Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 07

He nodded, "Yes, but it was not clear to me, other than it is beautiful like the ... wolf-girl as you said."

"It is a shape that she has not chosen since Maezou left for the hells. Before that, it was the one that was always seen. Maezou can make herself in any way, but Zele has only the three. You cannot see the last one clearly because the demon sight has only just come to you. I can tell you what I see in them, Tobias. I see that they are happy now to have each other again and so they will not want to lose that. You are Maezou's chosen one for herself and nothing will ever change that from what I see. But they will ask you very soon."

He looked at her, "Ask me what?"

She smiled, "They will want to remain together, and so they will ask you if Zele can stay. She will want to be another of your – vassals – you might say. She cannot be bound as her sister was, but she will want to swear her loyalty to you for Maezou, and you – and most of all, for herself. You should begin to think on it now."

She placed her hand on his shoulder, "I need a little of your strength for a moment," she said, "Forgive me, Tobias, but I think that you will like what I would do here."

The sisters came up the stairs into the kitchen while Toby felt a bit weak for a second. Maezou stood still in shock for a moment and Zele's mouth fell open, "Your brands!"

Maezou looked at herself as much as she could while Toby stared.

"Your male here and I have been talking," their mother said, "He and I can agree on many things, I think. Something which I know he dislikes and that I hate are those marks of the ones who have owned you. I took some of his strength to add to my own and so now you wear only the mark of your lord Tobias and the ones that you added for yourself. I think that it how it should be, Daughter."

"Maezou," her mother said, "Show Toby how you are when you hunt."

She shook her head, "I do not hunt anymore, Mother."

"Nevertheless," the older demon smiled pointedly, "Show him so that he might see."

She shrugged and in a second, she stood as he'd seen her in the bedroom.

"You have left out much. Show him how you look when you hunt."

Maezou felt a little nervous and her mother had to strain to keep herself in check as she pointed to Toby. "Look, foolish daughter, see his heart. Why are you afraid now?"

She wasn't happy about it, but in another few seconds, she looked a little less friendly, standing on her own cloven feet and there were wings behind and above her.

Maezou's mouth fell open to see his smile.

She was quick to point out that the hooves were not real for her, but were only an illusion to make her look more deadly.

He chuckled, "I don't care. I like them too."

"Why do you fear so much?" Zele asked, "He likes you this way too, so much for you, Maezou." She nodded quickly, "Zele feels this."

Toby smiled at Maezou and her eyes opened widely in surprise. Before she could say anything - and before any of the others could feel it, he spoke up. "Zele."

She spun toward him. uncertain now at the tone of his voice.

"Please," he said, "And I know that I'm not supposed to say that, but I see how you two are and I'd really like it if Zele would stay. I think that I'll need a lot of help soon, and I think this might work better with another pair of knowing eyes besides Maezou's. So if you don't mind, I'd like it if Zele could stay at least until she decides what's best for her and us."

Maezou looked instantly happy, but Zele looked uncertain. "If that is what you want, it must be comman-"

She stopped as he held up his hand.

"Fine," Toby said, "But I can't command you directly, can I? You don't belong to me." He shrugged, "So I guess that idea's out the window."

Zele landed on her knees in front of him with a crash that caused the refrigerator to rock slightly. She'd been almost ten feet away the second before.

"Zele swears," she said.

He was confused, "Swears what? I mean, what do you swear?"

"Anything," she said.

He shook his head, but touched her shoulder, "No. Please stay, and we'll work something out for you to swear if it has to be. Your sister can advise me, since I haven't got a clue, ok?"

She felt tears coming again and sniffled, "Thank you Toby, I mean,-"

"It's fine, Zele, we'll work it out later. I still don't always want this bowing stuff."

"Zele feels so-"

"While Zele is busy feeling," the older demon smiled a bit dryly, "Please show Lord Tobias your third side."

Zele wanted to shake her head, but her sister encouraged her quietly and in a few seconds, they stood together, wings, horns, and all, one dark and one light in color. Zele appeared self-conscious, but the look faded to a shy smile as Maezou took her hand.

