“Who am I checking first?”
Priestess Bertha’s cheery question was directed at the group at large as she smiled happily. They were all gathered in one of the rooms that the temple normally reserved for patients. Lyssandria’s priests didn’t normally do as much healing as Ulya’s temple did, but they were still healers. Many of the rooms in the hall around them had been occupied with the more severely injured from the Demon attack on the city for the past couple of days. There weren’t as many patients in need of the beds anymore since most had been restored to the best of the temple’s ability and sent home, but a few people were still being watched over as they recovered from more serious injuries. Bertha had been aiding some of the other priestesses when Jadis and her companions had found the midwife and asked for a private moment.
“We’re already certain she’s pregnant, but we’d like some official confirmation,” Jay told the beaming priestess. “And before you proceed, we’re asking that you keep the results private for now.”
“We will want to make an official announcement at a later date,” Eir explained in her usual calm and sweet tone. “Until then, your discretion is greatly appreciated, Bertha.”
“Of course,” the matronly woman glowed with joy as she took Eir’s hand. “I wasn’t born a noble, but I’ve been around nobility long enough to know that announcing heirs is a serious business. I’m sure your parents are going to be thrilled once you tell them.”
Eir blinked rapidly, her mouth held agape for a split second before she recovered.
“No, I am not the one who we suspect is pregnant,” the elf said, doing a decent job of masking her disappointment.
“You aren’t?” Bertha frowned slightly. “I would have thought—oh, bother me and my wagging tongue. I’m sorry dear, I made a rash assumption. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s quite alright,” Eir said graciously. “Though, since it has been some days since you last checked, perhaps you should confirm, just in case?”
Jadis wasn’t sure herself, but it had probably been more than a week since they’d last had Bertha check to see if any of them were with child. Maybe one or two had sought out the priestess privately, but Jadis knew she hadn’t spoken with Bertha for a long while.
“One moment dear,” the older woman said as she gently squeezed Eir’s hand. A subtle glow of Divine magic passed and after a second, Bertha gave the elf a consoling smile.
“I assumed so,” Eir said as she forced a smile. “But we will keep trying.” Eir’s smile turned genuine as she turned her gaze towards the Demon in the room. “In any case, we have someone here who we know is pregnant! If you would please confirm her status for us?”
Bertha turned her head in the direction Eir was looking and locked onto Kerr, who was standing next to Alex.
“Are you the first then, dear?” Bertha smiled warmly as she bustled over to the startled archer. “I should have guessed as much! Your kind have always had an easier time of getting with child in my experience.”
“Woah, woah!” Kerr held up her hands to ward off the approaching priestess. “Not me! Her! She’s the one you want!”
Bertha followed Kerr’s pointing hand to find Alex staring at her with three neon-blue eyes. When their gazes locked, the Demon waved her two right hands at the plump midwife.
“I am… Pregnant…”
“You’re pregnant!?” the priestess exclaimed as she fell back slightly. Fanning a fan in front of her heated face, twisted back and forth in place as she took a minute to come to terms with the declaration. “Goodness me, goodness me! You’re pregnant? Lyssandria bless my soul! I would not have thought that even possible. You… you have the proper parts for breeding?”
“Yes…” Alex said as she looked down at herself, pulling the hem of the skirt Jadis had forced onto her upwards. “Do you… Need to see…?”
“No, not right now, dear,” Bertha said as she put a hand out to stop Alex. “Let me just confirm… Stars above, you are pregnant!”
Jadis had already come to terms with the fact of Alex’s pregnancy, but to hear it confirmed by the midwife had a greater effect on her than she had expected it would. Her hearts felt like they were going to burst, she was filled with so much excitement. Letting out a trio of whoops, Jadis reached for her lovers. Syd caught Alex up in a mighty hug and spun the Demon around her, laughing as she did so. Both Eir and Aila were caught up in Jay’s arms as she squeezed the two women together, and Thea had the fortune, or misfortune, to be the closest one to Dys. The shy woman let out her own yelp of surprise as Dys tossed her into the air and caught her as she couldn’t contain her joy.
“Congratulations,” Bertha’s warm smile had returned as she watched the spectacle Jadis was making. “This is without doubt the strangest moment of my life, but I am overjoyed for the both of you.”
“Never thought you’d be telling a Demon about her being pregnant, huh?” Kerr nudged the old priestess with an elbow.
“With all honesty, no,” Bertha shook her head with a good-natured laugh. “Though under the circumstances, I could not be happier to have done so!”
