Summoned by Monster Girls

Friday went by in a blur. The improved stats were showing themselves useful already. While I couldn’t do much studying for ideas while I was loading trucks at work, I was able to work on the practical Shape-Shifting as well as multi-task by listening to some audiobooks on survival subjects. It was definitely harder than actually researching and studying those subjects with diagrams or hands on practice. I found that when I finally sat down to study them, the information that I’d been listening to made more sense when I applied it practically.

The same thing occurred when I went through the sword drills in my living room that evening too. While my body was still getting used to the maneuvers, my mind was easily able to keep up. Thankfully, either Cariad or Cerebaton had managed to get my practice gear back into my apartment after I’d had to abandon it to go look after Kassandra. I wasn’t sure how they did it, but figured it had to be something related to how they kept appearing and disappearing when I wasn’t looking. The weapon routines were getting to be second nature as I practiced, my memory and recall enhanced by the improved stats helping a lot and I was making faster progress than I thought I should.

Saturday morning dawned early. I was up and ready to go with the dawn. Which meant that I spent the next several hours wandering the house and trying not to worry until the expected summoning notice came through.

Kassandra Silverscale has sent a non-urgent request for your presence.

Transit? View summoning?

I didn’t hesitate and mentally tapped the ‘Transit’ option where I stood in the middle of my hallway. A moment later I felt the jerk around my torso of something snatching me up to whisk me away.

I landed smoothly an indeterminate amount of time later. The whirling sensation rapidly faded away and my stomach barely reacted now to the dizzying sensation. I glanced around quickly to assess the situation.

The opulent furniture and familiar decorations told me that I was in Kassandra’s room. This was only further confirmed by the happy squeal and rustling of scales that preceded what I was beginning to think of as Kassandra’s trademark hug/tackle/constriction as the dwarf lamia hit me from the side with a laugh.

“Liam!” Kassandra cried happily, her serpentine tail wrapping around my hips and waist as she circled her arms around my chest and squeezed hard enough that my back popped. Thankfully, I was able to catch her rather than be bowled over. Instead, I only lurched a few steps from the impact and hugged her back while laughing.

“Hello Kass, good to see you up and about again. Was worried about you.”

“Sorry I didn’t call you back to tell you sooner, I wanted to save the mana so that I could afford to spend more time with you today!” Kassandra’s words were a bit muffled as she rubbed her face into my chest, though she paused to peek up at me with one eye glimmering from amongst her fluffy curls.

“Rieka promised to let me know if there was a problem, I assumed that no news was good news.” Kassandra appeared to be reassured at this and went back to rubbing her face in my chest while giggling, her serpentine half squeezing me gently as she continued to snuggle in closer.

“Not that I’m complaining about the welcome, but are you okay? Should you be moving around this much?” I carefully sidled over to the large couch that Kassandra had used the last time I was here and settled onto it with my giggling passenger.

“I’m fine, Liam. You got me all warmed up before it could be an issue. Thanks again for that. I could have really gotten hurt if I’d spent too long chilled that badly. I would have slipped into hibernation, like I said. But out in the open like that? My blood flow would have continued to slow and it could have caused damage to my body. While lamia can hibernate, being forced into it quickly is dangerous and can kill.”

“That seems like a heck of a weakness, Kass.” I said gently, brushing some hair out of her face. She smiled up at me before responding.

“Yea, it is. But most lamia breeds tend to stay in very warm places anyway and not all of us are cold blooded. Only some of the subspecies. It was just a collection of events that conspired to make it bad. I’m just glad that this area doesn’t get snow during the winter. The warming spells on my clothes are costly enough.”

“You said before that it was because you lost control of the ice magic it got that bad too?” I asked curiously. Kassandra didn’t seem like she was going to let me go anytime soon, so I just settled in for a wait until she’d had enough.

“Yea. I know we joked about it before but I do need to practice more. It’s just so hard. I hate being cold. I hate how it makes me feel…but this is the direction my magic chose to take. If it’d been up to me, I’d have practiced fire or earth magic, even water alone would have been nice. But my natural mana aspected to ice when I started to learn and there was nothing I could do about it.”

