Chapter 147 - Confessions

Chapter 147 - Confessions

Redecorating the Okt manor was a small but needed start to the list of things to do since he’d sat down at the manor’s council chambers with the more important members of his team, and he’d sent Lord Okt to go about getting it done – along with making sure to the outer city that the household was seemingly being run normally with nothing amiss. Lady Okt, who sat collared and naked to the right of his chair on the floor, was scribbling down notes furiously onto a parchment as if her life depended upon it.

And it did. He still wasn’t entirely sure if he’d keep her or her husband around after all this was said and done, and he’d told her that she needed to prove her usefulness outside of just being a sexual plaything if she wanted to see a life beyond the conquering of the city. So she’d given him massive amounts of information on other noble houses concerning their relative military might, resources, influence with Aktovan, secret entrances into the city, and dirty secrets. They were all being reviewed now by Ezdeath and Sithis, who were going over potential strategies to kidnap other coven heads of household to bring them here for soul enslavement before Yastiel got too close on her march towards the underground city.

“How long until Yastiel gets here?” Trey asked Silvara to his left as the elf princess knelt on the floor opposite Lady Okt in a similar collar of her own.

“The marching goes well, better than expected. Agnude has blessed the army to speed up their trek.” Silvara said, stone faced and staring at the ground between her bare knees. “She should arrive within a week, far earlier than anticipated.”

Trey nodded absentmindedly, stroking his fingers through Rivia’s hair as the priestess yawned and curled up closer to him in his lap as she slept. “That means we’ll have to speed up things on our own end. Lady Okt, make sure to give Ezdeath all the details you know of concerning the maze through the mountain down to Zekul’s gates, who works the gates, how often they shift the guard, and if there are any enchantments or traps pertaining to them.”

“Yes, master.” Lady Okt anxiously nodded as she slapped another document onto the table and began writing anew as Sithis used one of his four clawed hands to drag the document over to add to the stack.

Trey grinned. “Good girl. Perhaps you’ll live yet.”

One of the Okt coven’s slaves, an acquaintance of Rusoe’s and a young brunette girl in her very early teen years, handed Trey a pitcher of wine that he’d requested with a bow and curtsied of her tattered dress. “Anything else my lord?”

Trey smiled genuinely at the teenage girl and shook his head. “Not at all. Go let the cook know that you and your friends are to eat whatever you want for dinner tonight, on my order. Have fun, and be sure to eat a lot of tarts for me.”

The small girl beamed up at him with a wide smile, nodded, waved to Rusoe and glided out of the room to shut the door behind her.

Trey chuckled at Rusoe’s look of approval at his treatment of the kid, poured himself a cup with his tail and gingerly tipped it into his mouth before setting it back down. With Rivia in his arms he couldn’t move very well, but the tail came in quite handy for situations like this. “Where’s Ashe?”

“Currently sorting through the slaves – the previous cattle I mean, to see if there are any she wishes to take on as Thralls.” Rusoe stated quickly before moving to take a seat beside Atharost – who was snoring in one of the cushioned, red velvet armchairs nearby with Napoleon on his lap. “I believe she’s with Telipe, Taen, Chris, Michael and Maltetious. Bann and Izumi are… being frisky down the hall.”

“OH!?” Trey nearly woke Rivia up and quieted himself down in his excitement as Izumi’s success at finally having found romance. He gave Rusoe, who was smirking at him in amusement, a sheepish grin. “Sorry. But are you sure?”

“About Izumi?”

“Yes, that.”

“Definitely. I saw Bann enter with her and they’re rather loud about it if you walk by.”

Trey nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin and wondering just how undead ghouls would have sex. Then again, vampires were undead. Lady Okt and Rusoe definitely didn’t seem to have a problem having sex either.

He glanced over at three of the young vampire women Atharost had taken for his own harem from within Trey’s owned minions, who were standing next to Carol along the side of the wall behind the passed out ifrit, and chuckled. He was about to do something to wake the ifrit up, but a knock at the door caught his attention.

Entering through the solid, polished wooden door came Jason.

It’d been a while since Jason and Trey had talked, and if Trey didn’t know any better – Jason had been avoiding him since the All Spirit’s event concerning the battle between the cult and the coven. Their eyes met, and Jason’s right hand swooped over his blonde locks of hair to rest with a more relaxed look than Trey was used to.