“Can you tell the sex of the baby?” Syd asked as she tried and failed to set Alex down.
“Yes, I have a spell for that,” she nodded as she reached out to the Demon clinging onto Syd like an oversized limpet. “I can also check for any health defects that would be dangerous for the baby or the mother. With your permission, Alex?”
“Yes…” Alex held out a hand for Bertha to take.
“What, you don’t want to wait for the surprise?” Bridget asked. “Isn’t that kind of the fun part? I mean, besides the making the baby part of it all.”
“This baby is a surprise enough as it is,” Syd shot back with a roguish grin. “Besides, it’ll be easier to pick a name if we know upfront what their sex is.”
Jadis had suspicions when it came to the sex of her and Alex’s child, mostly because of her notion of what a succubus was from Earth mythology. That didn’t guarantee the outcome, but she had no reason to think her supposition would be incorrect, either. Succubi were almost always depicted as female in lore. There was a male version, but those were usually called incubi instead. Considering her own nature, and the four possible sexes of Nephilim, Jadis guessed that her Succubus child was probably going to be either female, or more likely, some kind of dual-gendered being.
“The baby is healthy,” Bertha announced as her eyes took on a faraway look. “No defects or complications that my spell can sense. The child should be a perfectly healthy…”
The priestess’ voice trailed off as a puzzled expression fell over her face.
“Is something wrong?” Syd prompted with a worried frown.
“Hm? Oh! No, nothing is wrong at all,” Bertha shook her head. “I suppose my silly old head has been frazzled by too many shocks. I really shouldn’t be surprised at all; I simply am not used to Nephilim. Lady Alex, Lady Jadis, your child is a dual-sex type of Nephilim.”
So Jadis had been right in her assumption. She wondered if that was proof that all of her children would be futanari like she was, or if that was just how Succubi were all going to be like naturally. They really were walking into unknown territory and it was both exciting and scary to think about.
“You can tell that she’s a Nephilim?” Jay asked, though she already guessed the answer was no.
“Well, no, I cannot,” Bertha confirmed what Jadis had thought. “I suppose your child could be a Demon. I am woefully ignorant as to how sex works when it comes to Demons, I’m afraid.”
“We are… All female…” Alex stated while slowly petting the flat plane of her stomach.
“You are?” Syd asked in surprise. “All Demons? You never said that before.”
“You did not ask…”
That was an interesting tidbit of information that got Jadis’ brain working. All Demons everywhere were women? Were they all capable of reproduction or were they mostly sterile, like ants or bees? Did they have to become Matriarchs to breed? Alex clearly wasn’t sterile despite not being a Demon Matriarch, so that seemed to indicate that any common Demon was fertile. However, that might have just been a product of her being a rather unique Greater Demon.
All Demons being female was an odd thought that continued to tug at Jadis’ brain, even as everyone around her continued to chat about Alex’s confirmed pregnancy. She wasn’t sure why it bothered her, but it did.
Alex had been able to choose her class from the moment she had hatched from her egg. From Jadis’ understanding of how the class system worked on Oros, individuals gained their access to their primary class once they reached the age of majority for their species. That meant that a newly hatched Demon, literally only seconds old, was already at the age of majority for their kind. To Jadis’ reckoning, that meant that a freshly hatched Demon, regardless of the type, was fully grown, not just mentally, but in terms of sexual maturity as well. If all Demons were female, how did they reproduce?
Maybe it was something like the fourth sex of Nephilim. Jadis knew that her own species had a sex that was androgynous and was thus capable of reproducing asexually. That would make sense for Demons, except that Jadis never saw any Demons except for Matriarchs laying eggs. If every Demon could lay eggs, then why wouldn’t they all do it and flood the world in a tide of tentacles?
Thinking back on her biology courses, Jadis knew that there were species of fish and amphibians that could change their sex if needed. A clown fish could, under the right circumstances, morph from male to female. Some other fish could do the same, only in reverse. Was that how Demons operated? They were all female until one in the group established dominance and became the male? Except, Matriarchs, which were the biggest and most dangerous Demons Jadis generally faced, were also females. They were the egg layers, carriers that transported the gestating young of their kind. Jadis supposed that didn’t preclude them from also being male. They could be hermaphroditic, like her, or maybe they were like seahorses? Maybe the Matriarchs were actually male and just carried the eggs of other Demons around in a pouch? That seemed plausible, but if that was the case, then why call them Matriarchs? If they were actually male, Jadis was sure the system would have called them Demon Patriarchs—
Demon Patriarch.