“Aspected?” I asked curiously, my free hand settling on the scaled back of her body where it draped over my lap and traced the scales there, getting a happy hum from Kassandra.

“When a mage starts their training, they learn how to wield a specific type of magic. That type depends a lot on their nature and bloodlines. Most of Rieka’s extended family works in water magic. The royal family all wield ice magic. It’s in their name, ‘Coldeye’, after all.” Kassandra shifted enough so it was more like she was sitting in my lap with one shoulder tucked into mine while she explained, giving my hand more room to work as it ran along the top of her serpentine body. Her tail continued to do the rhythmic ‘squeeze, relax, squeeze’ thing every so often, but it didn’t bother me. Heck, popping my back actually felt great earlier.

“But she’s got lightning magic.” I said after a moment of silence when she didn’t continue and Kassandra nodded.

“Yea, it’s as uncommon as ice or the other ‘evolved’ aspects. One of her ancestors had air magic, which is what leads to lightning. It just presented itself in her recently. She used to get teased for it a lot, I’m sure there were some questions about her legitimacy since she didn’t wield the family magic. Nobles can be real bastards sometimes when they think they have something they can use against you for their own ends.”

“How rare are these ‘evolved’ aspects?” I couldn’t help my curiosity about magic. It had been something I was fascinated with for a long time. I hoped that the System would eventually unlock a magic for me to use too.

“Magic normally comes in the four base elements: Fire, water, air, and earth. There are ‘evolved’ versions of each that delve into deeper specializations of magic. Ice for water and lightning for air, for example. There are also ‘primal’ elements, like light, dark, time and entropy. Rarely we will see a mage who is aspected into one of those primal elements, usually light or dark. I’ve never even read of an ‘entropy’ mage but there was one reference to one who could affect time.” Kassandra explained rapidly, her eyes dancing with excitement and the vertical slits flaring slightly as she talked.

“Fascinating. So basically, Rieka has a different type of magic than is considered ‘normal’ for her family and people have caused problems because of it?”

“Basically.” Kassandra shrugged, blinking slowly up at me. I thought for a moment before I responded.

“So what can I do to help?” Kassandra sighed happily when I started rubbing her back with my other hand and didn’t respond immediately.

Being cuddled by a beautiful woman was not exactly something I was used to. Kassandra’s insistence on it had worn me down at this point and I couldn’t say that it bothered me. I just had to be careful not to get lost counting the cute freckles that dappled her exposed chest or her cheeks. She was dressed in a milk-pale shirt and a brown leather underbust corset today and the line between her skin and the shirt was distracting as all get out.

“At the moment? Nothing really. The only way you’d be able to help would be if you could use the same magic as us and act as a tutor. Or if you could provide us with mana to practice with by ourselves.” Kassandra said finally, shrugging slightly. “Right now, the biggest help you can be is what you are already doing. You protect us and give us a chance to practice our spells in earnest. We can earn the extra mana for practice while we do the missions. Practical spell use is worth far more than extended time on the practice range.”

“Okay, and what about heater duties?” I teased with a grin, getting a sparkling smile back from her.

“Oh, that’s still a given.” Kassandra laughed and her tail gave me another firm squeeze. “I’m going to need you to warm me up regularly, even after I master my spells. Rieka and I want to go on longer excursions in the coming weeks. Some of the best paying missions take longer than a day trip can handle, and it gets cold at night.”

“Well, hopefully I’m of more use than just a hot water bottle.”

“Oh far more use than that. You make a very comfortable pillow as well.” Kassandra teased me, rubbing her cheek into my chest again.

“And you, dear Kass, make for quite a nice belt. Though you seem to be more barnacle than snake with how much you like to cling to me.” I teased back, patting one of the coils wrapped around my waist.

“Does it bother you?” Kassandra’s suddenly serious tone surprised me and I immediately looked up to meet her eyes. She was biting her lip lightly and her silver-rimmed spectacles glimmered in the light from where they balanced on her nose, knocked slightly askew by her exuberant welcome but still straight enough to see through.

