Nervousness

A door was pulled shut.

It was so audible that it stirred John awake. Several other haremettes, like him, sat up and scanned the bed. The Mandala Sphere hovered above. Like a shepherd needed only to glance at his herd to realize there were members missing, so too did John immediately realize what was off. “Eliana is out.”

“Let’s go check on her, then,” Jane said with a yawn, already moving towards the edge of the bed. “We got this, the rest of ya lay back down.”

“Alright,” Sylph mumbled, immediately dropping back down. The others followed suit. When the first wife of the Harem Emperor (unofficial title) declared something like this, they just trusted in her absurd mindreading capabilities.

They didn’t bother putting on clothes. Even the night in the Guild Hall was warm, moderated by the Weather Tower. “That way,” Jane said, her cat ears picking up sounds John’s could not. Together, they advanced down the corridor.

The direction didn’t actually matter that much. The intention to find Eliana meant that the Palace would deliver them as far as the enchantments could track her. That eventually brought them to the front gate. At that point, John was reconsidering his stance on going nude… but was a monarch not entitled to naked nightly strolls?

‘I wouldn’t even restrict that to monarchs,’ John thought. ‘Anyone should be able to take naked strolls on their property. It is their property.’

Once out of the house, Jane’s hearing got more important. They moved in silence. He did not want to mess with her tracking. Plus, he was genuinely too tired for chit-chat. Part of a healthy relationship was not having to **** himself to talk.

Their path did not carry them far. Their target sat at the very tip of one of the star fort’s points. Her feet dangled over the steep walls. “Eliana?” Jane called out.

No reaction.

John knew immediately who they were talking to. “Thana.”

The goddess of genocide turned her head halfway. It was a dark winter night. Lights were distant, the stars hidden by a layer of clouds. The golden dots and lines in her eyes glowed with baleful divinity. In one eye there were only dots, in the other six lines and one dot. The representation of the last barrier between Eliza and Thana.

“You are a cruel fucker,” the part of Eliana that was not Eliza growled in a wolfish tone. Even she had been affected by the melding, dragged towards Eliza so much more than the opposite was true, all because of John’s continuous efforts. “I thought I was a failure in every sense before. You found a way to one-up yourself.”

Jane and John stopped directly behind her. A hand lingered on her belly, twitching as if the fingers wanted to curl and rip out what lay beneath the mark on her stomach. Even the mental image made John feel a dread that was incomparable to anything. He had thought that the fear of losing a child would be on par with the fear of losing one of his women.

How naïve that had been.

He couldn’t even get out a word. He was completely frozen until Thana moved her hand aside. “I can’t harm your child,” she commented on his thoughts. “She prevents me. Of course she does. She makes everything I try a failure. My rage is just a tool to all of you. When you need something gone, you allow me to live out a sliver of my nature. That is all this goddess of failure offers.”

Neither John nor Jane could refute this. There had never been any ambiguity about it. Thana was in their way and the only way she could exist was to gradually fade into being something entirely different. Cruelty to the embodiment of genocide was just, yet it was still cruelty.

“I cannot harm this human life inside of me,” Thana reiterated, a clear nervousness sneaking into her tone. “With that assurance, please leave me alone. I am only dangerous when I am allowed to be. You have won. Can you at least allow me little moments where I am still me?”

John, despite his own nervousness, pressed out a quiet, “Yes,” and took a step back.

He had never been so stupid not to know that the remnant of Thana would have had opinions on this child. The risk she presented had been one both he and Eliza were willing to take. At least, this proved that she truly was incapable of preventing the child from being carried to term.

“It’s not just their child,” Jane whispered as she turned around. “It’s yours too.”

Thana silently returned to staring out into the black landscape.

__________________________________________________________________________

“You want me to come along?!” Layla all but shouted into the phone. “On your harem trip? You are finally making me yours?”

“No,” John squashed that idea immediately, though he knew that the denial would bounce off Layla’s obsession with a crazed giggle.

“Still taking things slow? I guess that’s fine.” He could practically hear Layla dancing in her apartment. “But I AM going to be part of your harem trip!?”

An offer from him had now morphed into a half-question, half-declaration by her. ‘This is basically going as I expected it to.’ “This offer comes from Nathalia,” he explained.

“Oh?” Layla’s elation reached a zenith and then reclined into an almost reasonable tone of voice. “I didn’t think she would… so this is probably not her suddenly liking me… a test?”

“Essentially,” John confirmed.

