They decided to do the bath and the massage at the same time. Not just for expediency’s sake, but for the added bonus of hot water to help soak tired muscles in. Nothing sounded better than giving her lover a good rub down while in a bath, and then maybe getting rubbed out.

  There were separate bathing chambers, and the head servant, Liaru, prepared the one for Rua and Otter, while another readied one for Sunny in an adjoining room. The tub was less a tub, and more an indoor pool that had been built into the floor. It was heated by glyph stones, and decorated with coloured stones that looked like gss.

  The water felt divine. It helped wash away tension Otter hadn’t even known she’d been holding, her back and shoulders loosening. And it felt nice to finally be warm. A Siyan winter wasn’t much to her, but there’d been a pit of cold building in her that had only been accumuting, and now it finally wiped away.

  Otter took the time to start on Rua’s hands, slowly working her thumbs in rhythmic motions, before moving onto Rua’s shoulders, and then finally her scalp. Rua was just happy to lean back and accept it, and when Otter was finished, she set to the task of cleaning her partner with soap and cloth, Otter sitting with her back to the wall of the pool, Rua in her p.

  “I have a confession to make,” Otter said.

  “Hmm?” Rua didn’t even bother to open her eyes.

  “I may have hit on your sister. Like, a lot.”

  Rua smiled. “Of course you did. Kir is very beautiful.”

  “I didn’t know she was your sister at the time.”

  “I don’t bme you. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Yeah, just… I want to talk to you about this stuff. I dunno. It was like, I saw her face, and all I could think of was sex. Right then and there. If she’d been down for it, I think I would’ve been between her legs, eating away like a starving person, right in the street, without talking it over with you first.”

  “Not your fault. Kir has soul power. Put it all into her Allure. And she was already very attractive before that. It’s a common reaction. And even if you did fuck her, I wouldn’t be upset.”

  “I’m poly, but you Siyans take it to another level. I like the openness of the retionships, but we gotta talk about this stuff first before acting on it.”

  “Oh? Well, in that case, I have pns to seduce Sami the next time we’re summoned to Holt’s arena.”

  Otter paused, her brain short circuiting for a second. “You know she’s my ex, right? I thought I was pretty clear on that.”

  “Does it bother you?” Rua cracked one eye open. “That I want to have sex with her? To make her mine?”

  “A little. But at the same time… no. I just worry. She’s not… we have a lot of history. And while I’ve forgiven her, I haven’t forgotten what she did.”

  “And what did she do? I’ve heard her side of things. I want to hear yours.”

  Otter opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the words. She tried to force them out anyway, but nothing came out.

  Rua turned her head, leaning into Otter, and kissed her once along the jaw. “It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me now if you can’t talk about it.”

  “I want to. I just don’t know how. I haven’t told anyone. I disappeared, fell off the side of the world, and made sure no one would ever know. Because I love her still. I… it’d hurt her. And I can’t do that to her. I’m not that petty.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  “Do you now?”

  “I love my sisters, all three of them. But all of them in different ways. Jua would always be the eldest, my guide on how I should chase after duty. She is my inspiration. A pain, yes, and rude beyond all belief, but someone I will always look up to.

  “Leilynn… I always had romantic feelings for her, from the moment I met her. I’d do anything I could to make her smile. I would have dreams of taking her for walks, where he held hands, and then made love on a beach underneath a starry sky.”

  “Very cliche,” Otter said. “But still beautiful. She’s very pretty.”

  “It’s more than that. Leilynn has… a quality to her. You just want to protect her, to hold her close, and tell her everything will be alright. She used to be so scared, all the time, when she first came into her Dreams. Terrified she would go to sleep, and wake up in a future she was powerless to change.

  “She used to tell me stories of the monster she would one day marry. And it was heartbreaking for me to hear those words. That she would marry, and it wouldn’t be me. I was young then, so young and stupid, more worried at the time I wouldn’t be chosen, than the fact that Lei would marry a ‘monster.’

  “But, as time went on, Lei began to speak of the ‘monster’ fondly. That she wasn’t actually a monster, she just… looked like one. Sometimes. I still don’t know what she meant by that.”

  “But we know it’s Sunny,” Otter said.

  “Apparently. Whatever that means.”

  “Are you angry with her?”

  “No. It’s hard to be mad at Sunny. She’s Sunny. And I have no cim to Lei beyond sisterhood. Jealousy is for other people, not Siyans.”

  Otter wasn’t so sure about that, but held Rua a little tighter.

  “And then there’s Kir,” Rua said. “It’s hard to measure love, except when it comes to her. I love her the most.”

  “Of the three?”

  “No. Of all.”

  “I’m sitting right here, and you’re expecting sex ter?”

  Rua shrugged. “It’s not meant to belittle you. You don’t understand the two of us. She was my first and only friend. The only one who really and fully accepted me, who didn’t care that I was a half-breed.

  “We would do everything together as children. Py, fight, train. We drove each other to perfection. And if she’d been Siyan, we might’ve become lovers. But she has other ideas about romance.”

  Otter snorted. “If she’d been Siyan, she never would’ve accepted you. Her being Mikovian is the reason you got so close. Besides, my gaydar says she’s not that hetero, trust me. She’s thought about it. I caught her checking out my ass.”

  “It’s very big. It’s hard to miss. Are you sure she wasn’t just looking in its general direction?”

  “It’s not that big.”

  “I’m going to have to tell the cook no cake for you.”

  “No cake for my cake, huh? Seems mean.”