Reaching up, I straightened those spectacles on her face, getting a small smile from the serpentine woman before I answered.

“Does a beautiful woman hugging and clinging to me bother me? No, I cannot say that it does. Even if you are just stealing my body heat.”

“That’s not the only reason!” Kassandra protested vehemently, but I was reassured to see her eyes twinkling happily again.

“Oh? What’s the other reason?” I continued to play dumb and was rewarded by the slight blush that crossed her cheeks.

“I like doing it. And I think you are quite the handsome man, Liam.” Kassandra answered before pressing her lips to my cheek.

The soft sensation of her kiss fried my brain for a moment and Kassandra took that opportunity to slip from around me. Her scaled tail uncoiled to follow after her as she slid to the ground and away, shooting me a coy smirk over her shoulder.

“Come on! I need to get some practice first, then I want to take you into town. We have a dozen hours before the mana I infused into the summoning runs out. As much as I’d enjoy spending it snuggling with you, we should do something so you get your compensation too.” Kassandra urged and that was all the System interface needed to present me with a prompt.

Assist your contracted companion, Kassandra Silverscale, with her training and accompany her into town.

Reward - 100 SP

“Uh, okay. Sounds good to me.” My ready agreement got a squeal of excitement from the dwarf lamia. She wiggled happily while snatching her things off of a side table and throwing a belt around her hips with the holster for her spell rod and pouches of mana coins. With that secured, Kassandra slid over to a rack by her bed that held the leather armor I was familiar with and the sword the girls had bought for me.

“Oh this is going to be fun. We can have lunch in the market, and then maybe dinner at one of the restaurants in town! In between, we can shop around and take a look at some clothes and things for you. We can also start looking for camping supplies and anything else that might help. Come here, Liam. I’ll help you get your armor on!”

<><><>

Helping Kassandra practice her magic was as interesting as I’d hoped, though it was slightly awkward for me. I had known, in the back of my mind, that the whole ‘heater’ thing hadn’t been a joke. But thinking about it and having it happen were two different things. Kassandra made no bones about the fact she expected me to help keep her warm while she worked on her ice magic, and wasn’t in the slightest concerned with folks staring at us.

The practice range was just that, a range. It had a dozen ‘lanes’ built of stone with a line of different colored blocks to mark where the lane started. The ceiling was high and vaulted to allow for plenty of space, but the building itself was fully enclosed with only a few windows for light. Most of the light was provided by crystal-sphere lamps like I’d seen in Kassandra’s room. The targets were large stone pillars that were set out at different distances from the starting line and, according to Kassandra, enchanted to resist damage. The section of the practice range that we were in reminded me of a rifle course that I’d visited with my father several times to learn to shoot. Though here we were without the supervision of an instructor and it had far more solid walls between the different lanes.

There were three other people in the range when Kassandra led me in, two of which barely glanced up at us while a third was in the middle of swapping discharged coins for fresh ones and nodded to greet us.

“Good morning, Miss Silverscale. Who is this you have with you?” The woman stepped over to greet us while her fingers nimbly swapped out the discs.

“Hello, Lady Valda!” Kassandra chirped with a broad grin before glancing back at me. “Liam, this is Lady Valda Ironclaw, she’s a student here as well. Lady Valda, this is Liam. He’s my bonded guardian, the result of that summoning accident that you’ve probably heard people talking about around campus.”

While Kassandra chattered away, I studied the ‘Lady Valda’. She was tall, almost as tall as I was, and well muscled. While Kassandra was full in all the right places and Rieka had the build of a gymnast who didn’t forget her curves, Valda had a build that reminded me somewhat of Cerebaton. Thickly muscled legs clad in tight pants of a dark, subdued brown lead up to a trim waist that tied into a broad set of shoulders supporting a generous bust and well muscled arms. Valda had a sword at her waist and looked intimately familiar with the weapon, though she was carefully slipping discs of shimmering metal into one of the spell rods that I’d seen Rieka and Kassandra using with an ease of long practice. She also had dark green scales that ran up her arms, while her hands were covered in the same. Thick claws protruded from her fingertips and were covered in leather caps that attached to an odd, glove like cover that left most of her hand bare but her fingertips. It honestly reminded me of the shooting gloves that I’d seen a few archers use to protect their fingertips.

