I stood up and said, “Back in a bit,” and walked upstairs.

  One good thing about being a diviner, if also a little creepy, was that I always knew where everyone was as long as they were in magical range. I really couldn’t help it though, my magic connected to everything automatically.

  I didn’t waste any time going to her rooms, she was back outside, on the rooftop terrace, or veranda, whatever the fuck it was called.

  I was also nervous, this was new ground for me.

  I walked out, and then moved over by to where she was standing, and looking out over the city. I considered a comforting hand on her shoulder, or even a hug, but felt strange just thinking about doing it, so I rejected the idea. So I just stood next to her, kind of close, right on the edge of a personal space violation but still on the outside of the line.

  “How are you Daphne?” I finally asked.

  She shook her head, “I don’t know. I put you in danger, all of you I mean. Just to get a break, because I was bored. You… any of you could have died. I feel selfish, and foolish. I thought you were just paranoid, that things were safe now. I was wrong.”

  “So was I. I didn’t even consider something as simple as them flying over the ward. I already have a plan to fix that by the way. But it’s just what it is. You are queen, and destined to be loved and hated by many. Any idiot can go through life without making enemies, you don’t have that luxury. Even long after your father is gone, and you rule all fifty some odd islands, you’ll have enemies who’ll try to kill you.”

  Yup, way to go you fucking idiot, that should cheer her up.

  “What I mean is, you have to live your life. You can’t let that stop you from doing the things you have to do, and even the things you just want to do. We can be smart about it, but at some point we play the odds when they look to be in our favor, and we go out again. The guards, and your advisors, wouldn’t have accepted the positions if we didn’t believe in you, your vision of our future kingdom, and if we hadn’t thought it was worth the personal risk.”

  Maybe… I should just shut up now. Before I say something stupid again.

  “Also,” I added with a smile, “Just because I was right, doesn’t mean I’m not paranoid, because I totally am. Have I told you about Murphy yet?”

  She giggled despite herself, which made me smile wider.

  She said, “You’ve mentioned it once or twice. But how can I be okay with someone else dying in place of me.”

  I frowned in thought, “They’re willing to die for their queen, and what you will accomplish in the future to free all sorceresses and put an end to oppression. No one is more important than any other, but your position as queen and the way you want to guide the kingdom is more important than any of us, and it inspires people and gives them hope. That will be lost, if you are.”

  She turned to look at me, “So they’re willing to die for an ideal, and the future kingdom. Not for me personally? That’s how I should think of it?”

  I sighed, it was an easy out, but one I knew I couldn’t take.

  “That’s a dangerous half-truth, and I don’t want to deceive you. It’s mostly true, for most people that follow you, and the guards that surround you. But your friends, and those that love you, their sacrifice will be personal.”

  She asked, “Dangerous how?”

  I frowned in thought, and then said, “You should never forget that you’re still Daphne, and some will hold your life before their own. You aren’t just a crown, but both.”

  She smirked, clearly happy about what I’d just said, but I had no idea why.

  She asked curiously, “How did you recognize the danger?”

  I replied, “It’s a common strategy from where I come from. The initial attack is usually just a feint or distraction for the real attack. It seemed stupidly suicidal for two wielders to attack our large well trained group. So I was paying attention. It’s also stupid for people to run toward the targets of an attack, so the four coming our way were relatively easy to spot, since they were going in the opposite direction everyone else was they stood out.”

  She sighed, “I suppose we should get back to work? I need to meet with the council. Melinda should be here soon, and we need to schedule six more judgements.”

  I smiled, “Whenever you’re ready. We can play hooky a bit longer.”

  She turned her head and frowned up at me, “What’s play hooky?”

  I really should remember not to use my slang and old earth expressions. Of course, some of them had caught on already, so it wasn’t all bad.

  Eventually we went and did all that she’d mentioned. I’m not sure if anything I said on that rooftop really helped, or just my presence, but Daphne seemed to pull out of her funk. I’d a feeling though, that she wouldn’t be asking for trips to the tailor shop anymore. I was two minds about that. It would be slightly safer, but her freedom to do things was important, wasn’t it?

  Of course, I didn’t believe for a second her right to look at dresses was more important than a guard’s life, but the truth was if she stopped doing anything like that, the assassins would just find a different way. The guards would always be at risk that way…

  Chapter Eighteen

  I moaned deeply as I gained consciousness the next morning. Something that was more and more common lately, and very welcome.

  I raised my head slightly, and looked down into Amara’s beautiful dark blue eyes. Her nose was digging into my flesh, my hard cock completely engulfed between her sweet lips.

  “Good morning.”

  I gasped when she hummed a good morning back, and the vibrations were an intense explosive pleasure on my sensitive glans, which was buried deeply inside of her throat. She had a look of satisfaction and contentment in her eyes, as she swallowed, hummed, and sucked. Her tongue slathered the base, and even slid out and over my balls.

  It was so damned intense, and she hadn’t even moved. She didn’t have to, since her throat’s stimulation was beyond enough to get me to launch.

