Akina reveals that Irene started all this because of a mage-ly intrigue, and Elena gets 'wolfed down' for a show

"Now I know that it might seem like this is not the time to be bargaining or asking for preconditions," Akaina says in her disarmingly casual way of speaking, holding up a finger. "...but, there's no possible way you're gonna get this kind of information out of anyone else but me. I'm as rare and valuable as a golden goose to you, Countess! I actually know the secrets that you need to navigate this intra-county kerfluffle, but unlike the grim and dour spymaster who I replaced and most of his ilk, I'm not about to lay down my life to keep that secret. I'm quite attached to my tail and would like to keep it in one piece. Also my neck."

The lithe, sensual cat girl looks over at the pitiful priestess Elena stumbling to her feet and sighs. "The fact that your encouragement for me to talk would probably involve me getting passed around by a bunch of brutal thugs and used as their communal cum-rag - as my keen nose would tell me about red, there, even if you hadn't flaunted her shame - being something that I'd like to avoid too, even if you aren't vicious enough to outright kill me tonight."

"Indeed," Sir Gord, a mediocre knight with a squashed-looking face, muses, "Countess, I have to say that killing her would be a waste. I mean, I suppose we could always tie her up and give her a thorough poking before stringing her up, in theory, but that's a downright unchivalrous thing to do, even to a nonhuman. I mean, when you forcibly ravish a defeated bandit such as her, there's sort of an implied contract to spare her life, you know?"

"Such a gentleman." you quip, rolling your eyes. "The ladies must swoon when a paragon of knightly virtue like you comes near. You sure have a knack for attracting the dregs of the nobility to your family, Tula." With a sigh, you turn back to the tied-up catfolk, resting your foot on her chest in a gesture of dominance. "I think I see where you're going with this. And, though I know you don't want to outright make such a scandalous claim, I bet that the King is quite fond of you on a 'personal' level too, isn't he? Perhaps, shall we say, an intimate level?"

Akaina blushes and flicks one of her ears, shrugging her shoulders. "Oh, come on, don't tease a girl already facing her disgrace and/or execution... Surely you don't think that the most highly placed man in Itheria would need to solicit a lowly alley cat like me? He has top-shelf, virginal high-born maidens throwing themselves in front of them every step he takes..."

"Well, that's how it is with men, isn't it?" you ask, casually slipping into a friendly tone with her yourself, forgetting she's supposed to be your enemy. "My mother always said that when the previous King came to visit soon after her accession, he went right for her and took her virginity, true, but that didn't stop said King from ALSO requesting no less than seven girls for his private room and going through all of them within the span of a 3 day visit. They'll always want more. Now, of course," you step to the side and put your arm around Tula's shoulder, "my loyal Baroness is a great example of a lusty bitch, the equal of any bar wench in her hunger for cock, but even she focuses more on quality than quantity, and dotes on one perspective paramour for at least a fortnight before her restless eye alights on some more dashing, higher class beau. But if she were a man and you lot," you point at the knights, "were girls, 'he' would be taking advantage of all of you on a weekly basis and then some."

Frowning, Tula looks like she's going to object, but realizes that she just got finished defensively asserting the number of notches in her bedpost so she just grumbles and gives Akaina a hard swat on her ass, which no doubt stings quite badly even through those leather pants, due to the striking surface of the gauntlet. "Here now, enough stalling, you mangy backstabber! If you don't want to die, talk! Irene! I'd like to find that priss too, make her admit that I was NOT complicit in the attempt on my liege lady's life, no matter how suspicious the timing of my... coming along to watch over her city while she was away... might have been."

"Indeed," you say, "and to sweeten the sting of treachery, I'll give you the identity of the witch who summoned the succubus that nearly killed your King, Akaina. You can even make a stop on your way out of town to grab her from Undrek if you can get past the witches on your own. I don't exactly trust that Flora woman, and now that she shared the magical secrets that the demoness taught her, her usefulness to me is done."

Tula looks a bit shocked and stares at you. "But... you promised Marzena that you'd let Flora go free..."

"Well, Marzena isn't here, is she?" you say with a smirk, hands on your hips. "And she tends to forget who's in charge even more than you do, Tula. Considering how good of an employee Flora was to her last employer, I don't think I'll be too disappointed if she mysteriously disappears."

Akaina is beaming and waggling her shapely bottom from side to side, as she stands. "Oh, yes, yes! I can definitely work with that! Now, I'm not delaying, but I really am parched... do you think I could spill the milk back at your camp? I think you mentioned dinner?"

Back in your personal tent a few hours later, Marzena has joined you, Tula, her knights, and Elena in sharing tea and sandwiches with Akaina. There is even a bit of entertainment. Marzena, unaware of your selling out her subordinate, quite approves of the 'entertainment' that you have requested.

So as to make sure that he was implicated and loyal to Akaina, the wolf-folk who had been with her had been told he needed to seal the deal by brutally ravishing Elena right in front of everyone. Since it was Elena's fault that his comrade had been slain, he was very amenable to this and sating his animalistic lusts on her in a very brutal fashion, keeping her bent over a chair with her skirt flipped up and smacking her pale, round ass with his hands so sharply that he left little red scratches behind from his claw-like nails... even going so far as to bite the back of her neck, making the shapely red haired woman squeal for mercy. Marzena, naturally, is very pleased to see the hated representative of the faith being fucked by a lowly beastfolk, an even greater humiliation than all the unwashed mercenaries who'd already taken turns making a mess of her.

