Chapter 175

"Group meeting really quick!" I called out. We hadn't stopped for the night yet but I wanted to have this discussion where Cecilia wouldn't hear it. Unfortunately that meant that Bella wouldn't be included since she's riding in the coachman's seat with Cecilia right now.

Everyone curiously turned toward my bench as I put together my thoughts. "There are a few things we need to talk about for this trip. One of them being, whether or not we trust Cecilia enough to tell her about the Succubi. Maybe even invite her to become one as well, if she's interested."

"Why? Do you think we need to tell her?" Torien asked.

"Well, we're about to head into a repressive city where we won't be as free to have sex as openly as have been," I replied.

Torien looked at me flatly. "That's your big worry?"

I felt my face heat up a bit but I continued. "We're succubi, we'll need to be as... satiated as we can in case it's not safe to recharge right away. There's also a few things I would like to test before we make it to the city and it would be hard to do if I was worried about her seeing it."

Morrigan perked up. "Test what?"

"My wings," I replied. "So far things have been clear, not much traffic on this road right now. It would make sense to find a spot obscured from the road and test out gliding and flying with my um, larger form. I can't really do that if she freaks out at me shapeshifting in front of her. I'm a bit sick of being called a demon."

"Cecilia worked closely with Tarklin, she would know that our group fought off the dungeon break, I doubt she would suspect any of us of being demons," Torien said.

"Sure." I shrugged. "Either way, it would still be better if we told her ahead of time rather than wonder what we're doing on one of our breaks and discovering me on her own."

Silva crossed her arms. "The bigger question is if we can trust her. It doesn't sound like you know her that well. Working with her a few times doesn't garner that much trust to me. How do we know she isn't working with the demon summoners?"

Morrigan shook her head. "No, if she was involved with the demon summoners she would have demonic miasma on her. Since Lilith and I gained the demon hunter title spotting them with our mana sense is easy. She would stick out like a sore thumb."

Silva nodded. "I suppose that's true if you say it is. But even if we know she's not directly our enemy, that doesn't mean she wouldn't have reservations about your new species..."

"What if we seduce her?" Raya asked suddenly. When everyone turned to her she looked flustered for a moment but kept going. "She was clearly into me the other day. Maybe if we draw her into a few threesomes and orgies she would be more receptive to joining us. Or at least not be bothered by what we are. I feel like it would work," she finished with a shrug.

Theo chuckled. "I feel odd being included in this conversation."

Sibyl grinned. "You'd rather be included in the threesomes and orgies."

The comment got a full belly laugh out of him. "You've seen through me, what gave it away?"

Sibyl leaned forward and rested her chin on her palm. "The girls talk, it sounds like you knew what you were doing. I wouldn't be against having some fun with you, given the chance."

Morrigan laughed. "Let's stay on task girls, we're talking about seducing Cecilia not Theo right now."

I tapped my fingers on the table. "It's not a bad idea, and she did seem interested in a few of us. It doesn't exactly solve the trust issue but if Raya convinced her to become a succubus as well then we shouldn't need to worry."

Raya smiled. "Let me have dibs then? I've been thinking about those tasty abs since I met her." She pulled Sibyl into a hug. "Sibyl here still has 'em but they're less noticeable now." She started pulling up the catgirl's shirt and rubbing her fingers through her belly fur.

Sibyl's ears went back and she looked embarrassed but she didn't fight it. If anything she looked aroused. A peek through the bond told me maybe a bit more than I really wanted to know about how that made her feel.

I cleared my throat. "Alright then, so Raya will try and seduce her and use that as an inroad to telling her about us and potentially inviting her to become a succubus. Be careful how you breach the topic though, I don't want to pressure her if she doesn't want to join us. In the meantime, we should try and probe her for how she might feel about non-demon shapeshifters."

Raya snickered. "Probe her? Aren't we going a little fast Lilith?"

We all had a laugh and Sibyl took the opportunity to wiggle out of Raya's grasp and pull her shirt back down. The mood was light as we joked around and waited for the time to pass.

***

Several hours later the carriage came to a stop. Everyone climbed out of the carriage, eager to stretch our legs from the slightly bumpy journey. The carriage had better suspension than what I had expected but it was still a bumpier ride than a car. At least my ass didn't hurt as much as it did the first time I rode in a carriage.

Everyone was quick to get started setting up camp. The sun was setting now. We still had a little bit of sunlight but it would get dark pretty quickly, we needed to be ready before the nocturnal monsters came out for the night. Most of the monsters that came out during the day were cleared along this road but that wasn't the case for the night monsters. It was too hard to actively target them from what I've heard from Theo.

"Lilith! Come help me with the uunas, everyone else can handle the tents and things," Cecilia called out.

I nodded and headed over. "What do you need me to do? I've never unhooked an uuna from a carriage before."

"No problem, let me show you. You'll handle Nikka since she likes you already."

Cecilia showed me the ropes, literally, and I got a handle on how to strap and unstrap them from their equipment. Next, I helped groom them which was something that was really necessary for uunas right after being unstrapped, the bonding experience helped them tolerate the experience again in the future. Uunas were very temperamental and intelligent, if you didn't give them rewards and keep them happy they would start refusing to do things for you. This was a bit of a double-edged sword, it was easier to get them to understand complex instructions but harder to get them to follow them if they didn't feel respected. This grooming was part of their reward for pulling the carriage all day, and they were happy to do it as long as you didn't treat them solely as beasts of burden. They were pack-oriented animals and expected a give and take from the members they felt were part of their family.