  It was last night of course, during our first time together as a foursome, that Lia and Sharon had shown Amara what I liked. It had come to their shock, and my delight, when we all learned that it was a simple thing with nature magic for Amara to suppress her gag reflex.

  She looked deeply contented right now, and not at all challenged by my thick over seven-inch-long cock fully buried between her lips and invading her mouth and throat. And it was only her second blow job.

  It also wasn’t the only thing they’d taught her, when I was about to blast off and send my seed directly down her throat, she grabbed my balls and pulled down. Amara had a look of mischief in her eyes as she popped off my cock and denied my pleasure.

  “I think he’s more than ready.”

  I heard Sharon giggle, and it was rather muffled. The bed moved, and a moment later my gorgeously sexy and petite Lia straddled me and took my cock inside of her with one smooth movement. She was tight, warm, wet, and ready, which explained Sharon’s muffled giggle, Sharon had been getting her ready for me.

  I looked over as Amara crawled next to us, and replaced Lia’s position by sitting on Sharon’s face, and then diving her head between Sharon’s legs. My cock twitched, they were so beautiful together. Lia’s sex stopped fluttering and snugly gripped me evenly along my length, and I knew she was ready.

  I looked back up at her, and we locked eyes as she started to bounce up and down on my cock, at first slowly, but then hard and fast. I got the hint, and started to drive up into her from below, our bodies slapping together, and I reached out to grab her thin waist for stability as we drove each other toward ecstasy as quickly as we could.

  It was a morning quickie after all, just… foursome style. I think I started to understand the goddess’s comment, when she said temptations of the flesh were just fine.

  Lia looked rapturous, as her long light long brown hair waved and bounced, teasingly hiding parts of her sexy bouncing and vibrating pert breasts each time our bodies slammed together. Her beautiful brown eyes were locked with mine, and showed a wanton joyful pleasure in our deep emotional connection, in our mating, and in our intense physical joining.

  I slid my hands up her sides, and cupped the sides of her breasts, and started to lightly graze her tightened light pink nipples each time our bodies met.

  She gasped, and her eyes widened. She’d been going fast, and I’d been close earlier. Yet, I hadn’t been worried about reaching completion first, I knew Sharon must have put her right on the edge.

  I moaned in pleasure as she tightened, trembled, and froze above me as ecstasy took her. I let her fall forward onto me, gently but quickly, and grabbed her ass firmly with both hands, bent my knees for leverage, and started to jackhammer up into her hard and fast.

  Her eyes widened and she screamed silently in pleasure as I took her rapturous bliss higher and dragged it out. She also seemed to roll into a second orgasm almost immediately.

  I didn’t have much time left, and felt myself start to expand deep inside of her, and stretched her further as her pussy’s convulsions milked my cock.

  I heard Sharon’s muffled gasp of pleasure as she exploded to Amara’s ministrations with tongue, lips, and fingers.

  Then the pleasure hit me like a tornado touching ground. Orgasm denial wasn’t one of my favorite things, but I had to admit, it made the end result a lot more intense. I could barely think as I looked up into Lia’s eyes, as her body eagerly accepted and milked my seed.

  The pleasure seemed to last forever, and at the same time, it was far too short before I was coming down.

  “Oh goddess,” I heard Amara gasp, and turned just in time to watch the intense pleasure in her beloved face as she ground down and her body shook on Sharon’s tongue.

  I looked back up, and then pulled Lia into a long, lingering, and satiated kiss.

  Lia hummed in sultry satisfaction as we broke the kiss. She looked so content, and so in love with me, that it was hard to fathom. I just didn’t feel that lovable. All three of my mates were that way.

  I supposed it was just as well, because I was at least that far gone with all of them as well.

  I didn’t want to get up, I never did after one of these morning quickie sessions. I’d rather have stayed in bed all day with them. But the day waited for no one, and I had responsibilities. I also needed a morning run and shower before breakfast…

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next several weeks were quiet as far as attacks went.

  Both the fleet training and guard training moved forward.

  The fleet wasn’t much yet, but the ship being built had been completed and the training became more hands on at that point. We’d have a fleet of a whole two ships, although I supposed three if I included the ship that would take the teachers and volunteers to the next destination, a day or so after we left to start this all over again.

  The thought was rather daunting, how many times we had to do this, we weren’t even done with the first yet. Still, nothing worth doing was easy, and I’d picked just about the most difficult thing possible. Yet, as I spent my days with Lia, Sharon, and now Amara, I couldn’t find it in myself to complain. In the end, it would all be worth it.

  The guard training had advanced as well, it was half training at the school, and half patrolling with the seasoned guards of sorceress haven. I supposed it was a little like a rookie beat.

  Over the last weeks, I’d also developed Lidar, and the sonic weapon, in my spare time. Not that I had much of that, but I found if I worked on it in my head, and took notes during the day while Daphne oversaw the council’s education, I could advance the ideas.

  At night, for about a half an hour, I would test out the ideas and formation of the spells. It was hard work, and failed a bunch of times, which had me tweaking and rethinking the following day before I could experiment again. Eventually though, after weeks of work, I had it working.

