Lilly made good on her promise soon afterwards, taking a very willing Eli and Freya back to their wing of the castle for a few more hours. Aria left for the meeting with the lizardkin and naga delegation by then, giving them the entire space to themselves. By the time they were satisfied they were each exhausted, collapsing onto the couch for a well-earned nap.

  “Did you 3 move at all while I was gone?” Aria teased as she returned, seeing the 3 of them snuggled together.

  “Only as much as we had to.” Eli replied with a grin. “Want to come join the cuddle pile?”

  “I wish.” She said sadly. “I actually came to get you. I need your help with the lizardkin and naga.”

  Eli sat up. “What happened?”

  She sighed. “Something unfortunate and entirely predictable.”

  He furrowed his brow for a moment before the lightbulb went off in his mind. “They tried to disguise themselves and get to the hybrid, didn’t they?”

  “Exactly.” She replied. “I mean, I know their magic is all about being able to create disguises but… did they really think we wouldn’t have put in safeguards? Especially after everything that happened with Serpentius Rex and his followers?”

  Lilly extricated herself from the couch and began to hunt for their clothes, tossing them to the still-sitting Freya and Eli as she spoke. “They’re getting desperate.”

  Eli caught a flying shirt before responding. “What exactly happened?”

  “During the meeting 2 lizardkin staffers excused themselves to the washroom. A few minutes later, 2 high elves wearing Hightower family uniforms exited those same washrooms.”

  Eli rolled his eyes as he pulled on his shirt. “Does it really count as a disguise when it’s that obvious?”

  Aria chuckled. “Only in their minds, I guess.”

  “Did you take them into custody then?” Freya asked as she pulled a lacy blue thong up her legs.

  “Not right away.” Aria replied. “Ziran and Sira happened to be nearby when we realized what was happening so I discreetly radioed them and asked them to follow – with their mirages active, of course. They took pictures and videos as evidence, and tracked them all the way to our infirmary before we sprung the trap on them. They surrendered without a fuss, and I sent the rest of their delegation back to Serapenthra until we figure out what to do with them.”

  “Hang on.” Eli put his hand up with a grin. “You borrowed my retainers? I thought they were supposed to follow my orders.”

  “In fairness, you borrowed my handmaidens.” Aria sassed him right back as she looked at the other two women dressing. “And they agreed that an order from me is as good as one coming from you.”

  Eli laughed as he finished pulling on a pair of pants. “Okay, that’s fair. So you sent the lizardkin and naga back, and you’ve taken the offending party into custody. Where do you need me?”

  “I need us to decide on what to do about the hybrid. As much as this attempt was laughably bad, the next one may not be.” She held up a hand to cut him off when he tried to object. “I respect the fact that you’ve got reservations with waking her up, but keeping her asleep indefinitely is not an option – especially given that we’re having more and more trouble keeping her asleep to begin with.”

  “There’s always the other alternative.” Freya said quietly, running her thumb along her neck dramatically.

  Eli chuckled darkly. “I’m pretty sure that would piss them off even more.”

  “Not if we make it look like an accident.” Lilly disagreed. “We could even leave clues that point back to Serpentius Rex himself, make it look like his hybrid was sick to begin with and died as a result.”

  Eli shook his head then looked at Aria. “This whole governing thing is way harder than just winning fights.”

  “And that’s why I’ll never be a politician.” A new voice said as the door opened.

  Eli looked up to see Naz entering with Isla and Minerva – the former of which continued speaking as the group approached him. “There’s a saying in my tribe – sometimes a chieftain just needs to jump off the cliff and grow wings as they fall.”

  “What does that mean?” Freya asked.

  Eli smiled at her words as she neared him. From his time in the orcish realm of Targe Maraz, he’d learned that each tribe passed down a collective set of metaphors, aphorisms, and stories meant to help teach the tribe how to live better lives. While these sayings sometimes came across as nonsensical or obvious at first telling, Eli discovered that they often held a fundamental truth or lesson about life – one that was almost always gleaned through great sacrifice or difficulty.

  “It means that sometimes leaders have to make decisions based on imperfect information.” Eli summarized. “Sometimes waiting too long to make a decision can be worse than making a bad decision.”

  Naz stopped directly in front of him. “How a human ended up with the heart of an orcish chieftain, I’ll never know. But I’m glad you did.”

