SSV 4 Chapter 10 (Patreon)

“Mmm.” Stella curled up with me in bed. “Sounds like you two had a fun date.” She pulled Melody over to join the snuggle. “Thanks for coming back home tonight. I was a little worried that you’d stay out.”

I grunted and let her get comfortable on the bed with Melody and me.

Stella often took a little time to settle if we didn’t have sex before, and she was trying not to impose on Melody’s night.

“It’s a shame that you didn’t get post therapy sexy time though. That’s the best. We need to make sure you want to keep going to therapy.” She squeezed me tight, and Mona’s earlier words played through my mind.

I thought about asking Stella about them, but then realized that it would potentially destroy something she enjoyed doing.

Sighing, I let it go. If Stella thought I needed hugs, then I’d take hugs.

“It’s okay. At the end of the day, I get to relax in bed with two of the world’s most beautiful women.” I adjusted myself.

“Aww. I love you too Miles.” Stella snuggled deeper while I could feel Melody’s lips curl into a smile against my back. “Now go to sleep. You have a busy day tomorrow, and we do too.”

Mona seemed to slip into the back of my mind as I closed my eyes. I could feel her pushing and pulling at my mind, as if she were a cat pacing around, creating a spot to lay down.

I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I trusted her.

I let myself drift off to sleep.

“And that’s it.” Angelina put down her pad of paper. “Time for post therapy sex.” I found myself in the therapy room with Angelina, sitting on the fifth couch.

I frowned, unsure how I’d gotten into the room.

Mona shoved open the door in a tight latex maid outfit, complete with a chunky collar on her throat. “I’m here!”

Angelina froze.

I looked around, a little disoriented. “Am I dreaming?”

“Yes. Technically, we are both dreaming. I connected the two of us.” Mona’s light brown curls bounced as she took quick strides across the room. Her violet eyes tracking me like a predator.

With a wave of her hand, Angelina disappeared like a puff of smoke.

“Just us. You and me, together in your dreams.” Mona licked her lips, her eyes danced with excitement. “This is something none of the others have done with you. And your body can rest in the meantime!”

I knew Mona was obsessed with me, but it had been fairly suppressed lately. At the moment, it was full throttle.

I looked over my beautiful, obsessive telepath, taking in the sexy outfit and the desire in her eyes.

“Kneel.” I demanded, knowing how to feed her desires.

Her knees slammed down to the ground as if my command had actual power. And I could tell she was getting even more excited.

“Yes, my fated.” She lifted her head a little, showing off the collar. “This is a dream, so you can do anything. You can literally do anything to me. I love you so much. So much that I feel like I’m going to explode when you ask something of me. Just ask and it’ll be done.”

I wasn’t even aware I’d thought about it as a chain appeared in my hand, and her maid outfit disappeared except for her stockings and gloves.

“Yes.” She moaned, shuddering a little as her hips swayed with need. “Whatever you need, my fated.”

***

I woke up feeling oddly refreshed, despite knowing that my mind had been working at least at some capacity over the night.

Stella and Melody were already gone when I reached around to see if there was another warm body. The bed wasn’t even warm in their spots.

I crawled out of bed and slipped on a toga.

When I opened the door, still groggy, a temple maiden was standing at full attention. “The goddess is waiting for you.”

I nodded and followed the maiden to the back, where Daeva was sitting by herself. “Hello, glad you slept well. Your two ladies went out already this morning. The excitable one was going on about finding the best syrup?” She frowned, clearly thinking that was code for something. “She said to not wait for her.”

“That’s fine. Stella likes her syrup.” I sat down at the table and spread some jam over a biscuit. I noticed the jar was unlabeled, as were most goods in the city. “So, we are heading out today?”

“Yes. The trip to Valley City and back might take two days.” She added, looking me over.

I nodded. “It’s a ways out there. From here it’s… about straight east?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What were you up to yesterday? Attacking another city?” I teased her.

