There was no mirror in the bathroom but there was a kind of silvery fog which coalesced into five flat, reflective surfaces when Harper touched it lightly with her fingertips. The five surfaces reflected her from front, back, and both sides as well as, bizarrely, from above so it looked like she was peering down at the top of her own head. Okay, that was weird but Harper didn’t care at this point—the mist-mirror with its strange angles would work fine for her purpose.
Taking a deep breath to control her nerves, she slipped off the t-shirt and looked at her chest. Her breasts definitely looked bigger under the red dress. But when she slipped the stretchy top of the gown down, she had to bite back a scream.
There was no doubt her breasts were bigger—much bigger—but that wasn’t the only upsetting thing. Her nipples, which had always been light brown, just a few shades darker than her skin, had turned a blackberry color—a deep purple that didn’t seem right or natural to Harper at all. Even worse, when she took one breast in her hand and squeezed the nipple experimentally, a drop of pale purple fluid leaked out.
“Oh my God,” Harper whispered to herself. “The sex-milk! I thought I threw it all up!”
Well apparently not, hon, whispered a sarcastic little voice in her head. Because you’ve definitely got the same problem all those girls at the nursing tent had.
Harper stared at her reflection in horror. In the side views the mist-mirror showed, her breasts looked positively huge. They weren’t quite watermelon-sized yet but they still seemed to be growing and filling with the weird nectar she’d seen the girls at the nursing tent pump out of their boobs. What was she going to do about this? She didn’t have a breast pump to use and she couldn’t hide it from Shad forever.
For a moment, she flashed on the idea of asking the big Kindred to help her. The mental image of him ducking his head to take one of her ripe nipples between his lips sent a flush of heat to her swollen pussy but Harper quickly pushed it away.
She couldn’t ask Shad for help that way—he didn’t even like her. To him, she was just a responsibility to be taken care of. The key to changing the past and keeping his people from being annihilated by the Hive. Sure, he was gorgeous but Harper couldn’t get past his cold disinterest enough to think of him in a sexual way…or so she told herself. Still, she couldn’t get the idea of him touching her…sucking her nipples…out of her head.
Stop it, she told herself roughly. He doesn’t like you and he wouldn’t want to help you like that. If he did help, it would only be out of a sense of pity or duty. Besides, you didn’t like the idea of the male customers drinking “nectar” from the other girls, what makes you think Shad would want to suck it out of your breasts? It’s a sick idea—the whole nursing tent and what they were doing there is sick—disgusting!
Then why wouldn’t the idea leave her head? And why was she getting more and more turned on, despite the desperate situation she found herself in? She ought to be freaking out about this—instead she had the almost overwhelming urge to rub her swollen pussy until she came.
Two things stopped her from doing it.
One, she had the very strong feeling that if she gave in to temptation—to this feeling of all pervasive lust that was clouding her judgment—she would never stop. She clearly remembered how willing and even eager all the girls at the nursing tent had been to have sex with complete strangers. Harper had the idea that if she started by giving herself pleasure, she would end by begging Shad to service her as well and she didn’t want that—didn’t want to beg a man she barely knew and who clearly didn’t like her—to help her sexually.
The second thing that stopped her urge for self-exploration was the fear that Shad and their host might hear her. She tended to get loud if she wasn’t careful and she had the idea that the sex-milk aphrodisiac she had ingested would make it really hard for her to be careful and quiet. She didn’t need to start moaning and gasping and advertising her problem—what she needed was to get someplace even more private—and preferably soundproof—so she could take care of herself and try to figure out what to do next.
But where was she going to find someplace like that?
Then Master Yll-no’s words came back to her…“Do you wish to take a bath, my dear? You might want to wait until you get back to the space yacht I am forging for you. The bathing facilities will be truly sumptuous, I promise.”
That’s what I need—to get back to the new ship he’s making for us, Harper told herself. I’m sure I can find a way to help myself and get some relief there. After all, how long can this possibly last?
