03 Atavism of the Ifrit Read online

  “Nor can I. Ivonniq already promised to help me train my voice so I can talk to another at long last without using sign language or my mind.”

  “Then might I suggest doing a lot of swallowing… Err.” He paused as Benilliminia began squeaking a laugh and slapping his arm. “You know I don’t mean that type of swallowing.”

  “Sure I do…” She rolled her bright eyes. “I’ll swallow you anytime.”

  “Behave yourself.” Lightly scolded Kanade who tried her damndest to not join in and laugh.

  “Where would the fun be in that? Alright, fine… Yes, I’ll do much swallowing. When we all mated I did some while resting after this was done filling me.” She brushed her fingers down his flaccid pecker that jumped a bit in her hand. “I will sing as soon as I am able. I missed it so about as much as having a big cock making my hips numb.” Dainty fingers then brushed her fully scarred neck all the women shared now from his biting, especially Gaia.

  “Can’t wait to hear it for a private concert.” He chuckled as she let the third leg go.

  “Aright ya’ll, who’s hungry?” Kanade suddenly raised her voice and woke those slumbering. She was getting horny again, but was too sore to go again and needed a diversion.

  “Someone say food?” Catnis rubbed her six eyes and blinked them separately.

  The other women laughed as her hair was wild with bed head, sticking up all over the place. Kyoko helped tame it.

  “Yup, our fantastic baby maker has to leave soon for another of the king’s trials and I cook around here. The king kindly gave us a day off to spend together and as raw as I am…” She and all the women looked to each other with the exact lazy expression. “I know it was well spent.” They all laughed, Including Gaia whom shook them as they still sat on her belly. It made the laughing last a while longer than it would have. “And we see him off each mornin’.”

  “I could go for a meal made by you.” Catnis spoke up again after thanking Kyoko for her help. “Ivonniq told us you learned from a Will-o-wisp and I want to see for myself just how good she told me your food is.

  All except Gaia was hungry and Kanade whipped up a feast in practically no time at all. Feminine moans were almost as if he was inside them again as they ate and drank a hearty breakfast.

  Gaia looked up as she leaned against the wall the spacious bed was pushed up against as weight dropped upon her propped up knee to find Ethan standing tall in a pair of blue boxers crossing his arms. “I take it you know what I’m about to ask?”

  Gaia looked across the room to find the other mistresses following Kanade to the bathing room to clean up, but Sarimee was over at the kitchen washing the dishes and swayed to music playing in her ears from the I-pod strapped to her shoulder. Gaia’s chest swelled and gave him full view of her breasts and enjoyed the low rumble he made that excited her. A sad smile at least came around. “Yes, Husband, I do, but tell me anyway.”

  “You said you knew we would be together before I was born. As a Seer, did you see the attack at the stadium where Kanade was shot in the throat by the Earth Elemental and later when I was in Sheedan’s clutches?”

  “Haven’t I always been the first one of Earth’s Demon Lord’s to come to you and you seeking me?” She instead responded.

  His answer came quick thanks to a mind that thought back to seeing her relief after Panther and Tokala’s rescue how she knocked trees away to get to him then again when called to Blue Angel Isle after the attack in a flash. All the cryptic smirks. Even when discovering the stars inside his head, she was the first he spoke to using his own blood to speak through it to call out for help. “Yes, you were. But why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Had I told you I was a Seer that day, the other lords would have sought my death in fear I would take over by using my powers of foresight to manipulate them to my own ends and you would not have succeeded in bringing them together to unite against Sheedan.” Gaia looked down in remorse and muscles in her jaw twitched, but he gave her time to speak again when she was ready, not before. Ethan especially didn’t want to force her to open her mind. She deserved that much respect at least. Plus she is a Titan Queen. Not a good idea to piss off the strongest of all Titans. “It pained me to sit back and watch Kanade get injured, but if she wasn’t… that Elemental would have surely killed you. When I spoke I gently manipulated you to move from her side and your anger was required to get you to make sure the other Lords followed your command by show of force. Hitting Methrom and Dileep only got them to listen. The attack gave them faith in following.

