I couldn’t see it though, and I tried to focus past that luxuriously potent pleasure, since I also had my nose in Aubrey’s ass, and my tongue in her hot sex, as my sexy shifter rode my face. She still didn’t like control, despite the position I was in complete control, my arms around her legs and my hands gripping her ass like a vise. Moving her around the way I wanted, and licking where I wanted. The way I had to hold her still, to stop her squirming and writhing, told me I was doing it right. She’d already bathed my tongue twice since we’d started.

  And of course, I could hear the hot moans both above and next to me, while Cerise and Lianne were in a sixty-nine and racing for the finish.

  A fivesome was a challenge in a way a foursome wasn’t, and I liked challenges. I was determined to get Aubrey off again before I came. Honestly, I’d lost count of my orgasms that night, so my stamina was up for it despite Faith crying out a moment later, and her quivering and clenching sex performing a symphony of pleasure on my cock. Not that it was easy, but I grinded her sloppily through it to enhance her pleasure while I doubled my efforts with my tongue and abused Aubrey’s sexy ass cheeks with my fingertips.

  It was only a moment later when she went over, and I released my own controls, pushed up into a still quivering Faith, and roared my pleasure which was slightly muffled by Aubrey’s sex. I licked and ground sloppily, to extend and enhance all our pleasure, even as I emptied myself powerfully into my goddess of seduction.

  The two of them collapsed on the bed next to me and snuggled in for soft and sweet kisses, but then we turned to watch Lianne and Cerise finish up the wild night. They were so beautiful, so sensual, as they pleasured each other. It probably would’ve gotten me going again, if they lasted much longer, but they quickly came one last time, and joined our cuddle session.

  The intimacy and sense of pack in it was quite satisfying, perhaps more so for me and Aubrey as shifters, but only perhaps. I didn’t want to discount the cuddle slut and clinginess that existed in Lianne and Cerise, and while I was still getting to know Faith, she looked like she was beyond content to lie in my arms as long as I wanted.

  Faith said softly, “We didn’t get a chance to talk. I trust your judgement despite my concern, but I’ll be checking all Misty’s code changes tomorrow. The ones made to the AIOS.”

  I nodded, “Besides liking her, I have a responsibility to her, and I’m returning loyalty for hers. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was my spells, processor design, and actions that led to her birth. She has the right to live, and by being stable and law-abiding she isn’t a threat to others that must be removed like any other dangerous sentient, which was in my mind the justification for shutting down the first true AIs in thirty-four.”

  Faith kissed me languidly, then Aubrey got in on that sweet and melty action.

  “I agree with you. But trust and verify just makes sense.”

  I nodded, “Anyone else have a concern about this?”

  Aubrey said, “I already gave her permission to be present for me. I also think you should upgrade her spell, she can’t be a part of our family if we can’t touch her and snuggle her.”

  I snorted, even as I half agreed with the argument. While shifter mates didn’t share, we were very tactile in a platonic sense for bonding with the entire pack. It was also probably the best reason to do it, I mean I didn’t need Misty to fetch me drinks or get my back in the shower. Best reason for me, I mean.

  Because at the same time, not letting her serve me out in the real world would seem almost cruel, given how badly she wanted it. If I decided to do it, it would be for her, not out of a sense of entitlement to be waited on hand and foot. Still, the shower and dressing thing, that wouldn’t be happening. There was a difference between being strong against temptation, and inviting it.

  It would also take time to develop. I thought it’d be safer to add a new potent and powerful illusion spell than to try and replace the one already there. One she could write new code to interface with for large level interactions, while leaving the old stuff completely alone. Even that would be tricky, as I’d have to modify the controlling ward slightly, but the less work that way the safer it would be for Misty. If the magic destabilized, so could the processor, then it would crash.

  Cerise said, “Me too,” and Lianne added, “Me three.”

  Faith said, “I agreed to interact with her as well, so it’s unanimous. I just need to verify it all in my mind.”

  “I get it, I think I’m still a little in shock myself.”

  They all giggled at that, and then nodded in agreement.

  The next few days passed.

  There was a lot going on, but nothing so significant I feel the need to put it down in detail.

  On the personal side, I continued to get to know Faith, enjoyed watching Aubrey worm her way into the other women’s hearts, and also spoiled Lianne and Cerise as much as possible. Our group date the next night was a good time, dinner, dancing, and a wild night. We’d be doing group dates as a rule, I was fairly sure.

  Intimate moments were important too, but I had Lianne next to me almost all day, and I always made time during the day to put my complete focus on Cerise, Faith, or Aubrey, usually before and after a wild quickie, which also covered our one-on-one physical intimacy.

  As far as the Misty revelation, I was holding it together and confident I’d be able to deal with a sentient female seeing my every thought, desire, and intention. She wasn’t biological, and she literally couldn’t betray me, which went a long way that way. Still, I won’t lie, it was a struggle and one that I couldn’t escape from or take a break from. She was always there. Worse, I felt guilty about some of my thoughts, since under pressure some of them were hardly flattering toward Misty.

  Who of course, didn’t mind, and still insisted I was a good man.

