There was a storm of shouted questions and excited activity as the revelation of Alex’s pregnancy truly hit all of Jadis’ companions. Multiple voices called out to Jadis directly, their owners focusing on whichever of Jadis’ bodies happened to be closest. Not all of the attention was on Jadis, though. Eir practically pounced on the startled Demon, almost knocking them both over into the water as she slipped on the marble floor in her haste.
“You’re certain you’re pregnant!?” Eir gasped, her hands grasping hold of Alex. “You’re with child!?”
“I am… Uncertain…” the confused demonic paladin said as she held onto the overly excited oracle. “I don’t know… What this is… Supposed to… Feel like…”
“How do you know she’s pregnant?” Aila was demanding as she held onto Jay’s hand. “Was this some kind of guidance from Lyssandria? Or D?”
“No, it wasn’t an avatar thing,” Jay tried to explain, though the questions coming from the other women were coming fast enough that even her refracted mind was getting somewhat overwhelmed. “One of the class options I was given revealed it to me.”
“A class option?” Kerr poked Dys with a clawed finger. “What the fuck!? How does a class option tell you that Alex is knocked up?”
“I don’t think class options can tell things like pregnancy,” Sabina said on Dys’ other side. “Not unless you got a midwife class, which I can’t imagine why you would, and I don’t think the class description would say something so specific.”
“It’s pretty explicit,” Dys replied as she batted Kerr’s finger away from her exposed thigh and tried to talk over Sabina’s continued rambling. “Unless having a baby with one of you is going to cause the birth of a whole new species that is absolutely demonic in nature, then it really only leaves one option.”
“A new species?” Bridget gaped. “What does that even mean?”
“Oh, Alex! You are with child!” Dys’ next response was cut off by Eir’s exclamation. “Lyssandria be praised! Bless you!”
Jadis wasn’t entirely sure what Alex had said to Eir while she’d been distracted by the others, but now the red elf was crying tears of joy. Her arms were wrapped tightly around Alex, who was for her part hugging the woman back, though she looked confused about the whole situation. Jadis had known that having children was one of Eir’s biggest dreams, but she hadn’t expected her baby-crazed lover to be so emotional over one of her other lovers becoming pregnant.
“Congratulations,” Thea was quietly saying to Alex at the same time as Eir sobbed into her chest. “I h—hope your ch—child will be b—born strong.”
“What exactly do you mean by a new demonic species?” Aila asked, once more tugging on Jay to get her attention.
“This is not the way I thought this day would end,” Sorcha shook her head, still sitting next to Syd. “Demon attacks and Demon babies. What the fuck.”
“Since we’re all together, does this make us co-mothers? Aunts? Guardians? How does that work, exactly? Also, is it too early to think of names? Because I’ve always thought Alexa was a good name so if Alex has a baby girl that would be a nice fit. I’d name my daughter Alexa—”
“Stop!”
Jay’s shout was loud enough to cut through the noisy confusion, bringing everyone to a silent pause. Even Eir settled enough that she was just letting out the occasional sniffle rather than outright bawling.
“Okay, this one’s on me. I shouldn’t have announced it like that. Let’s all just calm down. This is getting way too chaotic. I’m going to sit down in the bath. Let’s all do that, okay?”
They were, after all, still just standing around naked in the bathhouse. Jadis wasn’t entirely sure how long they would have the space all to their own; she figured Irene would probably bar anyone from entering until they left, but that didn’t mean priestesses wouldn’t be sent to check up on them. The hectic and confusing scramble of questions coming from all directions wasn’t going to work. A little bit of order was needed.
“Okay, let me start with how I found out,” Jay said once all of her lovers and her two other selves had settled in the large, heated pool together. “Like I said, one of my class options revealed the pregnancy to me. I’m going to read the description out loud, then we can calmly discuss what it means.”
When everyone had acknowledged Jay’s words in agreement, she recited the passage out loud for them all to hear. Once done, she waited to see who would speak first.
