Chapter 32: In Which We Plan To Remove The Threat Princess Adeline Presents

"...Wait, what?" I did not see that request coming at all, and just blinked at her foolishly.

Zince bowed her torso immediately, while her long coiled tail still acted as a very comfortable chair for me. "Anything Princess commands."

Valentine sat up and scratched the back of her head awkwardly, looking at her Princess.

Princess Asperia smiled as she stroked Sasha's hair. "I'm not going to have you kill anyone, Valentine... just protect the people doing the assassination." The gigantic tiger woman considered this for a moment, and then smiled and nodded, relaxing on her corner of the bed.

Sasha raised an eyebrow as she relaxed in Princess Asperia's lap. "I'm guessing you have a plan beyond 'send in my publicly announced fiance to kill my sister'."

Princess Asperia smiled confidently. "Not at all-- the more planned, the less chance of success, that's how divination works."

Sasha nuzzled her head into Asperia's hand a little. "Plan or no plan, odds are very good that she sees it coming. We'd have to get next to her, and then massacre everyone to make sure there's no news of it, and even then, it's probably likely that we wouldn't be able to hide the traces of the Hero From Another World's strength in an all-out battle."

Princess Asperia smiled and stroked her fingertips along the side of Sasha's neck slowly, causing a little shiver to run through her body. "So you're planning to run away even now?"

Her voice was still relaxed and regal, but even I detected a hint of threat there. Sasha still seemed relaxed enough, however. "No. I just think there's a smarter method. Undead are more or less immune to divination because they lie outside of destiny, right? Why don't we just get a few of them on our side?"

Princess Asperia laughed at that. "Oh, and I thought my plan was chaotic... no, no, that's a great idea, seriously. We'll have to pick out some candidates to court, of course."

Zince furrowed her brow. "...everyone know that those who consort with the undead tend to meet horrible ends."

Princess Asperia waved a hand dismissively. "The ones people know about, sure-- my family has a vested interest in spreading those sorts of stories to reinforce the idea of inevitable fate. If anyone has a better idea, why don't they come forwards?"

There was a long silence.

"Couldn't we just, you know, negotiate with her?" Everyone looked at me with varying expressions of incredulity.

After a long moment, Princess Asperia finally decided to actually address my question. "It's a zero sum game here, how exactly is she going to trust me?"

"Because she can see the future."

Princess Asperia stared at me for a long moment. "...so how exactly is she going to trust me, Hero From Another World?"

"Just decide you aren't going to kill her if she truthfully cooperates no matter what, but will instead protect her? If she can see the future with you, that means she'll know you're being honest. And if I go, she's unlikely to pick a fight with me."

Princess Asperia shook her head. "I... suppose it's worth a shot... deciding seriously not to kill her if she cooperates, though... that does sound difficult." I raised an eyebrow at that, but Princess Asperia smiled at me as she stroked Sasha's head idly. "Are you so surprised? She's had me killed multiple times. And there's been multiple near-murders on top of that, too. And worse, she's had some of my favorite girls killed..." Her eyes started to tear up a little, until she blinked them away. "...those aren't easy things to forgive. And in addition to all those grudges, I know she could always have seen a future where she eventually betrays me."

"Is she immune to mind reading?"

"More or less? Royalty have secret defensive magical arts they're trained in, and they're very strong. A lot of nobility do too, but the minor ones usually take it less seriously on average." She scritched under Sasha's chin, at which she obediently raised it, tail thwapping softly against the Princess... did she really like that, or was she just that good at acting? I should scritch under her chin sometime and find out.

Princess Asperia considered the issue a moment longer, then shook her head decisively. "And while Sasha here is adorable as well as brilliant, well, brilliant for a dog-girl, teaching her all the tricks seems like a very bad decision, and it would probably take her years of theory and practice to get around them, which is not the sort of time we have."

"But she could submit to someone examining her mind, like you."

Princess Asperia considered this. "Well, she could, yes, of course, but why would she?" She stared at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Because she's seen it's the best course of action, of course. That none of her fated assassination attempts have succeeded on you from her perspective must be terrifying. We have access to powers that let us trust each other with an unusual degree of certainty. It's best for everyone involved to de-escalate the situation."

Princess Asperia looked to Zince, who merely looked back at her, then Valentine, who shrugged, and then down at Sasha, who nodded.

There was silence for a long moment before Princess Asperia spoke again.

"...I... suppose it's worth a shot, from my perspective. But you could very easily be caught in one of her traps and killed, you know that? Or Sasha could, as well."

"And the assassination plan was so safe, too," said Sasha disappointedly, as if she was really that much of a fool.

Princess Asperia laughed. "Oh, Sasha, you never fail to amuse me... all right, all right. You two can go initiate diplomacy with her, which I will make the loudest proclamations about publicly so that she can't secretly get rid of you. Meanwhile, we'll look for other options in case we need to go the undead route, but our primary plan right now is to make her into an ally... an ally who can see the future would, admittedly, be extremely useful. And I'm already used to getting along with allies who I don't like-- ah, not anyone here, I assure you, you're all lovely, there's just some nobles who are so stuffy and old-fashioned... well now, does that conclude our business for the day?" She started rubbing against the crotch of Sasha's pants, who moaned softly and closed her eyes, smiling slightly... I had no doubt she was imagining dominating someone, probably me or Princess Asperia herself.

