Sara woke in a soft bed, feeling distinctly less shit than she expected. Running a hand down her ribs, she expected to find a mass of stitches or an open wound. Instead there was nothing, not even a tinge of soreness or irritated skin.

  "Good morning, Master," Evie's voice said. Sara looked about, finding the catgirl waiting in a bedside chair. She was reading a book, legs tucked beneath herself, and looked like she hadn't been concerned in the slightest.

  Sara sat up further. "How long was I out?"

  "Seven, eight hours?" Evie gnced to the window. "It's mid-morning now, so that sounds about right."

  "Oh. I'd expected you to say, like, two weeks or something."

  "You were given healing draughts and prompt medical care, Master. I don't know why it would have taken any longer."

  Sara yawned, stretching. "Oh yeah, I always forget. Magic 'n stuff."

  "Indeed."

  "Did the sves get away alright?"

  "I took them to one of Lady Vesta's safehouses, as you had pnned. The quarters were cramped, but Lady Vesta's agents were already making preparations to split them amongst other locations. Those that didn't take your offer should be smuggled out of the city in a matter of days."

  "Thank god," Sara sighed, feeling her budding stress headache recede. "How many took me up on the deal?"

  "A minority only. Three for certain, with four or five more wishing for more time to consider."

  "It's a start, at least."

  Sara continued to inspect her stomach, poking at the pce she'd been stabbed to see if there was any residual pain. There wasn't, and only a faint white line indicated that she'd been injured at all.

  As Sara poked and prodded, Evie's expression darkened.

  "So, Master, did you learn anything yesterday?"

  Sara thought back, wondering exactly what Evie was getting at. There was the absolutely wild morning spent at Hurlish's, then her magic ssh philosophy lesson, and then she and Evie had screwed around in her room until it was time to leave...

  "That my neck should have been broken by tonal whipsh weeks ago?" She guessed.

  "Perhaps accurate, but not the best answer." Evie closed her book, stepping down from the chair. A needle cw extended from her finger, pricking Sara right in the middle of her bare chest. "You have learned that you, goddess blessing or not, are not some exceptional combat prodigy. So what does that mean?"

  Sara blinked. "I need more practice?"

  Evie practically snarled as she crawled onto the bed. Sara nervously thumped back against the headboard as the catgirl straddled her, drawing closer until their foreheads were nearly touching. Surrounded by a curtain of hair that blocked out the rest of the world, Evie looked down at her.

  "This colr," she brought Sara's left hand to it, "is bound to the band on your wrist. If you die, it is still bound to that band."

  Sara could feel, beneath the pad of her thumb, Evie's pulse pounding in her neck.

  "If you die, I am not freed. You understand that, yes? I will be bound to someone else, likely whoever killed you. If not them, then whoever they sell me to. And as you well know, Master, I have very much enjoyed my life of servitude. But only because of you. Only under you. So, Master, if we are to be saving sves, please prioritize your own."

  Evie finally closed the gap, colpsing her chest against Sara's. She wrapped her hands around Evie's back, gently stroking her.

  "I know you care for their lives above your own, Master," she whispered. "And I think I could come to love you for that. But if you, some distant day, cannot find the will to save yourself, then please save me."

  Sara was gd that she'd been lying down when a realization gonged like church bells in her too-empty skull, because it left her dizzied by guilt.

  Evie had been worried for her.

  That was odd. Sara'd gotten so used to the catgirl following in her every footstep, a living ghost that saw no worth in life beyond Sara's shade, that she'd not considered that there was something she still valued. Something that she still feared.

  A life without Sara.

  "I'll be better," she whispered. Evie nodded, their cheeks pressed together.

  "You will."

  An hour or more passed, the world outside spinning on as they stayed still. Eventually, though, the natural needs of human bodies reared their heads, and they had to separate.

  Their day began at noon, the both of them dressing and eating without any haste, stepping out into the hallway together. A servant was waiting on the far side of the hallway, bowing at their exit.

  "I was sent to inform you that Lady Vesta wishes to speak with you when you've readied yourself for the day. Will you be seeing her now?"

