Chapter 1

“Why are you staring at me?” Kate asked from a half-sitting position.

“No words can adequately describe the beauty of our child sleeping on your bare chest,” I declared, walking over to the side of the bed with Kate’s breakfast tray.

She smiled from our king sized bed, dropping her head back on the oversized feather pillow. “I love this morning view.”

Our bedroom had a wall of glass that overlooked the sea from the top of the butte. We were well above the pine forest canopy so nothing obstructed the panoramic scene of waves crashing onto the beach below. Small fishing boats dotted the horizon with the golden sun rising out of the calm sea, casting an early morning glare. Fortunately, our windows had a slight tint to them, so we could enjoy the calm and peacefulness of Juniper Hills.

We had finished the second phase of our building project and moved into the stone residence a week ago. Phase II had been a rectangular stone manor, two stories high and rather long, with a roof pitched perfectly for the placement of its solar panels. The long part of the stone residence hugged the vertical edge of the butte. Julia, our only college trained engineer, had insisted on completing the tower and tunnel as Phase I. She argued that since the tower contained our workshop, our overall building plans for the butte would move faster if it were completed before our primary residence. Kate threw her weight behind Julia’s preference, something that was a regular occurrence. They had been lovers on the ESC Entous before I was “rescued.”

Our baby began to suckle on Kate. We looked at each other and smiled.

“She is a grazer, never stays on for too long,” Kate commented, tightening her hold of the chubby child.

“You can’t tell by her size, she is a big baby.”

“Julia’s baby is bigger and younger,” Kate defended.

I put up my hands and laughed. “Julia’s baby is always tapping someone for a meal. I swear that every wet-nurse that cares for that baby has him latched on. For a one-year old, he is the hungriest child around.”

“He takes after his father. You’re always latched on to someone, too.”

“What can I say, guilty as charged.”

“Thanks for bringing me breakfast. That was sweet of you. I thought you wanted to see Derwen’s dragon ship off?”

“It left at sun up. You slept through it.”

Kate hit me playfully. “I was up all night with this monster. She is going through a growth spurt and demands milk on the hour.”

“We have three wet nurses in residence to give you a rest.”

Kate cut off my protests. “You mean three Haven-born mothers of your children. They love their babies like I love mine. They may be trained warriors, but they are mothers that need their rest too. Yes, I know both Julie and Julia make good use of them. That is how Julie runs your staff and sword clinic, and how Julia gets all her engineering tasks done on time. I’m only needed to fly the shuttle and we don’t do it that often, so I am quite capable of raising my child.”

“Do you want more job responsibilities?”

“No, not really, my time is full enough,” Kate answered, covering a yawn. Our baby closed its eyes and stopped suckling.

It wasn’t the time to mention Kate spent most of her free time with Julia, even her sister Merritt had noticed. Of all my lovers, Julia was the least interested in being around me on a regular basis. Julia had the same hunger for my nanomites but she resisted any relief until the last possible moment. She was a sea-wife at heart, a lesbian that found more emotional comfort from women. In fact, Julia had been there emotionally for Kate during a hard period of her life. Kate always paid her debts and was Julia’s loyal friend and lover, even after our marriage aboard the starship.

The awkward silence stretched while she ate a bite of bread. Finally, Kate asked, “Derwen’s ship is carrying mineral water to Princess Wyrd?”

“Yes, her captain is under orders to deliver the water to the princess and load up on wine and return it to Derwen’s estate. Everyone wins. We open a new market for mineral water and Derwen is paid with premium white wine in trade. No Amarian port taxes and both of my wives gain access to popular products.”

“I hope the Amarian tax authority sees it the same way,” Kate commented, reaching for a piece of fruit. “Heraldsburg is going to bring us problems. From what Wyrd told me, she received a lot of heat from the king for marrying you. Hero or not, the king sees you as a commoner, and marrying a commoner isn’t a popular act among her family. We don’t want to aggravate the royal family over a few credits.”

“Wyrd agreed to the idea, besides at least half her family loves me.”

“Von, I don’t think her half-brothers and half-sisters mean too much within the Amarian kingdom. It was the king that was unhappy, especially after finding out you already had a number of wives. Furthermore, the princess failed to mention you have three dozen concubines, not to mention your mistresses and temple playmates on the island of Convey. I’m waiting for that news item to come back to bite us.”

“You’re probably right, but I hate paying taxes and that boat has sailed. The rest is fate. I will not apologize for who I am or for the size of my family. However, I can see the king being put off by the rushed wedding, combined with the Black Prince’s friends claiming I was the reason the idiot lost his head.”