Jadis’ eyes unconsciously widened at the thought. There was one Demon that she knew was always referred to in the masculine. The Demon Lord.
Every mention that anyone ever made of the Demon Lord referred to the monster as a He or a Him. Jadis was hardly a scholar on the subject, but she’d been reading some histories on the Demon Lord and past demonic invasions. She was certain that the Demon Lord was male in all of those stories. If the Demon Lord was male, did that mean that he was the only male? The sole male Demon in the sea of female Demons, sitting at the top like some kind of reverse queen bee?
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense to Jadis. It explained why there weren’t more Demon Matriarchs running around the world. To be pregnant, they would have to mate with the Demon Lord, and since there was only one of him, that would put a pretty heavy restriction on how many Demons he could impregnate. If sex for Demons was anything like people, he could probably get through quite a few in a short period of time. But Demons had shown themselves to be vastly different to every other species on Oros. There was no guarantee that Demons did things the conventional way.
There was also the fact that after the Demon Lord was defeated, the demonic invasion would end. Now, from what Jadis had read, she knew that the Demon Lord’s death didn’t mean an instant end to all hostilities. It usually took years longer for all the Demons attacking the realm to be fully wiped out. However, as soon as the Demon lord was slain, the tide receded. Every time, it was the same. Kill the Demon Lord, halt the flow of new Demons. If he was the only male Demon capable of breeding with the Matriarchs, then that explained why killing the Demon Lord was so important. He wasn’t just a powerful combatant or a military leader, he was the only source of new Demons.
It was a theory. Just a theory, and one that Jadis couldn’t readily prove. Alex could be wrong, after all. She’d certainly not seen every Demon, so her assertion that all Demons were Female could be a false assumption on her part. Still. Jadis wanted to explore the thought further. Maybe Alex could speak with more Demons? Maybe some of the academy scholars and Metethysian priests had some information to help as well? Whatever the means, Jadis wasn’t going to let the idea go. Something in her gut was telling her not to ignore the thought. And while she was certain that it was her own instinct that had led her to the idea and was telling her to pursue it, she could also tell that there was a strangely other, yet familiar, presence nudging her as well. Whether it was Lyssandria or D, at least one god agreed with her guts.
“I’m sorry, Lady Jadis, but I don’t sense any pregnancy within you.”
Bertha’s statement managed to jerk Jadis’ attention back to the present. She realized that the others around her were still talking about Alex and the new baby while she’d been spacing out completely.
“Sorry, what?” Jay asked as she bent a little over to better hear the older priestess. “I was, uh, lost in thought.”
“I was just checking to make sure, dear,” Bertha patted her hand. “I won’t embarrass you with stories, but from what I’ve heard around the temple it’s not just your beautiful lovers that stand a good chance of becoming pregnant.”
“Definitely,” Kerr joked as she leaned into Jay’s side and nudged her with an elbow before taking a bite out of an apple she had filched from the kitchens. “With how things were last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a little green goblin baking inside your oven.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that simple,” Jay huffed out a laugh at the therion. “I have an advantage with my one skill when it comes to you all, but it doesn’t work the other way around. From what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem like avatars and other races mix easily otherwise there would be a lot more half-breeds around.”
“Eh, maybe,” Kerr shrugged as she spoke around a mouthful of fruit. “But it would have been funny as D’s dick if Sorcha had gotten you pregnant on her first try. She would have shit herself.”
“Possibly,” Jay snorted, though Bertha gave the therion a scolding tut for her foul and blasphemous language. “I still think the chances are pretty low without some aid.”
“Low, but not impossible,” Bertha said as she narrowed her eyes at Kerr. Reaching out to gently tap the archer on the side of her arm, a warm smile spread across the matronly woman’s face. “After all, I was right! Therions always seem to find it easier to breed than other races.”
“Huh?” Kerr mumbled a noise as her teeth paused halfway sunk into her apple.
“Congratulations are in order for you as well, Lady Kerr! You are pregnant!”
All other sounds in the room instantly went away as Kerr inhaled a chunk of fruit and began choking on it.
“Huh?” Jay stared at Bertha even as she pounded on her horned lover’s back to knock the apple out of her throat.
“As I said, congratulations!” Bertha said to Jay before tapping Kerr with a finger to cast a spell that instantly cleared her airway. “You and Lady Kerr are soon to be the proud parents of two healthy baby boys.”
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