The food was amazing. Martin had called for dinner to be served, and upon doing that, various plates and platters stacked with food were placed in a line down the middle of the table. I was currently inhaling a steak made from a B+ ranked creature called an Infernal Bull, and according to Martin, the fire magic that they were imbued with gave it the kick that was sizzling on my tongue. It was damn good, and that's all I needed to know.
Cici had tried some of it, and while she liked it, she was focused more on the seafood. She was eating the leg meat of some crab, although the leg itself was so big it has been cut up and placed in several stacks on a plate. That too was fucking good. I wasn't picky. If the food was good, I was gonna eat it. Everyone else was so busy eating that no one spoke for a while. They just stuffed their faces. Some light conversation started up once everyone was comfortable.
"How do you like it?" Seraphina asked us all of us, and everyone bobbed their heads.
"It's really good." Cici said as stuffed a bite of some weird green and blue fish into her mouth. It didn't look great at a glance, but the way her eyes lit up when she bit into it told me otherwise.
"It is damn good. Thank you both for this." I said, and Martin and Seraphina both smiled and nodded at the compliment.
"Hey... are you okay?" Serena asked quietly, and I turned to see her talking to Valerie, who was sitting next to her.
Attention was now drawn to the beautiful Dhampir, who was staring at her plate. She had various different samples of vatious foods on her plate, but she hadn't eaten much exept for one bit of the same meat I had earlier. Currently, she was staring at the food on her fork, and only a small bite had been taken out of it. Tears fell down her face as she just stared at the food.
"Valerie, what's wrong?" Cici asked, while Serena reached over and began to rub her back.
"I... I've never had anything that tasted this good..." She said with a sniffle.
"What did those people feed you?" I asked, my anger only qwelled by the fact that Delvin was dead, and the rest were as good as dead.
"Scraps... old food. Moldly bread, spoiled meat... that sort of thing. They said since I'm a monster and couldn't get sick, it was as good as I deserved." She said, and yeah, now I actually got mad.
"You're not a monster," I growled, and then took a deep breath, and schooled my emotions, "You won't ever have to deal with that again." I said much more calmly.
"Yeah. They were the monsters, not you." Serena said gently, grabbing a cloth and drying Valerie's eyes.
"That Delvin truly is a monster... his soul is rotten to the core. I'm so sorry you've been dealing with that." Sera said softly, eyeing me, and then Martin, "I assume what you haven't told me has to do with Tempest, why you suddenly left earlier, and why she's now here instead of being dragged around by those people?"
Martin nodded, and then he gestured towards me. There was a bit to unpack there, like the fact that Sera could see souls kinda like how I could, at least from my interpretation. Hopefully she'd talk about that more. For now, I just gave Martin my full attention.
"Elias, I was there for a lot of what happened, but not all of it. Could you tell us how it happened from start to finish?" He asked me, and I only hesitated for a moment, but I nodded. Cici's hand gently made its way into mine, and with that, I spoke.
I didn't hold anything back besides revealing any of my abilities. I wouldn't say I'd never tell these people. They did seem like solid and decent folks, but that didn't change the fact that I barely knew them. Seraphina listened with wrapped attention, and I actually caught her smirking every I talked about me scaring the hell out of them, and she even barked a laugh when I told her about when Delvin broke his arm on my face.
"I wish I could have seen that. I can't believe you took all of his attacks without even a scratch!" She said, and everyone around the table backed me up.
"It was so awesome. Seeing someone like that feeling as low as he made other people feel was a wonderful thing to see." Sheila said, looking at me with a gaze I'd expect from my wife.
"It was really something... I couldn't believe my eyes." Serena said with a faint blush.
"It wasn't even a fight. I've never seen such a strong person outclassed like that in my life." Terroth said.
"Master Elias is truly something else. I don't think anyone could beat him!" Benji said, and Cici nodded at him enthusiastically.
"Please don't encourage him..." I sighed, and Cici just smiled as she squeezed my hand.
"He said some really nasty things to us. Watching that was very cathartic." Clarissa said, and Marina nodded beside her.
