Scepter Spectre (Chronicles of Valmaron Book 2), page 1
Scepter Specter
Book II of the Chronicles of Valmaron
A Novel by A.V. Ray
Copyright © 2023 A.V. Ray
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Cover Design by A.V. Ray
Foreword
Enjoy a NSFW gallery of the updated harem at: https://theshodinchronicles.wordpress.com/chronicles-of-valmaron-art/
Chapter 1 - Jaron
“Happy birthday Devari!”
Everyone shouted in unrestrained jubilance. All but Sephaeus, who had a smirk but chose to use his inside voice. Devari sat before a hearty cake shaped like a giant teddy bear, a huge smile on her face—but with a quizzical tinge to it.
“You got me a teddy bear?” Devari—now ‘eighteen’—tilted her head. “But I hate teddy bears. And dolls. They’re creepy.”
Jaron smirked. “Exactly.”
“What better way to express your hatred of these fraudulent fluffies than to chop it into pieces?” Ava chimed in with a devious grin.
“And eat it,” Abigail added.
“It’s chocolate!” Ana Lee cheered.
The whole family was there: all three Brood Triplets, the Two Terrors, Queen Valara, and Jaron’s mother Lady Spellcraft. They held a private family party in the new lounge built on the renovated Spellcraft estate, which now had an entirely new east wing. The adults would be drinking tonight, which meant all seven of Jaron’s toddlers were with the royal nannies. In the three years since the Fall of Vaelonn, this was the first time Devari was allowed to drink. Even Jaron—now King of Valmaron—limited himself when it came to alcohol, but tonight was a special occasion.
Despite the time that had passed since the Spellcraft family had become the hefty household it now was, Devari alone had changed the most. She’d gone through a growth spurt over the last few seasons. Her gray eyes sometimes looked blue depending on the lighting, and her wavy dark locks had grown from just barely touching her shoulders to beneath her shoulder blades. Nature decided the rest of her should become rather lovely as well; she was getting marriage offers all the time.
Jaron himself hadn’t changed. His skin was still a Tolian tan, his chestnut hair was still a short mess, and the amber eyes he’d inherited from his late Tolian father were lightened by his Valmari mother’s green ones. Being only twenty-one, the only discernible difference was a little extra muscle packed onto his frame.
“You’re leaving something out,” Esmerelda spoke, exchanging a grin with Jaron as she said so.
Esmerelda, now thirty without a mark to show for it, was still the exotic vixen she was when Jaron met her. Her caramel complected skin contrasted nicely with long black hair typically kept in a large ponytail. But when she let it down? Nobody but Valara could approach her on volume, whose brunette hair went down to her bum, contrasting her immaculate porcelain skin. The moniker of ‘most beautiful woman in Valmaron’ had been passed from his mother to her once the Tolians got a good look during his coronation.
“Don’t tell her yet,”Chloe glared at Esmerelda with a stern tone but a mischievous smile.
Esmerelda closed her lips and pretended to lock them with a key. As for Chloe? She’d changed some, least of all her short blonde hair that she always styled in a pixie-bob. As the shortest person in the family, the Master Caster was a miniature minx with a face and figure to match—one that bounced back without Scripts after Jaron Junior was born. She was only a year older than Jaron and Valara, and already a voluptuous Valmari despite her height, but the only thing motherhood seemed to do was upgrade her assets.
“Don’t tell me what yet?” Devari scrutinized the cake carefully, which was clearly more suspicious than it was nutritious.
“It’s Scripted, that’s all I’ll tell you,” Jaron replied, grinning.
Devari lit up with excitement. “Scripted? Who wrote it?”
“We did,” Ava raised her hand while her sisters cocked their hips in opposite directions beside her.
“Here,” Valara handed Devari a knife. “Go on, cut it.”
Sephaeus took a few steps back; Lady Spellcraft joined him.
