CHAPTER THIRTY

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I’d not been on the palace grounds since before the coronation; Rebecca had sought me out through the winter, but always our liaisons had taken place in my own quarters, be it on the bed, in the bath, or, one memorable evening in the new year, up against the oak tree in the back yard.

Now, though, spring was in the air, the namesake vines of Yellow Rose House were showing green on their trellises, and the city was abuzz with celebration. There’d not been a royal wedding in twenty years, and then-Princess Meribeth had not yet been a reigning Queen; the festivities surrounding the wedding of Queen Rebecca IV to her young and heroic Prince Consort, Travis Baker, seemed to take all the fervour that the city hadn’t had a chance to indulge at her winter coronation and make up for it fivefold.

The night after the wedding itself was one of the few I’d had recently that I hadn’t had anything to do, by chance; so, when I was invited to a more private reception than the circus of the day before, I was happy enough to attend.

“Private” turned out to be the operative word; when a page bowed me into the little cottage in the palace gardens, I found it lit only by a scant handful of candles. I felt two eager, welcoming presences, and then one of them was immediately tugging at my clothing.

“You’re not of a mind to waste time, are you?” I laughed, leaning back into my barely-seen “assistant”, reaching down to feel the swell of an entirely uncovered, and entirely rigid manhood.

“I’ve been in this little shack for hours,” Travis chuckled over my ear, sliding one hand down into my breeches and pressing that arousal up against my rump as his other hand tugged at my chemise. “With a woman who’s been feeling amorous since we broke our fast this morning, but hasn’t wanted to actually consummate our marriage until you were here to share it with us.”

“It wouldn’t have happened without you, after all,” Rebecca purred from the bed, fingers between her thighs as she observed Travis partly removing my clothing, partly enjoying my body. “He ought not to assign all the blame for his state to me, though; not when he’s had an early nip of this.” She reached out to touch a small lacquered case.

“Well, I wanted to be prepared, of course;” said Travis with another chuckle, drawing my breeches down, leaning around to nuzzle at my balls and trail his tongue along my stiffening shaft as he did so. “I did wait until the page said he was at the gates. You’re the one who had an agenda in mind for our belated wedding night.”

Agenda? I sensed some mix of playful glee and deeper, urgent anticipation from him, but nothing specific. I looked over to Rebecca instead.

She slid off the bed and sauntered over to me, as naked as her new husband was himself and was swiftly rendering me. When she was within reach, she reached up to cup her hand under my chin, stretching up onto her toes to brush her lips against mine. “I… somewhat got the impression, Edmond, that you’ve come to regret your… position, somewhat.”

It was hard to concentrate on such a petty concern as that when there was a beautiful, unclad, fertile woman so close to me, to say nothing of her equally fine and equally nude consort. “A little, I suppose,” I said with a shrug. “But what…?” When she touched my nose, I trailed into silence.

“You and him,” she explained. “Together. Both in me at once – neither of you is so immense that I’ve doubts about it working. If your seed mixes with his, why, any child we conceive might as well be yours as well, no?”

“Tell him the rest,” Travis hissed into her ear, slipping past her to take up that little box.

I was still trying to process what she’d already said – that she was, in a way, inviting me to be a sort of half-father to their child and heir. And then she drew my head down toward hers for a firmer kiss; once it parted, she kept her lips close enough to brush against mine as she murmured, “Should we have a boy, Edmond… I want him to bear your name. Edmond Lars Weston.”

I was… honoured, I suppose is the word. Far more so then than I had been when she’d pronounced me a knight of the realm. Though I’d spent little time worrying about it, I sometimes still fretted over my future, over what legacy I might be able to leave when I’d have no children to pass it along to.

Now, not only was she giving me a child after all, that very child, would bear my name into history.

“It might be a girl, of course,” Travis said, opening the case, from which a sharp aroma emerged. “But that just means we’ll need to try this again, no? Open up, now.”

The aroma had given me suspicions; the sight of what he held – a shiny, dark green leaf, its edges scalloped like a shallower imitation of an oak leaf’s – confirmed it. “You’re sparing no expense,” I managed to observe, before opening my mouth as directed.

“Well, we wouldn’t want the night to be over too soon, would we?” Travis laughed, bruising the leaf between his fingers and tucking it under my tongue.

