Zarina slowly began to stir, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I had the wizard’s head cradled in my lap and had spent the last few minutes after I rushed into the cave just keeping her comfortable and supported. She’d been all but unmoving for that entire time, and for the first thirty seconds only her shallow breathing had let me know that she was even alive.

I gently stroked her cheek, and her head turned a little as she nuzzled unconsciously against my hand.

The cave Janssens had been using as her base was largely unremarkable. It was about thirty feet deep and too irregularly shaped to be man-made, but the stone of the floor had been flattened and smoothed out at some point. A few loose boxes and crates were scattered around in some disarray, and a wooden camp cot rested on its side where it had been upturned and shoved out of the way.

The only other feature of note was the pool of water at the very back end of the cave.

I hadn’t caught the full scope of the action that had taken place when we arrived, but I’d seen the glowing pink flower that Janssens had used to disable Zarina. Aubrette recognized it, and had informed me that the effects were neither fatal, nor permanent, but it was only when I saw beautiful brown eyes flutter open and stare up at me that the kernel of fear which had settled into my midsection began to dissolve.

I smiled down into my lap, and received a warm—if tired—smile in return.

Across the cave, Tzila was face to face with my doppelganger. She stood in her natural form, that of a woman taller than me, with skin the color of a clear blue sky. Her form was even more sleek and muscular than it had been the first time we met, and apart from her supernatural skin tone she could easily have graced the cover of a bodybuilding magazine. Only her glossy black hair was unchanged, still tied behind her head in a simple ponytail.

She was no less feminine for it, however, a fact which was made abundantly obvious when she finished removing her vest. Now naked from the waist up, she pulled her shoulders back to thrust out her teardrop breasts, capped with purple areola and nipples. In the dim light of the cave I saw the faint glint of horizontal gold barbell piercings.

“Done, Master. Err- Mistress?” The Jinn’s voice was no more or less airy in this form, and she sounded more uncertain than anything else. Her head turned to look back towards me for a moment, then returned to the second version of me that stood directly in front of her.

The other me was still holding a human arm. Scraps of flesh hung off one end where it had been torn free from Janssen’s body only a few minutes before, and ‘my’ face showed no more emotion now than when the illusion had first been applied.

The disguise wasn’t perfect—for one thing, the facial expression was unchanging—but it was still just weird to see myself standing across the room.

“Mistress.” The voice that emerged from my double was husky, but decidedly feminine. It also didn’t emerge from ‘my’ mouth, but from somewhere around the middle of ‘my’ chest. “And keep your chest thrust out, those things are delicious, you shouldn’t hide them around us-”

I sighed and called out, “Cindy, please stop harassing Tzila.”

The other ‘me’ turned in my direction.

Seeing my own face standing some twenty feet away was more disorienting than I thought it would be. It also made me realize that I needed to shave. I generally kept my chin clear, but the illusion that covered Cindy reflected stubble which was well on the way towards becoming a full beard.

Now that I thought of it, I’d been preoccupied for a while. I’d let my personal grooming slip.

“Yes, Master.” Before she walked over, Cindy reached down and snagged the canvas bag at her feet. When she sauntered over towards me, the way the illusion of my body moved was distressingly uncanny and my eyes started to water as I tried to make sense of it.

Tzila fell into step behind the disguised Sin Demon without being prompted, and I tore my eyes free of the pair so I could look back down at Zarina. “Are you going to be OK?”

The wizard shifted her head in my lap slowly first to one side, then to the other. When she eventually straightened it once more, she managed a careful nod and answered, “Yes. I feel stupid, I saw her throwing something metal and assumed it would detonate. I should’ve anticipated Jorinde’s Witchbane. She’s pulled that trick before to escape grandfather, and he even reminded me about it when I told him she was here.”

My hand reached down to squeeze Zarina’s shoulder gently. “It’s fine. As long as you’re going to be OK, it’s fine.”

“Mistress, please forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but may I ask what just happened?” Tzila’s voice was an unexpected addition to the conversation, and I raised my head to look at the Jinn once more. Her expression was guarded, but she didn’t have quite the same undercurrent of severe bitterness that had suffused her manner when she had first arrived at my apartment.

Cindy’s voice again emerged from what appeared to be my chest. “You may, and as a generous Mistress, I will even answer. We applied several layers of deception, anticipating that your former mistress would focus what defenses she had on what she would identify as the greatest threat.”

The Sin Demon gestured to my side, where a black cat had curled up on the floor of the cave and snuggled up against my thigh. “The first step was simple. Rose, who had previously only joined the battle in equine form, duplicated my shape to act as a distraction. As our previous clash had demonstrated that my corporeal form is resilient beyond easy damage, all she needed to do was behave as though she could damage you to serve to remove you from the battle.”

The cat in question opened one golden eye, turned it to regard Cindy for a moment, then deliberately closed it once more. Then she yawned and half-uncurled so she could stretch out her paws and place them against my leg.

Rose let out a low, rumbling purr as she began kneading my thigh through my pants.

“My Master then leveraged a ritual he had deciphered from the book some months ago. It allows the subject to take an appearance other than their own. The change is superficial only, and ineffective against modern electronic observation, but it sufficed for our purposes. He used it to alter my appearance to match his, so that I would be assessed as a lower priority threat. Finally, to keep our apparent numbers the same, Zarina Malle applied her Arcana to mask Master’s presence, so he could remain undetected outside the cave.”

Cindy sounded quite pleased with herself as she delivered the explanation to Tzila. The details of the plan had actually come mostly from Zarina and Rose, but it was the Sin Demon who had made the initial suggestion to apply some subterfuge and disguise ourselves prior to re-engaging Janssens.

“Thank you for the explanation, Mistress. And- If you will permit me another question, Mistress? How did you deal with Msizi?” I looked back to Tzila as she spoke. She still hadn’t put her shirt on, and by now she was standing just beside Cindy, a few feet away. Since I was staring up at her from the floor, it was impossible to look at her face without also getting an eyeful of her impressive breasts—especially as they were still prominently on display.

“That’s the… impundulu?” I was the one to speak this time, and the Jinn turned her gaze down to where I sat on the cave floor to answer me with a nod.

“In that case, it wasn’t actually difficult. Giant bird swoops down in our path, we start getting ready to fight, then he changes into a handsome Black dude and asks us very politely to stop what we were doing. While I was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Zarina told him no, he gave us a shit eating grin, and then just… left.”