  Sara looked at Evie, who looked back to her. "We will," Sara said.

  The servant boy started. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, digging around in his ears. He pulled out two wads of wax, smiling apologetically. "She also instructed me to plug my ears so I did not overhear any sensitive information while I waited. May I ask you to repeat your answer?"

  Barely concealing her chuckle, Sara nodded. "We can go see her right now, if she's ready."

  "She has been working in the library of the third floor. She said that you're familiar and won't need a guide. May I go inform her of your approach?"

  Sara waved the kid on, ughing a little bit more as he darted around a corner.

  "Sensitive information, she said," Evie noted dryly.

  "Sensitive's the right word at least," Sara joked. "I don't think you've sted more than five minutes yet."

  Evie stepped a hair closer as they walked, speaking under her breath. "You know, Master, you could change that with a word. Order me to never reach my peak, and I won't. Or order me to never stop coming, use my throes to please yourself. I doubt I'd even remember what you did to me, if you did that. After all, my body is yours to command."

  Sara shivered, walking a bit faster to get the catgirl's breath off the back of her neck. "Stop giving me ideas in public, you damn vixen."

  "Public? I wouldn't mind."

  "Agh!" Sara threw up her hands, stomping even faster. Chuckling, Evie trailed behind.

  They arrived at the third-floor library, the very same one that they had first met Lady Vesta in, to find it an entirely different space. The contents of the bookshelves had been tossed out and repced, sheafs of loose documents and folders of varying thickness repcing dusty textbooks. A rge desk had been somehow dragged into the room, an impressive feat considering its every dimension dwarfed the narrow doorframe.

  What most interested Sara, however, was the rge chaise lounge tucked into the far corner of the room, out of sight of window and door alike. There was a writing table beside it, probably to excuse it as a more comfortable pce to sit, but Sara saw not a single pen or paper anywhere nearby.

  Tarlin waved them in, stepping inside and shutting the door behind them. Unlike before, there was a subtle magical fsh as the door closed flush.

  "Hello Sara, Evie. It is good to see you both up and about." Lady Vesta was sitting behind her desk with her back to the windows, positioned in such a way that she was the first thing someone saw when they entered the room.

  "I like what you did to the pce," Sara said, turning about. "It's got a comfy air to it."

  Vesta waved a hand to the chaise lounge, a devilish grin on her face. "I'm gd to hear it. The lounge, by the way, extends. Between that, the soundproofing, and your rush commissions from the Artificer's Guild, I've made more than a few new friends among the craftsfolk."

  "What were you doing with all your money before I rolled up?" Sara asked, pulling a chair off the wall and kicking her boots up on the edge of Vesta's varnished desk.

  "Reinvesting it, mostly. Shuffling between accounts, rewarding some allies, pulling it from others, the usual sort of thing. I'm sure Lady Evie is familiar."

  "She's not a Lady," Sara corrected. "She's a sve."

  Vesta nodded politely, then paused. Her nose crinkled, giving Sara an odd look. "Were this strange retionship we've formed not so close, I would simply take that instruction at face value. But now I know both you and her well enough to know that asking that I refer to her as anything but a Lady seems wildly out of character for you."

  "Personal preference trumps propriety," Sara shrugged. "Evie, you'd probably expin it better."

  From over in the corner where she was sweeping the room for hidden threats, Evie spoke in pin terms. "My old life was fraught with anxiety at best, depression at worst. My Master has freed me from the burdens of responsibility, and I do not wish it otherwise. I am her sve, Lady Vesta. Body and mind."

  Sara watched Lady Vesta nod politely, preparing an appropriate diplomatic response, then catch herself. It was almost funny, watching the way the woman had to break old habits just to be honest. The facade Vesta had half-built was discarded as she drummed her fingers on her desk, frowning at Evie.

  "That's awfully strange of you, girl. I couldn't ever imagine doing the same."

  "Your noble life and mine were very different, My Lady. Any child that cheers their mother's death would understand."

  "I'll take your word for it, and endeavor that my children never feel the same."

  Sara blinked. "Shit, girl, I forgot you had kids. How old are you?"

