That night, we conceived our firstchild.

Even if Lily hadn't told me she was choosing to become pregnant, I'd have sensed it. As I poured my seed into her womb, I felt warmth fill us both, yet I also felt her Libido all but collapse. And not because I'd drained her.

If that was an unpleasant experience for her, though, it didn't show. She smiled ear to ear and looked like she might cry tears of joy. We didn't fool around any more that night.

But that wasn't to say we weren't physical. We cuddled like Mom and I had used to. Though I'd never felt as much guilt or fear when Mom and I laid together.

I wasn't supposed to be developing feelings for this woman. Had sworn to my mother that I wouldn't let it happen. Maybe that didn't matter now, since I wasn't sure when or if I'd ever see my mother again. But it still felt wrong.

And there was Iva to consider as well.

It came as something of a surprise when Lily informed me that women of our kind didn't need nine months to carry a baby to term. Just three. It wasn't surprising that pregnancy worked differently for us, but that I'd never heard that before. I wondered if I'd ever cease to feel as though I knew next to nothing about the rules of our world.

After a brief honeymoon, we returned to the Homelands. We agreed that we'd stay there for a month or so, then go to the mortal world for the rest of her pregnancy. That way, we'd be gone from the court for less than a week. Yet we'd still have plenty of time alone to get to know each other better before our child was born.

We didn't do a very good job of getting to know each other in that first month, but it sure was fun. And we often invited others to join us.

By the time we headed to the mortal world, I felt confident that Wendy and Iva could handle most of the affairs of state well enough without me. Wendy was proving to be an even better choice for prime minister than I'd hoped. She was smart, efficient, politically astute yet not unfair or unscrupulous, and dedicated. Madly in love with Iva, as well. Which was good, since Iva would be the one she'd be working most closely with, at least for a while.

Back in the mortal world, Lily and I threw ourselves into pretending to be a normal mortal couple. It was summer, and I was tenured, so I didn't worry about work.

As we started spending less time in bed and finally started to get to know each other, I was more and more sure that we were falling in love, as my mother ha said we would. My mother was never wrong about anything, though, so that shouldn't have surprised me.

We had plenty of disagreements, to be sure. About all manner of stupid little things. And there were some things I thought we should talk about, but we never did, because the very mention of them would make Lily shut down. But we never really fought.

Not while we were wearing people skins anyway.

Finally, the three months were coming to a close. It had been a tough time for both of us in many ways, though of course more so for her.

But there was nowhere else I'd have wanted to be than with her.

She looked so beautiful, carrying our child. Many of the women of our world, and perhaps even the mortal one, really were not meant to be mothers. Lily, however, was.

Nothing could have compared to watching my beautiful wife give birth to our first child. A son. It was trying, exhausting, exhilarating, and humbling. We'd made a life. A little boy that would one day make women melt without even trying. Including his mother.

We'd already chosen a couple to adopt our little boy. Though it was hard, as we both wanted to spend time with the baby, we delivered him within the hour. Otherwise, we'd get attached and we wouldn't want to give him up.

Which, perhaps, might not have been so terrible. But I wasn't ready for that yet. We'd at least have to wait until I'd given up the throne.

Lily agreed with all of that, but it still wasn't easy for her to let go. The next two days saw a lot of crying, and more than a little fighting. She eventually apologized for everything she said. But I was finally starting to consider the possibility that there might be more distance between what she wanted from this marriage and what I wanted from it than I'd allowed myself to believe.

But everything seemed fine during our first week back in the court. I took care of business during the day. More and more, that meant recruiting, and distributing patronage to, vassals. There were times that Wendy needed to consult me about things, but fewer and fewer. Particularly since Daphne seemed to have decided she wasn't ready to treat with me after all. That worried me, but was a huge relief at the same time.

By the end of the week, Lily told me she was ready to get pregnant again.

The second experience with childbirth was easier than the first. Lily took some pain medication, and I numbed her further with the same energy I'd often used to amplify or suppress her senses during sex. Why I hadn't thought of that last time, I don't know. Perhaps I'd just been too in awe. Or too confused.

It was no less humbling to watch. Perhaps more so, precisely because Lily was feeling no pain. It was an absolutely beautiful moment. The doctors couldn't believe how well she handled it, which made both of us smile.

Again, she gave birth to a boy. And again, we gave it away to a family we'd pre-selected. A model family, stable and loving, who lived in the suburbs, but was not too conservative. We didn't want our son to grow up with puritanical views about sex, after all.