Then she remembered something else—what Pie-lo had said about hoping she enjoyed her “insatiable cravings.” Was this what he’d been talking about? How long did the effects of the sex-milk last? And was there any antidote?
I wonder if they’ll have access to the Interweb on the new ship? Harper wondered. She knew Shad did—it was kind of like the Internet but for the entire known galaxy. Surely she could find some information on her plight and how to deal with it there.
The idea reinforced the feeling that she had to get away from here. Had to get someplace where she could figure this mess out on her own.
And she had to do it quick before her breasts got any bigger or started leaking.
“Right,” Harper muttered to herself. She pulled up her gown and pulled down the t-shirt. She’d had it knotted at her side before but now she unknotted it and let it hang loose, which made it considerably roomier. Satisfied at last that her problem was hidden, Harper fluffed her hair and left the bathroom. But she knew her new, larger breasts wouldn’t stay hidden for long.
She had to get out of here fast.
* * * * *
Shad thought Harper seemed distracted and withdrawn when she came back from the fresher unit. But he supposed she was simply trying to digest all the strange things that had happened to them that day. It had been incredibly rough on her, he knew. From the moment he’d grabbed her on the beach it seemed they hadn’t had a moment’s peace or rest. He hoped they would be able to take it easy and catch their breath once they got aboard the fabulous space yacht Master Yll-no was forging for them.
Of course, they had to get to it first.
So when the Master forger finally finished speaking Harper’s new life into being, he had a request.
“Master Yll-no,” he said. “I would ask you for one more thing—a V-copter of our own to take us back to the spaceport. It is a long, weary journey and I would be pleased to get there sooner rather than later.”
The Master forger’s golden eyes gleamed.
“As to that, I can do better than a V-copter. I can transport the two of you directly to the ship I have forged for you simply by moving your doppelgangers there.” He gestured to the miniscule Harper and Shad figures which were still standing on the balcony of the palace on the model of their new home world.
Harper frowned. “But since you, uh, spoke all this into being, will we meet ourselves there? I mean, will there suddenly be two of us?”
“Naturally not, my dear—that is dimensionally impossible. I would have to merge these doppelgangers into you eventually anyway—transporting you as I do so will simply save time.”
“So…that won’t change us at all?” Harper still seemed hesitant. She had her arms crossed over her chest in a strangely protective way that made Shad frown—was something wrong with her?
“You will be the exact same people you have always been,” the Master Forger promised. “Would you like me to instantly transport you?”
“Yes,” Shad answered for them both. “I think that would be the best and fastest way to go.”
“Then hold perfectly still, the two of you. And may fortune favor you,” he added, looking at Shad.
“Thank you. For all of your help. For honoring the debt you owed my fathers,” Shad said, nodding.
“Thank you for offering me a challenge. These forgeries are the most complete I could make them—I pray for your sake they will fool She Who Alters.”
“I pray so too,” Shad said fervently. He was well aware of the risk they were taking. If Master Yll-no’s forgeries didn’t fool the Goddess, they would be dead and without enough power in the looper to start again. Still, what else could they do?
Trust, whispered a voice in his brain—the words of the Mother of All Life.
I am trying, he told her. Then he felt a strange sensation—a feeling of weightlessness though his feet remained on the ground.
Looking up, he saw that Master Yll-no had lifted his tiny doppelganger, tweezing his black leather vest delicately between thumb and finger, and was moving him slowly over to the model of the golden ship.
“Now when I set him down, you will instantly merge and be where he is—right outside the ship,” the Master forger said. “Ready yourself.”
“I am re—” Shad stared to say but before the words could finish leaving his mouth, there was a swirl of color, a moment of solid blackness, and then he found himself back on the landing platform at the space port, staring up at the immense golden side of a space yacht only the wealthiest could afford.
On the landing spoke beside it, as though in contrast, sat his own battered craft. It looked to Shad like a sad little stray dog next to a showy peacock. However, it did have one advantage over the beautiful yacht—it was real. The space yacht would dissolve into dust after a year and a day but Shad’s little ship would still be there.
