Back to Yonder for Publication, page 10
“Oh, I love it when you show your strength like that. It makes me so wet to know the lengths you’ll go to protect me. If it wasn’t for that thing, I’d give myself to you right here, and right now.”
Even knowing her words were just a charade, I began to get worked up. Somethings never get old—and amongst them were the warmth of my wife pressed against me, the sensation of her breasts pressing into my back, the way she rubbed them back and forth across my back, the warmth of her breath against my neck, and the chill it sent down my spine.
The Stan thing glared at us as my foxkin continued her little show, but never responded. I decided to take the time to ask something that I wanted to know about.
“How are things going with Nimeera?” I sent to Josie telepathically.
“Uggh… do we have to talk about that now, husband?”
“If not now, then when?”
“Fine. I still don’t completely trust her. Well, I trust her to hold up her end of the bargain—to be a good clerk. I believe she wants to protect you, and until we get to a location where Korkanis might move against you, I trust her well enough. But that doesn’t mean I have to like her.”
“Because she lied to us?” I pressed, “Or because of how she made you question yourself?”
Silence lingered inside my head as Josie didn’t immediately respond. I knew it was because she was taking the time to genuinely search herself and her feelings before answering.
“Some of each.”
I didn’t reply. Josie needed more time to come to grips with herself.
After another minute she said, “Fine, mostly because of how she made me feel. I realize that I want you to be Sativa’s chosen, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I became that she propositioned you. I suppose I should be happy with the idea of sharing you with my goddess… but somehow, I’m not.”
“At least you can be honest with yourself,” I told her. “I trust Sativa less than I trust Nimeera. With the catgirl, I understand her past and her motivations. Sativa is a being well beyond my comprehension, but has repeatedly demonstrated how naïve she can be.”
We were quiet again, until Josie said, “I’m just not ready for you to be with Nimeera… like you are with us. I spoke to Lina and Rava and we don’t give you permission to make love to her. We don’t give you permission to treat her like you treat us.”
I was a bit flabbergasted for a moment. Then I realized that knowing Josie, it made perfect sense. She was only doing her duty. She wouldn’t stand in the way of me honoring my deal with Korkanis, but she thought she had found a way around it—and she was scared.
If I was honest with myself, I really did like the catgirl, and not just because of how her tail’s sway mesmerized me. She was someone I could see joining our family.
“I’m just a guy. What does that mean in practical terms?”
“Being a guy,” I all but heard the snicker in her mental tone, “this should be easy for you.”
“Except you don’t think it will be easy for me, do you?” I asked.
“Sometimes, you’re too thoughtful for your own good.” The words came out in a rush, even as she thought them at me. “Not that I don’t adore you for being so considerate, but most guys just think about getting off. For now, that’s all your wives give you permission to do with Nimeera. She’ll be a good little clerk and help satisfy all your needs—including your physical pleasure—but your wives do not give you permission to make love to her.”
I sighed. “I always honor my word, Josie. I promised not to take any new wives without the consent of all my current wives, but you aren’t really giving her a chance. Nonetheless, I will respect your decision.”
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “This isn’t who I am—I either love or I don’t love. I don’t use people. Just… please, keep thinking about it.”
The silence was awkward for a moment but then the Stan thing spoke up.
“Fine… I am Princess Gamia of the Fairy Nation, seventh daughter of Queen Delicia. I am here to broker an agreement with you. You have already proven yourself to be stubborn and narrow-minded, but what you must understand is that fairies can be one of two things—we can either be the best of friends, or the direst of enemies. You must decide if you and those you care about will prosper or suffer.”
Chapter 11 – Not Enough Carrot
The words of his—or rather, her—threat hung in the air as I never broke eye contact with the fairy princess. I took my time before replying, though.
“There can be no negotiations when you come here in the stolen body of one of my people.”
“Bah,” she snorted, “this cowkin is not one of your people. We read his memories. He is simply a servant hired to serve as a guard, something which he did an incredibly poor job at, I might note. He wasn’t even hired by you, but by one of your mates.”
Arrogance practically dripped off of her words, and it was all I could do not to smash in her stolen face. “You don’t understand how I think about my people, then.”
“As I told you, we fairies are a proud and ancient race. We were the first of the races spawned on Olimero and while Sativa played a part, it was the goddess of mana who shaped our identity. Even before this world came to be, our race existed on dozens of other worlds. On each of those worlds, we are the handmaidens of magic.
“We are the only race on Olimero untainted by the other gods, unless you count those overgrown lizards, who Sativa didn’t alter but simply transplanted and adapted for this world. Even elves and orcs were tinkered with, and that is to say nothing about those half people, half beast creations of Sativa. Suffice it to say that we have studied all the lesser races and know what they value.”