But my comment made her frown. “I was checking on why our closest river seemed to be running low. There was some giant beaver making a dam upstream. The problem has been resolved. Thankfully you were here to protect the city, giving me the freedom to go solve it.”

That was better than I had been expecting.

“Okay. Well, I’m ready when you are.” I made two more biscuits with my power for the trip.

“I heard that you fought a titan yesterday?” She stood and walked with me.

“Ah. Yeah. That dragon-like creature was at the level of titans I’ve fought previously.” As soon as we stepped out of the temple, people noticed us and cheered before I shot up into the sky. Daeva followed.

“That’s it?” She asked, pushing for more from me.

I chewed on my biscuit for a moment to buy myself time to put together my thoughts. “It would be completely unreasonable to expect the number of titans to stay fixed. If the seven we talk about evolved from somewhere, then what is stopping more from evolving? As far as I’m concerned, no one has a method to stop it.”

She nodded. “Things like the Fenris Wolf and other titans stop them to some extent. But you are right. Territories are constantly being claimed by stronger and stronger monsters. It seems that as they grow more intelligent, they seem to claim an area and grow further.”

“The Fenris Wolf has claimed Valley City?” I asked, running my theory past her.

“With its power, it is a very safe place to nest.”

I frowned. Daeva was the only survivor; there were no other accounts of what had happened in Valley City. Only the destruction that was left behind and a few videos of the first moments.

There were also a few rumors that the Fenris Wolf brought the dead to life. “What do its powers look like?” I asked her.

“It breathes a fog that kills any living thing on contact. The Fenris Wolf also summons the ghosts of the dead to fight for it. When it destroyed Valley City, most of the fighters were like zombies, but there were others that floated in the air like transparent people.”

“Ghosts. Like actual ghosts.” I had heard the zombie rumors, a few videos that were later called hoaxes had floated around, but I hadn’t heard about ghosts.

“Yes, Miles, ghosts. That is also one of the reasons that I have been unsuccessful in attacking it. I cannot seem to harm the ghosts, and they fly up from the city in the thousands whenever the Fenris Wolf becomes aware of me. I’ve managed to get various chunks of material out of the city, but when the wolf comes for me, I’ve yet to win.” She seemed embarrassed.

“Do you think I’ll be able to defeat it?” If what she said was true, I wondered if she was bringing me out to kill the ghosts. I’d thought she just wanted to show me the city.

“No. I think you should see it though. Besides the breath and the ghosts, the Fenris Wolf itself is usually ethereal in nature. When it attacked Valley City, the heroes could do nothing to harm it.”

“Got it. The wolf is a ghost too. Ghost summoning ghost wolf with a lethal fog. Sounds like something from a nightmare.” I shook my head, but I was also more interested than before. This titan sounded like a bigger puzzle than the others.

It was a city killer, the other titans had always been a problem, but heroes had been able to drive them off time and time again. The Fenris Wolf was different.

And I wanted to see the city. I’d only seem brief shots of it in the news when I was with Emma and it was destroyed. We watched the news together and held each other after.

It had been the city that exported crops and considered itself self-sustaining as well as sheltered by the mountains to a degree.

When it had first fallen, the world became gloomy, expecting the rest of the cities to not stand a chance. Even I had been wondering what I’d do if Coast City and the others started to fall.

But the Fenris Wolf hadn’t gone on a killing spree. Instead, it nested into Valley City and remained there.

“Then what is the goal?” I asked.

“See the wolf, maybe get a few supplies, and get out. Although if you learn enough to try to take it on and understand its power, maybe in the future we will come back to fight it.”

I nodded along with her as we flew. We were going on a scouting mission, and she wanted to educate me on the global problem she saw on the horizon.

I looked over my shoulder, back at New Haven. It was nothing but a dot on the horizon. And to my surprise, being so far away felt like a small loss.

“Let’s speed up. I can go faster.” I made an invisible carriage around us and threw up the biggest light sail yet to hurl us forward. If we weren’t relying on the morning sun, we could have gone faster.

