The Wraith's Surrogate

Pieta donned the ceremonial robes, rather than her usual leather armor. This, too, will be part of her duty to the order, even if it means the end of her days slaying monsters. The loose-fitting robes will allow her arms and legs to be bound, and they'll hardly slow a blade to the heart, if it comes to that. If the Binding goes awry.

Thars stepped up behind her, moving her braid aside to kiss her neck. On one hand, his touch makes her more keenly aware of all she might lose today. On the other, this might be the last time she feels his affection.

"You could let another acolyte bear this burden," he said softly. It was close to heresy, but she understood why it tempted him.

"I've trained for this since my first branding," she reminded him. "The wraith must be bound to someone, or else it will have its choice of host. And I can't keep fighting monsters for the rest of my days."

She felt the truth of that in her bones. She had too many scars to count, and would always feel an ache in her joints from some of those wounds.

Turning towards her mate, she kissed him, her hands drawing his face close. His embrace also found the looseness of her robes, and the curves scarcely concealed underneath. She could feel her pulse beating faster, and a suggestion in the way his crotch pressed against her.

"There's no time for that," she said reluctantly. "After?"

They both knew there might not be an after. But it was more than that. They'd been pondering having a child, before this, if only Pieta could find her way out of her dangerous career for the order.

Now she'd found a way out, but it involved making herself a host to a malicious spirit. One that might someday take her over completely, turning her into the very kind of monster the order was dedicated to fighting. They said sometimes the two halves of you integrated so gradually that there was no way to notice it happening. The order's enemies were eternal; imprisoning them for decades was the best they could do. She had to trust her fellow acolytes to know when she was lost, and to take her down, as she would have.

It soured her on the idea of bringing a child into the world, when she couldn't trust herself around that child. When she didn't know how long she'd still be herself.

If that meant keeping others at a safe distance from herself, that could be part of the sacrifice she was making. She wouldn't push Thars away, because he always knew what he was getting into as her mate.

"Come back to me, my love," he said.

Unless the procedure went wrong, that was something she could do.

#

Outwardly, it might have looked to Thars as if nothing had changed, just that his warrior mate no longer had to ride out into combat. Pieta found herself missing it: the candid campfire chats with her comrades, the rush of ambush, the pride of victory. This quiet life took some getting used to.

And what might have looked like normalcy from the outside was a constant struggle on the inside. She had to concentrate to stay in control, and suppress the other being inside her. It took meditation, breathing exercises, and sometimes a white-knuckled grip. And still she could feel her training faltering.

It was little things at first, the way her fingers danced impatiently on the table. The way her loins grew moist and tender at inappropriate times. But also, there were dreams of places she'd never been. She had intrusive thoughts too, like a sudden desire to grab a gourd and plunge it into herself.

When she and Thars were together, it was especially trying for her. He thrust into her, and as always, her body rejoiced at it, even though she knew they had to hold back, in more ways than one. They had agreed to hold off on bearing children, and Pieta felt her will weakening as her climax grew imminent. It meant neither of them could really achieve satisfaction together anymore.

Even so, Thars yelped in pain, his back arching, his hips driving into her that much harder. Pieta realized her nails were digging into his back, pressing down more sharply than she intended, and she let up.

"Sorry," she gasped.

"I don't mind it," he replied, mortifying her a bit. All their years together, and she never knew he welcomed pain that way. And yet... had the guest in the back of her mind just been lashing out? Or had the wraith somehow intuited this about him, while Pieta herself had not?

One day, she sat down at the table with a paper and quill, and wrote a message.

"I will let you out once in a while, if you will stop testing me. Agreed?"

Pieta blinked, and let the wraith come to the foreground of her mind, just for a second. A blink later, she was back in control.

On the paper, there was now another line of text, in someone else's handwriting.

"Or else what?"

Pieta replied, "I'm prepared to die. And then your next host will not be so lenient."

She relinquished herself for another brief span, and when her vision returned, there was an answer.

"I, Llora, accept this agreement."

Pieta worried about entering into any contract with a supernatural entity. Perhaps it had been a mistake to even let herself be taken over for those brief moments. But she knew she wasn't negotiating from a place of strength. And even those brief moments seemed to appease Llora for a little while. Pieta could find a way to yield control of her briefly, and safely. With Thars nearby, to keep her out of trouble.

#

It gave Thars chills whenever he looked at his mate and saw someone else behind her eyes. There were moments when he could almost mistake one for the other. But Llora's gaze was always wide-eyed and intense. Somehow it made the area around her eyes seem darker. Something about the way she held her jaw made her cheeks seem paler and sunken. And the way she moved--fast, jerky--made it clear that she wasn't the body's original occupant.