The storm demon smiled with a very pleased sigh. When she spoke, Toby could feel the pride in it, "My beautiful daughters as I have not seen them in ages. Mark this moment in your mind, Tobias. Notice how they are the same and so different in one instant."

Toby took in the scene before him, the two looked like a set, though he could see some differences. Maezou stood on the cloven hooves that were the illusion and her sister's feet looked much the same in size and shape, but were in fact, the same rear paws that she wore as the hell hound and the wolf-girl. Looking up, he saw that her eyes were black pools which regarded him with something like shy hope, and her black hair hung long and straight.

Her body was the same as her sister's in shape, though her tail was shorter and somewhat thicker. The fur was gone now, but for her pubic hair - and that only lasted for a moment longer as she noticed that he looked at it and turned her head almost demurely. But when she did, she noticed Maezou's mound and remembered. Her own mound was bare in an instant and when she looked at him again, her smile was very shy.

Toby nodded and smiled at them both, and he could see that it had made them happy to see it from him.

"I have never seen Zele as she was born, and I'm sure that her sister cannot now remember, but I believe that she chose the three shapes, one after the other as she grew. All of them have the same color, but I believe that she had changed them over time. This one I think was Zele's way to be like her sister. They were tiny then, but this is how I first saw Zele as she sat with Maezou waiting for me."

Maezou felt that she had to explain to him. "We were always like this before I left. The wings, well, I should have shown the wings to you last night. You might have caught on quicker. But then we wouldn't be together, probably. I didn't show them to you though you wanted to see me as I really am, but I was on your couch. The wings are only for when I need them. You will have them too if you want them, but they're more of a problem than anything, and you need the tail then to keep you straight. All of that will come if the rest of this works this well, or we can bind you to me later."

Zele looked at Toby, and he saw a tiny bit of relief in her face, and after another instant, he saw something else for the briefest time before it was gone. When she turned back to Maezou, he looked at their mother, and watched as she stepped forward to whisper to Zele. "Really?"

Zele looked at Toby. He was looking out into the darkness beyond the window for the moment. She looked at Maezou who nodded slightly in encouragement. To the one who'd adopted her, she glanced uncertainly and then looked down at the floor for a moment before looking up finally. She nodded nervously. She felt uncertain and changed back to the furry wolf-girl form once more.

"I'll be back in a minute," he said, turning to walk to the garage.

He didn't need any of his regular senses, he just knew that Maezou had gone back downstairs and the other two were following him. He stopped and turned, pointing to the doorframe, "Watch your horns, Mother."

She stopped and looked. "Thank you, Tobias," she chuckled.

They found him leaning into the open door of his truck. The storm demon chuckled again as she reached to touch his bare flank for a brief moment. "Forgive me if I admire my daughter's male. It is almost too much, isn't it Zele?"

The wolf-girl nodded with a grin as she looked. "Zele wishes to try. Is it permitted Toby?" She didn't bother to wait for his reply.

He groaned as he felt her little squeeze and shook his head to himself as he searched.

Finally, he turned to them and they stared, watching him. "What are you doing?" Zele asked.

"Something I try not to do very much," he sighed as the lighter scratched into a flame. "If you look at this from my side of it, I hope you can see that this is huge and weird for me. I was on my way home from work, a regular guy and all." He shook his head, "Now look at me. I think I'm a bit justified if I want a cigarette now. I don't know why I'm not having a drink, to tell you the truth."

"But you are not unhappy, Tobias, I feel this."

He shook his head, "No. I'm actually very happy. I'm just overwhelmed, Mother."

She smiled, "It is easily understood. She chose so well in you." The demon reached and caressed a pectoral muscle. Zele's pawed hand flashed out right afterward, "Zeles wants to feel too."

She backed up a step afterward, not certain now whether she'd overstepped herself with a lord.

It almost made Toby choke as he chuckled, "It's alright, Zele, I don't really mind. I can't help but like you and you make me smile so much. I just can't help it." He reached to put his arm around her neck and, with a bit of surprise at her weight, pulled her close and kissed the top of her head and tousled the fur there. Leaning close, he quietly said, "I'm doing my best and it'll take some getting used to, I guess, but if it's that big a deal to you," he rolled his eyes, "then you can watch. Are you happy now?"