  “As to the kidnapping… yes, I… let you get taken.” Tears began to form, but she wiped them away. Gaia barely kept herself from choking on the following words. “Had I warned you… Sheedan would certainly have broken the Accords on that world ten months later with the Ice Dragon General’s help. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make. Giving my own husband to Sheedan was heartbreaking… especially since your diluted blood from Kanade’s injury, I managed to take, was not strong enough to lead me to and to her nest.”

  “So you gambled my life by placing me in close proximity to destroy her empire from the inside out?” Ethan realized. “And…”

  “I saw what she did to you… all of it! Every atrocity.” She admitted with tremendous sorrow. “The chainsaw that took your hand, every skinning that Succubus subjected you to, torture, That vindictive Lamia biting everywhere…” Big fat tears streamed down soft cheeks that even with four hands couldn’t wipe away fast enough. “I had to sit and watch the first husband I knew I’d love forever be subject to methods I’d never allow my minions to do even in my most angry state. I had to let my future daughter’s father suffer so he could learn his most subtle and incredible use of fire-sight and let him maybe save his world… if he didn’t have a breakdown. Had to watch as Kanade lost her mind and was in pain from separation. And then I had to keep my mouth shut when Enforcers near killed you both on the island. Being a Seer is the worst curse imaginable. Yes, I see some beauty, but every worse probability too. I see more evil than good… You had no idea why I was so relieved when you spoke to me through your blood. At that time I was watching you looking more like a barely breathing corpse. Hearing your voice was like a breath held forever was finally let go so new life could come.”

  “Let me in, Gaia. Don’t keep everything bottled up.” Ethan’s irritation wavered as the usually confident and cheerful woman was showing she had fears and insecurities like everyone else.

  “It’s not that easy.” She couldn’t meet his straightforward gaze. “My mind is not easy to navigate, not like my wives’.”

  “You just said you loved me for longer than anyone I know. Longer than even Ramaziel knew me. So trust me now. You should already know I won’t exploit your abilities.”

  “I do… that’s why I’ve loved you the first moment I had a vision of us in each other’s embrace and saw love for me in your eyes. Love I never experienced in all my long life. Why I love my sisters too. They want me for me, not my power. You want me for me, not to tell the future and shape it how to best stack in your favor. It’s why I was comfortable telling you at the clearing. Balam never reveal anything of the true royal mistresses and everyone else had your curse that prevents harm coming to yourself, Kanade and the rest of us. Being a Seer means many want me dead if they cannot use me to their own ends or to see you will not succeed. And yes, I’ve always loved you. The Fire King may have made the Accords that allow the Houses to hunt soul eaters who break the treaty and leave the rest of us alone, but until I saw how you would come to love me, it was my own newfound adoration that stopped me from eating souls. In the past three hundred years I’ve slipped only seven times and not one soul has passed my lips since the day you were born in Florida Hospital… actually I was the one who delivered you. I… um… did the caesarean.” Ethan’s jaw dropped. How could it not. “If you truly want to see what I have Seen and what I feel for you, I will. But beware, once you are in, I’ll trap you without intenti
on. I have no control over it. I can let others in, not out. My secondary brain is what you’ve used to contact me through your blood and what everyone else does.”

  “Hold on… You have a second brain?” He asked.

  Gaia smiled, the tears letting up. “Like you have a second heart. Due to my kind’s size, we need the secondary brain just to function and move correctly. We’re too big to function otherwise. My second one is located in the small of my back and is where you speak with me telepathically.”

  “I would still like to see what my apparent first crush has done. I’m in everyone’s head anyway. If you can’t let me go, that might be a good thing. If someone manages to sever my connection to everyone, your lock may be what is needed to keep our loves’ calm and not to worry if I’m out of contact. I’m coming in.”

  Gaia felt his pressure and a single strand slipped in.

