We watched the Omnid broadcast with great interest for a few minutes. Eventually, the topic moved away from the Frontenachii interdimensional crimes onto Omnid general news.

  “Boooooring,” Sage declared, blowing a raspberry at the holographic image of the Omnithornian news anchor discussing celebrity gossip.

  The TVs became covered with static, the images fading away.

  “But…” Galateya let out. “What if there’s more? We need to know if—”

  “Doubtful,” Sage snapped her fingers with an exhale.

  The walls of televisions died. The static fizzled into darkness, leaving the shack illuminated by moonlight from above, the soft, bioluminescent flowers from below and Galateya’s glowing mane. “I can’t hold the signal forevah. The news cycle is harsh. I expected more praise for my new pillow.”

  Galateya blinked, glowing tail swishing through the colorful grasses.

  Sage bounced on me, straddling my lap. “Politics is for people who aren't currently sitting on a naked Emperor of Earth who just fucked the entire Frontenachii armada. Prioritize, T-bun. Prioritize.”

  I swallowed hard.

  My mind, recently snapped back together from its dual-existence across space, was having a bit of a processing error. Specifically, my Frontend, which was currently absolutely drowning in an ocean of love because Sage was wiggling directly atop me.

  She was perfect. Perfect from every angle. Like the ideal manifestation of a girl next door. Like the most attractive Hollywood actress. Like the hottest porn star on the net. Like a living painting of liquid perfection photoshopped into existence. Like the prettiest anime girl. Like a hentai scene transposed onto reality…

  Yes, I get the picture. I thought with the back of my mind. She’s pretty alright.

  “Do you submit to the fluff?” Sage purred, blue eyes dancing with brilliant spirals as she leaned closer to my face, her impressive rack dragging across me. “Or can you resist my dastardly charm?”

  “I dunno, can I?” I teased her back.

  “Do ten million pushups,” she ordered, suddenly looking concerned.

  My Frontend drooled at the absolute unit of sex goddess sitting atop me, pulling on my body to…

  The motion didn’t even begin as the Frontend had no body control.

  “Nah,” I grabbed her face with my hands and smooshed it. “I’d rather smoosh the fluff. Thanks for the V-cast to Omnithornia, foxxy.”

  “Anytime, Ashy.” She leaned closer, panting slightly.

  We kissed. Fireworks ignited in my head, like a radiant aurora of pure arousal, a tidal wave of bliss, love, serenity and joy so absolute it drowned the Frontend of my thoughts whole.

  Sage pulled back blinking.

  “Ten billion pushups,” she whispered. “Right now.”

  “Nope,” I grinned at her.

  “Aaaaa… Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” She squealed and her eyes filled with tears, making her look even more surreally ravishing, like a Renaissance masterpiece of a lamenting, naked maiden. “T-bunses!” She grabbed the dragon girl and squished her hard. “He’s not breaking! HE’S NOT BREAKING! HE’S THE REAL THING! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Aaaaaaaahhhhh!””

  Galateya made a bothered noise.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve looked for someone like him?” Sage glanced at me, freckles detonating into heart emojis. “Someone unbreakable? Like that movie Unbreakable, except unbreakable to my sex-allure, not violence? Aaaaaaaahhhhh!" Sage vibrated against me, sounding like a tea kettle realizing it had achieved enlightenment.

  Her hands flashed to her neck.

  Fingers dug into the 'BARNYARD CASANOVA' choker. The dark collar snapped with a sound like a pistol crack.

  She ripped the thing off.

  The inside of the collar wasn't leather as expected.

  I saw thousands of microscopic runes etched into the interior that pulsed with trapped rainbows. Reality seemed to exhale with a solar flare's worth of magical power being unleashed. Thousands of vulpine eyes ignited around Sage, all staring at me like an eldritch cloud of foxness.

  The air in the shack grew heavy with want.

  If Sage had been twenty out of ten before, she just broke the scale and invented numbers that made base mathematics weep. Pure, concentrated attraction hit me like a freight train with no brakes.

  My Frontend screamed. It wanted to buy her a country. It wanted to invent a new color just for her eyes. It wanted to crawl into her embrace and live there paying rent in worship.

  Sage leaned forward. Her hair cascaded down like a waterfall of spun rubies and starlight.

  "Do a somersault," she commanded.

  The voice didn't enter my ears. It bypassed the auditory nerve and hooked directly into my motor cortex. It felt like gravity had shifted. The universe demanded a somersault. Physics required it. To not do a summersalt was to deny the fundamental laws of existence.