That event had been one of the more surreal experiences of my increasingly surreal life—though it still fell a bit short of arriving at home to discover my pet demon had dressed the two vampire assassins she’d captured in slutty maid cosplay for me.

Tzila released a bark of a laugh before she could stop it. She cut herself off almost immediately, but I’d caught the look of satisfaction on her face. When I raised an eyebrow up at her in query, she did not deign to respond except by meeting my gaze as she stared down on me coolly from above.

Cindy spoke up without hesitation. She raised her left hand—still holding Janssens’ severed arm—so she could rub the silver ring which still adorned the witch’s finger. Her tone was imperious as she commanded, “Answer my Master. Also, genuflect to him, as is befitting your station below him.”

I sighed at her dramatics and opened my mouth to countermand the order, but Tzila had already dropped to her knees before I could get a word out. She kowtowed to me, bowing until her forehead pressed against the smooth floor of the cave. “Msizi made a last minute bargain with the bitch Janssens to buy her time, but I suspected when he offered it that it was not made in good faith. He saw an opportunity in the upcoming crisis of your arrival and took the chance to free himself from under her thumb. My personal suspicion is that he had been plotting something like this for some time—I believe that his escape on this continent was his true goal the entire time.”

Zarina began to slowly push herself up out of my lap. I used both hands to support her, but she managed to get into a sitting position mostly under her own power.

I felt a surge of relief. I’d been trying hard not to freak out ever since I’d walked into the cave and saw the wizard’s body unmoving on the ground. Her voice was quiet and less steady than I was used to, but though she sounded exhausted, she didn't seem to be showing any sign of lingering harm from the witch's attack.

“He’ll… be a problem for another day, then. Impundulu are mostly unknown here, so if he’s left unchecked he can cause a lot of damage. Even the people here who are aware of the supernatural are unlikely to know enough to avoid the damage he can do, but I’m guessing he’ll lay low for a while to try to escape our notice.”

I nodded slowly as Zarina spoke, then started to pull myself to my feet. “Another day, then. Tzila, you don’t have to kneel like that for me.”

The Jinn didn’t move. Her forehead remained pressed to the ground a short distance from my feet. I looked up at ‘myself’, sighed and held out my hand. “Cindy, give me the ring.”

A heartbeat later I thought to clarify, “Without the arm, please.”

The Sin Demon easily pulled the slim silver band off the dismembered arm’s slender middle finger and held it out to me without delay.

But where she didn’t hesitate, I did.

I knew that Tzila was bound to the ring. She’d been forced to obey Janssens for who knows how long, and the very last thing I wanted was to be anything like that bitch. Janssens had only been a presence in my life for a short time, but I’d decided that I reviled her within the first half hour of hearing her name, and none of her behavior since had done anything to change my mind.

No matter what happened, I would not let myself become like her.

I glanced down to where the Jinn was still genuflecting on the dirt floor of the cave. I needed to do something, and my indecision wasn’t helping her any. I reached my hand out and plucked the ring from Cindy’s grasp.

Before I donned it, I held it up in front of my face to examine it. I knew that silver would tarnish eventually, but the shining metal I held gleamed as though brand new. It had been engraved with a script I didn’t recognize along the interior of the band, and I couldn’t help but think of a certain iconic scene from the first film of Lord of the Rings.

I shook my head to dispel the thought and moved the small ring onto my left middle finger. The band swiftly and inexplicably expanded to slide past my knuckles and seat itself snugly but comfortably at the base of my finger. My thumb folded across my palm and I rubbed the ring once, very gently, and watched as a slight shudder passed through Tzila’s otherwise still form.

I opened my mouth to order her to stand, but then froze. I didn’t know exactly how the magic that bound the Jinn worked. I looked back at the ring, then asked quietly, “Tzila—I have the ring, so you need to obey me now, right?”

“Yes, Master.” The Jinn’s tone was right back to where it had been a couple minutes before, cautiously polite. She hadn’t hesitated in the slightest when answering, though, so I pressed on.

“OK. First things first—I know that you’ve been under Janssens’ control, so you haven’t been acting of your own free will. That said, I also don’t really know anything about you outside of that, so I’m going to need you to be honest with me. I-“ I was kind of winging this, but the action seemed right, so I rubbed the ring once more and commanded, “I order you to always be honest with me.”

“Yes, Master.” Again, Tzila’s answer was immediate, but she neither shifted her position from where she still knelt on the floor nor volunteered any words more than necessary.

“Tzila, are you planning on harming me, or anyone in my household?”

Just asking the question made me deeply uncomfortable. I knew that the Jinn was bound to the ring, and I was pretty sure she couldn’t disobey, and forcing my will on her even just so I could keep myself and others safe felt… gross.

“No, Master. The only person I currently have any plans to harm is Josina Janssens.”

That was good enough for me. I tried to keep my tone as gentle as I could as I added. “Please—rise and make yourself comfortable, Tzila. You may dress yourself however you’ll be most comfortable.” I hesitated a moment before adding, “And you don’t have to call me Master if you don’t want to. Jack is fine.”

The Jinn responded by pushing herself to her feet. She’d kept the vest that Cindy had ordered her to remove in her hand, so that slipped over her shoulders a moment later, and she buttoned it up with quick, precise movements.

“Look-“ I hesitated. The blue skinned woman presented a moral conundrum I hadn’t really ever expected to face. “I’m- we’re going to head back to my apartment, and we can figure out what to do with you there. Sound good?”

Tzila’s metallic eyes sought out my face and studied it for only a moment before she nodded once. “As you say, M- Jack.”

I stared back for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on behind her carefully controlled expression.

Then I gave up.

My entire body ached.

I’d spent several hours in the saddle, had my leg and back pierced by the thorns of some kind of monstrous plant creature, then hiked cross-country to catch up to Josina when she fled. I didn’t have it in me to play mind games with the genie of the ring.

Rose chirped when I deprived her of the warmth of my leg. She stood, stretched, and shook herself to dislodge the tiny bits of dirt that clung to her fur, then moved over to rub up against my calf. Then she spoke, and the sound of the Puca’s voice emerging from the tiny form of the black cat was- honestly probably not even the fifth weirdest thing I’d seen that day. “Could someone get my clothes for me please? Fur is all well and good, but it’s still freezing. It was bad enough walking here naked, I’d like to warm up.”

I turned to Cindy and pointed wordlessly to the front of the cave. She obeyed my implicit order at a jog and headed out of the cave towards the pack of clothes we’d stashed when we paused to implement our ruse.

