The Wicked Tower - Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“Wake up, sleepy head.” Naevia thought about gently waking her brother with something sensual, but she hit him on the head with one of his pillows instead.

“The dreamstone’s broken!” Vel sat up, blinking the dream of a strange, wooden room out of his eyes.

“Oh, is it now? Let’s add that to the ever-growing list of Tullius problems.” Naevia leaned forward on the bed, exposing some cleavage to his blurry eyes, and kissed his sweaty forehead. “You have nightmares about stones now?” She took a bit of his sheet and wiped the sweat from his face.

“Yes.” Vel nodded and relaxed. The dream quickly faded. “Ever since Brynhild cursed me.”

“Gifted you, you mean.” Naevia pulled the covers off him and was happy to find him naked. Although, his cock was not its usually morning steel. “Tired from yesterday?” She leaned down and kissed the slumbering beast between his legs.

“I think I’m recovered.”

“Recovered? You’re like an old man. When was the last time you woke soft?” Naevia climbed on and reversed herself so that her pussy was just below his chin. She stared down at his testicles. His cock was still massive in its somnolence, but smaller than she was used to. It made his balls look comically large. They had a faint fuzz of blond hair, and she could see purple veins running just under the wrinkled skin. Gods damn, men were strange and wonderful creatures. Vel had captured her heart long ago. Now that the seed from these sacks had worked her insides countless times, he ruled over her body, too. She leaned down and sucked on a testicle. It barely fit in her mouth.

“Jove above, this is quite a way to greet the day.” He pulled her stola up over her butt and gazed at her pink slit. It was easy to smell and see her eagerness for him. His eyes traveled up to her tiny butthole. Would she be able to take him as their mother had? They were both Tullius women, after all. Then his mind wandered to Bantia. The thought hit him that he could have her too if he wanted. He pushed that thought aside. Power should not corrupt a man. Especially a duke. His older sister was excited about her husband. She was not a threat to their safety, as their mother had been with that locking business. He would be careful not to touch Bantia’s skin.

Naevia plopped the ball out of her mouth with satisfaction. “He rises!” Her laugh was sweet and pure. “Mother and Cousin didn’t drain you completely.” She took the head of the growing cock into her mouth. Her mother had put that same cock in her ass repeatedly yesterday. Naevia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But seeing as how she seemed to be trying to suck the life out of him, maybe she could admit to herself that liked it.

“How funny that we were so thoroughly separated a day ago, and now you arrive at my bed like a wife.” Vel licked his finger and placed it at her butthole.

“Mmmmpppppphhhhhhhhh.” Naevia tensed at the new sensation, but let him push his finger into her. The heat from his touch spread from her backside through her body. Had he just said she was like his wife? The thought of it made her tingle. She now pumped his hard cock with both hands as she sucked, letting him do as he will with her butt. She wiggled her hips as the finger penetrated her further.

“Do you … um …?” Vel was hesitant to ask, but he loved the look of her tight hole gripping his finger. “Do you think you could take me back here?”

“Uhhhhhh uuuuummmmmmmm.” She shook her head a little while still bobbing on his penis.

“Could we try?” Vel pulled his finger out of her and buried his tongue in her pussy. They pleasured each other for a while without a reply from Naevia.

After a time, she made up her mind and spit him out. “Only for you, Vel, would I try something like that.” He had gotten so good at licking her lips that she wondered at the flood that must be going on back there. “But if it hurts too much, we have to stop.”

Ten minutes later, she let her brother thoroughly destroy her ass. It didn’t feel quite as good as having him in her pussy, but it was a close second. She accepted him on her hands and knees, pushing back at each powerful thrust. “Is … this … what you did … to Mother?” She hung her head, her copper hair curtained in front of her, her eyes on her dancing boobs underneath.

“Almost … exactly. But she … arched her back … and looked up.” Vel moved his hand from her hip and took a fistful of red hair. He pulled her head up so that she now looked forward, and her back curved beautifully. “Yes … like that exactly.”

“Oh … gods … Vel … it’s really … good.” Naevia gave herself over to a new kind of orgasm. “Ooooohhhhhhhhh.” Maybe this anal mating wasn’t second best. Maybe it was simply different. Amazing, and overwhelming and different. They humped like that for a while, both lost in the immediacy of it.

