The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Title: Limbo

Part: Chapter 05 — Fluidity

Universe: Limbo

Keywords: Mf+, inc, cons

Summary: Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

——OBLIGATORY PREAMBLE——

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events that take place in the near future are completely coincidental. I swear to you, I’m totally not working on bringing about ArMEGAddon (that’s every apocalypse in history, all at once). For realsies. Pinky swear.

This is primarily a story that follows the ‘organic process’ stream of writing, which means it could end up containing kinks so kinky that there isn’t even a term for it—or it could be all snuggles ’n cuddles. That said, there are monsters, magic, masters, mistresses, and mind control involved, so related themes might pop up. If you think to yourself “This is about to turn into something I really, really don’t dig”, then feel free to skip ahead a few paragraphs (or skip to the end of the chapter).

This is a work-in-progress. I will update my preambles if/when I get a Limbo website up, but in the meantime, keep posted to my ASSTR for updates. Also, feel free to send questions, comments, suggestions, marriage proposals, death threats, fan mail, hate mail, or exclusive offers for penis enlargement and ‘f4k3_r0|e><e$’ to waxing.carnauba at gmail.com.

——END PREAMBLE. YOU CAN STOP SKIPPING NOW.——

Chapter 5 – Fluidity

I walked past the girls and into the shower, leaving Crow with Nyx. The freezing cold water seemed to take ages to wash the gore from my skin, and I threw my clothes, heavy with blood, straight in the garbage. How many innocent people did I just kill? I could have just burned that shit and spared the followers, but I didn’t even think to try.

No, Nyx could have just burned that shit and spared the followers.

Dwelling wouldn’t help me. Whether she kept putting me in danger from sloth or malice, she was still my—what would you call it? Mistress? Owner? Let’s just call it ‘teacher’.

I didn’t even look at the girls as I walked past them, towel around my waist, and fell into my bed.

I think it was afternoon when I fell asleep. I was expecting to be racked with nightmares, but somehow, for some reason, I didn’t dream. I think this bothered me more than the actual killing.

When I awoke, I thought I was dreaming. It was an hour before dawn, and Nyx was meditating where she always was, but a dark shadow sat hunched in the far corner. I strained my eyes to see details, and could scarcely make out white hair hanging over her face, and bony, grizzled, leathery hands wrapped around the wooden box of death netting.

I crept slowly backwards toward the corner where I kept the bat when the old woman spoke.

“I suppose it would only be fitting that you smash my head in after what you’ve done.”

I glanced over to Nyx, whose eyes flickered briefly with recognition before slipping back to darkness.

“My champion,” she scoffed. “Selling me to a demon. Chaining me to this box.”

“Crow?”

I could see her hair move as she shook her head slowly. “You don’t even recognize me.”

“It’s dark. What happened to you?”

Her head raised, what little light the room afforded casting a terrifying shadow over her face. “I suspect you saw that for yourself.”

“I’m sorry about that. I did destroy the creature, though—but I meant—you look older.”

“I take the shape that best suits the task at-hand. My current task is to sit and think, and this body suits that just fine.” To illustrate, Crow’s hair darkened before my eyes, her skin tightening, fat disappearing, until she was the beautiful woman who’d begged for my help. “If my task is to seduce a champion, this form is more appropriate.” Her voice was higher and softer, as it had been the day before. “Of course,” she continued, “having seen your company, perhaps this would have better suited your fancies.” At that, her figure shrunk down, until she was slightly smaller than Nancy. “Or perhaps this,” she said as she continued to shrink, her words now coming out in the voice of a child. She continued to shrink until she hit the size of an eight-year-old, and then stopped.

“You know, I killed over two dozen people for you.”

Crow quickly shifted back into an old woman. “I thought that’s what you do.”

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

The old woman stared at me with a look of confusion.

“I’ve never killed anybody in my life. I violated my fucking soul for you, and you tell me that you manipulated me into helping you—and then you find the goddamn nerve to insult me?”

Crow’s head bowed again. “I’m sorry. I’m—I’m just a little angry about what happened.”

I sighed. “So am I. Let’s pretend this conversation never happened.”

Crow nodded, and I started walking back to my room.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I added.

Crow’s head turned towards me.

All of the regret, the rage at myself for what I had done, suddenly came pouring out of me. “If you talk like that again, about me or the girls, I’m going to rip out your still-beating heart and feed it to your fucking rape-weed. Are we clear?”

