Chapter 12: One By One 

None of them were woodsmen of any sort, especially not in the dark, but it wasn’t hard to find a guide to take them close enough for Tobin to walk them the rest of the way. There’d been some hushed conversation between the guide and Tobin at the start when it turned out the woodsman had also led Eels out to the same place. 

It was dark in the woods, and little moonlight made it through the canopy. Every noise sounded more pronounced, and while they were largely practiced at being quiet and working in similar conditions, it was not the same. 

They had settled on using one torch, because that was what any lookouts would be expecting, and as Chandra carried it and walked a few paces ahead, Tobin and his other four henchmen ghosted behind her, following her lead. 

Buckets was the first to notice the sweet scent that had started to waft through the air, and his step started to slow a touch, becoming more leisurely and careless as he followed along. 

Crain, Tobin’s third in command fell back to try and speed him on, but when he asked the big man what the problem was, he just said it was such a nice night to be out, then asked if Crain smelled it too. They both stood there a moment, considering the sweetness in the air, and the way the shadows didn’t seem so ominous anymore. Ahead of them, it looked like Pierce, and Walt had both also lost a step or two as well, while Chandra and the torch moved further and further away. 

Tobin had fallen back to Bucket and Crain and was prodding them along, whispering harsh and vulgar instructions, and found himself having to do the same with the other two, who they were overtaking. Finally, they caught up to Chandra at the edge of the woods, her torch planted in the ground behind a tree. 

“The fuck is wrong with all of you?” Her whisper was sharp as her sword. 

“These fuckwits are too busy enjoying the pleasant scent of the forest. Get your shit together, we’ve got work to do.” Each of the others started to regain their wits at that, but Chandra’s shoulders seemed to slump as she let out a little sigh.

“It does smell nice out here Tobin. I’ve been breathing in burning tallow until now. It’s not our fault your nose is all broken.” She leaned against a tree like the others had, and it looked to Tobin like she was enjoying the moment. 

“Well that’s all well and good, but we’ve got hard work ahead of us. There’s no knowing how many folk might be in there, so we split up, move silent, and,” he pulled his thumb across his throat, “draw the red on everyone we find.” 

Putting hands to weapon hilts, they nodded, and as one, the six of them moved through the night to surround the manor and force their way in. 

Crain was gone. 

One moment he was standing behind Tobin in the hall, and the next, he was just gone. As soon as they’d walked in through a hole in the wall, Crain had whispered about being dizzy, but he’d had a stupid look on his face as he said it, and it seemed like the bloodthirsty brigand was in danger of wandering off like a child or a poorly trained dog. 

Tobin thought he could feel a tangible pull on his lieutenant earlier, or that the foundation of the manor was sinking, but he had kept on, following his gut, willfully denying the inclination to go the other direction. Then Crain was just gone. 

The air around Chandra grew heavy, and she heard Pierce cry behind her. It was a sound that became a whimper in the time it took her to wheel about, sword at the ready. Something in the darkness had swallowed him up, and she could barely make out his shape. 

But the scintillating red eyes in the dark stood out clear as stars. 

The breath she took to steady herself was one of undeniable sweetness, and the foggy, detached sensation she’d been feeling became overwhelming. She took another breath as those eyes seemed to grow larger, warmer, red upon red, dancing like fire in the darkness. 

A vine started to snake around her leg, and her blade struck at it, then she was running. Running blind, running fast, but not far. The more she moved, the more dreamy and disoriented she became, and it began to feel like trying to run in a dream. Her steps were unsure, her hands felt weak, like trying to hold her sword was too much, and as she found herself at the top of a flight of stairs, Chandra couldn’t tell if she was running up them or down them. 

As she turned, Chandra ran face first into the warm softness of two massive breasts, and then felt strong hands wrap around her, “There there my sweet, I have you now.” 

She struggled for air as her face was cradled in that massive cleavage, and every breath she took left her more intoxicated than the last. Her head was spinning, her body was going limp, her sword fell from her hands, and the last words she remembered hearing were, “It’s alright, everything is alright now.” 

Unknown to her, Chandra’s face broke into a wide smile upon hearing that, and she fell into a daydream that no words could describe. 

“Pierce? Buckets? Chandra? Crain, where are you?” 

Walt had stumbled on the edge of a pool of water in the middle of a room in the basement, but he

hadn’t remembered coming down any stairs, and he didn’t know why, but once he’d gotten down there, he realized he needed to go back up. 

He shouted his friends’ names again, and had no idea how or when he’d gotten separated from Buckets, but as he made his way down the hall he’d found himself in, he tripped over something else.  It wasn’t the lip of a pool this time, it was Pierce’s body. 

