Chapter 436: A Night in Cold Brook

“Teg isn’t going to try anything… is he?”

Syd rolled over on her bedroll to look at Aila, her face twisted up in a look of restrained amusement. Aila was brushing her long hair, getting ready to bed down for the night, just the same as everyone else in the wagon-tent. The night was cold outside since it was still early spring, but the temperature inside the covered wagon-space was, as always, comfortably warm. That meant both she and the others were already down to their underclothes. Or less, in the cases of Kerr and Alex.

“With both Thea and me in the house? Not likely,” Syd grinned up at her lover. “Besides, I don’t think Vera is the kind of woman to invite a guy into her bed on the first date.”

“You never know…” Sorcha murmured from the little nest of pillows she had constructed like a throne. “It’s always the quiet ones who turn out to have the weirdest appetites. Thea proves that old saying.”

“I would say Jadis disproves it,” Bridget commented before yanking one of the pillows away from the goblin. “And stop hogging all the pillows!”

While the two green women commenced to wrestle for control of the pillow stockpile, Syd turned her attention onto the teasing conversation going on behind her inside of the wagon.

“You know it’s way warmer in the pile with us than it is up here in the wagon,” Kerr told Severina. “No point in freezing your tits off just because of a little silly modesty.”

“It’s not that cold,” the Seraphim replied as she straightened out her bedroll she had laid out inside of the open wagon. “The fact you are standing there without a stich on says as much. Besides, I prefer to have room to let my wings stretch.”

“Oh, come on,” Kerr put her fists on her hips, evincing not a shred of shame that she was standing before the paladin as naked as the day she was born. “We’ve shared the same cock already! What’s wrong with sharing the same bed for the night?”

“No.”

The look on Severina’s face was enough to convince Kerr to abandon her attempt at luring the Seraphim into the cuddle puddle. However, as she turned away and slipped out of the wagon, she couldn’t help but toss another outrageous comment over her shoulder.

“You know, we’re going to be recharging our rituals on this trip eventually, Sev. You’ll be sharing our dear Jadis’ meat pillars with me sooner or later.”

“Goodnight,” Severina said firmly, though not without a high color rising in her cheeks.

While Jadis had to chuckle internally at Kerr’s lustful antics, the point was actually valid. They didn’t need to recharge any rituals for the next couple of days, but at least by the end of the third day of this trip they would need to perform at least the most basic of lewd acts to upkeep their bonds. Jadis had only been with Severina the one time and they hadn’t performed a ritual, so the angelic paladin didn’t need to do any recharging with her. However, the sexual tension between the two of them was still as strong as ever, and Jadis was more than happy to welcome Sev into the group for some naughty activities. She doubted that the rigid paladin would be comfortable with having sex with the others, at least not for a while, but that didn’t mean Jadis couldn’t spare a body or two to give the Seraphim the attention she deserved.

Thoughts of Severina’s wonderful body were starting to stir up unwanted impulses in Jadis, so she did her best to dispel the memories. She wouldn’t be doing anything fun with her tonight, or any of her other girls either. For the sake of propriety around Thea’s mother, they were refraining from any sexual activities.

It had been around two years since Vera had been able to sleep in her own bed in her own house, so she was taking advantage of the opportunity their visit had given to spend a safe night in the farmhouse. Both Jay and Thea were sleeping inside the house, occupying Thea’s old room on the second floor, just down the hall from Vera’s bedroom. As much fun as Jadis would have had in reenacting some of the escapades she’d gone through with girlfriends and sneaking into their bedrooms when their parents were around, she wasn’t going to do that to Thea. The poor woman was already feeling stressed out over Tegwyn’s romantic intentions towards her mother, so making her worry about getting caught in the middle of a lewd act wouldn’t help her state of mind. Thea was a voyeur, after all, not an exhibitionist.

Speaking of Tegwyn, the Dryad had also volunteered to sleep in the farmhouse. He had his own tent, so he didn’t necessarily have to sleep in the same space as Jadis and her companions, thank goodness, but why would he bother with a tent when there was so much room inside? At least, that was the reasoning that Vera had given when they had brought up the discussion of sleeping arrangements. Thus, Teg was bedded down in the vacant room that had once belonged to Thea’s brother, just on the other side of the hall from Thea’s room.