“I … uh … want you to do something … for me … Naevia.” Vel’s hands were both holding onto her butt now. It was a harder task to grip her cheeks compared to their mother’s. Naevia was a bit smaller, and her flesh was tighter. But Vel dug in his fingers.

“Anything … ugh … ugh … Vel.” Her ass rhythmically clenched that massive cock. She was fixing for another huge orgasm. If, a few months prior, a fortune teller had predicted she would learn to accept pleasure from her butt on the receiving end of her gentle brother’s massive cock, Naevia would have asked for her coin back. Such is life that at that moment, every act seemed inevitable, but it had all come at her from out of the blue.

“Do some magic for me.” Vel watched the little muscles in her back tense. He was glad she was still arching her back for him even without his hand in her hair. Such a thoughtful sister. “You’re a sorceress … now … do something … powerful.”

“I can’t … I can’t … control it.” She wanted to give him his every request. But she didn’t know how she had summoned that blue light.

“Give … me … some … magic … Sister.” Vel grabbed a handful of copper hair again and pulled her head back a little more roughly than usual.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhh.” She was his, completely his. Her body had surrendered itself to the power of that organ behind her. She would do anything he asked. Azure light ran up her arms, down her back, and then covered her legs.

“Yes.” The sight of his sister’s magical power spurred Vel on. He smashed into her tight ass harder than before, still holding her hair and listening to her whine. “My sister … the … gods damn … sorceress.”

Vel’s bedroom disappeared. He was in a circular, empty room. A man and woman with dark skin sat on the wood floor, a matte, black stone between them. The woman wore a strange headdress, and they both wore clothes the likes of which Vel had never seen before. Vel looked down at himself, but he was as invisible as the wind. The dark-skinned woman prayed to a god Vel had never heard of. It was Ella, or Allha, or some such name. She then fell over in what appeared to be a trance. Vel watched in fascination. How odd that he was fornicating like a madman one minute, and the next, he was incorporeal in this strange place.

After a time, the woman recovered. The man helped her. Behind them the matte stone shook and cracked. Pulsing red fissures spread along the black mineral in meandering paths. The glowing red embedded in the rock looked almost like living veins. The light seemed familiar somehow. And then, snap, the odd room with the odd people disappeared. Blackness enveloped Vel again. He fell. And then he was back in his body, still smashing into his sister’s ass. He let go of her hair, and her head fell onto the sheet, with her arms folded under her cheek.

“Did … you … see that?” His hips never fell out of rhythm. Had he actually gone and come back, or had he never left? “That strange stone?”

“I saw … a strange scene with … ugh … ugh … a dark stone.” Every nerve in Naevia’s body went into overdrive at once. Use of the magic worked her into an ecstatic frenzy. “I’m yours … Vel … my ass is yours …” She reached under herself and rubbed at her button. She could feel ecstasy in both places at once. What a revelation. “My … pussy is … yours. Oooohhhhhhhh. My … soul is … yours.” She hunched into the bed as a stratospheric high inundated her. She bit on the sheet and screamed.

“Naevia … ugh … I’m cumming … in your … ass.” It was a stupid thing to say. She was sure to know what was happening. But that level a pleasure made one stupid, it seemed. And he felt he had to say something to mark that momentous occasion. “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh.” The staccato of his hips lengthened their measure, his pelvis timed itself to each blast he released. “Ahhh … ahhh … ahhh … ahhh … aaaahhhhhhhhhhh.”

Naevia screamed and screamed into the sheet. Despite the natural heat of her gut, she somehow felt the warmth of each eruption inside her. The world spun, and she lost herself in the moment. When her mind calmed enough to take in her surroundings, she found herself flat on her stomach with her brother’s heavy weight pressing down onto her back and butt. Without thinking, she clenched her sphincter. Thank goodness! It still worked after what he’d done to her. She could tell from the feeling that he was still hard. His hand was back in her hair, holding her tight. As if he did not wish her to escape. She felt both pilloried and fixed on his spear. Naevia nearly held her breath, and dared not move. “You were … um … more forceful … this morning, Your Grace.” It was hard to get the sarcastic inflection with her voice muffled by the mattress and her breathlessness.

