I sipped my coffee and nodded. “Yep, I figured it’d be about the same.”

  Elysia was listening while pretending not to listen, which I could now confirm because the bond broadcast her emotional state whether she wanted it to or not. She was curious but maintaining some detachment from us as she drowned her pancakes in syrup, took a bite, and made a noise that I was going to have to ask her never to make in public if we ever ate at a restaurant.

  “I feel different too,” she announced, setting her fork down. “My magic reserves have expanded noticeably in addition to the stat boost.”

  Portia’s tail paused mid-wag as she turned to the princess. “It didn’t help your coffee-making prowess.”

  I reached over and squeezed the princess’s hand as her embarrassment flared up and she almost started laying into Portia. “We’ll work on the coffee thing tomorrow morning. Together,” I said.

  Portia’s submission routine continued on schedule. She presented her rear at breakfast with the standard “I’ve been terribly wicked, Master, and I require firm correction” speech, complete with the “Pah-tooey!” and the fake spit. Same performance, same words. But the bond told a different story underneath. The emotional undercurrent wasn’t arousal, wasn’t even the performative defiance. Just a deep, steady love, expressing itself the only way she knew how. That was interesting information, and I would have considered it charming if it weren’t so fucking nonsensical.

  I gave her butt a little pat, and then politely asked her to clean up the resulting mess with a bucket and a mop.

  Clementine came down much later than everyone else, which wasn’t exactly out of character. Blackpink had been thumping through her door since eight, which was her version of a morning alarm. She clacked into the kitchen in my borrowed sweats and a tank top, grabbed the coffee pot, poured a mug, and stood at the counter drinking it while staring at us with narrowed eyes.

  “You all look different,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Ritual afterglow,” I offered with a smile and a shrug.

  “Gross.” She took a long sip and looked me up and down over the rim of her mug. “Your shoulders are wider this morning.”

  “STR 20.”

  “I don’t remember what that means and I refuse to learn.” Her eyes dropped to my chest, lingered, then snapped back up to my lips. “God, you look like such a good seat. Fuck you, asshole.”

  She was taking the ritual stuff better than I thought she would, at least.

  I poured her more coffee without being asked when I noticed her mug getting low. She looked at the full mug, then at me, and her ears did a cute little happy wiggle despite the resting bitch face she was determined to wear like a mask.

  “Your coffee is still shit,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I know.”

  “Make it less shit, Mr. Moneybags. Get a good coffeemaker and some premium beans from the asscrack of South America or wherever good coffee comes from.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll add it to the shopping list for this week.”

  The day proceeded into something that passed for normal, at least around here. Elysia asked me to teach her to use the coffee maker properly now, not tomorrow, so we spent twenty minutes at the counter while I walked her through the steps. She burned the first batch. The second batch was weak but drinkable. The third batch was actually decent, about as good as my machine could do, and when she tasted it, her face lit up bright enough to compete with her tiara.

  “I have manifested a beverage!” she announced, holding the mug aloft like a trophy. “A warm and adequate beverage! Josh, taste my creation!”

  I tasted it, and it wasn’t bad. “That’s good, Elysia.”

  “Of course it is. I am a princess. Goodness is my birthright—it is owed to me in all that I attempt.” But her voice cracked on the last word, and the bond hit me with a surge of pride so intense it almost knocked me sideways. That was pretty cute, honestly, though I probably needed to find a real hobby for her at some point.

  Portia had started maintaining my weapons when things quieted down. I found her in the living room that afternoon with my sword across her lap, running a whetstone along the edge as she watched SpongeJohn SquareKnickers. Her tail swayed slowly, contentedly. When I sat down beside her, she just looked up, smiled, and said “The edge was getting dull, Master. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “You’re good at that,” I said, beaming at how natural and serene she looked doing it.

  She tested the edge with her thumb and nodded, apparently satisfied. “I maintained weapons for the Moon Mother’s temple for fifteen years. Every blade is sacred.” She set the sword aside carefully. “Master?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Last night was very special to me. I’ve never had such a romantic thing happen to me in my whole life.”