“Interesting.” Daeva stood like me and felt for the edge of the invisible carriage. “You built a structure.”

“A carriage, though it is large.” I sat down. “There’s a bench here and one across from me.”

Daeva sat next to me and put a hand against my chest.

Her closeness and the fact that we were out of the city alone made my heartbeat pick up a little. But it wasn’t for the reasons she’d likely believe. I was well aware that out in the middle of nowhere was a good spot for her to betray me if she intended to.

I was pointedly aware that I was putting myself at some level of risk going on this trip with her, but my curiosity was piqued, and I wanted to understand the greater titan risk.

If she wanted to go head to head with me, I’d defeated her once and I’d do it again.

“Yes, this is nice.” She pulled her hand away and rested against my shoulder. “A more intimate way to fly.”

“It takes less focus from me.” I admitted. Given how comfortable she was with me, I wondered if I could ask her more. “So, what exactly was done to you to give you a third power?”

Daeva shuddered. “That was another lifetime ago. That’s why I changed my name; it is my past.”

I raised an eyebrow. Changing her name and trying to create her new persona to separate her from the event was an interesting way to cope. I wondered what Angelina would say about that.

But I knew enough to know she’d likely gone through a number of painful experiments. “You know, your past life is what I’ve always been afraid would happen to me if people found out.” I admitted.

She laughed. “Who is going to strap you to a sterile slab and poke and prod you with needles?”

“We both know there are ways to inhibit people’s powers.” I replied with a frown, thinking of some of the things they did in supermax prisons.

Daeva nodded. “I know. I was drugged often after they attempted power inclusions. They were always worried that I’d suddenly become powerful enough to fight back.”

“Then one day you did?” I asked, still not sure how she survived.

Kim seemed to have witnessed her die, but now after having thought I killed her myself, I knew there was something to that third power that helped her recover.

“No, I escaped and laid low. I lived in homeless communities for a while before I realized I could travel the wilds. Once that happened, I started New Haven.”

She smiled as she recounted that part of her life. “I needed some extra powers to help me build it out, so I started with some of the homeless communities. It was just meant to be a little safe haven for myself.”

She paused before she continued. “But when I saw what happened to Valley City, I knew I had to do more. I started taking New Haven more seriously, seeing it as a future city to protect us from the titans. We need stronger supers. And I’d seen first hand what that could do. When Valley City was being destroyed, it was actually one of the prisons that stood up against the Fenris Wolf and stalled it for people to escape. It didn’t work, but it was all those destructive powers that actually put up a fight.” She had a far off look on her face.

“That’s when you started recruiting villains?” I asked, starting to piece it all together.

She nodded. “That’s when I saw the good in them. Heroes eventually ran when they saw they couldn’t stop the Fenris Wolf. It was villains with nothing left to lose and a fighting spirit that stood up against it. They knew they would lose, but they were willing to do it to buy time for others to escape. I saw firsthand the good that still existed in some of those villains. Too many are stereotyped by their mutations or powers. They just needed a chance to become productive rather than destructive.”

I couldn’t help but agree that New Haven seemed to be doing well, but it seemed too good to be true. “You must have had some issues along the way.” I prodded.

“Oh, yes. There have been a few that were murderers because they aren’t right in the head.” Daeva tapped her temple, and I had to suppress a chuckle at the oddity of her calling people unwell in the head. “But they get weeded out quickly. You’ll also notice that I didn’t go after the Supermax myself.”

“You sent monster fruit there.” I pointed out.

She shrugged. “There are those that are there because they have terrible powers, not because they are bad people.” Daeva played with her long blonde hair as she changed topics. “You hid your powers for years. I’ve heard about the BSHs press conference, you killed Fortress.”

I looked away from her. “Yes, I did. I was a teenager when he attempted to kill the other heroes and the rest of my class.”