The tall Earthborn man walked over, ignoring the chained women on Trey’s left and right – which was in of itself an oddity as Jason usually had snarky remarks concerning Trey’s moral decisions – and he sat in a chair opposite Trey on the other side of the table. It got curious looks from Ezdeath and Sithis, but they went back to talking about various plans concerning the city’s takeover as the shadow fiend Ikt hovered in the background noiselessly.

“It’s been a while.” Jason stated in a low but confident tone. He reached over for the jug, paused, and looked Trey’s way. “Mind if I take some?”

Trey smiled. “You don’t have to ask.”

Jason merely nodded, adjusted his poorly made brown shirt and brought the jug over to pour himself some alcohol. He let out a long sigh, looked down at his side as if he was missing something, then shrugged and downed a glass all at once. “Ah. Good stuff. Anyways, I was just wanting to catch up. How’s life?”

Trey’s left eyebrow raised from underneath his horn and he gave off an amused snort. “How’s life? Honestly not that bad. A little stressful sometimes, but nothing that doesn’t compare to when I was helping run the mafia back home.”

Jason pondered this for a bit, taking some of the tarts that the little servant girl had supplied for them earlier and shoving one in his mouth – beginning to chew. “I’d forgotten entirely about all that. You being ex mafia, I mean. Do you like your new life better than your old one?”

“In some ways. I miss my family… excluding that cunt over there next to the wall of course.” Trey shot Carol a glare. “Or her brother, who the last time I met I ended up shooting in the knee. Fucking dickhead that guy was.”

Jason chuckled, not bothering to look over at the scowling visage of Carol, and clasped his hands together. “I actually came with more of a request than anything else…”

“I figured as much.” Trey stated with a sly grin, still running his fingers through Rivia’s hair and enjoying the feeling of the culn priestess comfortably pressed up against him. “You usually don’t like talking to me just to shoot the shit.”

Jason lowered his eyes, then nodded. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Multiple times now. I’ve always appreciated what you did to help us, but I could just never see eye to eye with you. Perhaps I don’t need to though. I’ve been thinking… maybe I should just immerse myself in my work, focus on my own personal life, and accept things for how they are. Since getting here: I’ve run into slavers, pirates, cultists, covens of bloodthirsty vampires, demons, cutthroats, and atrocities that I would have never dreamed of prior to arriving in Nagochus. This world has shattered my view on how life is supposed to be, and maybe my old self just wasn’t cut out for it mentally.”

Jason leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his belly lazily while leaning back and staring at the tabletop. “I think I’m going to withdraw from being in your combat group. You obviously don’t need me anymore. Ashe is becoming super strong, a summoner like you, and Izumi has a god damned mech she made with Telipe to go into battle with. Me? I sit around making potions all day. I have no aspirations to be some hot shot warrior like you, and no ideals to fulfill concerning conquering cities and worlds that your dark goddess seems to want you to undertake. I was hoping that, for old times sake, you’d allow me to accompany you all as just a friend on the outskirts. Whenever you get settled, I intend to find a girl I like and maybe start a family. Something simple.”

Trey blinked twice, leaning his head into Rivia’s own as the girl adjusted herself and hiccupped in her sleep – causing him to let out a lighthearted laugh. “Yeah. I get it. That’s not something you’d have to ask me for though. Honestly man, I understand your perspective on things a lot more than you know. All those fights we had about my choices… You were right.”

Now it was Jason’s turn to blink, as he sat up and rested his chin in his hands curiously – but didn’t say a word.

Trey continued a moment later after pausing to think. “You were right. I’m a fucked up guy Jason. Not a good one. I kept pulling the wool over my own eyes in an attempt to try and make myself think that I was… but I’m not. And I’ve come to embrace that fact about myself. Man… if my dad were here, he’d throw a fucking party at the amount of ‘maturing’ I’ve done. But for him, all that means is that I’ve become ruthless and a stone cold killer without any mercy.”

Ezdeath and Sithis had paused in their discussion to listen in on the talk, and Trey let out a long sigh of his own to match Jason’s from earlier.

