The Longest Road, Part 19

You thrust over and over again into the woman moaning beneath you, overwhelming her with the ferocity of your assault. Her wistful words have sparked something in you, a primal desire to seed her womb with your progeny. That is the only thing that will satisfy this raging confluence of need—both yours and hers.

You cup a hand under Essme's chin, turning her head so that she's looking you in the eye as you fuck her even harder. You want her to understand what you're about to do to her. You want her to know exactly what this will mean. "I don't give a damn what anyone told you couldn't happen," you growl, your eyes blazing with unholy power as you look down at her. "You're going to bear my daughter. And it's going to happen right now."

Her eyes widen, and you can tell she believes you. "Oh goddesses..." she gasps, a sudden, wild hope entering her eyes. "Oh, please, please, do it!"

You need no second bidding. You thrust deep inside her, prompting a shuddering orgasm. You release your seed right into the throes of that, this time impossibly fertile. And for several minutes she can do nothing but lay there, twitching, cum-filled and impregnated.

Eventually, as both of you come down from your respective highs, you lay a hand on her stomach, a glow forming around your palm. "It doesn't have to be just this one time," you say, quieter now. "I can make it so you can have children with anyone from now on. And help you in other ways, too. Just..."

You let out a deep breath. "Just... promise that you'll find someone to share your life with. Don't spend the rest of your time here locked away in this house. It's such a waste, not to be fucking anyone."

Essme giggles, as though you've said something funny. But she slides her own hand up to rest atop yours. "I promise," she whispers. "And... thank you."

You do everything you can with the Corruptive Boon, giving her the works. Fertility, of course, but also increased sensitivity and pleasure to go along with the boost in libido inherent to the pact. You don't do much to her looks—which are, in your opinion, already well-suited to her charms—other than to give her some supernatural aid in maintaining what she has, help to stay fit, youthful and eye-catching even as she ages.

After that, there's not much more to say. You clean yourself up and get dressed, leaving the exhausted Essme sprawled out across the bed. Though you do drape a blanket over her as you go. Hopefully, what you've done will help her get out of the rut she's been living in, giving her someone to care for, the child she thought she could never have. Not to mention a nudge in the direction of searching out a new partner for herself.

Only time will tell what they'll make of it. Still—while it may just be paternal favoritism—if your daughter does turn out to be a chip off your block, you can't help but conjure a mental image of her turning this village into her own personal harem before she's out of her teens. At the very least, it would be interesting to check back on this place later, sometime after you've dealt with the crisis caused by these heroines.

You rejoin the caravan just before daybreak, slipping in to help with the preparations to depart. As you do, however, you notice something troubling. You'd considered the possibility that the caravan master was going to take direct action against you unless you countered it, given his mounting suspicions. And as you return from the widow's home, you see the form of his first move.

It seems that Arne has forgone all subtlety, and simply placed a close guard on his daughter. Two caravan workers sitting right by her bedroll through the night, with others no doubt working in shifts. Even as she wakes up and starts to help get ready to leave, they don't leave her side for a moment, to her evident distress. This... could be a problem. Even if you could slip her away, her absence would be noticed long before you could finish feeding, and a search doubtless instituted.

She isn't the only one with someone watching her, either. You notice several of the other caravan workers keeping a close eye on you, glaring at you with thinly disguised anger. They didn't try to hunt you down while you were in the middle of the village you'd saved, but you have the strong suspicion that, from now on, if they manage to catch you alone they'll attempt to give you a painful beating, at best. Worse, such close scrutiny around the camp would make it difficult to work on a replacement for Greta without someone noticing.

You're fully fed now... but you no longer have a reliable food source in the caravan itself.

Soon enough, you all depart Eckenburg. As you walk along the road, pondering this latest turn of events, Khaytala falls into step beside you. Interestingly enough, you don't see the same uncertainty in her manner that you did yesterday. It seems that—given some time alone to think on what she's learned about you—she has come to a conclusion. The question is... what conclusion has she reached?

"Hey, Talavar," she says, smiling at you. "Ready to hit the road again?"

"That I am," you reply. "I just hope today is uneventful, at least. We could use it after the way this trip has gone so far."

"Damn straight." Khaytala keeps making small talk with you for a while as you walk, enjoying each other's company while you discuss light, inconsequential subjects. You can still feel the eyes of Arne's men on you, and a great deal of their distrust seems to be falling on Khaytala as well. In addition to her orcish ancestry, the caravan master probably hasn't forgotten how you were the one to request her. But if Khaytala notices their hostile looks, she shows no reaction.

Eventually, though, Khaytala pauses, glancing away from you. Her hesitation creates a lull in the conversation, and when she speaks again her casual tone is a bit more forced. "Talavar?" she says. "There's... something I wanted to get your thoughts on."

