A Cold Blood War
Ellorien slicked back his mahogany mane with a bit of spit and judicious application of claw before ringing the buzzer beside the wrought iron gates, much to his companion's consternation. Willem thought such common mannerisms beneath a lord's dignity, but as Ellorien saw it, he was a wizard first, noble second, and any magus was allowed his... Eccentricities. Anyway, Willem Sarand's huffing was a bit hypocritical, as the tawny old felidus had a few "eccentricities" of his own and had been a noble of Tramand, albeit a minor one, all his life.
None of that, however, explained why they were standing before the gates of the manor belonging to the High Seat of House Murand, Kephin Murand, as their coach waited in the street. If that wasn't old lady Merilille shaking her cane at the driver, Ellorien would eat his own liver... He twisted his head back around, ears still twitched back, as at last a black and maroon-liveried servant approached the gate. Only one? Ellorien wondered. Last he had been here, three or so years ago (he wasn't very good with time, sadly), a host of four had come to fetch him, and that had been considered small and almost shameful for Murand, who had been in a flurry of preparations for the latest campaign in the New World. Nevermind that the High Seat himself would have almost assuredly come to greet them... Perhaps what the rumor-mongers said about Murand was partly true and he had taken some sort of wit-addling illness in the Drowning Lands. They also said his pretty wife kept him well in hand, what with him chasing off quite improper "suitors" at least twice a month. Ellorien pushed the intrusive thoughts from his mind. He would not begin to engage his old friend in the Game as he did every other House. There had to be limits after all.
"Ellorien Demar, High Seat of House Demar?" the servant inquired politely after making a neat leg. "Please do come with me, and I do apologize for my tardiness. Do you know Linne? She certainly has your apartments ready by now. I must say it is a pleasure to meet you and your companion, Lord Sarand?" Willem nodded, tufted ears perked up at the mention of apartments. The old chap had a soft spot for a midday nap, even if it was out of favor in the Tonne now.
The pair followed the chattering servant, who assured them a groom would be after to take care of driver and coach quite shortly. It seemed House Murand had let go of many of their old servants, leaving not but a skeleton crew--"Nothing to do with the state of our liquidity, I assure you!" the felidus added breathlessly, touching the tip of his black muzzle in what had to be a gesture of nerves. But few had been by to visit this last year, and much of the house had been shut away, especially since Murand's eldest had fallen in the Seventh Siege of Clarmont. House Murand was one of the few human Houses left in the entire country, Ellorien's own counting with them. Their race had found itself considerably vulnerable to the depredations of those damnable bugs, and whole families had died out when their young went to war. The felidae were not much more fortunate, to be honest, but they'd proved hardier in the fertility front.
Once within the massive manor, Ellorien and Willem were quickly left to their own devices in a small, windowless drawing room. "You don't think he'll much mind if I have a pipe, do you?" Willem asked, and Ellorien scowled.
"No, but you know I will, and so will your wife if she knows you've been puffing on that. She'll have both our hides for rags. Don't even think of it again." Muttering about how his wife had even brain-washed his best friend, Willem subsided. Surely he'd known Ellorien would have nothing of it.
After a bit, Willem got over his sullenness and the two discussed the rumors of the current Season they'd had at the last inn. It seemed the city was in a kerfluffle over some little chit or other's engagement, yet another cross-racial match to knot up the more conservative factions in Aegoria. With no Alterists in the kingdom, at least according to the official Crown line, the couple would never be fertile and would likely get pregnant through a proxy and unironically declare that a miracle had occurred.
In that manner, the time passed quite pleasantly, both drinking the tea the servants had left for them and murmuring over growling bellies. The door creaked, opening widely to reveal Kephin Murand seated in a wheelchair, a quilt spread over his lap, and apparently a quite fluffy pillow beneath. His once-handsome face had become quite drawn, but he smiled, even if a touch vaguely, to see Ellorien. Ellorien deftly elbowed Willem to shut his hanging jaw before his friend took offense, but Kephin caught the quick move and chuckled, a dry, rasping sound.