  Internally to my gods, nothing too concerning was going on, things remained stable that way. While Nadia had started plotting again that second day, she was moving extremely slowly and ultra-cautious. Nothing would break anytime soon on that front, and I’d keep ahead of it and move to block her when I could prove it. No doubt a couple of years in Tartarus for sedition would cool off her ambition.

  She wasn’t even really a bad sort, outside of that ambition I mean. She was arrogant and ambitious every bit as much as Tatiana was, but not nearly as contemptable or bitchy.

  So, most of my efforts those few days on the ruling side of things was focusing on Viktor. It was like watching an anticipated train crash for me. He did use influence as a surprise speaker at the PM’s meeting with the highly influential members of parliament, as I’d suspected he would.

  Those members had started to design three major new laws focused on phasing out touristry, closing up their borders, and building up their military. A militarized and isolationist state.

  I still wasn’t sure where Viktor was going with it all. Securing a country he could call his own and basically rule everyone and everything in it through influence. Or if he was building a war machine and base as a first step to world domination.

  Either way, it couldn’t be allowed to continue much longer, or my gods would be in danger because of his actions. Not to mention war.

  When the rest of the countries noticed what was going on, they’d react badly. I mean, not just Russia, China, and the other countries ruled with anti-supernatural sentiment, but all of them. It was a ruler’s worst nightmare, the idea a god could easily control them and take control of their country. His actions would set the entire world against gods, and not just the humans and their governments. The packs, kisses, covens, and mounds didn’t want to be controlled by the gods either, and Viktor had all the ones in Iceland under his boot heel.

  Viktor was surely aware of that flaw, but I had no idea if he was just crazy or if he had a loose and variable plan that I couldn’t see to deal with it. Honestly, I was leaning toward the crazy theory, but I didn’t want to underestimate the man who was the rebirth of my greatest and most cunning adversary in our past lives.

  Honestly, the god didn’t seem all that deep based on his life up until now, but when you didn’t understand why an enemy was doing something they were doing, it usually meant you were missing something very important. I had no clue what his endgame was, which could be havoc, war, and a worldwide economic and government collapse for all I knew.

  I mean, no one would really win a war like that, and humans were dangerous, but they couldn’t really beat the gods either despite the vast number differential and their advanced war machines. We would all lose in such a scenario, unless Viktor wanted to reduce the population and cause unrest. To make it easier to take it all over. Then it all kind of made sense, but surely he wasn’t that callous to all the lives that would be lost in such a pursuit.

  Billions would die, ultimately, in such a worst-case scenario.

  The humans and supernatural races didn’t need us to rule them either. Not anymore.

  So as I was a few days before, my mind was going in circles with it. I would act, but the time hadn’t yet arrived. I’d need to be able to justify it to the humans, and more importantly to the Hindu and Egyptian gods, so my pantheon didn’t end up on the wrong side of the shotgun barrel in the aftermath.

  That meant giving him enough rope to hang himself, but acting quickly enough so that me and my gods wouldn’t hang with him in the minds of the humans around the world.

  What I didn’t know then, was it was all about to break.

  The inspector stared dubiously at the setup in the basement, looking up in disbelief at the lights burning over our heads.

  Lianne was trying to suppress a giggle, and squeezing my hand hard. As was our habit, she was not only with me most of the time, but almost always holding my hand, save in meetings.

  Regardless, I’d fitted both mansions with the new power system with remote charging and set up a power failure switch a while ago. To do that I’d needed to get a couple of permits, hence the inspector showing up that morning to make sure it was done right and not a fire hazard or other danger.

  Except, I set it up opposite it’s intended function, our house would be powered by magic save if it went down, and only then would it switch to the grid. Such switches were usually used in the opposite way, to switch over to a generator or solar panel and battery system, if the city’s power went out.

  The rollout schedule made up meant it wouldn’t be available to others for forty years, but I saw no reason not to need to pay an electric bill myself in the interim.

  But it was set up within code, and the man shook his head, wrote down some things, and looked back up at us.

  “It looks fine, wired to code, I just haven’t seen anything like it.”

  I nodded, “It won’t be commercially available for a while. I’m an inventor.”

  A while being forty years, but I had no desire to open that can of worms, which would be a very long conversation and explanation as to why. It was also none of his business.

  The man grunted, and we escorted him back up and out of the house.

  Lianne let go, and started to giggle uncontrollably, “Did you see his face when he saw the device powering the house was the size of a softball?”

  I chuckled, “I did.”

  I kissed her, quite thoroughly, but she didn’t jump me despite the manic need I saw in her eyes when it was finished. The tension build ups between us were even more intense lately, ever since she’d found out I’d be jumping her and taking her so firmly if she could hold back long enough. She was still so enthralling to me. Not to mention the added mental fodder of knowing each and every time could be the time she was truly fertile. I imagined our sex lives would be a bit crazier than usual, until we were sure she was pregnant. Then it’d probably go back to just insanely intense and wondrous.