Vines shot from the darkness and wrapped around his arms and legs, then pulled him down the hall into the pitch black, and then into a room filled with moonlight. 

The buxom form of a beautiful red headed young woman looked as though it was half raised from a large flower, and as Walt stared at her, taking short, panicked breaths, he realized this was where he’d wanted to be. 

“Breathe of me, and breathe deep stranger, welcome to my home. One of your friends sought to deny me, and another fled. You’ll not be so cruel will you? You’ll not deny me what I wish will you?” The vines pulled him closer to her, and she knelt down over his face, the nipple of one large breast dangling above his lips. “Kiss it, suck it, and show me you’ll oblige me now.” 

She pinched her nipple, and spray of sticky honey-like nectar shot into his lips, and into his mouth. It took no more than that one taste for Walt to do what she had asked of him. 

He did not see the body of Buckets in the corner, drained to nothingness, just like the corpse he’d tripped on in the hall, and he did not know that soon he would be joining them, only by a much more pleasurable road. 

Chapter 13: The Amulet 

 “Where the fuck…” Nathanial was holding an amulet, a circular platinum ring on a chain, mounted around a clear white gem of some unknown kind. He was going to say “am I”, but as he looked into the center of the jewel, his memory cleared and he knew exactly where he was. 

He also knew why he was there. 

Without wanting to lose a step on his escape, he put the amulet on, then took a deep steadying breath, and focused on the moment. 

Then, after he followed his escape route out of the mansion he’d broken into, he ran. Nathanial ran as fast as he could for as long as he could until he found himself outside of Thaddeus’ bar.  The old drunk was deep into his evening ritual intoxication when Nathanial got there. “Oh look at you boy, you’re still alive? Tobin’s crew not get you in the woods?” 

Sweating, tired, and unsettled by what his day had become, Nathanial wiped his brow with his sleeve and looked at the disgraced surgeon, “What?” 

“Tobin took his crew into the woods after you, the whole gang, including that, whose-her-face, that girl you used to have around. Why’d she stop coming around with you anyhow, I liked her?” His words had been punctuated by hiccups and a few laughing, wheezing, coughs. It was vey early for Thaddeus to be this drunk.  “Thaddeus, I’m taking some food.” 

Nathanial made his way into the back, wolfed down some dried sausage and bread, then took a deep drink of water and sorted through his bag. Everything he’d taken with him that morning was still there, and…  He could see perfectly in the dim light of the back room, just as he’d seen clearly in the early dark of

the evening. 

Well, that was one of the amulet’s powers, and it also freed him of Camellia’s hold over him, so that was encouraging as well. Now, he had to go back to the manor, in the dark of the night, to, he didn’t know exactly, but he had to go and do something. 

So, Nathanial ran out the door, stole a horse from a stable on the edge of Silver Town, and took the forest road as far as he could. He’d stolen a lantern as well, and that had helped the horse more than it had him. When he reached the point where he had to leave the road, he turned the horse back towards Four Towns, slapped its ass, and hoped for the best. 

For the horse, and for himself. 

Chapter 14: Into Dangers, Known and Unknown 

 The air was clean. 

He was close enough to the manor now where it should have been sweet, teasing him with euphoria, even with his mask on. He should have felt the pheromones sinking into his skin, and around his eyes, but he felt nothing, nothing save the fear that was pooling in his guts and making his limbs tingle.  He’d be too late, he knew it, but too late for what? 

Would the manor be filled with his human enemies, their blades sticky with plant sap, or blood, or whatever flowed through the Alruane? 

Or, would he find his old gang at the mercy of the sisters, drained, imprisoned in pods, milked to a slow and oblivious end?  

Whatever it was, whatever it could be that he was walking into, he had no idea what he’d hoped to accomplish, or what he could do at all. 

Walking through the night, seeing things as clear as day, he reached the tree line and looked to the tower, then to the open front door, and finally to the open cellar door that led to Camellia’s underground chambers. 

There was a chance, if Tobin’s crew had been successful, that the sisters were dead and that they’d be both pillaging the place, and likely keeping a look out for him. 

If the sisters were alive, he had no idea where they’d be, or what they would be doing, all he knew was that it would be foolish to bring Camellia the amulet, and it would be just as foolish to try and walk across the open ground assuming no one was watching or him. 

So, as he did the first time, Nathanial slipped from cover to cover, and… 

“You rat fuck shit fuck, I’ll fucking kill you!” 

Tobin ran at him from behind a broken wall near the fountain. 