“It is … the force of your magic … that compels me … I think.” He rolled off her small body, and his dick left her butt with a plop. He landed on his back next to her and stared at the mural on the ceiling. His hand gently trailed the curves of her butt and lower back.

“Well, then … this magic is … even more useful … than I thought.” She sighed and took a deep breath with his weight off her and his great thing out of her. “I don’t think … I can do my ass … again so soon. But would you like some other part of me?” Her breath returned to her.

“I would … but we have to keep our wits about us.” Vel smiled lazily at the ceiling. “We have too much to do today. We must find Brynhild and gather her research. We must understand the queens regent and your new magic.”

“Those are some lofty words, when what you really mean is that you wish to save your cum for a visit with Mother.” Naevia propped her head up and laughed when she saw the chagrinned look on his face. “Do not tell me you were not going to try again with her today.”

“I was.” Vel nodded, still staring upward to avoid her inquisitive green eyes. “Are you mad?”

“No.” Naevia laughed again. “No jealousy between us, remember? But I would like to watch the whole thing this time. Can we arrange that?”

“You want to see our mother rutting?”

“With you? Yes. Very much.” She reached out and stroked his flat belly. “So?”

“If that’s what you want.” Vel looked over and smiled. Her giddy enthusiasm was catching. “Hop on, I think I can spare another go for you, Naevia.”

“Oh, good.” Naevia mounted him. “I was hoping you’d change your mind.”

“Naevia?” He looked up at her beauty as she sank down on him. “What was that vision you showed us?”

“I … aaaahhhhhhh … haven’t the … foggiest.” Her hips found a rhythm as she thought back to that cracking stone. “It was … ugh … strange though. All of it very strange.”

---

“Good morning, Mother.” Vel found Cassia with Bantia and a slew of servants out in the upper courtyard. “Morning, Sister.”

Bantia gave him a cursory smile and went back to instructing the seamstress on the alterations to her dress.

“Good morning, Vel.” A shiver from some mixture of anticipation and fear ran down Cassia’s spine. What was she to do with her son? Surely, he wanted to continue from yesterday, but how could they do it again as chaos rained down on their castle? “I know what you would say, Your Grace. And I don’t have any time for private tutoring today. The wedding has been moved to next week, and we are not ready. Not anywhere close to ready. The flowers, guest accommodations, the gown, the food, it is all out of sorts.” She caught him looking at her boobs, even though they were tucked firmly under a chest band and a modest stola. Had he ever stared at her like that before the curse? Probably. Whatever he was, he was still a nineteen-year-old man. “Ahem,” she cleared her throat to get him to look into her eyes. It worked, and his blue eyes met her brown ones. His cheeks turned a little rosy. “Perhaps your private tutoring can wait a few days?” She said.

“Of course.” Vel was so taken by her beauty. She looked wonderfully regal, with her straight back, braided hair, and circlet around her head. To think not long ago she had wrapped her tits around his cock and taken his spray on her sweet, round face. There was no way Vel was going to be able to wait another day. He had to have her. “I am the duke of this fiefdom. Perhaps we could talk, and I could take one of these chores off your hands?”

“You were not trained for wedding planning, Vel.” She kept her voice even. There were so many people around them, she didn’t want to let on that anything was off in her family.

“And you were?”

“Yes.” She smiled, showing off the dimples on her round cheeks.

“I insist, Mother.” Vel tried to casually smile back. “Let me help.”

Cassia chewed on her bottom lip, unaware of the unladylike mannerism. He was so tall and handsome. He had sprouted like a weed, and while not chiseled from stone like his brother, he cut a compelling figure. She took a deep breath. “I’m going to go give your brother a task, Bantia. I’ll be back in a little while. Can you manage here without me?”

“What?” Bantia gave her mother a confused look. This was odd, but Vel was the duke. She supposed it made sense to give him busy work. “Oh, sure. I can manage things for a while. Twenty minutes?” She eyed her brother. His sandaled foot scuffed at the ground like a horse ready for a race.

“Yes.” Cassia nodded.

“Ahem,” Vel coughed politely.

“Actually, make that forty minutes.” Cassia stood straighter. “I may need to walk him through it.”

“Very well, Mother.” Bantia watched mother and son walk into the castle together. Things had been so odd since her father had left, and her older brother had disappeared. She hoped her father would return for the wedding, but it seemed quite unlikely given how quickly it approached. She turned from the gown to the florists and talked colors, forgetting all the other Tullius troubles.

