Chapter 461: A new dawn

Announcement

And we...are...back! Hope you're all doing well. Much editing done. Some writing,  though not as much as I wanted. But! Book 11 begins here. And as a small update I'll say more about later:

Book 3 will be out on Amazon in 3 days (April 10). Link here (it's currently on pre-order):

Book 4 has a cover now and will be out May 10.

Audio for book 2 should be available around April 16. Audio for book 3 should be available a month later. We'll see if I can keep up that pace.

Also, I'm sort of also writing a new series now? What is even life. But I really enjoyed writing the first book - it's very classic sort of adventure fantasy with a slower burn romance/harem. You...will like it. Anyway, more on that later, it needs a lot of editing, and God knows where I'll find the time to keep the series going until this one is done...for now, enjoy the chapter!

Mason woke with a new dawn, his beautiful elven concubine Ayet sleeping beside him. Ayet was

also

the mother of his new elven bride—a fact he still somewhat struggled to comprehend. She certainly didn’t

look

like she could be anyone’s mother.

Her lithe, youthful body pressed against him, sending little pulses of desire. Her wavy brown hair covered his arm as she used it like a pillow, and memory of the night before flashed through his mind. It had truly been one to remember.

Partly because on his

other

side was his first wife, Haley. As she stirred she gave Mason a familiar bouquet of soap and vanilla, thick blonde hair spread all over the pillows. She was French-Canadian, gorgeous, with the body of a swimsuit model.

And if that wasn’t enough, she basically loved Mason’s sexual escapades with other women as much as

he

did. And she did her level best to keep a harem of women in his house and bed, happy for the experience.

After a week of fighting to the death in the system’s ‘Neutral Zone’, then battling some kind of demonic invasion, the image was a good reminder that Mason had plenty to live for. Most men would have sold body parts for one chance with the two women now cuddling up against him. And, technically, they both

belonged

to him.

Haley was a system ‘slave’ through contract, Ayet a concubine—both ‘his’ whenever he wanted, however he wanted. That wasn’t how he treated them, but the thought was a bit mind blowing. And also starting to get him going again…

Haley flinched in her sleep like she’d sensed a disturbance in the force. But Mason felt a little guilty waking them up for more. With all his new and improved abilities, he didn’t need as much sleep as regular people (or elves, apparently). The girls needed to rest, and he had things to do.

So, he carefully extricated himself and lay both women down, stepping to the floor and then sort of forgetting where he even was. It had been a long damn week.

He summoned his innate ‘vestments’ in their barest clothing form (gifted by the avatar of a great tree named Eve), then tried not to picture her or imagine when he might go for another visit…

He had enough women to worry about, that was for sure. Becky the ex-cowgirl and current arcane tank, and one of his most important players, was probably even now in the infirmary healing from their battle with a giant abyssal demon. He knew he should visit her and see how she was doing, but it was probably still too early.

He hadn’t spent much alone time with Rosa (a former student and now alchemist) lately. Not to mention he was now sleeping with her friend Lexi (whose civilian job…utterly escaped him), and who he

also

had only really been alone with for a single night. Or was it two?

Then

there was the nymph, Calypsa, living in Nassau’s great tree, who he should really go and check on. Except with nymphs one thing often led to another…

And

none

of that was to mention his new elven bride, Naya, who he’d basically just eloped with, and yet was now…sleeping with her mother.

Yeah. It was all a little much. His brother Blake had said he’d turned into a manwhore since the start of the ‘great game’, and Mason no longer fought that accusation in the slightest. He’d been given multiple powers and titles that seemed literally just to increase his libido, not to mention his ever-increasing health and stamina probably increased it ‘naturally’.

Toss in the fact that he was a young man surrounded by beautiful, available women, and you had some kind of pornographic wet dream mixed with the stressful realities of the morning after. In the old world, Mason had never been particularly good with women. But after the world’s most ridiculous, post-apocalyptic crash course, he supposed he was getting a

little

better.

But he had other problems. Like managing the only real settlement on the entire western continent, with an apparently laughably small number of players—even if they were powerful.

The ‘eastern’ continent of humans had literally a hundred times his number, and they were led by a tyrannical dictator who seemed bent on re-shaping mankind into…God knew what…but whatever it was, it apparently first ‘required’ total domination.

Then there was, you know, the

actual

problem: the alien psychopath, the grand murdering poobah, ridiculous story-teller in the sky—roboGod itself. And whatever sick ‘game’ it was playing with mankind.

They’d entered a new ‘phase’ now that apparently had demons randomly spawning from portals that just flashed into existence. It didn’t seem to have any warning signs—at least none that Mason knew about—which kind of put a dampener on the whole ‘let’s go explore the continent while we still can’ plan he’d had.

Now he needed to leave guards. Maybe a

lot

of guards. And the reality was, if they had another giant attack like last time, Mason himself almost certainly had to be there.

On the other hand, he hadn’t been as required as he’d expected. It turned out some of his players (mostly Phuong), as well as Ayet (the elven enchantress still in his bed) were pretty damn capable of putting these things down.

So could he take a risk and leave a skeletal crew? Sending most everyone to go out and explore and get stronger in the wild?

Oh. And then were his actual ‘objectives’ handed down by the system. He was supposed to literally explore the whole continent, as well as find every ancient druid to get some kind of blessing (you know, like the one that made him hornier than a teenage boy on Viagra).

Which led to the next objective: a year to impregnate as many elves as possible (a tough job, but somebody had to do it), which, technically speaking, he was fairly sure didn’t mean him doing the impregnating

personally

. He just had to help them maybe find boyfriends, or husbands.