“Limp dicked, shit monger fuck!” He was wild with rage, snarling, with only a broken piece of his stick in his hand, and a large empty sheath flapping against the side of his leg. His clothes were torn, and his chest was scratched all over with thin shallow lines. 

Tobin’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, spittle was streaming down his lower lip, and he tried to use the remnant of stick like a knife, aiming the jagged broken end down between Nathanial’s neck and collarbone. He was sloppy though, off balance, not his usual murderously effective self, and instead, he bowled into Nathanial and they both fell to the grass.

Tobin was on top of him now, and the point of his stick was moving closer to Nathanial’s eye slower than it should have been. It was because the thief had managed to get his hand around Tobin’s wrist. “Die Eels, you die, you die here, you die.” Nathanial looked up in wonder at the face of his one time partner in crime, and couldn’t tell if he was seeing Tobin as he truly was, or Tobin stripped of everything that made him human, or if he was seeing something else entirely. 

His would be killer’s free hand came down on Nathanial’s cheek once, then twice, and on that second time, Nathanial heard something break. Though consumed with madness, Tobin’s weight shifted and he fell back slightly; the pinky finger on his punching hand was mangled, pointing out sideways in the wrong direction. 

The weight of the encroaching sharpened stick lessened for a moment as well, and in that split second, Nathanial reached into his bag, got a hold of something, and smashed Tobin in the face with it. There was a crack, then a hiss, and both men screamed in pain. 

Bits of shattered clay fell from the remains of the glove on Nathanial’s hand. Acid burned through it and stung his fingers as Tobin howled like an animal, already back on his feet, grabbing at his face and snarling. The glove had saved his hand, but the pain had been sharp and unexpected. 

There were no words between them anymore, and when Nathanial saw the damage the orb had done, with Tobin’s eye half dissolved and his cheek a dripping, bloody mess, he knew there would be nothing more to say. His knife was in his hand as Tobin charged at him again, the long fingers of his empty hands stretched out like claws. 

All Nathanial had to do was stick… 

He couldn’t do it. 

His hand punched out towards Tobin’s face and would have had no effect had it not glanced off the acid burn. Tobin dropped to his knees, but his hands were still out, reaching, not for his neck now… But for the amulet. 

With more hate, and more malice than he’d ever felt before, Nathanial hit Tobin on the top of his head with the pommel of his knife. 

Then he did it again. 

And again, and again, and again. 

And again, until Tobin was on his hands and knees, bleeding from the head, wheezing and slobbering. “Are you watching?” Nathanial yelled as he kicked Tobin in the ribs, “You won’t get it. He won’t bring it to you, and you know you can’t take it from me.” 

He kicked Tobin again, even harder, “He can’t take it from me either, I know you’re watching I know you’re see this.” 

Tobin stopped moving. He didn’t die, he was still breathing, his body just became still, and then curled up into the fetal position. 

“What have you done?” Dahlia’s voice was small, shocked, and very close to him. 

Nathanial turned and saw the blue haired sister there, her body was wet from head to toe. “He was trying to kill me, trying to take this to your sister.” Nathanial was panting now; the adrenalin was starting to wear off. “Your sister made me steal it.” 

Dahlia’s face was pale with horror, “And did she make you bring these monsters with you? To come and

try to kill us all again, like before? I should have left you in that pod to die.” 

“Dahlia,” her fear and her scorn felt like sickness in his guts, “no, they, I don’t know why they were here, I think they were after me.” 

“I hid in the well, in the water, in case there was fire while my sisters protected us. You made them do it, you brought them here, you’re one of them, like the ones that made us become these things, that killed our family.” 

She was quiet for a moment, and his chest was heaving for breath as he tried to find something to say. “But you can make it right, I’ll show you.” 

A thick vine wrapped around Tobin’s leg and started to pull his whimper body to her. Nathanial watched in something that quickly became horror, as Dahlia started to chant and run her fingers over his burnt face. 

His skin was changing under her touch, turning to something like tree bark, and when he started to thrash around and howl in a pain that was more profound than any Nathanial had ever heard, Dahlia forced his head to her breast to suckle at her nipple while more vines restrained him as more skin started to turn to bark. 

“Give me the amulet and I can make sure no one ever hurts us again. Give me the amulet and I can make everything simple for you, and all of your kind, just like I am for this one.” 

More vines started to rise around her, like the tentacles of a sea creature. 

“I can force my sister to let me use her mirror, then I can work my magic over all of your town, all of its people, an army to keep us safe. Don’t you want that for me, don’t you want me to be safe Nathanial?” The fear he had seen in her shifted to a manic enthusiasm, and he saw a day dreamer’s distance in her eyes as she envisioned everything she said, “Give it to me, please. It can be your dowry, or a gift in courting me.” 

