Rebirth of the Nephilim

“I… apologize for my reaction. I acted in haste. Please, forgive me.”

Jay carefully eyed the Hero of Valtar. He was sitting on the couch across from her, much calmer than he had been ten minutes earlier. He was still blushing so brightly his ears had turned crimson, and he was having trouble meeting her gaze, but he wasn’t freaking out, which was a marked improvement overall. Part of her wanted to tease the man a bit more; he was just so easy to embarrass when it came to talking about anything sexual that it made her feel an instinctual urge to mess with him. Honestly, if Jadis had been into men even a little bit, she would have found the idea of corrupting his prudish innocence irresistible. As it stood, however, she saw him more like a sibling or a cousin whom she really enjoyed joking around with. Besides, Jadis would never poach from a friend. He and Jocelyn were clearly made for each other, even if they were still refusing to directly acknowledge their feelings.

At least after today’s encounter, they were finding it a lot harder to hide how they felt.

“Hey, no harm, no foul,” Jay told him as she slid him a glass of juice with a little something extra added to calm the nerves. “I get it. Seeing Amarantha transformed like that was probably a pretty big shock.”

“Yes, yes it was,” Wilhelm agreed before putting back almost the whole glass in a single gulp. “I do not have any brothers or sisters. However, Ludger and, later, Amarantha have always filled those roles for me. I care for her, as I do my family. I just wish she would stop taking such extreme actions without warning!”

Jadis didn’t know all of their history, but she knew enough from their conversations and interactions to know that this latest event was not the first time Amarantha had done something to cause a major disruption for the Hero and his party. The Lares was something of a free spirit, always acting on the impulses that suited her, never mind the consequences. She liked to experiment, and the results were not always helpful, nor without long-lasting effect. There had been mention of some event involving a lake turned pink, and another circumstance with flying sheep, but the details of those happenstances weren’t immediately important. The point was, Amarantha had a history of doing strange things, and Wilhelm had assumed the worst.

While Jay was talking with Wilhelm, her other two selves were getting the rest of the details of what had happened from Jocelyn and Ludger. Apparently, Amarantha had locked herself inside of the room she and Jocelyn had claimed in Charos’ temple for most of the day, citing a need for privacy while she worked on a sensitive potion. She had not told anyone what she was working on, which wasn’t too unusual for the Mystic, and so everyone else had gone about their day as planned. Shortly before Jadis had returned to Thracina with Wilhelm, Jocelyn had heard banging noises and other concerning sounds coming from inside her and Amarantha’s room, and when she had not gotten a response from the Lares, she had enlisted Ludger’s help in breaking the door down. Inside, they had discovered Amarantha in her current state, struggling to figure out how her new limbs worked.

Before either Jocelyn or Ludger could get any sort of satisfactory answer as to what in all of the gods’ names Amarantha had done to herself, Wilhelm had walked in through the open door, sword drawn. He had seen that the door had been knocked off of its hinges and had gone on full alert, concerned that the cultists had attempted another attack or some other intruder had infiltrated the temple. Wilhelm was already in full combat mode while the poorly worded explanation of “Amarantha has a humanoid body now,” was delivered, and the only part his floundering mind had latched onto was the pronouncement that “Jadis’ semen” was somehow responsible.

Amarantha was truly terrible at explaining things.

“Again, I apologize,” Wilhelm repeated while doing his best to meet Jay’s gaze. “I wasn’t—I did not fully consider the situation. There was no reason to blame you for something that Amarantha clearly did on her own. Of course she made some form of ridiculous potion. You… you—your…”

“My semen.”

“Yes,” the Hero cleared his throat, “that. Obviously, that would not be able to transform a Lares into anything, or do any other sort of transformations for that matter. I just…”

Pausing, Wilhelm’s expression became stern as stone as all embarrassment faded from his visage. He looked Jay square in the eyes, his gaze as hard as the steel of his god-gifted sword. When he spoke, his voice was calm, measured, and clear.

“If you are planning on entertaining Amarantha and her apparent preoccupation with you, know that I will not take kindly to her being hurt. If you have even the slimmest suspicion that her feelings will be harmed, I suggest you walk away, immediately.”