The reforming stalker hummed, a calm sound from a dangerously focused mind. When she spoke, she did so in a saccharine tone. “I’m happy to be acknowledged! Anyone else from… outside… the harem coming along?”

“No, just you.”

“Juuuuust meeeeeeeeee… hehehehe…” Layla giggled obsessively, a sound as concerning as it was arousing. “I won’t squander this chance!” she suddenly declared. “You’ll see just how well my thick thighs fit in with the rest of your harem!”

‘Your hotness has never been in question-‘ For fear of her overreacting, he kept that comment in his head. “It is Nathalia that is judging you.”

“I know.” Layla did not sound nervous in the slightest. “I’ll just have to prove that I am cute and dependable and that I can pretend to be of sound mind, right? That can’t be too hard. I totally won’t get stuck just drooling at her and thinking about the fun things we could all do together if you stopped being stupid and keeping me out of the harem. Y-yeah, that won’t happen… and I won’t ever put my foot in my mouth by blabbering on about… you know… stuff I should have like… your baby…”

By the end of the blabbering, she did sound quite nervous indeed.

“…Any pointers…?” Layla asked hopefully. “If you want me in your harem, you could help me a bit, right? Right?!”

“I told you before, cute as you are, I have the slow down to-“

“We agreed the slowing down does not apply to me!”

“No, you asserted that,” John corrected her.

“I remember it differently.”

“Do you actually or are you trying to talk me into seeing things your way? Because that doesn’t work on me.”

“No, but it does keep you talking and I just love hearing your voice.”

“Well, you will see me in person in a moment.” John struggled to keep his tone professional, away from the realm of flirting.

“Will I?!” Layla was right back to being excited. “I am not complaining, not in the slightest, but we don’t have a training session scheduled?”

“No, but we do have a flight to get to. Did I not mention we are going to Hawaii immediately?”

“W-w-wait… I am going to be on your plane?!” Layla squealed in excitement. Then, suddenly, a sober tone of voice came through. Her voice was notably deeper whenever she wasn’t utterly obsessed. “Are you sure I can live through that? I mean, how long will we be in the same space for?”

“About 6 hours, but the plane is pretty huge. We can put several dozen metres between us in there. If that’s not enough… I guess one of us can paradrop into the ocean.”

“Okay.” Layla just accepted that. “Sooooo… I will see you in a minute?”

“I am sending Aclysia to collect you. We’ll meet at the airport.”

_________________________________________________________________________

Many goodbye kisses later, John, Nathalia, Aclysia, Nahoa, Sylph, Gnome and Salamander separated from the rest of the harem. They had the privacy of a private loading bay to say their goodbyes, sparing them from the gawking that their group usually incurred from confused, scandalized and jealous people.

There was only one person staring at them, biting her full lip with such **** that John feared she would draw blood. Layla just barely controlled herself, right up until John approached her. Her knees buckled, her thighs quaked and her panties were already soaked.

“I hope you brought plenty of spare clothes?”

“Y-yeah,” Layla stammered through the pleasure, shouldering her backpack.

They stood about three metres apart. Despite that the aura reader was doing fairly well. Her breathing was quickened, her pupils dilated, but she wasn’t constantly squirting so hard she left stains on the concrete floor. In fact, John was convinced she could have masked what remained of her passive orgasms well enough to fly under the radar of most people. She knew that he liked seeing her like that. It was hardly a secret. Ecstatic women were hot.

“And you brought a s-spare cumdump?” Layla asked, nodding at the trolley John was pulling with him.

It was quite a large one, big enough to fit a person into. There was no hiding that fact from Layla, who could see the aura inside with the same clarity John sniffed out submissive tendencies in women he liked. ‘Or I like women with submissive tendencies,’ he thought. ‘Way more likely.’ “I’ll show you what’s inside once we’ve boarded the plane,” he promised.

Courtesy of the privileges of a private machine, that was a swift process. No lines, no waiting for storage, just going in and having Aclysia go to the cockpit. Fianna was already in there, having snuck in under disguise hours earlier. She would serve as the co-pilot. Aclysia wanted all of her fellow maids to be capable of all manners of vehicle before long.

John kept pulling the trolley behind him like he had pulled it through the entire airport. Once they reached one of the several relaxation rooms, he lifted the entire thing onto a table. Layla moaned as she approached, stopping to his left. She was twitching. Her eyes were glued to him at first, but she managed to tear herself away when he started to undo the zipper.

As Layla had predicted, he had packed one of his cumdumps in tight. Lee was wrapped up in rope, keeping her locked in a comfortable fetal position that had made it easy to pack her in. The bottom and the sides of the trolley had extra cushioning to them and a mask on her face was connected to a well-hidden breathing hole.