"I need to step next door," he told her. "Can I trust you that long?"

"I'm not going to kill Pieta," Llora said, with a cackle. "I would have already done it, if I wanted to."

Thars sighed. It was the most reassurance he was going to get.

"And then, maybe when you get back..." Llora said, making Pieta's voice unnaturally low and sultry, to the point of cracking.

She leaned one arm up against the doorframe, and then turned her head and licked the wood suggestively.

This was part of why Thars had to get out of the house for a little while. Llora wasn't shy about her intentions for him. But Thars knew, even if it was Pieta's body, a body he loved very much and had already experienced through and through, anything he did with Llora would be a betrayal of their bond as mates.

"You know I can't," Thars said.

"You mean won't. I know what you're capable of," she said. "Sometimes when she lets me out to play, there's still an afterglow running through her bloodstream. Sometimes she's still wet down there, it's driving me mad!"

It was driving him mad too, though. To be sharing a house, part of the time anyway, with someone who desperately wanted it. And the more he got to know Llora, the less repulsive the thought became. When she wanted to, she could say just the kind of thing that would get him hard. As if she could smell it on him.

"We've talked about this before!" Thars said, trying to end the discussion.

"If you won't please me, perhaps I ought to find someone else who will," Llora said to his back.

Thars rounded on her. "Don't you dare. Fiddle yourself off, if you must. But I won't let you do anything to hurt her."

He expected his time away from the house to be a relief, except now he felt a pressure to make it back as soon as possible, before Llora did anything rash.

#

That night, Thars climbed into bed with Pieta. Even though his exhaustion was weighing on him, there was something unresolved in him too, that wouldn't rest. He traced the curve of Pieta's hip, and she giggled at his touch, wriggling back against him, feeling the pressure of him against the backs of her thighs.

It was often like this. She didn't often demand it from him, but she welcomed it, woke to it when he brought it out in her. Despite himself, Thars wondered what it would be like with Llora, someone who wanted it so badly.

He felt Pieta's nipple firming against his palm, her breaths deepening, sending blood flow to her nethers. His lips sought out the offered curve of her neck. As his fingers reached the delta of her legs, she bucked her hips back against him.

Through careful repositioning, he lined himself up with her, guiding the tip of himself into her. Her heat opened to him, her interior seeping and welcoming as he fed more of himself little by little.

Had they neglected this? She seemed to be heating up quickly, everything inside herself sensitive and reactive, each thrust so tender it could be their last. Thars hoped he could get her off before he'd have to withdraw from her, and this time, it seemed like he just might.

Her hand reached back to his hip, urging him on, drawing him close. Her cries rose in pitch until there was no higher height to achieve, and then... yes. He felt her shudder in his arms, felt the muscles inside her contract.

Her hand on his hip gripped him hard, as she rode out her orgasm. Her nails started to dig into him, and he noticed that her moans went low, her voice frying on them. She pushed her hips back at him with a sudden movement.

Thars couldn't be sure at first, but he feared it might be Llora now. But if it was still Pieta--or worse, if the two were starting to blend--then he couldn't risk asking the question. At the same time, he couldn't risk continuing to thrust into her, without being sure who she was right now.

Instead, he withdrew from her, and climbed up, as if to be on top now. Looking down into her eyes, seeing her wicked smirk, there was no doubt anymore.

"You can't be here now," he said.

"Oh come on! I arrived just as the fireworks were tapering off," she whined. "How about you fuck me for a little while, and next time I cum, I'll yield control to Pieta again. She won't even know I was here!"

"No. I can't do that," he said.

At the same time, he realized there was already physical evidence, red crescents on his hip where she dug her nails in. Shit.

"Just stick it back in, just for a second. Please?" she mimed a pathetic frown. "I'll make it so very worth your while."

"No. I need Pieta back, right now. This isn't negotiable," he said.

"Or else what? You'll tie me down? Oh no!" Llora said sarcastically. "Fine."

Then Pieta was there, looking a little disoriented by the gap in time, with Thars no longer thrusting into her from behind, but now leaning over her.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You were... Llora surfaced for a moment," he said.

He wondered how much to tell her, and how stridently to plead his innocence. Probably the more he said, the less she'd believe. It was an impossible situation.

"I must have lost control right when I..."

"Yes, that's probably how she managed to seize it," he said. "What do you want to do now?"

Her chest was still heaving with excitement, but not entirely the good kind anymore.

"Would you be offended if we don't take this any further tonight?" Pieta asked, obviously rattled by the experience.

