At first, Mariella didn’t dream.

  She floated through a haze of alcohol and fractured memories.

  Then that began to clear up. She moved through a vast darkness until she found herself suddenly in a candlelit ballroom, wearing an evening gown in a shimmering silver silk fabric. That had always been her favorite color.

  Where’s Tybalt? she thought. Her mind was still focused on the encounter that hadn’t happened—or hadn’t finished the way she wanted and expected it to.

  She spied him across the room. He was talking to some other woman. It was no one Mariella recognized, but she felt a little twinge of unease.

  Mine… stay away from him! You’re not even a fox…

  “You want to get his attention?” a sultry female voice whispered in her ear.

  Mariella spun around to face the speaker. She found herself looking up at a woman who was slightly taller than her but very thin. The woman had a sweet face, blue-gray eyes, and wavy blonde hair topped with pale beige fennec fox ears. She wore a blue-gray dress that matched the color of her eyes.

  “Are you Vidalia…?”

  “Tybalt told you about me?” the fox maiden asked. “That’s so sweet of him!” She smiled at Mariella, then tilted her head at Tybalt and the other woman. “I guess we’ve got competition.”

  “Not for long,” Mariella grumbled, balling her hand into a fist. She thought about conjuring fire, but the foxgirl grabbed her wrist before her mana could do anything.

  “Don’t be hasty,” Vidalia said, leaning in close to whisper in Mariella’s ear. “There’s a much simpler way.”

  “There is?” Mariella felt slightly nervous. When was the last time she had let another person besides Tybalt this close to her willingly?

  “A man like Tybalt can’t resist the sight of two women dancing,” the fox girl replied. “It will get his attention, guaranteed. Plus, I know he would want us to get along. What better way to show that we like each other?”

  Vidalia pulled back and to the side slightly from Mariella’s ear. The two women’s faces were inches apart, and Mariellla felt strangely flustered by the proximity. She remembered practicing for her first real kiss, her first boy kiss, with girlfriends when she was a teenager. She remembered a strange feeling in her stomach when she did that. Almost the same sort of feeling she had gotten when she and Tybalt kissed. She imagined that was just what kissing did.

  Mariella felt the fox girl take her hands, and before she knew it, the two women were slow dancing. Music played, and they moved to it.

  The foxgirl led, perhaps because Mariella was slightly shorter, perhaps because she was a little stunned to be dancing with another woman.

  Vidalia kept them close together as they danced, cheek to cheek much of the time, even as Mariella was dimly aware that some of the others dancing around them maintained a much more respectable distance between the partners.

  Scandalous, she thought quietly. Forbidden, I can’t…

  “He’s watching us now,” Vidalia whispered. “We have to do something memorable. Follow my lead.”

  Mariella looked at the fox maiden wordlessly, lips slightly parted.

  She had no immediate reaction as Vidalia closed the distance and planted a soft, open-mouthed kiss on her lips. A second passed, and Mariella dimly realized that nothing bad had happened. It felt… nice.

  Not the same as kissing Tybalt—Vidalia’s lips were much softer, her kiss more tentative, less certain—but still very pleasant.

  Without really thinking about it, Mariella closed her eyes and allowed herself to just enjoy it.

  Then she felt the other woman’s small hands moving. They had been clasped on either side of her waist. Now one hand moved down to Mariella’s hip, while the other moved up. The Lieutenant’s eyes widened slightly as the fox woman gently cupped her breast.

  Vidalia sucked in a sharp breath as if pleased with what she felt. That was what made Mariella’s eyes fly open again. She took a step back.

  “I—I can’t, we…”

  Mariella took another step back, and she backed right into someone else.

  “So sorry,” she began, flushing as she turned to face the man she had bumped into.

  Oh.

  It was him.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Tybalt said. “The two of you together look beautiful.”

  “We… that was just…”

  “Don’t be shy,” came Vidalia’s voice from just behind Mariella’s ear. “Go to him.”

  Mariella stepped forward tentatively, and Tybalt reached for her hands and pulled her close to him.

  They kissed, long and slow. Mariella felt electricity from her lips down to her toes.

  She closed her eyes and melted into him.

  For a few seconds, nothing else in the world seemed to exist. Then Mariella felt fingers on her shoulders. She recognized the small hands as Vidalia’s. They pulled the straps on her dress to the sides and then yanked down harder.

  Mariella felt a surge of humiliation as her breasts bounced free, completely uncovered. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t wearing anything under the dress.

