Chapter 219

Delta’s clone sat there obediently, buried onto Zoey’s cock, providing a hot, wet sheathe for Zoey’s member to twitch and throb against. She didn’t continue moving, simply rested on her knees, eyes fluttering as the seconds ticked by, not pulling off.

“Doesn’t she need to breathe?” Zoey asked.

Delta’s head—her real one—also seemed to be swimming from the lack of air. Even resting her chin on her hand, she seemed kind of wobbly, eyes fluttering not as violently as her clone, but definitely fluttering. Almost idly, she reached up with her other hand and rubbed at her throat, as if coming to terms with the false echo-sensations coming from her clone, who had fourteen inches bulging the tunnel violently outward.

“That’s what I’m testing,” Delta murmured. “Also, hurry up and tell us already. What’s your bonding skill?”

Zoey couldn’t help but think this was supremely unfair, having to organize her thoughts while a girl’s throat was squirming against her cock—especially since Patron was going to be an ability requiring loads of discussion. Then again, maybe it was unfair in the opposite way of how she meant it. How had she ever gotten so lucky to constantly end up in situations like this? With three blushing girls watching another pleasure her underneath a table?

Once again, Zoey forced herself to calm. She had a discussion to get through.

“It’s called Patron,” she said. “The description verbatim is, with a High Priestess, ritualistically select a non-Bonded target to become a Patron of. Funnel Holy Energy into the target to progress them through advancements.”

The words hung in the air for several long moments.

“What?” Delta exclaimed. “The hell? You can just level people up, now?”

“I have no clue,” Zoey said. “It’s obviously something to do with Aria. And Ephy encouraging me to start a ... following, I guess.” That whole mess was still hard to come to terms with. “I can make a few guesses. I bet that ‘holy energy’ is something that I’ll earn from having a following.”

“Damn,” Delta said. “What a crazy skill.” She rubbed her forehead and leaned back, digesting the news. “If you were normal, I’d assume you wouldn’t be able to do much besides give a small bump in experience. But knowing all of your other skills, I bet you’ll give big boosts. Maybe even skip lower-advancement people through entire progressions.”

“Wow,” Maddy said, eyes wide.

“Yeah. It’s a crazy one. Was wondering what you three thought of it. Or more like ... what should I do with it? Who should I use it on?”

They paused.

“Only works on non-Bonded targets,” Delta said. “So good question. Means nothing to us.” She tilted her head. “You bonded with Sabina?”

“No,” Zoey said. “Limited slots. Figured I’d save them for actual shard teammates.” Though she admittedly had considered bonding Sabina a number of times, to give her the slew of benefits that came with that ability. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t. “She was my first thought too.”

Rosalie pursed her lips. It was obvious she had opinions on the matter, yet she didn’t open her mouth to voice them. Zoey knew what they were. It went back to one of their earlier discussions.

Zoey leaned back with a sigh. “Which takes us back to that same point from before,” she said. “Efficiency versus sticking with our friends. Why move Sabina through progressions when the d’Celestins have even better alchemists on retainer, already?”

Rosalie relaxed, visibly pleased that she didn’t have to be the one to broach the subject.

Delta frowned. “I mean,” she said. “Seeing how we’re apparently hiding all of the stickier business from Rosalie’s dad, we gotta stick with Sabina for potion stuff. All the high-advancement alchemists in this city probably have loyalty to the d’Celestins.” She glanced at Rosalie. “Or more specifically, Enzo and the highguild.” She shrugged. “And the ones who don’t, we have no reason to trust. I think trust trumps everything at this point.”

Rosalie considered this, then nodded almost to herself. She clearly agreed.

She hadn’t wanted to bring the topic up herself because she didn’t want to rock the boat—despite Delta forgiving her about the whole d’Celestin mess, Rosalie was still a little on edge. She didn’t want to start a heated discussion so soon after.

But it seemed there was a rational reason to not have to worry about it.

“Good point,” Zoey said. “So you think Sabina’s who we should try it on first?”

Delta shrugged. “Nobody I can think of is crucial to our future plans. So I guess it’s dealer’s choice. Use it however you want.” She considered. “You think Aria got a class, as some kind of High Priestess? She’d probably be a good target to use it on.”

Zoey nodded; she had also considered this. “Still need to talk to her. Probably my number one priority, once I have time to myself. I was thinking Fe too, since we’ll want an artificer we can trust, but we don’t know if she’ll even be showing up to Mantle.” She grimaced. “Having a different artificer identify the weird items we find would make it hard to keep our situation under wraps, though. So hopefully she does.”