Elysia’s jaw clenched. She picked up her pizza, took a bite, and stared at the wall. “Curse this delicious pizza for quelling my mood so easily.”

  Clementine held my gaze a moment longer, then picked her own slice back up. “Whatever, fuckface.”

  Portia exhaled with visible relief. “I’m so glad we’re all getting along! Arf!”

  Nobody had the heart to correct her.

  ***

  After dinner I pulled up my System interface while the girls argued about what to watch on TV. Eventually they settled on a game show.

  Meanwhile, I focused on Clementine’s entry in the party roster.

  CLEMENTINE KIM—GREATER STEED (Unbound)

  Bond Strength: 12%

  Bond Status: HOSTILE

  The word HOSTILE glowed in deep red, pulsing like a warning light on a dashboard. Yeah, that tracked. I expanded her stat block.

  CLEMENTINE KIM—GREATER STEED

  Level: 1

  STR: 14

  DEX: 14

  CON: 14

  INT: 9

  WIS: 8

  CHA: 7

  [Bond Scaling]—All physical stats increase as bond strengthens.

  SKILLS: Transform (Unlocked) Shared Senses (Locked—Bond Level: Wary) Spirit Charge (Locked—Bond Level: Amicable) Transcendent Gallop (Locked—Bond Level: Devoted)

  LOCKED PASSIVE: Steed's Resilience

  Requires Bond Level: Amicable

  Effect: Enhanced durability and partial magic resistance while bonded.

  Her raw physical stats were decent. It seemed like she’d only get more dangerous as time went on. I wasn’t sure if she leveled up on her own or with me, but it seemed like the Bond system had something to do with it.

  The Bond Scaling was the interesting part—every physical stat would climb as we got along better. The System had essentially made “don’t be an asshole to your horse-girl” a mechanical requirement rather than just a general good idea. If I cared about getting her to peak performance, I’d need her to like being my steed, and to get her to be happy to be with me.

  It seemed like an uphill battle. Then again, she was clearly still into me, so maybe the methodology was going to turn out to be a lot more straightforward than I was imagining.

  I closed the interface. On TV, Clementine had started up the remote war again and ultimately put on some kind of reality competition show. Portia was immediately and intensely invested, but Elysia was pretending not to watch and failing miserably. As for Juniper, she lowered her book by about three inches when the drama started to get really good.

  “Hey,” I said, to the girls. “The Portal’s going to open in a couple hours. Clementine, you can stay inside if you want, but I thought you might want to see what we’re actually dealing with. I’m not expecting you to contribute.”

  She didn’t answer right away. On screen someone got eliminated and Portia made a dramatic sound of distress, like “Ohhh nooooo!” Clementine watched her for a second with an unreadable face before looking back at me.

  “Will it be dangerous? Just watching or whatever, I mean.”

  “Nah, we’ve got it covered. You’ll be fine if you stay back and make yourself scarce. We’ve got a pretty good system at this point.”

  “She would be safest near me if she wanted to get a little closer to the action,” Juniper said, not looking up from her book. “I’ll be holding the flank. She can observe from there.”

  I nodded. “Works for me.”

  Clementine looked at Juniper, then back at me. “Fine. I’ll watch. Also, I have to stress this—your tits are fucking massive.”

  ***

  We suited up around eleven, putting our armor on and grabbing our weapons. Clementine came outside wearing my jacket, which was an interesting decision given that she’d arrived wearing her Pizza Dude jacket. If I had to guess, it was a move designed to piss off Elysia, and it was working judging by the look on the elf’s face when she took note. Clementine’s hooves were loud on the porch steps as she stepped out, and the field stretched out dark and wide open ahead of us.

  “Same spot every night?” she asked, falling into step beside me.

  “Give or take. The portal follows me, not the property. As long as I’m out here during the lock-on window, it opens close by.”

  She processed this for a few steps. “So… we can’t leave the property? Like ever?”

