Scion of Atlantis Ch. 06

I woke when it was nearly dark, mouth dry, and my cock feeling sticky where it laid against my belly, fully soft. Rosalie was curled up under my arm, facing away from me, still wearing my t-shirt. Licking my lips and trying to work up any kind of moisture for my mouth, I gently worked my way up to a sitting position, doing my best not to disturb her, and slipped off the foot of the bed to stand on the floor. I could hear, faintly, the sounds of the Jeopardy theme song through the wall of my bedroom. I was comforting, in a way, to know I was surrounded by people living normal lives, enjoying normal things. A reminder that my life wasn't necessarily going to be like this forever.

Still naked, I crept my way over to the living room, grabbing one of the unopened cola bottles leftover from dinner, and gratefully pouring the fizzy sweetness over my tongue and down my parched throat. The room was blue and gloomy in the growing twilight, lit only by the street lamps outside, so I didn't fear anyone spying on me, but my eyes flicked over the the front door and the gap in the plaster from where the deadbolt was ripped through. As quietly as I could, I lifted up the end of one of the loveseats, and pulled it in front of the door, the other two legs scraping softly on the scuffed hardwood floor. It wouldn't make the greatest of barriers, but it was better than nothing. I should have done it before falling asleep, but my passions were in full control at the time.

Since Rosalie was still resting, I went and helped myself to a shower, grateful to be able to rinse away the sweat of the day's many exertions. My filthy feet made a muddy trickle to the drain as I hosed myself off, and while I knew I didn't have a ton of time, I took my time to give myself a thorough cleaning. I was lucky that, despite probably smelling like a gym bag, Rosalie still wanted to fuck and didn't seem to mind my aggression.

Aya didn't appear until I was stepping out of the shower, looking my body up and down appreciatively. "Your demesne grows, little by little, my prince," she told me with a grin, "And now you have taken your first concubine. You should be proud. May she be the first of many."

I gave the woman in the mirror a wry look as I reached for a towel, and found the pegs I usually hang them on bare. I only had a couple towels, and Rosalie must have helped herself to the last clean one without realizing it. I decided to wait on the bath mat until I stopped dripping, rather than wipe up after myself. To the lovely woman in the mirror, I shook my head. "Rosalie's not a concubine, Aya," I said with a note of exasperation in my voice, "But I'm glad you approve of us getting down. I guess you're not a jealous woman, or book, or whatever you are."

Her smiled widened. "A true prince, embracing their destiny, will end up with a stable of wives and concubines in their demesne, to attend to their needs," she explained, running a hand through her braids, her other on her hip, "I belong to you. You are my lord and master, though you must prove yourself to gain full access to my arcane secrets. It is not my place to be jealous of who my prince chooses to attend his lordly self."

I snorted a brief laugh. "A stable of concubines, huh? I've never even had a girlfriend for more than a few months, you know," I told her, turning to bend over the tub slightly. Aya playing with her hair inspired me to rake my fingers through my own, trying to wring out the excess water. I didn't mind Aya, I was beginning to quite like her actually, but standing there, naked, and having my sex life judged by the woman living in my head did not really appeal. When I turned back to fish my hairbrush of the medicine cabinet, Aya had her grumpy, skeptical look on, her arms crossed. I had to admit, she looked pretty cute when she was acting tsundere like that.

"A subject you take into your bed is no mere 'girlfriend'," Aya said, still able to speak even though I swung the mirror open, her eyes trying to follow me as she pivoted out of sight briefly. When I shut the medicine cabinet, she had "stepped" back behind me so I could brush my hair, but as usual she didn't pause in her lecture. "Go to your Rosalie again, and ask her to lay with you. She has been claimed by your magic, and she will not refuse."

That made me pause. "Wait, are you telling me that I'm mind controlling her? Can she even consent, then?" I asked, and having brushed my short hair back, put the hairbrush down on top of the toilet so I could brush my teeth. My mouth didn't taste nearly as nasty as when I woke up, but it still wasn't great. "I don't want to be a rapist. I want her to be able to enforce her own boundaries if I ask her to do something."

Aya rolled her eyes dramatically, behind my right shoulder. "Then tell her so," she said, sounding annoyed, "Just because you possess power over her, does not mean you cannot surrender it. Remember, the claiming works because at the moment of casting, she did not object to identifying herself as your woman. It might be unusual for someone who was a mundane human just yesterday, but do not succumb to self-flagellation simply because you do not understand your own abilities."