"No, of course not," Thars replied.

#

This kept happening. It seemed like Pieta almost couldn't achieve orgasm without unintentionally giving Llora an opportunity to take control. This in turn made Pieta anxious about reaching orgasm, and reluctant to be intimate at all.

And every time it happened, Thars was left unsatisfied. Sure, he could stroke himself off if he needed to, but it wasn't remotely the same.

None of this was helping with the problem of sharing their home with another woman, one who actively sought out sex. At Thars' insistence, she started to fiddle herself off, giving herself the orgasms she was denying Pieta. And she wasn't subtle about it either. Even from another room, Thars was tormented with hearing his mate's fingers squelching in his mate's sex, hearing Llora's throaty moans as she pleasured herself. From the intensity of them, he wondered sometimes if Llora was drawing greater pleasure from Pieta's body than Pieta ever had.

Even so, Llora was insistent on her demands. She deserved to have a mate too, she said. Thars might be her first choice, but she was also willing to sleep around and find herself another, if that would be more amenable. But Thars refused to talk to Pieta about it, because he didn't want to be the one arguing in favor of what Llora wanted, knowing Pieta would be arguing the opposite.

"Thars, did you know about this?" Pieta asked one night. In her hand was a sheet of paper, with Llora's shaky handwriting.

"No, what is it?" he asked.

"Her uh... petition I guess... for a mate," Pieta said.

Thars sighed. "I told her not to bother you with that."

"It seems like sex is something she's always enjoyed," Pieta said. "If it will keep her out of greater trouble..."

"Are you seriously considering letting her do that kind of thing with your body?"

She searched his eyes. "It would be simpler, and safer, if it was with someone that I completely trust. Are you attracted to her?"

He barked out a laugh. "I'm attracted to you, so..."

A moment later, he realized that was perhaps the wrong thing to say.

"If she propositions you, are you going to be able to resist?" Pieta asked.

"Sure," he said. "I have so far." There was so much coming out now that he didn't mean to.

"For now, yes. But what about in a month? A year? What about for the rest of our lives?"

He didn't answer that, because he didn't have an answer, and didn't dare say that either. He was indeed caught between the two, and unable to resist either one of them for long.

"Thars, I'm asking you if this is something you want," Pieta said.

"I want whatever you want," he said.

"Your loyalty is appreciated and noted, but it's not what I'm asking, and you're a terrible liar," Pieta said, smiling. "It's fine. Let her have you, if it means she'll give us some privacy once in a while."

"I don't know about this," Thars said. "I don't want this to change... us."

Pieta went on in a whisper. "I'm giving my whole body to containing this monster. If it takes a much lesser portion of yours, so be it. If you consent, of course."

"I can't promise I will," Thars said. "But I shouldn't make a promise either way."

"I entrust you to give her the news," Pieta said.

#

The next morning, Thars woke up hard, wanting Pieta before breakfast, but she pushed his hand away, with a knowing smile.

"I'm going to let her surface," she said.

Thars didn't feel ready for his, but here he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, erect, with Pieta still nude under the bedsheet, and suddenly it was Llora looking up at him.

His heart was in his throat. "Pieta and I have talked this through. You can have me as a mate, and only me. But only if you leave Pieta in peace, whenever she and I are... together. Does that sound agreeable?"

"Mm, very!" Llora said. "Does that start now?"

"Now?" he asked.

She reached for his erection, and some remnant of his instincts urged him to back away. But this only worked if he gave in. Her touch on his shaft was an odd mix of the familiar and the strange. Pieta's fingers, but moving in Llora's way.

"She was already aroused before she gave me control," Llora said. "That can't be by accident."

Llora's fingers reached down, making it clear what she meant. Thars had the unwelcome thought that Llora shouldn't be the one fingering Pieta's cunt, he should be.

Thars was having trouble thinking straight. Had Pieta wanted them to have sex this morning? Had it turned Pieta on, setting that up to happen?

It felt like an out-of-body experience for him, as he drew the bedsheet aside, revealing Pieta/Llora's naked body, as enticing to him as ever. And as he drew himself up over her, she spread her legs, her knees up to either side of his waist. He speared her easily, her arousal copious indeed.

"Ooooh my!" she groaned. "I haven't felt this in a century!"

He wondered if that was exaggeration. He slid into her, until his pelvis came to rest against hers, about as fully conjoined as they could be. With Pieta, he'd normally be kissing her right about now, but with Llora, he couldn't quite stomach it, and she didn't seem to expect it.