  Eli chuckled before kissing his orcish girlfriend. It was a little difficult in his human form, what with her being an 8-foot-tall mountain of green-skinned muscle and armour in her guard captain uniform. He still managed it though, putting enough passion into the kiss that she was blushing at the end.

  “That was well said. And that guard uniform does things for me.” He said finally as he leaned back.

  She rolled her eyes in response. “You say that about every outfit I wear.”

  “Yeah, well you just look good in everything.” He replied immediately.

  She blushed and stammered a response as she moved to hug Aria, but he missed what she said due to the dragoness woman immediately taking her place. “My mate.” She said, taking his face in her hands and resting her forehead against his. “I’ve missed you.”

  She was wearing her white toga again, and given their proximity and the fact that his hands went directly to her hips he could both see and feel she wasn’t wearing anything underneath – something that only served to make him hard. He breathed in her spicy natural scent for a moment, revelling in how warm her alabaster skin seemed to be. His hands ached to roam across her ample curves but he resisted the urge for the moment, knowing that if he started he wouldn’t want to stop.

  “I missed you too, Isla.” He whispered in response before kissing her gently on the lips. “How was your hunt?”

  “Delicious. I saved you some. It’s in the kitchen. The human woman said she was going to cook it for you, but I told her that I’d bite her hand off for touching it.”

  Eli chuckled and shook his head, knowing that she was talking about their in-house chef. “Let’s…not bite off Annette’s hand, okay? We like her cooking.”

  “I know. That is the only reason I did not threaten to bite off her head.”

  Eli glowered at her. “Isla. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, remember?”

  She met his gaze fiercely for a moment before relenting. “Fine. I will not bite her hand off.”

  “Good girl.” Eli said, rewarding her with a kiss – one that made her blush and shiver.

  Looking up he saw that Minerva was standing patiently in the corner of the room, her eyes darting from Eli to Isla as if she wanted to be in her place. Knowing she was too timid to assert herself, Eli decided that he needed to take matters into his own hands. He gently pulled Isla to the side and whispered to her.

  “Let’s go flying together after this? We can find somewhere private and you can tell me about how you caught the fire salamanders.”

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  She smiled broadly at the idea. “I’d like that.”

  “Then go get whatever you think we’ll need, and I’ll meet you in the courtyard in an hour.”

  Her smile broadened and she let him go, racing out the door in excitement. Eli couldn’t help but watch her go and chuckle before looking back at Minerva – her wings held slightly aloft, stretching the fabric of her modest grey dress. He held up a hand and beckoned her closer, smiling as he did.

  In a fraction of a second she pounced, flying towards him and wrapping him in a tight hug. He responded by wrapping his arms around her waist, holding her close to him for as long as she needed. When she finally moved back slightly it was to meet his eyes – after which she hesitantly moved forward and pressed her lips to his in a chaste kiss.

  “Mmm.” She moaned slightly before blushing red – to the point where the shade of her cheeks matched that of her hair.

  “Hello to you too.” Eli grinned before kissing her cheek. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what brings you and Isla here? Did you come to help with this lizardkin business?”

  “I…what?” She asked dreamily before blinking several times. “No, I…oh, right! The translation! We came to tell you about the Royal Blooded book.”

  Eli loosened his embrace of her to look her in the eyes. “Are you done it?”

  “No, not at all.” She shook her head. “I’ve had a few breakthroughs, but it’s easily the most challenging translation I’ve had to do. Every page seems to be written in a different language, all of them ancient and requiring quite a bit of interpretation and referencing historical context to understand. We’ve made requests – both through official and unofficial channels – to the dark elves to ask for their help. They sent us what they had, but honestly they never made much progress with their own translations. While the book was valuable, it was always more of a curiosity to them than something that warranted a significant amount of effort.”

  “Ah.” Eli nodded, careful not to show his disappointment on his face. “I know you’re the best person for the job though. And I know you’ll figure it out.”

  “We will!” She promised brightly, her blush fading slightly. “But in the mean time, I think we’ve figured out a clue!”

  “Oh?”

  “I managed to translate a passage about a place referred to as Olympus – I’m guessing that’s where the portal is supposed to lead. There’s a few references to it being a paradise for the gods, and a lot of talk about sex.” She coughed uncomfortably, the blush returning. “But there’s a line in there that basically says the portal address is protected by an additional, secret safeguard – one that only a human would be able to decipher.”