  Immediately the thread was caught in a tempest of sights, sounds and smells beyond anything so far witnessed. The women all came out with worry to stare as they all felt his mental shift suddenly weaken in them and struggle to remain in control. Gaia held absolutely still and worried her bottom lip, unable to aid him in the endeavor as those thoughts were now trapped forever until the unlikely day she was killed. Worse yet, she could not offer guidance or aid in this endeavor. Past was the only thing set in stone and every possible future that had even a shred of involving Gaia’s influence flew by faster than imagined. It was beyond mortal comprehension and Ethan still struggled to make sense of it.

  Strangely all the probabilities began to sort out logically in the turbulent storm that was her Seer’s mind. Finding a slight eye of the storm, or how Ethan perceived it like the eye of a hurricane where things settled and could be sorted, came to the core of who Gaia is. If Kanade embodied gentle and pure love, Gaia’s core was of a mother’s unyielding dedication to see her family was whole, safe and as peaceful as could be in a cruel universe. Inside that core sprang forth a person with so much love, one person could not withstand it. It had to be shared among many, not selfishly squandered. She was old, older than Ethan expected but also steadfast and caring for all things and yet fiercely protective by nature.

  He began to see old visions like a movie playing of himself growing up and how she had watched over him like no other. She, at those times, loved him as any real mother who wanted him to struggle in life to make him a better person. Doing tough love. Not raising a spoiled child. It was Gaia who manipulated events to break his mother’s neck. And though it at first angered him greatly, she had only the best intentions. Gaia was careful to not let Fate know she was the real mastermind behind everything. As Ethan watched visions of himself growing he felt Gaia at those times also changing how she loved him. Evolving her feelings. First as a far away mother using tough love, then as a dear friend he remembered in Middle and High School in Orlando. She was known then as Glenna and was even there for him at his mother’s funeral, but disappeared on him a few months later. Friendship gradually turned into desire, but she distanced herself as Zagan took a closer interest in him to avoid detection. He knew she would never wish harm to him, but also knew that if she coddled, it would be disastrous. What was genuinely flattering is Gaia hasn’t taken a single lover from the she saw him come charging into her future life and knew he was to be her husband. Patience was great in her.

  Beside his movie he saw Kanade’s life growing up from the moment her little hands broke through a snow white egg all the way to the present and beyond. And it wasn’t just them closest to her. The other five mistresses also were closely bound to her heart, her core.

  It was the second most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  Ethan even saw his own future children’s faces in some of the flashes and his wives’ happily together. He wanted… no needed it to happen, make that ideal future become reality.

  Then he began to see the downsides Gaia spoke of. The dirty underside of the coin had mundane things like what way she would do her long hair for the day, but also had sights too horrifying to ever describe.

  Most terrifying were all the empty scenes which meant if Gaia couldn’t see further down, she was deceased from then on. Becoming Third Mistress though eliminated quite a few of the dead ends. More protection helped lower those endings. Many showed his women dead and dying in the future, but Gaia’s decisions to carefully maneuver events would ensure it would not occur.

  Ethan could not hope to manage to extract from the calm place and venture back out into the maelstrom and didn’t even try. The link was established, but was managed to not look at the images, merely to converse where not even Kanade could reach without permission. The rest of his thoughts was more than capable of carrying on and thriving. “Glenna? I can’t believe you were Glenna. No wonder I always felt like we knew each other.”

  Gaia said with great love and affection “As I wanted it to be. In school I had to talk with you or else go mad. I knew we’d only be friends at that time and was enough to placate my needs for intimacy. Now you fully understand just how much I’ve always loved you and did what I did to make you into the husband we all know and love.”

  “That was a wonderful gift, Gaia. And I know how hard it was for you now. Patience was never my virtue. My assumptions always got me in hot water. You’ve always had my best interests at heart. Thank you for it. I’ll make sure to live up to all you let me witness.”