Rose had needed to be naked to play the part of big scary Sin Demon when we approached the cave, since Cindy’s actual clothes had been shredded by her fights. The demon was also entirely naked under the illusion, but unlike my shapechanging fairy, the Sin Demon was unbothered by such mortal concerns as mere temperature. The body she wore might appear human, but it very much was not.

I worked with Aubrette to help Zarina to her feet, then slipped my arm around the wizard’s shoulders to help support her. She leaned against me heavily—either out of affection or necessity—and she still wasn’t talking much, so I had the feeling that whatever the ghostly flower had done to her, she was focused on recovering.

My eyes scanned out across the mouth of the cave. The rain had mostly stopped, but I was really not looking forward to trying to trek back to civilization in the chilly late winter air. Of course, the alternative was to stay here, and stick around in a location where we had no real protection or supplies, so I didn’t think that we really had any other choice.

I squeezed Zarina gently with one arm, and she nuzzled against me gently. “Hey, are you going to be up to conjuring your grand magic steed to ride back?” While I asked, Cindy returned, holding out a small bundle of clothes, and I was treated to the sight of Rose shifting back to her human form to begin to dress. She moved quickly and efficiently, taking the garments one at a time and sliding them on without any great ado, favoring getting warm over putting on any kind of a show. Mostly. She did notice me looking and took a second to wiggle her butt at me while pulling her pants over it, but that was more in passing than anything else.

“I… no. Not without at least a few hours rest.” Zarina spoke quietly, her normally authoritative and quick words coming out slowly as she evaluated her answer to my question. “Maybe more.”

I winced. We had some shelter here, and Aubrette could provide food, but I wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea of staying longer than needed. Fortunately, before I had to make a call either way, Tzila spoke up. “Master—Jack—I could transport Wizard Malle somewhere.” I turned to scrutinize the Jinn, and she apparently took that as a signal that I needed additional explanation. “I can carry the weight of one person, give or take. It’s apparently not a particularly pleasant experience, but it is quite rapid.” She paused very briefly, before adding, “It’s how that particularly rancid boil Janssens made it here to the cave after our clash in the field.”

I laughed at the Jinn’s casual insult to the witch, and asked, “So, previous commands no longer hold sway when a new hand touches the ring?” I received a nod in response, so I looked around, surveying the others. “So that would take care of Zarina, leaving Aubrette, Rose, Cindy and myself to make it back. Rose—are you up for another ride?”

The Puca’s golden eyes widened for a moment and she shivered, her hips squirming slightly in unconscious response to my question. Then she nodded, before murmuring, “Yes, but you’d better be ready tonight…”

I was focused more on the practical issues of getting back to civilization, but something about the Fae woman’s tone cut through my preoccupation to send a firm reminder that my body had gotten accustomed to a certain amount of amorous activity each day, and I was well short of my usual indulgences. I let that thought simmer for now, pushing it to the back of my mind without fully dismissing it, and looked between Cindy and Aubrette. The former spoke up as soon as my eyes landed on her. “Master, you and Aubrette ride. I can run to keep up, if your newest pet can take care of your wizard fucktoy.”

“She’s not a pet.” I shot a glance over at Tzila immediately, slightly nervous about her reaction to Cindy’s casually overt sexuality. The Sin Demon was usually pretty good about toning things down around strangers, but showed no signs of doing so now. The Jinn’s expression was carefully schooled, but I had no way to tell if that was the result of her intuiting that Cindy’s antics were not necessarily representative of my personal attitudes, or an attempt to avoid being dragged into the depravations of her newest leash holder. I wanted to reassure her, but at the same time I knew that there were higher priorities at the moment. “But yes, Tzila—if you can get Zarina safely back to the parking lot…”

“Three miles, south by southeast.” Aubrette chimed in smoothly to give a location. I blinked in surprise.

“That close?” The redhead nodded her affirmation, so I continued, “Three miles. Feels a lot farther going overland. And, I guess, when you aren’t traveling in a straight line.” The Jinn nodded her head smoothly, and I turned back towards Rose. The Puca was already moving towards the front of the cave, so I looked at Cindy instead and ordered, “Grab a couple boxes that look interesting if you can do that and keep up.”

As the Sin Demon moved to obey, I helped arrange Zarina as comfortably as possible in Tzila’s care, and within a few minutes I was mounted on Rose’s back with Aubrette’s arms around my waist, heading south towards civilization.

Returning to the real world was a much slower, less frantic thing than our initial rush towards Janssens.

I’d sent Cindy ahead, the tireless Sin Demon carrying as much of the goods from the cave as she could. The weight wasn’t an issue, but she only had two arms so she had consolidated everything that looked interesting into two of the crates and ran off with one over each shoulder.

Aubrette’s arms encircled my waist as she rested against me, and the steady rocking of Rose’s mare form beneath me was approaching something akin to comfort, despite my full body ache. I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be a great rider, but the more time I spent with the Puca fulfilling her primary duty—as spelled out by the ancient pact—the more I realized our connection was far more comprehensive than I had initially assumed. She must have been dwelling on the same thing, because about thirty minutes into the ride back, her voice broke into the otherwise nearly silent air.

“Hey, Master Jack?”

I half-forgot that she could speak in her horse form sometimes, so the sudden speech startled me out of the haze I’d settled into after the fight. Sin-enhanced or no, my whole body was exhausted after the adrenaline rush of battle left me, but I sat up a little straighter and gently jostled Aubrette in the process.

“Yeah?”

“That- thing, when we were riding into the woods chasing the witch-” Her tone was unusually serious as she spoke, “-what the fuck was that?”

I was pretty sure I knew what she meant, though I’d almost forgotten it in all the excitement of our encounter in the cave. “I think that was my Gift. I think, somehow, that you were tapping into it. So-”

It felt strange to actually be the expert on a topic of magic for once. For most of my life, the only things I knew about magic were the folk tales and legends passed down by my parents. My mother had a book—a family heirloom—which recorded every Gift our family had ever possessed, as well as those of friends and others who had been willing to share their secrets. She’d let me read it as a teen, once I was old enough to understand the importance of keeping the information secret, but the one thing I had really gleaned from it was how little any of us had actually known about how magic worked.

My Gift was no exception—I had no real idea of how the ability worked, but after a lifetime of use, I had put together an intuitive understanding of it that I could use here. “-I think that our bond, our connection, the magic that makes you my mount, somehow lets you know what I need. It’s why you- well, you know what I mean. It’s why you’re up and ready any time I need help blowing off steam and you’re the girl for the job. I think in this case, though, my Gift was… at the front, so to speak. It was taking a much more active hand in my decision making, and I think that somehow translated to you receiving the information the same way I do. I could feel it—or something like it, anyway.”