---

“We have to be quick, Vel.” Cassia worked his long penis between her breasts. “Are you close?” They both stood naked in the library, with their clothes hanging from nearby chair backs. She had wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be rumpled when they left in a few minutes.

“Getting … there.” Vel, emboldened by the manhandling of his sister earlier, cupped his hand around the back of her head. The silver circlet was cold against his palm. He pushed her face down onto his cock. “Use your mouth, too.”

They were both aware that this wasn’t a request.

“Okay,” Cassia nearly whispered. Gallio was a stern, commanding man. But he had never ordered her as her gentle son was doing now. She thought maybe this was a bright line they should not cross, and she should correct Vel. As a duke, one should not ask for the favor of subjects and servants, instead commanding them. But to peers, one should phrase what one desired as a question. And while she was still his mother, they were peers in their rule, and in the carnal tasks the curse commanded. But rather than expound didactic on these lessons, Cassia said, “Mmmmpppppphhhhhhhhh.” She took that large, crimson head into her mouth and stroked up and down his great length with her breasts. His hand pulled and pressed her skull, and she understood his meaning. She bobbed on that head. She couldn’t take much into her mouth, but she did her very best.

“So … Mother … what can I do to help with the … uh … new wedding date?” Vel looked up at the catwalk to the third level of shelves. He could just see Naevia’s hair, and half her pale face peeking out from a column. He couldn’t help but smile up at her. He realized he was showing off for his sister. Fun as that was, he would have to be careful not to push their mother too far. “Would you like me to attend to guest accommodations, Mother?” When Cassia tried to pull her mouth off him to talk, he held her head so that she couldn’t dislodge his cock.

“Mmmppppphhhhhhh.” Cassia was beside herself. He was toying with her. She was the Duchess of Ostia Nova, and he was toying with her! Her own son. A man she had raised to know better. While her mind rebelled in outrage, her body betrayed her. Her poor vagina gushed. She could feel the wetness running down the insides of her thighs. And her hands continued to press her boobs around him, her spit dribbling around her lips, lubricating her work. Without his guidance, she tested her limits and nudged his cockhead into her throat. “Gggggggrrrrrggggggg.”

“Gods … yes … almost …”

“Gggggpppphhhhhh.” Panic hit Cassia. She couldn’t let him plaster her again. There was no time for the baths, she was probably late getting back to Bantia as it was. She put her palms on his pelvis and pushed back, but he was so strong.

Sensing that his mother had changed from frenzied lust to fear, Vel released her head. He watched her pop off of him and take a few unbalanced steps back. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up at him.

“You cannot soil me today, Vel.” She could still feel the heat of his touch moving through her. She looked around wildly for a solution as he stroked his cock with his own two hands. Why did that sight have to be so alluring? His tunic. They could use his tunic. If his robes were clean enough, he could leave without a tunic under them. No one would notice. Probably. She picked up the tunic, squatted down in front of him, and pushed his hands away. “I’ll finish for you.”

“Sure.” Vel was disappointed by the turn of events, but he understood that he was intruding on a hectic day. He could settle for her hands. But, before he could explode, she surprised him again.

“Okay, okay.” Cassia dropped the tunic to the stone floor, and turned around. She gripped the sofa. Staring at her trembling hands, she noticed that the sofa’s fabric was ripped. She tried to ignore the sight of Gallio’s iron ring. “I need it. I need it in me.” She gyrated her hips in what she hoped was an alluring motion with her butt. Gallio had liked when she did such things, anyway. She felt that large invader push up against her. It was so slick with prefluid and spit, she hoped it would have no trouble sliding in. “Wait … no … Vel. We can’t … not there.” She gave a sigh of relief as the cockhead moved away from her vagina and found her butthole. And then she exhaled rapidly and didn’t breathe at all. He was stretching her again. And she was going to take him. “Do it … Vel. You can let it out … inside me. But only … back … there. Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh.” Her voice hit a long, high note as he lunged his cock forward. Within seconds, they were colliding against one another at a rapid pace.