"Ah, yes, I'm afraid I'm not quite the lady-killer I was," he allowed demurely. "But let's not talk about my vanity. Ell, it has been too long. And Will. I apologize that you must see me like this--the doctor says it must have been a shard too near my spine. Do be a dear now and close the door?" Kephin finished, twisting his head to speak to the young, pale maid lingering in the frame. Saying nothing, she pulled the heavy wooden door to, then closed with a resounding click, leaving the three alone. The scent of potting soil wafted into the room on the rush of air. "It's been what now, five years?" Seeing Ellorien's wince, he gave a laugh once more. "Don't be worried--other than that, I'm healthy as a horse. Willem, how are the kits?"
Topic stepped around, they discussed Willem's family, then Kephin's, noting the loss it seemed of all but one child, still stationed in a far-flung southern fortress. He apologized for not inviting them to the wedding, "something of a shotgun affair on her part, I'm afraid," and the state of the war, the successes and failures of the latest campaigns, the whispered-of incursions from the north from the bugs and the discovery of a breeder beneath the port city of Brumond. Apparently their High Lady's husband had to be killed after being tainted by a drone. Worse yet, Vessels had been opened more frequently and going mad more quickly, laying waste to their surroundings before being severed by the Tower Wizards, and the nations were sending embassies everywhere, all talk of a new accord to further limit the wizards' rights, as though the Oaths were not enough. A wizard's potential was not the same can of worms as a Vessel's, but Ellorien could say little about his frustration in those matters--both of his friends had heard it before, and barely thought of him as a wizard at all. Why, wizards did not even channel through their own souls as Vessels did, there was no chance of them going mad. No moreso than any other mortal.
It was the Vessels they should all worry about--poor doomed souls whose reason was quickly scorched away by direct contact with the Power. Anyone could be a Vessel; there was little rhyme or reason for it, though it seemed to run in families most frequently. Some theorized that those with the ability to become wizards were only lesser versions of Vessels, and according to the most ancient histories, there was a time when Vessels never went mad and held dominion over much of the world. Such foolishness was enough to make Willem spit, but Ellorien said little on the subject. He had also read those histories.
Ellorien found the differences in what he and Kephin had heard more interesting than the new information; Kephin was weeks, if not months, behind the streetears in most things. He wondered at his old friend, who had once been so beautiful that women fell over themselves and even incautious men who leaned that way found themselves distracted enough to run into walls. His long, golden hair seemed touched with a duller shade, his skin sallow and loose against his form, always spare but now near gaunt. He still seemed a powerful figure, though; the muscle wasn't all gone, nor replaced with fat as Ellorien was sure his doctors and leeches wished. It was as though, seeing Kephin's bright eyes, the man was burning himself alive from the inside. Ellorien could put nothing on it but a feeling of... Something not quite right, not with that odd, earthy scent Kephin had brought in the room with him. Almost rot-sweet, but not quite--the breath of a smell rather than the smell itself.
They spoke until dark and beyond, past Willem begging leave to be led to his apartments, past the twelve gongs of Kephin's prized gear-clock. "My wife, she will return to the manor tomorrow, and I will be glad to introduce you then. Beautiful as you are, I am not very worried you will steal her away."
"Perhaps the opposite?" Ellorien joked, thinking of the rumors, but Kephin's eyes tightened. "Ah, sorry, my friend. I didn't mean it ill."
Kephin's expression smoothed, but a hint of something lingered behind his eyes. "I know, I know. . . But as for you. Are you and Willem...?"
"What? Us? No," he shook his head, "Not at all. I would never do that to his wife, and as for him... I believe he forgets all about that."
"I do wish you'd find someone... And settle down. Far enough on the frontier and no one will care what you do," Kephin replied, still careful in his words after all the years between them and the power he'd accumulated on the way. Still, no one knew where the church's listeners were, and no one could afford an inquiry of that sort, leastwise a High Seat. Anyone to overhear their conversation would have little but the weakest hearsay. "My holdings in the New World are not at all small. I would be happy to set you up there, to have the place overseen by someone I trust. You could leave as soon as tomorrow, should you wish--I know the Tower is desperate to place wizards there."