On the drive back to our place, she was numb and non-responsive. "Babe. Did you see the nursery they'd set up? Wasn't that cute? I think he's going to be happy with them."

She broke down crying.

I pulled over and we climbed into the backseat. I held her in my arms while she cried and cried. She didn't yell at me, call me names, curse me for talking her into giving up her baby, or anything like she had last time. But it took a while before she calmed down.

That night, I didn't try to convince her we did the right thing.

By the next day, she was better. Depressed, yes, but not catatonic.

A day later, she was ready to return to the court. And the day after that, it was as if everything was fine. But I didn't raise the question of whether we were going to have more children. During the day, I tended to court business. At night, I was with her.

Holly's Rite of Elevation was coming up soon. When I brought it up, Lily said that maybe we should wait until after that to get pregnant again.

"So, we are having more children then?"

"Don't you want to?" she asked. "I thought you did. You knew I wanted lots of kids when you married me, you know. I didn't make a myst-"

"Oh, no, I absolutely do," I cut in. "I just wasn't sure how you felt. I know it's harder than we might have hoped to let go of them."

"Yeah, it is. But I still want more. Now, don't freak out if I get depressed after giving birth again. My hormones take over and I start thinking like a mortal. But when I'm thinking straight, yeah, I'm fully on board."

"Good," I said, running a hand up and down her back.

"So have we thought at all about whether to take them vassals?" I asked.

She sighed. I thought maybe she was going to protest. And it wasn't that I didn't understand her concerns. But I just didn't see why talking them into becoming our vassals was all that bad.

But to my surprise, she said, "Yeah. Let's do it."

"Really?"

Lily nodded. "Only if they're okay with it. But, sure, we can ask."

"That's all I ever meant," I said.

Which was probably true. I hadn't though carefully enough about it before saying we should make them be our vassals that one time. That was all.

Maybe I was willing to do things to gain power that others were not. This wasn't the first time it had occurred to me that this might be the case. But even I had limits. And I suspected that once I got to know my kids, the last thing I'd ever want to do is push them into something they weren't comfortable with.

#

Perhaps surprisingly, the Rite of Elevation demanded abstinence from the participants. I'd been hoping for it to require an orgy, but apparently there was even greater power in the ache that our kind felt when forced to forego acting on our urges as there was in the act of coupling. Or so Wendy claimed.

It also required thirteen of us. Dad, Cindy and Grandma refused outright, because of the abstinence. But between the rest of my family, my wife, and the vassals I forced to assist us, we got to thirteen. The decided lack of cooperation from House Farrier would not be soon forgotten, though, even if we didn't need them. The Rite required the expenditure of massive amounts of energy, and it would have been orders of magnitude easier to complete with Grandma in the circle. Dad and Cindy would have helped more than my vassals as well, though their absence was not as keenly felt as that of my grandmother.

The Rite consisted of the thirteen of us sitting in a circle around Holly, holding hands, visualizing her as a sexual being. When I expressed confusion over what exactly that meant, Wendy explained that the only written account she'd been able to find had been performed on an elderly couple, and it might not have been so trivial a detail in that case. Yet again, I deferred to her judgment.

Much as it pained me to admit, with women like Wendy and Iva around, my intellectual contributions to tasks such as this were minimal to non-existent. For that matter, my raw power hardly marked me as unique either. Were I not the king, it would have made little sense for me to direct the Rite rather than Iva.

Thankfully, the Rite was neither complicated nor lengthy.

It was, however, dreadfully exhausting. I blacked out afterwards, only to wake up in my bed nearly fourteen hours later.

A few days later, I decided to visit Holly. She and her family had returned to the mortal world, while Lily and I were staying in the Homelands until she was much closer to term. That meant Lily would hardly notice my absence.

I was stunned by the magnificent beauty that answered the door.

She wasn't exactly a whole new woman. If she looked better now than even in the photos Todd had showed me of her modeling days, it was a close thing. And he still didn't have the curves I preferred, though her breasts were a little larger than before. With her already thin waist a bit thinner, she almost had a proper hourglass shape. Only almost though.

But despite the fact that she was still thinner than I preferred, she had my knees wobbling the instant I laid eyes on her.