The vines were withering about, as anxious as her voice had become. 

“No. By the gods no.” 

Vines started to whip out towards him from every direction, but they fell against some unseen force and curled away. 

The creature that had been Tobin was still sucking at her tit, but Nathanial wasn’t watching anymore, he was running. 

“They’re not all dead you know, not yet, not the girl. Lilyana wouldn’t let me have all of them.” Camellia was there, in the moonlight, and she’d waved a hand behind her, back towards Dahlia, who was laughing, and yelling, telling him to come back, telling him that if he loved her at all, he would. A wall of thorns rose behind him where she gestured. 

“You, no, you stay away from me.” Nathanial’s knife was still in his hand, and he was reaching for another orb of acid. She on the other hand, was laughing at him. 

“Looooooooook into my eyes Nathanial… what do you see now?” Her voice was just as soft and just as cruel as when she’d overpowered him earlier than very day. 

Her eyes were flat, red, pretty, but no different than any other eyes. 

“I can’t do anything to you, I had no idea the amulet would break my hold just by touching it. I got lucky when these fools wandered into my home, but you handled all of that well enough. The amulet protects you

from the powers our bodies give us, and from the magic we used to practice. Though I guess from what just happened, sweet, sad Dahlia’s been keeping up with her studies in secret.” 

Camellia laughed. 

“She’s a fool though. The amulet would have served her plans, which are much worse than mine, but she can’t bear the thought of leaving this place. With that little bauble I could have my legs back, and then Nathanial, then I would have just walked away from my horrible sisters and been free to…” 

“Drain the life out of men wherever you go?” Without her powers to use on him, Camellia was just a busty girl stuck in a flower petal. 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. The men I drain enjoy it. Well they mostly do. A few of your friends died rather uncomfortably as I just sucked their souls out, so be glad I didn’t do the same to you. Anyhow, that human girl you fancy so much is upstairs with my sister, imprisoned, and if you want to save her from Lilyana’s nefarious ends, you should move quickly.” 

“You’re not, you’re not as bad as I thought you were.” He was looking at her sideways, trying to make sense of what was really going on in this manor, and with this girls who seemed as miserable as they were terrible. 

“No,” Camellia laughed and it was certainly at him and not with him, “I am. But unlike the other two, I’m direct. It’s from being the middle child you know, five centuries of life as a plant monsters, and we’re stuck where we were, just as human as the moment we ceased to be human at all.” 

“I’m going to go calm my little sister down, and keep her wood man from trying to crush your skull. Unless, you’d like to, well, give me the amulet and we can both go our separate ways?” Nathanial shook his head, and with that, Camellia’s vine tentacles started pulling her away from him. 

Chapter 15: The Mistress of the House 

For the very first time, Nathanial walked through the front door of Courles Manor. The atrium was like the rest of the manor, covered in vines and the ravages of time. Twin staircases led to an upper level, and he didn’t have t go far to see what, or who he was looking for. 

“Ah, burglar, you’ve returned to us,” Lilyana’s gargantuan breasts rested on the railing and she smiled at him like he was an old friend. “What brings you to us this evening? Are you here to murder and pillage like the others?” 

“I’m not. I’ve come to try and clean up their mess, I’d hoped to try and stop them since they came here for me, or because they thought you were other men like them, and not, well, yourselves.” Nathanial moved closer to the stairwell on his right, her left. 

“Well, good intentions count for very little in this world,” she sighed and her breasts heaved ever so slightly as she did, “but I appreciate them. Though you’ve seen the carnage your first visit this day has caused, both for yourself, and for all of us. I suppose you’ve come to realize you should have stayed away?” 

“I was no less desperate for my safety and well being this morning than I am now Lilyana. And now that it seems I’ve some shield against your family’s wiles, what’s stopping me from walking room to room until the wealth I need is mine? It would count nothing to the three of you, stranded here, forever in the sight of your regrettable tragedy.” He took a few steps up the stairs towards here. 

“You’re too cruel.” She brought the back of her hand to her forehead and scoffed, causing her

voluminous chest to jiggle; her feigned offense reminded him of Camellia’s cruelty. 

“And you were going to leave me to die in a giant flower, drained of my life essence, thought you and your ilk can survive as any other plant can.” He climbed a few more steps, and for the first time in a very long time, felt like a man of means and worth. 

“Do you say as much to men who eat meat, when grains and plants would also do? Save your indignities and tell me why you’re still in my home.” She moved closer to his approach, and brought her hands to the tops of her breasts, fingers folded together as her arms pressed against their massive size. 