This was Pieta's body, the one Thars had made love to countless times, and yet with Llora it felt surprisingly different. He stroked into her slowly at first, savoring the contact, and with every stroke, she deftly squeezed her vaginal muscles, milking him as he withdrew, tightening only to open to him anew when he pressed into her again. It was something that Pieta could do, evidently, but maybe didn't know she could. And it added a whole dimension of sensation to how their organs were delicately, sumptuously playing together.

Like Pieta, or perhaps driven by the same repressed libido, Llora was getting worked up quickly. Llora kept up a constant patter, which Thars could almost tune out as background noise, except as her intensity became infectious.

"Sssso good!" Llora cried out. "Oh! Don't stop! I'm going to cum. I'm about to. About to. About to cum!"

"That's it. Cum for me," Thars found himself saying.

Clearly Llora liked to talk during sex, and Thars wanted to bring her to orgasm, ideally before he'd have to withdraw from her. For one thing, Thars knew he had to keep Llora satisfied, to hold up their end of the bargain, and discourage her from seeking out another mate. For another, he wanted it. Wanted her to cum, wanted to feel it from inside her vagina. But to talk during sex like this, when he and Pieta hardly ever said a word, it felt like a fresh betrayal. He and Llora would share something special, a new experience he hadn't had with Pieta.

And he was right, it was not to be missed. Her orgasm crashed through her, and she clenched down on him hard, rhythmically, harder than Pieta ever had. He could tell it was thunderstorm-intense for her, and he felt struck by lightning from it.

He held out only barely, by the clench of his jaw, and could've lost control at any moment of his choosing. But that was not part of the deal.

Even after her climax, Llora's vaginal muscles never quieted, as she still angled her hips to meet his thrusts. Thars almost hated how nimbly she manipulated PIeta's body, how this union with her brought him a constant, near-overwhelming pleasure, how Llora managed to extract more pleasure from Pieta's body than Pieta herself ever did.

"Are you close?" she asked.

"Getting there," he replied.

"I'm ready," she said. "I want to feel it."

"I can't," he said.

"Oh? She still has you by the balls?" Llora said, reaching for them now.

He intercepted her hand, and held it down with his own.

"I'll need to pull out," he said.

Not that he didn't want to. No, he wanted to erupt inside her more than he had wanted anything in his life. With as much pleasure as she had already brought to him, he could only imagine how it would explode from there, if he let it. He wondered, guiltily, how much she would enjoy it, given how much she had already enjoyed everything else so far.

"Don't!" she whispered, like it'd be their secret. He could see the wildness building up in her eyes again, maybe headed towards another climax. He'd see her through, if he must, but not like this.

Thars shook his head. "I can't--I--can't--I--agh!"

At the last second, he slipped himself from her, and without a stroke, his seed shot out onto her stomach, as well as running down his shaft and over his fingers. His vision went nearly blank as it overtook him.

Afterwards, they laid together, with Llora nestling her body against his, as their sweat cooled. This too felt like more than the bargain allowed. She ran a hand across his stomach, perhaps testing for when he'd be renewed.

"Why did you hold back?" Llora asked. "Is it that you can't ejaculate inside her when she's me?"

"We were planning on trying for a child, before all... this," Thars said. "The plan was, she'd attain an officer rank in the order, stop going out on missions, and we'd finally have the chance to start a family. And then you showed up."

"So?" Llora asked. "What did I do?"

"Other than wrecking the minds of fifteen people?" Thars said, and it drew fresh attention to who--what--he was in bed with.

"Why should my presence stand in the way of you two starting a family?"

Thars could have rehashed the whole discussion for her, but it felt... inappropriate. Llora was a creature to be kept contained, and yes, sexually satisfied if necessary, but she wasn't a party to Thars and Pieta's decision to have a child or not.

And yet, even then, his body was betraying him, his cock firming up in her unexpectedly gentle caress.

"So you never get to cum inside her," Llora said pityingly. "I was wondering why I never felt your seed between my legs, much as I wanted it."

"Llora..." he said, trying to mean it as a cautioning tone. It arose from his throat as more of a plea. A moan.

"We can make a baby together, you and I," Llora said. "I'll let you cum inside me. No, I'll make you cum inside me. It's been far too long since I got to feel it."

She slid atop him, pressing her greedy, sopping slit against his shaft. Not taking him inside her again, not yet anyway, but making it almost torturous for him not to find her entrance and thrust himself up into her with all his strength, as he wanted to. As his very genes willed him to. Except he knew, having just ejaculated, there was seed in his shaft still. Even what they were already doing carried a risk. And he knew that if he yielded to her now, she might do exactly as she was threatening to. She'd make him cum inside her. Inside Pieta.

