Chapter 8

"Incoming!"

The gleeful yell came from the balcony high above the stone-edged pool. Alana quickly twisted her head upward to see two naked brunettes in the air above her then turned her head away from the mighty splash the twins made as they hit the water.

Frank and Tanya looked up from their sunbathing to chuckle at Murielle and Miranda's antics, too far from the splashdown point to get wet. As Alana sputtered and shook water out of her face, the twins surfaced in another energetic motion of water, one on each side of their queen. An instant later, Alana's yelp of surprise was cut off with a burble as she was enthusiastically shoved down, two hands on each shoulder to hold her under.

Once underwater, though, Alana shoved her feet into the mud and easily twisted free. Instead of surfacing, however, she wrapped herself around the closest naked torso she could find and pulled one of her tormentors down beneath the surface with her, doing her best to take the lithe little Phoenix all the way to the bottom of the pool.

Miranda quickly used up all the air in her lungs in a playful underwater squeal, then held her breath and started to wriggle more energetically to free herself. Seconds later, Murielle grabbed one of Alana's kicking feet, only to release it when the other foot cracked her in the face.

The telepathic shock of the impact shot through all three females, bringing their exuberant play to a rapid finish and all three strove for the surface.

"You okay?" Alana asked as soon as her head was out of the water.

Murielle bobbed quietly, her unfocused eyes crossed in stunned confusion. "Huh?"

An instant later, Miranda's head popped up. "She's alright – still breathing, anyway..."

With Alana and Miranda holding her, one on each arm, Murielle was guided toward the edge of the pool. By the time they reached the rough stone edging, Murielle was lucid again. And sporting a lump that raised her left eyebrow.

"Wow. That's quite a shiner, babe," Macario grinned as he stepped out onto the sunny patio. "Somebody try to shove something into your eyeball?"

Murielle turned toward the sound of his voice, still looking confused, then raised her hand to touch the unusual shadow hanging over her eye. "Ow..."

"Huh," Tanya murmured, watching, but not really willing to move her sun-baked body. "Maybe you should put something on that." Then, to Frank; "I'm not used to seeing bruises swell up like that – especially on one of us..."

"Don' worry," Frank muttered lazily, "it'll go down in a couple hours. Bruises don' go 'way as fast as puncture wounds."

Tanya raised up on her elbows and gazed over at him. "And you know this because..."

Frank laughed. "I have whipped, shot, stabbed and beaten you unconscious too many times to count, and you ask me that?"

"Well, you don't usually crack me in the head..." Tanya replied, "and I don't remember much swelling except that one time when you hit me with a bat."

"You told me you didn't like that, so I didn't do it again," Frank replied, starting to feel somewhat defensive. "But you do swell up sometimes – you just don't remember it 'cause you're healed by the time you wake up."

In the meantime, Alana and Miranda had returned to the pool while Mac took Murielle inside.

"Sweetheart, the whole side of your face is turning black and blue," Mac said as he sat Murielle gently down on a dining hall chair. "I'm going to have Sy look at you, okay?"

"Mm," Murielle grunted, moving her head in agreement then instantly regretting it.

It was a bit later, and Sibilius was gently touching and examining Murielle's bruised forehead.

"Why isn't she healing, Sy?" Mac asked anxiously.

"Well," Sy mused, still studying the raised tissue underneath Murielle's eyebrow. "I'm not sure ... but I think it's just swelling. Not any real injury ... at least not severe enough to make her body's natural healing abilities kick in. It's just, well, misplaced plasma. The swelling, I mean."

"So ... she could, like, teleport it out of her and everything would be back to normal?" Mac wanted to know.

"Humph. Hadn't thought of that," Sy replied, frowning. "It'd probably work, though it will most likely go down by itself."

Murielle looked up at the men as Sy moved his hands away, then raised her eyes trying to view her overhanging eyebrow. She was much more cognizant now, and was starting to get anxious at the gentle way she was being treated.

"You want some ice or a piece of meat to put on that?" Macario asked when Murielle looked at him.

She gently shook her head. "I want my sister," she said quietly.

"Will I do?" Haley asked as she pranced down the granite staircase. "Morning, guys."

Mac grinned as he watched Haley's bare breasts bounce playfully against her chest as she continued down the stairs. "It's late afternoon, girl. You missed breakfast. And lunch."

Haley grinned, then ran her tongue over her upper lip. Mac's grin widened as he understood her meaning: She'd had him for breakfast, then went back to sleep. His cock jumped as he thought of being back in her eager hot mouth. And that warm, wet juncture between her...