“That description certainly seems to indicate you’ve managed to impregnate one of us,” Aila was the first to find her voice. “However, are we certain that Alex is the one pregnant? Could it be another one of us?”
“She must be pregnant,” Eir insisted as she clutched onto Alex’s hand with two of her own. “She can feel the new life growing in her womb.”
“Can you?” Syd asked. “Really?”
Syd was sitting to Alex’s right, while Eir was on the Demon’s left. Alex’s general action and appearance was contemplative. She didn’t look confused, necessarily, just thoughtful. One of her hands was resting on top of her stomach, and an occasional expression of deep concentration would appear in her eyes as she focused inward.
“I feel so…” Alex answered Syd a few heartbeats later. “The life is… Small… Hard to touch… But something… Is there… Within me…”
“Holy crap…” Syd croaked as her throat tightened up. The realization was still setting in, but hearing Alex confirm the fact was hitting her harder than any Demon had ever hit before. “Alex… We’re going to have a baby…”
Syd couldn’t help but lean in and nuzzle against the side of Alex’s face. She placed small kisses all over her cheek and jaw, finding it easier to show her love physically rather than by words at the moment. Alex leaned into the affectionate touch, happily wrapping her tentacles around Syd.
“The child… Will be… Perfect…” Alex said before catching Syd’s lips with her own for a lingering kiss. “She will be… Our Joy…”
“I think that settles the question, Blue,” Kerr said somewhat gruffly, though Jadis noticed she was discreetly wiping at her eyes. “Fuck. The squid got bred first. I didn’t see that coming. I figured Eir would have been the chief baby-maker.”
“I have faith my time will come,” Eir said as she made no attempt to hide her own tears. “This is truly a joyous occasion. Lyssandria has blessed you both, Alex and Jadis. I fear my heart is going to give out, I am filled with such elation!”
“Hey, I’m with you on that,” Bridget said as she shifted forward slightly to lean towards Eir. “This is the best news I’ve heard all night. I mean, that’s not hard considering the night we had—fuck, not the point. What I’m trying to say is, we’re all happy about this, but how is everyone else going to feel? Jadis just made a baby with a Demon. That has got to be a first. What happens when the temple finds out about this? Or the public? What are either of the princes going to do with this news?”
Bridget’s pragmatic question brought the mood down hard. Jadis didn’t know for sure, but it wasn’t hard to guess. Alex had barely gained a measure of tenuous acceptance herself. From a legal standpoint, she was still basically little more than chattel. She had to wear a collar or else her life was assumed forfeit. She had no agency, no rights, and no defenses other than what Jadis could provide.
“I think the class description says it all,” Sorcha chimed in. “It said, ‘your offspring will need great care and guidance to survive on Oros.’ That’s a pretty clear warning, in my opinion. Not everyone is going to be okay with a new half-Demon race being born.”
“Half-Nephilim, though,” Jay pointed out. “I’d hope that Lyssandria’s followers would side with us on this. Plus, I don’t think the gods would be offering me a class intended to protect my children if they didn’t think they should exist.”
“That is true,” Aila said with a small frown. “Though it can be argued that the class was offered by Destarious, since you are his champion of sorts.”
Jadis winced slightly at how close to truth Aila’s remark had unintentionally come. Most didn’t seem to notice, though Thea gave her a narrow-eyed look.
“Destarious would offer a class just to sow chaos,” Aila continued. “His support isn’t necessarily a point in your favor in that regard. And while I do not believe this is the case at all, Samleos could have been behind the offering of the class. He is a god, just like the Nine who oppose him. If he can give Demons and Cultists classes, what’s to stop him from offering one to Jadis?”
“You really think he would do that?” Bridget asked, her tone showing deep concern.
“Personally, no,” Aila shook her head firmly. “I don’t believe that any offspring that would come from Jadis and Alex would be part of some terrible plan that Samleos has to make a new Demon race. But I can see how others could take that stance. It’s not impossible.”