"You honor me too much, but I cannot take you up on the offer. Willem and I are in the city on a matter of... Business, you might say. I am sure you've heard the strange rumors floating around. I do not wish to say too much, but..."
"Hmm, yes, I suppose. But once you've finished the job? You cannot shelter with him forever, you know. People will talk of the two of you as they once..."
"Spoke of us?" Ellorien interrupted, a sour, wry twist to his voice. "I know. They do already. Oh, not so either of us can hear, but a man can tell. Though these days it's hard to tell if it's more for a man and a felidus than two males. May the Queen save diversity," he mocked. "I suppose I am being uncharitable. I know what you mean."
There had been a time when Ellorien thought bedding Kephin inevitable; constantly together, their friendship had its own peculiar strain, a way the man had of looking at him, the way he knew his expressions were not always as platonic as he could have hoped. Contact a hair too long, a bit too much care for comfort and safety, the jealousy of seeing Kephin with women on his arm... It had all come to naught but a near-kiss, and then Ellorien had left. To sully Kephin like that would be to destroy him, or so Ellorien thought at the time. The idiocy of youth--he had accepted the church propaganda and mourned himself for a decade before shaking the stupidity off like a serpentus' old skin.
Kephin rolled his chair over to the shelves that lined the sitting room and drew out a thick, leather-bound book and set it atop his pillowed lap with a slight wince. He kicked the edge of the quilt out from before the wheels and then rolled beside the chair where Ellorien sat. "Do you remember these?" he said quietly, opening the book to its third page, where photographs had been pasted to the cardstock.
They passed another hour that way, heads leaned together but not touching, air whispering between their shoulders, as they looked at old and fading memories.
***
Ellorien woke late in his sumptuously appointed rooms in the manor's east wing. The rooms had been decorated in a late hunter style, probably from the time of the Fourteenth Reign, God rest the good King Edmund, and was suitably dark to keep the sun from waking him up before noon, a more proper waking hour than whatever Willem had arisen by this morning. Of course the felidus had left a note on the side table, insufferable as always about being an early riser, and informing Ellorien that he would be out hard at work while the man lazed about in his bedchamber and smallclothes. He would be back in the late afternoon by third march, and the pair of them could take a repast if neither had, then get on with the necessary social niceties with their hosts.
Willem never enjoyed social niceties.
Ellorien readied himself quickly enough with a quick wash of hands, face, and mouth at the washstand, then dressed in black breeches, a white linen tunic with only a bit of lace at neck and wrist, and his blue jacket whose three, silver-shot white shoulder knots marked him a Third Tier wizard of good standing.
Leaving his chamber something of a wreck, he was unashamed to admit, he hurried through the manor's halls and to the breakfast room. He had spent much of his time here in his youth and felt no need to linger over the rich halls or the nooks with so much fragile porcelain. He'd broken some of that in his youth, too.
He arrived to find a fresh-faced, hugely pregnant lady dressed all in white linen and lace sitting at one end of the table, picking delicately at a tray with porridge and some sort of fruit stew while the maid from the evening before hovered over her. The lady, assuredly Kephin's wife, looked up and smiled, a bright expression enough to taken even Ellorien's breath away. Oddly, she was wearing glasses with dark-green lenses, though the lights in the room were not unusually bright, nor the sun glaring through the orangery windows to the north. "It seems I am not the only late riser," she said softly. "I would rise to greet you, but the doctors do not want me standing, so I am as my husband for a while yet. But it is a pleasure; I am Matrise Murand, nee Survandhil." He had heard she was of some barbaric Norfolk family, but she seemed naught but civilized and perhaps charming.
He made a leg, bowing neatly, and replied, "The pleasure is mine. I am Ellorien Demar, of House Demar. I hope you do not mind if I join you for breakfast? I had hoped Kephin would introduce us, but if he is on business, surely I can entertain you with my small wit." His eyes crinkled into a smile he did not quite feel. Where was Kephin?
"He is abed yet, quite worn from the day before," she said, careful not to directly implicate Ellorien, yet still indicating with downturned lips her disapproval. "He is... A little frail, my husband. He must rest often. Please join me."
