When Jadis woke the next morning, she felt more relaxed than she had in a long time. Was everything right in the world? No. Was everything right in her own little sphere of influence? Also no, she had to admit. But Jadis felt as though things had finally shifted in her favor. Her lovers were around her. She and everyone she cared for on Oros were as safe as they could be. There was a viable way forward through the morass of politics she’d been dragged into that she could see and achieve. And better yet, she’d finally been able to have some alone time with her lovers.
Letting out a contented sigh, Jay slowly opened her eyes. Doing so, her vision was filled with a trio of bright blue eyes set in an ink black face only inches away from hers.
“Shit!” Jay yelped as she jerked back.
“Shit…?” Alex asked curiously as she shuffled forward on the bed to put her face closer to Jay’s again.
“Uh, no, no shit,” Jay said as she tried to calm her racing heart. “Just, don’t put your face so close to mine like that when I’m waking up, okay? You surprised me.”
Jay had been sleeping on her stomach, head turned to the side. Her quick jerk of movement had jostled those who were bunched up around, waking them as well. She heard Kerr growl a protest as she buried her face into Jay’s side.
“How long have you been lying there, staring at me?” Jay asked as she propped herself up on her elbows.
Alex didn’t answer verbally, her only real movement coming from one of her large lower tentacles curling and uncurling around Jay’s leg.
“All night, right?”
At Alex’s nod, Jay let out an aggrieved sigh.
“We need to get you something to do when we’re sleeping, Alex. You can’t just stare at me. It’s kind of creepy.”
Alex tilted her head to one side in a fair impression of a confused dog.
“Why…?”
“That’s…” Jay trailed off, then shook her head. “That’s complicated. Just trust me, it is. We’ll figure something out. You’re getting good at reading, maybe we can get you some simple books or the like.”
“Who’s getting books?” Aila yawned as she sat up with a stretch. She had somehow ended up between Alex and Jadis’ Syd self and was still as naked as she had been last night. While her redheaded lover didn’t have the biggest breasts, they looked mouthwatering when she arched her back. “Good morning as well, I suppose. What time is—Jadis!”
Jay chuckled at Aila’s small screech of surprise. Her mood had been too high to ignore the impulse, so she’d leaned over and licked one of her mate’s pert nipples. Shooting the offended arcanist a grin, Jay shrugged.
“No idea. And good morning to you, too.”
As Aila glared in mock-rage at Jay while covering her breasts with one arm, Jadis had a thought. Looking down at Alex who was lying between them and giving them both an intense stare, she asked the Demon a question she thought she might understand.
“Alex, how many bells did you hear ringing most recently? The big bell sounds that come from outside?”
Alex considered her words for a moment before answering.
“Seven…”
“Seven in the morning,” Jay told Aila with a smile before turning her attention back down to the Demon. “Thank you, Alex. You’re getting so good at understanding the imperial language.”
To punctuate her compliment, she gave Alex a kiss on the lips that the Demon eagerly responded to. With a passion that Jadis could hardly deny, Alex slipped her long tongue inside of Jay’s mouth and began stroking and playing with a dexterity that no human could match. The feeling of the lusty demonette’s tongue was a huge turn-on for Jadis and she was eager to feel that strong and dexterous appendage elsewhere on her body. That hadn’t happened yet, but maybe soon?
Jadis was glad to take things somewhat slower with Alex than she had with the others. While Alex was clearly an adult by Demon standards – she had to be since she had not just her primary, but her secondary classes – she was also incredibly inexperienced. All of Jadis’ other lovers had decades of life experience under their belts while Alex had only months. Jadis didn’t want to overwhelm her. She didn’t want to reject her feelings for her either, though. That had been why, with everyone else’s agreement, she had brought Alex into the group.
There were still some reservations among the others, Jadis could tell. Not enough that they had blocked Alex’s inclusion outright, but certainly there were some mixed feelings.
Some of those hesitations seemed to have been smoothed over by how Alex had behaved once she’d been allowed to join them in bed. She hadn’t acted rashly or without thought, she hadn’t tried to take more when she was given a limit, and most importantly, she hadn’t hurt anyone either by mistake or intention. Jadis knew there were still a lot of deep-rooted fears, ones based on very real concerns, floating around in the minds of her girls when it came to Alex. However, Jadis knew that those fears were ultimately unfounded since they came from experiences with Demons as a group, not Alex as an individual. The more time they spent with Alex, the more she knew they would come to accept her as a companion.
“Are you two going to waste the whole morning kissing?”
Aila’s question reminded Jadis that she’d been sucking on Alex’s tongue for quite a while by that point. Pulling back, she grinned at Aila and shrugged helplessly.
“Can you blame me? She’s actually really good at it.”
Aila rolled her eyes.
“I’ll take your word on that—”
“For now,” Jay said, prompting Aila to give her a look.
“For now,” she continued. “But we do need to get up. We have things to do today and most of them can’t be done in bed.”
Jadis liked the implicit promise in Aila’s words. There would be one or two fun things to do in bed later. But for the moment, she was right. Jadis and the others couldn’t laze about. Not yet anyway.