  "Forty-one this year. Why do you ask? Regretting your entanglement with an old spinster?"

  "No. But considering how young people like you got married on Earth, I'm suddenly wondering if you've got kids older than I am."

  "I doubt it. You seem to be, what, nearing thirty?"

  Sara shook her head. "Amarat gave me a new body, said my old one was too 'banged up'. I'm twenty-three."

  "Hum. Erik is just a year younger than you. I... think that I'll try and wipe that association from my mind, if you don't mind."

  Evie finished her clearing of the room, dropping down into Sara's p with a cute huff. "Don't pretend like some of those maids you took into your bed weren't younger than Sara or I."

  Lady Vesta put a hand to her chest, affecting affront. "Evie! Do you take me for a cradle robber? Every woman brought to ecstasy by my hand has been respectably close to my age."

  Tarlin, from the door, coughed.

  Lady Vesta rolled her eyes at the steel-cd man. "Yes, yes, I know we better get on to business."

  "Oh no you don't," Sara said, twisting in her seat to face Tarlin. "I got a charisma of 28, so I know my subtleties. That wasn't a 'get on with it' cough, that was a 'bullshit' cough. Am I right, Tarlin?"

  A single shoulder lifted, not more than a half-inch twitch.

  "I suspected as much," Evie purred, tail caressing Sara's calves. "I'm sure you're no cradle robber, Lady Vesta, but I doubt we'll find many girls older than us at those mansions you shipped them off to."

  Lady Vesta huffed, crossing her arms. "Of course you will. I've been pleasing beautiful maidens since you two were in diapers. And no, I never dallied beyond what was proper."

  Sara spun around again, eyeing Tarlin. The impcable guard remained still. Relieved, she turned back around and stretched.

  "So, obligatory teasing completed, what have you got for us?"

  "An appraisal on my husband's sociopolitical evisceration," she stated, sliding a thin stack of papers across her desk. Evie reached forward and snagged it, eagerly devouring the report. "His status amongst the criminal underworld, that which you two sabotaged st night, is difficult to judge. But it is much easier to see the effects of my own efforts, from the airing of dirty undry to the encouragement of mostly truthful rumors. It seems the better half of the damage to his reputation came from me simply no longer suppressing the stories of his various failures."

  "I love it when they make it easy for us," Evie murmured, flipping the page.

  "Then you will very much enjoy dealing with my husband, Evie. I expect that we will be ready to have him expelled in disgrace by the end of the week."

  "That quick?" Sara asked, idly scratching Evie's ears. "One of the most powerful dudes in the city, gone in a week?"

  "Politics of the court move fast, Sara, and even faster when their target is a much-maligned lord of no particur use to anybody. I could have maintained the status quo for years more, but when they speak of his ousting in the coming months, it will be treated as an inevitability, the product of years of easily followed trends. Curiously, they won't be wrong. Just not fully informed."

  Sara peered at the paper in Evie's hands, trying to parse the shorthand descriptions of hidden barbs or failed trade deals involving Lord Vesta. It all seemed utterly trivial to her, a boriously codified transcript of pyground 'he said, she said' arguments between rich snobs, but Evie and Vesta clearly drew something more from it.

  "I hope I'm still hanging with you whenever I end up finally dealing with politics bullshit," Sara leaned back, shaking her head. "I'd end up ripping half their heads off or becoming a recluse."

  "Both are valid strategies, depending on the intended effect," Vesta said, chuckling into a winegss. "But I think I'll likely find you a better route, all things considered."

  "So what do you need us to do?" Sara asked, stretching out after the papers were discarded, letting Evie curl up along her body. "Killing evil bastards st night was a real ball, but I ended up going a bit overboard. Amarat's gifts, at least so far, haven't been exactly suited for the battlefield."

  Lady Vesta tapped a nail on her desk, thinking. "As it stands, your only pnned role is the coup-de-grace at the end of it all, using your status as a final bludgeon to knock my husband out of the courts should it prove necessary. I have nothing else that your particur," she coughed politely, "skillset is required for. Helpful maybe, enjoyable certainly, but not required."