The Sentinel Commander had more than maintained his massively muscular size, along with his bronze tan, blonde hair and stoic eyes. Always had to be the biggest person in the room, and easily the tallest. His mother—a tall woman in her own right though slightly shorter than Valara and himself—hadn’t really changed aside from how she wore her auburn hair. Valmari blood remained steadfast well into middle-age, who were known to preserve their youthfulness into their sixties. His mother was only thirty-eight, and her husband Sephaeus a mere forty.
That just left the Brood Triplets, whose olive skin and long dark hair also benefited from their distantly Valmari ancestry aside from their stint as immortals. On sight, one would consider them in their mid-twenties. As for their actual age? Jaron still didn’t know, nobody asked and nobody told, but it was probably north of seventy. Devari alone was fifty-five.
Devari leaned forward and held the knife over the teddy bear cake, but then it moved—its mouth moved into a terrified frown. Devari screamed and jumped back into her seat as the bear stood up on two legs like a little man, glancing around in a panic. Chloe squealed with animated delight as the cake grabbed a fork, jumped off the platter, and made a run for it.
“Get him Devari!” Jaron laughed.
The bear climbed onto a lounge chair and turned around in a fencing pose, prepared to defend itself with its found fork. Devari pursued with profuse giggling, trying to stab the cake while it jousted for dear life.
“Ha!” Devari went for the lunge, but the bear jumped up and ran along the top of her arm.
She screamed and flung it away, causing the cake to somersault onto the sofa while everyone else cracked up laughing. Valara turned completely red, held onto her stomach, and bent over with uncontrollable seizing wheezes. Sephaeus moved in the way of the teddy cake’s escape route, and it wanted none of that. It got desperate. The cake started gouging chunks out of its fat belly and hurled them at everyone. Now it was a food fight. Jaron ducked as a piece of cake went flying over his head, hitting Chloe right in the face.
“Oh now you’ve done it,” Chloe lifted her hand to start Casting, but Abigail got there first.
She grabbed the bear by its throwing arm and went to lift it up, but its own body couldn’t support its weight. Instead the arm tore off and the teddy cake fell back onto the sofa. Abigail made a face like she meant to say ‘oh well’ and started eating.
Lady Spellcraft then started walking toward the cake menacingly, causing it to slowly back away holding its fork in front of it. It threw a piece of itself at her, but she fanned its own platter in front of herself like a shield to deflect the sweet assault. The distraction paid off; Devari stabbed it right through the back of its chest and cleaved upward, splitting it in half and releasing a gushing burst of raspberry jam.
Victory was sweet.
Chapter 2 - Jaron
Jaron was drunk. Very drunk. He never got this drunk. He never got drunk in general. Valara and Lady Spellcraft sat on the largest sofa in the lounge nursing glasses of wine. The Brood Triplets terrorized Sephaeus with a card game where they had to team up in pairs and acquire four-of-a-kind, signaling their teammate with increasingly obnoxious methods. Sephaeus was simultaneously the best and worst teammate. He was the best simply for the fact that he could easily identify when his partner had a winning hand, but he was the worst because Ana Lee couldn’t read him when he had one. Devari was busy dancing with herself to the sound of a Scripted harp set on the bar in the back of the lounge, waving her arms around herself as she spun about.
As for the Two Terrors? Both of them sat on Jaron’s lap, one on each leg, on the lounger across from the big sofa. Esmerelda wore a violet sundress, contrasting Chloe’s periwinkle blue. Everything was spinning, but alternating kisses between the two of them felt glorious. They kept serving him wine out of their glasses, easily as drunk as he was. Chloe leaned forward and whispered something in Esmerelda’s ear, getting a laugh out of her.
“What are you gossiping about?” Jaron slurred.
Chloe rested her hands on Jaron’s inner thigh. Esmerelda leaned closer to his neck. Damn he loved these girls. So. Much. Had he told them that lately? He couldn’t remember.
“Es-mer-elda,” Chloe said slowly, blinking one eye at a time and leaning her forehead close to Esmerelda’s. “Did you know that—oof—Ava wants to team up with me against Jaron?”