But for now it was real enough. He lifted his hand and touched the golden side, which thrummed with power. The ship was as real as the clothing he now wore—black leather trousers and boots and a black leather vest to go with them. He was dressed as his tiny doppelganger had been.
Shad shook his head in wonder. What a pity the forger’s solid illusions couldn’t last forever! If there was anything lasting about them, he could have asked Master Yll-no to change Harper and unmake the part of her that was ten’sora. But eventually she would have reverted back to normal and then they would have been right back where they’d started. Besides, he wasn’t sure if the Master forger would have been willing to work such a drastic change on a living subject. It didn’t seem likely.
Speaking of that, where was Harper?
Shad looked around anxiously, wondering why it was taking so long for her to be transported. Just as he was really beginning to worry and curse himself for allowing the Master to send him first, she finally popped into existence right beside him.
“Oh,” she gasped, and looked around, apparently dazed. She was wearing a new outfit too but Shad couldn’t see it very well—it was obscured by the cloak of thorns which was hissing and spitting at the furry humlock, which she clutched to her chest.
“Are you all right?” Shad asked her, frowning sternly. “I was beginning to get worried.
“Sorry.” She gave him an uncertain look and once again he wondered if something was wrong with her. “I, uh, liked the humlock so much Master Yll-no gave it to me. But that meant he had to make a little one to give to the little Harper before he could transport me and well…that took some time. Plus, these two don’t like each other at all.” She nodded down at the angry cloak of thorns and the quivering, whimpering humlock which seemed to be struggling to get away from the threat of the menacing cloak.
“So I see,” he said dryly. Leave it to Harper to pick up two pets which hated each other. In every path they’d been on together, she was always too soft-hearted when it came to animals. “Here,” he added, reaching for the frightened humlock, “Let me help.”
“No!” Harper pulled away, keeping the furry creature tight to her chest. “I mean…he’ll be okay once we get settled in the ship.”
Shad frowned. “I’m sure he will but don’t you want to separate the two of them and get a little peace? I can carry it, er, him for you for a while—I don’t mind.”
“No.” She actually took two steps back from him, her eyes wide. “Thank you anyway but I…I want him near me.”
Shad narrowed his eyes as he stared at her. What was going on here? Why was she so intent on hanging onto the frightened humlock. Also…his nose wrinkled…she smelled different. There was a warm, sexual female musk emanating from her that he hadn’t smelled on her before.
Something was wrong. His sensitive Kindred nose told him so, as much as her strange behavior did. Harper was hiding something—but what?
“Empress Kyreella! The Empress has returned!” a voice suddenly called out.
A servant in black and silver livery came rushing up and then a gilded gangplank began to descend from the side of the huge ship.
“Your Majesty!” the servant exclaimed, falling to his knees at Harper’s feet. “Forgive me that I did not see you before! I was sent to watch for your return but I must have missed your appearance. Please, forgive your unworthy servant!”
“Um, that’s okay. I forgive you,” Harper mumbled. She looked taken aback at the slavish devotion shown by her new “servant.”
“Remember,” Shad murmured to her. “It’s not real—none of this is real, Harper. Don’t let it rattle you.”
“Okay, thanks.” She shot him a grateful look but the next moment a phalanx of servants—guards followed by lady’s maids—came rushing down the gangplank to throw themselves at her feet as well.
“Oh Empress, you look so tired. Do please come with us,” one of the maids begged. She was dressed, as all the others were, in black and silver.
“Yes, do come. We will draw you a warm and soothing bath to ease the weariness of travel,” another maid exclaimed.
“Well…sure, I guess.” Harper shot Shad a bemused look. “It might be fake but I guess we might as well enjoy it, right?”
“I suppose.” But there was still something about her that worried him, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. As the lady’s maids and guards escorted their “Empress” up the gangplank and into the vast golden space yacht, Shad vowed to himself to get Harper alone and find out exactly what it was.