I paused with my hand groping for a toothbrush that wasn't in it's customary place in my bathroom cup. Glancing around, I spotted it in a dusty corner near my trash can, where I had dropped it in surprise that morning. With a sigh, I grabbed my toothpaste and began piping it onto my finger. I had to do something to clean up. "Look, things happened kind of quickly, and..." I trailed off, to narrow my eyes at Aya. "You don't care, do you? Your whole morality is power-oriented. If Rosalie is my concubine or whatever, according to you I have the right to do whatever to her that I please."

Aya's shrug was all the answer I needed, as I began awkwardly scrubbing my teeth to the best of my ability. I pushed down my outrage, reminding myself that Aya was a very different being from a very different time. Of course she would have a different ethical framework. I would have to be my own moral compass.

Shortly after, a sleepy looking Rosalie, still wearing my Calliope Mori t-shirt, came shuffling down the hall, yawning and brushing back her blue hair. "Ozzy? Who are you talking to?" she asked in the middle of a yawn, coming into the bathroom just as I was rinsing out my mouth. She sleepily wrapped her arms around my shoulders after I straightened, pulling herself close to me, not at all phased by my nakedness and damp skin. "That was so good," she murmured, "I've never felt so desired and safe at the same time. I was worried when I woke up and you weren't there, I just wanted t-" she cut off suddenly, eyes flying open as she looked in the mirror. She did a double take, glancing between me, the mirror, and the rest of the bathroom, before blushing red as a beet. "That's your..." she swallowed, "Your... mirror person?"

"Yeah, this is Aya... Ayaundinshal," I replied, the unusual full name of my grimoire coming surprisingly easily to me, considering I heard it only once, hours ago. "I'm not sure how exactly it works, but she lives in my head, or something, and yeah. You know the basics from earlier."

Surprisingly, considering how much Aya liked giving me a hard time, she was perfectly polite and mild as milk to Rosalie. Materializing at the forefront of the mirror, as if she just walked through me like a game character without collision, Aya gave an elaborate bow, placing one of her hands against her heart with the other on her middle, and inclining her whole body in Rosalie's direction. "It is my deepest honour to greet my prince's first true retainer. I am Ayaundinshal, the Grimoire of En-me-zannag, the Sage of Names. It pleases my prince to refer to me as 'Aya' for his ease."

Rosalie looked down at herself, seemed to flush even deeper, if that was possible, and tried to tug the hem of the t-shirt down a little lower over her thighs. "Uh, you can call me Rosalie, Aya. It's good to finally meet you," she said, then frowned, look between me and the mirror, "But... what's this about me being a retainer? Does that have something to do with the spell Ozzy cast on me?"

I looked to Aya, who folded her arms at me, her mouth shut. She was obviously not going to chime in with an explanation, but just as I took a breath to explain, a tinny, slightly muffled guitar riff sounded in the small space of the bathroom. Rosalie and I both glanced around, but she located it first, using her foot to drag the small pile of her clothing towards her from the corner of the room. She knelt, giving me the briefest look at the curve of her ass as she did so, and rose with her smartphone in hand.

Flicking her finger across it she put it up to her ear. "Hello?" she asked, and I heard a low voice that I couldn't quite make out, and as they spoke Rosalie reached out and wrapped hand around my elbow. "Yeah, he's here," she replied to whoever it was, tugging me out into the hall, and around the corner towards the bedroom, "Give me a second and I'll put you on speaker."

On the way down the hall, Rosalie tapped another button of her phone and looked back at me. "It's Prince, you know, Mr. Prince the lawyer?" I nodded, appreciating the reminder. The first thing on my mind was a sense of relief that he managed to escape the grey man, but the word "prince" was getting thrown around me an awful lot lately and it helped to keep things straight. "He's calling from Central Hospital, Marlowe is in emerg and only just now became conscious."

We slipped into the bedroom. Rosalie tapped her phone a couple more times, standing in the back of the room, well away from the windows. "Go head, Ozzy's here," she said, leaning against my Bad Brains poster, her head haloed by the bright yellow Saturn.

"Hello Ozzy," Mr. Prince said, his voice accompanied by the sound of distant voices and people bustling, "I'm glad you are well. You'll have to forgive me, I cannot speak in detail about some things because I don't currently have privacy." Reading between the lines, I understood what he meant. He was in public on his phone and couldn't really discuss otherside stuff.

