Hey, Miyo, and Helenn were entirely out of it or less than a quarter through recovery. He had ravished them quite thoroughly, especially the succubus. Vyra, however, still y on her back. She followed him expectedly, her submissiveness decreased knowing that nothing of note was likely to happen. It was bad form and hygiene to continue with another hole after pounding a backdoor.

  “Vyra, gather your sundresses,” Rykard told the vampire. “I’m taking you along.”

  “If that pleases you, milord,” Vyra purred and rolled out of bed. “I will gdly accompany you, as much as I loathe the sun of this realm.”

  “It does please me,” Rykard simply told her and held her to press a kiss on her chin. “Meet me in the bath once you have everything ready.”

  Vyra smiled and nodded, then, titanic tits jiggling and hips swinging, strutted out of the room. Her being around would slow his travels down a tad, especially if he needed to run somewhere in a hurry, but why deny himself more time with his haremettes? It would be such a waste to only ever see them between conquests, especially since there was so much more to learn about most of them.

  Once Vyra was out of the room, he turned to the three haremettes he was left with. They had their orders and duties in his absence, yes, but that was in regards to state affairs. When it came to what pleasure they were allowed in his absence, well… he could be cruel or he could be merciful. In this matter, he was expected to rule arbitrarily.

  And his arbitrary ruling in this case was quite straightforward: “Just be good girls while I’m away.”

  _____________________________________________________________________

  Several hours ter, he was helping Vyra over a blocking bunch of rocks that were in the way of their passage over the western ridge of the mountains that surrounded the New Eden Estate’s hilly pin. He had chosen the position to the northwest of his starting Hexagon for his next conjuration.

  Vyra was very careful with her every move. Covered head to toe in bck fabric, she looked like she was going to a funeral. A dour image, but unavoidable. From the wide hat with the dark veil to the gloves, it was all necessary to keep her trip comfortable. A single tear in that get-up and she would have suffered pain of the variety that no masochism could or should make pleasant.

  “May I ask why you have chosen me as your travel companion, Rykard?” the vampire dy asked, once they were past the dangerously spiky part of the ridge. “Not to compin, time spent with you is certainly worth the brightness. I just do not quite comprehend why it was me specifically.”

  “Because I spent the least amount of time with you,” the kind answered pinly. “Miyo I had with me for years, Helenn and Hey I traveled with for several days. That’s not even a lot of time to begin with, even if I did get to know them enough in that time to be confident in ciming them. With you, I have spent even less time.” Rykard gave her a casual smirk. “I do not doubt that you were made for me, Vyra. I simply wish to explore more of the brilliant woman I cimed.”

  Vyra smiled behind the bck veil. “I must admit that I am adaptable to the regur noblewoman marriage. It is not uncommon for a man to travel and y with his wful wife only during his short stays home.”

  “Not uncommon, but I always found that lifestyle terribly unappealing.” From atop the ridge, they had a splendid view of the empty frame of the hexagonal grid. A few more hours, and they would reach its rim and there he would conjure the fourth addition to his nd. “All of this is just a necessary preamble,” he continued. “Once the world is conquered and everyone understands that harems are simply the way forward, I will stay in my mansion and busy myself with the continuation of my bloodline.”

  Vyra ughed at several things he had just said. “Your bloodline is already more than secure, milord.” She gently brushed over her stomach. “It is my honour to be part of that. You say it has been short, but the love in my heart is still true.”

  In Rykard’s chest, his own heart skipped a beat. “Short, but I love you too,” he responded sincerely. “I do believe in love at first sight, especially when it comes to exceptional people like us.”

  “We do have a few things going for ourselves,” Vyra agreed and, not purely coincidentally, jumped down a short slope. Her enormous breasts quaked, even as tightly packed as they were into her dress. “If I may be so brazen, your smugness should infuriate, but somehow I only find it charming.”

  “Smugness is a sin I am allowed, since I can back it up so easily.” Just to prove a point, Rykard grabbed Vyra and carried her down a particurly dangerous bit of the path. His bance, endurance, and strength of arm all treated this like it was the merest of inconveniences. At the end, he put her down again.

  She lifted the veil very carefully, to press her bck lips on his cheek for a second. Then she pulled away again. “I know, milord. I look forward to what else you may accomplish.” She rubbed her ft midriff again. “I do also look forward to motherhood. It will be a difficult time, te on in pregnancy and early on after birth, but I am pleased that the little ones will have siblings to py with.”

  “I assume you will be preparing the proper methods to awaken our daughter’s true blood?”

  “In due time. Perhaps it will be a blessing that she does not have to fear the sun. Dhampirs merely find it unpleasingly bright which, to me, is an understatement of the highest order.” Her tone turned hissing towards the end. “Would it be too selfish of me to advise you to see the wretched daystar extinguished through a Divine Game? Lunar light can give all that is required.”

  “I’ll consider it if and when I win a Divine Game that would enable that,” Rykard answered. He blinked up at the sun for a moment. “I have my own issues with the daystar.”