  “For short trips it’s fine,” I said with a sigh. “Early in the day, ideally, just to play it safe. And having you on board will be good because you have a driver’s license and can take the other girls out sometimes just to get away if you ever feel cooped up. But yes, I’m stuck here.”

  She winced sympathetically. “That’s a really insane way to live, Josh.”

  “You get used to it.” I shrugged, forcing a smile. It wasn’t often that I thought about the implications of that situation, but when I did it was a pretty dark line of internal inquiry.

  Portia took her position at my left with her war hammer over her shoulder, ears straight up. Elysia positioned herself ten feet back—close enough to shout tactical advice, far enough to be mostly uninvolved, which was on-brand for someone with a CON of 4. Juniper spread out to the right flank, coiling low. Clementine stopped where Juniper had indicated, arms folded, squinting into the dark like she’d been told to expect something but still didn’t quite believe it.

  “How long does it usually—” she started.

  And just like that, the air tore open.

  The portal ripped wide right on schedule, crackling with purple light and that familiar electric energy in the air. A hand came through first—four thick fingers with nails like blades gripping the edge of the tear—and then the rest of the thing hauled itself out. It was big, thick, troll-adjacent, with a grayish hide and a low-slung head that swung side to side like it was already irritated at everything.

  Clementine took one step back.

  “Ashbeast,” Juniper said, already moving right.

  “Good or bad?” I asked. “This is my first time seeing one.”

  “More than manageable.”

  That was all I needed. The fight went the way most of these fights went now—messy but not particularly stressful. The ashbeast was slower than most foes and had no tactical ideas beyond grabbing whatever was in front of it, which made it predictable and pretty trivial to deal with. Portia hit it twice from behind while I worked the front, and Juniper frosted its knee joints with that exhale of hers whose mechanics I still didn’t fully understand but definitely had learned to appreciate. We brought it down in under three minutes, and I finished it with a thrust to the base of the skull that Elysia helpfully directed from her safe distance.

  “Good job, my champion! I will pepper your penis with kisses this very night!” she cheered, then cocked her head thoughtfully. “Though I suppose I do that most nights now.”

  Clementine let out a growl somewhere farther back when she heard that.

  I looked to the side to see Portia bouncing on her toes before the thing had fully stopped twitching. “Did you see the second hit? Was it good? It was good, right?”

  “It was good,” I confirmed.

  “I knew it.” She pumped a fist, tail going berserk. “But perhaps still not good enough for your cruel standards, master?” she added hopefully.

  I let that go.

  Juniper was already examining the portal scar when I bent over to let Elysia crawl onto my back. When I walked back, Clementine was standing exactly where I’d left her, both hands squeezed into fists.

  “You do that every night,” she said. Not quite a question.

  “More or less.”

  She shook her head. “That’s so fucking stupid.”

  I laughed at that. “Alright. Do you think you’ll be joining us in the future?”

  She stared at the smoking remains of the ashbeast for a long moment, then at the fading purple smear where the portal had been. “Probably,” she said finally. “I’m going inside.”

  “I’ve got hot chocolate,” I added.

  “Whatever, fuckface. Talk to me when that parasite isn’t hanging off your back.”

  “What did she call me?!” Elysia gasped.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  Chapter 3

  “Sir Josh,” came the voice from upstairs, tragically performative. “There is no hot water left, my champion! I require your body heat to survive this!”

  I was elbow-deep in pancake batter at the time, which was probably for the best.

  A minute passed. Then footsteps on the stairs — small, deliberate, the footsteps of someone who had decided that if the mountain would not come to the princess, the princess would descend upon the mountain.

  Elysia appeared in the kitchen doorway in her nightgown, damp at the edges, arms crossed, ears quivering. The problem, I quickly deduced, was that Portia had beaten her to the shower by a full forty-five seconds and drained the tank entirely. Elysia had gotten in after, lasted approximately thirty seconds in ice-cold water, and bailed. In her mind, this constituted an epic betrayal, no doubt.