“Mother … Mother … Mother …” Lightning crackled on all of Vel’s nerve endings. He’d forgotten about his sister watching from up on the catwalk. He’d forgotten about getting his mother back to the tasks of Bantia’s wedding. He reached for his mother’s brown hair and pulled one of her braids from under her circlet. He willed himself back from the orgasmic edge to prolong the moment.

“Gods … Vel … you’re a tempest … trapped in the body … of my son.” She was now only pressing into the sofa with her fingertips. All of existence bent in toward their copulation. His intruder plundered her and remade her tunnel in the inverse of its own image. At the same time, it bathed her nerves in a type of warm bliss. All troubles, of which many plagued her, sloughed away in the beauty of that time. “I can feel it … you’re going to … spray it … inside me.”

“Yes … yes.” Vel had a fleeting thought that it was a stupid thing for her to say. Of course, he knew that he was about to cum in her ass. But he knew how such moments dulled the mind. As his cum blasted into her, he realized he liked making his mother a little stupid.

“Eeeeiiiiiiiiiiiii.” Cassia shuddered and convulsed as his seed splashed where it could do no harm.

She stood bent over with her butt in the air for several minutes, until he pulled out of her. Slowly, she straightened. She tried to clench her butt, but already she could feel his sperm leaking from her. There was just so much of it. Outside the great bell chimed two.

“Gods … Vel … have we really … taken so long?” It was well over an hour since she left her daughter in the courtyard. “Your sister will wonder where I am. She might have already sent out search parties.” She quickly put on her chest band and then held her linen underwear in her hand. It would never contain Vel’s flood. Her eyes caught the tunic on the floor. She moved to her stola and bent down to retrieve her knife from its pocket. “Do you love that tunic, Vel?”

“What? No.” Vel looked up at his sister on the third level, who was now halfway unhidden by the column. She put her hands on the column and silently mimed having sex from behind, tossing her head back and forth like a wild woman. Vel slid his finger across his throat, telling her to stop. He couldn’t burst out laughing now. If their mother noticed her up there, both siblings would be dead. “It’s just a tunic.”

“Great.” Cassia unfolded her knife, cut a long strip from the tunic, and folded it. She then put it inside her underwear as she pulled it on. She hoped it would hold. “Don’t look at me like that.” Cassia caught her son staring at her handywork as she slipped back into her stola.

“Sorry.” Vel looked away. Now that he was no longer penetrating her, his assertiveness was somewhat diminished. “It just was sort of … an alluring spectacle.”

“Gods, Vel.” She looked at his thing rise again between his legs. “I’m already late. Not again.” She rushed to the door before he could catch her with his curse. “Maybe tomorrow.” She unlocked the door and looked back at him. “If we can make it faster than today.” She opened the door. “And don’t worry about the guest accommodations. I’ll figure it out.” She turned and hurried away, holding her boobs as they bounced with her down the stairs. She was going to organize her daughter’s wedding with her son’s stuff up her butt. The thought of it sent a quick shiver though her. Was it the curse that made that so compelling a thought? Or was it, on its own, as splendid as it seemed? She wasn’t sure.

---

“Oh, Vel … you’re going to do it in my … butt. And I … the mighty duchess … will take it alllllllll.” Naevia tossed her head around in a pantomime of ecstasy up on the catwalk. She then looked down at him and laughed.

“Quiet. Someone could hear you.” Still naked, Vel rushed across the library to close and lock the door. He looked up at her with his eyebrows drawn in anger. “I wouldn’t have let you watch if I knew you were going to make fun.”

“I’m sorry, Vel.” Naevia’s smile faded, and she turned to climb the ladder down to the floor. She looked over her shoulder at him as she descended. “It’s just a crazy to see Mother like that, going mad on the end of your spear. And I guess, I wanted to laugh about it to … you know … unwind some of the tension.”

Vel’s shoulders relaxed. A smile crept onto his face. “That was funny for her to say, telling me when I was going to cum in her. Mother can be controlling.” He laughed a little.

“It seemed you were the one controlling her.” Naevia got to the bottom of the ladder and stepped off. She turned and faced him, slowly pulling up her stola so he could see her pale legs.

“I thought you might like watching that, Naevia. I mean … was it overkill?” He watched her slowly approach him.

“I thought it was just-enough-kill. After all, who taught you to treat women so?” Naevia pulled her stola off and dropped it behind her. She was naked and thrilled at the way Vel drank in her body with his eyes.