Nikka nuzzled me when I got up to her face. Her big head nearly pushed me over but I just laughed and ruffled her fur back. Nikka had pretty much been affectionate with me from the start and even fought with me against bandits. It had been a little while since I had seen her so it was nice to bond like this with her again. It was unfortunate that I wasn't able to ride her on this trip but being in the carriage with my friends was nice too.

"You're really good with them. Not just Nikka who has taken a liking to you, but with Landa too." The uuna in question made a chuffing sound and rolled on his back for Cecilia to groom his belly. "Landa wouldn't be as relaxed as he is if he was worried about you. He probably already recognizes you as part of his pack, that's good, makes everything safer."

I smiled and reached over to ruffle his head fur. "He's a good boy." Landa nuzzled me back and Nikka started getting between us, seemingly jealous of the attention I was giving him. I laughed and refocused on Nikka. "Don't worry, you're a good girl too! The best!"

It was kind of crazy, the huge animals acted just like cats. I had seen firsthand just how dangerous they could be though, it was a grisly sight.

"A lot of people are scared of them and stay scared of them forever. That's not exactly a bad thing, I would rather someone be scared of them than be aggressive towards them. But someone who is scared of them will never form a bond, forge a connection with them, and will never be treated as one of their pack. Uunas will go to great lengths to protect someone they consider part of their family. They might protect someone that travels with them but it's much less likely that way."

Once the uunas were properly thanked and placated, I came over to help finish up the tents. Between Silva and Sibyl, most of the tents were already up but another helping hand never hurt. Morrigan, Bella, and Raya were on the hunt for firewood, the task of 'fire building' would be good practice for Raya's magic lessons. Even if Morrigan wasn't here, it would be unlikely that anyone ever made fire the way I was used to during camping in my old world. Basic fire spells and ritual magic meant that almost no one had to actually rub sticks together to get kindling going. They still needed fuel to catch and burn through the night but starting the fire was a non-issue.

We arranged the tents in a semi-circle on one side of the carriage opposite the road. The top of the carriage would give whoever was on watch a good vantage point to look out for monsters from all directions. We were a little ways off the road and set up our tents on the other side of the carriage to give us a little bit of privacy from anyone traveling the road at night. Unlike closer to the frontier, it wasn't as dangerous to travel in the dark. You still might run into monsters but they were much less threatening than the things that came out near Traehall. That's also why there were forts set up along the entire path toward the frontier towns, they were necessary on that path.

Eventually, all of us finished with our preparations for camping and Sibyl volunteered to do the cooking for us on the trip. Considering she was the cook for the Ruby Vixen all these years, none of us had any complaints. Cecilia helped carry over some of the ingredients while Sibyl got started using some simple magic and a small stove kit.

Raya was looking a little despondent, so I decided to sit down next to her. "Hey, Raya, are you okay? You look upset."

She gave me a half-hearted smile before sighing. "Promise you won't laugh?"

Patting her on the back, I smiled. "Come on, it can't be that bad."

Raya gave out another exaggerated sigh. "Sibyl won't let me help her cook. ...I almost burned down the kitchen a few times back at the Ruby Vixen."

I raised an eyebrow and Raya crossed her arms in response to my look. "I mean, I get it. But I'm not totally useless when it comes to that stuff. I could still chop vegetables or something..."

I thought about it for a moment before patting her on the leg. "Maybe Sibyl just wants to show off, show how good she can take care of you. Past... mistakes aside, maybe it would be better to just accept that cooking is what she's good at and—" I decided to change my words at the withering stare she was giving me, "and you're better at other things."

She sighed and slumped down. "Maybe you're right."

Wrapping her in a side hug I whispered into her ear, "Besides, it's about time to do what you're good at and seduce a certain dark-haired beauty."

Raya licked her lips. "Mmm, I can taste those abs already."

I blinked. "Okay, that was a little gross..."

She scoffed. "What? The taste of sweat? The smell of womanly musk?"

I pushed her away with a laugh. "Eww. I don't want to hear any more about womanly musk."

Raya pushed me back with a huge smile. "You just don't get it, it takes a refined palate to understand," she said with a mock haughty tone.

The two of us started laughing just as Cecilia came over to sit down on one of the old logs we had pulled over as makeshift benches. "What are you two laughing about over here?"

We looked at each other and I saw the glimmer of mischief in Raya's eyes. She got up and sat next to Cecilia, quickly getting into her personal space and wrapping her long tails around the dark-haired woman.

"We were just talking about you actually," she said in a seductive tone as her fingers trailed up the other woman's leg. "Lilith was making a joke at my expense because..." she leaned forward to whisper in Cecilia's ear. "I can't wait to taste you."

Cecilia flushed and squirmed in obvious arousal.

"Wh-what about Sibyl?"

Since Cecilia wasn't making any effort to stop her, Raya pressed closer and groped the woman's ass through her pants. "Who says she wouldn't join us? Would you like that? Getting caught between two predators?"

"I... I would...."

"Gooood. I'll make sure you enjoy yourself tonight."