She shook her head and sent the reins jangling for a moment, and I was struck by the surreality of talking to the horse I was riding about how she had been guided through the woods by my own inherent magic.

My life was weird sometimes.

“Does it always feel like that? All… sharp and certain?”

I was silent for a while as I considered the question. “No. That was- Honestly, the only times my Gift has felt like that were when we were fighting those vampires in the parking lot outside of my apartment. And when I was completing Cindy’s summoning ritual.”

A minute passed in where the only sound was the steady thump of Rose’s hoofs on the dirt below, before Aubrette murmured quietly, “All times when you were in immediate mortal danger.” The Sidhe sounded as tired as I felt, and I wondered if she’d been dozing for the first part of the ride. She’d exerted herself heavily in that battle—not just physically, but pushing her own magical talent hard to help offset the powers of the impundulu—and was obviously feeling the strain now.

I reached a hand down to squeeze hers where they were clasped over my midsection and she drowsily snuggled in against me. “Yeah. We should experiment with that, though. Maybe not life or death, but just to figure out how our connection works. I don’t anticipate getting in too many fights with ancient witches or vampire hit squads, but we should find a way.”

“It’s terribly romantic.” Aubrette’s voice was slightly dreamy as she spoke, and I wondered if she was even conscious of the fact that she’d said the words out loud. When she didn’t follow up with an explanation, I decided to prompt her with a questioning grunt.

She shifted behind me in the saddle and sat up straighter, and I could all but hear the blush in her embarrassed tone when she spoke. “I- uh. You know. A man and a woman, forced together by magic, but finding a way to unite their magic into a greater whole.”

Her words hit me, and it was my turn to sit up straight. I had never really thought about my relationship with the Puca that way, but-

Aubrette was right.

Rose and I had been joined against our will, but after months together with the Fae woman I’d grown quite fond of her. She could be a bit of a pain in the ass when she took a joke too far, but she was sweet, direct and pure, and held an unabashed zest for life that was refreshingly earnest.

I squeezed my knees around her gently, the closest thing to a hug I could manage in the saddle. Just as I was about to open my mouth and voice some of those thoughts, Rose’s voice cut in.

“Well just so that man knows, after a whole day of riding around and having him on top of me using me as his mount, I’m going to expect him to take care of my ‘greater whole’ good and thoroughly.”

I snorted a laugh and reached down to pat the side of the black mare’s neck fondly.

* * *

By the time we reached the visitor’s center, we were spent.

The ride had taken nearly two hours, slogging through muddy ground and chilly drizzle, and we’d needed to take the last stretch on foot so we wouldn’t have to explain where the horse had come from if we ran into the park rangers who had watched us come in.

By the time I laid eyes on the SUV, it was the most welcome sight I could’ve imagined.

Zarina said she was feeling up to driving home after getting a couple hours of rest, and Tzila volunteered to take the navigator’s seat to help make sure the wizard remained alert and focused. I claimed the middle seat in the back, and I dozed through the next couple hours with Aubrette snuggled up against my right side, Cindy on my left, and my lap full of a purring black cat.

I only woke up when Aubrette gently shook me.

The SUV was already parked and unloaded, and my Sidhe vassal guided me into my apartment, where I was greeted by a very welcome sight—that of six women, safe and sound and free of the clutches of the avaricious witch who had sought to claim them.

And also more than a dozen plastic containers full of Indian and Chinese food from local restaurants. My stomach growled loudly as the smells hit me, and I headed towards the kitchen to start loading up a plate while I looked around the room.

Zarina was in the middle of giving Sara the rundown of the day’s events at the kitchen table, while Cindy and Rose had their heads together on one end of the couch. Aubrette followed along behind me to begin heaping food on a plate as soon as the door closed behind us.

Tzila stood alone in the corner of the room in her fair-skinned human form. The Jinn was silently observing as the others ate, and the expression on her face was somewhere between intrigued and baffled.

I took a few minutes to shovel a few forkfuls of butter chicken onto some rice and shove them into my face, trying to shut up my suddenly twisting stomach. I may have even chewed, though I realized after swallowing that I couldn’t actually remember doing so.

Everyone else seemed like they were doing well enough—Aubrette had joined Sara and Zarina, and while Cindy and Rose kept glancing towards me, neither of them held eye contact long enough for me to think they wanted me to come over—so once I’d taken the edge off my ravenous appetite, I carried my plate in one hand and walked over to the woman bound to the ring I now wore on my left hand.

Not wanting to crowd her, I stopped several feet away, and set my fork down on the plate. I put on my friendliest smile and waited until she had turned to face me before speaking quietly, “Hi. Look—When we met, you were under Janssens’ thumb. I’m not sure if that counts as a real -introduction, so-” I reached out and offered my right hand.

“Hello, I’m Jack Puttman. Nice to meet you.”

The Jinn tilted her head quizzically. Her gaze moved from my face to my outstretched hand and back. It was the first time I’d really had the chance to examine her eyes up close since she’d been wearing sunglasses on our first meeting, and I could immediately see why—her irises were a swirling maelstrom of gold and silver and actually gave off a faint glow.

Her expression remained slightly guarded, but she managed a brief, somewhat uncertain smile and reached her own hand down. Rather than taking my hand, as I expected, she reached past it and clasped my forearm in a firm grip. I even managed to return the gesture relatively smoothly once I realized what she was doing, and felt the dense muscles of her forearm beneath my fingers as we shook once.

“Master Jack Puttman, I am Tzila Amajheg, daughter of King Aylimas, bound to the Ring of Solomon and eternally in service to its bearer.” She released her hand, and for a moment her cautious facade slipped and I caught a hint of something like pride on her face.

Then part of what she said caught up to me and my eyes widened in surprise.

“Wait, daughter of King… Aylimas.” I stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar name, but then continued, “So you’re a… Princess?”

“No.” The look on the Jinn’s face darkened as she shook her head.

I raised my eyebrows, but she didn’t volunteer any explanation, so I shrugged off her reticence for the moment and instead focused on the reason I had approached her in the first place.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Tzila Amajheg, daughter of King Aylimas.”