“Ah, so this is the mysterious ‘human’ that you and Princess Coldeye bonded with?” Valda gave me an appraising once over that, surprisingly, didn’t leave me feeling self-conscious while Kassandra confirmed her question. “I appreciate you looking after my classmates, Liam. I admit that I did not know what to expect. I’m not a resident of Rue House, so I wasn’t there to witness it, but I share a few classes with Princess Rieka and Miss Silverscale and I admit I wondered...”

“No worries, Lady Valda. I’m happy to look after both of them. My only concern is ensuring that I am good enough to do so. They asked for a protector and got me, so I’m going to do all I can to be the best protector possible.” I responded with a nod that got a small smile from the severe-looking, scaled woman.

“Commendable. I won’t take up more of your time though, since you are here to practice.” Valda held one hand out and I reached out to do the same. Rather than shake hands, she gripped my forearm. A bit of memory from a History Channel special about ancient customs reminded me that this was considered a precursor to a handshake and that kept me from freezing up. Instead, I returned the forearm grip with an equally firm one. Even with their leather caps, I could feel her claws dig into my skin slightly but not in an aggressive fashion. That got me thinking as we separated and I debated if it would be rude to ask what had come to my mind.

“Come on, Liam. Let's get set up.” Kassandra urged, tugging on my other hand. “Thank you again, Lady Valda.” Before we could be separated, I decided to chance it.

“Actually, before we part ways. I hope it’s not an imposition but would it be possible to see your claws without their coverings?” My impression of this woman was that she respected honesty and seemed like a nice person, so I hoped I hadn’t just overstepped. Valda studied me curiously for a moment before nodding once.

“I do not mind.” She let the sentence trail off as if waiting for an explanation. When none was forthcoming, she shrugged. It only took a quick tug and flick of her wrist to pull the leather caps off her claws and expose the sharp, glittering claws. She held her hand out to me, palm down, like a lady showing off a ring and I bent to inspect her fingers and claws carefully. They looked wickedly sharp and came to a thick tip that reminded me of a wide-bladed knife. The claws didn’t retract like a cats, but were clearly built in as part of her finger and added almost an inch to the end of her elegant fingers. Unlike most of the claws and talons I knew of, they actually seemed sharp on the inner edge too, rather than just a piercing/puncturing tool like most natural talons on Earth.

I studied them for half a minute before nodding and giving her a smile of thanks.

“I appreciate it. I was curious about those gloves you wore and assumed that they’d be covering something impressive as well. I can understand why you wear the covers though, I imagine you would have to be careful with them to be able to handle delicate things. They act like sheaths, am I right?”

“You are not wrong in that. I wear the caps almost all the time to avoid clawing holes in my clothes or books. Though it is an advantage to always have something to defend myself with.” Valda replied with a small smirk. “My people are a warrior breed after all. Those who think we are disarmed quickly learn their folly.”

“I can imagine. Have a good day.” I nodded to her once more before turning to follow a slightly blushing Kassandra to one of the lanes on the far side of the range from the others.

“What was that all about?” Kassandra hissed once we were further away. “Asking to see her claws…if Lady Valda wanted to, she could have construed that as a challenge, Liam!”

“Would have still been worth it.” I hugged the short woman with one arm to comfort her and she shot me a confused look.

I glanced over my shoulder to check that no one was watching and held up my right hand in front of my chest, blocking it from the view of the others. Focusing intently on the mental snapshot I’d taken of Valda’s clawed hand, I pushed the Shape-Shifting power to work. It took a few seconds, but thick claws sprouted from my fingertips to match the razor-sharp weapons that Valda had, though slightly larger to fit my bigger hands. Scales like Valda’s, but a red-brown in coloration, sprouted as well to cover my hand like a close fitting glove.