“But there’s no going back for me, not now. Not after everything that’s happened.” Trey gave the other man a wry smile. “I have a goddess to serve and a fucking crazy symbiote in my head telling me to do evil shit. Even now, I’m having visions of violence dancing around in my brain that I can’t seem to shake. I think I’m going crazy Jason. Literally crazy. But that’s ok… as long as I don’t get too crazy. The one thing I pride myself on is loyalty, and as long as my crazy and violent urges or ideals don’t get in the way of my loyalty to my closest friends… then that’s all I care about. The rest of the universe can burn.”

With a flick of his wrist, Trey summoned a very large and ornate chest of ivory and gold from shadowform. It dropped onto the table in front of them, making the legs creak from the weight of it, and Trey gave Rivia a kiss on the forehead before dropping her unconscious body back into the cushioned chair. He walked over to the other side of the table, lashing Silvara across the face with his tail as he did it and causing her to cry out, before coming to a stop at the front of the decorated box. “I know you may think me an asshole, and I am. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you or the others that’ve been with me since the beginning. Even despite our fights, I still like you Jason. This… is a present. From me to you, something I’ve been saving up for your birthday – but Izumi can never get it out of you as to when you think that birthday is. So I’ll just give it to you now instead, as you’re a stubborn jackass that won’t allow your friends a reason to get drunk and high at your expense. I mean, just how hard IS it to admit when your own birthday is?”

The lid was flipped open with a flick of Trey’s tail, and Jason stood to gape at the contents of the large box just a moment later.

There was a bottom layer to the box that was a couple inches thick, made up of gold and platinum coins – enough money to last multiple lifetimes considering how rare platinum was compared to the other currencies. On top of that layer of riches though… that was where the real heartfelt attempt had been placed at making things right between the two men.

“Is this… Is this an enchanted jade alchemy set?” Jason asked as he hesitantly touched the inscribed green cylinders, flasks, perfectly balanced scales, and other various parts that Trey really couldn’t put words to – but knew from the man he’d bought it from that they were required.

Trey giggled like a child at seeing Jason’s expression. “It is indeed.”

“How’d you get it? How’d you even know I wanted one?”

“Izumi told me. How I got it… Well, it was paid for if that’s what you’re asking.”

Jason picked up a mortar and pestle, feeling the nature magic flow into his fingers and gulping before putting it back down and staring in shock. “It’s real. Just like the one I saw back in Teretog…”

“The exact one you saw back in Teretog, actually.” Trey muttered with a widening grin. “I also was able to get you a good number of materials as well… they’re all in sacks down in the manor’s basement now actually. Those were more spoils of the recent battle rather than paid for, but I’m sure you won’t mind too much if we took it from a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires. Right?”

Trey slapped him on the back when Jason didn’t reply – still too stunned to speak. “Enjoy it. You can live your life however the fuck you want man, and I’m sorry we had so many times butting heads. I genuinely do like you regardless of our past fights though, and hope that we can remain on friendly terms. Happy belated birthday, or early birthday, or Christmas. However the fuck you wana take it. HEY! ATHAROST!”

Trey kicked his ifrit’s chair and woke his good friend with a start as Napoleon hissed and jumped off Atharost’s lap to scurry out of the room in a half-awakened state. “Get up and help Jason take this chest to his quarters. He won’t be able to take it by himself, way too heavy, but your flying ass can do it. So get goin!”

Atharost rubbed his eyes and glared at Trey before shooting a small firebolt and Trey’s head – which Trey barely dodged in time to give the ifrit a mock look of shock.

“How dare you!” Trey said, appearing flabbergasted as Ruseo grinned from her sitting position nearby.

Atharost yawned and rolled his eyes. “I’ll roast you in your sleep, midget.”

“MIDGET?! How uncalled for!” Trey pointed an accusing finger at the ifrt. “I’ll have you know that I am VATOSIS INFERNA, Eleknar’s greatest heir, the most POWERFUL midget of all time to YOU – good sir!”

It was Atharost’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I still think of you the same way as I found you back in Oblivion in that culn fortress where you abducted Rivia. How you barricaded yourself in that room and I had to save your sorry ass.”

Atharost’s gaze turned over to the sleeping culn priestess in the chair Trey’d left, and he stood up to help carry the chest away. “Oh how times have changed though. Tell Rivia she owes me another chess game when she gets up, she’s been talking a lot of shit since she beat me the last time.”

“She’ll just beat you again.” Sithis said as Atharost left the room carrying the chest – to which the ifrit scowled back at the devil as Ezdeath laughed.