I did my best to pronounce the names, but by the slight wince the Jinn let slip, I probably didn’t get them both entirely perfect. I pushed through regardless, “You might not have had as much chance to see this when you came here the first time, but- I don’t exactly hold formal court here. I admit I don’t know much about Jinn, but if you need to eat and drink, or rest, please do so.”

I gestured over towards the containers of food still spread out across the kitchen counters. “If you need to sleep, through that door, there’s a short hallway, with an available bed on the left. I-” I paused to try to martial my words. “I’d like to spend some time getting to know you and talking through things, but I haven’t eaten since this morning. Please, take care of your physical needs-” I remembered Cindy’s introduction to the world and quickly added, “Without harming anyone. Or revealing your nature to anyone who doesn’t already know it. I promise I’ll take time to get to know you and we can figure out what happens next very soon.”

The Jinn regarded me flatly with glittering eyes unblinking as I rambled, then nodded her head once. “My life is bound to the ring. To ensure that starvation does not present me with a way to escape, while its magic holds me I do not require food or drink.”

Her words were delivered flatly, but her expression softened slightly when she added, “Though- I do appreciate when I have the chance to enjoy a good meal. I can sleep while in the ring, if you do not wish my services, you may dismiss me there until I am required.”

My eyes watched the subtle shift of Tzila’s expression as she did her best to answer me politely while, I noticed, not actually giving much away. I nodded slowly, then gave a gentle shrug. That action caused me to realize I was still holding my half-full plate of food, and I said quickly, “I- look, I want to get to know you, and I know we have to figure out what you want to do. Or what I have to do with or about you, but- look, for the day, please just try to behave as a guest in my house. If you want food or drink or rest, please enjoy the chance to get all three. If you want to be dismissed to the ring, let me know, but-“

I glanced down toward my hand bearing the polished silver band, presently hidden under the plate of delicious food. “-I don’t plan to just put you away because I don’t need anything from you. I’m going to eat. After I’m done and have had a chance to rest, I’d like to talk if you’re willing.”

The Jinn didn’t respond verbally, but when I turned to approach the kitchen so I could sit down, she followed a few paces behind me and started to load up a plate of her own.

* * *

“You know, they never talk about this part of the story.”

Aubrette, Sara, and Zarina all turned to look at me.

I’d spent the last hour or so devouring two full plates of food while the four of us talked. Sara had more questions than I’d expected—more than I’d thought to ask, certainly—and both Zarina and Aubrette had perspectives on the battle that I had missed.

Apparently the fight with the impundulu had been closer than I’d realized. Zarina had been knocked out of the sky by the storm’s winds while I was riding through the woods with Rose, and only because she’d landed next to one of Aubrette’s lightning rods had the lightning bird been prevented from finishing her while she was down. Cindy had tried to intervene in that fight, but while Tzila hadn’t been able to harm the Sin Demon, she’d managed to keep her tied up well enough that she couldn’t lend her aid.

I did my best to give a recounting of my wild ride through the forest, including the trap Janssens had laid for me, but all I could remember clearly were flashes here and there—scattered memories that would likely make appearances in nightmares for years to come.

And yet, in thinking of that, I couldn’t help but smile. I had years ahead of me yet, and while the day’s battle had been terrifying, we had won out in the end. All of us had come home, and the only one who showed any real injuries for it was the idiot who decided to wade in and fight a thorn-covered plant monster hand-to-hand.

Those injuries throbbed lightly when I let my mind linger on them, but the painkillers Aubrette had provided had started to kick in about halfway through my second plate and I was able to push them from my mind thanks to the distraction the conversation had provided. That I didn’t need surgical care spoke volumes about how my body had changed in ways I hadn’t yet realized, but Zarina informed me that pacts with Sin Demons were so rare that all she had to draw on for guidance was folklore and rumor.

It was hard to be too concerned just then. If not for the enhanced strength and toughness of my body, I doubted I would’ve been able to even escape the earth elemental, let alone come out ahead of the plant thing that Zarina specified was an ‘Ironbriar’.

I was still tired, but the conversation had left me feeling more optimistic than I’d been in a long time, which had led to my offhand comment during a lull in the conversation.

It was Sara who piped up to ask, “The ‘sitting around the table’ part?”

We’d all long since finished our food, and the benefit of eating conjured meals was that the Sidhe who’d summoned them could simply dismiss the remains when we were done, so the table was already cleared. She had to be a little careful to avoid accidentally dismissing the food we were still digesting, but Aubrette had centuries of experience with her craft.

“The ‘what happens next’ part. The band of unlikely heroes gathered together and defeated the evil witch and saved the-“ I nodded across the room, to where Tzila was seated alone at the far end of the couch. She’d declined to join us at the kitchen table, and appeared to be engaged in some kind of meditation, sitting upright but with her eyes closed.

She had a lot to think about, so I couldn’t exactly blame her.

“-well, not princess, apparently, though she’s the daughter of a king, so I’m not sure how that works. I’ll need to ask eventually but it seemed like maybe something of a sore subject. Anyway- Beat the witch, saved the captive, and now I need to figure out how to move on with my life as though we didn’t just spend the last I don’t know how long hiding from vampire assassins while we plotted to rob a bank, then rode into the woods on magical horses to engage in a high magic brawl with some creatures out of legend.”

Sara regarded me for several long moments, then shrugged, and lifted the bottle of beer she’d been nursing for the last half-hour. “Therapy, I think. It’s something that’s missing from a lot of adventure stories. I dunno who you go to for magic-aware therapy, but there has to be someone. Right?”

I snorted a laugh. Before I could respond, Zarina chimed in, “Also, Tolkien does absolutely talk about what happens next. It’s a whole thing.”

I shot the wizard a glare, only for it to roll right off her smiling face. Even charmed by her own magic, she was intelligent and aware enough to know that her teasing was probably the exact thing I needed right then.

“Fine. But J. R. R. isn’t here, and most people don’t follow in his footsteps exactly.”

“No, but they should. Well, not exactly, that would just be a bunch of people trying to recreate the Lord of the Rings and most of them wouldn’t do it well.” The wizard’s urbane tones had taken on a somewhat haughty air, but she couldn’t school her expression well enough to conceal that it was on purpose. “Instead, they should seek to emulate his general approach in crafting a holistic tale that celebrates the virtues that are so often overlooked by modern media. Love, gentleness, the triumph of the common man, the importance of everyone listening to the wizard-“

That finally got a laugh from me, and I lifted my own beer, only to discover the bottle was already empty. “Ok, fair, but also, that’s not the point. The point is-“ My words trailed off as I set down the bottle again.

