“That was incredible.”

  She smiled playfully, “I was a good girl?” she asked cutely.

  I pulled her up onto my lap as I slid the chair back from the table further, and claimed her lips with a lingering and sweet, yet still demanding kiss. We cleaned up the dishes quickly, and then I carried her up to the bed. Submissive didn’t mean slave, and she cooked so I helped clean as was right. The point was to be a couple, with her happy with following my lead there, not to use her for menial labor.

  I’d already claimed all of her holes earlier that day, but I took her pussy and ass for the second time, then blew another couple in her sex. She was insatiable, wild, and the best fuck and suck I’d ever met by so far there wasn’t even a comparison.

  We went through all the usual positions. Sometimes I was quite firm, sometimes soft because she needed that too, but always in charge. Her body was incredibly sensitive to my touch and commanding voice, which was another proof I was right about her need. Then we took a second shower and turned in for the night.

  She stiffened for a minute when I pulled her against me, but then sighed and relaxed into me. She must’ve assumed we’d share a bed but not that kind of intimacy, but I didn’t fail to notice how quickly she’d given into it and sighed with contentment.

  It was a hell of a crazy day.

  Chapter Five

  After a morning reprise, I did the same thing and laid out clothes for her as I got mine. She didn’t even comment, at the dark blue blouse, tight white pencil skirt, and the white lingerie lace and silk panties and bra I picked out before we took a shower. It was only the second time, and she did give me a curious look with a smile, but she didn’t question it at all that time.

  Nor did she question it when I pulled out eggs, bacon, and frozen biscuits, then spanked her ass possessively and told her to cook us breakfast, while I sat at the table and watched. I was even purposefully quiet, and she started doing that contented humming thing again.

  She was… mesmerizing.

  My seduction better work, because I was fairly sure she was sucking me in already.

  I almost couldn’t wait for her to realize what I was doing, and just how much she liked it, but I kept the game up. The longer it took her to figure out she wasn’t just happy from being sated in those moments, the more visceral the realization would be and the more likely she’d accept the idea that a part of her was indeed, very submissive. The at home with her lover part, where she needed and wanted me to be in control of it all, not just our sex lives. While she took the lead and no prisoners everywhere else in our lives, professionally and magically.

  Once we’d started eating, I asked, “What’s first on the list?”

  She said, “Let’s take measurements of your power and limits, by souls. I’m assuming it’s linear, if you summon ten for thirty minutes, you should be able to summon thirty for ten. Or five for an hour. We’ll verify that of course, in your training regiment, but it makes sense. Then we’ll pay off your apartment building, grab your stuff, and go shopping on the way home. Clothing choice?”

  “I love your cute and sexy outfits, but we’re going out for business and shopping, and I want you looking classy as well as sexy. We’ll leave those others for casual fun and around the house for my enjoyment.”

  She smiled, “Noted.”

  We finished up breakfast in a comfortable silence, and I caught her a few times looking at me like she was trying to figure me out and what I was up to. It was cute.

  Then I started to clean up, and she joined me to make it go faster. Before long, we were out in the vast backyard on the estate. It didn’t take me long to summon ten of them, and to tell them to shut up as the flames went out.

  “That really didn’t cost me any magic at all.”

  She nodded, and then started to direct me.

  We figured out a few things. One, creating the weapons and shields did cost power, but after that there was no real maintenance cost in power just to keep them there. It did cost power to move those weapons around with my mind, but only a little bit. It cost more of my power when hitting something with a weapon, or when my shield was hit by magic. As if my magic needed to compensate for the attack to keep the souls in that shape and form.

  So, the time limit wouldn’t be so clear cut. It took me almost an hour to waste half my magic playing around with ten souls. The highest cost was when I changed the weapon type of the five souls from one thing to another. So I discovered it’d be cheaper to summon fifteen souls, create armor, a sword, and a solid bolt with five each. Then I could control the sword for close up defense, and then send the bolt out for farther away stuff. I could even launch the bolt from one thing to another away from my body. In short, so I didn’t have to make changes once my weapons were set.

  I could still do it of course, if my current setup didn’t work and I had to get creative, but it was a thing. The armor I didn’t have to focus on at all, it just absorbed more of my magic as it was hit. The sword and bolt were hard to control together, but I’d practice it, and I got the idea that would be my focus in future training sessions.

  I was just about to send the souls back where they belonged, when things went a little wrong. There was a loud pop in the air and a woman with wings of black feathers, golden and red armor, and a sword in one hand and nothing but wicked claws for the other. She was quite… beautiful actually, with long flowing raven black hair and a severely beautiful face.

  Maggie’s words were not reassuring, as she said, “Holy shit, that’s one of the three furies. Think… arch demon, god in her own right, I thought for sure he’d send Empusas first, if he sent anything.”

  The demoness screeched, “You need to come with me boy, your father would like a word.”

  I said, “I’ve been careful to only borrow those from the hells, and not disturb the rest of heroes and those that have earned a reward in the afterlife. Tell my father it’s my life, and the power he gave me is mine. I have no interest in going to the underworld, or in being his creature.”