With a growl, he rolled the two of them over, and dove down, bringing his mouth to her vulva, his tongue to her clit. Turning himself around atop her, he fed himself into her mouth. This too, she did more skillfully than Pieta, though it pained him to admit it. She took him so deep, he worried Pieta would wake up and find her throat sore from use. But he was powerless to hold back when she pushed him over the edge and sucked his semen down as fast as he could produce it. Even after he was drained, he kept licking at her, and didn't let up until she was shaking and exhausted.

#

Thars found it exhausting trying to keep up with both of them; sharing a body didn't seem to slow either woman's appetite. If anything, it meant that whoever woke up next found herself already warmed up to him.

Llora had a goal in mind, and she wasn't subtle about pursuing it. Sometimes she'd role-play, imitating Pieta begging him to knock her up. It wasn't convincing, but it did feed into Thars's irrepressible desires. He wasn't sure how long he could keep this up, without giving in.

"Love, we need to talk," Thars said one morning, after Pieta finished in his arms.

She rolled towards him with a grin on her face, the kind that the two women almost shared sometimes. A shame that he was about to wipe it from her.

"Llora wants a child," he said. And then he quickly added, "It brings me no pleasure to tell you this. You just need to be aware of the situation."

"Has she...? Have you...?" Pieta asked, concerned.

"No, no, no," Thars said. "I would never do that, not without your consent."

"So is this a trick?"

"I wondered that too, at first. But she says she's been a mother many times before, in different hosts. Giving her this, something to care for, it might help keep her under control."

"It sounds like you favor this," she said. It was dangerously close to accusing him of siding with the wraith. Possibly siding with Llora over her.

"I'm your mate. I was willing to have a child with you, and that hasn't changed. But I would never do it against your wishes; that hasn't changed either." He addd, "I also fear that if we don't give her this ourselves, she'll find another way."

"She wouldn't dare!" Pieta growled. "I won't keep any child I don't want."

She glanced away then, perhaps feeling for what had changed. "I still don't think it's a good idea, for now. But... if we conceive a child, however that child is conceived, if it's ours, I'll keep it, and raise it."

Unspoken was the acknowledgement that Thars might be weak enough to succumb to Llora's will. And that Pieta would be disappointed if he did. She'd bear his child, even if she resented how it came to be. Thars didn't want that.

#

Thars thrust into Llora hard, sweat beading on his skin from the exertion. He could feel her second climax not too far off, in the pitch of her scratchy moans, and from the mounting tension in her thighs and abdomen, a tightness wrapped around him at the core, even as she squeezed down on him in time with his thrusts.

From the very start, she'd been able to control her vaginal muscles in a way Pieta never consciously had, and with how much they'd been fornicating, the strength of those muscles--and her command of them--only seemed to increase over time. Thars loved it, and hated how much he loved it.

"I don't know how much longer I can hold out," he said.

His climax was on the horizon, but still a ways off. He was teasing her; he found that she liked talking about getting knocked up, even if they weren't going to go through with it in reality.

"Don't stop! I'm so close!" Llora demanded. And yet there was a plea in her voice, the mighty wraith made to grovel. "I'm--I'm--going to--"

Thars kept up his unrelenting rhythm, but felt something shift in her, and wondered if it was the calm before the storm.

"Do you want it inside you?" he asked, struggling to breathe through it.

"Yes!" she replied, her voice in a higher register. Like Llora imitating Pieta. But there was always a raggedness to her voice that gave her away.

"I'm going to get you pregnant, are you sure you want that?" he teased, drawing it out.

"Give it to me! Please!" she cried.

The urgency in her voice was unmistakable. She was on the razor's edge. He knew if he let go of his self-control, it would catapult both of them sky-high. But he couldn't. And he wasn't done toying with her yet.

"Tell me exactly what it is you want," he said.

"I want--your baby--Thars--I--pregnant--" she lost control of her words as her orgasm overtook her.

Her vaginal walls squeezed down on him, trying to draw the seed out of his rod, but he managed to grit his teeth and hold out, until the rhythm of her contractions devolved into an uncontrollable shake.

Then it was too much to bear. He slipped free of her, and without having to stroke himself, the semen shot out of him, spilling across her chest and stomach, the way he knew Llora liked it.

#

Pieta's body wouldn't stop shaking. So many impulses ran through her at once. It was a shock when she came to, with Thars railing her hard, beating her up inside in ways she had never felt before, using her body like she didn't know it could be used.

And finding that she liked it. That was copiously evident, from the way she moaned under him, the way her pussy gushed, the way her veins were still rejoicing from her previous climax.