  Her eyes opened again. Tybalt was looking down at her, smiling. The two of them were alone in a candlelit bedroom now. Mariella realized they were both naked, not wearing a scrap of clothing now—not even the evening dress that should have been bunched up around her waist from being pulled down by the foxgirl.

  Doesn’t make sense, she thought distantly.

  Tybalt leaned down and kissed her neck, a series of greedy nibbles.

  Who cares if it makes sense?

  Mariella moaned quietly. She could feel herself beginning to wake up, though she didn’t want to.

  She let Tybalt push her back onto the bed, part her legs, climb on top of her—and then Mariella’s eyes opened again.

  She found herself in the darkness of the cave. But something about the dream had not been left there.

  She was on her back. Tybalt was on top of her, lips pressed aggressively against hers. Their tongues were in each other’s mouths, and his hand was on her hip, gripping her firmly.

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  A moment passed, and he opened his eyes.

  —

  “Did you have the same dream as me?” Mariella asked.

  Tybalt flushed with a slight embarrassment, pulled a little away from Mariella, and sat up.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “I did have the same dream as you. I guess Vidalia thought it would be a good idea to push us together tonight. After she decided to make out with you a little herself. Funny what you do in dreams, huh? Our dear foxgirl doesn’t strike me as very patient. Sorry that the two of us were pushing you into something.”

  To his relief, Mariella smiled and quietly laughed. She pushed herself onto her side, and the necromancer’s eyes were drawn to the swell of her breasts as they bounced along with her movement, the pale cleavage barely visible in the soft moonlight. His eyes jumped back to hers as quickly as he could make them, but he could tell she had noticed. She had turned pink.

  Tybalt felt that there was something uncomfortably similar to this situation and what had happened to her in the past. But apparently the thought hadn’t occurred to Mariella.

  “Relax,” she said, her expression changing slightly as she recognized his discomfort. “Nothing bad happened.”

  Well, at least she sounds sober now. What does she mean that nothing bad happened? Vidalia kissed her, and Mariella said she’s not into girls. And I doubt she wanted my first time seeing her naked to be because Vidalia stripped her clothes off in a dream. Though I can hardly remember it, she doesn’t know that. Then again… maybe Mariella is a little wilder than I’ve realized.

  He lay back down, in front of Mariella this time rather than on top of her, and for a moment, he wrestled with his instincts.

  A part of him thought, since she had already given him clear signs of interest, he should seduce her tonight. He could tell she would be putty in his hands. Whether anything happened was entirely up to him.

  Another part told him to quit while he was ahead. Yes, she was definitely attracted to him, but if he tried to push too hard, he risked losing the trust he had built up with her. That was much more important than another notch on his belt. He’d been restraining himself so far, acting the gentleman to further build trust and not damage their relationship over the long term. He would have this opportunity again. He was already having a lot of trouble imagining how he could either convert her to his side or kill her, and he had delayed telling her the truth for so long. That was just hours away, when they would be with the beastfolk. Wouldn’t she be more upset if he slept with her first?

  There was also the possibility that sex would make her more amenable to joining him, but Tybalt didn’t flatter himself that he had some magical power in bed that would guarantee that.

  But ultimately, his decision was made by the simple fact that he wasn’t in the mood to be patient anymore. After days of tension and mutual sexual interest, and the unexpected shared erotic dream, he wanted to go for it, come what may.

  Tybalt reached out and stroked Mariella’s hair. She looked back at him with an expectant expression.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Tybalt leaned in slowly, inch by inch, until he was close enough to feel her breathing. He hovered there within her personal space for a long moment. Then he kissed her on the lips.

  As if she’d just been waiting for him to make his move, Mariella kissed him back enthusiastically. She opened her mouth and let his tongue explore her. Her lips and tongue were still a little clumsy, but she and Tybalt quickly fell into a rhythm together. Both of their eyes closed as they kissed.

  He pressed gently on her shoulders, and she allowed him to push her onto her back. The kiss continued, messy and hormone-fueled. His hardness pressed against her mound through their pants, and she ran a hand over him, just gently rubbing as if she wasn’t sure what to do.

  Mariella showed no signs of wanting to break off the kiss, and her mouth actually opened and closed a couple of times on empty air as Tybalt pulled back. He loved that eagerness. But he needed to say something.

  “I want you,” he said.

  “Yeah, I kind of got that, Tybalt,” Mariella said with a cocky smile. “I wasn’t exactly pushing you away.”