  My muscles tensed. The Frontend clawed for the controls, desperate to obey the foxy Goddess.

  I stayed put.

  "Nah," I said. “Sounds like effort.”

  Teya suddenly rolled over, doing a half-assed somersault.

  Sage choked. Her mouth fell open. The spirals in her eyes spun faster, searching mine, finding only my stubborn refusal to perform gymnastics.

  "He said no," she whispered, looking at Galateya. "T-bun, he said no to the raw, un-collared me! Eeeeeee!"

  Galateya made a whimpering noise. She was staring at Sage, drooling slightly and panting, mane dancing with inverted-rainbow-flowers. She slapped herself and blinked, the imprint of her hand radiating red, staying on her face. “Ugh. That’s… you’re… sooooo pretty… I want to…”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Sage glanced at drooling Teya then at me. “Hmmmm… that might be a little much for our scaled cutie.”

  She snapped the collar back onto her neck and the radiance of love lessened slightly. Galateya blinked.

  “You okay, T?” Sage pawed the dragon girl.

  Galateya blinked, eyes refocusing. “Y-yeah,” she let out, swaying slightly. “I think so? Maybe? It was… a bit unexpected. I should be okay to handle it with the Truth sword, if you do it again.”

  Sage turned back to me. She looked like a kid who just found out Santa Claus was real, alive, and sitting in her living room.

  "You said no," she breathed. "You looked at the unshielded feed and didn’t even budge. The un-collared skulk. The full force of fourteen thousand souls screaming 'love me' and you just... shrugged it off?"

  "I did."

  "You really, actually like me?"

  "I do."

  "You can withstand me?"

  "Yep."

  She launched herself into an all-encompassing hug.

  "Mine! Mine! Validated! Immune!" She screamed the words into my neck.

  Teeth sank into my shoulder. Claiming. Gnawing. She rubbed her face against my chest, vibrating with enough intensity to power a small city. Licks coated my jaw, my neck, my ear. This wasn't the predatory tasting from before, wasn't a tease of an overly-confident hunter. Unadulterated, puppy-like enthusiasm pounded at me with hundreds of kisses and licks.

  My neural interface band buzzed.

  “Eh?” Sage momentarily paused her aggressive, rapid assault.

  A projection of Shady and Nexxali manifested in the air beside us.

  “Hey, Ashikins,” Nexxali said. “We just got back home from Sillicia’s ship and…”

  The serval girl’s words halted as she processed the scene. The tall, dark Wendigo girl beside her looked beat.

  “Are we… interrupting something?” Nexxali tilted her head at me.

  Shady simply stared.

  “Just some friendly… mauling fun,” Sage said.

  Galateya realized she was practically naked. A high-pitched squeak escaped her throat, sounding like a mouse being stepped on. She scrambled sideways and dove behind a large, thick fern. Only her horns and violet eyes peered from above the green swaying leaves.

  Nexxali noted the dragon’s escape and chortled.

  "Ashy," Shady said finally. "Why is there a naked human girl sitting on your chest?"

  “Uhhh…” I let out, struggling to formulate a diplomatic answer while a very enthusiastic Sage used me as a seat.

  “Naked?” Sage chirped, twisting her torso to face the projection. She didn’t scramble off, nor cover up. Instead, she struck a pose, arching her back to accentuate the curve of her spine and the heavy sway of her breasts. “I prefer ‘texturally accessible.’ See, I’m wearing a collar. It counts as formal wear in some interdimensional jurisdictions. Also… Hi! You must be… Mmmm… Commandant Nexxali and Princess Aquillianne, yes? A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Marquess of Sagetopia, Landlady of Darkfall, Sanguine Raelle Vale!”

  The Skinwalker sounded far too formal for her naked state.

  “Marquess Sanguine, hum?” Shady arched an eyebrow. “Mind explaining why you’re slobbering all over my human?”

  “Mmmm…” Sage tapped her chin, slyly looking left and right. Her blue eyes caught the dragon girl behind the fern. “The Baroness of Earth, Galateya Frontenachii gave me permission to nibble on her consort.”

  “Did she now?” Shady asked.

  “T-bun back me up,” Sage whispered conspiratorially in the direction of Teya.

  All of us stared at Galateya.

  The fern fronds rustled. A scaled hand gripped the green stalk, bending it downward. Galateya rose from her leafy concealment, scales flashing a deep, mortified, glowing crimson that illuminated the moss around her. She refused to look at the holographic projection, keeping her violet eyes fixed on a rotting wooden beam above.