"Agreed." The red head said.
"I... also enjoyed that." Valerie said, surprising me, but when I looked at her, and saw her shy and timid expression, I just smiled at her. We'd all make sure she was okay now.
With all of that, I continued the story, including his confessions, and the look of utter disgust on Sera's face was all the confirmation I needed to know. When I finally ended my story, Sera took a deep breath, and then looked at me with an intense gaze.
"I knew he was bad... my class makes it to where I can see the light, and the dark, of someone's soul. His soul was like a dark void... but even I couldn't have imagined it would be that bad... good riddance." She said, confirming what I guessed, then ahe glanced over at Valerie, who still had her eyes fixed on me, "What are your plans for her? A girl with a soul that bright doesn't deserve any of this." She said, and I nodded.
"She doesn't." I said, fixing my gaze back on Valerie who looked at me nervously, but also with something I hadn't seen on her face until just now. Hope. "As long as she lets me, I plan on helping her."
Valerie's eyes grew big as she looked at me like she couldn't believe I had just said that.
"Just be patient and believe me. You'll never go through any of that ever again." I said gently.
Her bottom lip quivered as moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she quickly nodded, before turning away to hide her face. Serena gently began running a hand over her back again.
"Everything's okay now." She said sweetly.
Seraphina gave me a long look, but then she just nodded.
"You are much kinder than you appear, Elias." She said, picking up her glass of wine, and taking a sip, "You are very mysterious... yet also, I don't feel like I have to worry about you."
I chuckled.
"You don't need to worry about me. I'm just a simple man who wants to not deal with stress, and love my wife. Granted... trouble seems to find me a lot more than I'd like."
She laughed, a beautiful and melodic noise.
"I'll drink to that." She said, taking another sip of her wine, "How about we save the rest of the gloomy stuff for later. Everyone, please, drink up."
As she said that, a few more butlers and maids entered the dining room. One of them brought a tray fill of glasses, while the other two were wheeling in a couple of trollies which had chilled bottles of various alcohols on it. Wine, champagne, bourbon, vodka, and some that I didn't even know. I wasn't sure if I could even get drunk any more, but I was determined to find out.
Everyone chatted and drank about mundane stuff after that. Serena was really getting along with Valerie, and Valerie in turn seemed to really be opening up to the beautiful fox. Sheila was currently trying to outdrink Terroth, and I wasn't exactly sure who was winning, as they both looked pretty shit faced at this point. Marina however was sitting next to Terroth, and every minute, I saw her scooting closer and closer to the big bear man until she was eventually resting her entire frame against his left side. I did not expect to see that in my lifetime, but it was pretty funny seeing the man be unsure of what to do.
I was feeling kinda bad for Benji. After a couple of drinks, he began to look pretty depressed. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but before I could do that, he eventually just told everyone he was tired and excused himself, and followed a maid who led him towards the bedrooms designated for us. Serena followed after him not long after that, and Valerie looked towards me, and I simply smiled and nodded at her. She returned the smile, before standing herself, and following after the fox.
During all of this, I had also learned that Cici and Sera must be kindred spirits. Currently, Cici was sitting my lap, her head buried in my neck as she purred quite loudly. Sera coincidentally was draped across her husband's lap as well, rubbing her face against his. He tried to look stoic and composed, but the man's happy smile could not be contained.
Clarissa had left to use the restroom a little while ago, and I was almost ready to go and see if she fell in or something, but then the doors opened, and she came back in, walked over to where Cici and I were, and plopped down next to me.
"I... haven't drank much in... my life... it went right through me." She slurred, and hiccuped at the end.
I laughed.
"It must be nice. I drank a lot, but I can't feel it." I said, and she frowned at me.
"That... sucks... I'm sorry Eli." She said, and then leaned over and rested her head against my shoulder.
I just smiled. I had Cici's face buried into my left shoulder, and now I had Clarissa leaning against my left. Using my free hand, I wrapped it around Clarissa, and pulled him in close to me. She responded by rubbing her cheek into my arm. God it was so cute.