“Your sister says not all of your attackers are dead.” He had reached the top of the stairs, but didn’t take another step closer. 

“Two remain, yes, but they’re mine, and you’ll not take them out of here like any loose coins or trinkets. Not, unless you have something to offer. Something perhaps, as beautiful as the woman I have, who truly, I don’t quite know what to do with. It would feel wrong to drain her life energies, and I already refused Camellia the pleasure. I could keep her here, I suppose, as a friend for Dahlia, but who knows what my poor sister would do after a time. You’ve seen some of her secrets, and I think you’d rather her be fed to Camellia wouldn’t you?” 

Her hands moved in lazy, illuminating flourishes, switching from hand to hand, and when one was not moving it was resting on her breasts. “You needn’t answer, I’ll take you to them, and then we can talk more of our shared circumstances.” 

Her voice had become lighter, nervous in its own way, and Nathanial kept both a wary eye, and a wary distance from her as she led him down the upper level’s hall. 

“Before I returned here, I discovered a little about your family, and what you’ve become. For what it’s worth Lilyana, I’m sorry you had to live through such a thing.” He kept well behind her, and as he walked, he noticed that the endless hanging vines, that decorated everything moved away from him as they would move with the breeze. 

“And you’re wondering how we became what we are.” She didn’t turn to respond to him, and instead kept moving down the hall. “Our father was a collector of rare goods, and a broker of valuable items. Most of what he owned of worth was stolen from us when persecution of our kind first began. But many of his most prized treasures seemed like nothing to those that set upon his business and his ship. He had Alraune pods that hadn’t quickened.” 

At this point she stopped and turned to face him, “When the wizards came with the mob to kill us, burn our home, and wipe our history and ways from all of history, we used our own life essences to quicken the pods, which we buried beneath the cellar in the dirt, and as our loyal servants fought and died trying to defend this place, and to give us enough time to complete our ritual, we remained hidden under the ground, until we had become wholly our new selves, blossoming into what we have come to be.” 

There was pride, cunning, and grief on her face and in her words, then she smiled, “I’ve never told another soul that story. But here we are.” 

She waved her arm, and the greenery that hung from what he thought was a wall gave way to a very large room, one that he did know. In the room were eight large flowers, like roses that were closed, and each one was different, vibrant shade of pink or red. 

Lilyana’s hands fell to her breasts as she addressed Nathanial, “What to you want with these two? Do

you want them at all? Especially as they’d come here to kill you? I’ve heard all you’ve said to all of my sisters, the plants hear, and they speak to me. The other two share this gift, as they share the ability to command them, but neither cares much about listening to anyone or anything, except themselves.” 

They’d come to the point of negotiation, and her voice had become more genial, “But, they mean something to me. I love them dearly, and I sacrificed my chance to escape and run off with my betrothed to stay and help protect them. They mean something to me. These two,” she waved to a pink and a red pod next to each other in the backmost corner of the room, “mean little to you, or, they should mean less to you than they do.” 

“So I’m to leave them to die here, with you? You’ve threatened one of their fates with something worse than that, and I think you know more of my mind, and her mind as well as any who you would imprison and drain.” His knife was still in his hand, and Tobin’s blood had dried on the handle and on his own acid burnt skin. “So, free them, and we can part.” 

“When you say them,” she moved waved her arm again, this time with a greater flourish that made the mass of her breasts shift as the red pod opened, “you mean her. We’ll negotiate for her fate, the other is mine, and too spent already to be saved.” 

Chandra stood there, naked, clean as though she’d been bathed, and with a gentle smile on her hard, angular face. Her eyes did not open, her body did not move, save for the rise and fall of her small pert breasts with every deep breath she took. 

“When I saw her as ill treated by your world as she was, I wished to show her some small kindness, and being so overwhelmed with my presence, she welcomed the chance to be bathed, and cherished in this small way. I’ve only been kind to her, I’ve only helped her as I would help my sisters.” 

There was some strange, odd alchemy of being both self-satisfied, and pleading in her words, and Nathanial wondered if she was as confused about what to do here as he was. 

“That was kind of you. Now, let me take her back, give her over to me. Wake her from this sleep, from what charms hold her, and let us never cross paths again.” 

“I will do as you ask, though in return I would ask something of you. I would not dare ask the amulet of you, as it would only bring ruin to my home. It would have no use to me, my sisters would both vie for it, and our endless bickering would become worse, and perhaps more desperate, dare I say, violent. And, I know you would never give it to me while in my clutches, for fear of falling back under my spell. So rest assured, I’ll not ask that of you, but only that we may speak a little longer. It’s been so long since I’ve had company I can address in this way.” 