The old woman simply lowered her head in acknowledgement and went back to staring at the box.

* * *

For the next two days, Nyx didn’t speak to me. It was somewhat surprising to me; I could tell she wanted to learn how I’d burst the cultists, but I didn’t think she had the empathetic capacity to realize I really didn’t want to do anything. Instead, I spent the days in my room, reading through literary theory books I hadn’t cracked since college.

“What do you think of the name Novak?” Nyx’ voice came out of the blue. I looked up to see that she’d actually walked to my room, rather than summoning me from the living room, which was somewhat rare.

“It sounds like an anti-depressant,” I told her.

“It is an ancient name that means ‘the new one’. It will be yours until you’ve earned a different one.”

“Dandy.”

She stood in the doorway, staring at me for a few minutes. “You have done well,” she finally said.

“Well that’s dandy, too.”

She stared for a few more awkward moments. “See to your thralls,” she finally said, turning on her heel and walking back down the hall.

When Nyx reached the girls’ room, she stopped and looked inside, communicating something to them before returning to the living room. The girls’ heads poked out from behind her, and I waved them into my room.

One sat on either side of me on the bed, hands folded in their laps, each waiting for the other to start.

“Are you okay?” Carrie finally blurted.

I shrugged. “Are you?”

“Mistress said you had to do something... something hard for you... to help Crow,” Nancy said.

Again, I shrugged.

Nancy slipped her hand onto the back of mine, gently pulling it towards her, and I realized that this was the first time I’d felt her touch since I learned to kill. “I’m sorry if we were afraid before.”

I threaded my fingers into Nancy’s as Carrie wrapped her arm around my waist, pulling herself closer. “We didn’t mean anything by it. It was just—it was weird seeing you do something like that.” Carrie stumbled over her words as she realized what she’d just said. “Different, I mean—but not bad, but just—”

“I know,” I told them. “I understand, though; I wouldn’t want to risk you touching me before I knew for damn sure I had complete control, anyways.”

“So—did you have to do that to a person?” Carrie asked. I knew she didn’t want to know, let alone hear every gory detail, but she could tell I needed to talk about it.

I shook my head. “Not really. I had to kill people, though. Several people. They were keeping the net alive. They’d fed most of the town to it.” I would have expected myself to burst out crying at this, but I just felt nothing. I chose to withhold this fact from the girls, and closed my eyes as though in sadness.

Nancy released my hand and threw her arms around me, landing a peck on my cheek. “I’m sorry. And after all that, the way we were treating you…”

I shook my head. “I know they deserved it. It’s no big deal. I just have to get used to it, I guess.”

“Are you feeling better yet?” Carrie asked, leaning in to give me a squeeze.

I nodded and sighed as I thought about Nyx. How dumpy would I have to be for a damn monster to send the girls to cheer me up?

“So does that mean you can fix the sink?” Nancy asked.

“The what?”

Guess it wasn’t just my wellbeing.

* * *

The water was pink. Not just from the bathroom sink, but from the shower, the tub, and the kitchen.

“Don’t let it touch your skin,” Nyx warned as I brought my hand close to it. “It’s drugged.”

I immediately thought of the pink jelly precum from the death net.

“No,” Nyx said, evidently still able to read some of my thoughts without my realizing. “This is something different. Don’t touch it.”

“How long has it been like this?”

“Your thralls noticed it this morning.”

I looked back towards the girls, who were looking at me nervously. I could tell they were genuinely concerned that I would take their apology for being a little too-well-timed to be sincere, but I could also tell they meant what they’d said. “You guys haven’t had anything to drink all day?”

The girls shook their heads.

I sighed. “Guess it’s time to go shopping.”

* * *

I loaded my pockets with John’s MP3 player, a pocket watch, and a golden cross from the girls’ mother that Nancy had insisted I try to pawn. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that jewelry is worth more or less nothing in the Limbo market, so I took it anyways.

The first sign of trouble at the market was the fact that there wasn’t a gun pointed at my head. Noel, the owner’s eldest son, usually spent his days perched atop the fortified superstore, keeping a careful watch for malicious wanderers. All the locals knew Pete and the boys—a manager of the local Costco who’d converted it into the only reliable bartering post in the town. It also didn’t hurt that John was friends with Warren, the youngest son, before everything fell apart, and I’d been on friendly terms with the family ever since.