  I blinked, recalling through a Vietnam-style flashback the constant, explosive, physics-defying hydroblasts that emitted from her pussy with every thwap. “Super romantic,” I croaked in an attempt at honoring her reverent tone.

  Her tail thumped hard on repeat as she picked up the whetstone and went back to work. Neither of us apparently needed to say anything else. I felt content to know that I had apparently made the correct response.

  After Portia went outside to play fetch with Clementine, who found it too funny not to indulge the dog-girl, Juniper spent the afternoon on the couch with an encyclopedia volume. Her tail coiled around my calf where I sat beside her, and this had become our thing without anyone deciding it should be. She read, I sat nearby and scrolled on my phone or read my own book while her tail maintained contact, and every few pages she’d share something she found fascinating or horrifying about Earth science.

  “Your planet has a molten core that generates a magnetic field strong enough to deflect solar radiation,” she said, not looking up from the page. “In Antheria, we achieve this through layered ward stones maintained by the Archon’s Council. Your world does it automatically. With magma.”

  “We’re efficient like that.”

  She smiled without looking up, and her tail tightened around my calf by a fraction. Through the bond, her emotional state had shifted from that morning’s careful distance to warmer and more open. She was letting me read her, one page at a time.

  That evening, Clementine cornered me in the kitchen while I was doing dishes. She leaned against the counter with her arms crossed and her tail swishing in a restless pattern that I figured meant she was working up to something.

  “I need to get this out of my system,” she said.

  “Get what out—”

  She balled her hands into fists, clamped her eyes shut, and shouted at top speed, “I told my mom about you and that you turned me into a horse girl and took my virginity and now I’m living with you and three other girls and she says I have to marry you. Also, you’re Presbyterian now.”

  I blinked. “What kind of timeline are we talking about here?”

  She was blushing effusively, her eyes barely opening to see me. I remained calm mainly because at this point nothing could shock me. “I dunno. A year? I can try to push it but…” She just shrugged rather than finish the thought.

  “Noted,” I said, maintaining a patient smile.

  Welp. Six months ago I was eating gas station burritos alone in a W-Mart break room. Now I had a harem of supernatural hotties, and the equine Korean one just initiated a shotgun wedding.

  Life was weird. But I could handle it.

  Chapter 10

  “Master! I require your entire morning! Just us! Nobody else! I have things to show you and feelings to express and possibly some crying to do, and I would prefer to handle all of it before dinner!”

  Well that was an interesting wakeup call.

  Portia was sitting at the foot of the bed in full combat gear when I opened my eyes. Granted, her combat gear was more anime waifu attire than anything that actually appeared logically defensive, but still. Her war hammer was propped against the bedpost and her floppy ears were almost standing straight up, but her tail was completely still. In my weeks of knowing Portia, I’d seen happy, excited, scared, and sleepy versions of that tail, but I’d rarely seen it just stop.

  Through the emotional bond, I felt what was underneath all that enthusiasm, and it wasn’t the same insanity I’d gotten used to. It was something quieter and more solemn, I guess is how I’d describe it. She needed something from me today, and whatever it was, the routine couldn’t deliver it.

  Elysia mumbled a protest from her fortress of pillows and golden hair. Juniper opened one crimson eye, assessed the situation, and closed it again. She gave a tiny nod against her pillow as a sort of permission for me to abandon the Siberian sleep system.

  “Yeah,” I said, stretching and sitting up. “Let’s do… that.”

  We threw together some breakfast quickly and headed outside, leaving helpings behind for the others whenever they decided to rise and shine. The late autumn morning was cold enough for a jacket, but I didn’t bother. I was a pretty tough cookie these days, and that apparently extended to weather hardiness. Portia walked beside me instead of bouncing ahead or trailing behind, and the silence between us was comfortable in an almost new way.