It was Nathanial’s turn to laugh, “This is some final gambit to ensnare me isn’t it? Both times before, I’ve come here, I’ve obliged when I should have resisted, and I’ve played your games when I ought to have fought. What trick is it now? Some other magic, some other tool, do you have some weapon hidden in here to poison me with? You’ve nothing to say that I want to hear.” 

Those words had come like a yawn, the natural end of his exhaustion at the day, and at the stresses of the last week of his life. “Please, just let her go.” 

There was a long moment of silence, as they looked at each other, and with another dramatic flourish of her hand, and another jiggle of those breasts that truly did make up most of her torso, the flower pod closed. “Not,” she sighed and folded her hands over he breasts, “until I’ve said my piece.”

Nathanial sheathed his knife, took out his bladder and had a drink of the watered down wine he’d used to treat the mask he didn’t need any longer. 

“Your silence is agreement, and I think you’d agree that a kind ear isn’t so much to ask, no matter what you may wonder lies within my words, like snakes in a garden. But I’ve no secrets left, nothing else can be done, it is as Camellia said, you’re shielded with that amulet, though in truth, it ought to be mine. And now I’ve nothing but my words, for what they may do to change your mind.” 

“It, were I human, would hang just here,” her hands unfolded and she pointed to the top of her cleavage, “of course, now can’t you imagine how it would sit, a chain that disappeared into this unforeseen side effect of the transformation. It belonged to us once, not our family, but our order of witches. It would have been passed to me, to dangle at my breasts and give me wisdom and power over the sway of the moon, of the blood, and of the earth.” 

She ran a hand through her hair and continued, “I would not plea for its return as I have said, because part of its power is truly its beauty, and you would see nothing here, between my breasts would you? There would be nothing, only the sight of my soft green skin, and that chain coming to an end in their heaviness. What would that sight be, could you imagine it, clearly, sparkling, dipping down into my breasts, out of view of all else?” 

“I ask you Nathanial,” her fingers fell to her nipples as she spoke with him, “does not everything that comes to my chest, simply fall away in their size, and their shape? Just as you had done when first we met? What would it give me, such a bright and sparkling sight, to be swallowed in the depths, dark, and soft, smothered as you were, surely you remember, by their warmth, by their weight, the sight of them would be too much for any jewel, or gem, or other such sight to distract, would it not? As it is now, not from magic, not from the sweet scent the amulet denies, but just from your gaze alone? Is it not?” 

“Your pretty words are cloying Lilyana, I’ll give you that, but have you come to an end?” As he spoke, Nathanial’s eyes worked their way down from her face to her breasts, as they’d been doing ever since she’d begun speaking. It was an inhumane sight to see, but it was beautiful to behold none the less. 

“Oh, my point would be that you agree, what is the point of a jewel or a gem, even one of such power, it if is not worn with purpose, proposing as I am, that something so beautiful ought to be seen, to be admired, and desired, and that, by my breasts, to see my breasts now, no such thing would come to light, to shape, to be so comparably captivating as my breasts, so much so that were one such as yourself to see them for the first time, perhaps as you see them now, free from the intoxications of my traps, they would weight on you, heavy, as such a day as this may make you long for their sight, despite yourself, to see something you remember so softly, feeling their warmth, near craving their gentle caress, as any would, as you would, staring, compelled by them naturally, to keep staring now, like your eyes have found the truth that no other sight prevails to them.” Nathanial felt his shoulders slump, and for a moment his mind wandered. 

Hips lips remembered the shape and feel of her large nipples in his mouth, and the taste of her nectar. His cock remembered the softness of her, whatever it was that he slid into, that made her moan, that he came into over and over in a haze of hungry, animal lust. And his body remembered every step he’d taken this day, ever journey from sun up, to now, long after sun down. 

What hadn’t he done? 

When wasn’t he on his feet?

What hadn’t he seen? 

Nothing that compared to her breasts, nothing so appealing, not even the images in Camellia’s pool. “What are you thinking now, what’s straining behind your eyes, denying you the enjoyment of just such a soothing sight, well earned, lusted for, as once before, and so now as you stare at them, desiring them simply, safe from my intoxication, shielded from my seductive scent, free to stare and see nothing else now, not even the amulet, and where would it be here, not nearly as fetching as my breasts, but it could look beautiful on another, could it not Nathanial?” 

“Nathanial?” She said his name again. 