“She really is getting good at that game.” Ezdeath mused while leaning back in her scantily clad outfit of red linen she’d taken from Lady Okt’s own wardrobe. “Beats me every time actually.”

“That’s because Napoleon is tutoring her.”

“Is he now?”

“He certainly is.”

“Well that little rat certainly is good… so it explains much. Now come on and back to business Sithis, we’ve got work to do.”

***

Talsh’Noc’Un followed Trey into his bedroom as the demon messiah carried Rivia in his arms and shut the door behind him with his slender black tail. The weapon seated itself beside the fireplace, one that Trey had once sat next to and shared stories with Osi, Nothel and Rusoe before the former two women had been murdered by his cousin and Silvara.

Rusoe now had a room of her own, where she was busy playing with some of the children from the compound – slave children. The slaves were so numerous here in Zekul and so often used as food that Trey wasn’t sure what the proper way about utilizing them truly was. He thought it was a real waste and oftentimes a very real tragedy to just kill them like the vampires did in order to feed, especially when those same vampires could use livestock just as well to satiate their carnivorous desires, and he had no doubt that once he conquered the city – things would change. He’d much rather have the slaves here in Zekul become loyal worshipers of the dark goddess, rather than meals on wheels.

“Still focusing your energies Talshy?” Trey said as he gently laid the priestess on his bed and began removing her clothes – setting them aside to pull up the covers over her bare body.

The sword hummed with delight as chaos energies flickered about its blade and two crescent runes. “Yes… You are coming a long ways… in staving off my inherent… problem… My last master… went utterly insane… yet you… You show signs of coming back… from yours with a vigor… It makes me very happy to see… and hopeful for the future…”

Trey felt Rivia’s hand blindly reach out and grasp at him before she pulled herself closer to his back, nuzzling her face against his body and muttering to herself in her sleep as he gently gazed down at her. “Yeah. The visions still come… but it isn’t nearly as bad as they used to be. Or… well that isn’t entirely accurate. Sometimes they’re bad but they then go away, and then come back and go away again. It’s ups and downs.”

Talshy hummed again, a long drawn out hum this time as he considered Trey’s words. The enormous sword the flipped up into the air and remained vertical in front of the summoner as three glowing runes lit up along its surface one after the other. “You still have yet… to acquire these three… as minions…  They are each… very valuable… though their value will become… less and less… if you leave them within me… and fail to let them grow…”

Trey blinked, completely having forgot about how he was supposed to have summoned that fallen angel already. She was apparently a moody, ruthless badass and comparative to Ezdeath in strength – which was by no means anything to scoff at. The other two demons were supposed to be rather good as well, but at this point – Talshy was right. He’d let their potential for growth kind of slip away. One was a taurun, and the other was a dark djinn if he remembered correctly – and he had no doubt that any of his current battle-oriented minions that’d survived this long would wipe the floor with either of the two potential recruits.

He yawned and leaned back, letting his arms sink into the mattress behind him. “Yeah. I need to get on that. What about you though? Have you perfected that new ability yet?”

The sword shuddered. “No… but it is getting there… ever since my evolution… I have been feeling it come closer… and closer… It is almost upon me…”

Trey nodded. “By the way, is that angel you’ve got in there a hottie?”

“A hottie…?”

“Is she bangable?”

“For the love… of all that is unholy…” Talsh’Noc’Un said in exasperation as Trey cackled from the bedside. “You only think… with the sword between your legs…”

Trey sighed and wiped at his smile. “I was just joking, I know you get bent out of shape about that kind of thing – putting my efforts into useless side hustles like humping women when I should be getting stronger.”

“I could not have… said it better… myself…”

Trey ignored the sword’s jab and let his gaze rest on the crackling fire to his left. He let his mind wander as the giant weapon settled back into the corner of the room, and his eyes began to glaze over in thought. “Is Aktovan really as strong as Lady Okt implied, Talshy?”

“I would not know…” Talsh’Noc’Un replied with a hesitant growl. “Why?”

Trey shrugged, then took off his shirt, walked around to the other side of the bed, and laid next to Rivia. Spooning the priestess and holding her close, Trey’s mind went to places it usually didn’t. “What if one of them dies, Talshy?”

“… One of who?”

“One of our friends. What if they die like Nothel and Osi did… it doesn’t take much to rip a soul apart if you’re as strong as Aktovan is supposed to be.”

