Abaddon’s new castle was truly so much grander than any home he had ever lived in before.
With long spacious hallways that led to over 60 bedrooms large enough to be called apartments, there was plenty of room for not only the Tathamets, but their extended family to stay as well.
Yara & Asmodeus had elected to stay at their own place in the city beneath the castle so that they could give their son the space to be a man. (They just wanted to walk around completely naked all the time and fuck whenever or wherever they wanted.)
But Kanami and Malenia both wanted to stay a bit closer to their now elder brother and as such they had chosen two rooms in the castle that were side by side each other.
Now that they were officially family, their relationship was improving drastically everyday and the two had become something like Gabbrielle and Mira.
Grand white marble flooring and ceilings made out of some kind of mesmerizing red stone lined every hallway.
Decorated with modern furniture and amenities, there was an indoor pool, a game room, a throne room, a vault, a rooftop garden, a forge, and more.
There was also a training hall that doubled as an armory, but Seras and Audrina had been forbidden from using it due to their new god level power.
Abaddon was allowed, but Valerie had already told him that if he undid his seal while inside she would physically fight him if he broke anything.
He wanted to do it just for the fun of it, since any spar that he had with his women always ended the same way.
The family dining room featured a long wooden table with more than enough room for the entire family, and was situated right in front of a huge window that provided a view of their kingdom beneath them.
As he often does, Apophis was currently sitting at this table in the dead of night, with his chair pulled to face the window and a glass of dark liquor with ice in his hand.
Typically the first prince wasn’t one for drinking, but certain problems that had arisen in his life had reduced him to such a state.
Though he hardly liked the taste of this beverage, he continued to consume it in the hopes that he would be spared the burden of thinking for a while.
“That’s odd, you almost look like our mother when you behave like this.”
Apophis looked over his shoulder from his melancholic state and found a pair of familiar violet eyes intruding through the darkness.
Thea soon emerged into full view, wearing a pair of sleeping pants and a sports bra with her long blonde hair tied in a messy bun above her head.
“Trouble sleeping?” She asked as she sat beside him.
“Something like that.” Apophis admitted.
Thea held out her hand and created a glass made out of pure ice magic before she poured herself a drink beside her brother.
This wasn’t how she thought she’d be using one of her eight new affinities from the spirit realm, but she didn’t exactly feel like going to look for a glass at this time of night.
“Care to talk about it?” she asked.
“….”
“Would you like for me to guess then?”
“…You’re free to do as you like.”
“Is this because of Rita and that Tiamat woman?”
“…!”
“You aren’t very difficult to read, besides you’ve been behaving oddly ever sense you grabbed them last week.”
Apophis rolled his eyes as he swallowed another bitter mouthful of alcohol. “An accident.”
“Was it? Everyone already knew that you held special feelings for Rita, so it was hardly surprising. Mother’s co-worker on the other hand was….”
Thea was clearly better at the game of drink than her brother, as she managed to swallow the drink in her glass without making an uncomfortable face.
“I’ve heard she groped you. Are you like father and prefer forceful women?”
“My tastes are none so concerning.” He said as he rolled his eyes.
“Then what would promote you to grab her like that?”
Briefly, Apophis recalled the moment a few weeks ago when he and Tiamat first met.
Aside from the part where she tried to force herself on him, he couldn’t help but recall the brief moment where she broke down in front of him, and drunkenly asked why no one cared what happened to her.
“I just… feel that she needs to be protected. And for some reason I want to be the one to do it.”
Thea nodded silently as she stared into her glass. “And Rita?”
“I thought that my feelings for her were more closely rooted in friendship but… the thought of seeing her with anyone else feels unbearable.”
Polishing off the last of her drink, she dispelled the magic she’d created and leaned farther back into her chair.
“Then why are you hesitating?”
“I have kept Rita waiting for so long… I do not know if I have the right to ask her to love me. And Tiamat already has multiple consorts of her own. She will not easily give herself to me.”
“That’s it? You can be remarkably mature sometimes, and in others you make it clear that you really are only one year old.”
The serpent rolled his eyes as he finally finished the last of his first glass and put it down. “Then tell me what I should do then, O’ wise elder sister.”
“I would be delighted to.” Thea said with a smug smile.
“If Rita has not gotten over you by now, then what makes you think that she will in the near future? All you can do is make up for the time you were negligent of her feelings and try to love her better.”
“… and Tiamat?”
“Oh, that’s obvious.” Thea said as she stretched. “Just kill her consorts and proclaim that you desire her sincerely.”
“….Wut?”
Even in the dark, Thea’s smile was as bright as the morning sun as she looked at her brother.
“You think it a foreign concept? Grandma Yara killed all of Grandfather’s wives, and our father has killed our mothers’ former husbands before as well. In this life, if we want to be with someone but they already have someone else then we must prove our worthiness.