"Do you want it inside you?" Thars asked her.

"Yes!" she cried out automatically, before she caught herself.

But she felt it to be true. She did want to feel him fill her, it was what her body wanted more than anything right now.

"I'm going to get you pregnant, are you sure you want that?"

She did want to have his baby, she had felt that way for a long time, and with the question put to her now, when she was on the cusp of a climax unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, it was all too easy to set aside the complications that had kept them from fulfilling that dream. She had been against it before, but now the pleasure inside her was rewriting that, more with every moment.

"Give it to me! Please!" she cried out.

She knew he was close to his own pleasure--she knew her mate well enough to recognize that. His and hers could be theirs together; it could be so easy. And yet he was holding back.

"Tell me exactly what it is you want," he said, in a commanding tone that she wasn't used to from him. And yet she couldn't deny its effect on her.

"I want--your baby--Thars--I--pregnant--"

Even as she tried to force out the words, her mind fell apart under the weight of her dawning climax. She lost control of her voice, of her lungs, of her hips, of everything inside her. Her pleasure was blindingly bright behind her eyes, her breath struggling to keep her alive through it all, as instinct took over. There was just one thing missing, and Thars kept denying her it.

Then with a roar, he slipped free of her. In that moment, as her consciousness and her ability to reason started to come back into focus, it all became painfully clear to her. Thars thought he was with Llora right now.

What Pieta had become present for was a window into what Thars and Llora had together, a window that Pieta hadn't really wanted. Thars never talked dirty like that with her, had never railed her that hard, had never kept her on edge like that, and it all felt like cursed knowledge for Pieta to have.

He had made her admit her basest desires--to him and to herself--that she really did want to get pregnant. And then instead of giving her what she wanted, he had ejaculated all over her, something he'd never done before. It felt dirty. It felt humiliating. It felt... hot, in a way that didn't make sense to her.

The shakes of her orgasm turned into trembling humiliation, and she curled up into a ball.

"Pieta?" Thars asked. His eyes were wide as it finally dawned on him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you, I thought she was just trying to--"

"Don't," she said. "Please don't try to explain."

"Okay," he said, and took a deep breath. "Okay."

And he laid down next to her, wrapping her in his arms. It wouldn't be okay, not right away, but they were going to have to try.

When her breathing calmed, Thars asked, "If I had... done what you were begging me to do... would you have regretted it?"

An unexpected laugh shook its way free from Pieta's chest. "Ha! What do you think?"

"I just worried she was trying to trick me. You understand that, right?" he asked, his voice so tender.

"Yes, I do," she assured him. And she knew she ought to be glad of it, that if Thars thought she was Llora in that moment, he wouldn't have impregnated her.

It made her realize something. Yes, she was willing to carry Thars's child. No, more than that. She wanted it. She wanted him to impregnate her. She wanted his child growing in her belly. But she didn't want it to be Thars and Llora sharing that special moment.

She rolled towards him, putting her thigh up on his hip, looking him in the eye.

"Love, I think I'd like to do this on purpose," she said.

"Do what?" he asked. Not confused. Teasing again. But differently, with her. More affectionately.

Pieta took a deep breath, gathering her courage. "Let's make a child together. You and me."

And not Llora, she implied, intentionally leaving their third wheel out of it. Llora got what she wanted; she wouldn't be back for a while, and was unlikely to take control.

She felt Thars hardening again, bridging the gap between them, and at first she gently rocked her hips, until she felt the tip of him slip down between her legs and come to rest in her slit. Pieta kept it there for a little while, knowing that even now, the last of his drops from before might be mixing with her juices. Even this was a risk--no, a declaration.

Thars kissed her then, something he hadn't done at all with Llora, as far as Pieta knew. And it felt familiar and enticing as always. His hands on her back knew just where to ease her tensed muscles and make her groan into his mouth.

She guided him back atop her, and their bodies conjoined seamlessly, in a smooth, well-practiced way. He slipped into her easily from the start, because of how well-limbered and well-lubed she already was. They'd done this before, countless times, but it felt different now, knowing how they intended it to end this time. Like an unstoppable force was already set in motion.

She responded to his every movement in and out of her with the angle of her hips just so, feeling his shaft sliding along the length of her innards. She could feel every surface of her interior carressing against every inch of him. She knew that even now, her muscles might be squeezing the remainder from his shaft, up into the deepest parts of herself. That knowledge drove her wild.

Looking up into his eyes, she saw a hunger there. A primordial drive. And yet Thars lasted well, letting her make the most of this exquisite feeling between them. She gripped his buttocks firmly, urging him deeper and harder, trying to take more of him, all of him, all the way down to his base. It was hard to keep her eyes uncrossed as the sensation threatened to overwhelm her.