There had been a time that I'd thought that my cousin Brianna had the prettiest face ever. And if not for my nearly fetishistic obsession with seeing black hair combined with ultra fair skin, I perhaps would not have thought Holly any prettier than Brianna. However, if only because of that particular preference, I had to say that Holly was now the prettiest woman I could even imagine.

Of course, a pretty face is only worth so much. My newly immortal sister-in-law was still trying to figure out how to use her powers. And even if she hadn't been inexperienced in their use, she only had about as much raw power as Aunt Cindy anyway.

It was an enjoyable afternoon, to be sure. Like all immortal women, she had her own unique taste. And hers was especially sweet. Her juices had a peppermint taste that was vaguely reminiscent of candy canes. And while I couldn't bust out all my favorite moves, she allowed me to do things with her that I'd never have been able to do when she was still a mortal. Like growing an extra cock and fucking both her pussy and her ass at the same time. She also had greater stamina and flexibility, allowing us to try more positions than she'd have been able to handle in one afternoon prior to her Elevation.

All in all, I was very glad I came to visit her, and glad that she was so eager to express her gratitude for my part of Elevating her. I was even glad to hear her say that Todd seemed to have rediscovered her, and Sean was more persistent in chasing after her than ever before.

But I didn't stay as long as I'd thought I might, no matter that she repeatedly mentioned that she had the house to herself for several hours yet.

#

The next night, while Lily slept, I went to visit Brianna. She was less defensive than the last time I'd seen her, but no closer to wanting to return to the court. Remembering how she'd said she'd wanted to Devour me last time, I didn't try to sleep with her either.

A few days later, after a meeting with Wendy ended earlier than expected, I finally went to see my sister. In the middle of the day. At least, it was in the Homelands.

When I appeared in her apartment, she'd been entertaining five young gentleman, all of whom were black. At first, I thought they were all strangers, but then I realized that two of them were our cousins, Vince and Ismail. They were polite enough, but cool and detached.

I guess I couldn't blame them.

I'd thought I might put Skye next on my list of people I needed to visit, but the looks on her brothers' faces alone convinced me I'd better wait a while longer.

Natalie wasn't a whole lot happier to see me. At first, she'd told me to leave. She caved on that quickly enough, but still told me to wait outside while she finished up. And it was nearly a half hour before she came out onto her patio, wearing a bathrobe and nothing else.

As she tucked a cigarette in her mouth and lit it without the aid of matches or a lighter, she asked me, "The fuck do you want, Frank?"

"Good to see you-"

"Cut the shit. I'm in no mood for your lame jokes."

I drew a deep breath. "Since when do you smoke?"

"Since when do you give a fuck whether I smoke?" she asked, inhaling deeply. The cherry on the end of the cigarette flared. "Ain't likely to kill me, is it? Not like we're normal."

From someone else, that would have sounded like a boast instead of a lament.

"You ever hear from Rob?"

"Yeah, we play golf on Saturdays," she deadpanned. "Seriously, Frank, tell me why you're here or get the fuck out out my face. You could have at least let me know you were coming, you know. Pretty rude to just drop in on me like this."

"I didn't know I was coming, until some free time opened up-"

"That's just fucking great. I'm an afterthought. Lovely."

I grabbed the cigarette from her mouth, took a long drag, then handed it back. I didn't care for the taste, or the way it seared my lungs, but it did soothe the nerves. "I want you to come back, Nat. This isn't the life for you."

"It look like I'm retired? You do still recognize your cousins, right?" she asked. "Why don't you just say what you really mean. You miss me. You want to fuck me again." Then she barked a laugh, accompanied by a puff of smoke. "No, that can't be it. You've got more women than you can handle as it is. It's not my vag you want, it's my forgiveness. Am I right? Your poor conscience can't live with all the shit you've done, and you need to hear someone tell you that they understand, that it's okay, that you're not a bad person."

I didn't respond.

She was more or less right, of course.

"You should have said you wanted to fuck me. That, I might have given you," she said. Then she dropped the cigarette on the concrete, rubbed it out with a bare foot, and went back inside. She closed the sliding glass door, leaving me alone on her balcony.

Though we were only four years apart, I'd never gotten to know my sister that well. Not like I had Dom and Todd. Even Dom had a better relationship with her, and with six years separating them, they had less reason to be close. So the truth was, I didn't know how she'd react to what I was about to do. All I knew was that she'd made a few comments in the past to indicate she'd been disappointed that I wasn't more persistent in trying to get her attention. She was the girl, she'd said.

I took a deep breath and moved from her balcony...