In addition to the sharp, spicy taste, the verset leaf brought with it a sudden chill; I’d heard mention of it, read of it, but I hadn’t expected the shiver that raced through me to be quite so strong. In its wake, though, I felt a pleasant warmth, a sense that my very blood was singing. Every touch was a delight; the caresses that the pair of them gave to my manhood were utter bliss.

Nobody dared use verset anything approaching regularly; it was too easy to develop a need for that rush of euphoria, the feeling of health and vigour. But once in a while, on some special occasion, men could indulge with a leaf or two. So long as there was plenty on hand to drink – and there was; Travis and I traded sips from a cup of water, and there was plenty more in the pitcher – that vigour could be quite useful indeed.

The pair of them were needy enough that the rest proceeded without delay. Travis lay out on his back, his manhood jutting up proudly; Rebecca, somewhat awkwardly, lay back atop him, and she trembled as his member slipped into her. But then she beckoned me forward, an inviting smile crossing her muzzle.

It wasn’t particularly easy, what we tried to do; not least because, feeling both his shaft and her folds against the crown of my manhood, my first, unhelpful, barely-checked instinct was to simply shove forward. But with a palm’s worth of oil, a bit of patience, and rather more fidgeting about, his crown and mine kissed against each other, and Rebecca started to push herself down onto both together.

It was a touch simpler from then on, if still somewhat delicate; she was tight around us both, and we dared not go too quickly for her body to tolerate. At length, though, we were in – both of us nestled warm and snug together inside her, her husband and her paramour. Gripped tight by the walls of her sex, our manhoods slid alongside each other as well, shifting slightly with each breath any of us took.

I’d enjoyed men and women separately in the past, of course. On some quite pleasant occasions, a number of them over the past winter, I’d enjoyed them together. But I’d never quite had the experience be so thoroughly melded before.

Somewhat to my discredit, I felt my pleasure surging within a minute. Before it struck, though, Rebecca suddenly nipped at my shoulder, seized the nape of my neck, and told me to share my pleasure, and share in theirs.

From then on… well. The first splash of my seed went into her alone, but the second was joined by one from Travis, arching up under her, moaning over her ears. His mouth met mine, then, as we undulated together in an unceasing crescendo of delight. Inside another minute, I felt another stab of pleasure – I couldn’t be sure whose, and it didn’t matter. And another, and another; we weren’t offering her any more seed, not at the time, but the ecstasy roared through all of us each time.

After a dozen or so of such bursts of pleasure, we pulled apart, gasping, hoarse. Rebecca tipped a full cup of water into first Travis’s mouth, then mine, flavouring each cup first by dipping her fingers between her thighs, then into the water; whether it was that or the verset or simply our own nearness, we were almost desperate for more by the time I swallowed the last drop.

She climbed atop her new husband again, facing him this time. Slipping into her with him was rather easier than that first had been; our bodies grew more accustomed to each other as our minds pulled into synchrony. The pulse in the walls of her sex, that running through Travis’s manhood, and my own heavy heartbeat flowed together, working as one. Again and again I felt my manhood lurch against his, inside her, though neither he nor I gave up any more seed quite yet.

The verset was taking full effect now, though, an almost electric tingle chasing inward from my fingers, toes, and the tip of my tail. As the pleasure started burgeoning higher, I knew that this would be the last.

How long that shared moment of bliss lasted, I couldn’t possibly say. Several minutes, I think; it seethed in all of us, any lull in one of us instantly buttressed by the torrent from the others. By the time it finally started to ebb, I was hoarse again, barely able to keep myself upright, and my balls ached from churning out what felt like a month’s worth of their bounty all at once.

We fell apart after that, though we stayed against one another. And though all I’ve been told before and since tells me there’s no way I or anyone could have sensed such a thing, I fancied I could feel the life quickening under my hand as it rested on Rebecca’s stomach.

The life that would later give rise to her firstborn twins, son and daughter, Edmond and Nancy.

Courtesan. Guardian. Friend. Lover. Telepath. Even father, somehow. All that I was, all I could ever want to be, I was on that night, with the woman I’d worked without question to preserve, and a fine man who’d helped me to do so.

END

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