"Are you just about ready?" she asked. It was a novel thrill to break her typical coital silence.

"Almost!" he gasped. He had to leave off his teasing touch of her breasts, her belly, her collarbone, to focus on holding her tight to him as he thrust into her. "Are you sure about this?"

"I'm as sure as I'll ever be," she said. But when she realized how doubtful that sounded, she pulled him down to her level, breathing hot against his cheek. In his ear, she added, "I'm ready when you are. Give me your seed."

"Oh Pieta!" he cried, and kissed her hard.

He pushed down into her, finding a perfect alignment with something sensitive deep inside her, and he held himself there as he swelled up just that telltale bit more.

In that moment, Pieta recalled the times they'd approached this precipice before, and how she was always tempted to forget her caution, and it still nagged at her now. Ignoring that caution now was a conscious effort.

A breath later, Thars grunted out a breath he couldn't hold any longer, and Pieta felt his seed shoot into her. It was just what she needed--it was everything--and her climax swept through her, centered on that spreading heat deep inside.

She lost control then. Not like she lost control to Llora, she was still the conscious one, but her brain was flooded with pleasure, her hips bucking to a rhythm she couldn't hear, muscles inside herself awakening to contract in on Thars, drawing his seed up out of him more efficiently than Pieta could have consciously done it. This clearly brought him pleasure, as he grunted in her ear again, and she felt another burst of hot fluid inside her, taking her yet higher.

So this is how our baby is made, she thought, as her orgasm and his orgasm fed into each other, her sex eagerly drinking its fill of his, and... it felt right. Perfect, perhaps other than the circumstances that brought them to this point. Pieta couldn't wait to fall into a deep, peaceful sleep, and she couldn't wait to partake of this again and again, and if it made her pregnant, all the better.

#

Thars brought a plate back to bedroom, laden with cheeses and nuts to revitalize them. He hoped Pieta wasn't going to wake up and regret what they'd done. To Thars, it felt right. In the moment, it felt pure and divine. But only if it was something that they could both choose, willingly and eagerly and in sound mind.

It worried him that he hadn't been able to tell, in that moment when Llora relinquished control to Pieta. Perhaps the two were more alike than he liked to think, or perhaps they were beginning to meld into one.

And yet, there was no mistaking who was awake when he returned to the bedroom.

"Been a naughty boy, I see," Llora scolded. "Leave that over here on the table. I've got something else for you to eat first."

She scooted down and spread her legs wide. Pieta's slit was still messy with Thars's semen, a line of it welling up between her lips.

This felt a bit wrong, after what he'd just done with Pieta. Their tender, purposeful union. And yet Thars felt his body betraying him, as he hardened yet again, and he knew he was going to give in, one way or another.

He set the plate of food aside for her to pick at, and knelt on the bed, leaning his head down level with her crotch. He ran his tongue through her slit, distinctly tasting himself there. It made a shiver run through her core.

"That's it, keep it up," she urged him on.

And he did, lapping at her again and again, tasting himself with every lick, knowing that the more of his seed he slurped out of her, the less likely that it would find its mark in Pieta's waiting egg. Less likely that the perfect moment they just shared would lead to the child they hoped it would.

Despite all that, Thars couldn't resist slipping a finger inside her, feeling her vaginal muscles contract with every shiver of pleasure he gave her. Even though those contractions pushed more of his seed out of her, onto his hand.

"Don't stop! Just like that!" Llora cried out, and her whole body went tense, her fingers gripping the sheets with white knuckles, as his laps to her clit brought her to a climax. Thars loved Pieta, there was no question of that, but he also loved making Llora cum. He couldn't help smiling when he lifted his cum-covered face from her pussy, victorious.

He moved up, positioning himself to enter her again, both of them half-upright. He propped her butt up on his thighs and slid the tip inside her, and was immediately reminded of the wonders that Llora could do with Pieta's vagina, the way she rhythmically clenched down on even just his tip. Gods, if he let her, she could get him off just from that alone.

She pushed forward to meet him, to take him deeper, and upset his balance. He fell back, tackled by her atop him, the two of them still conjoined at the crotch.

"It seems our little plan worked, then?" Llora asked.

"Our plan?" Thars asked.

"Convincing Pieta to have your baby," Llora explained, like it should've been obvious.

"It wasn't--" Thars started to say, finding it hard to focus, over the distraction of what she was doing to his erection inside herself.

"Now that I'm all cleaned up, I'm ready for you to knock me up this time."

