumb. We are teaching you that you’re not, so you’re starting to act smarter.”
Montsho looked down at Irena and her face suddenly glowed with pleasure. “I thank you, mistress. Will being smart change me?”
Eve chuckled. “In ways you can’t even begin to imagine, sister.” She glanced at the sky. “We need to leave now if we’re going to get to the village before nightfall.” She wrapped her arms around Irena and Montsho. “I can’t carry two a long way, but we’ve got a handful of kilometers to travel.”
Montsho frowned. “What is a kilometer?”
“I’ll explain later.” She lifted off and the Tyrannodame yipped in surprise that turned into a cry of glee as they flew off.
April pulled cards from her pockets and began creating constructs. “I’ll set my cards as the outer perimeter. Dominique, you and Scheherazade get started on putting up the tents while Iain and I work on dinner. I think we can all stay alert enough to be our own inner perimeter. Anyone think differently?”
The dusky skinned Archmage grinned. “Hey, Iain, can she be in charge all the time? She’s just paranoid enough, as opposed to overly so in the case of Eve.”
April put her hands on her hips. “Less chatter and more work, Dee.”
Dominique glared for an instant. “Forget I said anything, Iain.”
“You said something I was supposed to remember?” He released an axe from his pokepack. “April, care to guard me while we gather firewood?”
It was well after dark when Scheherazade’s head came up. “Eve and the others are coming back.”
Eve landed and let Irena and Montsho go. She threw herself on the ground and stared into the distance with a disgusted expression on her face. Iain settled down next to her. “Eve?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Ask her.”
Iain blinked and turned to look at Irena and Montsho. The Tyrannodame looked stolid like she always did. Irena, on the other hand, was watching Eve with a frightened expression. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“Ok, Irena, tell me what happened.”
Her eyes flicked to look at him and she shifted into her child form before crawling into his lap. “I’m so sorry.”
He cradled her. “Do I have to go to the village and fuck some pokegirls?”
She blinked. “Of course not. They don’t have any idea you’re out here.”
“And there’s not an assault team gearing up to blot us from the face of Africa that you summoned, is there?”
Irena’s expression suggested he might want to seek professional help. “No.”
“Then why are you apologizing?”
“We went into the village looking for someone who could teleport and who had been to Sanctuary, remember?” When he nodded, she took a deep breath. “There was a Sanctuary Goth there from the capital. She was sweeping through the towns looking for pokegirls to establish a quarantine of Wellham. She tried to order me to join her, but Montsho pointed out that I outranked her and that we were shujaa and she wasn’t. Then I ordered her to take us to Sanctuary and bring us back so we could establish a teleport point.” Her face began to crumple as tears welled up in her eyes. “She was pretty pissed off and grabbed me. We teleported somewhere, I presume Sanctuary, and then she came back to the village and dropped me before teleporting away without a word.” She cried softly. “I’m so sorry, Iain. I can’t teleport!” She curled up in his arms and began sobbing.
Dominique’s mouth dropped in shock. “Oh fuck. That didn’t help much.”
Eve made an angry growl. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Iain shook his head. “It’s ok, ladies. This isn’t perfect, but it can be fixed.”
Eve turned to glare at him. “Oh really? We can’t teleport to someplace that Irena has been to. Only Irena can do that and she can’t fucking teleport.”
“That’s enough.” Iain’s tone was enough to bring Eve upright in surprise. “In the morning we’ll move out somewhere in the wilderness where nobody is around and set up a long term camp. Montsho will teach us Swahili until everyone is fluent and, while that’s going on, Irena and April will both learn how to teleport.” He smiled slightly when Eve blinked. “After Irena can teleport, she can take someone else to Sanctuary and then we’ll all go there. Then we’ll see about giving them a big enough bloody nose to leave us alone for good.” He looked over to see his Tyrannodame giving him a puzzled look. “In the meantime, Eve, you can read Montsho into our plans. She needs to know what’s going on so she can decide if she wants to help us or if she wants to go on her way.”
The Megami-sama pushed to her feet. “Montsho, Scheherazade, let’s take a walk.”
***
The Tyrannodame tapped the tip of her tail on the ground as her frustration mounted. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore and snarled out loud. “You are being very foolish.”
Iain looked up from his book and carefully looked around before focusing on her. “I’m in an open area with a clear sight line for at least fifty meters and I’ve got you as my bodyguard while the others are training. I thought I’d covered all the bases. What am I doing wrong?”
“What if I lied about wanting to help you? You’d be easy prey for me with the others gone.”
Iain blinked very slowly and cocked his head. “I suppose you’re right, if you were planning to kill me. Are you?”
“No, but I could easily do so if I wanted to.”
“That’s very true.” He opened his book again.
Montsho stomped her foot. “You should be more wary of me.”
“You just told me that you’re not planning to kill me and now you’re complaining that I should be more worried that you’re planning to kill me even though I know you’re not planning to kill me. Wow, and I thought the things that happen inside my head are convoluted. Montsho, I believe what you tell me and since you’ve admitted that you’re not trying to kill me, I’m not going to waste time worrying about it. I have much better things to do.”
“You do not know if I am lying or not.”
Iain shut the book and laid it down in his lap before giving Montsho his undivided attention. “Actually, I do know that you’re not lying.”
The Tyrannodame looked surprised. “You do? How?”
“Eve was sitting right next to me when you said you wanted to help us and that you didn’t want to hurt me. She was using a spell that detects lies. If you had been lying, she would have known and then I would have known.”
“I see. What would have happened if I had lied to you?”
“Scheherazade would have killed you without warning. If you couldn’t stomach helping us and you’d wanted to leave we would have let you, but if you’d lied about wanting to stay or about where your loyalties truly are you’d have been executed on the spot.”
Montsho’s mouth opened and then closed. “She would have killed me,” she said softly. “She was behind me and I would have never seen the attack.” Then she nodded once, firmly. “Good. You will need that kind of ruthlessness against the High Council.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“You are afraid?”
“I can be ruthless, Montsho. So can everyone here. But I don’t ever want to kill so much that it becomes easy or worse, fun. I have that kind of personality and I don’t want to go there. Each time I kill I dislike it less and the thought that I could come to want it scares the living hell out of me.”
“I do not understand you.”
“Sometimes I don’t understand me either.” He fought not to smile at the frustrated look that reappeared on her face. “I’m not trying to be an asshole to you. There really are times when I don’t understand myself. It happens to lots of people, but it seems to happen to me on a semi-regular basis that’s only become more regular since coming to this world.” He watched her relax slightly. “And to get back to your earlier concern, I either trust you or I do not, and if I do, then I trust you completely. And as to how I believe I can trust you completely is because you told me I could and Eve verified that you were telling the truth when you said that.” He opened up the book again. “If it makes you feel better, before you said I could trust you and before Eve verified it, I was careful to never be alone with you. If you hadn’t said what you did, I’d still be doing that.” He eyed her carefully. “Does that help?”
She considered for several seconds and then smiled. “I never realized you were that careful. The others are right and you are very sneaky. It will help to keep you safe and I like it.”
***
Iain Grey - Tradesman
Eve - Megami-sama (alpha)
Dominique - Blessed Archmage
Scheherazade - Dread Wolf
Irena- Chibi Sanctuary Goth
April - Duelist
Montsho - Tyrannodame
Dragonesses
Eirian - Silver
Skye - Blue
Emerald - Green
Sable - Black
Aurum - Gold
Beryl - Red