Josie growled.
I had used the time the Stan suit wearing fairy was monologuing to alert my other wives. I asked Lina to stay put and watch over our son, but Rava and even Nimeera were both coming to join us in the tent.
“But what is it that you called me? The ‘man from another world’? You don’t know about me or about my people. You don’t know how we think or act. I can tell you this much, life is not treated so callously there.” Even as I spoke, I thought of the various atrocities which had been and continued to be perpetuated on Earth, but I didn’t let that sidetrack me.
“There is an organization on my world for which one of the mottos is, ‘no man left behind’ and I very much believe that. I would be willing to start afresh, but only if you return Stan to us. For that matter, why did you even take him over if you were going to try and negotiate with us?”
“We know how brutal the lesser races are. We are powerful but our numbers are small. I’m not giving away anything here that you don’t already know. We simply couldn’t afford the risk of sending one of our own people, as you put it. The loss of even a single fairy is an affront to nature.”
“And yet you curse the name of nature’s goddess,” Josie murmured under her breath.
“As for this cowkin,” the possessed man before us continued, “he was taken for the same reason that we always take males. I don’t know what you know about fairies, but we have been cursed by the gods and have no males of our own. I’ll let your imagination fill in the rest.”
I nodded. “And why change that plan?”
“The memories of this one led us to believe there might be… better options—which our testing confirmed to be the case. Once again, you must decide if you want to make a friend or foe of the fairy people. I assure you that you won’t survive having us as foes.”
The thing controlling Stan pushed the cowkin’s body up onto his knees and had him lean forward as he said the last part.
“Too much stick and not enough carrot.” I stood and turned as I finished speaking, then I left the tent, taking Josie with me.”
Once outside, I spun my core a bit faster and confirmed that I could still sense what was happening inside the tent. The walls made it harder to sense what was inside, but if I pushed my senses through the little openings along the ground, I was still able to get a good sense of the impostor’s location in the tent. She hadn’t moved at all.
Rava and Nimeera were waiting for us. I had already looped the two of them, as well as Lina, in on the conversation telepathically, so they had heard what I heard.
Nimeera blushed a bit when she looked from Josie to me, but I didn’t have time to deal with whatever was going on between the two women. Josie was my wife, so even if I thought she was being unfair, the ring on her finger meant I’d support her.
Rava said, “They can’t be trusted. They are clearly after you, Rob.”
“Not everything is about me.” I snorted softly. “But given the situation, I suspect that at least part of it is the fairy queen hoping to get access to a larger gene pool.”
Nimeera shook her head. “No, I’m still catching up, but they want you—and you specifically, because they think something about you may be able to break the god’s curse on them. We should never underestimate our enemy, which means we need to assume they know about Robbie and how he isn’t a bunnykin. That alone is enough evidence to give them hope.”
Josie nodded. “She’s right.”
“So… what? We go and exterminate the fairies? Or do we run as quickly as we can? How far can they travel? Are they going to keep coming after us? There are more questions than just what they are after which we should consider,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Rava replied.
I stared at the elf till she finally said, “Oh… you wanted me to answer all your questions?”
“You are my resident genius wife—not meaning that as a knock on any of your sister wives—but you have the most experience and knowledge about a wide array of topics, as well as a magical aptitude focused on gathering information.”
“Is that your tactful way of reminding me that I’m old?”
I pulled my elven wife close and kissed her before she could react. Rava leaned into it as soon as the shock wore off, and soon our tongues were doing a little dance in one another’s mouths. When I finally broke the kiss, she sucked in air and her face was two shades darker.
“Doesn’t feel old to me,” I murmured.
Nimeera giggled and Josie patted my ass. Rava still hadn’t said anything, but my foxkin wife finally said, “You know we can never stay upset with Rob. Even if he sticks his foot in his mouth, he does so many other amazing things with it, that we won’t hesitate to pull his foot out of the way.”
Rava shook her head. “It is impossible to be angry with him when our soul-bond lets me feel just how much he loves me… how much he loves all of us.” She placed an emphasis on the word ‘all’ which drew a bit of a frown from Josie, but it was gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
“Well?”
“Yes.” Rava sighed this time. “Yes, husband, fairies are dangerous. I will share what I know about them, but it isn’t exhaustive, and there may be some mistakes. Physically they are the weakest of the races, although they are said to have magic which can manipulate size, so if you were wondering about the logistics of copulation… that isn’t an issue.”
I nodded.