  She managed to grow a bark-style covering atop of her chest, like a woodland fairy bra.

  "That’s... technically accurate," Galateya stated finally. Her voice held the rigidity of someone reading a legal deposition while standing naked in a swamp. "Referencing the Open Circle Clause Ash inserted into our blood-pact… he’s ours. I’m your Clan’s… Hearth-Keeper and… Sanguine Raelle, Sage… is my knight. Will be my knight. Very soon."

  She paused, swallowing hard. Sage did a fistpump. Shady and Nexxali stared.

  "I granted Sage temporary usage rights of my consort," the dragon girl finished, the words sounding like they physically hurt her dignity.

  "Usage rights," Sage snorted, bouncing slightly on my lap. "You make him sound like a rental car, T-bun. No temporary! Permanent usage rights. Ain’t no way I’m letting go of this juicy human bean now."

  She leaned down and kissed me, one blue eye looking at the projection in a challenging manner.

  Shady crossed her arms in the hologram. “What are you?”

  “I’m a Skinwalker,” Sage said. “Over nine thousand foxes in a raincoat.”

  Shady’s eyes twitched.

  "Too late to look bothered! We already wrecked his robot face," Sage stated cheerfully. She leaned forward, poking a claw through the flickering blue light of Shady’s projected torso. "Then we had a moment. A very sticky, mossy moment. You should have been here, Princess. The Feng Shui in this shack was terrible before Teya got horny and redecorated with flowers."

  Shady remained silent. Her silver eyes tracked the way Sage’s thighs gripped my waist. She looked more tired than angry.

  "Galateya," Shady said.

  The dragon girl flinched. "Yes, Princess?"

  "Is she… useful to our circle?"

  Galateya blinked, finally looking at the hologram. The question seemed to ground her, pulling her out of the embarrassment spiral. She straightened her posture.

  "Yes," Galateya said firmly. "Highly. Her control over the local Astral allows for V-cast signal amplification exceeding… base fleet specifications. We would not have broadcast the Emperor's message without her.”

  “Broadcast it where?” Shady asked.

  “Omnithornia,” I said. “Sage helped boost the signal to my gun unit body, helped destroy the Slayer's Sword and cast my speech from the capital ship to Omnithornia.”

  “WHAT?!” Nexxali and Shady’s eyes went wide. “She what?!”

  “I made sure that other Omnids know what the Frontenachii bad girls have been up to on my lovely planet,” Sage purred, leaning down to lick me again.

  “Leviathan’s tits,” Nexxali whistled. “This changes… everything.”

  “Das’ right,” Sage nodded. “And as my reward, I would like to be part of your ‘Circle” or whatever. To paw at the Emperor whenever I want to. Which is often. Because he’s immune to my mind-melting Skinwalkerness.”

  “Fine,” Shady let out, slumping into Nexxali. “I will trust Teya to handle you, Skinwalker.”

  “Appreciate it,” Sage bobbed.

  “Are you okay, Shades?” I asked.

  “I’m… managing,” she said. “Pulling that many soul shards back into myself as the extra bodies died was an effort and a half. Going to have a nap, I think. We’ll see you all at the mansion, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “After I teach Teya things,” Sage said.

  “What kind of things?” Shady asked.

  “You two have been neglecting your Hearth-Keeper big time,” Sage pointed out. “To the point where she snapped and froze the shit out of my family’s cafe. Therefore, it falls to me to educate her on the matters of relationships.”

  Shady pursed her lips. Nexxali looked contemplative. The serval rubbed the back of her head.

  “Yeah,” she let out. “I guess we have been keeping her in the dark about a lot of things. Sorry, Teya. I was concerned that you’d figure out that Xandy is Shady and then our whole operation would go tits up before we could get our hands on the Frontenachii capital ship. I promise to make it up to you… now that it’s over.”

  She elbowed the half-asleep looking Shady.

  “Likewise,” Shady said. “The kobold’s out of the bag now, I guess.”

  “Mhmm.” Nexxali nodded. “Aight. I’ll purr our Princess to bed and make sure her dreams are lovely. Have fun you three.”

  She winked at us and the transmission cut out.

  “Can I turn that off now?” Sage asked, grabbing onto the headband. “No more annoying interruptions tonight please.”

  “Aight.” I shrugged.

  Sage’s hand became furry, then bony. She tore the headband off my head and snapped it in half, the lights winking away.

  “Kay, is serious bonking time,” she grinned at me.

  They're available on