Ecdysis

Chapter 5. Aggressive Negotiations

Chapter 5. Aggressive Negotiations

I sucked the air in but, before I could utter anything, a dainty finger pressed down on my lips.

“You have said plenty already.” Anaise murmured, “Now it is my time to speak.”

That was probably for the best — no matter how hard I tried to think what I could tell her, my thoughts tripped over themselves into a jumbled mess. I could recite the numbers of pi for hours, quote the sequence of many genes and proteins: base by base, amino acid by amino acid. But there was no correct sequence to a woman’s heart. Especially now when any slight misstep could lead to drastic outcomes.

Anaise bent down and her arms slid over my chest, hugging me from behind. A cute gesture that sent shivers down my neck.

“I remember seeing you for the first time. A young ‘teacher’ that my mother forced me to take.” Her finger traced circles on my chest while her chin rested on my shoulder. “I was furious back then, you know? I thought you were my punishment for something I could not even remember doing. A soft but humiliating way to put her own daughter in place.”

Well, I could guess why. Teachers were old, even the wermage ones. I didn’t just have a body of a young adult, I was also a murk with a much shorter lifespan. A child by their standards.

I wondered if Aikerim’s presence during that first lesson was only due to curiosity or did she possibly protect me from the wrath of her youngest child.

“Then you told me about numbers. Numbers that I had seen on artefacts all my life without knowing of their meaning. Numbers that even my grand-uncle didn’t know about. You promised more and I believed you then.”

Another hand wrapped around my body, “You didn’t teach me just these numbers. You taught me other patterns and ideas. Things that made my status grow among my peers. I was no longer just a mere Lady of the House anymore. I became the youngest student of Virnan Shah himself, the Wise Fox of Kiymetl. I can see their gazes, Erf.”

The arms squeezed me tight, “And I find the feeling exhilarating. I see them looking at my lustrous hair, my braids, and my tail. I see the heads turn at the sight of my trinkets, clad in Arksite glass, ears turning when Virnan Shah greets me at the gates to personally take me into the Tower. I see the jealousy and envy where I once saw contempt and indifference. You gave me that.”

It sounded like praise but the possessive hold she had on me wasn’t very reassuring.

Her lips near my ears, brushing on my skin with every word, “I know there is more, much much more. My mother? She had to fix that parchment of yours multiple times with Flow as she had read it so often. She even took it with her to bed on a couple of nights. The Speaker of Shebet? The one who chased you all over the city, apologizing for his sister in advance? One, who revealed a prized artefact and risked the safety of his Manor just to save your family.

“Or grand-uncle. Who bestowed upon you a Gestr of Kiymetl, stirring up a buzz within the entire House. I respect my family, Erf, and, despite his insufferable actions, I am well aware of the knowledge and experience Albin Chasya possesses. They don’t see you as a murk — but as a daimon. So do I, and I want that for myself.”

Except I wasn’t a daimon.

“Anaise-” I tried to speak out once again, only to be interrupted by the tail wrapping around my face.

“Save your words for later. For you promised me plenty already. Promises that I intend for you to keep.” She pulled away from me, dragging her tail over my body. “You were sent to me by my mother as a teacher first. To teach me numbers, maths, and other things. She had also assigned you to be my attendant. To attend to my needs.”

A quiet rustle and Anaise walked around the bath I was still inside of, finally entering my field of view completely. Instead of the usual kaftans and tunics, she chose to wear a robe this time around. With a similar cut of a kaftan but too thin to be called an outside dress.

She also left the sash behind.

The robe hung freely off her shoulders, barely concealing the twin peaks behind the sheer fabric. The same could not be said about the revealed valley of flesh in-between. A long opening that stretched from her neck down to her feet. Her long legs emerged with every step she took. A familiar hint of red.

“It wasn’t just the orders, you promised me these things yourself. And then you promised more. To teach me of things beyond philosophy,” Her hand picked up mine and pulled it to her body. “To show new things to me.”

I felt the tickle of hair as she pulled my hand to her core, “Have you forgotten that only your blade can shave me clean?”

