The dragon's harem

When Merlin woke up, she was back inside the private bath, soaking in a warm pool of highly concentrated mana water. Her entire body hurt like hell, and she felt like her head was about to split open, as if she were having the worst hangover of her entire life.

She growled and rolled her eyes as she looked around, trying to find who brought her here. She could see several maids standing around the pool and watching her, and Arad himself was all the way in the corner of another pool, surrounded by more of his wives.

The last thing she could remember was Yog talking to her about some mini-universe after she shot her in the head with something that looked like a gun. Merlin’s memories were all blurry, so she must’ve passed out right after and been brought here.

As she was trying to orient herself, she first checked on her insides to make sure that all of her grafted organs were in their place and working fine, and the result she found wasn’t all that bad. She was facing total organ failure and a horrifying level of internal burn damage from how much mana she forced out, but all of that could be easily fixed with a bit of healing magic and rest.

She opened her lips and called the maids. ”How long, have I been here?”

The maids looked at her, and then one of them approached. ”Lord Arad said that if you asked that, we should ignore you. He said you should rest and not care about time or your duties.” Seeing the maid’s cold glare, Merlin felt a bit annoyed.

”Listen here, the entire mana of this place needs to be maintained now that...” But before she could finish, the maid shoved her foot in her mouth. ”Lord Arad said that if you tried to argue, we are to shut you up because we would never win an argument. You are to rest, and that is an order, not a request.”

The maid then pushed Merlin’s head down into the water, using her foot to keep her mouth open as if she wanted to drown her. ”You were doing just fine until you woke up. Keep your head underwater and breathe it. It will both heal and recover your lost mana.”

Merlin struggled for a bit, but a second later she realised that the maid wasn’t just messing with her. Breathing this water healed her lungs and delivered mana directly to her bloodstream. It was highly uncomfortable, but it worked. So she stopped resisting and closed her eyes, trying to take a few minutes to orient herself, as she, for some reason, could get enough oxygen from the water itself.

But the moment she tried to relax, something clicked in her mind. When she saw Arad earlier with the other wives, one woman there wasn’t one of his wives... Tall, divinely beautiful with glowing white skin, flaming white hair and eyes, and enough heat to melt the entirety of existence.

Kossuth... she used her as a weapon in the fight against Lilia as a spellcasting focus for fire magic. What was she even doing here? No, before that... When Merlin sent the magic to collect everyone to merge her into her chimera form, Kossuth herself shouldn’t have been pulled in.

Even the maids could easily will themselves out of that situation, and from what Merlin knew, only Arad’s other wives would be willing enough to let her toy with their bodies and souls as she did. In fact, she had expected most of them to reject her call.

Wanting to know the details, Merlin bit on the maid’s toes slightly, and the maid pulled her foot, allowing Merlin to get back to the surface and gasp for air. ”Ah...” After taking several breaths and coughing the water from her lungs, she looked toward Arad and asked the maids. ”What is Kossuth doing here?”

The maid threw a glance back and then leaned down. ”She basically said, ’I’m single now, and I could use some fun.’ She showed up when all the wives were watching your fight with Lilia, so one of the maids interviewed her, tried hard to kick her out, but failed.”

The maid then went to explain what happened not that long ago.

Outside the gate of the private quarters in the royal castle, the two Vampire Paladins standing guard noticed the torches flickering a bit too much, and the two of them could feel a hint of divinity in the air. Even though Amaterasu isn’t burning them anymore, as vampires, they were still really sensitive to holy magic.

Then from those flames, Kossuth herself emerged, and the two vampires almost shat themselves. Usually, gods can’t just show up in the mortal world like this, but since she was a dragon in the past, Kossuth had her own ways.

One of the two vampires recognized her as a divine, but didn’t know which one she was. The other vampire, on the other hand, immediately recognized her as Kossuth and gulped with a terrified face. She didn’t pull her weapons since nothing could help them in a fight against this horror. The only thing they could do was send a secret letter to the inside of the quarter to warn everyone.

”Kossuth, Divine of Flames and Inferno. What brought you to us today?” The vampire who recognized her asked with shaking hands, fully expecting her to turn her into ash.

She studied them with a smile for a second, and then grinned. ”I’m single now, and Arad got me into heat when he showed up, so I came to have a bit of fun.” Just hearing that was enough to set hundreds of alarms in the vampires’ heads and made them consider every option.

They can reject her entrance, but she can force her way in, and in the process would probably burn the entire empire. The flame goddess was a Red Drakaina, even though she looked too white from being too hot. If she doesn’t get what she wants by asking nicely, she would use force.

One wrong word and this entire place would turn to ash.

”So, you seek an audience with His Majesty? We can arrange for that, but it’ll take a while.” One of the vampires replied, and Kossuth stared at them with a horrifying grin to the point they pissed themselves, thinking they were about to get incinerated on the spot for insolence.

”I’m not here to see an audience; I’m here for a mating request. Asking someone else to call him for me is a sign of weakness.” She glared at them. ”You were humans before, right? If you wanted a man, you wouldn’t let another woman go ask him out for you.”

”Please, at least wait a few minutes for us to call the maids to properly let you in. It’s the rules of His Majesty’s Lair.” The other vampire forced her lips open to speak, and Kossuth seemed to calm down a bit and take a step back. ”Fine, if it is his rules. Call the maids. But I call hypocrisy here. He invaded my lair like a wild beast and murdered all of my angel guards... I wish he would’ve ravaged me there; It would’ve been a dream come true.”