  We headed over to Cerise’s office. I was well aware of where we were at with our computer business. Still in the testing phase, and we had over thirty people with them now. It’d be another month or two before we’d release to the public. But with everything going on I hadn’t really been paying close attention to the other business. The inspection had been a reminder of sorts, to catch myself up and make sure it was all on track.

  I was sure it was, Cerise would’ve informed me if the witches had fallen behind.

  Sure, I could just know if I wanted to, but then I’d have no reason to visit Cerise. I was quite sure she was all over it, as it was her job to run both the businesses, on the business end anyway.

  Cerise smiled coyly as we walked in, my submissive vampire looked stunning that morning in a sexy black women’s skirt suit with a creamy and light pink blouse. Despite working from home, she was always dressed and made up impeccably for me, to look her best. That was just the way it was done, back in the time she was raised, at least for the nobility.

  “You look amazing this morning, Cerise.”

  She smiled, “What’s up?”

  I asked, “It’s been a while since my last update, is the coven on schedule?”

  She nodded, “They are. They’ve ramped up into full production for the electronic sized magic charger, and the remote one for model cars and planes, and small quadcopters and UAVs. The company making the packaging and printing the instruction sheet is keeping them supplied. Once they build up enough stock they’ll release the ad campaign and get it up online for sale both in their online store and on Amazon. So far they’re on schedule to meet those goals.”

  That wasn’t too much of a surprise, the coven was formidable and reliable, and they’d been in business for multiple generations now so knew what they were about. Still, it was good to know.

  “No legal problems?”

  She shook her head, “No leaks, and either the battery companies haven’t found your patent or don’t understand it will end the whole industry for small electronics. I imagine that will change as soon as it hits the shelves and people start buying them, and stop buying small batteries.”

  “They’d still need a few. Smoke detectors and other electronics that need to be active when someone is more than five feet away from it. But yeah, their sales will tank hard.”

  It’d be another ten years, before the next phase, which would be vehicle sized ones. So we didn’t need to go over that, or the other phases for planes, boats, houses, and the rest.

  She nodded, “The FCC will want to test them too, I’d imagine.”

  “They comply with radiation standards, far better than most power supplies. The magic part is new, but witches are longer lived and healthier because of exposure to magic, so I don’t think it will be hard to beat if they try to say the effects are unknown and should be tested over a long period of years first.”

  Misty tossed her hair, which was both mischievously cute and sexy. Despite not needing to wait for my permission to speak, she’d continued doing her flirty notifications, but not waiting for me to acknowledge her before talking. In short, now she was doing it purely to tease me, with no real secondary function behind it.

  “Umm, Viktor caught an Egyptian god in Iceland, you know his demand for them to be gone expired two days ago. He’s torturing him, in the open, on international television.”

  I blinked. Fucking crazy it was. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a plan too, but if he was providing an object lesson like that, as if it was still the dark ages, he was truly insane. That would not fly in this century, which meant he had to be crazy. His mantel had broken him in some way, because of his harsh past.

  We all ran for the living room grabbing Faith and Aubrey on the way.

  The anchor looked shocked and disbelieving, as the torture carried on in the background, though they weren’t transmitting the sound of it, it was obvious the god was screaming in agony as Viktor literally tore him apart with raw strength and power to keep him alive as possible.

  The look of burning rage and insanity in Viktor’s eyes, and by my own power of knowledge, the last shred of doubt was removed. He was insane. Perhaps he’d come back to that middle ground when the rage ran out, but it no longer mattered.

  He needed to be stopped.

  It went on for quite a while, enough to turn my stomach, and when he finally tore the gods head off, he mounted it on a pole right outside the parliament building. Like it really was the dark ages, and an object lesson for would be invaders.

  So much for functionally crazy, he’d fallen off that cliff.

  Then he gestured, and one of the cameras flew forward, along with cameraman. The king of the Norse gods had a very diverse power. He could do almost anything, and like me was a master of all witchcraft known. Not more powerful than I was, but more diverse.

  The disturbed anchor said, “It looks like he’s going to address us.”

  The picture changed to that camera, and Viktor still looked slavering mad and enraged. If anything, more so, at the close up.

  He said angrily with spite, spittle literally flying from his crazy mouth, “Let this be a lesson to all gods. Iceland and all who live in it belongs to me. I will not be kind to invaders to my territory. The supernatural races are under my command here, and serve me, as does the human government. All of your spies as of this moment are being… removed. This is my kingdom and anyone that dares set foot here as an enemy will be dealt with swiftly and definitively.”

  He opened his mouth to say more crazy things, but that’s when Layla and Karim appeared in a bright flashing sphere of red power. They both hit him, and shortly had him on the defensive. It almost looked like they might win, but then the other tier one god in the first wave of Norse gods appeared and bailed their crazy king out.

  Now was the time. I hadn’t expected it to devolve so quickly and completely however, and I didn’t have my plans lined up yet. I’d planned to call an emergency council when the time came, but it’d happened to quickly for that, I had to act now. Damn him for going crazy anyway, I truly hadn’t expected the epic meltdown we’d just witnessed. Clearly, I’d been overestimating him, and he was crazy.