Freya didn't like Drake Holt.

His soul was perfectly pretty, in its own way, sapphire blue light flowing around it elegantly. That flow of energy was clearly not an original part of his soul, but at the same time, it fit in perfectly. The way it stuck out, itself, was beautiful. There was a coolness to the 'original' soul beneath it, like frost, or rime. Perhaps some trace of aesthetics to it, but unremarkable to her eyes. She wondered, sometimes, what had changed his soul like that - she knew where the long mark on Ryu's soul came from - but she assumed it was somehow related to his meeting her Cassandra and so never investigated.

It probably wasn't just meeting her Cassandra.

He had come to town with four wives. Her Cassandra, and three others.

She didn't like Drake Holt, and that was why. His lack of appreciation for her Cassandra. He was married to the young woman, and even if, impossibly, she only found joy in seeing her husband lie with another, he ought to- to just lavish her with all his attention, to feel guilty for looking at another woman, something! Anything!

But...

But.

Her Cassandra would almost certainly have been killed by the Juggernaut, if he hadn't acted. The creature had cleanly removed Revis's arm, and Revis was physically stronger than her Cassandra at the moment. He had acted bravely, and rightly, and effectively, and at cost to himself, for the sake of her Cassandra.

So, as much as it tore her up inside, the reality was simple: she owed him.

She, Freya, Goddess of War and Beauty, owed him, Drake, cad of two dozen lovers, philanderer of her beloved.

She didn't like that.

So, of course, she had to make it up to him. She couldn't merely don Syr's face and suck his cock or let him bully her again or whatever else it was he wanted to indulge in his sadism. He already had that, and all he had to do to keep it was let her hug and hold and smell and dance with and occasionally brush her lips against her beloved Cassandra. She shuddered at that thought, of her lips crossing across her Cassandra's sun-kissed skin, marred by all those little, different scars, the ones she had memorized the exact locations and shapes of, so much so she could draw them from memory...

Where was she? Oh yes. Doing what she had already been doing was hardly a reward.

Even if she hadn't been doing it already, jerking off the man - as if he needed another pair of hands doing so - was hardly an appropriate reward for saving the life of the most beautiful soul in the world.

She decided the most logical thing to do, was to ask the man himself what boon he wanted. He knew she loved Cassandra already, after all.

* * *

"What do I want?" Drake asked her, scowling. His soul simmered and bubbled with scarcely constrained rage. But he could be cold when he needed to be, and he quieted that fury, stifling it. "Anything I want?" Freya nodded. "I want you to leave Cass alone, for one. I want you to leave Julia alone, for two. I want you to fuck off and leave my family alone."

Freya simply nodded in response, taking a moment. She was already, mostly, doing that, but- "Why do you hate me so much?" She asked.

"You tried to kill Julia." The maggot-soul.

"I didn't," Freya said. That was the truth, after all. If she simply murdered the filthy maggot-soul, then her Cassandra would surely hate her for it. "If I wanted her dead, she would be dead."

"I doubt that," Drake responded. Freya didn't have anything to say at that. "The two men who broke Cass's arms and legs." Freya's brow crinkled as she considered precisely what he meant. "They also tried to kill Julia."

"Ah." Freya paused. "I gave no such order, but I know who would have." Drake stared quietly at her, but she could see the hook had worked. In his mind were swirling questions - no doubt things like, Is that true? Is this a misunderstanding? "Ottar. The idea to murder-" the filthy maggot-soul, "-Julia, that was his own."

"Really?"

"Really," she said.

"Then make him regret it. If his actions really didn't represent your own will..."

She licked her lips, sighing after a moment. Ottar... it was regrettable, but it was necessary. She owed Drake her Cassandra's life. "Very well. My apologies. I shall handle the matter."

* * *

"Until Drake is satisfied with your contrition, you will not touch me, or look at me, again," Freya said, her voice clipped and cold as she spoke to Ottar. She saw the agony her words inflicted on his soul, like whip-marks raking across bare flesh. He averted his gaze nevertheless. She had to play her part too.

"My goddess," he began, "I only did what I thought you wanted."

"Did I tell you to do it?"

"...no," he said.

"Why do you think I didn't?"

"Because... I thought you did not wish to be held responsible," Ottar said.

"So. I did not want to be held responsible. How does one ordinarily avoid being held responsible for something, Ottar?" He didn't respond, already knowing where she was going. "By not doing it. So I didn't tell you to do it, because I did not wish for you to do it on my behalf. If you imagined you were doing it on my behalf, then you were clearly deluded; and if you did not, then it is your responsibility. Either way, this will be your punishment, because I know it is the punishment that will hurt the most, Ottar."