As opposed to knocking up Pieta. Thars's penis spasmed inside her with excitement, while he knew he ought not to. The whole idea was that the child in Pieta's belly would be his and Pieta's, because they'd made it together. That could still be the case, from all of the seed already swimming around inside her, but if he came inside Llora, there was a chance that the child would be conceived with her, now, rather than with Pieta just before. On some level, it would be a betrayal.

With every rise and fall upon him, her vaginal walls slipped against his every contour, especially the sensitive flare of his head. Even though it wasn't long since the last time he came, he wasn't going to bear up for long against this onslaught of sensation. And judging from Llora's very vocal reactions, neither was she. She was working him so hard right now, that he wondered if she had been holding back before; maybe she really had been respecting Pieta's boundaries. Now that restraint was utterly gone.

"I'm about to--" Thars grunted. "I shouldn't--"

He was gritting his teeth against the wave of it. He tried to roll her off him, but couldn't. Pieta wasn't that much smaller than him; with Pieta, Thars might have been able to overpower her, but he also wouldn't need to. But this was Llora in control, and she seemed to know exactly how to push Pieta's body to its limits. Plus Thars was at the disadvantage of starting out pinned down on the bed. It was a reminder--too late--that Llora was not growing gentler in her confinement. Her hands held his in place.

"Please! I can't!" Thars panicked now. But his plea was an admission of defeat. And he hadn't gone so far as actually saying "no" or "stop", and that detail hadn't escaped either of them.

"You will," Llora purred, taking her voice lower than Pieta ever would.

He swelled up inside her now, his traitorous testicles pumping semen up into his shaft, the pressure building up fast. In a moment, he knew he'd inevitably lose control, and he knew that intense pleasure was sure to follow, but for now, he felt a duty to hold out for as long as he could.

In his distraction, her grip on his hands changed, from a push to a pull, as she leaned back on hip lap, her back bending like a grand mal seizure. Her thighs squeezed his hips hard, so hard he worried he'd have big bruises there, and have to explain them to Pieta. Her abdominal muscles clamped down on him, in a rolling motion that milked him from base to tip. Somehow she created a suction force within her, that he was powerless to resist.

It wrung the semen right out of his shaft, preempting his natural buildup, and forcing his orgasm to arrive a moment earlier than anticipated. He felt that semen leave him in a rush, except that because of the intensity of his climax, his balls immediately bobbed again with more to replace it.

"AH! AH! YES! YES! YES!" Llora screamed. Each scream took the full volume of her lungs, each breath in time with a death-squeeze of her thighs and a wave of suction inside her, forcing a fresh jet of seed out of Thars.

He found himself grunting to her rhythm, releasing into her with her every demand for it, powerless to do anything else, while his ecstasy blotted out all thought anyway. This was a transcendent state he'd never achieved before, one he would seek out again and again for as long as he lived, betrayal or no. She was rewriting his whole world in her image. If Llora and Pieta did start to merge, could that be such a bad thing, if it led to more of this?

Eventually her cries slowed and trailed off, and Thars couldn't be sure if it was because he had nothing more to give, or if he had nothing more to give because her body stopped making its irrefusable demands. She let go of his hands and collapsed back on the bed. As Thars slipped free of her, her crotch was still as clean as his tongue had made her; he knew he had just poured a lot into her, but the suction force she created must have carried it all deep inside.

#

"I have news, Love," Pieta said, returning home from an errand in town, a couple weeks later. "We're having a child!"

"That's amazing!" Thars said, trying to act the appropriate amount of surprised.

Llora knew she was pregnant, or claimed to know. She said she felt the conception, felt his sperm breaching her egg. Claimed she knew it was one of the sperm put there by her, not by Pieta. This baby was hers, she said. Thars thought that impossible, but didn't bother trying to correct her. He was too turned on at the thought of having impregnated her. He was too distracted with the fantastic things her body was still doing to his body every day since.

"I missed my moon-blood, and went for a scrying today just to be sure," Pieta said. "I trust you'll break the news to Llora?"

"I will. She'll probably be very happy for us," Thars replied. "And you're still excited for this?"

"I am! I can already feel my breasts getting fuller," Pieta said, knowing how it would entice him. "I've already been sharing my body with another occupant."

"And I've been inside you sometimes as well," Thars teased, reminding her of how much time they'd spent conjoined nowadays, since he no longer had to withdraw before his pleasure came. Pieta blushed, an admission of how strongly she got off on feeling him erupt inside her.

She went on, "In a way, I feel like it's all been preparing me for this. Acting as host for one more, for a while. The more, the merrier, I suppose."