"Alright, big boy," Haley admonished him. "Stop broadcasting those horny thoughts all over the place or I'll have to take you right here on the deck in front of everybody and Holy Fuck What happened to you?"

"I think I got kicked in the head..."

"Oh, that's what woke me up, then," Haley replied. "Here – lemme look at it..."

She turned Murielle's face toward her, holding both sides with her hands and bent forward until Murielle could feel Haley's warm breath against her nose and eyes. A second later, she flinched as Haley dissolved the lump with her Phoenix fire.

"Ow!"

"You said that already," Macario quipped.

"I could've done that myself."

"Yeah, but you didn't," Haley smiled, then kissed Murielle on her pert little nose. Turning to Macario, she slithered into his arms, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her bare breasts against his hairy chest. "I'm starved! Feed me!"

Chortling into her warm, slippery mouth, Mac wrapped his arms tightly around Haley's waist to pull her feet off the deck, then waddled them both toward the kitchen in the lodge. By the time the pair of them got to the entrance, Haley had her legs around Mac's waist and his shorts had disappeared. Sibilius turned a light shade of pink and Murielle snickered as Mac's flexing buttocks pressed Haley against the side of the stone archway.

'They didn't even make it to the kitchen?' Miranda wickedly laughed into Murielle's mind from the pool outside. 'Cretins!'

"Just exactly how did I get 'roped' into this?" Annalisa asked, worriedly staring up at her hands, bound and roped to hooks over her head. The two hooks, embedded in the wall, were nearly a meter – three feet – apart and stretched her slender shoulders (and attractively displayed ribcage) so that her soft, female flesh was pulled tight. 'Oh, yeah ... showing up naked and covered in blood.'

Of course, Annalisa wasn't stretched to the degree that she was uncomfortable – her elastic skin stretched much tighter whenever she formed her wings for flying... 'Which reminds me... '

"You know," she mused, "I could get out of this pretty easy ... You know?" and tugged uselessly on the bindings of her wrists.

"I suppose you could teleport," Macario grinned as he squeezed various colors of oil paint onto a well-used board. "But I'd much rather you simply hold still for a bit, okay?"

"I suppose, so long as I don't get bored..." Annalisa replied, pretending to frown as she sullenly shook her shoulders to jiggle her bare tits at him. She watched as Mac selected a small brush, picked up his paint palette and faced toward her.

"You gonna put that guk on me?" she whined, staring at the bright little glops of color.

"Planning on it," Macario murmured, and deftly swirled his pointy little brush in some bright blue paint. "Now hold still."

Annalisa squirmed as the cold brush swept a dollop of bright blue paint across the top of her right breast.

"Stop moving."

"It's cold! And you never answered my question."

"Which was?"

"Why me?"

"You said you wanted me to paint you," Macario reminded her. "Now hold still."

"That was days ago! I thought you forgot."

The incident in question had occurred a week earlier when Holly and Haley appeared on stage for their evening performance, naked, but painted in blue and red feathers – Holly being blue and Haley, red. In the orchestrated knife fight that ensued, Holly's bright blood glistened much more beautifully against the textured blue oil paint than it ever had when contrasted with her pale, bare skin. Haley's red painted flesh proved to all who watched that blood wasn't really red – at least not the bright, colorful red of the paint job Macario had done on her...

After the knife play and the sex-fest that followed, Annalisa had sought out Macario, finding it necessary to squirm her way into the center of the painted twins to make a foursome with Mac, and pleaded, begged, fucked and sucked him and the twins until he agreed to paint her as well.

"Am I getting feathers like they did?" Annalisa asked, her attention completely absorbed in the actuality of being painted as well as the sensations caused by the activity.

Mac grinned. "Yes. That's really all I know how to paint." Mac continued his short strokes along Annalisa's rib cage, having completely covered her perky breasts in delicate, blue feathers of paint, then sighed, "Please hold still..."

"It tickles..." Annalisa grinned through gritted teeth. "And I'm starting to feel..."

"Don't even go there," Macario admonished her. "Your entire body is oozing sex. I can even smell you."

Annalisa sniffed, then took in a deeper breath as though to make sure. "Huh. I can, too. Sorry."

"It's going to get a lot whiffier when I start on your legs," Macario snickered.

"Oh, God," Annalisa whimpered.

For several more minutes, Annalisa slowly undulated back and forth, trying to hold herself as steady as she could while Mac smilingly daubed little wet brushstrokes of blue paint across her stomach. The design he planned was to add more and more red paint as he progressed, so that Annalisa's torso would be more purple than her breasts and shoulders, with her legs and arms becoming redder and redder until her hands and feet would look as though made of bright red flame.