  “I am a harsh and cruel woman.”

  “To deny cake? Truly, there is no crueller in the world.”

  They sat there for a while, soaking in the warmth. Truthfully, Otter felt no jealousy towards Kir. If anything, now she really wanted to give Rua everything she wanted, and if she also happened to be part of that sandwich, where was the harm?

  “My sisters want me to kill Kir,” Rua said.

  “Uh, come again?”

  “They think she’s Pact-crazed. And that the future of the Siyan Isnds depends on her death.”

  “What’s ‘Pact-crazed’?”

  “I forget how many basic things you don’t know. Hmm. Sometimes, Pacts have certain… conditions that need to be met in order to be used. Or, using them has side effects. Not necessarily to the user themself, not always directly. And because of these conditions or side effects, they begin to let their Pact… control their decision making.”

  “Like, how?”

  “I once knew a woman that needed to inhale the smoke from certain burned flowers before she could use her Pact. It opened her mind, and allowed her to channel her abilities she normally could not.”

  “No shit, she had to get high? Is that what Kir’s got?”

  “No… no one, except Kir herself, knows exactly how her Pact works. She refuses to share the information. But people who cross her have been known to then… follow her. Against their will. At first, we thought it a consequence of her pouring so much soul power into her Allure, but there’s no expining the level of control she seems to have, nor the fact that they seem to want to resist her, but cannot.”

  Otter did not like the sound of that. “She makes people into sves?”

  “Not quite. Yes, she does. But she hasn’t abused it to that level, that I’m aware. They still serve her, and they’d rather not, but I’ve never seen her abuse it. Well, to the point of it being unforgivable.”

  “So, no fucky-fucky sves, or people working themselves to death, or operating as human shields for her?”

  “They’ll fight for her. And they have. But they do seem to have some degree of free will. They won’t betray her, but they won’t die for her.”

  “And, what? She can’t control herself now? She just ensves whoever she wants?”

  “No, I’m certain,” Rua said firmly, but she sounded troubled. “If she were at that point… she’d have come for me.”

  “She want to control you that badly?”

  “No. She’s… over-protective. Of my sisters, she’s the only one of them that treats me like it. We hadn’t even known each other for a month, and she wanted me to move out of my family’s house and into the Mikovian fortress so she could keep trouble away from me. She hated hearing me tell her no, and that was as a child. She’s only grown more stubborn with age.”

  “Well, if she’s Pact-crazed or whatever, we get her help, right? Do you guys have psychiatrists or anything in this world of yours?”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Head shrinks. Doctors, for the mind. They talk to you, give you therapy, let you talk your shit out.”

  Rua made a noise, which Otter took as a ‘no.’

  “Okay, fine,” Otter said. “I’m not licensed, but I’ve been to enough therapy to at least be able to listen. Not everything has to be solved with fighting. If she’s got problems, we can help her.”

  “You don’t even know her.”

  “Yeah, but you love her, and that’s good enough for me. Also, she’s really pretty. Like, really pretty.”

  “She is.”

  Otter began to stroke one hand along Rua’s abdominals, before questing further downwards. “It’s probably frowned upon to sleep with someone you’re trying to give therapy to, but hey, maybe she just needs a good orgasm to help her out. Wouldn’t you like to give her one?”

  Rua squirmed a little, but shook her head. “You shouldn’t joke. Leilynn saw something in the future. Kir might kill my aunt, Sureya.”

  “She saw it?”

  A pause. “No. It sounded like she saw a scene where she heard the information.”

  “So, unreliable info. There’s so many ways she can be wrong. So, we don’t kill your sister. We talk to her. We help her, if she needs help. She’s your sister, right? Your sister that you want to fuck. That’s kind of hot. And it doesn’t even count as incest.”

  “You only want to help her because you find her attractive.”

  “On my list of priorities, I think I want to help her more because I find you attractive. I’m not altruistic. I like you, you don’t want to kill her, so we save her and I get further in your good books.”

  “And if you happen to also get to fuck her, then that’s just a treat for you?”

  Otter gave a short ugh. “You think you know me so well. Maybe I want to see you fuck her, watch you completely mess up that perfect makeup of hers, have her squirming under you.”

  Rua’s breathing had deepened, and Otter took that moment to strike, slowly stroking one finger along her entrance.

  “I need this,” Rua whined.

  “To cum?”

  “No. Hope.”

  “I can do both. We’ll save her. I promise.”

  Rua jerked Otter’s hand away and shifted her position so they were face-to-face. She leaned in for a bruising kiss, and then suddenly, Rua’s hand was around Otter’s cock, guiding it to her entrance.

  They were complete opposites, Otter trying to hold Rua and stroke her lovingly, while Rua was feral and urgent, riding Otter with an intense ferocity and leaving stinging marks where her nails dug into skin. They complimented one another, and neither sted long before Rua had to dismount to jerk Otter off to a finish.

  It wasn’t a long affair like their previous pairings, but in a way, their shared connection felt deeper and more urgent, both drawing what they needed from the other.

  Otter held Rua against her when they were done, resting in the bath water, before carrying her out and to bed, where she tucked Rua in and they slept in one another’s arms. At some point during the night, Rua began to cry, and Otter held her close, whispering promises she had no idea if she could fulfill, but intended to anyway, until finally the door cracked open and Sunny bounded in to join them.

  And through the link, Otter could feel something warm and shining despite the anger and frustration and despair as both she and Sunny held onto Rua until dawn came.