There was a long pause. “I do not believe… that thinking about it will make things… any better… Though I do suggest… that you fight Aktovan yourself… if you worry about this…. You have grown far stronger… than any of your minions… Even Ezdeath or Sithis… and together… you and I have the best chance… of defeating her without casualties… if you keep the others away…”

Trey slowly nodded, letting the scent of the woman next to him fill his senses. “Yeah. Yeah I think you’re right. We’ll do it ourselves… and just hope for the best. Good night Talshy, and thanks for the advice.”

“You are welcome… Good night, Trey…”

***

The fire had died down to nothing but cinders, leaving the room rather dark other than the light green glow of the subterranean garden off the balcony at Trey’s back. Dreams of failure plagued his sleep, and he had become uneasy in his unconscious state… until he was pulled out of it by the sounds of crying.

He was a little hazy, coming out of his sleep-induced stupor, but slowly his eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness and he found himself staring at Rivia. She was silently sobbing, or trying to keep it silent anyways, as she had her head buried in his chest with her small horns poking into him. He felt her tears running down his skin, dribbling down one after the other as warm pockets of moisture than quickly found themselves soaked up in the sheets beneath.

Her body shuddered every couple seconds with the exertions she was trying to subdue, and she didn’t notice that she’d woken him until he adjusted his position and placed a hand on her bare shoulder.

“… Rivia? What’s wrong?”

The priestess quickly quieted down, biting her lip and avoiding eye contact. She shuddered one more time, gripping his side and pulling her face into his chest again to keep him from seeing her face. “I… I just had a bad dream.”

Trey frowned, gently stroking her long black hair… and had a flashback to the first night they’d ever had sex. She’d lied back then too, but things were different between them now. “Is that really true?”

Rivia hastily nodded, but Trey could tell that she was lying.

He sighed, kissing her on the forehead as he lifted her chin up to make her meet his gaze. “You know I hate doing this… but I order you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Rivia’s red eyes squinted as more tears began to accumulate, and her lips began to quiver… but she didn’t fight the command. Instead, she choked out the words one after the other… becoming flushed in the face with embarrassment as she spilled out her heart on a silver platter. “I… I am wallowing in self-pity.”

Trey just looked on expectantly, still maintaining a gentle smile, and caressed her head with one hand.

She shuddered again as the contract forced her to comply, and she let out another cough that she covered up with one fist. “Uhm… I… I believe that I am losing you.”

Trey’s eyebrows slowly raised. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

Rivia shook her head, trying to ignore the impulses, but her body shuddered as she cried out in pain when the contract took hold again.

Trey quickly cancelled the order, regret washing through him as he saw her try to fight against his command – and shame filling him for having caused her even more grief. “Rivia… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you like that-“

“No.” Rivia cut him off, pushing him away and sitting up to wipe the tears from her eyes. It was a futile attempt, as they just kept coming. “I… In the beginning, I didn’t like you. I hated you, even. You know this and have known this for some time… I thought you nothing more than just another summoner. A man who wanted me for the power and body I had. Even now I’m sure that’s somewhat true… but… but I hope that isn’t entirely true.”

She wiped her eyes again as he sat up to match her stance in the bed, giving him a perfect white smile as the remnant lights from outside caused the streams on her face to sparkle. She was as beautiful as ever, and she looked… vulnerable. “I know it isn’t my place, to ask this of you… but tell me one more time. Tell me… to tell you why. And I will. So that you know it is true.”

This time Trey hesitated, not entirely sure what to make of all this… but over a year of spending time with this girl had given him a solid amount of trust in her. He also didn’t want to hurt her again if she struggled with telling him what she was going through. “There is no need. I believe what you have to say.”

Rivia’s face contorted with frustration almost immediately, and she poked a finger into his chest – even rather aggressively. “Do it.”

“I-“

“DO IT!” Rivia yelled, throwing the covers off of her naked body and standing up along the side of the bed while her chest heaved. She was obviously very, very emotional right now… and it wasn’t going to be a button Trey continued to press.

So he gave in – adding mana to his command this time so that she had no choice but to obey. “Alright… tell me why you’re so upset. Please… I’d like to know so that I can fix it.”