When I reached the reinforced glass doors, Warren stared at me from inside the store.

“Who are you?” I could feel his confusion through the bulletproof glass.

“You know who I am. John’s roommate.”

Warren narrowed his eyes. “That can’t be. John’s roommate isn’t made of wood.”

I could tell reasoning with him would get me nowhere, so I decided to try to use the logic I was gleaming from his confused mind. “His roommate is made of wood today. Where’s Noel?”

“The roof is safe,” Warren said. “The real monsters are inside. Aisle 7.”

“What monsters?”

Warren leaned in, as though relaying a dark secret. “The jam.” He spoke in a whisper that I would have missed had I not been inside his mind.

“Can you let me in? I’d like to help you.”

“The jam has father,” Warren said. “Noel is making sure it can’t get to anyone else.”

“I can help,” I told him. “I’m made of wood.”

Warren tried to process this line of nonsense, and realized it fit his logic perfectly. He unlocked the door and led me through the massive store.

Pete was in better shape than I’d thought, sitting amongst shards of broken glass, in a giant puddle of fruit jelly. “Oh jesus, tell me you’re not crazy, too.”

Noticing me, Noel wheeled around, pointing his high-powered rifle directly at my face.

“Easy, cowboy,” I said, gently nudging the barrel to the side with a steady finger. “Like I told Warren, I’m here to save Pete from the jam.”

“He’s made of wood,” Warren told his brother with a confident nod.

Noel seemed genuinely confused, but he was also fundamentally confused in the same way as Warren, so he retrained his aim on his father.

“Pete,” I told the old man in a slow, steady voice, loud enough that the brothers could hear but elaborate enough that Pete could tell I wasn’t crazy. “I’m going to free you from the jam monster, but I need you to follow my instructions perfectly.”

Pete nodded.

“Your clothing is infected. I need you to slowly stand up and take it off before the monster eats through them. Whatever you do, don’t get any on your skin. Once you’re free, you can take the gun from Noel so he can put them in a bag and burn them.”

Pete complied, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a bit of a kick out of watching the old man pretend to be afraid of his own clothing. When he was stripped to his boxers, he took Noel’s gun, and left the boys to ‘take care of the infected clothes’.

“You mind telling me what the fuck is happening?” Pete finally asked once we’d gotten out of his sons’ earshot.

“Someone drugged the water. I came to barter for any bottled stuff you might have kicking around.”

Pete sighed. “I’d love to help you, but we’re out.”

“Juice?”

“Out.”

“Pop?”

Pete hesitated before shaking his head. “Out. I shoulda known something was up.”

“Who bought it all?

“I don’t know. Some kids. Teenagers. Something seemed off about them. I shoulda known.”

“Do you have anything for yourselves?”

Pete opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself.

“Don’t worry. I won’t take it. But you need to isolate your boys until the drug wears off. Stay away from tap water until it starts running clear again.”

Pete nodded. “When they’re better, we should check out the pumping station. If someone wanted to poison the well, that’s where they’d go to do it.”

“Just take care of your boys. I can take care of the well.”

* * *

Half way across the parking lot of Pete’s swap-meat, I heard a low, rumbling growl. At once I kicked myself for letting my guard down—normally, with Noel on the roof, and a large, empty lot on all sides, this is the safest walk in the world.

I slowly turned to see three massive, hairless, vicious-toothed canines. The one in the middle was larger, and seemed to be walking slightly further ahead than the others.

It was half-starved, and wanted to kill me. It had killed a human once before, and, while it had taken a bullet to the shoulder in the process, it knew that—wait, was I reading its mind? That means—

I dropped to one knee and reached out to the alpha beast. Its growls ceased and its head lowered submissively as it slowly trotted towards me. The other two beasts looked to each other hesitantly as their leader came close enough for me to touch.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” I said, scratching it behind the ear. “I have a family to feed, too.”

The yelp from the alpha was ear-piercing, and sent the betas skittering away. It only took a second to drain the creature to a husk, and when its head detatched in my grasp, its body fell more into brittle ash than I’d been able to do in practice. I guess I was getting better at this, after all.