You raise your eyebrows a little. "Of course. What is it?"

"I... told you I was part of a... group, right?" she says. "The women who are getting ready to take the fight to Kovora? Well... a while back we took a big step in that direction. A bunch of us led an attack on Fort Hanvar. It was the last fortress Kovora had on our side of Melca's Wall. The only ground we didn't take back after the last war."

"That does sound like a natural first target," you say.

Khaytala nods. "The thing was... by the time we got there, the orcs were already in the middle of pulling out. Somehow, they'd known we were coming. And the Witch Queen was there in person, leading the withdrawal. So when we showed up, she tried to hold us off herself to cover the retreat."

"It was like... fighting a force of nature. The wind suddenly turning against us, huge walls of ice shooting up all across the battlefield to block our path, chasms opening up in the earth between us and her. If it had just been me, I probably wouldn't have even been able to get close to her. But even with all that raw power, she didn't have anywhere near the skill of the last Witch Queen. And, well... we had Lady Alicia."

"If she'd just gone for the kill, I think Lady Alicia could've ended it right then. But she kept trying to talk the Witch Queen into surrendering. Trying to get her to give up serving Melca. And, I mean... I didn't blame her. Who the hell wants to have to kill a kid? Except the Witch Queen wouldn't listen. And she took advantage of that opening to escape."

Khaytala frowns. "But... when we talked after the battle... Lady Alicia told us something strange. She said that when the two of them were fighting... she had a feeling like the Witch Queen wanted to take her up on her offer. But that she just... couldn't."

Very interesting. That's the exact feeling you had while watching Lily relay her side of that story to you. It seems this paladin also picked up on the same thing you did.

"At the time, I thought it was just wishful thinking on her part. But now..." Khaytala steals a quick, almost involuntary glance at you, then continues. "Um. Anyway. When we got back to Nelin, Lady Alicia asked Nevati—that's another one of our members—to research anything she could find on the Witch Queen. She wanted to know if there was anything Melca might be holding over her head to force her to obey. Nevati's a genius at that sort of thing, anything to do with books or study... but this time, she couldn't find anything."

Now Khaytala turns to look directly at you. "So I was just... wondering if you had any ideas about what might be going on," she says. "You know... anything you might have heard. Up in Urdeal, I mean. Where you come from. Or... or even just any wild guesses. Those could still help."

Fascinating. So this is the conclusion that Khaytala has come to regarding how to deal with you. She's trying to "subtly" pump you for the information that her friends want, giving you an opportunity to tell your side of the story without actually revealing that she's onto you. Of course, Khaytala being Khaytala, it ended up being about as subtle as a punch to the face... but it's clear that she's really trying her best with the hand she's been dealt, despite her utter inability to convincingly maintain any kind of deceit.

Truth be told, you don't want to force the issue either. Threadbare as it is, the fiction between you creates a sort of... neutral ground... for both you and her, and you want to get as close to Khaytala as you can before it's torn away for good. It's fragile, tenuous, and could be destroyed in an instant by a few simple words from either of you. But as long as neither of you speaks those words, it can endure.

That said, you still need to answer her question. Unfortunately, on this particular matter you don't actually know much more than Khaytala does. Lily seemed very reluctant to talk about why she didn't accept Alicia's offer... and with you molesting Rysanial at the time, it wasn't exactly a conducive atmosphere to coax out the full truth.

Still, while you don't have all the pieces yet, there's one thing of which you are quite certain. If it were something that could be resolved by simply revealing it and talking things out, then without question Lily would have done so back then. But instead—whatever corner she's been forced into—your mistress felt her only way out was to summon a fiend from Hell to corrupt her enemies.

Which you're perfectly fine with. You're an incubus, after all. You don't even need a reason to do that.

"Sorry," you say aloud. "But I really don't know. If it is that much of a secret... I doubt many people would know the truth beyond the Witch Queen herself. But even from what you've told me, I think your friend Alicia might be onto something. That battle you described... all the power the Witch Queen was unleashing... but you only ever mentioned defensive spells. How many soldiers did you lose in that fight?"

"Not a single one," Khaytala agrees, and from her tone of voice you're pretty sure that she'd already been considering that detail in a new light. You don't add anything more, letting the silence speak for you.

Instead, you turn your thoughts to your next move. Of the general topics you'd considered asking Khaytala about, you still have two left that remain unbroached, which could provide added insight along with a degree of bonding. Or you could try some more direct flirting again. As with your ill-fated attempt during your elvish practice, you'd need to try to pick the best approach based on what you've learned about her so far... if you think you know enough to choose.