It wasn’t a threat. Jadis could read Wilhelm easily enough to tell that much. With that statement, he had made a solemn promise. Amarantha was family. He wouldn’t let anyone cause her pain. Jadis knew exactly how he felt and could find no fault in his reasoning. She would be saying the same thing in his shoes, and she imagined she probably would be having a conversation just like this one in the future, once Hope was old enough to start being interested in romance. But scary thoughts about her numerous offspring hitting the dating scene was a problem for much, much, much later. For the moment, she had her own romance to worry about.

“I care about Amarantha as a friend,” Jay stated plainly. “I think you know, I would never hurt one of my friends intentionally. Whether or not she and I become something more than friends… I’m not sure. We’re sort of figuring things out. But I promise you, that I respect Amarantha no less than any of my wives, and I’d sooner cut off my own ears than hurt one of them.”

Wilhelm stared hard at Jay for a few moments longer before nodding his head slightly. Settling back in his seat, he let out a sigh as the energy drained out of him. In mere seconds, he had transformed from a strict figure of righteous justice and back to looking like the mild-mannered man whom Jadis had grown to see as a friend and comrade-in-arms.

“You know,” Jay said after letting the Hero stew in silence for a bit, “I’m kind of surprised that you were able to put it together that Amarantha made a potion to transform into a human-like form because she’s interested in me.”

“Surprised?” Wilhelm blinked at the comment. “Why? Her interest is obvious. Ammy has never expressed anything other than mild disgust for ‘mortal’ bodies, and yet after spending an extended period of time around you, she is eagerly trading in her paws for hands and her fur for hair. Why else would she do so but because of her interest in you?”

Staring at Jay with a raised eyebrow, Wilhelm let out a breath of amusement.

“I’m not blind, Jadis.”

Jay’s lips quirked into a smile as she calmly observed the man.

“Are you sure about that?”

“What does that mean?” Wilhelm frowned.

“Well, I’m just saying, it sure seems like you’ve got a major blind spot when it comes to Joce—”

Jay was cut off as Wilhelm lunged forward, putting his hand over her mouth to keep her from finishing her statement. She blinked her violet eyes innocently at the red-faced man as he gazed back in renewed panic. Glancing slightly to the side, his face somehow flushed further when he caught a glimpse of Jocelyn looking their way. The Oracle quickly averted her eyes, and Wilhelm immediately sat back down, looking severely abashed.

“I believe I understand how you may feel towards Amarantha, or how she may feel towards you,” the Hero cleared his throat while running his fingers through his brown hair. “I, too, am simply trying to… figure things out.”

“I have every confidence that you will,” Jay grinned slyly at the man. “Just don’t take too long figuring, Willy. She might decide to do the figuring for you.”

There was a moment of hesitation on the Hero’s face, before some inner resolve seemed to catch fire within him. With his eyes locked firmly onto the woman standing on the far side of the room, he rose to his feet.

“Yes, well, I believe I should leave you and Amarantha to discuss… your figuring. It is growing late and I have other matters that I feel I must attend to.”

Jay watched with satisfied amusement as Wilhelm marched over to where Jocelyn and Ludger were standing. Her other selves had moved away, giving the two some space, so she didn’t hear whatever the straight-backed man whispered to the demure woman. However, judging by the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes went wide, and by Ludger looking like someone had just told him Prince Hraustrekr liked to pole dance in strip clubs in his spare time, she imagined that what he had said was unexpected.

Offering his hand, Wilhelm gallantly led Jocelyn out the door, holding his head high while she gazed up at him with awed infatuation on her face. Ludger trailed behind them, scratching the back of his blond head as he went. He stopped briefly in the doorframe, his expression perplexed and a little happy, before silently waving at them all and closing the door behind him as he left.

“Right,” Jay let out a sigh as one romantic entanglement seemed to be resolved, at least for the moment. “Time to figure our own things out.”

“Yes, it is,” Aila said quietly as she slid up next to her side.

“Where did Kerr and Maeve steal Ammy off to, anyway?” Jay said, looking down at the redhead.

“They took her to our room,” the mage answered while pointing upward. “They’ve been alone for at least ten minutes, now. I’m worried.”

“Well, I’m not going to say, ‘what’s the worst that could happen,’ since that would just invite D to drop a meteor on our heads or something. But yeah, going now.”