* * *

I couldn’t help but scream. Sending a portion of the water I’d gotten from the dog through my fingertips, into Crow’s temples, was absolutely excruciating. It must have been the rush of taking that made it so bearable with the cultists. It seemed to take forever for any noticeable amount to coarse into the old woman’s body.

When I finally released, I dropped to my ass, elbows on my knees, breathing heavy.

“It worked,” Crow said gently. “I’m no longer thirsty. Thank you.”

I couldn’t look her in the eyes—not because of the great amount of pain this was causing, but because she likely knew I’d done her first because there was a chance the energy would flow like it did with the cultists.

Instead, I looked to Nyx, who was watching me with great interest.

“DC,” I told her. “Just flip the polarity and you’re no longer killing people.” I thought a moment, my better judgment halting before lightheadedness overtook it. “Unless it does kill people. In which case, yeah, you’re still killing people.”

I recomposed myself and turned back towards the hall, where the girls had been timidly watching.

Carrie slowly walked up to me and softly took me by the hand, leading me back towards my room, Nancy in-tow.

When we were all inside, Nancy gently closed the door and threw the latch.

“Does it really hurt that much?” Nancy asked, sweet little voice quivering.

I nodded slightly. “It’s no big deal, though. Small price to pay.”

“I don’t think I want to. I mean, I don’t want you to—” Nancy trailed off.

“Hey, do you remember what the Mistress said?” Carrie offered after a moment of thought.

Nancy’s pretty blue eyes lit up. “Sex would make it better?”

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to sleep with either of the girls, but self-doubt won out, and I shook my head. “I might not know when to stop. You’d need to be able to pull off as soon as you’ve had enough.”

A wicked little smile crossed Carrie’s face as she leaned into her sister, whispering something that made the smile spread to Nancy’s lips.

Carrie yanked the case off my pillow and tugged my hands behind my back, wrapping them tightly. “There,” she said; “now we can stop anytime we want.”

“You really don’t have to—” I began, but Nancy interrupted me, springing forward and planting her thin lips upon mine. The kiss started innocently, but I soon felt her lips parting, her sweet little tongue slipping into my mouth. I could feel hands on my chest and stomach—I wasn’t sure which were whose, as Carrie embraced me from behind, kissing and nibbling at the base of my neck.

I instinctively moved to caress Nancy’s sweet body, but found instincts thwarted by my binds.

As Nancy pulled back, I saw both her and her sister’s hands dip down to my waist, sliding up beneath my shirt, both trying to lift it over my head before realizing that the tie made it impossible.

“We didn’t really think that part through, did we?” Nancy giggled to her sister.

“That doesn’t mean ours have to stay,” Carrie said with an impish smile as she rustled behind me.

Nancy fell silent as she watched her sister lean in, naked breasts pressing against my shoulders, palms spread as they slid up and down my chest. Nancy leaned forwards, kissing her sister passionately before throwing her own shirt off in one quick, efficient motion.

When Nancy dove back into her sister’s lips, her pert breasts found themselves right in front of me. I leaned forward, hoping to wrap my lips around a firm, youthful breast, but happily settling for a peck and nibble at her collarbone.

Nancy broke her kiss to straddle me, scooting her hips up my body, snaking her hands into my hair to pull me to one perfect pink nipple.

She mewed slightly as I went licked and nibbled at her flesh, her own hands leaving my body to explore her sister, Carrie’s hands still raking the front of my torso. Nancy leaned back slightly, pulling one nipple from my mouth and offering the other.

I was already in heaven, and the girls were just getting started.

After a long while, both girls reluctantly pulled away from me, Carrie scooting to my side before coaxing me to the edge of the bed. Nancy stared into my eyes with impatient lust as she fussed with my jeans, pulling the button but struggling for a moment with the zipper.

As Carrie slipped her fingertips into my waistband, Nancy stopped, giving her sister pause as well.

“I’ve—” Nancy started.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’ve never done this with someone—” Again, she stopped.

“You don’t have to,” I assured her. “I can always just do it by touch.”

She bit her tongue, but Carrie seemed to know for a fact that her sister had.

“I’ve never done this with someone I love,” Nancy finally blurted.

Nancy was staring through my navel, as though expecting me to burst into cruel laughter. I looked to Carrie, who was looking off to the side, betraying the fact that she was aware of her sister’s feelings—and believed she might feel the same.

“Come here,” I told Nancy, as matter-of-factly as I could.