  "Perfect," Evie said, ears perking up from where she'd buried her face between Sara's tits. "Master needs practice. Magically-imbued technical prowess is one thing, but her knowledge of battlefield realities is another." Evie looked up at Sara with a kitten's pleading eyes, nuzzling her cheeks against Sara's breasts. "I'm certain you would rather go throw yourself into random fights than pretend to be a holy woman at balls, Master?"

  Lady Vesta shook her head in amusement. "How remarkably maniputive, for a woman who decres herself a sve."

  "It works because she's right," Sara said, scratching the base of Evie's left ear. The catgirl shivered, leaning into her hand. "I need to practice. I probably could've won a fight that I lost st night, if I'd known something other than sword-on-sword tactics."

  Lady Vesta folded her hands beneath her chin, watching Evie purr.

  "I don't keep track of minor mercenary work, I'm afraid," Vesta said. "I'm sure someone else among my faculty, likely the guards, could inform you of appropriate opportunities to test your mettle."

  Sara nodded understandingly, moving her hand to Evie's other ear. The catgirl rolled over, falling into the crook of Sara's arm, eyes closed in simple bliss. "I'll go ask around there, then. I'll try and find a job close to the city, in case you need me or Evie." Smirking at Vesta, Sara used her free hand to lift the catgirl's dress, revealing what y beneath to Vesta. "Or if you want us."

  Lady Vesta took a deep breath. "Your concern is appreciated, but feel free to wander further. I have a great many helpers at my disposal."

  "But are any like this?" Sara asked, switching to grinding a knuckle into the base of the catgirl's ear. Evie moaned, stretching long legs out further.

  "No," Lady Vesta whispered, folded hands turning white beneath her chin. "I feel quite certain I've never had anyone like you two in my office."

  Sara stood, sweeping Evie up in her arms. The catgirl protested with a soft whine, nipping at Sara's neck in a plea for more attention.

  "Then how about I give you a parting gift before we're away, Lady Vesta?" Sara stepped up to her massive desk, dropping Evie like a sack of grain. "I'm going to go talk to your guards, see if they've got something like what we're looking for. In the meantime..." She grabbed the back of Evie's colr, yanking her head around to look Vesta in the eye. "Keep her entertained until I get back."

  Sara spun on a heel as Evie gasped, colr glowing. Sara rapped a knuckle on Tarlin's breastpte as she passed him, winking. "Feel free to use her too if you feel like it, big guy. She'll get off on it."

  The st thing Sara heard as the door shut behind her was the nervous whisper of "Oh dear..." from Lady Vesta.

  ....................

  ..................

  ...............

  Not for the first time, Sara wished that the sensation sharing between her and Evie worked both ways. As it was, she was left doing the boring stuff, chatting to guards about gig work while her sve was getting id. Having phantom fingers blowing her wide open would have been fairly distracting, and probably noticed by the guards, but that was half the point. Sara'd have to send Evie out on a task while she was getting her back blown out by Vesta or Hurlish sometime, just to see how good the catgirl's poker face really was.

  She shook herself to clear those thoughts away, moving to the room the soldiers had indicated. It wasn't like saried city guards had a job board posted up somewhere in their barracks, but after chatting with a few of them she'd been directed to the quartermaster's rooms. Having control over who got what food made her the de-facto lord of all that was soldiery, so the quartermaster also had the best grasp on where and when the guards would be sent out on a task.

  I guess the best word for them would be militia? Sara thought as she slipped around a corner, stepping out of the way of two cnking men jogging past. I keep calling them guards or soldiers, but they don't seem to fit either. And why does Lady Vesta have so many right on hand? There's hundreds of fully kitted soldier-guards packed into one corner of her mansion.

  Societally, the world Sara appeared in seemed to be straddling the line between Earth's renaissance and medieval period. Obviously, magic futzed with that in all sorts of ways. There was no enlightened philosophy being tossed around, and the local nobility certainly weren't going around commissioning grand pieces of artwork just for the street cred.

  Maybe the military is subsidized by the nobility, every lord and dy expected to keep troops on hand for outbreaks of war. Sort of a hybrid between feudal levies and standing militaries?