He blinked, and found himself looking up at her smiling face, “this day’s taken a toll on you, but perhaps you can answer me this. As someone whose eyes find they cannot stray long from my breasts, even now, ripe and full of the sweetness that so makes your cock so mighty and your balls so full, while other breasts would not seem as lovely as mine, not as large, not as compelling, smothering of all else, even thoughts, what could you imagine your amulet looking like, on perhaps other breasts, ripe and full, complementing them, each to the other.” 

He had no idea what she was saying, or asking, and while Camellia had tempted him, had teased him, and had drained him and coaxed more than one release from him, he was still uncomfortably aroused by Lilyana. 

His body had soaked up the pheromones of the sisters all morning and into the afternoon, and now he was being spoken to softly, delicately by the massive forces of nature that were her breasts. He knew she was his enemy, that she was beyond cunning, or so he assumed, but the length of his day was crippling his ability to think, or was it her breasts that were too heavy for him to lift from his mind. “Nathanial, would you look away from my chest for just a moment, and see something I would want you to think on, of my breasts, thing of my breasts as you listen and look upon something I want you to see, seeing only my breasts in your mind as your eyes follow my voice here.” 

The pod that held Chandra opened again, and she stood there still, but her eyes were open now, and they were yellow, bright yellow as a dandelion, though they didn’t seem to see him, or anything. But that was not the only change, her hair had grown, long and thick, down to her shoulders, now the same color as her eyes. 

“Your friend Chandra, look at her breasts now, they were nothing a moment ago, but look now, see how they would compliment the amulet? How they would compliment and compel any eye that was not bound and bewitched by my breasts, as you are now? Look, they swell more and more by the moment, and perhaps if she does not wear the amulet soon, it would be a loss on her, between them too.” 

Chandra’s breasts were growing, swelling up, becoming as full as Dahlia’s before his eyes, though in his mind Nathanial had fallen into an endless, exhausted loop of thinking of Lilyana’s breasts, sucking on them, tasting her nectar, and cumming over and over again, having been beguiled by her voice and the gentle jiggling motion of her breasts. 

It was as though he existed in two moments at once. One, where he never left her arms, never escaped, and never came back, and the other being this moment, watching in confused, passive, disoriented, exhaustion, as his former lover mutated before his eyes, changing slowly into a flower monster. 

“You could offer her a compliment to her beauty, and surely all women desire such a thing, and you

could save her, stop her from what you know in your heart that I’ve done to her. You could free her from my breasts are in your mind, you could free her from, think not of thought but only my breasts, you could save her, only you can save her with the amulet now, and make her almost as lovely as me, surely more lovely than sad and wicked Dahalia, who was once such a fine creature in your mind, but now she is lost to your memory, remembering my breasts as you know what you must do, you know you must save her before she becomes wholly as my wicked sisters are.” 

“The amulet, it stops your power.” He took a few defiant, confused steps forward, thrashing against her, certain that he knew what she’d just told him, not because she told him, but because he knew what he had to do to save her. 

“But then she would be free, and you would not have the amulet here and neither would I? Is that what you want, my breasts, you want my breasts, for her to be free?” 

Every time Lilyana mentioned her chest, Nathanial’s mind curled up on itself, snuggling up to their image thought he wasn’t looking at her, and every time this happened, the loop became smaller, tighter, like a collar being fitted around his mind. 

“I can’t let you do this to her,” he took the amulet off and placed it around her neck. 

“No, you can’t, and you’ve saved her, now come to me, come to me Nathanial, come to me now.” He felt dizzy as the potent sweetness of her pheromones wafted into his nose. 

“No,” he surprised himself with his answer, “No. You’ll not have me again.” 

“Oh my poor Nathanial, you can deny me all you wish, but with every breath your mind is lost in my breasts already, with every breath you’re already bound by the sight of them as your body denies you denial, with every breath you’re becoming more intoxicated with my confusing, overwhelming scent. Aren’t you so lost now Nathanial? Already enthralled. Aren’t you so tired, don’t you truly desire to come to me, to cum for me again?” 

He was staring at Lilyana now, watching her hands massaging her tits, pinching her nipples until her nectar started to drip out, nectar she started to trace around her areolas. “Say no as much as you want, but you’re too tired to fight, too weak to resist the weight of my breasts any longer, come to me, come to where you truly belong now.” 

Nathanial shook his head, “No, you’ll not have me.” 

“You’ve said that to me already, but you only lie to yourself.” 