“No, you’re wrong about that,” Dys spoke with quiet conviction. When Aila opened her mouth to speak, she cut her off. “You’re wrong. None of my children are ever going to be manipulated by Samleos or anyone else like that. Ever. It just isn’t possible.”
But the chance, no matter how much Jadis wanted to deny it, was there. She didn’t think the Progenitor class was something malign that Samleos was trying to use to control her future children. But what if it was? What if, by taking the class, she was opening up a door that would otherwise remain closed to the destructive and manipulative god? Succubi weren’t exactly known for being benevolent creatures in Earth mythology. What if, by choosing to be the progenitor of the Succubi, she was twisting the outcome of what her children were going to be? Of course, the opposite could also be true. What if she didn’t choose the class, and thus she missed the opportunity to keep her kids from becoming something evil?
What if the class didn’t make any difference at all?
“You’re an Avatar,” Aila spoke, her voice somewhat gentler than before. “Avatars cannot help but be influenced by the gods. At least a little. Even by denying everything their patron says to them, as Alex does, they are still being influenced simply by the act of denying influence. Some degree of manipulation is inevitable.”
Jadis normally loved the brutally intelligent brain of her redheaded lover. This was not a situation where she much appreciated her honest and unfortunately accurate assessment.
“Would these, uh, Succubi, even be Avatars, though?” Sorcha asked. “I mean, does that happen when different avatar races mix together? Do avatars ever mix?”
“That answer is complicated,” Eir answered, her expression having sobered significantly. “From the recent research I’ve done since coming to the capital, the children of two different avatar species are exceedingly rare. More so even than the offspring of an avatar and one of Valtar’s children, such as Elves or Humans. Most of what I read indicated that the resultant offspring are usually of one race or another, and only share some superficial traits of the parent they did not take after.”
“How am I not surprised that making babies with avatars is something you’ve been researching in your spare time?” Kerr said as she leered at Eir.
“It seemed a relevant topic to read up on,” Eir answered somewhat primly. “In any case, I would think that any child born of the union between Jadis and Alex would be either a Nephilim, or a Demon. That is what the scholars who had written on the general topic indicate, at least.”
That was interesting news to Jadis. One of her biggest concerns about repopulating her species as Lyssandria and her worshippers so desperately wanted her to do was the problem of incest. Even if she did impregnate herself, as some had suggested to her as a possibility to get a purebred Nephilim baby rather than a hybrid, that the problem of who her children were supposed to eventually mate with was still there. If one of her kids turned out to be one of the Nephilim genders who could reproduce asexually, then the issue was null and void. Jadis didn’t even know if her giving birth to a different Nephilim gender was possible, though. For all she knew, mating with herself would just cause her to pop out baby Jadis clones.
However, if Eir’s research was right, that meant that having a baby with another avatar race had a fifty-fifty chance of the resultant offspring being a Nephilim. That opened up a wealth of possibilities that Jadis could explore. She wasn’t interested in having any kind of intimate contact with a bear-person like Runar, not unless Valbjorn women were like therions in terms of their sexual dimorphism. And Lares were just completely out of the realm of possibility for obvious biological reasons. There was no chance in the world Jadis was going to stick her dick in a cat. But Dryads were absolutely compatible with Jadis’ tastes, as were Seraphim. Even Fetch could work, if Jadis could find one that wasn’t a complete asshat like Jack.
There was a more significant detail in Eir’s explanation that Jadis focused on first, though. The reproduction of Nephilim could wait.
“You said ‘usually’ of one race or another,” Jay pointed out. “Does that mean there are examples of the children being something else? Like with me and Alex?”
“I don’t recall any such examples,” Eir said as she looked uncertain. “Not in what I read. But one of the books seemed to indicate a third possibility, as I recall. I don’t think the author went into any detail, though.”