Except

this

was complicated by the fact that it seemed elves

couldn’t

actually get pregnant, and the only way he knew how to make them fertile was through a blessing of Gaia, or at least her nymphs, which maybe involved Mason banging them for a night in a nymph pool.

“Mason?”

He was in the dining room now, mindlessly fiddling with the coffee machine, hopefully actually starting it correctly while lost in his thoughts. He turned to the sound of the voice.

Naya, his actual elven bride, and the daughter of the elf he’d just spent a night buried inside, came padding over on slippered feet with a sleepy smile.

“You’re up early,” he said, hoping he didn’t reek too much like sex. Elves had very good senses and he practically cringed as his bride came up and hugged him. She yawned and smiled up at him with her dark eyes.

“I expected you’d be busy today. I wanted to thank you for welcoming my mother into your home and bed so quickly, husband. Yesterday must have been…so difficult for her. I’m sure your comfort was exactly what she needed.”

Mason often found himself lost for words, and apparently today it was starting early. By ‘difficult’ he assumed she meant the whole ‘more or less single-handedly having to shut down a greater abyssal demon portal, while all its minions tried to murder her’ thing.

But talking to your wife about sleeping with her mother was not something Mason had the cultural tools to handle.

It wasn’t ‘normal’ for the elven nobility, either. But it also wasn’t unprecedented. Naya especially seemed comfortable…in fact downright

grateful

, as if Mason was doing her family a favor. They’d been a marriage of circumstance and convenience, after all, not love—Naya needing protection and children, and Mason was the only real option.

But still…they’d slept together now several times. Naya was beautiful, Mason was absolutely attracted to her, and very confident she felt the same. He had no doubt that once they got to know each other better it would become a much deeper, vaguely traditional kind of relationship. So for her to be so…accepting of his new ‘concubine’ was definitely culturally bizarre.

And the reality was: he was

also

incredibly attracted to Naya’s mother Ayet. It was no burden or favor. To human eyes, the two hundred year old elven noblewoman looked like an under thirty model. Mason had wanted that woman since the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and if anything, she was

more

eager for him than her daughter.

He cleared his throat as she watched him, and he hoped he hadn’t stared too long like a slack jawed idiot.

“She slept well. I think she’ll be good today.”

Naya smiled and hugged him again, chest rising and falling as if breathing in his scent.

“I must admit,” she said more quietly. “I missed you last night. I almost considered coming down to…I don’t know…” her eyes flicked to his and away, “see if maybe there was room. Like with the nymphs. I’m being terribly selfish, aren’t I? And not a very dutiful wife. It isn’t my place.”

Mason clamped down on his rising lust with an iron…OK,

soft plastic

will. He put his hands on Naya’s face and kissed her thick lips, groaning as her curves molded against his chest. He pulled back and almost apologized because he hadn’t really meant to do that. But he could see in Naya’s eyes it definitely wasn’t unwelcome.

“We’ll have plenty of nights together,” he said, running a thumb across her lips. Naya smiled almost shyly and nodded. Her nipples were pushing through the thin fabric of her shirt, and she was getting an increasingly naughty look in her eye as she glanced back at the empty kitchen and living room.

By the time she opened her mouth to take in a finger, Mason was pretty sure she was about to suggest they not wait for ‘night’ at all. And he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to fight it.

“Morning, y’all.”

Becky came strolling in the front door with a small cast around her broken wrist. She was wearing ripped off white system pants made into shorts, showing off her increasingly athletic, muscled legs. An equally ripped up shirt showed her bra underneath, and she had on her favorite high boots.

She grinned and winked at Mason, then closed her eyes and took a breath.

“Coffee? Shit darlin’ I didn’t know you could even work that thing. Aila wouldn’t give me so much as decaf in that damn hospital. Said I needed to sleep.”

Mason poured a cup without a word, holding it up as Becky came and took it. She looked at the now awkward Naya still pressed against Mason and shrugged.

“Don’t mind me. I didn’t mean to…”

Mason pulled her in for a hug and kissed her forehead. And pretty soon she’d set the cup down and was giving him a proper squeeze.

“Would you stop getting your ass kicked by giant demons, or whatever? I worry.”

“Shit, like you can talk,” she said into his shoulder. “I’ve seen you with your arm ripped off.”

He wiggled his fingers and smiled.

“Mine grow back.”

“You didn’t

know

that at the time.”

She stuck out her tongue, and Mason kissed her until she was making little noises. Naya was getting less and less uncomfortable, her chest still pressed against him as she made room for Becky and started tracing a line down his arm with her fingers.

His hands were drifting lower and things were definitely getting dangerous unless he found the discipline to…

“Ouch.”

Becky hissed and winced and Mason’s lust transformed into concern. He turned on Ranger’s Mark and inspected her like a surgeon.

“It’s just my hip,” she said. “Bruised the bone, I guess. But keep touchin’ me.”

Mason gave her a stern look and pushed some loose hair out of her face before kissing her softly again.

“I’ll only be gone a few days. Keep your friend the nurse company and maybe you can even handle me when I’m back.”

“Oh those are fightin’ words, I can handle you now or anytime city boy. Hey, now where you…”

Mason pulled back and gave both girls a slap on the ass, going gentle on Becky. Naya practically jumped in surprise, and Becky stared daggers as Mason went for the door.

“I’ll be back!” he called. “And I’m leaving more players here than I thought. So watch the walls. And watch for demon portals.”

“Sit on my ass, you mean!” Becky shouted. Mason gave her a wink and Naya a smile before he walked out and called for Streak.