“If you were caught back then, you’d have gone to Supermax and been one of the villains locked away.” She said what I’d always feared.

“Probably.” They wouldn’t have known about my ability to affect powers, because I wouldn’t have known about my ability to control ki at that point. That would come later with years of practice with my abilities.

My entire life would have been different. I had just come into my power and didn’t understand it. I’d likely have been drugged up so heavily I would have never figured out all I was capable of doing.

“If I had offered that Miles monster fruit and an escape, would he have taken it?” She asked, and the question made me think.

It was impossible for me to predict what I would have been like without Emma there to counsel me and help me through the anger that came with my rejection from society. But I could see the worst case scenario, and I had a pretty good feeling that I would have eaten that monster fruit. “Yeah. I would have taken the opportunity. Anything would have been better than Supermax. I would have wanted out. I blamed myself a lot. I probably wouldn’t have been in a great mental state.”

“A lot of them are rough at first. But it isn’t as if they are being dropped in among sheep only to turn into a wolf. Everyone here has a rough past, but unlike being released in the cities where that past defines them and gives them few options, here they are free and even welcomed to use their powers for some positive purpose. You’d be surprised how quickly they latch onto the option to provide something for the community to survive rather than violence and thievery. The cities aren’t solving the problem. They aren’t actually helping people become good citizens.” She narrowed her eyes at me as if I was part of the problem.

And I knew what part of my role she was focused on. “I agree. The BSH is to blame for a lot of that. But I’ve started a program to give lower risk inmates therapy and hopefully help them walk out of their sentences with more stable footing.”

Daeva pursed her lips. “It’s not a bad start, but they need a new chance and someone to recognize their value, rather than treating symptoms and encouraging them to take the jobs that are doled out to ex-convicts. It’s not fair to hand them scraps and expect them to celebrate.” Daeva’s passion was pouring out of her as she spoke, and there was something about her zeal that made her look more attractive in that moment.

But it also was starting to feel more personal.

“Were you ever in prison?” I asked gently.

“No, just the lab. But I met more than a few prisoners that were brought in for some of the doctors’… tests.” She frowned.

“It couldn’t have been easy. That life.”

“No. It was not easy. Thankfully, I survived.” She had a small smile on her face. “Both of my powers improved with the addition of Fortress’s, and the scientists didn’t understand one of my powers fully. It was only because of that fact that I was able to survive.”

I decided to take a chance as the opportunity presented itself. “And what would that power be?”

She pushed away from me, staring me in the eyes. “You want to know how you lost back in Point City?”

“I didn’t lose.” I frowned.

“Oh, you won the fight, but you lost the battle. I got away with the prisoners. And just so you know, they are doing well here in New Haven.” She stared at me in defiance.

“Fine. I want to know how you survived when I severed your power and basically shut down your body.”

Daeva leaned forward until our noses touched. “Maybe when we are both madly in love I’ll tell you. Right now, our hearts don’t always react, but it is improving, which must mean that our love is growing.” She put her hand to my chest again.

“Daeva, a faster heartbeat might be a single symptom of love, but it isn’t love.” I tried to explain.

She tilted her head. “But when you love someone, your heart beats faster.”

I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “That’s not the only thing that makes the heart beat faster.”

Daeva grabbed my hand and pushed it between her breasts. “It’s what makes my heart beat faster. It told me when we fought that you were the one. Can you feel it? I get excited just being in here with you.”

I certainly felt something. It was mostly her soft skin, but her heartbeat was there too. “There’s more than just the heartbeat.” I tried to salvage the conversation.

“Of course there is. Once we love each other enough, we’ll have a kid.” She smiled. “A very strong kid.”

Fuck me. I wasn’t getting into the birds and bees conversation right then and there. “Sure, something like that.”

“I know that Stella satiates your lust, but I do hope that as the God of Fertility you have time to include me and more into your harem pantheon.” She gave me the biggest smile and the craziest crazy eyes.

I wasn’t sure how I kept drawing in such intense women.