In short order, Jadis and all of her lovers were gathered together in their shared quarters on the third floor of the side building of Ulya’s temple. The sun was nearly set by that point, and Jadis was both tired and hungry from a long day flying across the continent. However, she put those petty concerns aside as she had bigger things to deal with. It was almost hard to believe that just that morning she had been in Eldingholt with Alex, saying goodbye to their daughter. Now they were with everyone else in Thracina, staring at a Lares who had turned herself into a humanoid woman apparently for the explicit purpose of having sex with her.

If she spent any length of time thinking about it, Jadis might have drawn the conclusion that her life was weird as fuck.

During the time she had been spirited away by Kerr and Maeve, Amarantha had been either convinced or coerced into wearing clothes. Honestly, Jadis was a little surprised that the two hadn’t just let the Lares continue to prance around naked as a jaybird, but she supposed her mischievous lovers had some other sinister plan in mind. The chances of a wicked plot seemed especially high, considering the way Kerr and Maeve kept grinning at each other. Regardless, Amarantha was clothed, which made having a conversation much easier.

The dress the Mystic catgirl wore had to have come from Maeve. It was too small for almost everyone else, and too large for Sorcha. Eir might have been able to fit in the light blue and white sundress, but her far more voluptuous proportions would have split a seam around the bodice. As it was, the outfit fit Amarantha rather well, which meant that the shapeshifting Fetch had likely pulled the dress from her store of outfits she used when out on the town in one form or another.

As Jadis watched the transformed Lares talk with Kerr and Maeve while everyone found places to sit or stand as they liked, she found herself inadvertently staring at the catgirl’s tail. The long, fluffy appendage was lightly swinging back and forth under the hem of her dress, causing the material to ride high and reveal a smooth expanse of milky-pale thigh. When Kerr said something particularly outrageous, causing Ammy to laugh with cheeky delight, her tail rose even higher, giving Jadis a clear view of her rump for a glancing moment. When she saw Maeve staring at her with a knowing smile, Jadis realized that the dress wasn’t a part of some plot. The dress was the plot.

“Fucking tease,” Syd mouthed silently at Maeve.

Grinning, the orange Fetch gave her a thumbs up.

“So,” Jay said as she took her own seat on a pile of large cushions located between two couches that were occupied by several of her lovers. “Ammy. It looks like your… experiment was a success.”

“I think so,” Amarantha turned to grin widely at her. “It’s maybe a little too Nephilim, what with the lack of fur, but I can adjust.”

The Lares took a couple of steps forward as she spoke, and Jadis noticed that her stance was a bit shaky.

“Do you feel alright?” Eir asked before Jay could. “Do you feel any negative effects? Are you dizzy, or perhaps nauseous?”

“No, I’m fine,” the Mystic brushed the elf’s concern away. “It just feels weird to walk on just two legs. It’s not hard, I guess, but I keep wanting to get down on all fours and walk properly, you know? Or, well, I guess you wouldn’t know about being properly on all fours, would you?”

If she had been in her natural cat-like form, Jadis probably would have assumed that the comment was an innocent one. However, since Amarantha had a human face, Jadis could plainly see that the woman was absolutely messing with Eir by using a purposeful innuendo. Jadis wondered how many other puns and sly remarks that the Lares had gotten away with in the past just by having a non-humanoid facial structure.

“No, walking would not be within my experience when it comes to being on all fours,” Eir admitted smoothly and with a straight face. “I can only imagine adjusting to being on two legs.”

While Kerr stifled her laughter behind the Lares, Amarantha eyed the red-skinned elf with increased interest.

“You’re dangerous, aren’t you?” she murmured, her green and blue eyes gleaming.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Eir replied, her face a mask of composure to match her blue-skinned cousin.

“Ehem,” Jay cleared her throat in a purposeful way, reclaiming Amarantha’s attention. “It’s good to know that there aren’t any adverse effects to… I assume you made a potion to accomplish this transformation?”

“Yup!” Ammy chirped while swinging her hips in a distracting way. “I had to blow a couple of cooldown skills for it, and some of those ingredients were pricey, but this version worked! Your semen definitely did the trick. I wonder if there would have been a different effect if I had used some other person’s semen, but it’s hard to say without testing it. Maybe I can get a sample from a Seraphim next time and see what happens.”