"Hey, Mr. Prince, happy to hear from you, too. Is Mr. Marlowe alright?" I asked immediately. Marlowe had put himself on the line to save us, and hearing that he wound up in the emergency room hit me with a deep stab of guilt. I'd had friends back me up in fights at school back in the day, but nobody had ever wound up in the hospital because of me.

"He will be, now," Prince replied, "During that incident, after you had left, Jeffery's suit jacket had caught on fire. He was badly burned across his arms and shoulders, and it took some time for me to help him put out the flames, as you might imagine. In that time, the gentleman you were trying to avoid had left. Between that and the wounds he took in the fight, I had to put Jeffery to sleep until help could arrive. Right now he's looking a lot better, although it'll be some time before he regains use of his eye."

It was worse than I had thought, and that stab slithered deeper into my guts, making me feel queasy. I boggled the mind a bit to hear someone describe a person who was just set on fire and had their eye poked out as 'alright', but I had to trust that Prince's assessment of Marlowe was correct. I supposed some of Marlowe's resistance to injury could be chalked up whatever supernatural abilities he had, and for that I was grateful, but it sounded like what he went through was brutal. I silently resolved to make it up to him. "Have you seen any sign of the- of that gentleman?" I asked, tentatively, trying to control my emotions and keep my voice steady.

"No, he left fairly quickly, I imagine in an attempt to catch up with you. I take it from your tone that he hasn't?" He didn't wait for us to confirm before continuing on with a more positive note in his voice, "Excellent, then Jeffery's suffering was not in vain. I am going to send our fair Rosalie a text message with an address and some instructions. I've arranged something of a safe house for you, and you should find a few things of use there. As your legal counsel, I would advise you to stay out of sight for a few days. Eat lots of takeout on my dollar, try to enjoy cable, and do your best to stay off social media and away from public spaces."

"Uh, thank you, we really appreciate that," I said, making eye contact with Rosalie, who gave me a warm smile and a nod, seeming to show a confidence in the situation that I didn't share. "But why are you doing this?" I continued, "I haven't paid you so much as a cent, brought trouble to your door and now you're giving us all of this protection?"

Prince paused for a second, long enough that I began to wonder if he was having second thoughts, but when he replied there was amusement in his voice. "I have a reputation to upload," he said simply, then elaborated with "An unknown individual had the nerve to attack my client, in my very own office, badly injuring my partner at the same time. When you first arrived at my office, you were a curiosity, and perhaps on a long enough timeline with some careful cultivation, an opportunity to secure favours from a valuable ally." His tone turned darker as he went, taking on a vicious edge. "Now, I am angry. Very angry, and I intend to exact retribution. However, our friend has slipped beneath my radar for now. Until I possess the means to make this individual pay for his transgressions, at least I can prevent him from getting what he wants."

Rosalie and I shared a glance. Prince was a lot more unassuming compared to his massive partner, but the confidence with which he stated his desire for revenge along with his tone made me wonder who, exactly, between the two was the really dangerous one. I thought back to the chess game Prince and Marlowe were playing when I met them, and wondered briefly who was winning.

"Well, thank you for all the help, regardless of your motivations, we're grateful," I told him, which wasn't a lie, at least on my end. "I will make sure to repay you and Mr. Marlowe, once this all blows over and I have a chance to get my feet under me. Please take care of him until then."

Prince gave a chuckle that fuzzed his phone's mic for a moment. "You don't have to remind me, lad," he replied warmly, settling back into the persona of the erudite, personable lawyer like slipping on a glove, "You may be a Scion with command over your domain, but you're still very new at all this, and Jeffery and I have been partners for some time. I look forward to seeing you again. And seeing what sort of person you blossom into. Until we meet again."

With a beep, Rosalie's phone flicked back to it's usual background, a selfie of Rosalie with some other woman. Rosalie put her phone back to sleep, and casually tossed it onto my nightstand. "Hey, I've been wondering," I said, beginning to put a few things together in my head, "When he refers to Marlowe as his 'partner', is that in more ways than business partners, or...?"

