“Could you please list your medical conditions?”
The female voice was polite, and pleasant enough despite the slight mumbliness her teeth forced, but I was used to that. I stayed reclined on the fake-leather couch, a slowly spinning ceiling fan gave slight circulation to the warm, muggy air. All the windows were closed, as it was a bit chill outside for her type of Guest, but shadows of passing cars flying overhead lent an almost rhythmic play of shadow across bookshelves whose dead

In the clearing, Vasha finally looked down and away from Arik. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Our duty is to get them home, and we have to- it’s going to take both of us.” The hircine Champion looked back up, straightening. “We’ll start back the way we came, staying off traveled roads. We get them back to the capital, whatever it costs, and then get our new orders. We agree?”
“We agree,” the bigger man said soberly. “It&rsq

As night began to fall, Vasha and Arik finished rendering what aid they could to the civilians caught in the demonic ambush with them. Physical healing wasn’t a problem, but to the worry that they were now going to be spending a terrified night without shelter or food- well, there would be a caravan along at some point the next day, and the Champions couldn’t fix everything. As soon as it became too dark for most of the shivering merchants to see them, the Champions slipped away into

Days continued to pass, or so Galya thought. She didn’t get much sun in prison, though everything else was properly luxurious as befitted her station- or at least, what the current “duchess” wanted Galya to think was her station. The food was plentiful and good, the bed was soft, and she never, ever saw anyone bringing either. It always somehow happened while she slept- Galya suspected magic, naturally. In the cell, she kept up with her exercises as much as she could to avoid g

Galya slept shallowly, mind twisting and turning in its own corridors as she sought unconsciousness as a respite from both her own roiling emotions and the contented, sated pleasure soaking through her embrace of a hermaphroditic demon that she hadn’t the mental control to ignore. Try as she might, Galya kept finding herself drifting back ever-so-close to waking up only to shove herself back down into slumber to hide from reality.
She’d failed.
The idea was a gremlin squatting in

Mayonne kept looking for some way that her luck might be a trap. She had a Champion- an actual, live Champion- in her bed, and expressing a cautious interest in letting Mayonne eat her but not digest as a way to tease out who might be in on the conspiracy… without seemingly knowing that Mayonne was, herself, in it! And yet, everything the elf’s senses told her weighed in on this Galya being entirely honest and forthright. After their slimy “experience” together… w

As Galya laid on the table, a demoness claiming to be her grandmother looking down at her, Galya felt… confused. There was a part of her that accepted the tale- and a part of her that rebelled against the very idea that she was part demon. Torn, Galya bit her lip and let her mind race around inside her skull, blinking back the tears of denial or grief as the demoness stared down at her with a thin smile.
“You can’t expect,” she finally said, “To just… be be

Galya listened to the new duchess’s speech with half attention, letting the rest of her brain chew on tactics. If she struck here, now, and succeeded, it’d probably decapitate the nascent demonic attack into her kingdom. Probably. Her odds of survival were next to zero, though, and Galya couldn’t make herself believe there wasn’t a hidden set of protections somewhere- archers out of view or something similar- that would take her down before she could land a second blow. I