“Sounds like we need to visit the temple of Metethys again,” Dys said with a frown. “We need more information on exactly what a whole new race means. Something like this must have happened in the past. I can’t believe this is the only time in history a new hybrid species has been born.”
“Yes, we’ll certainly need to research all this further,” Aila agreed. “But I feel we should be careful with who we tell until we have a better idea of what to do. If the priests of Metethys find out about Alex’s pregnancy, then there will be no keeping the secret.”
Aila was right about that. The knowledge-obsessed scholars weren’t the type to hide information. It was practically antithetical to their faith.
“There is someone else we c—could ask,” Thea spoke up, her quiet voice just barely audible over the sound of the running water in the bathhouse. “It has b-been more than a month.”
It took Jadis a second to realize what Thea was suggesting, long enough that Eir beat her to it.
“We could perform my oracle ritual,” the elf said as she nodded appreciatively towards Thea. “In all the excitement, it slipped my mind. D could settle some of our questions nicely.”
“Yeah, he could,” Jay nodded, though she was more cautious about the idea. “He’s always a bastard about his answers, though. I’m not sure we’ll get a full explanation out of him, even with three clear, well-worded questions.”
“It’s still worth a shot,” Kerr said as she leaned into Jay’s side. “Besides, maybe Lyssandria will be there again, all proud and shit because you’re making babies. She might slip a few details.”
“Good point,” Jay couldn’t help but smirk at the thought. “I have a feeling Lyssandria would like having Succubi grandkids, if they’re raised right.”
“Why’s that?” Sorcha asked, her head tilting far enough to one side that the tip of her right ear dipped into the bath water. “What’s a succubi mean, anyway?”
“Succubus is the singular,” Dys answered, then hesitated as she realized she had no easy way to explain what the mythological creature was since Sorcha didn’t know about her non-Oros origins. “It’s something from old Nephilim stories. Nothing real. I’ll tell you about them later.”
“We’re going to need to take some careful time formulating proper questions for you to ask Destarious,” Aila mused out loud. “We might even want to consult with one or more of the high priests first. Just to get their advice.”
“Maybe…” Jay frowned. Now that the potential dangers had been brought up, she was feeling particularly protective of Alex and their unborn child. “We’ll have to talk about which can be trusted to keep it a secret for now.”
Eir looked vaguely offended at the idea of the high priests not being trustworthy, though the rest of her companions looked far more understanding. Just because the high priests were good people who were generally on her side, that didn’t mean that they couldn’t disagree on things or have their own agendas.
“Definitely can’t do the ritual tonight then, huh?” Bridget said. “Not unless we can come up with some good questions really fast?”
“No, not tonight,” Jay shook her head at the thought of having sex at the moment. “I just… not tonight.”
“Then we talk,” Aila nodded. “And we figure out as much as we can before we seek more information out from the scholars and their books.”
There was general consensus with that plan, with murmured agreement and nods of approval. One of their number didn’t nod, however, and instead focused her eyes thoughtfully on Jay.
“Jadis,” Thea spoke up once more, her quiet voice tinged with curiosity. “What were the other c—class options you were offered?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Jay blinked as she reoriented her attention. “That’s sort of a whole different discussion, but probably just as important.”
“Actually, it’s pretty related to the Progenitor class I’ve been offered,” Dys grimaced in thought. “I mean, the other options are almost all just as nuts, in different ways.”
“Okay…” Kerr sighed heavily. “Spill the sausage already. I don’t think Eir’s heart can handle too many more surprises, though, so go easy on us, big stuff.”
“I’ll try,” Jay shrugged helplessly. “But softening the blow isn’t exactly my specialty.”
From there, Jadis launched into an explanation of the other three classes she had been offered that night, much to the growing amazement of her companions. They stayed quiet while she read the descriptions of each class, though their expressions were varied and, in some cases, spectacular. When she was done, Jay took a deep breath and asked them all the question that had been at the back of her mind since she’d checked her new levels earlier in the night.
“So? Which class should I pick?”
296