Rosalie turned to me, and grinned playfully. "You're only just now figuring that out?" she asked, turning to me and slipping her arms around my shoulders, "I don't know for sure what their relationship is, but they're closer than any two other people I know, on the otherside." She nestled up close to me. "You're naked, and warm," she said, again with that playful tone, but then seemed to blink in the dark, pushing herself away from me, and stumbling a little. "Jesus, what's coming over me?" she said in a whisper, "I've known you for like six hours. I'm not usually like this."

Realizing that I was, indeed, still naked, and noticing a certain firmness rising in my cock, I turned to my little dresser and began pulling out a fresh outfit. "Yeah," I replied with a nervous laugh, a strange, uneasy sensation slowly running up my spine, mingling unpleasantly with the guilt I was still feeling over Marlowe and Prince, "I guess between Aya and the phone call I got kind of distracted, sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

Behind me, I heard the squeak of the mattress as Rosalie sat down heavily. "What makes me uncomfortable is how comfortable I am," he said is a voice tinged with uncertainty. Once I had slipped some boxer-briefs on, I glanced back at her. She was hunched over, clutching her temples, looking down at her knees. "Everything about you feels so right, and wholesome, and I just want to-" she cut herself off with a shake of her head, before looking up at me. I could see the streetlight sparkle off of the tears welling in her eyes. "This "claiming" thing... what exactly did you do to me?" she asked, in a way that made my hair stand on end.

Feeling increasingly anxious, I shifted uncomfortably, before pulling my shirt on. "Look, I'm sorry if this feels weird for you, but I'm very new at all of this, and I had no idea that there would be these side effects for you." I stepped into a fresh pair of jeans, before heading over to my old, discarded pair from earlier to strip the belt off. "I meant it when I said I was trying to save you from that guy in the coat. If it bothers you, we can find a way to reverse the claiming, but for now, please, let's just try to survive," I said as I began pulling on some socks- couldn't forget that, after everything that happened earlier. "We both have a lot to worry about right now."

I realized that my hands were beginning to tremble, and leaned back against the dresser with an audible thunk as it it tilted against the wall. "I think something is happening to me, too," I said, and Rosalie frowned, tilting her head in a way that would be adorable in any other context. Was this the guilt I felt over her and Marlowe? Anxiety over feeling out of my depth? Or was there something more to it...?

I blinked with the realization, and turned to press both my hands against the apartment wall, the dresser making another thud as it felt back into place. "[INSPECT]," I intoned, and awareness of my apartment flashed through my mind. I stepped back, startled at what I learned, and Rosalie was there to put a hand on my shoulder. "Ozzy, what is it?" she asked, and I distantly noted that I was not the only one of us who was trembling.

"The Harvesters are here," I told her. Aya tipped me off before, but if she was a part of me, this sudden anxiety was probably her warning me without a convenient mirror around. The people I identified as Elena and Rude were approaching the front door, weapons drawn, accompanied by two others. But rather than men-in-black, they had brought the big guns, two people in heavy body armour and helmets, looking like SWAT troopers, a quintet of eerie blue lights spaced around their helmets in an arc about where their eyes would be. I didn't know the first thing about firearms, but I knew for sure the submachine guns they were carrying, with fat silencers poking out from the barrel, looked like serious business. And what's worse, we were trapped, with another trio of troopers climbing the fire escape towards my kitchen window.

I grabbed Rosalie by the wrist, fear lancing through me. After what happened to Marlowe, I know I couldn't let anyone else get hurt on my behalf. "They're after me," I told her urgently, looking around in a panic, "You need to hide, or run, or, or, or something!" Anything else I was going to say was cut off by the sound of shattering glass, and the high pitched scrape of my couch sliding out of the way as the Harvesters forced the front door open.

To Rosalie's credit, she reacted a lot better than I did, going back to the bedroom wall and pressing her back to it, next to the doorway. She looked back at me deliberately, and mouthed something. I was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought it might have been "I'm not gonna leave you", though that might have been wishful thinking. I looked around, trying to find something to do, anywhere to go. Struck with inspiration, I seized the dresser in both hands. With a squeal of wood on wood, I spun it around ninety degrees, and hunkered down behind it for cover, with a view of the doorway so I could maybe provide Rosalie with "covering fire" with my magic. Now that I could identify the creeping dread as artificial, as being some part of knowing that people where infringing on my demesne with ill intent, it was easier to shove it into the back of my mind. Even as my adrenaline spiked and my heart began to pound, a strange, focused calm washed over me.