As she and the others started rolling out of bed, Jadis noticed an already fully dressed Sorcha wander out from the hallway that attached to the main chamber. The goblin woman eyed the group as they all variously began putting on their clothes, or in the case of Alex, resisted putting on clothing.
“So, did you all fuck the Demon last night?” the witch asked with a skeptical expression.
“Not all of us,” Sabina quickly explained as she jumped up and down in place while pulling her pants on. The movement did wonderful things to her exposed breasts. “Just Jadis. And even then it was only oral sex, except only Alex was on the receiving end, which I think was probably a good idea because she was pretty stunned by what I think was probably her first ever orgasm, so it was probably a really intense experience. But now that Jadis tried it I’m kind of curious too because Alex is way sexier when she’s all hot and bothered than I expected and I’m thinking that maybe her tentacles could be kind of fun. Actually, I just realized I’m being rude because she’s standing right there and I’m talking about her like she’s not listening and I’m pretty sure she is so really, I should probably stop.”
Sorcha nodded, completely unfazed by Sabina’s verbal diarrhea. She’d obviously grown used to the smith’s habits.
“Uh huh. That sounds… well. That sounds like you, Sabby.”
“Don’t fret so much,” Kerr said as she threw an arm around Sabina’s shoulder and using the opportunity to surreptitiously cup the shorter woman’s breast. “Alex probably didn’t understand half of that anyway. She’s smart, but the language barrier thing means we can probably get away with talking shit about her to her face without her noticing for at least a few more months.”
The comment had clearly been intended as a joke, but Jadis still rolled her eyes at the insensitive nature of her crass lover. She thought Alex was doing extremely well with English. Or, Imperial. Whatever the spoken language was. She was just about to make a retort when Alex turned her gaze on Kerr and Sabina.
“Alex… Will… Fuck… Sabina… If… Sabina… Desire…”
Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Alex. That had been the longest and most complete sentence the Demon had uttered yet. And of course it had been about fucking.
“Kerr… Can… Go… Talk… Shit…”
While the stunned silence continued for almost everyone, a sudden maniacal laughter filled the room. Sorcha doubled over, slapping her knee as she let out a long, cackling laugh.
“She’s got you by the tail, Kerr!” the goblin cried between fits of laughter. “Talk shit, get shit on by a bloody Demon! Hah!”
Jadis couldn’t help but join in the laughter as the tension released and everyone started giggling as well. While Kerr laughed even harder than Sorcha, Eir sighed in exasperation before approaching Alex and trying to explain the finer points of polite conversation. Alex’s vocabulary was increasing by leaps and bounds, which meant the danger of her saying something rude to someone who might take offense was increasing as well. While Jadis wasn’t super concerned, she could understand why her more social-minded lover might feel differently.
Once everyone had gotten dressed, they headed to the dining hall to join Lyssandria's priests for breakfast. While they ate, they discussed their plans for the day. Aila had been right. There were a lot of things they had to do and to make things easier, they divided the tasks up and assigned different duties among the group.
Aila and Kerr were paired up to handle issues related to their mercenary company. Since they were in a new city, there was paperwork to be filled and filed so that they could operate legally without issue. They also still needed to investigate the matter of new recruits. Noll was helping with that, but Kerr also had contacts she could seek out who might be good fits for the company. Then there was the idea of possibly setting up a company branch headquarters in the capital. It wasn’t strictly necessary, especially since they knew that the temples would be happy to host Jadis for as long as she stayed in Eldingholt, but she didn’t think bumming around the temple district was viable long term for a mercenary company. Especially not if she wanted to maintain some kind of independence.
Eir and Thea were assigned to letter duty. There were dozens of invitations from rich and noble families, all of them interested in meeting the sole Nephilim. Jadis’ supposed legal troubles had put a damper on the volume, but not much of one and Eir had assured her that many more invitations would be coming. While it was tempting to ignore them all, Jadis knew it would be a bad idea to unnecessarily slight the kinds of people who could send invitations for balls and tea parties to someone like her. She had enough enemies. No need to make more. So, Eir and Thea would send responses in Jadis’ name, accepting a few of the less potentially contentious events while politely declining the rest.
Sabina, Bridget, and Sorcha were given the fun job of checking out all the advertisements that had been sent her way from the crafters and merchants. Jadis didn’t plan on accepting those offers, but there was no reason not to check the wares out. The company was actually fairly well flush with cash and they could all afford some upgrades to their equipment. Plus, while the three women were out on the streets, they could gather some information about what was being gossiped about Jadis and the whole situation with Prince Hraustrekr. Jadis wanted to know what was being said, not so much because she was concerned about her reputation as she was curious about what kind of propaganda could be making its way around the city. Besides, just as it was foolish to insult wealthy nobles, it was just as stupid to ignore the opinions of the masses. Jadis was effectively a one-woman army and could live her life alone without issue, she was certain, but so long as she lived in a society, other people’s opinions mattered.
With all of those tasks assigned to the others, that left Jadis, Alex, and Tegwyn in a group of their own. Since the remaining trio just so happened to all be avatar races, that meant they were in a particularly unique position. Here they were in the temple district of the capital city, in a ring of High Temples that had dozens, if not hundreds of the most learned priests alive all gathered in one location.
It was time to do some religious investigation.
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