She looked as though she could have floated then, but she remembered herself and nodded as she thanked him.

Toby froze and looked down.

"I think that I begin to feel what some of these mothers-in-law might feel," the storm demon said with a smirk as she carefully hefted everything he had gently for a moment, "though I am sure that not many do this. I feel pride in the one who loves my daughter."

She smiled genuinely as she carefully released him. "There will be many demonesses who will burn with envy, Tobias. Have a care for Maezou's heart when they fall down in front of you and beg for this."

Zele was reaching with smiling eyes as soon as she saw that she had the room. "Zele wants to –"

She froze as she saw the warning in his eyes and retracted her hand before she'd touched anything.

"But Zele will keep her hands to herself, she thinks."

"Go to your sister," her mother suggested quietly, "Tobias and I must talk so that he understands. If I leave it to her to teach him, it will take too long, and your eyes say too much to even begin to trust you to teach him anything, pretty Zele."

When they were alone, Toby pulled the old parka out of the truck and walking to the back, he let down the tailgate and spread out the parka, indicating to her that she could sit if she wished. He noticed that he was standing in snow in his bare feet. He felt the cold, but that was all that it was to him now, an indication of temperature and nothing more. He sat next to her. "Teach me then."

"First, I wish to know why you came here to this chamber," she said, "I think it is more than a desire to smoke a cigarette."

He nodded, "This demon sight as you called it shows too much, and too fast for me to grasp what I see."

She nodded, "You saw Zele's heart for a moment."

He drew on the cigarette and exhaled, nodding, "More than I wanted to see. I don't know what to do now, and from the little that I know about her, I'd hate to hurt her feelings, and I have no idea how Maezou would take it either if I did hurt her feelings. I only know what I ought to do, I think, but I don't know enough about her to even begin to think of a way to say it."

He felt her clawed hand on his shoulder. "This is the place to ask questions of me, but I can tell you that it is also the place where you must let go of this notion that you carry. There is no wedding for demons, Toby, and you have not wed Maezou. Because she must, she raises you as a demon lord. Demons do not wed. Demons do not take the time to learn even one name of the one they try to rut with. But you both want each other for as long as it can be. It is a wonderful thing."

He stared as a lit cigarette appeared between her fingers. Drawing on it, she smiled, "I know of these things, Tobias."

She explained further. "Demon lords and their chosen do not take husbands or wives as the case may be. They take consorts, sometimes many. Some of the worst fights that I have seen and heard of happened between the consorts of a lord. The thirty-second consort might say something as a slight to the forty-eighth and it begins all sorts of intrigues and plots which always end in spilled demon blood, often very much if many consorts are involved. The ruler smiles and gets new ones and it goes on. It is often worse among the female rulers. I have seen females who like to pit their males against one another in death matches for the hope to breed."

"For a lord to take only one consort might be idealistic, Toby, but it is seen as foolish and shows weakness or the emergence of a very new lord. It is also seen by many to be an open challenge to conquer a weak lord. You do not wish for more than the one you love, and I understand it. But think on it from your practical side – and forget about these rules that you make about your thumbs."

"Maezou is your first consort and she would not stand for there to be another in your heart - except for one - and only because she sees the practicality of it herself and loves her sister. The two would be happy with each other, and wildly happy with you and no others would ever be allowed to live. Can you imagine how quickly a demoness who tries to get to you would die for it?" She laughed out loud at the thought, "Between them, there is no single demoness who would last more than a moment."

"Demon girls have a womb to receive seed but hold the passage above closed by their nature, though sometimes it opens regardless and then they spawn. The egg moves then to the womb, and quickly, seeking seed just as the seed seeks the egg. I can say that one day, Maezou's passage will open and then the child will have two mothers to fuss and care for it. Since none of us know what Zele is, I do not know if Zele can even be bred, though her sister can and it will happen one day. She would love Maezou's child as her own. But if it happens with Zele, the very same thing would happen from Maezou's side of it. I know this as I know them both."