Rivia’s eyes immediately softened, and she once again looked vulnerable as she clutched her left wrist with her right hand and crossed her ankles to look down at the floor. She took three steadying breaths, preparing herself, and then met his gaze full on with a determination and bravery he’d never seen there before. “There’s nothing left for me… outside of what you’ve given me, Trey. Even before you found me, I was thinking of killing myself because of the abuse I received by my murderous father – the man who’d killed my mother. My mother was the only person who ever truly loved me for who I was. When you took my father’s life over a year ago in Oblivion, I wanted to hate you for it… but I couldn’t. I wanted to despise you for being human… but I couldn’t. I tried to put on a fake hostility, but that only lasted for so long… and even Alkir was nudging me in the direction of seducing you in order to take you into her embrace. It was one of the greatest callings of my life… but now that it’s been done, I feel like I have betrayed you.”

“How?” Trey asked, dumbfounded.

Again, Rivia’s tears began to swim down her face from doe eyes in streams as her lips quivered and her teeth gritted. “Because I manipulated you… You knew nothing of Alkir back then, and I influenced your decisions on my behalf by using my body to seduce you. You did not deserve that… and… and I feel unworthy.”

Her head dropped, and her shoulders sagged. “I feel like I wasted so much time trying to degrade you in my mind and tear your image down… so that I could remain hateful towards something, and someone, now that my father was gone. But my hate was misplaced… You’ve given everything I could have ever dreamed to me, and only now do I realize that you are slipping away.”

Trey remained silent, and allowed her to continue after a long and drawn-out pause.

“You don’t want me like you used to…” Rivia whispered as her body shuddered with suppressed sobs. “Now that you have become strong, you will soon leave me behind. You will choose another of your concubines to wed one day… and do not think I care that you sleep with other women. You are in your right to do so… but… I want more than this. When I heard Nothel’s declaration of love for you back then, I couldn’t help but feel incredible jealousy. It wasn’t like the other girls… the others… they just lust after you. They don’t have an emotional connection to you like I do… So when Nothel said she loved you, I even considered killing her myself… but I knew you wouldn’t want that. Even so, when Carol did it in my place by happenstance… I couldn’t help but feel relieved.”

She held out her hands to either side after unclasping her wrist raising her gaze to him and motioning to herself with outstretched palms – letting her fingers glide down her hips to come to a rest at her thighs in a defeated posture as she stared back at him. “I want more… I need, more… than this. Than just being one of the many whores you’ve found along the way. To me, you are everything. You even treat me well now, and I am not sure, but I hope and think that you truly have some part of you that cares for me like I care for you. It isn’t even about the religion anymore… it isn’t about Alkir. It isn’t about your position of power. It isn’t even about the kinky sex we have and the way I can’t take my eyes off your handsome features when you’re not looking… or the way I enjoy watching you sleep at night. Even when you snore sometimes.”

Rivia let out a small laugh of amusement, but faltered as she found Trey just staring dumbfounded back at her. She sighed, becoming visibly nervous as her anxiety rose, and she abruptly closed her eyes tightly shut to clench her fists. “I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU!!!”

The air rang silently after her scream of admition, and she kept her eyes closed shut – not daring to look back up at him… An entire minute passed, and she began to silently sob again as no response came. She felt her cheeks flushing with extreme embarrassment, self-loathing for her own stupidity, an indescribable heartache as the rejection set in… and she quickly mumbled a barely audible apology before turning heel to race out of the room.

But her arm was caught that split second later, and Trey gently tugged her back – stopping her from leaving as she whirled on him in surprise and stared up into his relaxed gaze.

His eyes softened, and he let go of her arm to put a hand up to her cheek – wiping away her tears and caressing her face. “Rivia… how in the world could you ever love a monster like me? I have done nothing to deserve even an inkling of your affections… why would you choose to care so much? Do you truly mean it?”

She shuddered under his touch, but did not falter in her reply as her courage built up again. “You are not a monster to me. You asked me under contract what it was that was bothering me… so I told you. I am in love with you, Trey. I am afraid that I am going to be passed by… and that you’ll leave me in the dust when you find something better. I am sorry… I did not mean-”

Her words were cut off as she was pulled forward into a kiss – her lips locking with his as her eyes went wide with surprise for the second time that night. Her red eyes again began streaming with tears and slowly closed as she held the kiss, the first ever passionate kiss she’d ever gotten from him. It wasn’t a lustful one, as they’d always been before, but this time they could both feel the difference there. There was caring, emotion, and appreciation of one another there in that moment – and Rivia felt her knees buckle before she felt water drip onto her face from above.

