Marvin sat up, getting out of bed, as he heard the door slam. He knew what was about to happen.

"Colonel, did they get you to? I-is the Fort gone?" He asked in a rush.

I understood how he could come to such a conclusion given my presence and the situation I’d just been thrown into.

"No. Marvin. I came to the city of Verdant, that's where you are now, and I negotiated with their leader. Her name is Cleo, for yours and the rest of my men’s release." I looked back the way I'd come, only to see a number of lamia sealed down here with me. "However, it would seem that despite their leader’s orders that we have someone refusing to let my men go." I let anger enter my voice and mana surged out for me as I prepared to fight.

Marvin jumped to his feet. "No, they have tricked you. Careful, they’ll fill you with lust venom until you won't want to leave."

"Is that how you feel, Marvin? You don't want to leave?" I asked. Was this man too far gone?

“No, sir. If you're here to lead me out, I'll go.” He stood straight, some steel back in his spine and fire back in his eyes. "But a weapon would help, sir."

I chuckled, and out of the ground, I made a stone sword. It would be hard and do the job that was needed, but it would certainly be brittle and it wouldn’t last past this fight. "Here, take this and get ready. We’re about to have a fight on our hands."

I, on the other hand, was equipped with my magic as well as a slime coating me in armor, a wind elemental hidden in my cape and a banshee camping in my soul. I was far more than these lamia bargained for.

"You don't want to do this." I threatened the lamia arrayed out before me.

Esther's voice came from down the hall. She had apparently retreated back away from the brewing fight. Safely on the other side of the door.

Apep was there beside her, and Lauren was just on my side of the door. But between me and Lauren was another dozen lamia. Apep looked hesitant. Her gaze flit between me and Esther as if she was trying to make up her mind.

But of course she didn't need to make up her mind, or at least I hoped. Because she was working for Cleo and it was plain as day that Esther was in the wrong.

"Apep, what are you doing.” I demanded.

The purple-skinned queen cobra looked at me and bit her lip. "Will you have sex with me?” She blurted out.

I glared at her in the situation. That was her question? While I was trapped and under pressure, needing her help, was she here to bargain?

That was not okay.

My enjoyment of monster girl was not some bargaining tool to get me out of the situation. I refused. No matter how much I appreciated monster girls, it was not something that people could use to hold over my head.

"Absolutely fucking not. That isn’t how this works.” I said. My jaw set and my anger flared.

Apep looked between me and Esther, still torn as to what to do, and that made up my mind for me.

I step forward, a pillar of earth coming up before me. I punched the pillar of earth, sending hunks of rock flying forward and into the lamia here with me.

The chunks of rock peppered the lamia, scraping them and knocking them back. But they were a sturdy type of monster girl. And this was not enough to take them out. It served its purpose of scattering the lamia before the door.

Esther screamed, "You attacked people and my home. I will see you collared and serving my bed as penance." She snickered as if I'd played right into her hand.

Lauren was quick to get behind one girl, her glaive swinging up under the woman's throat, catching her not with the blade but with the shaft and pulling back, choking out the other lamia.

While I appreciated Lauren’s help. However, it was still eleven on one, with her working to choke out the other lamia. I needed something better than single hand-to-hand tactics.

Wind billowed around me and bolstered my movement as I danced on the wind, weaving between the lamia. Sylvia flared under my cape. It felt like I had a jet engine strapped to my back as I rocketed forward. Blades of air wrapped my fist in power as I tried to break down the door blocking my exit.

The door must have been made of something hardier than I had expected, because even my powerful sorcery failed to cut the door. My blades of wind broke up and blasted me back.

“Do you think I made a dungeon that could keep what I thought was the Colonel of the fort at Kopesh without proper precautions?” Esther laughed at me, her tone mocking.

Of course not. But she said something that interested me. “You thought Marvin was me.” It was a statement. She had bought Marvin when someone sold him as if he was me. I knew Peladonis was the one who captured my men, but to know that she sold them under my name somehow pissed me off further.

Esther blushed with embarrassment. "No," she stuttered.

I smirked. She had definitely bought him thinking it was me. But what surprised me was the look on Apep's face when I caught Esther and her poor deal.

There was something about how Apep reacted that made me wonder.

“Apep,” I shouted, “what's going on?”

She hesitated and squirmed, as if she was indecisive in the moment.

Apep turned to Esther instead. “Will you share him?”

Oh, hell no.

Esther smiled, clearly satisfied to have Apep's attention. "Of course, the cobra queen deserves the best.”

“The best, what?” I grumbled under my breath. “Certainly not the best sex. There is no way either of you are getting anything out of me.” I declared despite my position, the door between me and them might be tough enough to withstand my spells, but there was no way I was letting any living creature come in here and force me.

So instead of dwelling on whatever was happening between the two lamia outside the door, I focus back on those inside and those that unfortunately need to die.

While I might have normally held back. They put me in a position that demanded I use a brutal show of force.

I surge forward, catching the first lamia on the jaw, knocking her head to the side with strength beyond what I'd had several weeks ago. Thanks to the improvements from sex with monster girls, my body was far stronger. I wasn't sure which one exactly had enhanced my strength so or if it was several them together, but I was noticeably far stronger than I was before.

Grabbing the hair of the lamia, I wrenched it around. I grabbed her chin once again and this time I torqued it till her neck snapped.

That caused a commotion with the lamia trapped in here with me. I had just escalated the conflict.

One of them screamed and tried to escape, but Lauren's glaive caught her in the gut, spilling her innards out upon the floor. Lauren had realized the same as me. This was no longer a time to hold back.