Ottar swallowed. "I understand, my goddess," he said, at last, giving a small bow, not looking at her once before leaving.

He wasn't sorry, not truly, not yet.

But he would be.

* * *

Bella wriggled in bed, still half-asleep. Her butt rubbed around in the process, and she felt Hestia behind her, but Hestia felt... different. Bigger. The arms that were loosely wrapped around her weren't holding her as tight as Hestia normally did, and they were way bigger...

Had she shrunk?!? She was already so short, and now she was going to be even shorter?! Could that happen?!? The fear of it jolted her awake instantly, and as she twisted around, she realized that it wasn't Hestia she was in bed with, which made her realize that it was Drake she was in bed with, which made her cheeks turn bright red. "D-D-D-Drake!" She squawked the words out, feeling unbelievably anxious. Drake just smiled gently at her, that same, considerate, forgiving smile he always had. Did they-? Did she-? She couldn't have lost her virginity and forgotten about it, right?! Losing your virginity was really important! Had she gotten drunk and blacked out and lost her virginity with Drake and-?!?

"Nice to see you up again, Bella," he said, gently tousling her hair, withdrawing his loose hug from her. "You, uh, fainted, and I didn't want to just leave you alone... I hope I didn't overstep."

Did he overstep? Not by staying with her the morning after, for sure. Maybe by sleeping with her while she was blackout drunk, though! But she hadn't drunk anything, had she? Had she gotten so drunk that she'd forgotten about getting drunk? Could that happen?! "U-um, n-no," she stammered out, her cheeks burning. He'd had sex with her that was so good she'd fainted, and she couldn't even remember it! He just gave her that same gentle, sweet smile that he always gave her, like nothing she could do would ever make her come off as a weird pervert to him. "Thanks, that was nice of you," she sputtered.

"You okay?" He asked her. "Bella... I don't want you to feel embarrassed, even a little bit, when you're with me, okay? If I have to, I'll start telling you about what an annoying nympho Julia can be, so you understand it really doesn't bother me that you have sexual desires."

"J-Julia?"

"The Black Agony."

"Oh, right," Bella said. One of his first four wives. An exotic, beautiful, dark-skinned Southern lady, who turned heads wherever she went and killed with weapons beyond the ken of other men, drawn forth from her falna! Just her! That was the one she was being compared to!

"I feel like you're thinking something that's tailor made to make you feel inadequate," he said, giving her a smile. "To me, Julia is a woman I love, who is also incredibly kinky and sweet and sexy and has a really high libido." He paused for a moment, staring at her. "Okay. Julia regularly asks me to step on her face and fuck her ass at the same time, and I love her just as much." Ohhh no she was going to die again she was being compared to that ahhh she must have been crazy perverted while she was drunk! "So you can just say what you want to me. Whatever it is. There's no reason to be getting all hot-cheeked right now, okay?" He leaned into her, softly kissing at her forehead, so sweet and affectionate and gentle. "Bella?"

"O-okay," Bella said, her heart pounding in her chest.

"So, what do you want to do? Whatever it is. It can be not doing anything, too. I never want to pressure you to have sex, either. I just get the feeling that you want it, but you're not willing to say as much. If that's wrong, then that's okay too."

He thought she'd had so much sex that she passed out and she still wanted more?!? Oh noooo she had been crazy perverted! "I, a-ah, I'm sorry!"

"You don't have to apologize." He squeezed her hands. "Bella. Just say what you want. Say, I don't want to have sex right now. Or say I do want to have sex right now. Or if you want to do something specific, say that."

"I-I," she said, so flustered, bringing her hands up to her face. "I don't remember!"

"You don't remember what you want?" He asked, surprised and confused. "Do you mean you don't remember the name, or...?"

"I don't remember losing my virginity, Drake!"

Drake stared at her for a long second. "Do you mean that in the sense that, it happened when you were so young that you don't remember? Because if so, that's-"

"No," she interrupted, "I don't remember you taking my virginity last night!"

Drake stared at her, then closed his eyes. "Bella. We haven't had sex. You fainted while I was hugging you, and then I held you as I waited for you to wake up. That's all. You're fully clothed. If you were a virgin yesterday, you are a virgin today."

Oh no.

Ahhhh she was going to die again! She was going to die horribly! Her heart was exploding in her chest right now, what else could this feeling be?!

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry," Drake said. Why was he apologizing to her? "I'm obviously pushing too hard. You're just... so, so clearly flustered about sex, and I don't know how to handle it. I don't want to push you so hard, I just... I feel like you're making yourself a mess, for reasons that I would never, ever care about, okay? If you care about them, that's okay, that's up to you, but if you're worried what I think of you, you could say that you don't want to have sex at all, ever, and I would be okay with that, and you could say that you want me to... do whatever the nastiest thing you can think of is, and I would be okay with that."