  She led me to the open field where the portals usually manifested. The grass was still flattened from last night’s fight, dark stains marking where the monster of the evening had dissolved.

  “I want to show you something I don’t show people, Master! And before you ask, it is not my bottom this time!” She picked up her war hammer and held it at her side with the head resting on the ground. “Yet, anyway. Now watch very carefully, because I’m only doing this once and I expect to be praised extensively afterward!”

  She went at it for a solid twenty minutes, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the most technically impressive martial demonstration I’d ever witnessed. Portia ran through form after form, each one rolling into the next without pause. The hammer spun, arced, and crashed through invisible opponents, and every movement looked like it could kill you—but also like she could do it in her sleep. Her body moved so precisely that I found my eyebrows properly raised for much of the duration.

  It was nothing like how she fought during our chaotic midnight portal battles, though that didn’t really surprise me. Training drills and reality rarely mixed when it came to the martial arts, but the more I watched the more I did see familiar moves in her display.

  She finished the final form, planted the hammer, and looked at me. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Portia, that was incredible.” I meant every syllable of it. “Good girl.”

  “Thank you, master!” She giggled sweetly. “I wanted you to understand something about me that I don’t think you did until now.”

  I arched an eyebrow at her quizzically. “I was just about to ask why you were showing me this all of a sudden.”

  “You see, master, I was the best in my generation. The High Priestess said I had hands blessed by the Moon Mother herself.” Her ears lifted halfway. “But she worried about me because I have an unusual disposition.”

  “I see.”

  “I got the feeling that you looked at Elysia and Juniper differently. Like, you understood why they were part of the party, but not me.” Her tail gave its first twitch since the demonstration started, and she sat down in front of me, patting the ground a moment later.

  “I never thought that,” I said, sitting down across from her. The grass was cold and slightly damp, but I didn’t care. “I do wonder about… your masochism, though, if I’m honest. It’s a little unusual, that’s all. So if you’re getting judgy vibes from me, it has nothing about your utility as a party or your role as one of its maidens,” I clarified, patting her on the head. “I just don’t really know how to handle the, uh, spanking requests sometimes.”

  She blushed. “I am different from others in my clan. I was drawn to surrender from the time I was a pup. Not because I was weak! I was so strong, Master. I could out-fight, out-heal, and out-train every female in my age cohort. I once broke a training dummy so hard it flew through the temple wall and struck the High Priestess in the bosom!” She clasped her hands together and her eyes went huge and glistening. “But when I imagined my future, I didn’t picture myself standing over a kneeling mate. I pictured someone powerful standing over me. Someone strong and unafraid to brutalize my rump in the name of love. And then for some reason everyone called me a deviant, a pervert, and I had to do laps of the temple on all fours as punishment, which, I must confess, I enjoyed a little. Oh, the vicious abuse I suffered! Pah-tooey!” She spat at the ground.

  I stared at her for a good five seconds, trying to figure out what to say. “Did you just say they made you do laps on all fours as punishment for wanting to be submissive?”

  “Yes! Of course there was no man until you that I would ever dream to call my master, but I wasn’t secretive about my aspirations. They thought running laps would humiliate me into compliance!” Her tail started wagging proudly. “It did not work even a little! My hindquarters were so strong by the end of it, Master. You could bounce a coin off my succulent peach of a bottom. Go on! Try!” She turned around and lifted her skirt, presenting her naked ass in a very familiar way.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Still beaming, she sat back down. “They called me names,” she continued, and her tail went still again. Her voice got quieter too, and the happy-go-lucky tone dropped out of it. “The other pups, the instructors… even the High Priestess once when she thought I couldn’t hear. ‘Defective Portia, who wants to be a pet instead of a predator.’ I heard it through the temple wall.” She looked down at her hammer and traced one of the runes.

  I didn’t say anything to that. Sometimes you just shut up and let somebody have their moment, and this was one of those times, I figured.

