The next few days passed by in a flurry of activity as the palace transformed itself. White and gold were the dominant colors as each day the audience hall grew more heavily decorated in draped, heavy white clothes and flowers.

Until today, the day we were going to get married. I was off in a room that was mine, but I hadn’t spent any time here before.

“I have a present for you.” Cleo wandered into my room with her arms behind her back.

“Oh yeah? Isn’t it bad luck to see each other before the ceremony?” I asked. Cleo was still wearing the plethora of gold chains, as always, though they had been changed out and many now dangled sapphires. Somehow the blue brought out her tan skin and went with the gold. Only now, her chest was hidden behind strips of white fabric that came down from each of her shoulders and met at her navel before hiding her waist in more of the silky white fabric. Though it barely covered her thighs.

Somehow, with more clothes on her body only made Cleo more tempting.

“No, I wanted to see that look on your face to make sure you liked it.” She twirled around in something that would make people back on earth faint if they saw it at a wedding, but here it was more modest than most monster girls wore.

Though I wasn’t wearing Bubbles at all at present. My three tag-a-longs had been off somewhere with Cleo getting ready. They’d be at my side during the wedding.

“You look fabulous. I look ridiculous.” She had managed to get something that vaguely resembled a Rindall military uniform and then had decorated it with so many badges of honor-like medallions, that I thought I was going to tip over.

Cleo frowned. “We can have some of those removed.” She snapped her fingers and two cat girl servants shot into the room behind her. “Have the tailor redo the jacket. I want him crisp and clean, not looking like he’s wearing a jeweler’s display case.”

They pulled the jacket off of me and rushed out into the hall. Cleo’s words were law in the palace.

My pharaoh still leaned over, purposefully giving me a stimulating view of her cleavage, her hands behind her back. “Do you want your present?”

“Do I get to unwrap you?” I smirked, my hand questing inside her dress and cupping her chest.

Cleo melted into me. “Not fair. You said no sex today until after the ceremony.” But her body said completely otherwise.

I couldn’t help myself, pulling the adorable woman into my lap and kissing her.

She broke the kiss after just a second, pushing my lips into her neck. “I came with something else.” She produced a large key from behind her back. “For you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” I said, sounding confused.

“It’s a key to the dungeon.”

“Sex dungeon?” I asked for clarity.

Cleo laughed. “No. The real dungeon. My people have found Esther and Apep. They are below the palace as we speak.” She handed me the key. “Their fates are in your hand and you can go down and see them.”

Though Cleo was soft and loving with me, one didn’t become Pharaoh and hold a throne without a hard edge. That edge was peeking through my lovely wife at the moment.

“Do you want me to kill them?” I asked.

She sighed. “I want you to do what you want with them. You could fuck them, take what power you want, then have them executed if you wished. Or you could throw away that key and they will never leave those cells again. They’d rot down there.”

Yep. Razor-sharp edge. I guess Cleo was more upset about this than she had made out to be. Through the date and the last few days, she had given me space about what happened.

Clearly waiting for me to bring it up. But I never did. What was there to talk about? I had been duped and nearly taken advantage of.

Clutching the key tightly, I resolved myself to go see them after this.

“Good. It is always good to deal with things and put them behind you. I’ll leave you with this and any of the servants can take you down there.” Cleo tucked it into my hand and closed my fist over it before leaving.

I sat there for a minute, rolling the key around in my hand, trying to figure out what I was going to do.

“Excuse me? I was told you wanted to go to the dungeon?” A servant poked her head in the room.

“Yeah. I’ll be right out.” Guess I wasn’t going to have the time to make up my mind before I went down. Maybe it would be better that way.

The cat girl walked through the palace halls gushing about how lucky I was to marry Cleo and how happy she seemed. Her tail flit back and forth as she talked, giving animation to her words.

But all of that was lost on me as I rolled the key between my fingers.

When we arrived at a thick wood door banded in iron, I knew I was out of time to think. Two guards stood on either side of the door. Aligator girls and lion girls.

Tough looking bitches.

“Call out if you need anything. The pharaoh has told us you are in charge when present.” The lion girl with a large scar over one eye spoke like she was in charge.

“Open the door.” I commanded, standing straight, ready for this.

The alligator girl gave me one appraising look before opening it and stepping back. “Don’t get too close to either of them. Just because they are behind bars doesn’t mean they can’t attack you.”

My boots smacked against the hard stone steps as I descended into the dungeon. It was eerily quiet as I approached.

There, behind magically reinforced bars, were Apep and Esther, in two different cells.

“You.” Esther spat. “Free me this instant.”

That pulled me up short. “Wow. Okay, hold on one moment.” I drew on my magic and slapped her across the face with a blast of air so hard her cheek distorted and she smacked against the bars. “That’s better. I came down here undecided, but you aren’t getting away with what you did.”

“What I did? The big purple cow over there did everything. I was just a convenient excuse.” Esther pointed through the bars, spittle flying from her mouth.

“Anything to say about that Apep?” I asked.

The large queen cobra seemed sunken into herself, lifeless as she stared at the floor.