Whether Tiamat has 100 or 1,000 consorts, kill them all and paint a mural for her with their blood. Show her that not only your prowess, but your willingness to devote yourself to her trumps all outside forces. I’m sure that you will win her over if you do.”
Apophis smirked and pulled his sister in for a loving hug.
She accepted, and he used that moment to utter words that terrified her to her very core.
“Thank you for your guidance, sister, I promise that I shall take it to heart. Do you care to talk about you and Sabine now?”
“Ack!”
Thea immediately tried to escape her brother’s grasp, but he held onto her firmly without allowing any chance for escape.
“L-Let me go, Apophis! This is your therapy session, not mine!”
“I am not so selfish, dear sister. We can share this time for healing between the both of us.”
“I-I’m fine!”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Thea tried a few more attempts to escape her brother’s grasp, but it proved to be to no real avail.
In the end, she sighed as she finally began to spill the worries of her own mind.
“I just… don’t want to scare her.”
“Scare her? Why would you do that?” Apophis asked. “You’re ditzy, not ugly.”
CRACK!
Thea gave her brother a hard punch to the kneecap that shattered his joint easily as she puffed out her cheeks in a manner that her parents would find cute.
“I’m not ditzy, you bastard… and I worry about scaring her… because of everything that happened with Jazmine last time.”
“What do you mean? Are things not going well with you and your wives?”
“They are, and I’m so grateful for every day that I spend with them but… I keep thinking that things could have gone completely differently. I’m well aware that I usually come on strong when it comes to women I like, but it’s always worked out so far.
It was only on the day I was about to loose my Jasmine that I realized just how off putting my actions could have been. I don’t want to scare Sabine, or worse, risk her being disgusted by me…” Thea admitted with wet eyes.
Even though his sister was on the verge of crying, Apophis had no pity for her as he made a confused expression.
“Have you… not seen how she stares at you? I think that you do not have to worry about disgusting her, just me.”
“Eh?”
“Claire and I were both remarking how she seems to look at you longingly and yet you never notice. Is this truly what you were worried about? Ditzy bitch.”
“Y-You two have got it all wrong!” Thea defended. “Sabine is just a nature spirit, so everything that she does is tender and gentle like that. You’ve seen father now that he’s become one too, right? It’s the same thing!”
“The hell it is. Though our father is much more graceful, he has never looked at you or I the way Sabine looks at you.”
Thea suddenly felt like her whole world had been overturned as she looked at her brother with wide eyes. “Do you.. really think that she might have an interest in me?”
“Are your minds not connected? Why don’t you peer inside of her head and find out, ditzy bit-“
“Stop calling me a ditzy bitch!” Thea yelled with red cheeks.
Pow!
A hard punch to the stomach sent Apophis doubling over, meanwhile Thea held her face in both of her hands.
“I-I haven’t gone inside of Sabine’s mind because I didn’t want her to accidentally see any of my dirty thoughts or anything!”
“What, were you worried that you would scare her with something she’d never seen before..?” Apophis asked sarcastically. “She’s a nature spirit, I’m sure she’s seen more women naked than you have.”
Immediately, it was like a bomb had gone off in Thea’s mind.
Sabine was a nature spirit!
They were the freaky ones!
And since they were all female and regularly partook in orgies, of course she would have an interest in women!
Why didn’t she see it before!?
“Stars above, I was being a ditzy bitch!”
“Told you…” her brother muttered.
“That doesn’t sound like you, Thea. You’re usually quite bright.”
From out of the darkness, the group watched another figure emerge.
Out of her usual maid attire, Tita wore a dark black nightdress that stopped just at the top of her thighs.
With so much of her flesh exposed, it was easy for one to see the bold and bright red tattoos running down her leg and arm.
Now that she was a dragon, Tita was noticeably more alluring than before, and her bright red eyes had no less of a glow than Abaddon’s or Mira’s.
Where Apophis’ love Rita had long curly hair and Thea’s wife Nita had long & straight, Tita’s hair had always been short. 𝒩𝓞𝑣xt.𝐂𝐌
“Please forgive me for my unsightly appearance, you two.” She said politely. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be up at this hour.”
“Don’t worry about that, Tita come join us! My brother and I are about to start celebrating!” Thea exclaimed happily.
“You are?”
“We are?”
“We are!”
Thea created two more glasses out of thin air and started to pour a generous amount of liquor in both.
She held one glass out to the charming maid and gave her an energetic smile. “Drink with us!”
“A-Ah… Thea, I’m really not that good at holding my liquor…”
“It’s okay, we will make sure that you make it back to bed!”
Tita looked like she was still thinking up ways to refuse, but when she remembered the reason why she’d come back downstairs in the first place, she decided it really wouldn’t hurt.
“Alright… one drink.”
“That’s the spirit!”
Apophis watched the two girls clink their glasses together out of the corner of his eye while making a neutral expression.
‘Why do I have a bad feeling about this..?’