“Fuck, I’ve forgotten the point.”

* * *

When I walked back into the living room, Tzila had apparently finished her meditations.

Sara had given me a surprisingly tender kiss goodnight before slipping back to her apartment, then I had shepherded Zarina into one of the empty beds to get some obviously much-needed sleep. Aubrette had gone off on her own a while back, so I was alone when I returned to the living room to discover Tzila standing almost at attention in the center of the room, facing me.

I took a moment to study the Jinn before speaking. Her body language was rigid, and her expression was obviously tightly controlled, but the way her glowing eyes fixed on my face made it obvious that she was waiting for something. There was more, though—a spark of the same defiance she’d shown the very first time I met her, when she’d exposed herself as part of an offer Janssens had ordered her to make.

After a long moment where neither of us spoke, I finally asked, “Is there something you need or are expecting, Tzila?”

“I am- honestly, I am wondering if you are going to order me to join you in bed. To pleasure you.” The Jinn’s voice was always airy and higher pitched than I would have anticipated from a woman that tall and muscular, and it carried a strange accent that I couldn’t ever quite place. It made her harder to read, and I couldn’t really tell if she was actually angry at me, or if it was just the way she sounded.

I held up my hands palm out, “Hey, hey, hey- First of all, no. I’m not going to do that. Second of all why would I feel the need to order you to do something, when I have other very extremely willing partners. Some of whom are, if I don’t miss my guess, waiting on me right now.”

Tzila stared at me unblinkingly.

The Jinn’s shimmering eyes did not help dispel the impression that she was angry.

Her gaze flicked over towards my bedroom door. A hint of the edge in her voice softened, but the look on her face remained suspicious. “But you do have sex with most of the women here?”

I nodded. I didn’t see much point in denying it.

“All of them?”

I nodded again, but tried to soften it with a gentle shrug.

When I tried to view my situation through Tzila’s glowing eyes, it wasn’t hard to see how she might have had reason to doubt my good intentions. At the same time, I was tired.

I’d had a long day, and I wanted to head to bed, and find out if my suspicions of who I found there were correct. I wanted to get some enthusiastically consenting pussy on myself, not some extremely obviously disinterested cunt.

I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time and place for a fight, and, again, I could see why she might be on edge.

“Tzila, I recognize that you have little enough reason to believe the best about mankind. If you would like to discuss your future, and what your next days will look like, I am happy to do so. Tomorrow. In exhaustive depth if you desire. To set your mind at ease, I have absolutely no intention of ordering you to sleep with me, tonight or ever. I’d prefer to never have to use the magic of the ring, however it works, at all.”

I took a quick breath, then let it out in a sigh as I tried to calm down.

“If you’ll join me on the couch for a few minutes, I am happy to take a little time to tell you about myself so you can feel more comfortable with how I operate. I’m not even going to order you to sit, but I intend to and you’re welcome to join me.” The couch, an ancient artifact from my pre-Cindy days, creaked heavily as I flopped down on one end.

I felt the siren lure of the mystery that waited through the closed door of my bedroom, but girded up my loins—mentally, it occurred to me that for all I knew, Tzila would have once used that phrase literally.

When she sat primly down on the other end of the couch, I started talking.

“Full disclosure and honesty here, because I’m too tired to try to be diplomatic or anything. This has been a really fucking long day, and I wasn’t kidding about some of them, I think, waiting on me.”

I paused for just long enough to gather my thoughts, then continued, “I did not set out to put myself in this situation. I didn’t ask for it, and while I’m certainly not complaining, I’m also doing my best to not abuse any of the power I’ve been given. I want to do right by those I care about, and that includes those people who, through no fault of their own, depend on me.”

Even though she wasn’t showing any sign of interrupting me, I held up a finger to indicate I wasn’t done as I continued, “Yes, sex is involved. You’ve met Cindy. She’s a Sin Demon, and that isn’t her real name. She needs to feed on Sin, and Lust is a whole lot less destructive than Wrath.”

The couch creaked again as I leaned back and closed my eyes.

I hadn’t started out with a comprehensive thesis statement, but as the words left my mouth I found myself drawing to a point.

“To the very earnest best of my ability, everyone who is here is here willingly. I intend that trend to continue. For now, for the night, please just make yourself at home in my apartment. There’s a bed through that hallway, to the left. I don’t know if you’re forced to obey any orders from your previous masters, but if you are, please consider this an order to cancel those orders.”

I felt the couch shift and cracked open one of my eyes to peek over. Tzila had leaned back and was examining me with one dark eyebrow raised into a perfectly smooth arch.

I idly wondered if she plucked them to get them that smooth. On the one hand, it seemed pretty unlikely that they grew that way naturally, but on the other, I couldn’t imagine Josina Janssens giving her much time to see to her beauty routine. Maybe it was just a benefit of being born into a race of inherently magical beings.

When she spoke, her words were slow and deliberate, and obviously carefully chosen. “I am under no lasting compulsions from any of my previous Masters or Mistresses. My binding to the ring ensures that I must obey its current bearer, but any and all commands given by previous bearers become null and void the moment another claims me.”

I opened my eyes fully and sat up straight to listen to her.

What she said made sense. I lacked the education in the arcane to speculate on the exact nature of the magic binding her, but Tzila had clearly been compelled to follow Janssens’ orders in a way that was far more direct and forceful than—for example—the charm magic that affected Zarina.

Only Cindy’s absolute obedience could compare.

“I- that is going to be somewhat tricky to work around, but I will do my best. If I give you something that sounds like an order, please clarify it with me before you follow it.” The look on the Jinn’s face was difficult to decipher, and her tone was flat as she asked, “Is that an order, Master?”

I stared at her for a moment, then snorted a laugh and pushed myself to my feet. “Sure. I guess. Look, please don’t hurt anyone, and don’t leave the apartment for the night. I don’t want you wandering off and getting arrested for vagrancy or anything. I promise, tomorrow, we will sit down and figure out what your future looks like, but for now, just hang tight, OK? You’re welcome to any of the food in the fridge, bathroom is around the corner from the bedroom.”

“I promise, I’m not trying to be an asshole, I just know that if I try to do this now I’ll do a shit job of figuring out what’s going on. In the meantime, if you want to figure out what you want to do with yourself, I’m open to suggestions and we can talk about it tomorrow.”

Tzila stared up at me a moment longer, and then gave me a sharp nod of her head.

