After Tom picked up Arven for the delivery, Eubexa had had the house to herself for a while. The first thing she did was to grab paper and ink and write a short note: The name of the enemy is Quazulin. Writing didn't hurt as much as usual, and Eubexa smiled grimly under her veil. Then Melsuria surprised her by taking control of her hands for a moment, and adding some carefully drawn symbols.

Once the demon had finished, and Eubexa had dried the ink, she folded the paper up around a silver coin and sealed it with a few drops of wax. On the outside, she wrote Urgent, then dried the paper again. Taking her anonymous message, she moved to the front of the house and listened.

The children were not nearly as stealthy as they thought they were. Even Melsuria seemed amused to hear their hissed arguments.

< In ten years they'll likely either be married or have killed each other. >

Eubexa didn't disagree. After the latest argument finished, the children split up. Piper set off to follow her friend Arven, while Charlie decided to keep watch from the toy store across the street, which mostly meant staring at all the toys he wanted and occasionally remembering to look towards the house.

Eubexa waited patiently, and eventually got the boy's attention without revealing herself. Charlie ran over quickly, eager to be of use.

< Be careful. >

I know. She let the boy inside and shut the door carefully.

"Hi, Miss Bexa!"

Eubexa thought about correcting the boy, but decided that one more layer of confusion couldn't hurt. "Hello, Charlie. I need you to run an errand for me." She held up the folded message. "I need you to take this to the Temple—"

"All right!"

"—but there are a couple of conditions. It will make the job challenging; do you think you can handle it?"

"Sure! What do I have to do?" the boy promised recklessly.

"The first condition is that nobody knows you brought the message. I want it to be a mystery, and that means I don't want them chasing you down and demanding you tell them where you got the message. You understand?"

"I can do that!"

"It's important, Charlie."

"I can!"

"All right. The second condition is, you need to put it somewhere that one of the priests or acolytes finds it as soon as possible. You see how that makes it harder? You have to do both."

"That is harder," Charlie conceded, thinking.

"Can you do it?"

"I think so..."

"Well, give it a good try. The most important thing, Charlie, that nobody sees you leave the message, and nobody can figure out that it was you. If you can't get it somewhere they are sure to find it quickly, that's all right, but don't get caught. You understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, then. Here." She handed Charlie the packet. "Do your best."

"Does this have a coin inside?"

"Yes it does. It makes a message harder to ignore."

"Yeah...it does...That's really smart, Miss Bexa!"

"Thank you."

The boy turned the packet over in his hands and saw the writing. "What's this say?"

"It says, 'urgent.'"

"That means 'hurry up', right?"

"Right."

"Oh. I'll leave it that way up then."

"Good idea. Any more questions?" Charlie shook his head. "All right then, off you go. Be careful, Charlie." Eubexa opened the door.

"I will!" The boy darted out into the street and started running. Eubexa shook her head and closed the door again, locking it carefully.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

After the others had returned and described their encounter with Mr. Tanner, Tom went out to buy lunch, leaving all the elves at home. They had enough food to make a meal, but Tom wanted fresh meat, specifically for Eubexa. She would have objected, but Melsuria ordered her to accept the care.

The human was gone for a long time; everyone was starting to get worried. He finally returned with meat sticks and meat pies. "Sorry I took so long—I had to go to the Temple to get these! They're really trying to buy up all the convenient food in town today, to make more people go inside."

At Melsuria's urging, Eubexa stuffed herself. When everyone had finished, Tom looked pleased. "Normally, I'd like to take you to the Temple for more healing, Eubexa—"

"But these are not normal times," she finished. "I understand, Tom. Honestly, I don't want to set foot outside this house until it is time to leave town."

"That makes sense. I think that goes for the rest of you as well," Tom told the room. "I'm going to go back out, and try to sell the last twelve bags of salt. Smithies use some. I'll go out alone this time—the possible small increase in profit from having you along isn't worth the risk."

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"Be careful out there, Tom," Diavla urged in Elvish. Eubexa translated for Tom automatically.

"I will. Smaller deals are easier, it's mostly walking around town finding buyers. I'll be back before dinnertime."

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

The afternoon passed uneventfully. This was still the first day Arven was able to rest in a bed in four months, so he had no interest in getting up before he had to. Kervan and Diavla took Western lessons for as long as their mental stamina lasted.

Towards dinnertime, Diavla began fretting. Eubexa rolled her eyes behind her veil and did her best to ignore it. Eventually, however, she asked Diavla to join her upstairs. They went into Diavla's room and shut the door.

"What passes, Eubexa?"

"Please sit down on the bed," she asked. Diavla did so at once. < Good. She isn't fighting the suggestion. > Half of the influence was making everything requested seem perfectly ordinary and normal.

"It's time to dream," Melsuria told her. Obediently, Diavla lay down on the bed with a sigh, and the moment her head hit the pillow, she could see the woman's body relax completely.

"Are you calm, Diavla?"

"Yes, Eubexa," she answered quietly, her black hair splayed around her.

"Good, very good. It always helps to do this, doesn't it? It's always so nice and relaxing."

"Yes..."

Melsuria spent a while deepening all the suggestions she had planted in the elf's soul. This skill required patience, and plentiful repetition, but it had the advantage of not showing up under magical senses unless you knew exactly what to look for. Once Diavla was very deep in trance, Melsuria could finally reap her reward.

"Diavla, it's time to have fun now." Melsuria could see her breath quicken a bit in response. "It's fun to remember what Tom does to you, isn't it?"

"Yes..."