  She laughed, “Did you think you had a choice, mortal?”

  She dove for me, it felt like I was dodging in slow motion, and although her dive wasn’t all that fast to my increased senses the sluggish feeling and my slow body would never dodge it in time.

  I laughed, and mentally called myself an idiot, when I focused on moving the armor instead, and blurred out of her way at the last second. Another tight thought and my steel bolt shot across and nailed her right in the back.

  She cried out in anger and pain, but the bolt hadn’t penetrated her skin.

  We’d discussed that too, there was no need to go beyond five souls I didn’t think, per function, if it wasn’t enough power to blow through an enemy’s protections, I just needed to keep hitting them until I did. As long as her attack couldn’t blow through the five souls that made up my armor, my magic would quickly recharge it after every hit. So hopefully, that meant only running out of power would kill me.

  She screamed, “You dare!”

  I nodded easily, and the bolt shot up from the ground and hit her right in the ass. Which was supple, very well shaped, and completely unarmored.

  She gasped in pain.

  “Will you deliver my message, or shall we continue this?”

  “Insolent mortal! I will feast upon your rotting soul!”

  Yeah, kind of terrifying actually, but I went for a bored look even as my sphincter tightened.

  Then she shot fire out of her hands, but my armor moved me out of the way, barely. Her fire was a lot faster than her flying. Then I hit her with the bolt, twice, as she tried to twist and dodge. I expected I’d be able to hit whatever I saw though, the bolt hit where I wanted to, and I could hit whatever I saw.

  Tired of this game, and curious, I sent up my raw power and sent it into her body.

  “Freeze!”

  She cackled, and she sent a stinging slap of energy down my connection that knocked me onto my ass.

  Maggie hissed, “Try that on demons, not demon gods.”

  Right, now she tells me.

  The demoness was diving again, and I managed to focus in time for my body to slide along the grass to the side as it brought me vertical again. That time my sword slashed at her wing, while the bolt slammed into the back of her neck.

  She screamed in frustrated rage and pain as the sword drew blood from her wing, and her neck made a cracking noise.

  I was done talking to this bitch, and I kept up the attack. Her fire singed my shield twice, but didn’t break through, and her lightning-fast dives weren’t up to the task either, not with my mind in overdrive. Those lighting fast dives looked like normal-motion attacks to me, about how fast a human could normally move to my normal senses in my enhanced perceptions.

  Both my weapons drew blood each time after that, I was kicking her ass, but she didn’t look like she was going to give up anytime soon, and I had about a third of my magic left.

  Next time she dove I slammed my sword into her chest, and my steel bolt got stuck in her neck.

  She hit the ground in front of me and looked up at me in hate.

  “You should have come with me boy, there will be an accounting for this insult.”

  Her body was consumed by fire, and she disappeared. I got the distinct impression that was how she travelled back to the underworld, and I hadn’t actually killed her. The bolt and sword fell to the ground, and I banished those ten souls back to the underworld, but for the moment kept my armor.

  It wasn’t costing me magic, and I could regenerate while wearing it. It didn’t seem prudent to lower my guard, and as long as no one was attacking me it wouldn’t take energy. If someone did attack me, well I’d regret it far more if I was only human.

  I was projecting calm confidence, but in truth that fight had me gibbering in my mind.

  Maggie tackled me and gave me a heated kiss that lingered, and it made my blood heat to my toes. It was also obvious my subconscious had opened the way for her lips to touch mine, which would be useful and dangerous, for those that I thought allies that may one day betray me.

  “Did I make a mistake?”

  She shook her head, “He would’ve either tried to make you work for him as a champion up here, or kept you in the underworld, or perhaps outright killed you. No, you did the right thing. The best you can hope for with your father is making him back off to bide his time. You were amazing, I didn’t know you could fly.”

  I nodded, “I really can’t, I was moving my armor, and because I’m in it…” I trailed off as she kissed me again.

  She sighed, “Come on, work before play, although we might take a break at your house?”

  I laughed, and of course we did. After paying off the debt I owed, I said goodbye to the apartment by taking Maggie in every room, before we packed up what I wanted to keep and loaded it in the car. The furniture and the rest of it, Maggie was going to hire a service to clean it out, and to donate all the furniture and most of my clothes that she didn’t approve of to a good will charity.

  Lastly, she took me shopping, and I just dealt with it as she picked out the clothes that she thought would look best on me, for my body type and coloring and all that. I just went with it, I thought I looked pretty damned good in her choices.

  Then we went back to the house, where she laid out my training regimen.

  She said, “Alright, the fight was awesome. You kicked an arch demoness’s ass. But it was also sloppy as hell. I want you to go with armor, a shield, and one steel bolt.”

  I nodded, “Explain that?”

  She replied, “The armor you’re going to control to fly, the shield you’re going to move with a combination of your arm and your mind. Reason being, if anyone hits you hard enough to get through your shield, you’ll have a five-soul armor backup which can take the rest of the hit. Just in case. Thirdly, as you fly around and try to defend with your shield, you’ll also attack with the bolt. You don’t need a sword, not really. If you’d prefer, you could make that one weapon a kind of melding of the two. Instead of a solid round bolt, you could make it like a very long edged spearpoint. A sword bolt.