  “Do you? I noticed that you never seem to tan even the slightest bit…”

  “That’s simply an aspect of my body pulsing with too much magic. I am shielded from the damaging effects of the rays,” Rykard expined.

  “I wished such a trick would work for me.” Vyra exposed just a bit of shoulder for a few seconds. Smoke began to rise from her porcein white skin. With a steady hand, she closed the gap in her bck get-up. “I apologize. Your issue with the daystar?”

  “It is the reason for my closest brush with death,” Rykard uttered. He recalled the scene calmly. “I had accepted a duel to the death with an officer in the enemy army. This was shortly after I had awakened my true potential and I thought myself invincible. Yes, more than I currently do.”

  “I was not going to say anything,” Vyra assured him. He could hear the smile on her lips.

  “I was stronger, faster, and the use of magic was allowed in the duel. However, the officer was an experienced duelist - one of the heroes of the rebellion. He used the broad side of his sword to reflect the sun into my eyes. By blind luck, I parried the first strike. When I tried to attack him again, he had positioned himself with his back to the bright thing.”

  “How did you make it out?”

  “It turned out I was invincible,” Rykard responded with a smug, bloodthirsty grin. “I felt his sword on my neck before I managed to catch his arm. Even if the sun was seared into my retinas, once I had grabbed him it was over. I sliced his belly open with a conjured knife.” The king rubbed the side of his neck, where the bde had once touched him. Not even a scar remained from that time. “In all seriousness, the brush with death got me back to reality. It was good I had it. I could have been a truly insufferable man.”

  “Macabre that I would thank that dead man,” Vyra thought out loud. “Better him than you, however. I can’t imagine my life would have turned towards the interesting if you hadn’t conquered me the way you did.”

  Rykard was tempted to shove her against the nearest ft surface at the reminder of their first meeting. Since there was nothing around that would have given appropriate shade, he decided not to. The vampire dy let out a wanton sigh.

  “Daystar,” she muttered, distastefully.

  “How did you pass the time until I found you?” Rykard asked. “I know you were the administrator of the province, but you must have done more to kill the time.”

  “Before I moved to Moydra, I spent much time duelling, actually,” Vyra told him. “It grew from an interest in dancing. I like the fluid movements, but I grew rather tired of the unworthy suitors asking for the dance. Stabbing them was a more effective way to push them back.”

  “Were you good at it?” Rykard asked.

  “Not at first. I was hurt often.” Vyra noted his displeased reaction and shrugged. “Duels between purebloods get violent, Rykard. Our exceptional regeneration means that even the duels for sport can be vicious without consequence. Pain is a good motivator to get better and I did get better.” She paused for a moment, to catch up to him and grab his arm. “I was given the most honoured position of emissary of the VanRaabs on the Exile Hexagon for many reasons.”

  “That, I do not doubt,” Rykard said and concentrated on the now. It was much easier to appreciate the rge tits pressing against him than pn theoretical revenge against men he did not know in another world he could not reach. “The literature of your nobles must be quite different from mine.”

  “So I have noticed,” Vyra responded with immediate interest. “I looked through the estate’s library between the honoured queen’s assignments. The concept of the Long Shadow is fascinating to me.”

  “I always found that one unfathomably idiotic,” Rykard responded in stern tones. “Immortality through the bloodline. An ever lengthening shadow that the founder of a house casts over the generations and history.” He blew air out of his nose. “As if no one will ever surpass them.”

  “You speak from a point of supremacy, with every right, but for the common aristocrat it is a useful way to view the world.”

  “Then I’ll let them adopt such idiotic views and continue being sovereign,” Rykard said with an overly dismissive gesture. That did make Vyra shake her head in mild disapproval, but what was a retionship if they just confirmed what each other said all the time. “The Long Shadow illustrates the point nicely though. My home was full of mortals. The average life expectancy among nobles was about 70, peasants 50, depending on the avaibility of healing magic in the area. Your ruling css doesn’t have that issue. Your philosophy, from what you told me, was all focused on just governance, rather than elevating one’s house above the others.”

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Vyra hummed. “Perhaps I will summarize my thoughts on that dichotomy in a book. Your realm will need its own backbone of cultural works.”

  “Perhaps I will make that your new task after your current one is complete,” Rykard considered.

  “And how am I doing on my current task, Master?” Vyra asked in a sultry whisper.

  When he had left the vampire dy with Miyo, he had told her to emute the harem queen to become a true submissive. There was always a simple test for that, but he could not enact it under the sun. “We’ll have to wait for that… I am starting to share your annoyance in earnest.” He would have gred at the sun, had its gre not been more powerful. Then he ughed. “Removing the sun because it annoys me. It does have a ring to it.”

  “With proper precautions, it can be a good idea.”

  “You should make a list of such precautions. Just in case I take the idea as more than a suggestion.”

  Talking about this and more, they eventually reached the edge of the frame.

  Rykard had given the phrase a lot of thought and, like most good ideas, it had come to him after his balls had been drained. Having seen his surrounding haremettes, panting and moaning, filled to the brim, had given him a simple idea: more. Four was not it. It was not nearly it.