"What was the best part, this morning? What exactly did he do to you, and how did it make you feel?"

Diavla told her, in great detail, reliving the experience in her soul, squirming on the bed. Melsuria congratulated her, cheered her on, and encouraged her to feel everything more deeply, more intensely every time. The demon fed on Diavla's lust, fanning the flames, and drawing strength from the elf woman's desires.

When Diavla had finished, Melsuria prodded, "It's fun to imagine what he will do to you, later on tonight, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes..."

"What do you want him to do to you? Tell me the fantasy, exactly what will happen, and how every bit of it makes you feel."

Diavla moaned, and spelled out her hungers, without embarrassment or shame—Melsuria had cured her of those in stages. Again, Melsuria pressed her for details, driving her to live out her fantasy exquisitely, in her soul. The pleasure intensified when she promised the elf that every bit of her fantasy was really going to come true later that night. As Diavla was swept away by passion, the demon fed, and grew stronger.

Melsuria was pleased that nothing she did was contrary to Diavla's nature. Diavla wanted this—Eubexa was merely facilitating her lovelife. With Tom, there was a tiny bit of pressure she had to overcome, because he was so concerned for his lover's well-being. It made him too cautious for the hottest scenes, so she pushed him past his fears, drove him until his lust nearly overwhelmed every other concern. The compassion was still there, but held quiet, kept out of the way, and resolved when he inevitably saw how intense her enjoyment was.

< The two of them are extremely compatible. It's absolutely delicious, > the demon commented.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Eubexa was a quiet passenger for these sessions. While it was disturbing to let Melsuria use her body and voice, it was the deal she had agreed to. Besides, at this point, Eubexa really had no way of stopping the demon. It was only Melsuria's consent that let Eubexa have her body and soul to herself sometimes.

This would be staggering if I could feel any pleasure from it. Melsuria is protecting me from injury, and it has been years since I've known pleasure, but these sessions are reminding me of what I have been missing. It's hard to believe that one day I will be healthy again. I had thought my time as a sex slave had burned true desire out of me, but maybe I will be able to enjoy sex again, someday.

< You will, my little succubus. Sooner than you think. >

Yes, Mistress.

Eubexa did her best to quiet her soul. She had absolutely no intention of disobeying Melsuria, but she might occasionally have a thought that embarrassed her enough that she would like to keep it from the demon, she told herself. It was actually easier at times like this, while Melsuria was feeding. So long as Eubexa's own thoughts did not drift to sex, she would not bother her Mistress.

< Good, my succubus. Your concern pleases me. >

Eubexa paused. I am glad, Mistress.

She focused on making her thoughts quieter still.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

A while later, Tom Walker finally returned. Melsuria roused Diavla from trance, while strengthening her suggestions further and blurring her memory a bit, so that the elf would not know exactly what Melsuria had done to her, only recalling that it was a good thing and very enjoyable. Diavla hurried to wash up and make herself presentable, while Eubexa did the same more easily, and made her way cautiously down the stairs.

I feel as if I could walk normally now, but I mustn't push it and worsen the injury. Eubexa was extremely careful of her health, even now, when she had a demon's promise of a complete cure of all her ailments. No one knew how well her body was recovering, so long as she kept hiding it from view.

She reached the bottom step while listening to Tom have a passable conversation in Elvish. He still sounded like a child, but really, he had come quite a long way in the few weeks he had had to learn the language.

"I am here, Tom," she announced, and the human sighed a bit in relief and switched to Western.

"Is Diavla coming?"

You have no idea. Eubexa felt the demon's amusement as well. "Yes, she will be down soon."

While Diavla took a turn at cooking, Tom filled them all in on his progress.

"It wasn't too bad. I managed to sell two bags to one smithy and three to another, all at ninety silver each. I sold one to the Wandering Ax at eighty-five. I even sold one to the Guardhouse, but I only got sixty-five silver for it. I was hoping to build some goodwill, but apparently they have all decided that they hate me now. They just enjoyed cheating me. Sometimes, that's the way to go—I only have to keep them off our backs for a few more days, hopefully."

"Six more gold for seven bags is still a profit of 88 silver at the lower price, and 47 silver at the higher buying price," Kervan calculated quickly. "Only 1 gold, 85 silver left to break even, and the value of the 5 bags remaining is more than that, even if we don't get a copper from Tanner. Assuming pessimistically 80 silver each for the last five bags, that's four more gold, and we'll be up 2 gold and 15 silver."

The table fell silent for a moment. Then Eubexa sighed and asked, "Kervan, could you either simplify that for translation, or give that to me more slowly, please?"

Kervan scowled, but seemed familiar with the reaction. After a few moments of thought that seemed visibly harder for him than the math had been, he summarized, "We'll probably be up one gold after expenses, even if Biff Tanner doesn't pay. Tom is doing well."

"Thank you." Eubexa translated that carefully for Tom's benefit.

The human grinned. "It sounded as if Kervan went into a lot more detail than that, but I'm happy with the short version. Thank you, Eubexa. And thank you, Kervan."

After a while, Diavla called, "Soup is ready!"

Almost everyone grabbed a bowl and served themselves; Diavla brought Eubexa's to the table for her. Tom had been waiting politely for the others to go first, so Diavla brought him a bowl as well, using it as an excuse to run her hands over him and give him a sultry look. Melsuria tasted the small spike of lust from both of them, and settled back in Eubexa's soul in satisfaction. When Eubexa started to form a question in her mind, the demon cut her off.

< Eat your vegetables, pet. >

Yes, Mistress.

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