Kassandra’s slitted brown eyes grew as wide as saucers as she stared at the claws before reaching out tentatively to touch them.

“Careful, Kass. They are just as sharp as Valda’s are.” I cautioned and Kassandra stopped her hand for a moment before carefully touching the backs of the claws, tapping them lightly with her fingers before tracing the scales. The sensation was muffled through the scales, but the claws gave nothing other than a faint echo like tapping on a table.

“How did you do this?” Kassandra muttered before shaking her head, the motion making her curly mane of red hair bounce. “No, I know the answer to that. Liam, this is amazing! You could only do a skin change to protect your arms before though?”

“I’ve been practicing. The ability improved the other day. If Valda can actually use those claws as weapons, and I figured she could because of the covers, I thought it might be worthwhile to get a close look and see what I can do with them as well. Plus, it gives me something to work on while you are practicing too.” I smirked down at her. Kassandra’s eyes fell back to my hand, and she carefully began tracing the scales there again.

“These scales…Liam did you copy my scale pattern too?” Kassandra shot me a mock offended look that I saw through almost instantly. Mentally pushing the urge to change my hand back, I brushed the backs of my, now pink again, fingers against one of her cheeks lightly.

“Why wouldn’t I? They are some of the prettiest scales I’ve ever seen and I know they do a good job protecting you.”

I’d thought Kassandra’s blush had been strong before, but now it got even brighter as her skin fought to match the dark red of her hair.

<><><>

Practice on the range for Kassandra started out with her launching a spell or two, then coming over to have me help warm her hands and arms up. Once she got into stride though, I just settled in a cross-legged seat on the ground while she wound her coils around me and just let her practice. It was a little embarrassing, since a few other students came in to practice and stared, but Kassandra ignored them and I took up the same tactic as well soon after. This allowed me to focus on the practice of borrowing Valda’s claws while also helping Kassandra keep from freezing during her own practice.

We spent around an hour like that before Kassandra declared she’d ‘blown her budget’ for practice and it was time to get out of there. I’d helped swap out the mana infused coins with the spent ones in her rod, letting the cold-blooded serpent woman warm her hands on my neck while I did my best to not shout at her chilly fingers. Kassandra insisted that the practice should eventually get her to the point where she could keep the chill contained in the spell itself, only her natural temperature sensitivity was causing problems at the moment.

Heading back out onto the grounds, we ambled along the road that led down and out of the campus and along the way to Kintos. Judging from the sun above us, we’d missed lunch but neither of us minded. Kassandra kept close, slithering along sedately at my side while we ambled along the road. The occasional carriage would pass us going either direction. I focused on talking with the serpentine woman while we discussed her classes and all the homework she’d have to deal with tomorrow. Apparently, several of her courses were ladling on reading and essays at the moment, since it was still early in the term. Hearing about how her different magic classes operated was fascinating.

We made it to Kintos and were browsing the street stalls when trouble found us. Honestly I should have expected it, given how well the morning had gone and my normal track record for things happening.

Kassandra was watching a man turn skewers of roast meat and vegetables on a rack above a bed of coals while explaining what the different meats were when someone spoke out from behind us, their voice carrying over the rumble of the other shoppers moving and talking around us.

“Oh look, the slinky little worm is studying how to cook from the street vendors. Maybe she’ll have some useful skills for when she’s out on her tail.” A snide female voice spoke out. I’d been intending to ignore it when I noticed Kassandra flinch at the voice.

“I’m sure she’s got plenty of useful skills, just none that she could peddle anywhere respectable, other than an alley or street corner.” Another voice said from behind us and that got me turning, but Kassandra was already moving.

“Liam, don’t.” She had her hand clamped on mine just as I gripped the hilt of my sword, her voice low and firm.