  “But then!” She looked up at me and the brightness snapped right back on, just like that. “Seer Morvain’s chrono crystal chose me for the Hero’s Party, and nobody dared argue with the crystal! I was fated! I was necessary! For the first time in my life, someone wanted me exactly as I was!” Her tail was going again, picking up speed. “And then I crossed dimensions and met you, and you were the person I’d been imagining since I was a pup. Strong, evil, cruel, wicked, and in possession of hands that deliver the most righteous and devastating spankings the Moon Mother has ever witnessed!”

  “I’m sure she’s very proud,” I said, because what do you even say to that? “For the record, I’m not evil or cruel.”

  “I know you aren’t, Master, and I would never suggest otherwise!” I was getting whiplash from all the mid-conversation contradictions, but before I could make sense of it, Portia grabbed my hand with both of hers and leaned forward. “Master, you set a safe word and asked about my boundaries before viciously abusing my firm yet supple bubble booty. Your cruelty and wickedness knows no bounds, and I loathe to serve at your whim, but you are also the kindest and most gentle man in all the world to me.”

  My eyes narrowed as my head started hurting. “I cannot follow what you’re saying, Portia, but sure.”

  “What matters is that I know I’m right to love you.” She squeezed my hand, and underneath all the bouncing and barking, the bond was showing me something different. The frenzied energy had faded, and what I was getting from her now was just gratitude. “I think you know I’m putting on a show most of the time. The routine, the ‘Pah-tooey!’ thing, presenting my gloriously round and juicy buttocks at every possible opportunity while playing your unwitting victim. I never tire of our game.” Her tail slowed to a gentle wag. “But the thing that matters most is that I know that underneath all your brazen cruelty and hateful words and deeds, somewhere deep in your cold, dark heart, there is a speck of love for me.”

  I squeezed her hand back. “It’s more than a speck,” I agreed. “Again, though, I need to be clear that I’m not abusive.”

  “Oh yes, so very abusive! And I would happily receive ten thousand spankings from you and nobody else, though I loathe your harsh hands so! Pah-tooey!” she spat. Her eyes were genuinely wet now, which was a hell of a thing to witness in the context of this conversation. She threw her arms around me and pressed her face into my chest. “I just want to say thank you, Master. Despite how much I hate you and your evil domination over me, I love you very much—more than anything.”

  I wrapped my arms around her because honestly, what else was I going to do? She was insane but she was also, very clearly, baring her heart for me, for better or worse. And yeah, okay, maybe I was erect, but so what?

  Anyway, if you took two seconds to actually think about it, Portia wasn’t even that weird. People liked what they liked, and Portia liked what she liked, and the Packlands could eat my ass for making her feel bad about it. So she was mentally ill–so what? She was my mentally ill dog, and she deserved love. And abuse. No, I mean—well, it’s complicated, but you get it.

  By this time her tail went still against my back, and the bond confirmed what I could already feel in her breathing. She’d finally stopped running hot, and what I was getting now was just plain old peace.

  We sat like that for a while. I held her and she let me, and it was very nice.

  When she finally pulled back, her eyes were bright and her tail started up again at a reasonable speed. “Can we stay out here for a while, master?”

  “Yeah. We can do that.”

  “Wonderful! I shall lay my head in your lap and you shall stroke my hair, and if your hand accidentally wanders to my bottom, I shall endure whatever dastardly, hateful actions you have planned with great—”

  “Portia.”

  “Right. Just the hair for now. Arf!”

  Chapter 11

  The morning after Portia’s heart-to-heart, I woke up the same way I’d been waking up for weeks now. Elysia had claimed my right arm sometime around 3 AM and was using my bicep as a pillow. Her golden braids were fanned across my chest like she’d arranged them there on purpose. Portia was curled against my left side. Her face was pressed into my ribs and her tail thumped against my lower leg in her sleep. I could feel through the bond that she was dreaming about something happy, probably tennis balls or possibly my hand. I chose not to investigate further.