Nancy slowly rose as I sat upright, her eyes still fixed off in space.

Without warning, I leaned forward and mashed my lips against hers, her fear and shame giving way to relief and lust, her tongue dancing about more furiously than ever.

When we finally parted, I gasped, “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I’m glad I can be with you.” I turned to Carrie, who was now staring at me expectantly. “Both of you.”

Carrie didn’t smile as Nancy did, but I could tell my response made her happy. She and her sister both slid their hands into the band of my underwear, tearing my pants down with almost enough force to yank me clear off the bed.

Both paused as my cock bobbed freely in the air. The entirety of this experience had distracted me from how desperately hard I had gotten. I wasn’t born a giant, but my size was substantial enough, and with all the blood these girls had flowing through it, it felt like it was double the size of my average erection.

When Carrie reached out and wrapped her warm hand around it, a wave of ecstasy shot through my body like lightning. She didn’t pump it; she simply gave it a gentle squeeze, pointing it towards her sister, wordlessly offering the sweet little blonde girl the first taste.

Nancy’s eyes were locked on the head of my cock as her lips parted. She moved slowly, hesitantly, her breaths hot against the throbbing mushroom. When her sister navigated the tip of my rod into her mouth, she sealed her lips, gliding her tongue quickly up tip of my cockhead, collecting a taste of precum before slowly pulling off, looking me in the eyes, and smiling.

“How is it?” Carrie asked her sister.

She didn’t look away from me as she told her sister with a wicked grin, “You absolutely have to try it for yourself.”

Carrie was a little less hesitant, and far less conservative with her first taste. She dove mouth-first onto it, taking the entire end of my manhood into her mouth, moaning slightly as she pulled half-way off, only to dive back down a second time, then a third.

Nancy watched her sister’s head bob up and down my shaft a few times before turning to me with a gentle smile, rising to her feet, and slipping her shorts down her smooth legs, exposing a smooth, hairless pussy. I didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder when she’d shaved it—or why, for that matter. I simply smiled and enjoyed the view.

Sensing her sister’s movements, Carrie pulled off my cock, smiling as she watched Nancy strip and kneel back down before me. Carrie pointed my dick once again towards her little sister, who hungrily accepted.

As Carrie released me to allow herself access to her own pussy, Nancy tried to copy her sister’s movements, hand wrapping lightly around the base of my shaft, head bobbing steadily. Her motions were a little clumsier, though, and she was clearly sucking harder than she needed to, making a loud pbbt every time her lips popped over my cockhead.

“Grab it harder,” Carrie told her sister after she’d disrobed and knelt, her own pussy adorned with a neatly cropped triangle of fur. She wrapped her own hand over Nancy’s, squeezing at the perfect pressure. “Take it a little easier with your head, too.” Carrie placed her hand on the back of Nancy’s head, guiding her along my shaft in slow, fluid motions. “Don’t be afraid to use your tongue, either.”

When Nancy complied, my left foot began to twitch. I hadn’t cum since Crow had seduced me, and—well, with her sister’s guidance, Nancy’s mouth felt unbelievably good.

“I don’t think I’ll last long like this,” I warned the girls, my breath growing quick and ragged. I tried my best to focus on what I was there to do—on giving the girls a little piece of my life, which seemed a hell of a bargain for the pleasure they were bringing me.

I felt as though every ounce of strength in my body was draining out of my body, accumulating in my aching balls. I tried my damndest to hold out longer, realizing they hadn’t been sucking on me for very long at all. The twitching in my foot spread to my knee, then both legs, then my hips. The orgasm came in waves, each larger than the last, threatening to overtake me and rob me of my time with these two angels.

I crawled out of my head to look down at the girls, knowing that the sight of Nancy’s little lips wrapped around the tip of my cock as her big sister watched carefully would most likely put me over the edge, but not wanting to miss such an incredible spectacle, when I realized that each had a hand dipped beneath them.

They both moaned simultaneously, the vibration from Nancy’s mouth transmitting through my shaft and vibrating within my very soul. The girls’ hands were plunged into not their own pussies, but eachothers’. And they were just as close to lust-induced orgasm as I.

Feeling the quickening moans of the girls’ building climaxes, I could scarcely muster the time to groan a warning of “Cumming” before my prick began to twitch violently.