  “Anyway, once you perfect doing three things at once, which will take quite a while, we’ll add a second bolt. And you’ll control armor, shield, and two bolts. If possible, I’d like to get you up to five things at once, but we’ll have to see. Three bolts, a shield, and armor. That’s twenty-five souls, and it would let you take on three powerful foes at once.”

  “Alright, that actually is a very good plan. How do I practice though, imaginary foes?”

  She snickered, “No, I’ll create illusions for you to attack, and hit you with small fireballs from various directions. The first will allow you to practice aiming as you dodge the latter or block it with your shield. If it hits your armor, it’s a mistake, but a survivable one. How’s your magic?”

  “Two thirds? It’s hard to be sure, but I’m about halfway to full, from where I was after the battle, which was at a third.”

  She bit her lip as she looked at the clock, “So fifteen hours would see you fully restored from empty. When we practice and go down only ten percent, it should take you an hour and a half to get back to full. Which is fine.”

  “That will go quickly.”

  She shook her head, “I don’t think hitting an illusion will cost you anything, and my fireballs will be tiny and weak. Most of the power expended will be in moving the armor, shield, and bolt around. I imagine you should last at least a half an hour, doing that. If not longer.”

  I said, “What if I used one soul each, just for training. That would cut down the power needed to move them even further. Once the object is formed it makes no difference to my focus, it’s three objects no matter how many souls, save the magical cost to move them. With weak fireballs and illusions, the armor and shield of one soul each should be more than enough.”

  It didn’t take much power to move a soul, but two souls took twice as much as one. So if I used three souls instead of fifteen, I should last five times as long, with movement being the only concern or power drain in training.

  She beamed, “Good idea. We’ll limit the training to an hour, even if you don’t run to ninety or so percent by then. One hour a day will be mentally taxing enough, any more than that and you’ll start to make dumb mistakes, and maybe even grow poor habits. Oh, and we should check tomorrow, see if you can summon and control an Empusa, but be ready to kill it if you have to.”

  “Alright, sounds like a plan. Unless one shows up before then. What if I can, do I really want to be using them as minions?”

  She looked startled, “No. But it’d be useful to know that no one else can use them against you, before it happens in large numbers.”

  I smiled, “Good, because I wasn’t thrilled with that idea.”

  She winked, and I pulled her into my lap. Dear gods, her kisses were like candy, so sweet and delicious. I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off of her, and her sigh after it broke and she buried her face into my neck warmed my heart. Far too soon, just a day, for the growing treacherous emotions, but my Maggie was mesmerizing.

  “Want to go out…” I stopped myself, and patted her ass instead, “We’re going out tonight. Dinner and dancing. Little black dress.”

  She giggled against my neck, “Are you sure? I can be a good girl for you right here.”

  I spanked her hard enough to make her gasp, and then said firmly, “What don’t I like to do?”

  She smiled and bit her lip, as she sat up in my lap, “Repeat yourself?” she said a bit breathily.

  I nodded, “Let’s go shower.”

  She blushed with shy coyness as she got off my lap, and I’d give anything to know what thoughts had inspired that blush. She was so… aggressive in everything else, but she was quickly becoming my submissive nymph. It was only a matter of time before she worked that out, she was extremely intelligent after all, and I was surprised she hadn’t gotten there yet. To be fair, it was completely out of her experience, and I knew how confused she was by those actions of mine and her response to them.

  The way I took liberties and controlled her, but also took care of her first and treated her like a lady despite her dirty mouth, was obviously driving her crazy. As well as me dressing her and making her cook for me.

  She was a hell of a woman, I just hoped she could accept that truth in herself when she realized it, or all my budding hopes for our future would go up in flames. Quickly.

  Regardless, it didn’t happen that way, as I teased her in the shower to orgasm with my fingertips, before I took liberties with her mouth. After that, I laid out that dress, her red shoes, and nothing else. It had built in support, but I wanted to see if she’d go out without panties in a little black dress that barely reached her mid-thigh, or object.

  She blushed when she couldn’t find the panties and the truth that I didn’t want her in any panties finally dawned on her, but the little minx didn’t say a word as she slipped on the slinky little black dress and red pumps, then went to put a little makeup on. Honestly, it kind of blew my mind as I pulled on my clothes, maybe she was even more submissive than I’d thought.

  I pulled on my own clothes, and I went in the bathroom to brush out my hair. Then I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her neck with a butterfly brush of my lips that made her breath catch.

  “You look stunning, Mags.”

  She smiled, “Thanks. Where are we going?”

  “How about that Latin steakhouse and salsa club?”

  She grinned, and she turned her head for a kiss, one I was happy to give her. She moaned deeply as she melted back against me, and then she let out a little sigh of contentment into my mouth. It was a shocking change from her surprise at me stealing affectionate kisses from her yesterday, outside of our business arrangement of sex I mean. Now she was seeking them, and she was delightfully and submissively relaxed in my arms.