He was soooo sweet! Ahhh! Why did she have to be like this?! This was all Grandpa's fault!

Somehow!

* * *

Freya and Bella were polar opposites, but God was I glad that emotional exhaustion was apparently somehow chemical, because otherwise dealing with both of them in such quick succession would have made me pass out in bed. As it was, I was instead getting groped by Loki, whose chin was perched on my shoulder.

"So the body that died was the one with the huge megacock..."

"The megacock reverts if Rei doesn't maintain it," I told her. "Any of my bodies can have the megacock. Do you want it?"

"No..." Loki said. "Well, maybe..." She shook her head. "No, I'm tryin' to be all supportive and girlfriend-y! I just can't say, It makes me sad to think about you dying horribly!"

"Why not?"

"Because that makes me sound all supportive and girlfriend-y!" I chuckled at that, twisting my head around to give her a kiss. "See? And now you're laughing at me."

"You're adorable, Loki," I told her, and she actually blushed a bit at that. "I especially like how you're weak to compliments," I told her.

"Gah! I'm only weak to compliments from you..." She squeezed my pecs greedily, hungrily. "I wanna gangbang..." she whined in my ear. "But I don't wanna ask 'cause you got murked recently and alla that."

"I can gather some bodies." I started mentally accounting for them, seeing who I could spare and wasn't physically or mentally exhausted. "Uhh, one's holding Bella, there's the one that was talking to Freya-"

"Blech, I don't even want that one."

"-one is busy with Naomi, one is busy with Kori, there's Tione's, there's this one, and one's in the Dungeon but I can bring it up."

"That's a spit roast! A spit roast! Not a gangbang! Or a DP, depending," Loki added. "Anyway. This is what happens with... havin' to share. Guh. Sharing!"

"I mean, you get to spend time with Haruhime, thanks to sharing," I pointed out. "Or Erza, or Julia..."

"Nn! That's true, but I'm gonna need three more reasons to put up with this!"

"Well-"

"Wait! Fuck! You're Level Six, idiot!" She clonked me on the head, ineffectually. "Just go to Telskyura, beat up some coombrained Amazons, and then drown the world in bodies from their love confessions!"

"That's... uh..." I paused. "That could work, actually," I said.

"Of course it could work. It's my plan, and I'm a genius. You're the one who forgot all about it when he hit Level Six! Fuck, too bad you couldn't pop a Level off the Juggernaut! Then you'd be a Level Seven and it'd be easy street!"

"Any idea why that is, by the way?"

"Well, your stats were kinda just barely qualifying, but probably it's that you died. So the story doesn't count."

"The one that killed it didn't die."

"Yeah but finding a comatose enemy and killing it isn't actually badass and cool, sugartits," she said, squeezing my pecs all the harder. "Now give Mama some sugar!" She said, puckering up her lips for a kiss.

I gave her one, of course. A very impassioned one, followed by fucking her into the bed, like she clearly wanted very much.

* * *

Drake was writing again, and Tione did what she always did when Drake was writing: wrap herself around him from behind. Drake had promised she got this body all to herself, so she got this body all to herself. She looked at what he was writing, but it was actually just boring paperwork that they had to do as the major leaders of the Familia... he actually did hers... and he was good at math so it was fast and impressive... and it was also nice not to have to do paperwork.

He finished the paper he was working on, placing it to the side, then leaned back. "I'm thinking about going to Telskyura," he said. He said it in that way that seemed to come from nowhere but really came from him talking to somebody else, probably a woman, and the thing he was talking about was going to get more women. She made an annoyed grumbling noise. "This body can stay here, but it is your home country... if I go there, I'm not going to leave it like I came. It's really fucking horrific, and I'll definitely have the power to fix it. Assuming I don't die."

"Nnn..." she whined. She didn't want him to go, and beat up other Amazons, who would try to seduce him! That was the whole point! He was talking about seducing women!

But...

Well...

Once he seduced them, he could make them stop killing each other... he could probably do that... none of his other wives were killing each other as it was, and she definitely would have expected that based on how she felt when she thought about sharing Drake with another woman. (Which, she was, technically. But not this Drake! This Drake was just for her! This Drake never touched another woman! This Drake rarely even got aroused by another woman, because whenever she saw him get a hard-on she'd wring him dry!)

She reached down for his groin, rubbing at his penis, but it was soft no matter how she touched it, because she'd sucked him off twice in the past thirty minutes. (She could do it fast, and Drake didn't try to draw it out.) "I don't like... sharing."

