Eli stayed in his meditative position facing away from her as Gwen crawled over and rested her back on his stone platform and she began to explain. She told him everything, her entire life story, from being a loner kid, to the picture incident in high school, to college. Gwen didn’t skip a single detail and admitted everything, no matter how shameful or graphic. At one point she thought that he was going to stop her when she was explaining, in extraordinary detail, a string of sexual encounters that she had. But he didn’t say a word or move an inch. She was convinced that he had fallen asleep until she noticed that his breathing would change depending on what she was talking about.

  Finally, it was the middle of the night and she had reached her conclusion. “So I am a chameleon, I fit myself into what people expect of me.” Gwen took a deep breath preparing to say that last part, even though she hated herself for it. “I want to be wanted. I mold myself into whoever I think others will want or expect me to be so that they will want me, desire me.”

  Eli was quiet for a long time, he could feel the panic in Gwen rising, and just before she was going to speak, he spoke first. “You are wrong.” He said, but still didn’t move. She tensed, waiting for violence, but nothing came. A minute went by, two minutes, ten minutes, and still nothing. She thought she had figured everything out, figured herself out, she got mad at him, he didn’t know who she was, he barely knew her. Just as she was about to give him an earful, he was suddenly squatting down in front of her again, then he slowly reached out and put both hands around her head. Her body went limp as her mind fell into itself and then she was inside her mind, inside her soul, and then she realized that everything was far worse.

  Gwen was floating in the middle of nothing, with a faint light in the distance, but she could barely see it since she was floating in a cloud of black mist. She looked around for Ash, but he was nowhere to be seen. The first few minutes were swallowed up by panic, then she was worried that this was some kind of prison, but then Ash spoke to her in a voice that felt like the universe itself was speaking to her.

  “This is the inside of your mind, the cloud you are in is you, it is your own representation of yourself, diffuse and without form or shape. You have until Alora returns to find a way to fix it, or I will find something worse than Alora’s lightning to motivate you.” Then he left her mind space. Time worked much slower in those spaces, she could be working on this for decades from her perspective before her time runs out.

  Umber came out of his tattoo, “Hey girl, he said while rubbing under her chin, keep an eye on her, I need a nap.” Then walked back into the teepee and fell asleep.

  It wasn’t until the next night that Alora came back, Eli was asleep but woke up when she got close. She looked terrible, her clothes and armor were in tatters and soaked with blood with still healing wounds that could be seen underneath. Eli swallowed his first reaction, to say something about taking too long, then he swallowed his second reaction which was to point out that her chest was bare. The look on her face said she did not have a good time and any sarcasm from him would not be received well.

  “Let’s go home, you are going to love the baths in my room.” Umber collapsed into her tattoo and he picked up Gwen like she was luggage with one arm and held Alora’s hand with the other. Even with all of his power-ups since the last time he did a blink like this it still took seven seconds for the spell to work and they were home. Alora didn’t even look around, she saw the bathing pond and stripped on her way to it, getting in the water and letting out a sigh that was worthy of Eli’s overacting talents. He dropped Gwen like luggage he had been carrying for too long and walked over to the bed where Tara had just woken up with an adorable yet sexy yawn that he just couldn’t avoid being drawn in for a kiss.

  “What’s all this love? Bethany said you might not be back until the monster horde.” Tara asked.

  “Well, the one in the bath is Alora, she overcooked herself trying to reach 101 as fast as possible. She is my apprentice, well she doesn’t officially start that until after something.” Eli explained.

  “We need to fuck first, Bethany said it would help our relationship and bond for the whole master apprentice thing.” Alora yelled from the bath.

  “It’s nice to meet you Alora, I’m Tara, Eli’s wife.” Tara yelled back.

  Eli looked around, “is it smaller here or did I get bigger again?”

  “Both, I used your platform over there to make some kids rooms. The doors are just outside ours.” Said Tara.

  Eli poked his head out and saw six new doors down a hallway past his door, three on each side. “Six? Are you sure that's enough? I mean we are gonna have like over a hundred years to make babies.”

  “Well, we just have to let the older ones get old enough to move out before we make more. They can have one of the huts outside when they turn 13.” Tara said.

  “That works, good thinking, speaking of making babies…” Eli trailed off as he began kissing her and despite Alora being awake in the room and Gwen being face down on the floor unconscious, they went for a long and satisfying three rounds of baby making attempts. Eli fell asleep in the large stone frame bed and Tara went out to get some water and take a walk down by the lake on the ground. Alora was confused by this. She had heard from Bethany that Eli had multiple women and that his wife had exclusive baby making rights, but to witness it was an odd experience, and one she was glad to not have to get used to.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They were going to do it once and then she would have to be put in her place as his apprentice. From what she just heard, however, it might be difficult to keep her hands off him. For a moment she hesitated, but then she took a deep breath and told herself that it was about resolve. It wasn’t like he was going out of his way to make a harem, it was more like it was a consequence of his status and power. Like getting to where he is just had the women around him working it out to share him and he is just going with the flow. It actually showed a level of restraint that she didn't suspect most men would be able to have when presented with his opportunities.