Even if it did skip my memory, I was in no state to answer coherently.

Anaise stepped into the bath, right in front of me. My hand and the robe were the only things that managed to hide her from my eyes. As much as the thin cloth and skin that could feel her heat could do.

The eyes of green, looking straight into mine, “I will have that. And I will not accept a no this time around.”

Damn it, woman! I glanced away trying to think of a way out of this mess. Something that was outright impossible with her standing in front of me half-naked like that. Especially when I felt the moisture on my hand, and it was definitely not her sweat.

“Look at me,” She whispered as her other hand turned my head back to her. “I admit jealous gazes of others are quite enjoyable, but I crave another emotion in your eyes.”

Slowly, carefully, my hand was moved away, revealing the treasured flower hidden behind. I felt her gaze on me as I looked at her petals, pink with desire, right in front of me. The glistening folds slowly swelled with arousal. A slight touch of hair on her mound as a testament to the lack of my ministrations lately.

Wermage bodies were extremely resilient, and that included their body hair. Unfortunately for them they somehow developed a fashion for lacking certain body hair. Despite not having blades sharp enough to cut them. So she had to endure the pain or use one of my blades that were sharpened with nanites.

Her tail swished in the water like a large red fish waiting for food.

“Your gaze is different, Erf.” She murmured as she played with my hand, “There is something in your eyes whenever you look at my body. Something that makes me feel the fire within. No other had looked at me like that before.”

Well, she should blame society for that. Anaise grew up with hordes of servants and in a culture where mixed baths were part of a daily routine. Even public nudity was usually seen as a sign of poverty rather than indecency. While my otherworldly upbringing, while not outright prudish, recognized nudity as something personal. It was no wonder I could not look away from the view she offered to me.

And what a view it was. I was not a stranger to female forms, especially having two wives of my own, and yet I still appreciated how different they all were.

Yeva was lithe and thin, elvish even. She was my fairy with a sharp mind and a helpful word that helped me through the trying times. Irje was tall and muscular. Taller than an average human, wer, and even the classical basketball player. The ones that played old-style, without augmentations. And yet, despite having cougar ears and having certain cougar tendencies, she looked more like a warrior. An amazon that stood tall and proud. She was my rock and my drive.

Anaise was neither of these. Her wermage body wasn’t large but radiated primal power from within. This was a huntress and a predator. Full of animalistic desire and ready to pounce.

“And not just your gaze,” Anaise purred.

Biting her lip, she slowly bent my fingers one by one.

All but two.

Mesmerized, I watched as she slowly slid my fingers inside herself. Wet with lust and hot with need. A shuddering breath as her hand pressed mine deeper, her mound grinding on my knuckles. Her legs shaking from an occasional touch.

“And I know you enjoy it too.” Her other hand slid down on my stomach, her fingers gently caressing my raging boner.

I groaned as her fingers teased me underwater, as the heat of the bath made it nearly impossible to guess where her touch would land next.

A giggle escaped from her mouth, “Did you know my mother had planned all of this?”

“What?” I harshly croaked, completely blindsided by the message.

“You and me,” She grabbed my shaft and started to stroke it gently. Not to push me over the edge but to tease me more. “A young, impressionable daughter and a murk with immense knowledge. Practical, philosophical...and carnal. She wanted me to fall for you. To care for you not as a servant but as a man.”

Her tail wrapped around me again, as I tried to process the information. Desperately trying to ignore what her hand was doing to me, and what mine was doing to her.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I whispered into her blushing ear, “For all to see? To follow you with jealous gazes and know that kink in your tail is for a reason. To let them know from a glance that you were dicked to satisfaction as you limp around the manor?”

“E-e-erf!” A soft and pitiful whine.

“Just think of their gazes,” I kept whispering as I used my hand to slide her back and forth on my shaft. “How they whisper between themselves, curious yet unable to ask you directly. Letting their minds wander and imagine.”

It was my time to ignore her mewls of protest. I kept working on her, using her responses to push her over the edge again and again. To pull her tail harder and longer. To whisper the things I knew would make her ears twitch. Only to nibble at them afterwards.