“That’s right, mud noodle. Keep your pet on a short leash.” Now that I was turned far enough, I could see who was speaking. There was a trio of wolf-kin clad in rather nice dresses standing a few feet away in the street. Their attractive faces were marred with sneers at the moment though and that ruined their looks in my book. I could see others standing behind them of a mixture of races, but not speaking. Instead they were just watching the entire encounter. The woman in the center of that group looked a little familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her though she was another wolf-kin.

“Josephine, you need to keep a better muzzle on your lap dogs. I have already reported what happened the other night to Lady Maia. Don’t think that I won’t take the matter further if your lot try it again.” Kassandra’s voice held far more venom than I’d expected someone her size or personality to carry. “The only reason I stopped Liam is because I don’t see a reason to involve the city guard.” She was directly addressing the one that I pegged as the ringleader, the familiar looking one in the middle of the group who was pretending to ignore us.

“Big words for a low-noble slut that’s been hanging around the Princess. You should have taken our warning the first time, Siltscale. You reek of the mud of the lower city you were born in, you can’t blame someone thinking you needed a bath.” Sniped one of the three cronies that had been insulting Kassandra earlier, her dark-brown ears laying flat in hair of the same color.

“Were these the ones from the other night, Kass?” I did my best to keep my tone even. The group that backed the three talking was nearly a dozen strong and all of them were well dressed, but only these three were talking. ‘Josephine’ kept watching with a disinterested look on her face, not bothering to respond to Kassandra’s words, though she did glance me over. The look of contempt in her eyes made my lip turn up in a snarl.

“Yes, they were…Liam, no!” Kassandra had answered me first before turning to look back at me. It was only her throwing herself in front of me that stopped me from finishing my own lunge.

My left arm had already shifted, since she still had a hold of my right to keep my sword sheathed. The same claws and scales I’d spent the past several hours practicing while Kassandra worked on her spells emerged from my forearm, though far larger than before. I’d been midway through an open-handed motion that would have been a slap, if not for the four inches of shimmering black claws that tipped a hand large enough it would have made a grizzly bear proud. My blood was boiling with anger at these people and it had affected the Shape-Shifting ability by pouring all twenty pounds of alterable mass into my arm, bulking it, my hand, the claws and the scales up in size a good three stages.

“Kass, I’m your protector. These idiots endangered your life with their stupid prank.” Even I was surprised with the growl I made then, but I was able to keep that surprise off my face easily enough. Rage was far stronger at the moment after all. Movement around us had stopped as all the other shoppers had turned to stare and those nearby were slowly backing away. The three taunting girls were white as sheets while ‘Josephine’ was actually paying close attention now, the avarice in her eyes obvious to see as she looked me up and down like a puppy she wanted to buy out of a shop window.

“Yes, but please, not like this. Not now.” Kassandra murmured urgently and her grip on my right arm tightened slightly. “Please, Liam?”

The ‘please’ took the wind out of my sails and I exhaled before looking down at Kassandra. Her intelligent eyes darted to one side before locking on mine and I glanced over to spot a trio of guards in armor pushing through the crowd.

“Oi, what’s going on? Fighting isn’t allowed in the market. You got a problem, take it outside the city.” Called the guard in the lead, an obvious badge of rank on his chest marking him as their leader.

“No problem, officer.” I answered quickly, shaking my hand and letting the shift fall away. This allowed my arm to shrink in size again, the only remaining sign of it was my tattered sleeve as the seams had blown when my arm swelled. “Just explaining proper decorum to people who think it is appropriate to insult my charge.” Kassandra let out a sigh of relief when she saw my arm shift back and turned to the guards with a respectful nod to add her part.

“Thank you for arriving when you did, sirs. Words were exchanged and tempers were running high.” Kassandra’s words worked to de-escalate the situation and the guards began to relax. One of the trio of sniping wolf-kin decided that she didn’t want the situation to calm and that it was time to speak up.

“I demand you arrest those two! They nearly assaulted us!” The wolf-kin shrieked, pointing at the two of us, which got her two companions nodding as well.