I was starting to get jealous, but then I realized Zince was pressing up against my back, her large soft breasts squishing nicely, and resting her chin on my shoulder, and I remembered her fangs and tensed up just a little.

"Is there anything I can do to please you, my lady?" I'd never heard such subservience in her voice before, and realized that as Princess Asperia's fiance, she probably thought of me as her imminent co-owner or something, which made it feel a bit weird. What if she was like Sasha, only coming onto me to in order to protect her position?

"Um, no... if we're going to go do diplomacy, I need to quickly learn what magic I can." I stood up and bowed, unable to stop from missing that Zince looked a bit hurt that I had rejected her, and used Sasha's trick of Moving Very Fast And Leaving The Situation Before More People Talk.

Soon enough, I was in my room, lying on my bed and staring up at the ceiling. I felt bad potentially taking advantage of Zince, and I felt jealous about Sasha who was no doubt getting fucked by one to three women in there in ways I could all too easily fantasize about, and my cock was hard to just ignore -- like I had been since I had switched bodies -- because it was rock fucking hard.

I wanted to go ask Ava to dominate me, but I realized I couldn't in this body without giving away the whole body switching thing... and even if I did, she'd say yes, if she wanted to or not, because I wasn't just another slave now, but her Mistress's fiance, ignoring that I was the Hero From Another World, a position with a lot of social power, and also someone who could murder her with ease because of the benefits an otherworldly body apparently came with.

I guess it turned out having power fucking sucked if you cared about getting consent that definitely couldn't be coerced... well, if I knew mind magic, I could read minds and see if people actually consented, I guess, but if other people knew about it they'd worry about what I was doing with their mind, and also I'd have relatively easy access to everyone's deepest secrets.

Apparently there was no real easy answer. I stripped, laid down on my back, and used Wind to create small whirlwinds on my nipples, which was a rather intense sensation to say the least, but I tried to endure it, thrusting two of the fingers of one hand in my mouth and sucking on them as the other one started to stroke my cock, imagining someone was telling me to do all this, that I was being a good girl for them.

And then I heard a knock at the door. I quickly Nulled the Wind spells, and pulled the covers over me, calling out, "One moment!" I couldn't do something like put on clothes quickly without tearing them if I used my speed, and then the door opened a crack.

"Darling?" Fuck, it was Princess Asperia. "Are you okay?"

"Just taking a nap."

"But you're not asleep yet, I gather. Can I come in?"

"...fine."

Princess Asperia walked into my bedroom, glancing around it briefly as she closed the door behind her, and walked over to sit down on the edge of my bed, smiling down at me and reaching down to caress my cheek.

"You left all of the sudden... were you upset?"

"I... how do you deal with knowing people might be sleeping with you just to keep their position?"

She blinked a few times. "Mmm? So what if they are? That's their choice, isn't it? If they didn't want to serve me, I would always sell willingly sell them to someone nice. I'd rather them feel great pleasure and fall in love with me, of course." She stroked my breasts through the covers and smiled. I wondered if she could tell that my nipples were very hard. "You didn't have much power in your world, did you?"

"...not really, no." Her hand slowly ran down along my belly through the covers, and my breathing quickened.

"It's something you get used to. Would you rather be a powerless slave? I'm sure Sasha would be willing to switch places with you again."

"I don't trust her to use power responsibly, I guess."

Her hand reached my hard cock, and started rubbing it through the covers. Fuck, that had just been sticking up the entire time and tenting the blankets a little, huh? I hadn't even thought about that, maybe I had gotten used to having a pussy.

"You have unreasonable standards of responsibility, puppy. She's not worse than most who have power, honestly... she wants those she dominates to feel pleasure in it, at least. And she only kills people when there's good reason to. If you want her to take back your body and be my fiance, I'd allow it. You're both very cute and funny, and as long as you're both mine, I don't care what titles you have specifically."

"I... I don't know. She was torturing another girl into loving her, and we have to go get her back before we do diplomatic talks, I guess." Princess Asperia reached under the covers and stroked my naked thigh, causing me to moan.

"...so you're jealous?"

"Extremely jealous. I'm jealous of Valentine, too, and that's hardly fair."

Princess Asperia laughed. "Well, I'm glad you're being honest with me, given my infamous hatred of jealousy." She gently wrapped her hand around my cock as she looked down into my eyes.

"I... I don't know, I don't want to be jealous. I just... also wait, that's not even the point! She was torturing a girl!"

"Oh, yes, Wren, part of that family you had demoted... she had gotten adopted by another noble family who's a bit of an enemy of mine, unfortunately. The plan was she'd simply kill her... but apparently she thought she was too cute, I guess."

"Wait, that was Lady Wren!?"

Princess leaned in closer, kissing my nose as she continued to stroke my cock. "Was, yes. Did you not know that?"

I started tearing up. "Fuck. I... I guess you didn't know how I felt about accidentally betraying her before. Fuck."

"I guess not... well, she's alive at least, that's good, right?" Princess Asperia pushed the covers off of me and straddled me, pressing the slick entrance of her pussy against the head of my cock, and starting to rub against it, smiling down at me in that gently dominating way that implied she was so much above me.

I really didn't want to think about that, and the temporary solution to this problem was right above me.

"Can you just... utterly take control of me for a little while? Tell me what to do, and I'll be your good girl? Please, Princess?"