“If you pull... harder, I will... get pregnant!” Anaise panted without any attempt to stop me otherwise, “Don’t... even dare... to think my mother... would let you keep your sadaq... after that!”

“Really?” My grip on her tail stayed the same. “I thought you needed to be in Heat to conceive.”

She gasped from yet another vigorous thrust. “Usually... is... Ah! But if you pull that hard... It happens too...”

“Well then,” I pulled even harder, “How unfortunate it would be, since I am not in Heat myself. And I will not sire a child until all conditions are met. I made sure of that.”

She turned back to me, wide-eyed. “You can... do that?”

“Yes I can, and more.” I gently grasped her chin so she could look me in the eyes. Her frequent peaks had taken a toll on her stamina already, “I am the master of my body. And it will do anything that I desire, including fucking you, non-stop, all night long. Until you will have your proof.”

Tears swelled in her eyes.

With a loud sob, Anaise collapsed in my arms, like a marionette with strings cut. Unwilling to exert the token support she once had. And finally recognizing the futility of her actions.

XXX

I gently cradled her on the floor as she cried her heart out while desperately clutching me in her arms. Our previous frenzy — long forgotten.

“I am sorry, Anaise.” I gently murmured as I rocked her body in my lap, “I wish there was another way, but I will not abandon them. To do so would be to become a different person altogether, and you would not like that other me.”

“Is that why you declared it as a sadaq of equal terms to my mother?” She accused me without raising her head from my chest, “So that you can use them to protect you from my advances!?”

“No, not from you. From other wermages of other Houses. I was deathly afraid back then that your mother would marry me off to someone to curry favour.”

“Marry off a daimon?” Anaise scoffed, “Are you daft? Or do you think my mother is fey-touched?”

“I didn’t know about daimonas back then. As far as I knew, Aikerim simply acknowledged my skills, but I was still a murk slave without other prospects in the future. But that is all irrelevant. Even if an equal sadaq did not offer us additional protection from unwelcome advances, I would have still chosen it over being in charge.

“I value freedom and choice, Anaise,” I gently murmured as my fingers brushed her hair, still wet from that time when bath ceased to exist, “Not just my own but of others too. I know of my unequal status with my wives, but I could not see them as anything else but my equals. Equal sadaq was my statement of sincerity. My message that I wasn’t merely claiming them, but I offered myself in turn. And I am selfish too, in a certain way. I want unconditional love, not one based on obligations or forced by status. I want the one that can only be freely given.”

She sat in my lap quietly, slowly recovering from the roller-coaster of emotions with only an occasional hiccup interrupting our silence. Her tail, slightly crooked, was still wrapped around our bodies. Her ear, lying flat on my chest right above my heart.

“Do you love them both?” Her whisper was barely audible.

“...Yes”

“And each of them separately?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you will do anything for them?”

I sighed, “If I can, that is what sadaq should be about.”

She raised her eyes, twin orbs of green staring straight at me, “And if you didn’t jump into sadaq so fast, if I was the first to notice you, would you have taken my offer?”

“Anaise—”

Her fingers cracked as she flexed them into fists, “Answer me!”

“Yes.” I conceded.

She sighed and closed her eyes, her fists still clenched.

“Promise me,” Anaise whispered, “That you will love every one of your sadaq equally. That you will never forget neither one of them! That you will cherish and honour them!”

“I will.”

“Promise me!” She yelled, “Swear by the Three Divine Horns that you will, or let fate punish you if you will not!”

“By the Three Horns, I swear,” I uttered, astounded by her ferocity.

“G-good,” She mumbled, her previous tone forgotten. “I will make sure that you won’t forget about that.”

“Thank you, Anaise,” I sighed with relief, “Neither I nor my sadaq would forget your kindness.”

She was young but wise. And would grow into a truly formidable person. Very few had the wisdom to accept such a thing without letting their pain affect their words.

“And tell the servants to prepare another room in your estate.”

What?

“Uhm, what?”

She sat up straight and crossed her arms. A determined visage clashing rather oddly with her naked chest.

“For your third wife, of course.”