“Oh, stuff it you.” Support came just as quickly for us as the interruption had come, and from a surprising quarter. The food vendor behind us finally looked up from his work at carefully roasting the meat and vegetables on a stick. “You three started heckling my customers and are driving business away with your fight. You three started it and you nearly got smacked for insulting the little lady. I was planning to do something if he didn’t, he just beat me to it.” The food-vendor was a rather broad shouldered man with short, curved horns that dove down into the curly, mutton-chop beard that framed his face. He nodded to the guardsmen in greeting and locked eyes with the sergeant. “Gordon, these three were berating the young lass and are trying to stir the pot further to involve your boys. The only crime I see here is three young women who never got a proper punishment from their parents growing up and decided to try and cause a fuss.”

The nodding heads of several other vendors in the street was all the evidence that the guards needed and they ushered the protesting trio away from us. Josephine’s group melted back into the crowd as well, leaving the trio to their own devices and the mercy of the guards.

“Thank you for that, sir.” Kassandra turned her attention back to the grilled meat vendor and he gave her a broad smile that showed off square teeth.

“Not a problem, lass. I’m glad you stopped your man there though. Not saying those three didn’t need a good slapping, but drawing blood like that in the street would cause more problems than it would solve. Would instill some respect though, so might be worth it.”

“Something to consider should they try it again, then.” Kassandra returned his smile before leaning into my hip. The anger was still rubber-banding around inside my chest and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Kassandra pushing into my side allowed me to get hold of the anger and dump it into a corner for the moment. I let my right arm fall over her shoulders protectively, getting a happy sigh from the dwarf lamia.

“Something indeed. Now, what can I get you two?” The grinning vendor’s eyes bounced from my arm around Kassandra’s shoulders to her face and then to mine. I just rolled my eyes, I was sure that this was going to turn into a rumor in town but there wasn’t anything I could do now. Instead, I focused on making sure Kassandra could put the moment behind her.

<><><>

“Thank you again for standing up to them, Liam.” Kassandra murmured as she gave me another back-cracking hug, this time with just her arms rather than using her tail too. We’d had our fill of street food and then wandered the town, talking and just enjoying the afternoon. There was a lot to talk about and Kassandra had filled me in on more about that group. Apparently Lady Josephine thought rather highly of herself and had collected a group of followers with similar mindsets. This worked because she was the daughter of a duchess, and it wasn’t hard to find those who were happy to follow her lead. Those same followers had decided to harass Kassandra for her friendship with Rieka when they had the chance, because they believed the princess shouldn’t be wasting her time with a low-noble like Kassandra. Kassandra still wasn’t sure which of them had doused her the other night, but she was fairly certain that it had to be one of them, given the snide comments and what she could remember.

“Anytime, Kass. You know I’ll always come when you call me.” I returned the hug. Due to our difference in height and the fact she wasn’t using her serpentine tail to wrap around my waist this time, I bent down so that I could give her a real hug in the hall outside her rooms at Rue House when we got back.

“I know, Liam. That’s why both Rieka and I like being around you so much. You are supportive and protective of us because that’s just what you are. I think that you’d be this way even if we weren’t your bonded.” Kassandra kept the hug going and nuzzled into my neck.

“You’d be right. You two are good people and deserve to be treated well. Certainly better than those twits were.”

“So noble, Liam. Thank you for training with me and for accompanying me today. I have to work on my classwork tomorrow, but Rieka and I will summon you back for a chat partway through next week to plan the weekend, okay?”

“Sure thing, Kass. You call, I’ll come running…flying…however the heck it is I actually show up when I respond to a summon.” I reassured her and she dissolved into giggles at that. Once she’d mastered herself once more, Kassandra pushed back slightly to meet my eyes. She kept her arms around my neck in a light hug and bit her lip for a moment before leaning in and pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth.

“Thank you, Liam. For looking out for me like you did, both before and today.” She murmured in my ear before muttering a quick chant that I recognized.

“Such a tease.” I managed to blurt out before the tugging sensation of movement wrapped around my torso and yanked me away. The last thing I saw before reality whirled around me was a blushing Kassandra smiling at me.