At least Jadis and Thea would be able to hear if the Dryad did try to sneak out of his room thanks to the squeaky hinges on the door.

Jay had been mildly surprised by the lack of personal belongings in Thea’s room when she had entered it with her shy lover. However, most of Thea’s most valued possessions had either come with her when she had left for military service or had been bundled up by Vera and taken into the village for safekeeping. While the bed was no where near large enough to accommodate Jadis’ size, there was enough room to stretch out on the floor since there wasn’t much else in the bedroom. Not that there needed to be much else. With Thea resting comfortably on top of Jay, there really wasn’t much more Jadis could ask for.

It took some time for everyone to settle down, but soon enough both the house and the wagon were silent except for the sound of quiet breathing as everyone fell to sleep. Jadis was the only one to remain awake, and even then, only partially, as Dys stood watch outside.

Jadis wasn’t particularly worried about attacks, Demon or otherwise. The possibility was always there, but chances were low. That was why she used just one of her selves to stand watch alone with no further backup. She would just wake up one of her other selves after a while and switch out, giving her bodies more than enough rest while letting everyone else sleep uninterrupted.

Well, almost everyone else.

“Hey,” Dys greeted Alex as the Demon slithered her way out of the tent to join her. “Don’t you want to stay warm inside?”

“I am warm… Beside you…” Alex said as she cuddled up against Dys’ side.

“Mm,” Dys hummed in appreciation as she wrapped an arm around the mother of her first child. “Well, thanks for the company. But don’t expect me to be easily distracted. I’m still on guard here, even if it’s a quiet kind of farmland.”

“I know…” Alex whispered as she nuzzled her face against Dys’ neck. “I will… Be a… Good girl…”

“You always are,” Dys smiled as she kissed one of the hair tentacles that Alex was wiggling in her face. “That’s why I hope our baby takes after you.”

“She will… Be like you…” Alex insisted. “Beautiful

… Strong… A little dumb…”

“Hey!” Dys quietly yelped. “Since when am I a little dumb?”

“Aila says… You are… Just dumb enough… To be lucky…”

“Oh does she?” Dys growled. “I think I might have to have a talk with her about that assessment…”

The next few hours of guard duty were uneventful as Dys stood watch with Alex’s company. They didn’t talk much, but what little they did discuss mostly centered around the Succubus growing in the Demon’s belly. They still weren’t sure when the baby would be born, but the priestess midwife Bertha had said that the baby was growing at a faster rate. She thought it likely that Alex would give birth more quickly than a human by maybe a few months. Possibly even sooner. That meant that one of their frequent debates was what to name the little demonling. Alex had initially wanted to name the baby after both of them by combining their names into Jadex. While Jadis wasn’t wholly opposed to the idea, she didn’t think it was the best name either. A few different suggestions had been made by the others, from Azure to Zelia, but none had quite fit.

“What about Laura?” Dys asked. “That was my mother’s name. It’s a nice, solid name.”

“Maybe…” Alex shrugged. “It is… A nice name

…”

“But not an amazing name.”

Once more, Alex shrugged.

Looking up at the position of the partially overcast m3oon, Dys huffed out a breath and shook her head.

“Okay, well, let’s continue this in a minute. I’m going to switch out with my Syd self. Wait here a minute, okay?”

“Yes…” Alex agreed before letting go of Dys.

While talking and patrolling the immediate area around the farmhouse and the Behemoth, Dys and Alex had ended up near the simple wooden fence that marked off the neglected garden patch around the front of the stone building. It was only a few yards away from the front door of the house and also within easy sight of the wagon-tent. Leaving Alex to sit with her tentacles wrapped around the wooden posts, Dys jogged over to the Behemoth.

Syd was already in the process of extracting herself from the pile of sleeping women she was partly buried under by the time Dys entered the tent. Wordlessly, Jadis used the supernatural coordination that came from being multiple bodies at the same time to help her other self slip out of the pile without waking anyone.