  Eli furrowed his brow. “Okay, that’s…interesting. Did they say what the safeguard is?”

  “No. At least not in that passage. I’m still working on translating the rest of the book, but it’s something!”

  “Something only a human would be able to decipher.” Eli repeated slowly. “Interesting. I’ll give it some thought. Thank you Minerva.”

  “Of course.” She said, smiling brightly.

  “We still need to figure out what we’re doing about the lizardkin and naga.” Aria said, bringing them back to the problem at hand. “We’re sitting on a bit of a time bomb with the hybrid and the longer we wait, the worse things will get. We need to…” She trailed off before smiling at Naz. “Jump off the cliff and grow wings, was it?”

  “Exactly.” Naz grinned.

  “I think I like orcish management philosophies.” Aria chuckled.

  “I’ll get you a copy of The Way.” Naz promised, referring to her tribe’s book which held their teachings.

  Eli gently guided Minerva to his side. She kept one arm and one wing wrapped around him, but turned her body so that he could see and address the rest of the women in the room. Matching Aria’s gaze for a moment he nodded before speaking.

  “I agree. We need a resolution soon.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Aria asked.

  Eli stroked his chin thoughtfully. “As much as she’s a creation of Serpentius Rex, she’s still a living being. I don’t want to kill her without knowing she’s a threat. The problem is that I won’t know if she’s a threat until I wake her up, and if we do that then we have to kill her, then the lizardkin and naga are going to be even more pissed off than they already are.”

  “And that’s assuming you can tell whether she’s going to be a threat just by talking to her.” Lilly added. “The worst case scenario is if she convinces you that she’s not going to be a threat and you release her to Serapenthra, then she amasses an army of followers and comes after all of us.”

  “Right. That.” Eli responded. “That would be the worst case scenario.”

  “So how do we figure out for certain if she’s a threat without waking her up?” Naz asked.

  “That’s the real question.” Aria agreed.

  “I wish I could do the thing Athena and Hades can do, where they appear in people’s…dreams? Visions? I don’t know what to call them.”

  “How would that help us?” Naz asked. “Can’t you just use the spell you use to talk to animals, and do the same thing?”

  “I’d appear in the grey mist, give her the impression that I’m a friendly presence, and ask some questions.” Eli replied. “I could get answers without having to wake her up. As for the ‘talk to animals’ spell, it’s only ever worked with someone who was conscious – which she’s not.”

  “She could still lie.” Freya countered.

  “Have you ever had the presence of mind to lie to a character in a dream of yours?” Eli responded. “Besides, with how scary Hades made the dream, I’m pretty sure I can coerce the truth out of her if needed.”

  “Fair point.”

  “We’re getting sidetracked.” Aria interrupted. “It’s a nice idea, but unless you’ve learned how to do it in the last few hours, it’s just a wish.”

  “Actually…” Minerva said slowly before looking at Eli. “You said grey mists, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I translated part of a passage in the Royal Blooded book talking about how to cast that spell. Apparently it’s called ‘Astral Projection’. I stopped working on it when it became obvious that there were no references to portals or Olympus, but with some work I could finish translating it.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Aria said, moving closer. “With how quickly you learn spells, you’d be able to master it in no time.”

  “How long do you need to finish the translation?” Eli asked.

  “12 hours, maximum.” She promised.

  Eli looked at Aria. “Think we can defer the decision until tomorrow? She won’t wake up by then, will she?”

  “I think we can manage to keep her asleep for that long, yeah.”

  “That’s the plan then.” Eli nodded. “Minerva, what do you need to get to work?”

  “A portal back to Purgatory.” She replied. “All my materials are there.”

  “Come with me then.” Aria said. “I’ll get one opened right away.”

  Eli kissed them both as they left, but as they opened the door Ziran rushed in. His grey Hightower family uniform was singed at the sleeves, and black smoke was slowly rising from a still-burning ember on one of his legs. He patted the fire down quickly before locking eyes with Eli.

  “I need you to come quickly. Annette and Isla are having an…animated discussion.”

  Eli pinched the bridge of his nose before disentangling himself from Minerva and running for the door.

  This is what I get for creating a harem of beautiful, dangerous, magical women. He thought to himself as he sprinted after his desert elven retainer. Still worth it though.