“Well, since she’s not saying anything. Care to enlighten me?” I asked Esther. Knowing what happened was the first step in resolving this.

“She found out I was holding onto Marvin and approached me.” Ester’s cheeks darkened. “I thought I had the colonel of Khopesh in my dungeons, but then Apep laughed at me and told me that the real one was here in Verdant and hatched a plan.”

“I did not hatch a plan. You said you didn’t believe me and required the real Colonel Ridden to appear before you before you’d let me have your prisoner. I figured you thought I was trying to steal your man.” Apep spoke up without lifting her head.

“I — Yes.” Esther said, some of the fire blowing out of her. “I didn’t believe you, but when you brought the real one. Oh.” She licked her lips, looking at me. “Did you know you smell absolutely delectable, Colonel? I know now why Cleo has dismissed her entire harem for you.”

There was no sense in hiding things from them. “Of course, I’m blessed by the goddess of fertility. When Cleo takes my seed, she says it is more powerful and more satisfying than going through her entire harem before me.”

The way Esther’s eye dilated with desire was enough to know what her motivation was. She wasn’t in it for selling me or any complex motive. Esther just thought she had enough power to take what she wanted.

“Knowing I was Cleo’s man, why did you try to take me? You must have known there would be consequences.”

She narrowed her eyes and snorted at me. “You’re just a man. Why would Cleo go through all the trouble to take action against me for a stupid man?”

I tapped the bars between us. “It seems you thought wrong.”

“It wasn’t just Cleo. Beatrix came down on my whole family, crushing us in the markets, telling my family that if they didn’t hand me over that she would bury us.” Esther’s bared her fangs at me as if it was all my fault.

Idiot.

Another gust of wind slammed her into the bars. “Don’t do that. I didn’t know Beatrix came after you.”

“Wadjet too.” Apep said.

“Since you feel like talking, tell me what your role in this was.” I turned to the massive purple queen cobra.

“I saw an opportunity to take something I wanted. Given Esther’s attitude, I knew she was going to make a move, and once you fell into the trap, I decided that I’d get what I wanted too.” She wouldn’t look up to meet my eyes.

“How’d that turn out for you?”

She looked up, her eyes hollow as she asked. “Did you sleep with my sister?”

“I did. You are both extremely lovely women. Cleo hasn’t stopped me from others. In fact, she has encouraged me to sleep with other mother girls for reasons of our own.”

“Would you really have slept with me? If I didn’t do that?”

“Probably. If you had stopped Esther and returned me to Cleo that day, I probably would have at least considered sleeping with you. Again, I find you attractive.” I was candid with Apep.

While she might have been antagonistic to me and Cleo from the start, it seemed there was more to it.

“What is your relationship with Greed?” Apep asked.

I tilted my head in confusion. “There’s nothing between me and Greed. I’ve never met her.”

Now it was Apep’s turn to be confused. “She once described you in great detail to me. Told me that when we captured Khopesh, you would be mine.”

Stunned, all I could do was blink. Then I realized, maybe the previous owner of this body had met Greed on one occasion. But if that had happened, I don’t think he would have survived.

No. It made more sense for Greed’s intelligence network to be that thorough. No doubt she had human spies running around Rindall.

That seemed like a much more reasonable answer.

“I have never met Greed. I expect if I had, I wouldn’t be here talking calmly to you.”

“Damn right.” Esther’s tail thrashed against the bars. “You’d be there on your hands and knees begging for us to take you, like a man should.”

Her head bounced against the bars again as I slapped her with another burst of wind.

“I think an example should be made of you, Esther. Today is my wedding day. I’d rather not see an execution beforehand. But tomorrow, you’ll be a shining example of what it is to defy the Pharaoh for the city.” I made up my mind. “As for you.” My focus shifted back to Apep, curled up into herself. “As for you, I need more time to think. Maybe allowing your sister to come down here and try to talk some sense into you would be good. Or I can see if Cleo has other ideas.”

“What? She’s going to get to live?” Esther cried out. “But she’s the one that—”

“Don’t talk without me letting you, unless you’d like to get battered around that jail cell. She shows remorse, maybe there’s still hope for her.”

For the first time, Apep’s eyes had a spark of life as she looked up at me with hope.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t that forgiving. She might live, but in a limited capacity, controlled by those that had better judgement.

“Apep, why did you bring me to your sister?” It was one final thing I wanted to know.

“Because… I realized how wrong I was… just too late.”

“Indeed. But for that, you earn yourself the right not to be killed outright. You certainly didn’t earn any favor with me.” Standing up, I looked at the two women and felt a sense of closure.

They would be dealt with here soon.

“Goodbye.” I left back up the stairs and stopped at the guards. “Esther is to be scheduled for public execution tomorrow. Apep is to be fed and allowed visits by Wadjet or Cleo. No other lamia is allowed down there. Is that understood?” The last thing I needed was Apep controlling some poor lamia to escape. Not that I think she’d do that, not when she knew she’d be killed for it.

“Yes, Sir.” She snapped a salute that was actually filled with respect. Maybe I was starting to make an impression on the monster girls of Verdant.

 

AN still monday - this counts :p