"Ugh," Akaina makes a face as she swallows... though not at the holy woman's humiliation: "this cheese is stale, and the chicken is totally bland. I thought you guys were a trade hub, you don't have spices down here? The royal feasts always have this amazing stuff called pepper... Oh, well, I guess I should explain myself before you get the nooses back out. So, Countess Zoe... you're quite right to suspect Lady Irene. It's not well known but her aunt is the head enchanter of the Circle of Mages! Those elves tend to leave pretty wild family trees in their wake, sometimes. Irene has always been close to them and in truth, she didn't really come down here to rescue Hannah, but to sabotage the Crooked Tower and to try and get you to give up control of it, or failing that, to remove you entirely. She went to Aldergrove and convinced Count Mace to raise an army of mercenaries to push you into compliance or take you down... with a little expert help from my own talents, of course! I don't know what she did later but considering that you stole Aldergrove's mercenary army, the coven of wizards that accompanied Irene down here on her task are probably up to other things. This is all speculation but since you have already broken so many conventions by bringing witches out to use in war, their next play might be to just cut to the chase and unleash their deadliest magic on you and your lackeys directly."

"Damn honorless wizards! I never did like them." Tula says indignantly. "Always stealing the glory of proper warriors... at least the witches don't put on airs of being more than murderous, honorless sluts."

"Honorless?!" Marzena hops up out of her seat. "Oh, and which of us immediately tried to steal a throne the moment Zoe's skinny, pale butt was out of it, and which of us took on a small army practically single-handed and literally put her own ass on the line to save several of her subordinates from ****? I submitted to getting bent over against a tree by that vicious mercenary captain so that... so... Uh, hm. I don't recall how that played into the plan actually..."

Akaina is egging on her fellow beast and urging him to humiliate Elena yet further. At her urging the wolf-man pulls back, his cock still slick with Elena's pussy juice, and using that as lubrication, hikes her butt up higher in front of him and mercilessly penetrates her holy hole. Even as she wails about it being unspeakably sinful Elena seems to be enjoying it. That's quite impressive. You and Hannah had gotten your first experiences with anal penetration a few weeks back and found it more painful than enjoyable. It seems that Akaina's minion has no complaints because his tail is puffing out and he's howling in ecstasy, filling Elena's ass with hot seed, within minutes.

"Alright then." you say. "That tells us the what, kitty, but you still owe me the why. What is the reason that these damnable wizards are suddenly meddling in politics and trying to depose me? Don't they know that I'm going to **** them? They aren't supposed to be interfering in the affairs of nobles."

"What, seriously?" Akaina sniffs condescendingly and rolls her eyes. "I thought that would be amazingly obvious. You're undermining their authority by trying to create a second Circle of Mages, using a form of magic that they despise. And that's not even the only way you're trying to dilute their power! With the more brazen way that the Crooked Tower has been presented as a brothel ever since your mum's reign... it used to be more of an under-the-table-thing, you know? ...it's almost as if you're turning the Crooked Tower into a breeding program for propagating the blood of those cursed with contact with demons."

"What? Pfhaa! That isn't the idea at all, silly wizards!" Marzena says with a whoop and a shake of her head. "They do realize that we're all trying our best to AVOID getting pregnant by the visitors we entertain, surely? I've entertained about fifty myself over the last couple years, and I'm not propagating anything! ...shit, I hope." she bites her lip as she thinks back on the incident on the trail with Captain Cadh. "And... well, okay, efforts at avoiding babies haven't been going so well for the girls in the Tower lately, but that's hardly because of some scheme! Blame the knotheads who never follow the house rules about pulling out from the witch they're with before they cum, and even more, blame the House of Orban and their shortsighted greed! It was before my time but some like Yara told me that decades ago, there was a plant that grew around the town called 'sylph-weed' or something like that made a reliable contraceptive potion, but the greedy countesses, especially the one you met in the capital, Akina, harvested the damn stuff to near extinction to help fuel the growth of the city's other brothels. Now there's none left and the situation is far from ideal for us witches or for the non-magical harlots, having to use pessaries and things with a much lower success rate..."

"Yeah, well," Akina says with a shrug, "I think that the ideal method of population control that the Circle of Mages has in mind for you is the extremely-high-success-rate method of burning at the stake. Anyway the one thing I can't give you is her location. I don't know, so don't ask. And even if I did, I don't want to help you kill the cousin of someone so important. I'm riding back to the capital tomorrow and washing my hands of this whole thing. I'm sure that I can phrase things in such a way to the king that he will consider this a successful mission." she winks at you, and fortunately, Marzena is none the wiser that you've bargained with Akaina to sell out Flora, the one who nearly made the king a demoness's sex ****. "Not to gloat, but he said that if I did well, he'd see about giving me a title and landholding of my own the next time a noble dies with only bastard sons to inherit. To think, that a lowly catfolk could work her way up to the point where her children will be barons and baronesses!" She clasps her hand over her chest only to look at the rest of you a little awkwardly when she sees that no one else is particularly excited on her behalf.

"This is... bad, but manageable." you say, finishing your tea. "I don't want such a powerful enemy as the Circle of Mages, but it seems like they pushed Count Mace into this. All the more reason that I need to capture him as quickly as possible. When I've got him all nestled in my bosom for safekeeping the mages won't be able to do anything against me, lest their lawless actions come out. And fine timing, too. I'm going to speak with Johari the first thing in the morning and see if her undead laborers and skilled craftsmen have gotten the **** plan that my militia came up with ready to deploy yet... should all go well, that castle will fall inside a week."