  “She has depleted the hot water,” Elysia announced, pointing back toward the stairs. “I am the First Maiden. My pores have priority.”

  I kept my eyes on the batter. “Don’t talk about your pores. It’s weird.”

  “Royal pores take precedence over canine pores. This is an established tradition, to say nothing of my ranking superiority over here.” She drifted closer, and the outrage shifted gears into something softer. The lower lip came out. “Josh, my love. You look tired. Have you been sleeping well? You need to be sleeping. Come, sit, let me rub your shoulders for once. I am very cold and it would help us both.”

  “Later, I’ll definitely take you up on that,” I chuckled. “Right now, I’m making breakfast.” I turned back to the stove.

  “I’ll supervise then. I’m quite good at supervising.” She reached for my arm and clung to it possessively, of course.

  Clementine appeared in the kitchen doorway a minute later, still half-asleep, wearing my basketball shorts and an old hoodie. Her black tail poked through a hole she’d scissored in the back, without asking mind you. Her horse ears went flat against her head for a brief second when she looked at Elysia hanging on me.

  “Is this going to be what I wake up to every day?” she asked.

  “More or less.” I nudged a mug toward her. “Breakfast in ten. Hope you’re hungry.”

  She looked at Elysia. Elysia looked at her. Neither of them said anything, which I think I was glad for? Maybe.

  “Cool. I’m going back to bed, then.”

  “No you’re not. You’ll fall asleep and breakfast will get cold.”

  She flipped me off and clip-clopped back into her room.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “So maybe you are.”

  I got everyone fed, which took three separate batches of eggs, a mountain of pancakes, a meat-only plate for Juniper, and more patience than any reasonable man should have to possess before 9 AM. The dining table looked like a war room by the time we were all seated.

  Elysia had claimed the chair closest to me, as she always did, and was drowning her pancakes in syrup while shooting hostile glances at Clementine across the table. At one point she reached over without looking and straightened my coffee mug a quarter inch, then patted my hand twice like I was a good boy for allowing her to do so. I didn’t really know how to take that.

  Portia ate like she’d trained her whole life for competitive eating, and the whole while her tail kept time against her chair leg like a metronome. Then there was Juniper. She consumed strips of bacon and whole hardboiled eggs between sips of black coffee, looking completely at ease, which honestly felt like a miracle given the chaos around her.

  As for my little pony, Clementine picked at her food, dark eyes scanning each woman in turn like she was still trying to make up her mind about them all. I sighed to see it. Every few seconds her gaze would land on something that made her expression tighten — Portia’s ears, Juniper’s tail spilling out from under the table and trailing across half the kitchen floor, the faint glow of Elysia’s womb tattoo through her nightgown.

  Yeesh. That was another thing that we’d have to explain to her eventually.

  Would she need to get one too? Ffffuuuck.

  “Alright,” I said, pushing my plate back. “We need to talk about how this is going to work.”

  Four sets of sexy eyes turned to me.

  “This house was built for a small family. We are five adults who don’t always seem to get along. The house isn’t getting any bigger, either, so we need ground rules.”

  Clementine set her fork down slowly. “You mean like a dorm? Are you my RA all of a sudden?”

  “Well it is my fucking house,” I countered.

  She picked the fork back up and stabbed a piece of egg. “Cocky fuckface.”

  Elysia set down her fork. “I find it highly presumptuous that the horse-creature should have any input on rules for a household she joined yesterday, uninvited.”

  “Technically I invited her with my Bind Greater Steed move,” I corrected her.

  Clementine turned to look at her, expression flat, like someone who had decided not to be surprised by anything today. “I didn’t join anything, bitch. I was basically kidnapped.”

  “You are the one who is the bitch!” Elysia’s hand slapped the table.

  “No argument there, but it takes one to know one.” Clementine didn’t even look up from her plate as she went back in for more bacon.