“She can’t be on your team. We’re a team,” Esmerelda hiccuped.
“No no no,” Chloe blushed. “I mean she wants me to team up with her, and then nob Jaron’s noblets.”
Esmerelda threw her head back and giggled. “She plans to corrupt you. Are you going to take her up on it?”
“Don’t tell Annika but—I might,” Chloe replied.
“I’m sitting right here,” his mother stated from across them.
Chloe didn’t notice. Neither did Esmerelda apparently.
“I love my life,” Jaron mused to himself.
“You love your wife?” Esmerelda snapped to attention. “Which one? Are you talking about me?”
Jaron shook his head. “I said—”
“Shh!” Chloe put her finger on Jaron’s lips. “Just let her have that.”
“You two are still so…cute!” Valara chirped from her perch.
“Who? Me and her? Or him and her? Or all of us? Hold on—that’s three. You said two. Never mind,” Esmerelda’s wine-fueled confusion persisted.
“Them!” Valara wagged her finger at Jaron and Chloe. “They’re always so lovey-dovey.”
“We’re all lovey-dovey,” Esmerelda argued.
Valara took a sip of her wine and simpered. “I know…they’re just different. Like little kids.”
“It’s because Chloe is Jaron’s first love,” Lady Spellcraft spoke effortlessly, clearly handling her alcohol better than the rest.
Jaron frowned at his mother. What was she on about now?
“Annika!” Esmerelda scoffed. “Valara has known Jaron since they were children. He loved her first.”
Lady Spellcraft laughed. “Jaron was infatuated with her first. It was adorable—watching him refuse to court any other girls because he wanted his princess.”
“And he got her,” Valara declared proudly.
Lady Spellcraft nodded with a wink at her. “But Jaron and Chloe exchanged virginities. She was the first to diddle his dangler, which changes things by quite a lot.”
“Mother, I love you—but you are…inappropriate,” Jaron chuckled.
“Your face is inappropriate,” Lady Spellcraft retorted. “I know a lewd look when I see one; you and Chloe are as insatiable as the triplets.”
“We all get to be first then,” Esmerelda realized, before poking Chloe in the shoulder. “You’re his first love, Valara is his first girlfriend, and I’m his first kiss. And I am out of wine.”
Esmerelda punctuated her sentence by giving him a big wet one, then she stood up and sauntered away to see what the triplets were doing. Now it was the birthday girl’s turn for attention.
“Jaron!” Devari made her way from her little dance floor over to them.
She jumped right onto the sofa where Esmerelda had once been while Chloe remained glued to his side.
“Hello beautiful birthday girl,” Chloe smiled. “Are you having fun?”
“It’s the -hic- best,” Devari replied. “You’re all amazing. The drink is -hic- absoloot-absootoot—absolutely great.”
With his eyelids shut—they were heavy—Jaron leaned over and kissed Devari on the forehead. She gave him a squeezing hug in return and then gave him a smooch on the cheek.
“Now that you’re all grown up, we won’t stop suitors from proposing anymore,” Chloe laughed.
“I’ve been grown up! My body just had to -hic- catch up with me,” Devari replied.
Jaron opened his eyes long enough to see Devari grab her own breasts and jiggle them through her silvery dress. He averted his gaze while his mother chimed in.
“Thankfully we’re playing by Valmari rules. Tolian girls are considered adults at sixteen, and I was not doing that,” Lady Spellcraft commented.
“Weren’t you sixteen when you got married?” Valara made a devious face.
“Hush now Valara,” his mother turned her face away. “Do as I say not as I do.”
Chloe finished off her glass, staggered to her feet and held her arms out to her sides until her balance returned. Once steady, Chloe gave Devari a smug look and poked her lightly on the sternum. “Devari, I love you to little bits. Enjoy the party, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Where are you going?” Esmerelda questioned from across the room.