“My sweet sister did.” Vel bent down and kissed her on the lips.

She playfully pushed him away and turned around. “After this morning, I don’t think I can take you back there.” She bent over for him.

“Still sore?” He moved closer to her. 

“It feels strange.” Naevia wiggled her butt in an approximation of what she’d seen their mother do for him not long ago. “But my pussy is ready. What do you say?” She looked over her shoulder at him, a big, stupid smile on her face. “From Mother’s ass to my pussy?”

“How could I say no?”

---

The cephalopod banners hung lifeless above her. Cassia shivered. It was not the cold of the great hall that tugged at her nerves. It was the aftereffects of what she’d done with her son. She felt … good. It was such an unnatural feeling in the troubled times that had haunted her, but it was undeniable. Despite the difficult tasks ahead of her, a relaxed calm had followed her from the library.

“Welcome Lord and Lady Uticensis.” Cassia held her stola out from her body and curtsied. The movement may have forced more sperm from her. She wasn’t sure. “We weren’t expecting you for several days.” Her shoulders sagged at the joyous thought of the time she’d just spent with Vel. She forced her shoulders back up and straightened her spine.

Lord Lars Uticensis bowed deeply. “Your Grace.”

“We were aghast at the date change. Really, we were, my dear Cassia. Um … Your Grace.” Lady Norbana Uticensis curtsied low, much lower than her duchess had. She had known Cassia since before either had married, but she tried to remember to keep things formal. “We thought we would help.”

“Yes … help.” Cassia eyed them both. They were people of the Surround through and through. Both with olive complexations, brown hair, and a compact stature. “Did you send a pigeon? I confess, I did not know of your arrival.” She expected Norbana’s cheeks to flush at this confrontation. One did not simply stop by the duke’s castle without forewarning. Cassia thought back at how the queens had done just that not long ago. Well, the Uticensises were not the queens regent.

“Did you not receive our pigeon?” Norbana smiled up at her friend, finally rising from her curtsy. “Those devilish things are always losing their way.”

“Yes.” Cassia was quite sure the reason all of the Surround used pigeons was that they almost never lost their way. “I will have a room made up for you in the south tower.” She looked beyond the lord and lady to their five servants standing in a line, patiently waiting by the door. “And we can find accommodations for your staff in the servants’ quarters. I haven’t had time to erect tents yet.” At the word erect, she almost giggled thinking of her son’s tower of a penis. Gods she was mating like a teenager, and now thinking like one, too. She pushed those thoughts from her mind.

“You are most gracious, Your Grace.” Lars bowed again in a rather pompous manner.

“And how shall we help? I planned my own daughter’s wedding not long ago and –” She dropped into another curtsy as the duke entered the hall with his eighteen-year-old sister. “Duke Tullius and Lady Tullius. It is an honor to see you.” Norbana watched them saunter over to their mother. They looked a bit disheveled. They seemed young and careless, but most youth gave that impression to Norbana in recent years. But worse of all, they were so pale and had such odd hair. His blond and hers red. She shuddered at their northern strangeness.

“Greetings, Lord and Lady Uticensis.” Vel gave them a slight nod, befitting his position. He saw Naevia next to him bend her knees in a small curtsy. “I did not know you were to arrive today. What brings you to my castle?” They hadn’t yet located Brynhild, but Vel was glad they had entered the hall when they did. This was clearly an intrusion in his mother’s day.

“Yes, sorry, Your Grace.” Lars looked a bit flustered. “My wife thought we might be able to help with the compressed preparation for Lady Bantia’s wedding. In our haste over here, we may have forgotten to send our pigeon.” He eyed his wife reproachfully.

“I see.” Vel caught his mother’s eye and saw the exasperation there. She did not want or need the help of these two. “Naevia and I will show these lovely guests to their room. The south tower is it?”

Cassia gave her son a thankful smile and nodded.

“Help, you said?” Vel strode over to Lady Norbana and took her arm in his. He had to bend down a little, as he towered over the woman. “There are many tasks that need doing. Isn’t that right, Naevia?”