“I will consider my options and expectations and will speak with you of them tomorrow.”

That was good enough for me. I allowed myself to succumb to the not so subtle pressure I’d been resisting and made my way into my bedroom with a renewed spring in my step.

I made it a few feet inside before I fully registered what I was looking at. The door swung closed behind me while I stared, open-mouthed, at the bed.

There were two mostly naked women there.

Both of them wore garter belts.

Both of those held up lacy stockings.

One set was in red and the other in blue.

Both women also wore blindfolds, though those were simple black fabric.

The woman in red lingerie was positioned on her back near the head of the bed, and had been folded nearly in half. Her knees were up almost to her shoulder with her feet sticking up into the air. Her elbows had been bound to her thighs, just above her knees, with leather cuffs—which left her almost entirely immobile and unable to close or lower her legs.

The one in blue was positioned face down. Her elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles were each wrapped neatly in plain white nylon rope. Her arms were trapped behind her back, leaving her face down between the other woman’s spread thighs. She might be able to crawl like a worm, but with her arms and legs bound she would be unable to move otherwise.

They were also, as far as I could tell, both Cindy.

As I watched, the one in blue slowly worked her jaw while the one in red wriggled her hips slowly as her pussy was languidly probed and explored.

I couldn’t tell at a glance how long the two women had been here, but as I began to walk quietly towards the bed, I couldn’t help but notice that both women’s thighs glistened with their arousal.

There was a single sheet of paper resting on the covers beside the two. When I reached the bed, I lifted it and immediately recognized Aubrette’s work—the Fae’s elegant handwriting would pass for expert calligraphy in most places.

My Lord,

You are invited to guess who is who.

There will be a reward if you are correct.

You may test however you like, save that neither will speak and you are requested to leave both blindfolded.

Move them, taste them, use them however you will.

They are, as I am, ever yours.

I set the note down on the nightstand with a genuine smile on my lips and the final line echoing in my mind. Somehow, even while setting up something as elaborate as… this, Aubrette managed to find a way to warm my heart.

As I began to slowly strip out of my clothes, I watched as the face down Cindy—who I mentally tagged as ‘Blue’—continued tonguing the bare lips of the face up Cindy—‘Red’.

With the blindfolds on, I couldn’t see either woman’s eyes. Given the request in the note, it was pretty obvious that one of them was Rose. She’d taken Cindy’s form just earlier in the day, and my guess was that this was an idea she’d had then. Zarina could probably have come up with a magical way to disguise herself or one of the others, but since I’d tucked her into bed myself not long ago, I was reasonably certain she wasn’t a collaborator. As far as I knew, Aubrette didn’t possess any Glamours to disguise herself—though if I were to guess, she was probably leveraging her particular Talent to observe from the adjacent bedroom in secret.

So, one of these was almost certainly my insatiable and kinky Sin Demon.

The other was almost certainly my mischievous Puca, in search of some of that attention she had intimated she wanted earlier after a day spent serving as my mount.

And I just had to figure out which was which.

I grinned. This was going to be fun.

It was also exactly what I needed to help me take my mind off the events of the day. I could actually feel my fatigue fade away as Lust roiled through my body and I focused on the task at hand.

I started off with a visual inspection.

As I walked around the bed and compared the two women, I couldn’t find any physical differences between them. Both had Cindy’s slender body, taut limbs and small breasts. The multicolored hair was present on both Red and Blue—on their heads, as well as in a tiny patch above otherwise hairless drooling cunts. I couldn’t see Blue’s face while it was buried in Red’s pussy, but what I could see of both of them certainly looked like the Sin Demon.

Since visual inspection wasn’t enough, I crawled up onto the bed and approached the two from the side. As my weight shifted the bed, Blue didn’t interrupt the attention she was paying to Red, but the latter’s blindfolded face turned towards me, so I focused my initial attention on her.

Moving to the right, I knelt up beside the supine Cindy and reached my hand up to lay it palm down on her flat belly. My fingertips traced up from there, and I caressed and down her sternum for a moment, before I flattened my palm against her and cupped one of her modest breasts. With Red lying on her back, her tits were all but flat. Only the fact that they were incredibly perky and firm kept them noticeable and fun to play with.

Red moaned whenever I brushed across her stiff little nipples, so I tried pinching them gently in response. I didn’t notice any particular difference in feel from what I expected, but I still spent a couple minutes palming her tits. Just to be sure.

When I turned towards the foot of the bed and crawled around to Blue’s side, she wriggled her ass in excitement—or perhaps invitation. Her hips were lifted up off the bed as much as she could, and when I knelt over her feet, I was treated to an excellent view of her hairless cunt and the nectar that had dripped down her slender thighs. I reached a hand out and let my fingertips brush along the lips of her pussy, and she immediately pushed her hips back to try to get me to touch her more.

Bound as she was, she didn’t really succeed, but the effort was quite endearing. I couldn’t help the quiet chuckle that escaped my lips, but I shifted my hand and palmed her taut backside, then firmly pushed her forward until she was again face-first in Red’s cunt.

She obediently resumed tongue-fucking her duplicate, but her hips wiggled from side to side in an effort to entice me.

I saw no reason to turn down her implicit offer. I slid a single finger into her cunt and was rewarded by the hot walls clamping down around my digit firmly as she moaned into Red’s sex. As I began to pump my finger in and out of Blue’s pussy, I noticed the pink rosebud of her asshole was already slick and shiny. The realization that Blue—and likely Red as well—were already lubed up and ready to take me in any hole I chose sent a thrill of Lust up my spine and did a fantastic job banishing any lingering thoughts of the day’s earlier events from my mind.

I walked on my knees until I was kneeling over the prone woman’s thighs. She continued to squeeze the tight muscles of her inner channel around my finger as I did, as though inviting me to replace the digit with something more substantial, but I delayed a moment before accepting the offer.

I’d never anticipated actually fucking twins in my life, and this was one step better than any fantasy I might have concocted. I wanted to burn the image into my head, just to make sure I never forgot a single detail of the encounter.

Then Blue arched her back while she squeezed down again, and I realized that I was committing the sight to memory, when I should be enjoying the feel instead.

I pulled my finger back and lowered my body over hers. The Sin Demon’s tiny form was all but engulfed by my own, and when the head of my thick cock dropped between her taut thighs, she responded by thrusting her ass up as much as she could to open herself up for me.

My hips nudged forward, and the head of my dick encountered wet, molten heat.