Kate sighed, adjusting her black breast. “Go play and let a mother have a few private moments while her child sleeps.”

I kissed her, and then quietly withdrew from the nearly empty room, turning the overhead light off and closing the door. The dismissal was certainly reasonable, Kate looked dead tired. Yet, I would have enjoyed a few more minutes with her.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Merritt moving about at the bottom of the stairs. Kate’s younger sister had been the one who had encouraged me to take the food tray upstairs. Merritt was a social butterfly who had a gift for knowing how to keep everyone in a good mood. She stood at the full-length mirror with her back to the stairs, wearing nothing but a large, brown bath towel. Her raven hair hung in wet clumps. Her almond-shaped eyes found me in the mirror. “It’s great having so many pretty wives,” I thought. “There isn’t an inch of baby fat on her.”

She grinned and dropped her towel in such a way as to show her bare back and bottom. Merritt’s shapely backside wiggled once, which got a laugh out of me. Her light-brown skin was shapely and smooth looking. I walked closer to Merritt while running my eyes over her body. She let go of her towel, which left her naked. It was clear my wife enjoyed my full attention. She lightly shook her head and splashes of water fell on her shoulders and the tops of her breasts. The mirror reflected her beauty, a welcoming smile, swollen breasts with hard nipples and a flat stomach; upon entering motherhood Merritt’s breasts had transformed into oversized honeydew melons with huge nipples. It took two hands to encompass a breast. Yet, her strong back muscles carried them well. She often thanked the medical nanomites in her body for that.

My hand touched her shoulder and my eyes met her gleaming eyes in the mirror. Unconsciously, Merritt’s right hand moved protectively over her flat stomach. “I keep telling you, you look gorgeous,” I reminded. Her normally innocent eyes were wantonly carnal. I knew my own hunger was visible to my lover. The bugle in my black, station pants was obvious.

“Surprised to see me?”

“Actually, I am.”

“Good,” Merritt responded. “I had a feeling Kate would be too tired for you, so a quick shower was in order.”

“The baby was sleeping on her chest and she didn’t sleep well last night.”

“My gain.” She turned around and pressed her chest into me, looking me in the eye.

A chuckle escaped my lips and I planted my hands on her hips. The mood was perfect for what we both wanted. I’d worked hard this morning, so my blood was flowing. My tongue plunged deep into her accepting mouth while I pressed my hardness against her. Merritt quickly responded. She seized my head with her hands to continue the kiss, confirming her earnest feelings.

Breaking from her hold, I said, “Good thing the shower room is so close to your bedroom.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Well, since I insisted we place it across from my room, I’m feeling pleased with my foresight.”

I pushed the palm of my hand upward from her hip, cupping a breast and then flicked her black nipple with my thumb. She clasped one of my shoulders with her hand and crushed me against her. Changing tactics I lifted her breast up and presented it to my lips, forcing her to let me suckle. Merritt’s nipples were her secret weakness.

“Not fair,” she moaned. “Your lips are like a vibrator. Wow, I love what your nanomites do to me. When you latch on, my core flares with heat and shatters my restraint. The longer you suck the wetter I get.”

She jammed a hand inside my pants to get even.

I kept sucking and biting her nipple, not caring that we were in the middle of a busy hallway. She didn’t care either. Mother’s milk was normally an acquired taste, but my lovers had thick, creamy milk that suited my palate. It was still amazing how Webster’s improved nanomites transformed a woman’s body with benefits that I could enjoy. Merritt’s nipples never got sore and were very sensitive. By the time I finished, she was still moaning and writhing through her first climax.

“You’re throbbing in my hand, should we go into my bedroom? A girl can’t have too many releases.” She looked at me hopefully.

I kissed her the way she liked it, intensely and full of promise. With that she jumped up and clamped her legs around my hips. For a moment Merritt was silent, until finding the right words. “Take me roughly, master.”

Someone coughed. Merritt and I turned to the noise. Both of my hands went around her lower back.

“Julie Gundlach Solon, how long have you been watching?” Merritt asked, without any tone of rebuke.

Julie’s smirk was all the answer we needed; it had been for some time. Her muscular and oversized frame filled the hallway. Our six-foot tall co-wife was dirty and carrying a towel over her silver, prosthetic arm, not bothering with any clothes. Her room was next to Merritt’s, which explained why we missed her stepping into the hall. Her door must have been open. Not much of her white skin lacked grime and dust. Julie had given birth to my child too, but you could only tell when her breasts were engorged or if milk leaked from a nipple.

“Don’t tell me. You didn’t want to break our mood,” I stated.