Chastened, Ellorien sat at a chair near the far end. "Oh, not so far away--please, sit to my right, as a guest," she bid him as soon as he picked up the pitcher of wine. He moved closer, leaving the pitcher behind, and settled in the seat to her right. The strong, rich scent of perfume hit him, permeating his skin and clothes. It seemed familiar; perhaps some had rubbed off on Kephin. Ellorien felt certain that if he spent much time around a spouse that strong-smelling, he'd smell much more flowery than Kephin had last night. "Do you like music?" she asked, and gestured at the maid, who went to fetch a cup. "We recently bought a phonograph."
Machinery was a wizard's domain; as such, Ellorien could never help but be fascinated by suck talk. "A phonograph? What records do you have?"
"Oh, don't feign such interest," she laughed. "I know you must see these things all the time! I am being foolish, but I do enjoy these things, even if they seem common to a mighty wizard. We have several of the more popular composers, and of course my dear insists on all the classics he can order."
"Nothing could be further from the truth, my lady. I am afraid that much of the machinery I have seen in the past years has been only the type you take to war or to dry your socks, even the Grail models." Despite his desire to get back on the right foot with his friend's wife through this common interest, what he said was no lie; Ellorien had spent much of his time with war-machines, not luxury items, though those had been where his pre-deployment skills laid. While Grail mechanisms were the heart and soul of a wizard's craft, mundane models never lost their attraction, and were often more reliable, if more labor intensive, in the long haul. "I would enjoy hearing your phonograph play. Have you any favorites? I'm afraid I have heard little music these days fit for a lady's house."
As she happily clapped her hands together and set about ordering the ghost-pale, strangely flat-eyed maid around to get the equipment together, Ellorien took the time to look over her and the surroundings. The maid was an oddity; he had never seen a girl so disinterested before. If she had been lying down somewhere, he would have wondered if she were dead, so dispassionate she seemed. Eerie, not entirely unlike someone tainted by the drones, their own will superceded by the bugs'. He shuddered and shifted his attention, taking a sip of the well-watered wine Matrise had poured him as he spoke. Of course, she was pregnant--her servants would probably have a fit if she drank anything much more potent. Matrise was quite pale as well, but with a vigor that lifted the blood to her cheeks and mouth and made the movements of her beautifully rounded arms pleasant to behold even for an invert. Like a work of art, she was, alabaster skin enough to make a poet shed ink like blood, breasts to make a boy cry, and fine, jet hair that fell down to her back in ringlets. Kephin had been quite fortunate in this match, Ellorien knew, and felt a flash of envy he ruthlessly stomped down as the music began to play.
***
Five days passed with Willem and Ellorien prowling the streets in search of clues pertaining to their assignment, but much of what they heard was old or patently false, and the rest entirely irrelevant. Despite his infirmity, Kephin had become known for the viciousness with which he handled men paying inappropriate attentions to Matrise, many of them visitors some said Matrise herself had summoned to the manor for her entertainment. Ellorien found it hard to believe that such a mild woman could enjoy stoking her husband's jealousy, and Ellorien found rumors that agreed with him, painting Matrise as a misfortunate Helen whose beauty attracted unwanted attentions. That the men disappeared was more nonsense--if they had been shipped off to the front, it was all their due for such misbehavior. Willem always looked at Ellorien askance when he pressed for details on the matter, but he was satisfied soon enough, and so was Willem when Ellorien was suitably focused for his tastes.
Little on the street pointed to sabotage by the bugs nor any more cases of drone-taint within the city. The rumors of merchants and lesser lords working for the enemy seemed false; perhaps it was only the regular politicking such men used to climb the ranks of the Tonne, or maybe some over-imaginative noble used the detail in a story to gain more ears and eyes this Season. Each day, Willem and Ellorien sent out doves with the scarce fruits of their labor, and the only reply they had received was to continue.
Well, the next step was to take their labor to the Season's ballrooms and work with the nobility itself. Not that the pair could ever let it be known what they were about... The implications for the Game and for the nation's stability were appalling if the information were to get loose.
To access the Season... They needed House Murand's assistance.