There was a pause as the lamia here trying to capture me hadn't expected lethal force.

I look back at the two outside. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I focused back on the girls trapped in with me and proposed the same question. “Are you girls sure you want to do this?”

The lamia inside hesitated before backing up. They didn't like their chances caught between me and Lauren. Not that I blamed them.

I looked at the two outside. “Your move. You can call this off and spare them.”

Apep still hesitated. Why, I couldn't be quite sure, but either way, it upset me to be betrayed.

“How about you let me go and we find a way to work this out?” I tried to bargain with Esther as much as I wanted to carve a bloodied path through them. I knew that would only make it harder on Cleo. Not to mention I had to bring Marvin out of this alive.

He was backed into a corner, holding his stone sword.

Esther looked at me and then back at Apep. “You deal with this.” she demanded.

Apep reared back from Esther, her hood flaring. “Excuse me?”

Esther smirked. “You are the one that Cleo will kill when she finds out what happened. So I need you to solve this.” Esther had a smug smile on her face as if she just found the perfect answer.

As you can imagine, Apep was less than pleased with this development, but I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, she brought this upon herself. I trusted her to bring me here and now at the last moment. She had betrayed me.

Apep glared through the door. “Tell your women to take him alive. It is still ten against one, if they all go at him at once. He doesn't stand a chance.” Apep crossed her arms under those large purple spheres and I had to look away.

Damn shame I wasn't going to get to enjoy them.

The ten lamia looked back at me, thinking about the odds. No doubt I could take out a few of them if they mobbed me, but she was right. Taking on all of them at once would be difficult.

“Are you girls going to do this or what?” I egg them on as I heard Lauren swish her weapon through the air to remind me I wasn't alone in this.

The lamia rushed me. My training kicked in, that of my physical body. Muscle memory of kicks and punches in hand-to-hand combat worked as I used my strength and speed to keep them off me while disabling the lamia to prevent myself from being mobbed.

However, they were far different from fighting a man. Their lower body allowed for far different movements that I was used to. But I still managed it with power and speed of both a well-honed body and absorbed power of monster girls.

A lamia came in swinging and I ducked under her blow, stomping on the earth and using my sorcery to push me up as I buried my fist in her gut. It bent her over, and I carried her up to the ceiling on a pillar of earth before pushing her back into the ceiling like molding clay as it wrapped around her and sealed her partially into the ceiling above.

Another lamia came. This time, I wasn't quite so nice. A blade of air rode on my palm as I caught her fist, shredding it into a bloody pulp.

I would have felt sorry for her for damaging her hand. But the situation called for more force and less sympathy. I wasn't about to hold back just because they were beautiful monster girls, not in this situation.

I fought the monster girls tooth and nail until the end and all that was left standing were me and Lauren. Marvin had stuck to his corner and defended himself, but he had lost his courage. That was something we’d have to work on once we got back.

“Are we still going to keep up the charade?” I asked the two lamia standing outside the metal door.

Apep sighed. “I didn't want to do this.”

I frowned. That was always something the villain said right before they won. In a way that I couldn’t control.

“Lauren bite him.” Apep said as she rose up on her tail. The cobra hood behind her head flared and glowed along with her silver eyes.

I felt warm fangs pierced my neck as Lauren, her eyes glowing with the same silver as Apep's, stared into me with a pleading expression even as she pumped lust venom into my neck.

Wrenching myself free, I stumbled and tried to right myself from the shock and pain of her bite.

I'd been able to attack the other lamia without holding back, but Lauren was different. She was not only my guard. She was someone I knew and might even call a friend. I couldn't kill her as easily as the others.

“Detain him,” Apep demanded.

Once again, Lauren's eyes glowed silver. "I can't resist. She's the queen of lamia."

I suddenly realized what they had said before about Apep being the ruler of the lamia was understated. She did just have political influence. She had actual magical influence over the lamia of the desert.

And I had just put myself in a position for her to use it against me.

Unlike the other lamia. Lauren had a weapon, which she swished through the air as I tried to concentrate and bind her like I had the others.

But Lauren was a slippery fighter. Her thin serpent tail maneuvered her around as I brought up pillars of stone to block her attacks and trap her.

She was agile and graceful. In the most deadly of ways.

My eyes couldn't stop watching her breast and the thin metal she called armor curled around them. It squish them in the sort of delicious way that made my eyes trail them as they swayed. Even as I tried to track her weapon. It was a distraction that I couldn't seem to get out of my head.

I was flush and warm, with my blood heading south and it felt like it was starving my reaction time.

Grunting, I was upset at myself that I couldn't focus. But then again, I had Lauren's potent venom pumping through my veins.

And though I had some experience with the debilitation because of my training against monster girls. Lauren’s venom was something new and on a different level from what I experienced before.

My mind went crazy with every curve of her body as it swayed and as it moved, I found myself practically salivating, wanting to touch, wanting to suck.

I didn't even notice it when the shaft of her weapon clipped my temple, nor did I mind as I fell down to the ground and Lauren’s fangs opened up once again to caress my neck and fill me with the burning sense of lust as I grabbed her hips, ignoring our fight and suckled on her nipples.

Nothing else mattered more than savoring the succulent display of lamia flesh before me.

I had lost and given up the fight in search of pleasure. And I felt guilty for it. It felt unlike prior times with monster girls. This time I felt overly trapped, taken advantage of, and I would not let that happen this time.

Apep and Ester would rot in hell before I let them enjoy my cock. I had one last option.