  “And I will help my lovers. Like Beni, I’ll do everything to keep us together. Keep thing like this from now on. And right now I’m going to save you much pain. Your next trial will be to go to the Arachne breeding grounds and not wake the sleeping mothers guarding their eggs. To succeed build up speed and glide as much as possible. When you find a hole leading down, take it and go left. And whatever you do, do not use a spark. The sleeping mothers who will awake by fires’ scent will spring unseen traps in their webs that will contain you. The ones flitting around your crown will give you plenty of light to navigate.”

  “If he’s going to our nesting area…” Piped Catnis as she made thread and pulled it out from under her to show off. “Avoid this color of web at all costs. We fill the hollow core inside with venom.” She opened her mouth and two fangs unfolded and sank into the webbing. It turned a strange milky color. “When I had hatchlings we set these up to break easily on any hungry fools who want our spiderlings. On skin contact our venom paralyses prey some so we can capture them and liquefy their insides for our young later.”

  “Not to worry. My spells automatically repel venom from contacting my body. It includes my head and wings now.”

  “Seconded.” Gaia foresaw it doing it just so. “My warning just solidified his return to us tonight.”

  “Goody!” Sarimee smirked. “More playtime.”

  “Just what have I gotten myself into.” Ethan groaned during the following snickers and teasing giggles.

  “About eight pair of pants, Darlin’.”

  “What are pants?” asked Catnis throwing her webbing away.

  Turns out Gaia’s prediction was spot on and for eight hours Ethan skillfully managed to avoid detection inside a packed cocoon filled with nesting Arachne conserving strength by sleeping over their young. Several close calls almost landed him in serious trouble, but he managed to make it out without alerting anyone or anything.

  The following days and weeks were a mix of success, defeat, humor and lots and lots of sex.

  Trials varied and got harder or more specific. Usually Gaia was silent and let him figure out how to do it, but he never asked for insight. Only by free will did she ever give hints and only when it was under a life threatening circumstance. Some were ridiculous and others mind numbing.

  So far the hardest trial was sitting in a subzero block of ice and not use fire to survive. Ethan barely figured out how to internally heat his own blood without exterior heating means. It was difficult, but he succeeded.

  For two days though Ethan sat alone with Zagan learning what it meant to rule as king. O
nly the First Mistress had more to be responsible for in terms of etiquette and tradition. Usually it was easy. Kill any who stepped too far out of line. Only certain instances required subtly. Demon Kings were like the old iron fisted royalty of Earth. They had a rather simple role, to guide and limit extension of any one species. And any who threaten will be made an example of. Hanging, limb cutting. The work that keeps Chaos in some semblance of a line. You couldn’t leash Demons, at least those who can think for themselves above instinct’s intent. Being king meant to be the highest power and authority and making damn sure those who threaten that position be constantly reminded of that fact.

  Five days before the monthly deadline the Shaman Succubus tasked with brewing Kanade’s beer at last showed up with a long train of the beverage and eagerly awaited the First Mistress’s approval and simultaneously feared a beating or worse. After checking for poisons, Sacnite passed it over to Kanade and had a drink, raised an eyebrow and spontaneously made the Succubus her personal royal brewmaster. The servant fainted right then and there. It was much to the enjoyment of all those who were there to witness it. Kanade was very happy with having a nice cold beer once again and share much of it with friends and sisterhood. By the time the new servant charged with a great honor and responsibility awoke, half the train of carts was emptied, especially since Gaia took three great barrels in her hands that looked little more than wooden beer cans in her large grasp.

  The following morning Magnus had come by really early to say “Baldr’s passed out drunk.” To then hold up a large black permanent marker.

  Too good to pass up, Ethan and his women all went over and covered the Ogre with obscene writing and images. Ethan’s idea was pure genius and took one of the dildos his wives use, shrank it down some and stabbed it down on the prominent horn. Kira had to excuse herself outside as she had never laughed so hard in all her life as what everyone conspired to add onto her husband. Then they all left before the drink wore off.