“So, you think the ingredient list has items that are exchangeable?” Sabina cut in, her excitement over the prospect of finding out more about something that was enchantment-adjacent bubbling over. “Do you think that different semen samples might cause different transformations? Or would it change other factors, like the timespan of the effect or the volume of potion produced? What about getting some sample material from a Fetch and using that? They are creatures who can shapeshift naturally, so I bet you would have some interesting effects if you mixed in something from them, though I don’t know if they have semen. Do they have semen? Maeve, you haven’t grown a penis and cum on or in any of us yet, so I guess I can’t confirm, but do Fetch produce semen?”

“We do,” Maeve replied, completely unbothered by Sabina’s unfiltered train of thought. “Usually, we fake it when we’re transformed into some other race, though. Most races have white semen, and our cum is green, so it’d be kind of a giveaway that you aren’t what you appear to be if you were to shoot a hot load across some girl or guy’s thighs and it’s the wrong color.”

“Right,” Sabina nodded contemplatively. “That makes sense.”

“Green cum?” Bridget whispered to Sorcha. “How weird is that…”

“To answer one of your other questions for Amarantha,” Maeve continued, “I already gave her some of my non-sexual fluids. Blood, if you want to call it that. So, I don’t think my semen would make a difference.”

“It’s actually one of the main base ingredients of the formula,” Amarantha nodded at the Fetch. “I couldn’t have made this without Maeve! Or I would have at least needed to track down some other Fetch to give me their fluids, and that’s not exactly easy.”

Jadis didn’t need to imagine. Finding a Fetch when they didn’t want to be found was a challenge, for sure, which made whatever concoction Ammy had formulated a rarity indeed. Considering the list of ingredients that she had procured for the Mystic from the Dryads and elsewhere, the mixture was probably worth a small fortune and was also probably incredibly difficult to source.

“Well, it looks great,” Syd said from where she stood off to one side, slightly behind the others. “Your transformation, I mean. You look great. Beautiful.”

Amarantha’s grin grew extra wide at Syd’s compliment, showing off her sharp fangs. Her tail lifted high, puffing up her dress, while her ears twitched with excitement.

“You really like it?” she asked while spinning in place with only a slight wobble.

“I really do,” all three of Jadis readily agreed.

Her open admiration seemed to tickle Amarantha’s fancy, and she stood there, giggling to herself as she gave Jadis’ bodies a look that was a mix between giddy and sultry. Not an easy expression to pull off, but the little minx had the right mix of cute and sexy to make the combo work.

“Good!” Ammy exclaimed in a bright chirp. “Does that mean I can join?”

“Join?” Jay repeated. “Join what?”

She had some strong suspicions as to what the troublemaking Lares might be hinting at, but she wanted direct confirmation. Considering the circumstances, Jadis didn’t think playing coy was the right move. Well, Ammy seemed like she might have fun playing around and teasing for a while, but Jadis didn’t know how long the potion was going to last, for one, and the mystery of the situation was kind of ruined by Wilhelm’s unintentional interjection for another. Better to be straightforward and confirm if Amarantha really did want to try romancing her, perhaps going on a few dates, or—

“Join the orgy, of course,” Amarantha announced as though she was talking about having afternoon tea. “You all are going to do a big ritual with lots of weird sex stuff before the official start of the march, right? I want in! Adding me will empower you all, and I’ll get to try out having sex in this weird body, so it’s a win—”

Ammy’s explanation was abruptly interrupted by Kerr wrapping her arms around the smaller woman from behind, one hand over her mouth. The therion looked somewhat panicked, with her gaze locked onto Aila, who was giving her the death glare to end all death glares. Sending the redhead a sickly grin, she held the squirming and whining Lares in place, bare feet dangling off the ground.

“We were planning on sort of easing our way into that idea,” Kerr forced a laugh.

“Did you seriously tell Amarantha about Lascivious Empowerment?” Dys called out, her tone a mixture of shock and bemusement. “Really?”

“Kerr…” Aila growled, her tone far darker than Dys’ questioning voice.

“Maeve thought it would be a good idea,” Kerr threw the other woman under the bus.

All eyes turned to the Fetch, who Jadis just noticed at that moment had shrunk in size to Sorcha’s height and had slipped partially behind a chair.

“And how do you even know about that ritual?” Aila demanded sternly, her icy tone brooking no lies. “We haven’t even had a proper discussion about status sheets with you yet!”