  Plus, he desperately needed more women to skew that gender ratio. So, his choice had fallen onto summoning one of the most reliably attractive races in a way that also granted him potential extra boons.

  “Gods, I desire ‘an elven forest vilge, with many sexy priestesses and druids’!”

  The gods answered as they always did, by initiating the magic that would manifest the next Hexagon within the frame. Vyra stuck close and watched with keen interest. For Rykard, this was the fourth time he witnessed this and parts of the progress, like the creation of the lower levels of sediment, were starting to become quite dull. For Vyra, it was the first time, and she treated it as such.

  “The miracles of our divinely touched worlds are plentiful,” she hummed.

  Soon, the ground was completed, and then came the actually interesting part. A forest Rykard had asked for and a forest he got. A dense one, almost a jungle, with many different kinds of trees existing in harmony despite the vastly different biomes they were normally found in. Rykard could practically taste the magic in the air and it had an enticing sweetness to it.

  Rykard raised his nose and took a few audible sniffs as he approached the edge of the forest. The sweetness got thicker, more pressing. Vyra followed, doing smell tests herself. “What a… stimuting aroma,” she muttered.

  “It reminds of certain oils Miyo and I used - the expensive and rare kind,” Rykard said. Following his nose got quite difficult once they were among the trees. It was simply everywhere and so making out a specific source was a task even for superhuman senses. Closing his eyes, he walked in circles for a bit, before he managed to pick up specific trails among the general, pleasant fragrance.

  There was this sweetness and that sweetness. Cherrywood, vanil, orange, all of them and scents that were simir but not the same. It wasn’t just as if they were all around, they WERE all around. There was not a tree, not a herb, and not a bde of grass that wasn’t adding its own contribution to the fragrance.

  Rykard followed a particurly intense trail to a path of purple leaves that grew in the shade of an oak. Its smell was exceptionally enticing. The thick purple leaves of the pnt reminded him somewhat of bean pods. Ripping one of it off, Rykard gave it a more direct smell test.

  The smell rushed through his system like a nibble to his earlobe. His entire body shivered and his cock twitched in his pants, engorging rapidly. He suddenly realized how hot he was, despite the temperature of the world remaining reguted. Clothes felt like a bothersome yer on his skin, more so than usual.

  The pnt was an aphrodisiac. Everything around him, to some degree, was a stimunt. As he looked around, Rykard realized just how romantic the forest was. There were plenty of alcoves between and in the tall trees and the dense leaves above created a gentle twilight in most pces. Some corners were downright dark. Here and there, the light was allowed to shine on a patch of soft grass.

  This entire forest was a beautiful breeding ground, magical and physical effects uniting to make it nothing less than the most erotically enticing and gorgeous piece of woodnd he had ever seen. For all of that, Rykard sensed no falseness in the air, no foul undercurrent to the magic at work, just a delightfully sensuous Hexagon.

  He already felt right at home.

  Penetrating deeper into the forest was the logical decision. The vilge had to be somewhere and Rykard was going to find it one way or another. As he and Vyra advanced, they spotted many more signs of frivolity in the environment. Animals were toiling around, many of them young, and there was more than one breeding rabbit.

  If the ecosystem itself was already this lewd, then how lewd would the elves be?

  Rykard, fascinatingly, found that there were only herbivores and carrion eaters scattered about. Birds sang harmonious melodies, rodents foraged, deers and bunnies nibbled on the pnts they found. Regurly, such peaceful living should have led to an explosion in numbers. Something about the magic in the air seemed to keep that in line. Either that, or it was a deliberate effort by the locals. Rykard would find out soon enough.

  That was what he hoped. After an entire day of walking, they had found nothing of note. Nothing bad nor anything good. Just more and more of the forest.

  “Could we be lost?” Vyra suggested carefully.

  “Possibly,” Rykard admitted. The map did not tell him where he currently was and the only kind of marker the forest offered was the dominance of different trees in certain areas of the Whisperwoods. The north was more jungle, the south more of a magical fall forest, and the east had more pines. Those borders were not absolute, though, and from a ground level difficult to keep track of. The Hexagon being three days footmarch wide gave ample opportunities to take a wrong corner. “We will worry about it in the morning.”

  “As you say, milord.” Vyra seemed more than happy to just go with the flow.

  They did not even spread out a bnket to make camp. The temperature of the air was pleasant, the ground just the right level of cool. Rykard ignored the rations in favour of some seemingly ever-ripe fruits hanging from a nearby tree. They were like a mixture of apples and peaches and as sweet as either.

  Rykard could practically feel his virility swell. The fruits here were fantastic, boosting his already impressive libido in a manner that he found fully unintrusive. It wasn’t like coffee and the jitters that often accompanied being forcefully awake or alcohol with its lowered inhibitions being accompanied by a whole host of side effects. Rather, the heat pulsing through his veins was akin to the energy one had after eating well the previous day. Nothing in the effect tinged his physical or mental perception of the world. He simply was given the necessary nutrients to act on his desires, if he so chose.

  And he would have his fun with Vyra. That had never been in question. The vampire dy was waiting for him to finish his meal, patiently, knowing that he would turn to her before long.