  She supposed she could just ask someone, but it wasn't that important. It was the kind of somewhat-interesting question that she thought of only when she was walking down boring corridors, not the kind of burning mystery that kept her up at night.

  Sara eventually found the quartermaster, an incredibly portly woman wearing an undersized and overstretched tabard. Her 'office', which was what the other soldiers had called it, consisted of a low-ceilinged room filled to the brim with chests and barrels. Rows and rows of wooden containers were lined up neatly near the entrance, steadily degrading as they neared the back until it was clear that they'd just been haphazardly crammed in wherever they could fit. Perched all throughout the room like roosting parrots were various hunchbacked scribes, their desks the closest and fttest piece of wood avaible.

  "Who's you?" The woman hollered as Sara entered, jabbing a feather quill in her direction without looking up. "Ain't seen you around before."

  "Lady Vesta recommended I come look here for work," Sara said, shoving her hands in her pockets and leaning up against the wall beside the door. It was nice to go unrecognized, even if it was because the person was too rude to look her in the eye. "Need to get some experience fighting things other than street gangs."

  The quartermaster threw open a drawer and yanked a piece of paper out, spping it on the desk with her left hand, then grabbed a bnk sheet with her right. Both palms to the papers, she muttered something under her breath, causing the papers to glow. As soon as the light faded she threw the no-longer-bnk paper at Sara, all without having looked at her once.

  "There. If you kill it or it kills you, let me know. I'll either cross it off my list or raise the bounty."

  Sara snatched the paper out of the air, giving it a scan. It was a list of local compints from Hagos's guards and those of the surrounding vilges, everything from banditry to beast incursions. Despite the utterly mundane way it had been given to her, this list of tasks and their rewards was the closest thing Sara'd seen to the videogames she kept comparing her new life to. She folded the paper away, not wasting breath on thanking a woman who wouldn't care.

  "You have any armor in here that'd fit me?" She asked instead.

  "Depends. You properly contracted under House Vesta?"

  "Of a sorts. Personal friend of the Lady."

  The quartermaster sniffed hard, wiping her nose with the back of her hand as she flipped to the next page of her paperwork. "Then anything I've got's too shit for you. Go throw some coin at a smith or somethin', instead of taking armor from a gal that wouldn't have any otherwise."

  Sara liked this woman. With a grateful wave that she knew went entirely unseen, she exited the room, reading over her and Evie's options to whittle away the next few days.

  Most entries on the list were simple enough, just a request for a few extra patrols because some old dy heard wolves howling at night or what have you, but a few caught her eye. Evie thought Sara needed practice fighting nontraditional opponents, which took skills that her goddess' blessings hadn't mind-magic'd into her head. Sara had already been caught off guard by something as simple as a thrown knife, so she knew Evie had a point. If she'd chosen some more confrontational god as her patron Sara guessed that things would be different, but they weren't. Her abilities to seduce were legendary, sure, but problems that she couldn't fuck away were regrettably common.

  Maybe I should just bang my way through a mercenary troop, she jokingly considered as she headed back to Vesta's office. I bet I can give good enough head that they'll follow me anywhere. Hell, if I keep getting Amarat's blessings like I have been, they'll probably die for a chance to get in my pants.

  She hoped her actual abilities wouldn't manifest in quite that fashion, since she was rather uncomfortable with the thought of turning everyone she banged into a crack addict for her body, but anything seemed possible. She'd certainly been enjoying herself more in the bedroom than she ever had, and it seemed her various partners had shared the notion. In the meantime, she'd have to square up her own personal defenses. Without any extra help from a goddess.

  When she returned to the third floor library, Tarlin was standing guard. Outside the door.

  Sara walked up to him with a grin, hands on her hips as she stared up at one of the very few humans she'd met in this world considerably taller than her.

  "Whatcha doin' out here, big guy? Hard to focus inside?"

  "I am not needed for such negotiations," he answered gruffly, not looking down.

  Sara thumped his armor good-naturedly. "Aw, c'mon. 'Needed' and 'wanted' are two separate things. You know how nobles like to double-talk everything, never saying what they mean."

  His head shook in the negative, no more than an inch twitch to either side. "I will not be distracted on duty."