"This feels... nice... and I feel safe." Clarissa slurred, and I chuckled lightly.
"You are safe. As long as you're with me, I won't let anything happen to you." I said, and I felt Cici smile into my neck.
Then, I felt Clarissa's hand on my face. She turned my face to hers, and before I knew it, lips were pushed into my mine. It was a much deeper kiss than I expected. She pushed her tongue against my lips, and I gave her tongue a brief lick with mine before I closed my mouth, and gently pushed her away. She pouted, and I just smiled.
"Easy there, Baroness." I teased, and she pouted even harder. Yup, mega fucking cute, "I'd rather you be sober before we do anything more."
She huffed at me.
"You're so... unfair. You expect me... to do nothing when you act so sweet?" She asked me.
"Oh trust me, it's tempting, but I like to do things right." I said, and she grumbled, but reluctantly nodded.
"Fine... but we are going on that... that... thing..." She said, her eyes drooping.
"A date?" I asked with a smirk.
"Yeeeeeah... that sounds lovely." She slurred, before resting her head on my shoulder again.
I just smiled as I ran a hand through her hair, and within a few minutes, I actually heard soft and cute little snores coming from here. I laughed softly.
"What a lightweight." I said.
"Hey! What gives?" Terroth suddenly said, and I turned to see Marina physically dragging the man through the doors towards where the others went earlier.
"Rooms." Marina said sternly to a maid in the hallway, who jumped, but then frantically gestured for her to follow. My eyes were bugged out.
I looked over at Sheila, who's eyes were a little wide at the scene, but after a moment, she just doubled over laughing.
"I didn't see that coming." She said with a laugh once she calmed down a bit.
"Yeah... neither did I." I said, a little dumbfounded. I didn't even know a woman like Marina could be like that.
At the same time, I looked over to see a shockingly similar scene happening with Martin, who looked all too happy to be getting dragged away.
"We... are going to retire as well. We'll see you all first thing in the morning." Martin said, before he disappeared behind another set of doors with a giggling Sera.
"Must be mating season." I said, and Sheila barked a laugh, then sniffed the air, and grinned at Cici.
"Oh... it definitely is. I think I'll retire too. Want me to take sleeping beauty?" She asked me, and I chuckled.
"Sure." I said, and with that, she rounded the table, and picked up Clarissa like a princess.
Clarissa immediately buried her face into Sheila's tits, and the woman smiled.
"Even asleep, she knows a good thing when she sees it." She said.
"I can agree to that." I told her, and she gave me a saucy wink.
"Hmm... I'd rather it be someone else's face." She said, and she began walking away, "But I've heard the saying, good things come to those who wait. I hope they're right."
I watched her walk away, watching the back and forth sway of her tail, as well as the round and shapely outline of her ass as she swayed a lot more than was necessary. Yeah... from what Cici had told me... ny future was looking to be pretty busy. Speaking of Cici.
"Hey babe, do you- ugh!" I said, then grunted as she began rubbing my cock through my pants.
"Eli..." She growled into my ear, "I didn't trust myself to say anything, so I just kept quiet... but Gods damn it... I need this inside of me so bad. Please Eli... I can't wait anymore."
Her voice sounded frantic as she begged me for my cock, and I was suddenly more eager than ever before to give her what she wanted. Not only that, by I could now fell dampness on my leg, and I looked down to see than not onlt were her juices leaking through her dress, but a couple trails were leaking down her thighs and dripping onto the floor. I stood with her cradled in my arms, grabbing her by the rear to keep her steady, and practically ran down the hall where everyone else had gone.
"Please fuck me Eli. Please." Cici begged, and my pace quickened.
I found one of the maids, and I tried to be as discrete as possible.
"Excuse me, "I asked, my breath a little short, "Where exactly are the rooms?"
She looked at me, then at Cici, and smirked.
"This way, sir. Please, follow me." She said, turning around and walking down the hall.
I followed her with my horny package in hand. She had wrapped her legs around my waist, and was subtly grinding herself against me.
"Sorry about the shirt, Martin." I said, not sorry in the least.