It was while Dys was in the middle of slipping off her boots so that Syd could wear them pre-warmed that a loud crack echoed in the still of the night. The sudden, unexpected noise made all three of Jadis jump, every part of her coming to full wakefulness. The crack had come from outside, and it was not the only sound to be heard.

In a flash, while the rest of her lovers were still waking up, Dys and Syd were out of the tent and into the open. What she saw once she was outside sent a jolt of confusion through Jadis, followed shortly after by anger. A Demon was attacking Alex.

The wretched thing looked almost like a stretched-out human, with lanky, long limbs that ended in sickle-like claws. It moved sometimes on all fours, other times on two legs as it danced around Alex in a bizarre display of strange movements. Its shadowy form was difficult to see in the night, but it had a mane of tendrils extending from its head that whipped around wildly as it attacked Alex with a blinding flurry of lightning-fast swipes. The thing displayed incredible speed and agility, somehow managing to dodge out of the way of Alex’s many tentacles while still finding opportunities to strike back.

In the brief instant that Jadis paused to understand what was happening, she saw the creature swipe a clawed paw past Alex’s tentacles and rake its talons across the large set of arms that her lover had wrapped around her stomach in a protective embrace.

A primordial scream of rage was ripped out of Jadis’ mouths at the sight of her Alex and their baby being attacked. The sound of her combined roar was enough to stun the creature as it stumbled back and away from Alex in a quick retreat.

Not quick enough, though.

With all of her massive speed granted to her by having four hundred and thirty-five points in Agility, Dys and Syd leapt upon the attacker. As fast as the attacking Demon was, it couldn’t compare to Jadis on the warpath. Even Jay, who had the inconvenience of being inside a stone structure, was out of the building so quickly that the shadowy monster had no chance of escape.

All three of Jadis converged on the thing, grabbing at its skinny limbs with bare hands. While fast, the monster was not comparatively strong at all. Its feeble struggles were nothing to Jadis’ immense Strength stat. With all of its arms and legs captured, the blinding fury within Jadis tempted her to simply tear the Demon limb from limb. She had never seen a Demon like this one before, so it could be a Greater Demon, or possibly just a variety she was unfamiliar with. Whatever it was, it was likely some kind of hunter that Samleos had sent after Alex. And while Jadis had been trying to find Demons that she could talk with for the past several weeks, she was no longer in a talking mood.

As her grip tightened around the parts of the Demon she had caught, the assassin let out a strangled cry of pain. That was unusual in and of itself, though not unheard of. While Demons didn’t normally talk verbally, she had encountered Greater Demons and Possession Demons that mimicked mortal vocalizations. What was most definitely unusual was the curse uttered by the Demon in the next instant.

“Rot in your abyss, demons!” the creature spat angrily. “Villthyrial will never let your kind destroy Oros!”

That strange claim was enough to pierce the haze of rage that had taken over Jadis’ brain. Forcing herself to take a breath and reassess, Jadis took another look at the creature she had caught in her three pairs of hands.

On second glance, what she had initially taken to be tentacles instead appeared to be vine-like growths that were covered in flowers. The long limbs that she held felt oddly similar to the strange woody texture of Tegwyn’s skin. Additionally, the being’s body, now forced into immobility by her grasp, was definitely more feminine than Jadis had originally noticed.

As the clouds continued their travel across the night sky and the moon’s light became brighter, Jadis was able to look into the scared and angry face of an alien yet beautiful woman.

“What in the Wilds are you doing with that Dryad?” Tegwyn called out.

Glancing back and up at the second floor of the farmhouse, Jay saw Tegwyn leaning out of his bedroom window, bare-chested and with a concerned look on his face. Behind him, she could see an equally concerned-looking Vera wearing nothing but a bedsheet around her shoulders.

“I’m just making all kinds of wrong assumptions tonight, aren’t I…” Jay mumbled as she slowly lowered the local Dryad down onto the ground.

“But I’m not the only one,” Dys said as she kept a firm grip on the Dryad’s right wrist. “Now, who the fuck are you and why the fuck did you attack my wife?”

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