  “You are rude!” Elysia drew herself up in her full dignity, a woman who had once lorded over a kingdom as a prized princess, currently with syrup on a Made-in-China nightgown. “Furthermore,” she said, pivoting to me with a look of profound injury, “she keeps calling you fuckface. That is a deeply rude name for a champion of your standing, and I won’t have it.”

  “Yeah, it kind of does sting when you keep calling me that,” I sighed.

  Clementine cocked her head as though in confusion. “Why? I just call you that because I wanna fuck your face,” she explained. “Like, sit on it. I never got to do that when we hooked up that one time, so I guess I’m like, manifesting or whatever.”

  The table went silent, and into that silence I nodded slowly, while somewhere deep in my chest a warmth bloomed that I truly hadn’t expected. A single, dignified tear threatened the corner of my eye, and I cracked a gentle smile. Frankly, I felt a lot better about the nickname all of a sudden.

  Elysia opened her mouth, closed it, then turned to look at me. “Oh,” she said, and after a pause she turned back to Clementine. “Well. Carry on, then.”

  I cleared my throat, willing Josh Junior into a softer state. “Anyway.” All the women looked at me. “Nobody here chose this situation. Not entirely. So we’re going to figure it out like adults, starting now.”

  The room went quiet. Even Portia’s tail paused mid-wag.

  “Rule one,” I began. “Bathroom schedule. Elysia, your forty-five minute bath monopoly is over. At least until I upgrade our water heater. Or just install multiples.”

  The sound she made could have shattered glass in the right acoustic environment. “Darling, you wouldn’t dare—”

  “Twenty minutes max for morning showers. Anyone who needs a long soak can do it in the afternoon when nobody else is waiting. And before you say it, yes, this applies to royalty, too.”

  Elysia’s mouth opened and closed. Her lower lip started to quiver, and the full puppy-dog eyes deployed in record time — enormous, glistening, devastating enough to make lesser men crumble.

  I held firm. Barely.

  “Fine,” she whispered pathetically, and you’d think I’d just told her Black Lazarus released an epic diss track about her. “Twenty minutes. Under protest.” She traced a small, mournful circle on the tablecloth with one finger. “Will you at least brush my hair after breakfast? My braids are in a state.”

  “Sure. That’s fine, brushing your hair is therapeutic for me too.”

  Clementine snorted in disgust. “Simp.”

  I blinked. “Ma’am, I am trying my goddamn best.”

  As for Elysia, the puppy-dog eyes immediately dried up, replaced by a serene, satisfied smile. As it so happened, Elysia’s emotional range had an express lane from devastated to smug, and it ran right through the land of ‘got what I actually wanted.’

  “Noted. Rule two: kitchen rotation. I can’t be the only one cooking for five people every meal. We all take turns, but some of you will need to learn how to cook.”

  “I will prepare any meal Master desires!” Portia bounced in her seat. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snacks, post-spanking sustenance—I will even glaze his pastries with my release!”

  “That is fucking epic, but let’s stay on track. For now, I just want you each to learn one meal that can be your specialty. I suggest microwaveable macaroni and cheese for you, Portia.” I pointed at her, watching as she nodded emphatically.

  “Yes, Master! I shall not disappoint you! And if I do displease you, you may discipline me in whatever way you see fit, though the very thought fills me with terror and resentment! Pah-tooey!” She spat at the ground for emphasis.

  Clementine stared at her, brows knitting together. “Is the carpet like forty percent dog spit at this point?”

  “Rule three,” I continued. “Nobody goes outside when we have visitors. Workers, contractors, delivery people, anyone. I don’t care if the house is on fire. You stay hidden until I give the all-clear. That goes for you too, Constantine.”

  “I’m not mad about that one. Constantine was badass.”

  “The emperor?” I asked. I didn’t know she was a history buff.

  “No, the Keanu Reeves movie. They named an emperor after him? Anyway, what if the house is literally on fire?” Clementine asked. “Can we go out then?”