She was sweaty. It must have been stuffy being wrapped up in there and the multitude of sex toys all over her had allowed John to tease her in all sorts of ways. A vibrator was taped to her clit, a dildo stuffed into her cunt, a plug in her ass, two toys attached to her nipples and he had even put a collar around her throat that could constrict into a light **** on command.

John removed the breathing mask and the blindfold above it. Lee wasn’t gagged below, if only because keeping her gagged for multiple hours went out of the realm of erotic **** that he was comfortable with. At some point, the mouth would get too dry, at least that’s what he assumed.

Lee did not make use of her ability to speak. Her mind was fully dissolved into the play, staring at her Master with depraved, lustful eyes.

“That’s so hot!” Layla exclaimed and bent forwards. Her hand reached for the confined Fateweaver, stopping just before she made contact. “May I…?” she remembered to ask.

John half-turned his head towards Nathalia. The dragoness, covered in a black-red suit as she so often was when walking in the mundane, shrugged dismissively. It was either or for her. “Just keep it appropriate,” he told her. “You’re not part of my harem, but I don’t get protective about women touching women.”

A shadow of anger lingered on Layla’s attractive features, fading slowly as she gave Lee a tactile inspection. Specifically, she was taking in the way the submissive was tied up. “So hot,” she muttered again, giving one of the ropes a little tug for testing. “How do you tie knots like that?”

That was an interesting question, because it did not usually come from submissives. Typically, the first question from the bottom-minded women was whether or not that was comfortable or what it must have felt like to be in that position. Layla’s analytical gaze betrayed more of an interest in putting women in this position than being put in it.

‘Big pointer towards her being more of a switch, probably with more dom tendencies,’ John thought. Though he broadly preferred submissives, he did have to say that his harem could use another woman that could take the top role, either in his absence or to support him. “I can show you sometime,” he promised, then closed the trolley up again. Lee would remain in there for the majority of the flight. There was a button inside she could press if she felt the call to nature. Beyond that, she would only know temporary freedom if he felt like using her directly.

Terrible jokes had to be punished.

“You.” Nathalia stepped forward, all but stabbing Layla’s shoulder with her index finger. The confrontational gesture had the reforming stalker straighten up, her blissful shudders knowing a temporary end.

“Yes?” Layla asked, confidence intertwining with nervousness. It was not the reaction of a woman that aimed to blindly please – which was good. Sycophancy had no place in the kind of relationship the harem was.

If Nathalia thought the same, she did not show it. The redhead towered over the brunette, an exceptionally tall woman standing before quite a short one. “You will be accompanying me during this trip, understood? Impress me and I may reconsider my stance on you, confirm my suspicions and I will personally bar you from ever joining this harem.”

Layla’s body coiled up like a spring. Her lips pulled back, putting a wrathful sneer on her face that exchanged beauty for danger. Impressive as it was that a woman of her stature could look this menacing, it was ultimately backed up by very little. Layla was only level 32. Even if she wanted to, she could not harm Nathalia at all, while the goddess of volcanoes could dispatch her with a stray backhand.

“You won’t,” the reforming stalker hissed.

“But I can.”

“But you won’t, because I will show you I deserve this.”

“Try then.”

“I will!”

“Go ahead.”

“I won’t. You said I am following you. So, move your arrogant ass already!”

Nathalia’s eyes, a rare but possible shade of amber in her human disguise, flared an incandescent orange. “You have the nerve?”

“You’re the one trying to keep John from having what he should.”

“We will see about that.”

“Yeah, we will!”

“Will we?”

“Yes!”

“Mother Fire!” Salamander cried out. “Now we have to deal with the psycho bitch and the grandma all flight, fucking great.”

Layla and Nathalia glared at the elemental in all of her glorious, ebony disguise. They immediately returned to glaring at each other. “Follow,” the dragoness finally stated. “I have some matters I want to test you on.”

“Fine!” Layla stated.

“You stay out of this, my mate,” Nathalia told the Gamer, when he started to follow along. “This is between your women and her.”

“Alright.” John simply accepted this. Far from the first time the harem decided to exclude him from ongoing integration. It was a necessary step to make sure there were no women in the harem that were in it only for him. “Salamander, want to play some Yugioh?”

“What decks do we have onboard?” the fire spirit asked. “And we’re playing Edison, right?”

“Obviously,” John responded.

Like he was going to deal with that Handtrap nonsense.