Feeling this, Nancy pulled off of me in surprise as Carrie, her hand still wrapped over Nancy’s on my cock, started to pump up and down, the girls’ free hands jilling each other off at a matched pace.

The first jet was an excruciating pleasure. Only a slight twinge of pain was noticeable, the sensation of a massive load of cum streaming from my body absolutely overwhelming the unpleasantness. The first jet splashed against Nancy’s upper lip, some streaming into her open, waiting mouth, the rest streaking down to her lower lip and chin.

Nancy instantly began to shudder in orgasm, her shaking hand pointing my cock lower for the second spray, pasting her pert tits with a load I never would have thought a single man capable of producing. Her hand abandoned her sister’s pussy, clamping down on one breast, pinching her nipple as she screamed in ecstasy, rubbing my seed into her budding tits as I continued to spurt.

I felt as though I was never going to stop. All of the energy that ached in my balls spurned my orgasm forwards, launching volley after volley of jizz onto the young girl. For a few seconds, I found myself thinking, “This is it. I won’t be able to stop it ’til I’m literally empty.” Watching Nancy’s first orgasm subside, giving way to another as she aimed my spurting dick at her mouth, I thought, “Glory, glory, what a hell of a way to die.”

Death, however, wasn’t in the cards. A deep part of myself managed to wrangle enough control to disperse the energy from my balls, and my dick finally shot its last. I watched in amazement and afterglow as Nancy was knelt before me, breathing heavy through her nose, her cheeks and chest absolutely dripping with seed, mouth open and full, the corners of her lips curled into a smile, eyes shut in natural reflex from having her face sprayed. She cracked an eye to look at my cock, as though to make sure the barrage was actually over, and then closed her mouth, swallowing with a gulp and a shiver.

“Oh my god,” Nancy managed between breaths, releasing my cock and rubbing more cum into her breasts. “It feels incredible.”

Tentatively, Carrie ran her finger between her sister’s breasts, scooping up a few drops of semen, then sucking them clean.

“Oh my god,” she said as she herself shuddered. “It feels like—like I’m swallowing life.”

A part of me wanted to fall back on the bed and pass out, but the sight before me was too incredible to miss: Carrie leaning towards her sister and started lapping my spunk off her cheeks, Nancy rubbing her chest to coat her hands before reaching back down to her little pussy and almost immediately rubbing herself to another orgasm.

“I can feel it seeping through my skin,” Nancy managed in a hushed breath. “You’ve got to try it.”

Carrie licked down to her little sister’s neck before pulling away to look at me, a thin white tendril stretching between her lower lip and the nape of Nancy’s neck. “I think he’s pretty thoroughly spent,” Carrie said with a smile.

What was left of my energy flickered out, and I collapsed backwards, drifting off to the sound of Nancy whimpering through another orgasm and Carrie greedily licking her clean.

* * *

When I awoke, my arms were unbound, and the girls were once again cuddled up to either side of me. Nancy seemed to be fairly clean—somewhat surprising since the showers were still out of service—and they both dozed happily by my sides.

“You’re not dead,” I heard Nyx’ voice. The door to my room was open, and she was sitting where she always does.

“Did it work?” I tried to answer. I was too far away from her to speak without waking the girls, but I tried to think the thought hard enough that she would be able to at least read it, if not hear it.

Nyx slowly rose from the floor and retrieved a small, flat tin from the table. “You gave them a good deal more than I would have recommended,” Nyx said, extending a long, pointed claw and tracing around the lid of the tin. It only took one slow circle before I heard the lid drop inside, landing on a thick pillow of meat. “And in such grandiose fashion, no less.”

I blushed furiously. “I guess we weren’t exactly quiet, were we?”

Nyx laughed. “I’m sure they appreciated the showmanship. I’ve been practicing what you did to Crow.” She flicked the lid carelessly to the side, dipping the tip of her claw into the tuna and extracting it not a moment later. “That ought to be enough to get you back on your feet.” She stopped at the threshold of my room, watching the sisters curled against me.

It figures. She’s been doing it for one afternoon, and she’s already better at it than I.

Nyx placed the can on my dresser and turned to leave. “They’re not asleep, you know.”

I leaned forward and kissed Nancy’s forehead, giving Carrie’s midriff a gentle squeeze. “I know,” I silently answered. “I’m happy like this.”