The slave’s curses kept coming.

In between the sounds her body was making without permission.

In between the tears that were now continuous.

In between the visible, involuntary clenching of her thighs against their restraints as the compound in her ass began its work, the warmth spreading outward from the plug, the nerve endings there already beginning to read sensation differently—

The Mercenary Queen observed this.

Her grey eye tracked the slave’s face with clinical attention. Reading the conflict in it. The rage and the arousal and the horror at the arousal and the rage at the horror.

’A rich man,’ she thought, ’will pay very well for this.’

The rod came out with a slick, obscene sound.

She set it down.

Turned and walked toward the door—her gown dragging, her mask giving nothing, the dildo leaving a thin wet line across the table’s surface.

At the door, she paused.

Didn’t turn back.

"Your vocal cords will be preserved," she said. "They want to hear you."

Then she left.

The slave’s cries filled the room.

The men in the outer hall were still counting their whip-strokes.

The Mercenary Queen walked through them without stopping, toward the auction floor, where her preparations were nearly complete and the wealthy inner-circle patrons were already being escorted to their seats.

There was money to collect.

There was always money to collect.

## Part Two: Maranor — The Grand Hall

’Three hours later. Dawn.’

Consciousness returned slowly.

Not the sharp kind—not the combat-wake of a cultivator’s trained response, where the eyes opened and the meridians were already cycling. The ’other’ kind. The rare kind. The kind that only happened when the body had been genuinely, thoroughly spent and the mind had let go of its watch without deciding to.

He was warm.

That registered first. Warm in the specific total way of being surrounded on multiple sides by something soft and alive. The smell of it—multiple perfumes overlapping, the smell of bodies and dried sweat and something sweet—hung in the air without being overwhelming.

He was also—

’Moving.’

Not him. Not his movement. But his body was receiving movement—regular, rhythmic, the specific bounce-and-settle of something pressing down on him and lifting again.

PAAAH. PAAAH. PAAAH.

’Soft.’

Rhythmic.

’Very present.’

He didn’t open his eyes immediately.

His cultivator’s awareness activated first—the passive sweep of divine sense that happened before full consciousness in any trained fighter—reading the room around him. Multiple life signatures. Warm, intimate, the individual pulses of his wives in varying states of activity.

And him.

Specifically: his cock. Fully erect, buried inside something ’very’ tight and ’very’ warm that was moving up and down at a lazy, self-serving pace.

And his ’face’—

Weight. On his face. Specifically: soft, warm, ’wet’ weight. A pair of inner thighs bracketing his cheeks. Something pressing directly over his mouth. The unmistakable, intimate geometry of a pussy sitting on his face.

Tianlong lay still for another three full seconds.

Processing.

’Were they using me like a sex doll when I was asleep?’

He opened his eyes.

Or tried to.

Vision: significantly obstructed.

What he could see was the underside of a woman—specifically her outer thighs, her lower back, the pale green skin of her and the way her spine curved forward as she leaned slightly, her hips rocking in slow grinding circles over his face. The small swell of her barely-visible early pregnancy. Her back was toward him.

His mouth—which had apparently been doing something while he was unconscious, operating on some deep-body cultivation reflex—was pressed directly against her cunt lips, and she was ’grinding’ over it with the specific focused intent of a woman who has located what she wants and has decided to take it.

He felt his own tongue. Damp. She’d been doing this for a while.

"’Mhhh—’" A soft sound from above. Controlled, as always. The precise, minimal moan of a woman who moaned like she did everything—efficiently, with excellent form. "’—hnn—’"

’Sylvea,’ he thought, reading the scent. ’That’s Sylvea on my face.’

Which meant—

He tilted his awareness downward.

On his cock—that lazy, rolling, self-serving bounce—the body riding him was facing ’away’, positioned reverse cowgirl, and from the dense warm grip and the specific weight and the way each down-stroke landed with an audible PAAAH of substantial soft flesh meeting his pelvis—

Hips. ’Wide.’

He tilted his head as far as Sylvea’s thighs allowed.

Could see approximately thirty percent of what was happening below.

Enough.

A thick ass.

’Generously’ thick. The kind that had its own physics when it moved—each downward drop sending a ripple through the flesh that traveled from the point of impact outward in all directions, the cheeks bouncing back up from the collision and settling with a secondary jiggle before the next stroke. The skin there was flushed, reddened from an extended session, sweat-damp and gleaming faintly in the early dawn light that had begun entering the hall through high stone windows.

PAAAH.

The ass landed. Bounced. His cock disappeared entirely into the grip above him.

PAAAH.

Rose. Clung. Came free with a wet sound. Dropped again.

"’Hnn—’" Sylvea’s hips pressed down on his face with slightly increased urgency. Her grinding accelerated by a fraction. "’—mh—’"

She was close.

She’d apparently ’been’ close for some time, judging by how she was using him, and she’d been waiting for him to wake up or she’d decided she no longer needed to.

Tianlong turned his head slightly.

Looked.

Around the edges of Sylvea’s thighs, he could now see more of the hall.

Yuna was at his right side, lying on her stomach along the length of the bed, her chin on her folded hands, watching the ass bounce on his cock with the expression of someone observing something that was both interesting and faintly irritating.

Her red hair was loose and wild. Her silver eyes were half-lidded.

She had, at some point in the night, lost everything she’d been wearing.

At his left, Helvora sat upright against the headboard, arms crossed, grey eyes aimed at the ceiling, jaw set. Still naked. Still managing to look like she disapproved of everything in principle while declining to leave.

Akane was somewhere nearby—he could sense her tails, the faint warm crackle of her aura—but positioned out of his current sightline.

And on his cock—

"’Sylvea,’" he said.

His voice came out slightly muffled by the thighs framing his face.

The woman on his face—’not’ Sylvea, apparently, because—

The ass on his cock ’paused’.

Turned.

A head, looking back over one shoulder. Green skin. Emerald eyes. That particular ancient elfin expression that managed to contain both serene composure and the expression of someone who had been caught in something and was choosing not to acknowledge it as catching.

Sylvea.

Riding him.

Her hips rolling forward and back in the slow, self-directed grind of someone making careful use of a resource.

Her small breasts—those precisely-shaped handfuls with their long, prominent nipples—were moving with each roll of her hips.

Her green hair was entirely loose, falling forward, sweeping the sheets when she leaned.

"’Good morning, darling,’" she said.

The expression on her face was the one she always wore. Serene.

Slightly knowing. Ancient in the way that made you feel like she’d planned this three centuries ago and was simply waiting for you to catch up.

"’Were you—’" he started.

"’Hnn~—!!♡’"