***
"Absolutely not," Kephin bit out, lips pressed flat together. His expression was pinched, as though Ellorien had been asking for the last hour to sell Kephin's last child to the bugs. "I will not go, and she cannot. If you want to fritter your time away at those engagements, find another to vouch for you!"
"You know that's not possible," Ellorien replied patiently. Why was Kephin being so irrational about this? "I know no other Houses here so well as you, and if I do go to another, they will wonder why you did not vouch for me, and thus will refuse to as well." No one would want to insult a House as powerful as Murand was, waning or no. "Please--one night, and you won't have to make another appearance. She doesn't need to come."
"Are you suggesting I leave her here alone? She's with child!"
Ellorien sighed heavily. "I see. I apologize, Kephin. That was thoughtless of me... I am just over-eager to finish this assignment and have done with the whole business. I would rather be on the front than..."
"With a sickly cripple?" Kephin's voice was quietly dangerous. "I see how that would be a burden for you, staying with a pitiable friend like me when you could be fighting on the lines against a horde of creatures that would like little else but to devour you or use you as a host for their next million eggs."
The bitterness in that was overwhelming. Ellorien leaned back in the overstuffed chair. "Is that how you see it, old friend?" He looked into the lit hearth; the sitting room was overwarm, but it was still early spring, and chill outside. It wouldn't do for Kephin to take ill from cold. "I mean only that I do not have a mind for this Game, and Willem is ten times as fierce as any felidus. My ears mark me out as wizard, and even the noblewomen still remark about our tails and claws, if they aren't afraid that we will spontaneously turn Vessel and kill them all where they stand."
"...I am sorry, Ellorien. I shouldn't have yelled at you over this. But you must understand, it is not possible. I will send my confidences to House Ruibol, and I am certain they will vouch for you at Wednesday's engagement. Please do not press me further."
"I am grateful." Ellorien turned to face his friend. "I haven't told you this week how lucky I think you are in Matrise. She is a gem, and I am glad you found her. Why, I doubt there is another as beautiful in the Tonne."
Kephin snorted. "Do not talk so about her, or I will think you too need to be bundled off to the docks at midnight." The tone was light, but a threat was there. Taking the cue, Ellorien changed the subject.
"Dinner tonight was wonderful. Where did you get those..."
***
"Spending too much time with another man's wife," Ellorien grumbled. From Willem! He knew Ellorien had no interest in women, and Kephin should have known as well. To hear caution from Willem, who had stuck his muzzle up every skirt on any female until his own wife had finally chained him down! It was ridiculous. And now Ellorien was on his way to eat another late brunch with her again and perhaps beg her assistance on the matter of the Season. Three days had passed since he and Kephin had spoken about the vouch and the man hadn't sent the letter out and probably hadn't even lifted pen to paper! Instead, he was out "conducting business," probably harassing merchants over taxes or some such, and never around when Ellorien or Willem was.
It was all very aggravating.
He made his bow and greeting to Matrise upon entering, then quickly took the seat to her right. She tended to sulk a bit if he tried to sit further away as was proper, and he could not abide a sulky woman. Cooperation was much more convenient. She chattered away as he tucked into the meat pastry that seemed the centerpiece of this day's meal.
"You seem a bit out of sorts this morning," she said delicately, catching him as he wiped his chin with the cloth napkin. Startled, his eyes darted to her. "You didn't answer my question."
He swallowed and attempted to dissemble. Telling a woman you weren't listening was never a good idea. "I'm sorry. It sounded marvelous; I was just preoccupied with this fantastic... Turnover, wasn't it?"
"Oh, men," she said, amused. "I asked if you would like to see our copy of Lord Newton's designs. It is a first edition, and you told me last week that you had such an appreciation for his works. It took me some time to find it, which is why I hadn't mentioned it til now."
His eyes widened before he could stop himself. A first edition! Why, it was as good as written in Newton's own hand, then. A master artificer, the man may as well have been a wizard himself for all the excellence in his theories. "I would be... Flabbergasted," he said. "Please, I would love to."
"After breakfast, then."