“There were at one time,” Rava continued, “dozens of hives of fairies all over Olimero. But wars wiped most of them out. No one, other than the gods, know for sure how many are left. Speaking of which… maybe you could ask the next time you have one of your chats with Telmorra? If anyone would know more about the fairies, it would be the goddess of mana.”
I shrugged. “It isn’t like I have her on speed dial err… I mean, I can’t just call out to her. She only ever spoke to me when I was in the mana chamber or in a near death state.”
“Well, as fond as you are of almost dying, I think we should avoid that method. Perhaps we can come up with another way to reach her…” Rava tapped her cheek a few times before shaking her head.
“But to continue...?” I prodded to bring her back to the topic at hand.
“We need to assume that the fairies can travel anywhere in Olimero, that they will be almost impossible to detect, and that the oldest of them—such as this fairy queen, Delicia—are as powerful as dragons.” She shook her head. “And I don’t just mean like the sand dragon you fought, but the older, more powerful, elemental dragons.”
“Can we make a deal with them?” I asked.
“The legends say that fairies always honor their compacts, but that they won’t hesitate to twist words to their benefit in any way that they can. They are troublemakers and not to be trusted,” Nimeera answered this time but the other two nodded along.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger and then rubbed at my eyes as I blew out a sigh. I really had been looking forward to this trip. Rava was shining as the Mistress of the Purse and Josie was thrilled to be competing in the tournament her father had won multiple times. For my part, while I missed Daria and Mursha, I was enjoying having fewer wives to focus on and was excited to see the tournament.
This was supposed to be a bit of a vacation from some of my responsibilities and problems but here new ones had popped up. “Recommendations?”
Nimeera said, “Korkanis won’t answer me, otherwise I’d ask him for guidance.” She looked over at Josie. “What about you? Have you spoken to Sativa?”
“It isn’t really like that for me,” the redhead replied.
“Hmm… I got the sense that she was choosing you to be her handmaiden in the same way that Korkanis chose me… or chose Rava, in the past,” Nimeera murmured.
“Maybe, I just need to figure it out,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair before rubbing my neck.
“Husband, I know you don’t have to sleep,” Rava said, “but this is clearly stressing you. Go relax. I’ll keep watch on the fairy tonight. Perhaps I’ll even be able to get some answers out of her, since I’m so…” her lips quirked up “…experienced.”
I cringed. “Okay, lesson learned.”
She gave me a big smile. “I’m just playing with your words because I can’t play any of the games I’d prefer to with… yourself. But I think you’ve got a clerk to break in and another wife who would happily distract you from your troubles.”
Before I let myself be pulled away into more flirting, I said, “I trust you know what you’re doing, but that fairy is dangerous. Are you sure it’s okay for you to be alone with her? She has already taken over Stan’s body.”
Rava waved away my concern. “Pshah, I’m not a simpleton like some cowkin guard. I’m an accomplished mage, touched by the power of a god, and soul-bonded to this world’s only body cultivator and my sister-wives. There is no chance she can possess me like she did the cowkin.”
Rava got a calculating look in her eye.
“Besides,” she continued, “it might be a good thing for her to think she has an upper hand if I stay with her alone. And as you know, I’m far from helpless.” With the last comment, she rested one hand on the pouches which held various potions she had concocted.
She was right. If any of my wives were ever prepared for any situation, it was Rava. She wasn’t exactly a frontline fighter, but had displayed a shocking degree of combat prowess when it was required—and she was always thinking at least two steps ahead of the rest of us.
I kissed her once more and then headed toward my tent. I didn’t say a thing to either Josie or Nimeera, as I wanted to see what they’d say when I’d gone. As I walked away, I channeled more ki into my mind meridian and concentrated on my hearing expanding, enough so that I could hear any sound throughout the entire camp. I then focused in on the area I had just departed.
When I was almost to the tent, several hundred feet from where the women still stood, I heard Josie speak up.
“Well, now is your chance to prove your sincerity,” she told the blonde beside her. “Respect the limits we have given you, and you’ll earn more trust.”
Nimeera replied with just a hint of bitterness in her voice, “I understand the terms, and I will prove that you can trust me.” Then, she sighed. “I actually like you, Josie. I think we are more alike than you want to believe. My magical power is simply different from the openness of flames and my background led me down a different path. I won’t betray you, though, and I definitely won’t betray Rob.”
“Only time will tell. For now, be a good little clerk and go warm my husband up for me. I’ll be there in a bit, but for now I think I’ll keep Rava company, just to make sure she is safe.”
Chapter 12 - Duty and Delight
Just before I walked through the flaps to our tent, I sensed… something. I spun around, focusing all my senses on the area around me. There it was again. It had only been a slight tingle, but I was almost certain that someone had been watching me.