“Live action shows are the best,” she quipped, walking over to us and slapping one of Merritt’s exposed ass cheeks. With that our combat marine strolled into the shower room.

Merritt and I laughed. We were still wrapped up in desire, so I carried my lover into her room and kicked the door closed. We spent half an hour working out our needs. She fell asleep after that, so I dressed quietly and covered her with a sheet.

Her bedroom was a simple affair, comfortable for people to visit, with a very large bed and a couple of couches that were often used to take in the beauty of her seaside view. Merritt’s room had the same view as my master bedroom, so she liked to entertain in it. Four or five people could move about the room without feeling crowded by the side-tables, wooden dressers or mirrored desk vanity. As a prepared hostess, she had an empty clothes rack for the visitors to use. It was filled with dresses on those occasions when meetings went beyond just gossip and I was involved in their pleasure. Indeed, Merritt’s warm heart and social attitude had endeared her to my Haven born lovers, more so than anyone else from the starship. Not surprisingly, of all the women living on the butte, I was closest to Merritt.

Often, Merritt sought out the wild flowers and aromatic scents of the forest with her companions and her bundle of joy. In the late afternoon, she favored the green recesses found outside the town’s western walls. Only recently had I found out that it was on these walks that she interviewed prospective teens to be additions to our growing staff and broodmares for a certain lord of the manor. The picture of her carrying and nursing my child while in the company of eager teens, sauntering among the woods, flashed in the back of my mind. It was easy to picture my wife feeding their naughty fantasies as their bodies hummed with growing excitement. Those added to our staff this way had congenial dispositions and provided unremitting effort in servicing their lady. In short, Merritt was just as bad as Swarta in respect to believing more loving, more babies and a large pool of healthy women full of nanomites was a legacy worth building. They equally nagged me if I missed taking at least one meal at the Women’s Center; in truth, I had rarely failed in that duty over the past year. If I had a throne anywhere it was there, an old wooden chair.

“Moon Mother, I am so lucky. May the sex provided by my lovers never end,” I thought while taking a last look at my sleeping beauty. Merritt had a satisfied smile. I closed the door behind me.

The hallway was well-lit with solar powered overhead lights. Julia had impressed me with her resourcefulness. It was amazing what she could make with our meager resources and a 3D printer. However, at this point the solar panels only powered the shower’s water heater and the hallway lights. We used fusion batteries to power the lights in the other rooms. It was a pain in the butt to drag the batteries out to the shuttle for a recharge once a quarter. While the shuttle’s power was tied to the tower and its workshop, we decide against linking in the manor. This forced us to constrain the level of comforts we enjoyed, so we wouldn’t drift too far from the realities of living on a world with medieval technology. Also, when the shuttle was away the butte lost its main power source.

At the end of the hallway I turned into an antechamber that led to a side exit. One or two household servants were always in it. The room had soft lighting and a comfortable feel with chairs facing each other in a circle. At night it was common to see the chairs filled with town’s women embroidering. The overhead lighting was a real novelty. In fact, items made under the “moonlight” were greatly valued in town, which added to the prestige of those with a security pass for the butte.

A caramel-skinned woman, past her prime, was washing the floor. She turned her thick eyebrows and tight jaw towards me, wiping away the sweat on her brow. There was a broadness about her shoulders and waist. She had curly-tight hair that fell about her face. The abundant brown hair hid her black eyes for a moment.

Realizing who I was, she popped up to her feet with ease. “My Lord Solon, please forgive the mess. The floor has picked up some dirt after the most recent rainstorm. This is my morning to work here.”

“A royal huntsman’s wife doesn’t need to make a fuss over me. Yes, I am surprised to see you here.”

She patted down her wet dress and bent her head in respect. “Lady Merritt and Lady Swarta have favored me with this new job. It’s an honor to aid your family and serve in the Tower of Light. My husband is ever so proud that I was one of the six married women chosen. I’m the envy of all my friends, few will ever be able to claim they have been in this enchanted place.”

“Tassim is a fine father to Sparrow and he often comments how lucky he is to have married you,” I replied.

She straightened her back with renewed pride. “My Lord is too kind. Tassim is a wonderful protector and his son feels like my own. Were you needing anything?”

I waved her concerns away. “No, I am on my way back to town.”

Like her husband, there wasn’t anything ornate about her appearance nor her attitude. Tassim’s wife looked over my outfit, letting her eyes slide over the PDA attached to my belt, red flare gun in its holster, and finally my Nano-knife. I felt like my mother was making sure I was dressed correctly before going out to play. She gave me a satisfied smile.