Maeve pointed at Kerr, mouth shut and eyes wide as she literally shrank back from the upset mage.

“Look, we were going to invite Maeve anyway, now that she and Jadis are fucking regularly, aren’t we?” Kerr said, still holding Amarantha suspended against her chest. “I figured we could add Ammy, too, while we were at it. Really boost the numbers up. Maybe we even get that sexy bondage girl to join in, too! I bet she’d be down for some freaky stuff like climax denial.”

“The ritual was supposed to be a discussion amongst all of us,” Aila stated in no uncertain terms. “Not something for you two to sneak around behind our backs to set up!”

While Aila continued to scold Kerr and Maeve, Jadis thought the proposition over. In all honesty, it sounded like a good idea to her. Maybe she was biased, since what Kerr and Maeve were suggesting was basically the same way she had gotten together with Eir, Kerr, and Thea for the first time, though the specific ritual was different. Still, with how many of them there were in the harem, it was about time that they redid the Lascivious Empowerment ritual. The boost to her Eldritch stat was increased by the number of participants, and even if she was only counting Severina, Meli, and Maeve as additions, the overall number would go up by two compared to the last intense session in Weigrun. If Ammy was added to the group effort, the effect would be even better. And that wasn’t even considering Noct, who Jadis absolutely did not want to discount as a possibility.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Jay announced, speaking up to be heard over the back and forth currently going on between Aila and Kerr.

“You do?” Ammy said into the silence after pulling Kerr’s hand away from her mouth.

“Yeah, I do,” Jay grinned at her. “I’d love to get to know you more, and I’m absolutely going to. But I already know you well enough that I’d be happy to invite you to join us in the ritual, so long as no one objects.”

While Aila still looked frustrated with Kerr, she settled down and gave Ammy a small but friendly smile.

“I have no objection to you,” she said while holding the Lares’ gaze. “Maybe towards someone’s cavalier attitude regarding secrets, but that is no reflection on you.”

There was a general murmur of agreement among all gathered, with no dissent voiced or even hinted at. Looking around the room full of women, Amarantha wiggled out of Kerr’s grasp to land on the floor before giving another wiggle of her hips that seemed to be her version of an excited dance.

“Yes! This is going to be so much fun!” Ammy exclaimed, her eyes shining brightly. “When do we start!?”

“Well, we haven’t actually prepared for the ritual yet,” Jay said as her lovers started talking and moving around the room. “We kind of need to talk about this in a little more detail, since the requirements to make the ritual work will need some figuring out with so many people participating. Also, if we do want to invite Noct, we’ll need to talk with her, too.”

“Do we even have enough orgasm suppression necklaces made?” Dys turned to Sabina in question.

“Oh, we should,” she nodded in thought. “I bought a bunch of the supplies needed for the enchantments and then I made them all one night like a month ago because you were busy and I was bored and I figured they might as well be made now instead of later, so we have forty-nine of them in one of my supply chests on the Leviathan.”

“Forty-nine?” Dys blinked at the smith.

“Yes!” She smiled. “You know, just in case.”

“Right…”

“Well, I guess that part is handled, at least,” Jay murmured before focusing more directly onto the wiggling catgirl who had moved to stand very close to her. “I guess we have to figure out the rest of the logistics, and we need to talk to Noct. But other than that… oh. Oh! How long is the potion effect going to last? Will you need to make more?”

Amarantha continued to shake her hips from side to side, her tail raised in excitement as she stared at Jay like a cat who had found a particularly juicy piece of fish. Her voice vibrated with energy as she spoke, and Jadis was starting to worry that she wasn’t going to be able to live up to whatever expectations that the catgirl had for them being intimate. A silly thought, she recognized a moment later; Jadis was amazing at sex. But it still felt a little awkward to be put on the spot so exuberantly.

“Don’t worry about that,” Amarantha said with confidence. “The effect is permanent!”

“…Permanent?”

“Yes!” Ammy announced proudly, causing everyone around her to lapse back into stunned silence. “Wouldn’t want to shrink back into my Lares form while you were sexing me up, right? That’s why I splurged on the expensive ingredients. Thanks again for getting the good stuff!”

Jay stared, dumbfounded, at the utterly impossible to anticipate Lares.

“…You’re welcome.”