“Very true, Your Grace.” Naevia smiled and hooked arms with Lord Lars. Together, the siblings led their guests toward the south tower. “The tents are going up on the east meadow today. How are you at erecting tents, Lady?” Naevia snickered at the double meaning. Lady Norbana was a beautiful woman, and if she was not familiar with creating a pavilion, she had surely caused many a tunic to swell in her day.

“Um … we were thinking more of offering our services as decision makers.” Norbana frowned over at the woman holding her husband’s arm.

“We’ll get your room made, and the two of you can rest and think on a whole list of planning issues.” Vel had no list, but he could easily invent one. The goal was to give his mother space. “And how was Lady Issy’s wedding?”

Cassia heaved a sigh of relief. She felt quite grateful to Vel. As she turned and hurried off to her next task, she wondered what sort of reward he had earned himself.

---

The sun was low when they finally found the sorceress. Dellia had caught up with her cousins, so the three of them entered the cellar room where Brynhild appeared to be holding a meeting with half the servants.

Brynhild caught sight of her duke and clapped her hands. “Very good. I am proud you’re all working so hard on this wedding. It will be a day to be remembered. Now go about your tasks.” The men around her scurried out of the room. When they were gone, she turned to Vel and his two companions and smiled. “Your Grace.”

“Should not one curtsy upon greeting the duke?” Dellia’s face turned sour as she eyed the tall, blond woman.

“Of course.” Brynhild gave the barest hint of a curtsy.

“What are you doing with the servants, Sorceress? This is the second time we’ve found you with them.” Vel eyed Brynhild with suspicion.

“Only following up on your orders from the other day. Making sure they stay in line.” The sorceress eyed Dellia. That one was the weak link of this trio. She had no magic. She had no help from that infernal gust of wind.

“Well, you needn’t follow up on that any longer. I asked you to devote yourself to finding out more on the queens, and on that relic tower,” Vel said.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Brynhild nodded.

“Well?” Naevia bristled at the obfuscation. “What have you found?”

“I haven’t found anything new, yet.” Brynhild turned to Dellia. “You can volunteer to assist my research. I could use a smart, strong woman by my side.”

“She’s trying to beguile me, Vel.” Dellia sounded almost bored. Her hand caressed the handle of her dagger fastened to her belt.

“Yes, she does that.” Vel shook his head. “I want you, Sorceress, to travel to Minerva’s monastic library and find all you can on those topics. You are not to return until you find something useful.”

“But, Your Grace, I must help with the wedding.” Brynhild stepped toward Dellia, trying to lay her left hand on her.

“She means to touch me, Vel.” Dellia’s voice was still filled with ennui. But now also a threat of something lurked behind it.

“Yes, I see. Stop it, Brynhild.” Vel stepped toward them. But the sorceress continued on her course. Before Vel could reach her, Dellia’s skin radiated an azure light. There was a flash and Brynhild was on her butt on the stone floor. Just like what had happened with Naevia and Brynhild out on that terrace. Vel stopped in his tracks. “Well, that solves that then.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to do that.” Dellia drew her dagger and held it up. “Magic takes the fun out of things. I thought I was going to get to threaten her with this.”

“You … you both possess this blue magic?” Brynhild’s eyes were wide. She looked up at the tall, lean figure of her duke. Clearly, he was doing this.

“It seems so. And you would do well to remember it.” Dellia leaned toward the woman, hooked the straps of her stola with the dagger, and cut them, one at a time. The stola fell down. Dellia thoroughly enjoyed the look of shock on the woman’s face as she then pulled down Brynhild’s chest strap. “Now those are some massive tits.” Dellia sheathed her dagger, reached down, and smacked the right boob. She watched it shake. “You were not always like this. Why the change, Sorceress? I thought you were plenty beautiful as a svelte minx.” She smacked the other breast. “But these tits. I mean, fuck. They might be too much.”

“Leave her be, Dellia.” Vel didn’t like to see a person humiliated. Even a woman as frustrating as Brynhild.

“As you command, Your Grace.” Dellia straightened herself and stepped back next to her cousins.

“Get yourself to Minerva’s Library, Sorceress. And I expect you to come back with answers.” Vel turned and led Naevia and Dellia out of the cellar.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Brynhild hissed. She reached for her torn stola and covered her breasts with it. She so hated this sow’s body. She would travel to the library. But she was most interested in researching how to channel what Vel gave so freely to the women around him. 

Continued in Chapter 15

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