  “I mean, I want to take you. Not just kiss.”

  Mariella’s expression turned more conflicted. Then she shook her head, as if banishing doubts.

  “That’s exactly what I want,” Mariella said slowly, her voice slightly husky. “All my life, I’ve followed the rules. I went from a proper young lady to an obedient soldier, and I never questioned anything until recently. But recent experiences have… put things into perspective. Something that seemed so important just a few days ago… now, it feels almost silly. If there’s ever a time to break the rules, it’s now. I was… I was thinking about you all day. About being with you, like this.”

  Tybalt answered her with a long, deep kiss. He leaned down and sucked her lower lip in between both of his, gently bit it, caressed it with his tongue. Everything was decided now, so his movements were slow and deliberate. He was just thinking about how to make it the best experience possible for both of them.

  He could taste the salt of the day’s sweat on the skin around her mouth, and he thought he could smell a hint of mint. She must have been chewing some earlier in the day.

  They just continued kissing for a while.

  Mostly, he enjoyed the softness of her lips, and the willing way in which her tongue and her mouth followed his lead. She was inexperienced but enthusiastic.

  For the first few minutes, he just used his lips and his tongue. They fell into that delicious rhythm again. Then he brought his hand around, stroked her hair, cupped her cheek, ran his fingers down her neck, gently kneaded the flesh between neck and shoulder—and palmed the top of her breast.

  Oh, yeah…

  No matter how many times he felt breasts, he would never tire of the combination of soft and firm, squishy and tender, in their texture. Was that her nipple he felt, hard against his palm?

  She moved her hands up between their bodies, and Tybalt pulled slightly back, giving her a little space.

  Was that too fast? he wondered.

  Mariella began unbuttoning the front of her gambeson.

  “This will make it easier for you,” she mumbled, not looking him directly in the eyes. Her face was flushed.

  She’s normally so confident, he thought. But maybe it had taken all that confidence to admit that she really wanted him to fuck her.

  Then she opened her shirtfront, and all coherent thought left his brain.

  Damn, he thought after staring for a few seconds. This was far more real than the dream.

  Mariella had full, round breasts, topped with small pink nipples above a perfectly toned stomach. Her breasts weren’t the biggest he’d ever seen, but they were more than enough to fill his hands, and larger than he’d expected. The gambeson had concealed her figure well. After plenty of time walking behind her, he had already basically memorized the size and shape of her ass, so now he had a full mental map of her figure.

  She might have the best body overall of any woman I’ve ever been with. Not really fair that the gods gave her perfect breasts and a perfect ass… He felt immediately a little bad about comparing, including with other women he cared about, but there it was.

  He brought his right hand down to the left breast, gently squeezed and lifted it, and watched it jiggle as he let go. Then he let out a deep breath.

  Damn, I’m lucky.

  The woman herself kept her hands pinned at her sides, watching him and seemingly trying to read his reactions. Perhaps resisting the urge to cover her chest out of modesty.

  He ran his finger over her little, hard nipple, and Mariella let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

  “Ohhh,” she said quietly, the sound low and drawn out. “All right. We’re—we’re doing this.” It was the most nervous he’d ever heard her.

  Tybalt lowered his head to her ear and whispered, “Hey, you’re beautiful.”

  Then he moved down her neck and began slowly kissing back and forth between her earlobe and her shoulder blade, his hands wandering up and down her sides, paying extra attention to her breasts and those little pink nipples in particular.

  Her breathing grew faster amid all this attention. He felt some of the tension leave her body as she finally let go of some of her worries. Her hands ran through his hair, caressed his neck and chest, and lastly started unbuttoning his gambeson.

  Tybalt moved down to her left breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

  Mariella let out a low, breathy moan and held his head pressed in place with one hand as the other one finished opening his shirt. Tybalt experimentally tried to pull his head back slightly, and the difficulty of moving against her grip reminded him that Mariella was still a bit stronger than him.

  He pictured himself dying of asphyxiation between her breasts, and he smiled around the nipple he was pleasuring.

  Not a bad way to go.

  She rubbed one palm up his abdomen appreciatively. His shirt was now completely open. Then both her hands left his body, and he pulled off of her breast to see that she was undoing the buttons on her pants. A hint of pubic hair appeared as she opened the last button, but she hesitated for a moment.

  “Tybalt,” she said shakily. “We’ll still… be together tomorrow, right?”