If that wasn't incentive to shovel food down, nothing was. Perhaps in the study he could convince her to write a voucher then and there. He ended up eating so quickly that not only did he not taste the rest of the meal, he had to wait on her to finish picking at hers. As large as her stomach was, she never seemed to eat much--perhaps it was the morning sickness. The thought made him glad he was a man, never to be faced with such problems.
She adjusted her odd glasses over her nose as she seemed to at the close of every meal and the silent maid spirited the tray away. Ellorien stood quickly, almost tripping on his chair in haste, and hurried to help her roll back from the table. She only laughed at him, a musical sound pleasant to hear.
He pushed her down the hall, only not running because she was quite heavy and he was afraid the wheels would get caught on the rug. "If I am here much longer, I suppose I will have to improve upon this design for you," he mused aloud. "Perhaps make something you could race horses or power across a lake in."
"You are too funny, Demar," and he could nearly hear the eye-roll. "I am sure the Tower enjoys your jokes as well. Perhaps you should hire yourself out to dinner engagements and give little amusement speeches before? You would be very popular."
He gasped. "Struck to the quick, my lady. Please say no more, or I might die from the sharpness of your tongue."
"Turn here," she sighed, and pointed to a door ajar to the left.
"These are your apartments," he said cautiously, slowing.
"Yes, that is where we keep the first editions. You would not have us keep them in the library, where they could be stolen more easily." He pushed the door open, annoyed at the loud creak. Behind him, Matrise giggled at his consternation.
"I suppose that is true enough." The wheelchair squeaked over the floor divider, and they were in the suite's drawing room. "The shelves to the left?" He nodded to them; the drawing room had many shelves as well, almost a study in its own right. Was it really more secure than the library?
"I will get it for you," she said, pushing herself out of the chair.
Alarmed, he reached to push her back down into the seat. "Oh no, allow me--"
Firmly, she pushed his hands away. "I am not a cripple." She stepped out, then moved along one pine shelf, dragging her fingers of the spines of the leather-bound books. Not finding the title there, evidently, she continued her search. Ellorien gazed about the room; two more doors to the east and west, and the rest of the room continued far north, divided by more shelves and furniture and chairs. It had two hearts, large enough to host a Season event for the city's elite, of whom there were no few. Many shelves seemed devoted to the treatises of the world's many races, as well as to the strange history of humanity, said to have been abandoned to the world by God. It was a doctrine that tended to upset the other races, who viewed it as a separatist notion and unnatural, but the church embraced the idea to some extent as well, and all regarded the church as a power not to be argued with.
"Found it," Matrise reported, bending low to withdraw a red-bound book. She had her skirts gathered up in one hand, obviously in an effort not to trip on them as she hunted on the lower shelves. Then she grunted and clutched her stomach. "No," she hissed, dropping the book to the floor. "No!" Something splattered and thudded to the floor, rolling from the gap between her skirts and the floor. A skull, trailing viscous strings of faintly gray slime up beneath the skirt.
"What--" Heart thudding, Ellorien jerked back. "What are--"
She bared her teeth at him and straightened; he could hear more wet sounds, like water spilling from a large pot. An earthy stink filled the room. With a flick, she tossed the green glasses away, and glared at him with flat, charcoal-colored eyes, not a hint of white or pupil to be seen. A nictating membrane fluttered across them.
"Succubus," he moaned, already sinking to his knees as he hardened in his pants.
"Unfortunate, but it has been a long time since I had a wizard," she said, touching her pink lips with her long, red tongue. "It will be pleasant. You will follow me to the bedroom and not make a sound."
The net a succubus wove only worked on the opposite sex; if such a beast existed to lure women, they spoke little of it except in lore, but stories of succubi were like grains of sand on a shore. They had appeared with the bugs, rumored to be of them, or perhaps allies from the underworld. All anyone could say with certainty was that escape was nearly impossible, and that anyone who survived wished they hadn't. The succubus was pure poison, and a male under her spell could not help but worship that poison. Ellorien followed Matrise obediently into the bedroom, where she lifted herself onto the neatly made bed, her massive stomach swaying. She settled with her back propped up against the pillows and lifted her skirts, bending her knees so that the gaping pink-gray folds of her massive sex were visible.