"We will speak further later of the need for it, but from the simple side of tactics and strategy, my girls each know how the other fights and both are mighty in their way. If you take Zele as your second, you are all three of you already protected right away. Many hopeful rulers would give up the desire to have you three enslaved even if kept apart. You will be fearsome soon, and the only one of you who is widely known is Maezou and she is feared. Remember that Zele cannot be enslaved and this is known as well but not by so many. One look and they see that she cannot be controlled. It makes her dangerous in the eyes of many lords."

"Forget about the rule of mankind about taking sisters as mates, Tobias, for it means nothing here and they are not tied by blood." She drew another puff and smiled with some pride, "You are an unknown mystery, but plainly you would even now be seen as fearsome since you surely must be to be able to hold the two sisters to you, no?"

"I see all of that, but... what's a second? You mean as a vassal, right? I'm kind of hoping that I misunderstood all of that, I guess."

She shrugged, "The second consort, Toby. Zele wishes in her way to be your second wife – as you would say it. She and Maezou are speaking of this now between them. They are both very hopeful, especially Zele, for she has never had anyone for herself beyond the soulless things which care less than nothing for her. Zele wishes strongly for a home in two hearts now."

"That's what I was afraid it meant." he said, "and I only ever wanted one woman to love me."

She reached up and ran her long fingers through his hair as she chuckled, "I feel how you struggle with all of this, and even more now because of my daughters and think that it is not right somehow. But it is, Tobias, and even in your heart, you feel something. It is only the room being made for Zele there. They love each other fiercely and Maezou wishes now to welcome her old friend to what has begun between herself and you."

"Your rules, as you were taught, do not apply to you any longer, and the briefest look in any mirror will tell you that you are no longer the type of being to which these rules apply. You should accept this for the gift that it is from Zele's hopeful heart for there is the very same thing there that shines to you from Maezou's."

"Perhaps you cannot understand it yet, but something such as this makes an old bitch demon and mother very proud."

She smiled and nodded," And soon you may have two consorts who have never fought between themselves in their lives. I think that if you would allow it, all three would be happy, though it may take a little time between you and Zele – but not from her side of it, and this does not matter anyway. I did not even think on all of this until I saw what you saw in Zele at that instant. Though it makes you uncomfortable to even think about this, it makes perfect sense to all three of the females here now. It gives you all a far better chance to have a life without the need to always look over your shoulders."

She smirked, "Right now, Zele listens closely as Maezou tells of your first loving with her and how it felt to her. Do you wish to know more?"

He shook his head and put out his cigarette, "No, please. No more for now. I just need to boil the pasta and then we can eat very soon. I'd like it if you would join us."

"You sound sad, Tobias, and I see that it is not this way inside of you."

"No," he said, "I shouldn't be able to believe my luck from a purely male point of view, should I, Mother? It's just way too much, and far too fast for a poor simple man like me, that's all. Please tell me that there aren't more surprises waiting for me."

She smiled, "I am too old a demon to need to bother with lies, Tobias. You are a new demon lord and one's place is normally determined with much fighting and bloodshed in the hells. I have another plan and a way for you three to live. There will be other surprises, though. It cannot be avoided."

He shook his head, "Holy shit," he said, "does this ever stop? I don't think I can take much more."

"There will be no third consort," she said, "and that is good news, and the rest will not be bad, though you will need to plan your rise carefully, lest you start a war."

She looked confused for a moment and he noticed it.

"What?" he asked.

"What you said, Tobias. What is holy about ..."

"Never mind," Toby said, "it's a stupid expression."

-------------------

Dinner was a rather rustic affair, given the power outage, but over the time, the old storm demon was able to get many of the major points of Demon hierarchy and the way of the power structure across to Toby, who sat spellbound together with Maezou and Zele.

"For you to appear suddenly in the midst of things – and do not forget that in the knowledge of application, you are as a child here, but in terms of brute power, Tobais, you are already becoming mighty. See what I was able to do for Maezou with only a little of your strength when I removed her brands. This is not understood to be possible, what I did while she lives, and yet we did this, you and I. It says much of your power."