  "So..." Sara drawled as she stepped past him, hand lingering on his breastpte before she entered. "When you're off duty?"

  Another nearly imperceptible gnce in her direction. "You are free to enter, My Lady."

  Sara cackled as she opened the door, slipping inside.

  "How's it going in here?" She called, having to go up on her tiptoes to find her sve and Lady Vesta. She found her catgirl sprawled atop the naked noblewoman, the feline grinding on a thigh as she pped at the neck of a near-catatonic Vesta.

  "My savior," Vesta groaned, throwing an arm over her eyes. "You need to be more careful with your orders, Sara. 'Until she is satisfied' would have sufficed, rather than 'until I return'."

  "You do have a timepiece in your office, Lady Vesta," Evie reminded her, rolling onto her side to lie next to the older woman. "Master was gone no more than a half hour."

  "I don't believe you."

  "And yet..." Evie grinned, pointing to the ornate pendulum clock on the far wall. "Thirty minutes."

  Lady Vesta lifted her head, looked at the clock, then dropped to the rug with a groan. "My word. Maybe a break from you two will be good for my health."

  "But not your psyche," Sara said, sliding over the desk. She hooked her butt on the edge and put her boots up in Vesta's unfathomably expensive office chair, reading through the list of compints. "What do you think of these jobs, you two?"

  Evie, with a hand between her legs and eyes still set on Vesta's naked form, nodded distractedly. "Mm-hm?"

  "There's a bunch of boring ones, probably nothing, and then there's some about bandits, which isn't what we're looking for..."

  "Dear," Vesta interrupted, gesturing to Evie. "Do you really think she's going to be paying you much attention right now?"

  Sara looked over the paper at her sve, who was trying to subtly grind her pussy Lady Vesta's leg. "Hmm. I guess she didn't get off yet?"

  "Thanks to your order she hardly gave me a moment to breathe, much less attend to her."

  "I see. Want to see something interesting?"

  "Oh?"

  Sara snapped a finger gun at Evie. "Cum."

  Immediately the catgirl cried out, curling up into a tight ball. The hand that had been resting between Vesta's breasts dug in as Evie spasmed, whining in rhythmic bursts.

  Lady Vesta propped herself up on an elbow to watch, guiding Evie's hand to her breast proper. "That is quite something."

  "Harder," Sara commanded.

  Just as Evie had begun to calm, her body seized once more, mouth open in a soundless scream. She rocked back and forth, rubbing frantically against Vesta as the orgasm washed over her. Seemingly without thought she drew closer to Vesta, biting down on her shoulder as her body shook. Sara watched Evie's chest tremble, soaking in the delightful mewls that escaped her lips.

  "I," Lady Vesta purred at Sara, "Cannot decide if you are a kind, giving owner, or one of the cruelest masters I've yet met."

  Sara dangled a foot off the desk, using the tip of her boot to shove Evie's legs open. The catgirl fell onto her back without resistance, spent, mouth hung open in a mindless daze.

  "How do you think she feels?" Sara asked rhetorically.

  "I haven't the faintest clue," Vesta replied, snuggling closer on the carpet so she could y her head on Evie's modest breasts. "I haven't ever experienced an orgasm that inspired an expression like that. I do think I'd like to try it, someday."

  "I'm sure we'll figure out a way. Now," Sara pointed to Evie again, "wake up."

  The catgirl blinked rapidly, faculties returned in an instant. "Hello, Master," she greeted. "I'm very tired."

  "Sorry about that," Sara apologized, mostly meaning it. "I did manage to find a list of potential stuff for us to go beat the hell out of."

  "That's good."

  "Yeah. What do you think of this one?"

  Sara began listing the various problems suffered by Hagos and its tributary vilges, letting the two women on the floor beneath her recover while she narrated. It was an absolutely surreal experience from top to bottom, yet it was one that she was getting increasingly used to.

  Yesterday, she'd almost died. Today, she was spending every other hour toying with beautiful women. Garen had off-handedly mentioned the plethora of histories written about Champions throughout the ages. She wondered if details like this one would be included in hers.