Ellorien's body trembled, caught between fierce arousal and terror. He could only stare at her drooling inner lips, already staining the covers with gray liquid. The smell made his mouth water and his cock strain against the fabric of his breeches.
"Up on the bed, love," she ordered. "It is time to clear Mother out, because now is the time for children. Your arrival couldn't have been timed better anyway; we will surely enjoy harnessing your line's powers at last." He crawled on top of the covers, bending between her knees. "Hmm, perhaps take off your breeches first." He leaned back, unlacing his boots and dropping them beside the bed, then clumsily undoing his pants until he snapped the ties and shucked them and his arousal-damp smallclothes. "Ah, you would be able to please a woman," she said, regarding his stiff, flushed cock. "Now you will please me. Reach in and empty me."
Ellorien bowed between her legs again. The open slit between her thighs was large enough to admit his head; the air beneath her skirts was thick with the rotting scent that had been covered by her overwhelming perfume. He did not feel revulsion, however; saliva dribbled from his lips as he longed to lick her, to please her with his mouth so he could taste of her honey, and he did, fastening his mouth over the nodule like a clit as he slipped his arm into her passage. "Nnnn, yes," she sighed above him, pulling the skirt up with one hand as she grasped the back of his head with the other, knotting her fingers in his hair. "Good boy." Her fingers slid down beside his face, rubbing herself and coating her fingers in the thick ooze fairly running from her flesh. His fingers hit something hard and he grasped it and pulled, making her hips hitch into the air. "Yes!"
Lapping and sucking eagerly, he tossed aside what he'd pulled out, noting it only absently as bone. He reached for more and more, pulling them out and throwing them aside with growing clatter as she traced behind his ears and down his neck with wet fingers, working his face against herself. His cock dripped on the sheets and the chest of his shirt was soaked with her fluids; she tasted horrible, like sugared, rancid meat. At the same time, the liquid was ambrosia, and he craved it, wanted to lick all of it from her skin and be covered in it. His body was flushed and taut; her taunting touches made him moan into her clit. He had to please her; nothing else mattered.
Hours passed and the sun had faded when finally, he could reach no more of the bones buried within her nor take the teasing kiss of her loose entrance against his arms any longer. "Please," he mumbled, mouth swollen and numb, "please." He would please her!
"Yes, go in," she said, releasing his hair. She petted him. "Go." He bobbed his head, then pushed his arms in to the elbow, a fairly easy fit. Then his head, tighter now. The slickness gushed around him and she coaxed him further, clenching her internal muscles around him and swallowing. His shoulders popped into the channel, forcing his head against her cervix, which sucked his hands in, then arms, then head. Her womb was improbably spacious and hot; he could hear two heartbeats, and neither was his own. Her body seemed to have grown; he could feel her hand pressing against the small of his back, sliding down to push his slender tail aside to trace the cleft of his buttocks, then rubbing at the bud of his entrance. Inside her, he tried to gasp, but only choked on the slime that rushed to fill his nose and mouth, filling him with sweetness and heat as it slid down his airway and into his lungs. He thrashed weakly and heard her cry out and felt her squeeze his body in orgasm, lips tightening around his stomach as more fluid rushed out around him. Her fingers circled his entrance and he remembered. Pleasure.
One by one, he pulled the bones out, pushing them past his body until they bumped up against his cock, making him hump the slimy things in desperate need. His muscles felt like melting; he breathed the liquid, light-headed and burning with the need for release as he searched for bones within her tight, wet flesh. The soft skin was cold around him, a drowning caress as he writhed to clear the space, clear it for himself so he could stay within her forever. Yes. He would stay there and please her, sleep and please her, he was so tired. He felt a finger enter him and curl and his body shuddered, cock jerking as stripes of his semen painted the stained coverlet. Two fingers now, slick and cool, three that crooked and made him howl, choking up her come, and convulse inside her. Her fingers pulled away at last and something tugged at his hips, sliding him out of his goddess's body.