  No one would be flying over my wards again, not without being spotted, and the ward would alert the guards as to the number of possible enemies and the location of the breach. It wouldn’t be able to give magic information or any of that, since they’d be outside the wards and only caught because of Lidar.

  The sonic weapon would work as well, although I wasn’t sure how effective it would be. Deadening sound was easy with air magic, but magic took concentration and focus which was very difficult when they’d be losing their lunch and feeling like their insides were being torn apart.

  Also, since it was beyond human hearing, they might not even understand the weapon was a sound weapon. Until they realized that, deadening sound wouldn’t occur to them. Or… they could figure it out after one engagement, I’d have to wait and see. Obviously, it was just a disabling attack, the actual damage part would come on its heels, either using the heated compression wave, or something else that normally wouldn’t work like cannon balls because they’d be able to block or catch it.

  The only major drawback was ironically, range. It was effective to around three hundred yards, maybe a bit further, which meant we’d have to engage them when they were less than hundred yards away from magic range, but before they were too close.

  We needed an edge, our two ship fleet wasn’t a match for the hundreds of ships that still flew Iziral’s banner. Hopefully, we’d just regained one. Eventually, we would equal and then surpass them, but that would take a few years at least. Until then, I had to keep coming up with weird science shit I could use magic to duplicate.

  The actual spell, Lidar, I kept to myself, and incorporated it into the wards. Which meant I had to redo both the wards. The ward currently around Aramore, and the one that was stored aboard the ship and slated for the next island, which was Emelle.

  The sound weapon was just a simple air magic technique, simple once I knew how to do it that is. It was just reversed. If air magic could stop sound vibrations from propagating through the air, it could also cause the air to vibrate and literally create sound waves.

  I’d taught the technique to Lia, and a few other air wielders in the fleet. They were all under strict orders from Melinda that the technique was fleet only. We wouldn’t be teaching it to the local guard, even though that would probably come in handy for apprehending people. Hopefully that would keep the secret for a time. Once the secret was out, perhaps we’d teach it to the island’s guards as well.

  I’d also taught them how to deaden those frequencies, without killing all sound in an area. Just to make sure it could never be used against us. I was actually pretty sure Melinda was looking into adding the protection directly into the ship wards.

  Daphne, Melinda, and the others had also changed our plans to take trading into account. The new order of islands wasn’t perfect that way, but it would minimize disruptions to trade, or hardships.

  The great dress shortage of Aramore would no longer come to fruition at any rate. The primary thing of course, had been to make sure no food shortages would occur at any point during the campaign, not all the islands were as independent as this one in that way.

  My love life continued to go very well, and if possible became even richer over those weeks. Especially without Amara missing from my life. Things weren’t perfect of course, life never was. Lovers quarreled at times, or perhaps disagreements would be a better word, but with us they didn’t last very long, and we never went to sleep angry.

  Perhaps aiding that was the fact jealousy wasn’t a factor. We had our family, and we weren’t attracted to anyone else because of the bond. That cut down on a lot of bullshit and misunderstandings.

  The sex… was just unbelievably incredible, and I still hadn’t lost my awe at the beauty and sensual allure of my mates. That was never a problem. My worries about keeping up with three mates, instead of the two that I had already been hard pressed to keep satiated, had never crystallized. If anything I was under less pressure now that way.

  It was perhaps a little counter-intuitive, but the main reason for that was because foursomes were actually easier than threesomes. Quite often two of them were off to the side doing their own thing, and switches were made frequently during our lovemaking. It also meant I got more opportunities to focus completely on one of them at a time without worry that I’d exclude one of my mates, which increased our intimacy and overall made things even better.

  We mixed things up as well, there was nothing quite as intense as when three of us all ganged up on the fourth. The stimulation my three mates could give me when they all focused on just me was mind boggling, and it was also fun to watch one of my mates go into uncontrollable multiples, as the other two joined me in pleasing them.

  It was fun, but believe it or not, we didn’t do that all too often. My mates and I preferred the greater intimacy of the other way.

  As far as that ninety-minute conversation, they still weren’t talking. Although, I highly suspected that parts of it had been a rather naughty briefing, since Amara had taken to sleeping with all of us so easily, and nothing seemed to shock her on our first night together as a group.

  At least, nothing shocked her like it had Lia and Sharon when they’d first started to please each other as well as me. I could have been wrong of course, and just applying my perverted sex-centric logic. It also could have simply been because Amara was more mature and knowledgeable at just around two and a half centuries old, just because she’d been a virgin didn’t mean she’d been ignorant of what might go on.

  In the end it didn’t really didn’t matter, I respected them and their privacy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious, or that I wouldn’t speculate. Part of me suspected it wasn’t a big deal at all, and they just hid it to be mysterious and keep my interest. Not that they needed games to do that, really, to have my interest they just needed to breathe and stand close.

  The last major change before we packed up in preparation for the next island, was the grand council. Two more people were added to those that were constantly around Daphne throughout the day, and each successive island would add another from now on.