  Alora crawled into bed with him and wrapped her body around his, their naked bodies fitting together comfortably. It was so comfortable that she fell asleep too instead of waking him. Several hours later he woke her up with a kiss on her forehead, she felt so content and warm like her soul was filled with happiness to the brim. Alora held onto the feeling and climbed on top of Eli, she thought she was only going to get to do this once so she started with what she thought would make it memorable for him. But before she could start, he took control and proceeded to make the entire experience about her.

  For two solid hours, it was firm and tender love-making that, when mixed with the connection in their souls, made her feel more love than she thought possible. Every single second of their activity had been about her, every move and kiss had been to make her feel pleasure and cared for. The level of attention that Eli gave her was staggering to her, he did not lose focus or get distracted for a moment, giving everything to her during that time. She had never felt more satisfied in her life, both physically and emotionally. This was a man who had the power to level cities and conquer the planet, and for those two hours, she was the only thing on his mind, her pleasure, her emotions, just her. He made her feel like the most important thing in existence.

  She wobbled-walked back to the bath and got it, totally content with the world and her place in it. Bethany snuck in after Alora got in the bath, stripped and cuddled up next to Eli laying half her body over his with her lips right next to his ear so she could whisper to him and he could feel her breath on his ear.

  “Are you sure you didn’t go overboard with her?” Bethany asked in a soft breathy whisper.

  “If I have any chance of really training her, I need all her focus on me, so when she is tired and in pain and out of magic and missing a limb, she will be able to push past all of it to grow strong.” He whispered back.

  Bethany nibbled his ear and replied, “She is already pretty strong, she’ll be caught up to me soon.”

  “You know I love you, but as my apprentice I plan to make her strong enough to equal myself. But with that comes a lot of responsibility, which is something I hear you want to avoid.” Eli whispered to her.

  “Don’t go proposing to me or anything, I work for you and sometimes with you, and you pay me with your body. Don’t get all serious on me.” Bethany said. Eli could feel the heat from her cheeks she was blushing so much. Not to mention he had unfettered access to her soul and he knew how she felt about him. He was her lover, her status, her protector, and her get-out-of-jail free card. But he was also someone she had tremendous respect for, so much so that she didn’t feel she was respectable enough to be anything more to him than what they already were. Eli suspected that her feelings were slowly changing and that maybe in a few years she will want something more real, something more permanent.

  “I would never dream of turning you into a respectable lady, where would the fun in that be?” Eli responded.

  Bethany got a huge devious smile on her face, “I’ll show you how un-lady-like I can be right now.” She sat up and then sat on his face and started gyrating.

  Another few hours passed and Eli was asleep again, Bethany cuddled on one side and Tara cuddled on the other. Alora was standing at the foot of the bed staring at them, all four of them were naked and she wanted to cuddle and sleep with them but she knew that would be a rare occasion, at least until her first apprentice phase was over. She picked Gwen up, also carrying her like heavy awkward luggage and went down stairs to find Lucy practicing sword movements in a room that looked like a mix between a roman hall and a viking great hall.

  “Oh, hello, I’m Alora.”

  “Lucy”

  “I’m Eli’s apprentice.”

  “Who’s that you have there?”

  “This is Gwen, master has her trapped in her own mind until she can figure out who she is.”

  “Master huh? Let’s duel and see if you are worthy of my prince’s teachings.”

  “I’m naked, would you happen to have any clothes I could borrow first? I ruined my last set yesterday.” Alora said as she put Gwen down gently on the floor near the stairs so she would be kept out of the way.

  “No, but we can fight naked if you wish.” Before Alora could reply she stripped and got into a fighting stance.

  “I’m not sure what this is about but I can play along.” Alora was in a completely relaxed stance as if this whole thing was beneath her.

  Lucy got angry, “So be it.” Then she charged her using all of her strength to get a good clean hit right away. But instead of hitting her a staff appeared from nowhere and the light blue orb on the end of it touched her sword, firing a lightning bolt through the sword and into Lucy. It threw her back into the far wall, breaking several ribs and dislocating her right shoulder.

  Lucy coughed up blood, “I see, just one more reason why I have to work harder.” She picked up her sword, which was not damaged in the slightest and sat down with her back against one of the pillars.

  “Well, It was nice to meet you. Do you know why we can’t access the system store here? I really do need to buy some clothes.”

  “We aren’t in the safe zone, how did you get in here and not know that?”

  “Master teleported me to his room so I could take a bath.”

  “Ok, well, give me a minute, that shock hurts. Then I can show you around town and how to get down.”

  “Down?”