His eyes were almost glued shut by the slime; she wiped them away and he coughed, spitting up more of the gray ooze onto the bed. "It doesn't like my ambrosia?" she asked, and he nodded his head so quickly and babbled that he loved it, adored her, so much that another pair of hands came up from behind to hold him by the armpits before he fell. They did not belong to her; they were warm, and both of her hands were now stroking her entrance, three times as small now as before. Her stomach was almost flat now, though her breasts were full and low. Unhurriedly, she began removing her shirt, her soaked skirt obviously not a concern. One of the large hands holding him up smoothed down his chest, down his stomach; the earthy smell was harsher, like sweat. The hand wrapped around his cock and Ellorien's head fell back against a taut shoulder, lolling as he gasped in time with the pump. He stared blindly as he came, shakes wracking his body until his bones felt they would shake apart.
"Isn't he pretty?" the succubus murmured, and a familiar voice dully answered, "Yes," and pushed Ellorien forward, where he fell spent against her flesh and began to lick. "And eager," she smiled.
"Is it time." Kephin's voice lacked inflection. Distantly, Ellorien wondered how his friend had had the strength to hold him up. Ellorien weighed more than Kephin did, now. Had he stood? But he had a wheelchair. People in wheelchairs didn't stand.
"Why doesn't it take a look at you before." That was not a suggestion. Sluggishly, Ellorien flipped onto his back and looked at his friend's unclothed, pale body. All fat had been burned away; all that was left was whip-cord lean muscle, skin tight over it like parchment. And what had been a pillow beneath the quilt on his lap as he rested in the wheelchair... His blue-black testicles were enormous and lumpy, as though a sack filled with eggs. His transparent red cock arched forward, longer than Ellorien's arm and as thick, ribbed with cartilage and hollow like a tube. Ellorien leaned forward until it bumped his chin. "Very eager," said the succubus, "But that isn't for him, is it."
"No, wife."
"Not yet, anyway." She smiled kindly at Ellorien. "Please move to the left. Your turn will come again shortly." Ellorien scrambled out of the way, eyes locked on Kephin's penis. The man mounted the bed and the succubus lifted her hips to him; in a single move, he speared her on his penis and she cried out, nails dragging down his back and leaving lines of blood. Silently, he began to move, hips pumping in and out as her nether lips swelled around him. His sack slapped softly against her, lumps rolling like waves. Kephin made an odd sound, a high-pitched cough, and stilled, then jerked again; the succubus's stomach bulged out with the prodigious size of his penis. "Here comes the annoying part," she said breathlessly, and strangely began to crawl away until she moved to the floor, legs spread and on her back. "Ill-equipped humans," she tried to growl. The strange penis stretched with her from where Kephin stayed on the bed, only moving to kneel facing her. The long shaft of his hot, dry penis bumped and rested against Ellorien's leg, and his balls hung between his wide-spread legs such that he seemed to truly be resting his weight on them. Pale faced and sweating, Kephin began to grunt rhythmically, squeezing his thighs.
"Huh... Huuuuuh," he groaned, convulsively squeezing and releasing his muscles. The base of his cock swelled as something dark popped into it with a soft, suckling sound; Ellorien's own pucker tightened in sympathy as his cock stirred again, slowly firming to its former tumescence. Unable to only watch, he contorted until he could force his own still-slick fingers into his ass, taking hand to himself as he watched the shape be slowly squeezed down by Kephin's strange appendage until it disappeared inside the succubus. The shapes, eggs, began moving more quickly after the first, until there was barely a gap between one egg and the next. Kephin's balls began to shrink until he could truly rest on his own knees and had to take hand to his testicles, squeezing to force the eggs out. Ellorien's come spattered the sheets again as the succubus let out a particularly shrill cry of ecstasy, drumming her heels against he floor.
Panting, she cooed, "Is it hungry? Come to Mother's breast, she will take care of it." He obediently clambered down to lie half on her as she pulled a growing, milk-white breast from her open blouse. The aureole was slate-colored, huge nipple protruding proudly. He latched on, suckling thirstily as her hand slid down to his ass again to play. He humped against her hip, feeling her stomach fill beneath him as the eggs pushed their way into her one by one, throbbing penis brushing his calf.
***