I paused there for a moment and felt the woman beneath me continue to squirm. A little whimper from Red told me that Blue’s tongue had stopped moving, and I lowered my mouth to whisper breathily, “Don’t stop licking.”

She buried her tongue in Red’s cunt, and I rewarded her by pressing my hips forward.

Blue’s cunt was sodden, and the copious lubrication that provided was the only reason I made any headway at all. I felt a triumphant smile grow on my lips, but said nothing. Instead, I let my body weight provide the force I needed to sink, inch after inch, the entire length of my throbbing erection into the wet, warm, welcoming hole the Sin Demon had provided.

It was heaven. Molten heat enveloped me and for several long moments I found myself lost in the feeling of the silky pussy around me. Cindy’s channel was incredibly, wonderfully, deliciously tight. She liked to tease me about how much it felt like I was stretching her out every time I shoved my cock inside her, and holy fuck was she absolutely right.

It felt like she was clamped down on every inch of my shaft. Like her tight tunnel was embracing me, but also doing its best to resist every inch of my advance.

I left off all thoughts of identifying who was who as I reveled in the feel of pounding the fuck out of this woman’s undeniably enthusiastic cunt.

The fact that every time my hips bounced against her toned little ass Blue’s tongue was shoved deeper between the thighs of an identical copy of herself only began to assert itself in my awareness when Red started squirming wildly in an attempt to grind her greedy little pussy into Blue’s face. She moaned out an orgasm, and I remembered that I wasn’t just here to spend myself in the first hole I sampled.

I had a job to do.

I’d felt pretty exhausted after we got home from the forest, but as I really thought about what Cindy and Rose had offered via that note, Lust surged through me. I felt energized—Sin flowed through my body as I sank my fingers into Blue’s hips. I was pretty sure I already knew which of these two was which, but I felt willing to indulge myself a little making absolutely sure.

For example.

Rose absolutely loved to swallow my cum, but the greedy little Puca claimed a distaste for blowjobs in comparison to the other options she had to offer. She was willing, if I asked her to, and her calling as my mount meant that more than once I’d found her slobbering over the head of my cock because an errant thought had proved enough of a pull to draw her across the apartment and onto her knees.

I also knew that she could resist that pull if she really wanted to, so it couldn’t have been that much of an imposition. The fact that I was enthusiastic about getting my hands on her body every time it happened probably helped improve her disposition about it, because I found the curvaceous little fairy incredibly appealing, and was always eager to make sure I got to hear her surprisingly squeaky little moans when I found the exact right spot just inside her pussy to slide my finger back and forth across until she came with the head of my cock wedged against her tongue.

So there was no reason not to enjoy myself with both the mouths of Red and Blue while they played their little game.

Since both of them were immobile, it was up to me to drag them into position, but with the Sin that flowed through my body it was easy—a few moments later I was gently sliding my dick back and forth into Red’s mouth as she enthusiastically licked around the head.

One of my hands was pressed into the mattress to help support my body while I leaned over her, while the other plunged two fingers in and out of the greedy hole I’d just been fucking while its owner did her best to squirm and rub herself against my thigh. I’m not sure what her gyrations were exactly meant to accomplish, but the feel of her body writhing against me was delightful, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Again, I was pretty sure which of these two women was Rose and which was Cindy. I knew the feel of Cindy’s lips around my cock. For the first few months after the Sin Demon had entered into my life, I’d spent a not-insubstantial amount of time with my pants around my ankles while a slender punky blonde head bobbed enthusiastically up and down in my lap.

I loved the way the Sin Demon loved to suck my cock, and that made her, in turn, love it even more.

And it showed.

But I wasn’t willing to quit right then. Not when the two had so very thoughtfully provided one last point of well prepared comparison.

I slid Red around once more until I was kneeling between her still spread thighs, then rubbed the head of my cock up and down over the swollen lips of her sopping pussy as a flood of nectar poured down around it.

That hole might not have been my ultimate target, but I wasn’t willing to ignore it either. I lined up the head of my cock with her pussy and thrust.

Her welcoming channel opened up around me and took me in.

It felt like she had been made for me—like the wet little walls of her cunt had been carved out specifically to make a home for my dick. Like every fold of her wonderful cunt had been perfectly shaped to fully embrace my cock.

I reached around behind me and dragged Blue’s body up the bed, then flipped her over. She wiggled her cute butt up at me and I reached my hand over to slide my index finger in small circles around the tight little ring of her rosebud.

She pushed back up against me and immediately started working to relax the muscles there until the digit popped into the well lubricated depths of her asshole.

Blue moaned and pushed herself back up into me. Her behavior, as well as Red’s, told me all I needed to know.

I loved the Sin Demon’s theatricality. I knew that she played up her behaviors for my benefit. I knew that what she wanted was, very specifically, to turn me on. But that, right there, was the point. What I wanted was for her to want to turn me on, and every time she somehow managed to talk my shapeshifting Puca mount into an over-the-top scheme like this game of theirs was another example of her, an intelligent and powerful demon, wanting to make me horny.

It was intoxicating to know how purely she wanted me to Lust for her, and that very desire made me want to indulge myself all the more. It was easy to be enthusiastic, to let myself go and just enjoy myself, when I was with partners who obviously wanted to be there.

Enthusiasm was very sexy, and the Sin Demon had it in unabashed spades.

I fingered her tight little ass with first one, and then two, fingers as I gave Rose’s familiar pussy a good, solid fucking.

The Puca’s wet little cunt was made for me. I think actually, truly molded specifically for my cock as part of the magic that bound the shapeshifting fairy as my mount.

There was no way I was ever going to mistake the two.

I pumped my seed deep inside her welcoming pussy and she spasmed around me in response. The sound of Cindy moaning in duplicate as the women came only made the satisfaction that ran through me as I emptied my balls inside ‘her’ all the sweeter. As my orgasm ran its course, exhaustion poured back in as if filling a vacuum.

“Red, you’re Rose, Cindy, you’re blue. I think getting to figure that out is prize enough.”

I managed to remove the cuffs from Rose before I collapsed, but had to leave it to the Puca to undo all the many sets of ropes that bound the Sin Demon.

The fact that a moment later she snuggled up against me because the ropes had dissolved into nothing confirmed not only that Aubrette had conjured the bindings, but also that she had been watching from the next room over and knew when to let her magical creation fade back into the ether.

I collapsed back onto the bed and a moment later a tiny blonde woman snuggled up on either side of me. I pulled both women against my body and fell asleep in a slightly sweaty pile of glowing joy.