"You wouldn't be sharing. This body is just for you, Tione. Always and forever," he told her, gently touching her wrist in that super uber sweet way that was totally at odds with his badass warrior chic but also really sexy.

"I don't want those- those Telskyura hussies to think they can steal you!" She declared. "But also... I do want to help fix things in Telskyura... I remember people there, and I wonder if they're alive or dead, just because of the way we lived."

There was a silence that filled the air, Drake's hand idly stroking her forearm as she remained wrapped around him in his seat from behind. "How about we make sure that they don't think they can steal me?" He asked.

"Eh? How's that?" Tione asked.

"A tattoo," he said. He held up one hand, running his thumb around the bottom phalange of his ring finger. "Right here. It would read Tione Hiryute. Would you like that?"

"Yes!" She practically bounced into the air. "Oh, I should get a matching one! It'd say Drake Holt, and then everybody would know we were together for life," she said, full of ecstatic energy. Drake just smiled warmly at her, wrapping her in a surprise hug as he stood up - and she felt he had a hard-on. That had to be from the thought of a tattoo on her finger, and not another woman. Had to be. They'd been talking about other women earlier and he hadn't had a hard on! She let him hug her, hugging him right back, giving him the firmest squeeze she could. "I love you, Drake!"

"I love you too, Tione," he said. She squeezed all the tighter. She held him close. She rubbed her cheek against his muscular chest, liking the feeling of his tall body against hers... and when he finally moved to pull away, she snapped down to her knees.

"Let's take care of this before anything else," she said, grabbing his waistband and just yanking his pants down, his cock bouncing free into open air right in front of her face. It was nice and big and hard and it smelled nice because it smelled like Drake. She took a deep breath through her nose as she leaned into him, smiling up at him as she just rubbed his cock against her cheek. She'd figured out he really liked that, and his length wasn't maximally hard just yet, so she just kept on nuzzling her face against his dick, treating it like she was a cat and it was her owner.

Once he was fully hard, though, his full length pulsing against her features? She absolutely shifted her lips up to her tip like she'd done dozens of times up to that point, wrapping her lips around his tip, staring up at him as she just moved to slide down his length. She'd beaten down her gag reflex with all her hard work up to this point, and his cock smoothly vanished down her throat as she moved inch-by-inch forward. When she had her nose in his pelvis, she just swallowed wetly, her throat bobbing around his dick, making him gasp in pleasure, and she grinned at the response.

The more she made him come, the less he'd look at other women. It had been a great idea on her part, and it worked, too! As long as she kept blowing him constantly like this, he would only very rarely spare a glance at another woman, and even then, a lot of the time he wouldn't get an erection. She slid her tongue along the underside of his cock, firmly marking his dick as hers. He ran his fingers through her hair with one hand, a soft petting movement that was another one of the ways he said, I love you Tione.

She could hold herself down his cock basically forever, and that was definitely really nice - their two bodies merging together, Drake going sort-of crazy from the experience that only she could give him - but she wanted to get him off fast, so that they could get their tattoos, so she peeled her mouth up and off his cock, jerking him off as she sniffed and rubbed at his dick, taking a moment to recover and speak up. "It's sooo tasty, Drake," she told him. "I love how it feels in my hand, and I love how it-" she took a deep breath through her nose "-smells." His length pulsed. She'd asked Rei (ugh, blech, but she had to make sure to satisfy her hubby!) for advice on dirty talk, and the advice definitely worked. She was supposed to compliment his dick in particular, when she was sucking him off, but it had definitely paid off, judging by the way he came faster when she added this into her blowjobs than literally anything else.

Deepthroating until any other girl would have passed out? No. Facefucking herself on his cock as hard as he'd pounded her when he was knocking her up? Nope. Telling him how amazingly big and hard and tasty and wonderful-smelling his cock was, that was what really got his motor running... "I lo~ove your cock so much, Drake. It makes me feel so~o good... I'm glad I get fucked by it instead of Finn's. He's smaller than you."

"Finn's a good guy, don't be mean to him," Drake said, but even as he said it, she could feel the surge of arousal right through his cock in her hand, the way his dick pulsed with raw, bestial desire for her. He liked it. He definitely liked it. He just couldn't admit he liked it. She understood why he liked it - it was a way of staking his claim to her, just like she was going to stake her claim to him, by getting her name tattooed on his ring finger. He wanted to stake his claim to her, that was why he even had this hard-on in the first place.