Most of the people in Juniper Hills hadn’t seen the laser pistol I had used in my latest battle, so I kept it locked away in my bedroom. Instead, I wore an emergency flare gun that was more familiar to the marshland residents. Also, I had enough tricks hidden in my belt and cargo pants that I felt secure. Our staff was loyal and they respected me, but since the female assassin’s attack on me they preferred me to walk around armed. Satisfied, she waited a few heartbeats before dropping down to her task, now certain nothing was required of her.

Making my way outside, I passed a laundress that was working a large contraption that wound laundry around rollers then through a box that sonically cleaned and dried the clothes. The machine was both mechanical and high-tech flash drying, so it required both muscle power and a fusion battery to power the drying unit. I designed the project with Webster’s help to deal with cloth diapers. We didn’t have another fusion battery to spare for an additional unit, so the device was used constantly throughout the day for all types of clothes. The laundress turned around to see who had exited the building. I waved and continued on.

Off the laundry area was a well-worn path that cut between various pipes and water barrels to an open area beyond. Our rainwater collection system directed water through gutters and downspouts into the barrels. I took the path, it skirted around the horseshoe-shaped tower towards the access tunnel that was carved into the butte. The short tower’s design was a compromise between a square tower and a round tower, some like to call it a D-shaped structure. The rectangular side at the back faced the sea, while the semicircular portion faced the tunnel that led to Juniper Hills. The path wasn’t the shortest distance to the tunnel but it provided a majestic overlook from the edge of the cliff. In fair weather day, I enjoyed a stroll with the breeze on my face and the warm fresh-air filling my lungs. If I faced rain, I would opt for the manor’s front entrance and spare myself the extra distance.

The only distasteful thing about taking the walking path was passing by the spider’s lair, a recharging station for the multi-legged repair robot that came with us from the ESC Entous. With its construction-grade laser beam, the robot had been crucial to boring the tunnel to town; additionally, we used it to cut stone blocks. However, every time I saw the creature it triggered dark memories of what it was capable of doing to a man’s body. A swarm of them had secretly slaughtered an enemy boarding party on our spaceship, and I was one of the few people to see it happen. We were glad for them at the time, but the ambush had been more than gruesome. It wasn’t that I was afraid of the giant spider; it was the memories of the slaughter that occasionally touched my dreams. Understandably, we never used a spider for tasks in town; it looked too fearsome, unlike the cargo hauling robots we called golems.

The repair robot wasn’t in its recharging station, which helped my cheerful mood. Fortunately, thoughts about how I’d left Merritt sleeping with a smile on her face crowded out other mundane burdens.

A large portcullis gate was one of our physical barriers between Juniper Hills and the buildings on the butte. It consisting of a latticed grille made of wood and metal, which slid down grooves inset within each jamb of the gateway. With the flick of a finger the counterweights opened the gate at sunrise and closed it at sunset.

Two busty, female guards sitting on wooden stools by the portcullis stood at my approach. The twenty-something-year-olds quickly reached for their stun staffs and stood at attention. I didn’t care for the formality but Julie had trained them and I wasn’t dumb enough to interfere with their discipline. The black, Haven-born women towered over me. They saluted with a fist to their chest, a traditional warrior greeting.

In unison, they both said, “Lord Wolf.”

“Sisters,” I replied, as courtesy demanded and Julie insisted. It was a term Julie wanted me to use with her people.

Each guard wore a new black leather outfit that hugged her curves, accenting everything important to a man. In some ways the uniform looked like a traditional temple guard’s outfit. The sleeveless, bustier-bodice design was form fitting, accentuating the waist and pushing up their breasts. A silver lightning bolt emblem was stitched to the edge of their right breast. Julie had selected fourteen women to work communications and act as portcullis guards. This was in addition to the three female Wolves that had fought at Bloody Sands, who were near the end of their pregnancy; mating with me had been promised to them for breaking their mercenary contract and following us back to Juniper Hills. Unlike the lightning guards the Wolves lived in a room that adjoined Julie’s. The four of them had gotten really close since the battle.

Julie had told me upon returning from my marriage to Princess Wyrd that if I could have fun training “Wolves” she got to train a “Lightning Guard.” I thought it was a joke at the time. Instead, she trained and formed an all-female unit armed with crossbows and stun staffs that caused temporary paralysis. Julie knew about my early success with the stun staff and the magical mythos that had grown up around it. She used the electrical weapon to her advantage as a recruiting tool. Now Julie’s cadre of unmarried, loyal followers were assigned to the butte and lived in the stone tower.