She didn’t want it to end, but as she pulled away and gazed up at him – she saw that Trey was crying too.

It was a strange thing – seeing Eleknar’s Heir and the Vatosis Inferna, one of the greater evils of this universe – crying like that while embracing her. She’d seen many emotions from this man, but never… never this. Whatever this was.

She struggled to formulate words, stuttering and taking a step back – but still holding onto his hands as emotions boiled to the brim. “What… What are you doing?”

Trey let out a soft chuckle of embarrassment as he wiped the tears off his own face this time, lifted his eyes to stare at the ceiling with his neck exposed to her, and took in a deep breath. “I… I’m not ready to say it yet… but I think that I could certainly grow to love you Rivia. I might already feel that way… but I just want to make sure that these feelings I have are legitimately love and not something else.”

He let his gaze fall back to her and sniffled with a laugh as she responded with an expression of shock. “Is it really that surprising? You know… all my life, I’ve had a saying. It was that women love what you are, and not who you are. You… you just proved me wrong.  In some ways, I already do love you for saying what you just said. The last girl I ever really fell for was Amanda back on Earth… and I thought I’d gone numb to ever feeling a connection like that again. You proved me wrong again, just now. Perhaps… perhaps we need to re-evaluate our relationship.”

He dropped his hands and picked her up, carrying Rivia back to the bed and sitting her on the bedside as he joined her while she blankly stared back at him. “I promise you this. I will never leave you behind… and if what you said is real – and I know it is because I forced you to tell me the truth – then I’m willing to give this a shot. A real one. I’m not talking about the bullshit where I pander to the other women about naming them my queens in the future or any of that crap… I’m talking about something real beyond simple titles. How would you like to go on a date some time? A real one? Outside of… all this.”

Trey gestured to the room around them.

Rivia just continued to stare back in shock, unmoving on the bedside – but her tears had stopped completely to leave shimmering trails behind them that still hadn’t dried as her chest heaved up and down.

“Well?” Trey asked curiously, placing his hands together in front of him and looking down at the floor between his feet in the most vulnerable showing he’d ever displayed in front of the culn girl. “… What do you think?”

Rivia snapped out of her stupor, fighting her excitement back and trying to remain calm as a small smile began to spread across her lips. “I’ve familiarized myself with your customs from back on Earth after talking to Ashe about it in detail… are you suggesting that we start ‘dating’, like what she described to me as a girlfriend and boyfriend do?”

Trey nodded.

“I see…” Rivia replied, sniffling and failing to contain her smile any longer as it spread ear to ear, and she nervously crossed her feet while letting her shoulder lean against his own. She slowly nodded in turn, and let her head rest against his shoulder as she started crying again for the billionth time that night. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”

He reached around and pulled her in close, kissing her on the forehead. “You’re a real crybaby tonight.”

“SHUT IT!” *WHACK*

“OW!”

“That’s what you get! Pussy ass demon lord, crying about how he was hit by a girl.”

“That’s not very nice. Maybe I should reconsider this whole dating thing!”

“No.” Rivia pulled a knife from the nearby nightstand and placed it along his crotch to get a wide-eyed and amused response from her lover. She lifted her chin and kissed him slowly again, holding it and feeling a rush of butterflies in her stomach as their lips connected. When the kiss ended, she opened her eyes and nudged the knife a little bit closer to his crotch – getting a small yelp in response. “Your dating life is mine now, you better get used to it.”

Trey grinned mischievously. “I see. Well I look forward to it. Question though, does this mean you want me to stop sleeping with other women?”

Rivia’s eyes went wide again and she nearly dropped the dagger she was playfully threatening him with. “You’d do that for me?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. I would.”

There was another long pause, and Rivia began to blush a deep red amidst her purple complexion. She shook her head. “No. The other women would get mad at me… And besides, I’m actually bisexual. I fuck Ezdeath almost as much as I fuck you.”

“I KNEW IT!”

“Well yeah… you should know it by now, idiot. It was kind of obvious. Now… about where we left off earlier tonight at the beginning of that incredibly boring meeting… I do believe you said that you were going to get me off when we got back to bed? Well… I’m still waiting.”