She leaned her lips up to his cockhead again, as if to say I want to be mean to Finn and say how much better you are, but okay, I'll do this instead... She wrapped her lips around the very tip of his cock, her tongue beating and flicking at his slit. Then she slid down his cock once more, hands coming up to run along his stomach, feeling up his well-formed torso, her eyelashes fluttering as she stared up at him. She licked and lapped at his length, rubbing back and forth along the underside, twisting her head from side to side, and he just groaned, his hips bucking a bit, balls slapping at her chin.

She peeled back, but not all the way off - just to the tip, stroking his spitslick cock with her hand, staring up at him with a smile in her eyes. She hummed around the very tip of his dick, making it twitch and convulse in her mouth, and then she pushed her way back down, mushing her nose into his groin. Up and down, up and down - it was steady, forceful work, but she relished every moment of it. His cock was completely coated in her spit right now, after all. She hummed and smacked her lips, she licked and lapped, she drooled and slobbered, and Drake just throbbed and groaned.

"Fuck, that's good, Tione," he told her, his hips bucking a little bit as she felt up his stomach once more, her hands sliding down to grope his ass. "Nn, fucking, hell, I think I'm actually going to come soon," he breathed, disbelief in his voice. She liked that disbelief. If his other wives (grr) sucked him off like this, then he wouldn't be so shocked and bewildered by how good she was at this. But they didn't, they didn't handle his cock like she did. "Maybe... one minute," he breathed out.

She responded to his giving her a time by desperately aiming to beat it, starting to just pound her face up and down his cock, letting out muffled noises around his cock as she did. "Come in my throat, come in my mouth," she was saying, and thanks to his magical marriage Skill, he understood every word, even though his cock was blocking her throat and tongue constantly. "I love your dick so much, I love your cum just as much, spray it all over, spray it all over the inside of my mouth, I want to taste it, I want to feel your thick, sticky, delicious cum."

She got him to orgasm in forty-three seconds. She held her lips around the crown of his cock, desperately jerking him off. Given how much she'd sucked him off so far today, there was only a pittance of cum left, just a few dribbles and drabbles coming out on her tongue, thick and creamy and fresh but ultimately so limited. One swallow was all it took to get it down her throat.

Not that she minded the limited amount - there was so little because she'd sucked out all the rest already! She popped off his cock once he was done coming, his cock already starting to flag, hopping to her feet. "Let's go," she said, a brilliant smile on her lips as he pulled up his pants. He seemed to have halfway forgotten, given his expression and the way he wobbled a little as he got dressed again. "Let's go get our tattoos of each other's names!"

"Oh," he said, smiling, laughing for a moment before leaning in to kiss her. "Right. Let's do that."

* * *

After Irene had (somehow) managed to finish the story of her very, very long life, she had started to pepper Filvis with questions about her life. Based on Irene's story alone, it was clear to Filvis that Irene was a monster that had learned how to be a human; Filvis herself was a human who had died and been reborn as a monster.

"Hmm..." Irene said, her brow crinkling as Filvis explained her circumstances. "I had thought you were more like me than that." For a moment, Filvis worried that Irene would decide she didn't count as a monster and just eat her. "Tell me your story, then."

Filvis had begun slowly. Her life before her death was something she talked about slowly and surely... then she arrived on the subject of her dead comrades on the 27th Floor... from there, it gushed out. The loneliness. The pain. Her mad god, who she could only now really accept was mad. What she'd done for him. What she'd done to Aura, just to sell his lie to Loki.

Drake. His genuine, earnest goodness, and his genuine, heartfelt love.

What she'd done to Drake. That she'd sent an assassin after his wife. That she'd been killed. That the assassin had killed her god, and she had killed her, and then fled the city in the night.

She wondered what Drake thought of her. She didn't say that aloud.

"My..." Irene said, a somewhat vicious smile curving up her cheek. "You really seem to be quite an awful friend."

"I... yes," Filvis said, her cheeks burning in humiliation at that. "I told him... I warned him..." It was more a whine than anything else.

"I wonder what he'd say... if you told him that you warned him? That you warned him you would kill his beloved?" Irene's lips were curled up in a malicious smile, Filvis just bit her own lip. "Yes... yes!" Irene stood up straight, cracking her neck, her gorgeous body twisting idly as she found a way to stand that was more comfortable to her. "That's what we'll do."

"Um?" Filvis asked, more confused than anything else.

"We'll go to Orario and tell Drake what you did," Irene said.

Somehow, Filvis wished that Irene had just stayed a dragon and eaten her instead.

Chapter 95 is available on my Subscribestar at this link, Chapter 96 at this link, and Chapter 97 at this link. It includes some downtime and the start of the next arc. All three are available for just $3/month.