“To bed,” Chloe nodded her head in a dreamy reverie. “I’m too drunk to walk. Or fly. So I think I’ll crawl. Yes, crawling sounds nice. Good night!”
“You won’t make it down the hall. I’ll come with you,” Esmerelda groaned and marched over, giving Jaron a kiss on her way out with Chloe.
They had to lean on each other for balance just to make it past the door. The blind leading the blind, or the drunk leading the drunk in this case. Devari also lost her weight-bearing faculties, and fell onto Jaron’s lap face up with a giggle. Good thing the others took their drinks with them, because if he had any more wine his soul was going to vacate his body.
“I don’t think I can get up,” Devari began laughing uncontrollably. “I’m finished. This is where I’m sleeping.”
Jaron held out his hand and the Slicer floated across the room to wait in mid-air. “If you need to sleep, I can drag us out of here…or just use the Banisher to cut a tunnel to your room.”
Devari glanced at his weapon and then to him. “Um…I’m really happy right now, but -hic- being by myself sounds scary. Maybe you can—banish some bad dreams?”
The Slicer fell to the floor, and Jaron sighed to the ceiling. He really didn’t want to move at the moment.
“I’ll be a good girl!” Devari insisted. “I won’t -hic- steal the sheets this time. I promise.”
Devari stared intently at him until he gave in to that face. Alright, it was her birthday after all. Jaron found the strength to stand with Devari in his arms, before making his announcement to all. “Have fun everybody, I’m putting this one to bed.”
Then he carried Devari off to go on teddy bear duty. Walking the number of paces it took, some of them upstairs, to bring Devari to her room while carrying her was not something he cared to repeat with this much wine in him. He nearly rolled his ankle on the first step, but eventually made it. There was no finesse in how he plopped her down onto the bed, requiring three tries to shut the door with a pitiful push. The first two it kept swinging back open, the third one he slammed it.
Devari immediately started stripping to get into her nightie, at which point Jaron turned his back and propped himself against the door with just his forehead. Not having to stand up straight, yes this was the way.
“All -hic- changed!” Devari declared.
Jaron rolled off his forehead and onto his back, giving himself a push back upright as he waddled toward the bed. He kicked off one boot after the other, then crawled into the bed in his clothes. Devari cuddled backward against him, and then waved her hand to put out the aether lantern on the nightstand.
“Goodnight Devari,” Jaron mumbled, and then he was out cold.
***
Jaron awoke with a flinch. He had no idea where he was, he didn’t remember who he’d chosen for the night. The room was pitch black, and it was spinning one direction while his head swirled in the other. No need to get up. Laying down felt good, especially with his body as tingly as it was heavy. The body of a warm woman laid in front of him—he was spooning her. Oh yes that’s right, there was always a woman there. Which one was this? Valara? No, Valara was taller. Chloe? No, not short enough. Esmerelda had a particular scent; it must have been one of the triplets. Oh well, he’d work it out shortly.
He was aroused; already firmly at attention. There was a pillow between his groin and his partner. A rough toss got rid of it—yes that was more comfortable. Now it was digging into her, and he wanted to wake her up to take care of it.
Except—she was already awake, and started gyrating against it. He knew that signal; he liked it. His hand went from her stomach to her chest, where a nightgown met his hand. Disregarding the temporary obstruction, he got a handful of her and began massaging. Her breathing picked up, and Jaron decided to skip most of the foreplay this time. If this was Abigail, she was a fan of the rough stuff anyway. The woman with him rolled over and started kissing him, albeit clumsily at first, but his coordination was far from perfect also. Good lips though.
Jaron wasted no time pulling off her nightgown, which she eagerly obliged. Good, she was bare bodied now. Just a little more play and he’d get on with it, he just needed the room to slow its spinning a bit. He kissed her, moving his face to bite down on her neck. That one got a moan out of her when—he recognized that voice. Oh damn. This was Devari! Damn. Damn. Jaron immediately pulled his hand away from her legs and broke the kiss to get out of the bed.