He felt so dizzy, and bone weary, and worst of all, there was a nagging, confused part of his mind, one that was lost in the way she’d beguiled him this time, unable to make sense of what she’d done. “And if you’re resisting me, then why are you coming closer now, why are you walking into my embrace?” She held out her arms, “Come to me Nathanial, step by step, come into my embrace, your work is done, you’ve saved her, you’ve denied me the amulet, and you’re no longer denying your desires at all. Desire me, succumb to my breasts, breathe me in and let go of this very long day.” 

Nathanial wasn’t walking towards her, she was gliding to him, but her scent had left him disoriented, and having been enthralled by her, simply and plainly put into a deep trance through no greater magic than her words and the size of her breasts, one that spoke to all of his desires, and filled his head with suggestions that separately he agreed with one by one, not seeing the way they were connected, and then programmed with a trigger to continue to disorient and arouse him by disassociating him with the moment by reminding him of

the past, there was no longer an organized place for his mind to work from. 

“Come to me Nathanial, step by step, come back to me now, let me make everything else disappear, just as my breasts become the only thing you see, let pleasure become all you feel.” He stood in one place, dazed, rocking back and forth, trying to reconcile not moving with her getting closer, missing the obviousness of what was happening. 

When he felt her touch on the back of his neck, pushing his head down towards her massive breasts, everything she said became true. He’d lost again, he’d fallen into her trap again, he’d never truly left her embrace. 

Nathanial kissed, and licked, and sucked on her nipples, and she stroked his head, wordlessly holding him as his body responded to her secretions. When he was sucking harder, squeezing at her tits more vigorously, moaning as his body turned to lead, as beaten by the day as his mind was by her games. 

Her succubus flower bloomed, and she unfastened his breaches. Nathanial’s cock was dripping, stiff and hard almost beyond its capacity, and she savored it, and the taste of his essence as he erupted into her, and for her, cumming harder and harder the more of her nectar he drank down. 

She loved it, and she’d needed it, and Lilyana wanted to keep him with her just like this for as long as he would last. Then, she wouldn’t put him in the pod, she would care for him, and tease him, tempting him with her delicate sweetness, and the care she used to show when she was human. 

She would make sure her sisters would never touch him again, never deny her his sweetness, and his mindless slavery. 

But that wasn’t what was best for the family, that wasn’t what was even best for her. As the oldest, she had to think of the others before herself, and fortunately this poor girl had given her the best solution. It was time. 

“Chandra my sweet thing, come to me now. Come my hungery darling, come and feast on your thoughtful and kind hearted savior.” 

Chandra walked to Lilyana as her flower released Nathanial’s cock. 

Chandra was no sister, but she was an Alraune, now, turned by the Mistress of the Manor. Now, amulet would give her the appearance of a human in skin color, and would give any of her kind that wore it legs, but it would not change her proportions, what her body secreted, thought it would giver her power over when and where she would. Nor would it change what she needed to survive. “Take him inside you, drain him, consume him, and his essence will give you the power to claim many more, to make you whole and ready to leave this place and make your own way.” 

Naked, Chandra slid down onto Nathanial’s cock. Her lower half was that of a woman when she wore the amulet, and in the part of Chandra’s mind that was and would always be her, she remembered all of the times she’d had him like this before. 

Her hips barely shifted, and he shot into her again and again and again. 

Memories of how he saw her, of how he felt about her, of their good times were flooding into her with his cum, and she saw herself as he did. 

Then, she stopped herself and climbed off of him. 

“He loves you, doesn’t he?” Lilyana placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

“Yes.”

“Good, it was as I hoped. Now Listen to me…” 

Epilogue 

Anders and his companions kept their cloaks tight about them as they moved through the forest, heavy rain falling in thick drops that punched through the canopy. They had to be close now, according to the bar tender, the manor was supposed to be only a few hours out of town, and they’d left the road where he’d told them to. 

The Ruins had gotten too dangerous. 

More people were disappearing there than ever before, lured away as the stories went, by an irresistible scent that the companions of those lost souls would often catch a fading hint of. 

It wasn’t just that either, the goblins had changed their ways. They they were organized now, and often times when someone or some party would fall into whatever the scent was, it was from being corralled by goblin hoards into places there was only one other way out of. 

Treasure hunting in the Ruins was just not worth is, but according to the bar tender, this place had riches that were waiting to be plucked. It was, he said, where he got the money to buy this bar in Silver Town and leave his old life in the Thieves Guild behind. 

It wasn’t great and ambitions thoughts of becoming rich or at least well off that filled the heads of Andre’s party as they plunged into the manor by its front door, but the even greater ambition of escaping what had become a merciless and cold winter rain. 

One by one they walked through the front gates of the vine covered manor, and while it was chilly inside, it offered protection from the wind and the rain… and, it smelled nicer in here than it should… sweeter…