Chapter 04: The Unseen and the Unsteady
Anastasia and her young brother Duayne, turned and watched the unusual procession depart from the foyer, seven of them in total: Zarron, the raccoon sorcerer, their Master and the head of the household led them, guiding them to his purpose-built Ritual Room. Their elder sister, Evangeline could not look as she had been magically frozen in a distinct, mid-step position with her fist cocked back and ready to swing at an offender long departed.
Watching them leave, Ana moved around in front of Eva and opened her arms, anticipating that she may be off balance when her ability to move returned. As top-heavy and off-balance as the slightly younger vixen was, she had little business trying to catch her sister's fall but would at least make effort.
Behind Zarron was the feline sorceress, Marmalade, an old acquaintance of his who arrived to pick up an order for a child. That was not an uncommon occurrence for the residence of a man who had been selling off infants since she was one herself but this one had shown up a month early and demanded a full-grown boy as payment for some ancient deal she'd made with the raccoon wizard.
Her timing had been both terrible and incredibly lucky to arrive amidst a minor and mysterious crisis. Zarron and the two female, fox teens had been staying far, far away in The Pale Lands, last night and for the several months preceding.
Anastasia still wasn't sure why they were back here other than the aftermath of a clearly unexpected confrontation between the raccoon wizard and an older, near doppleganger to her sister Evangeline. The conversations that followed confirmed it had been the mysterious mother of the whole lot of them, whom none of the siblings present had previously met. Their part of the meeting had been brief before Zarron had put Eva to sleep with a spell right in front of her and witnessing that is how Ana realized the same had happened to her moments later. Their Master had told them many stories about their wicked mother selling her unwanted children-to-be but it seemed some details, he did not want the children themselves to know.
When they woke, they were across a sea and several climates away at the racoon wizard's primary residence in the Southwestern reaches of the world. The timing of the feline sorcerer had been lucky for her because from the looks of things, Zarron's timely return interrupted a confrontation she had little chance to win: her and two brutish bodyguards against twelve of her half-wolf, half-brothers, spread out with crossbows and a thirteenth brother of monstrous size and strength. Sorceress or not, the young, canine soldiers were trained in tactics to deal with sorcerers like her: they had fanned out wide and trained their weapons, knowing that few spells could affect them all before at least some would be able to fire. Ana considered for a moment what magic she would have used in that same situation.
Marmalade managed to turn her fortuitous rescue and perhaps Zarron's distraction and distress to her advantage beyond simply surviving. With the original child promised not to her standards, she re-negotiated to take three, nearly grown men instead: something Anastasia never saw happen before. It was unlike Zarron to be bowled over in negotiations but this time it looked like precisely that.
Perhaps he a sweet spot for the feline? He had, after all, been giving her discounts on other children for years and she'd bought five from him already. Something happened back in the Pale Lands between Zarron and their mother and it appeared like she sent him retreating from her twice, which did not align with the kind of business relationship he'd claimed to have with her. Perhaps that affected his judgment?
The negotiations between feline and raccoon had gone well for him as the mysterious exchange with her mother just before and three of the twelve brothers followed behind Marmalade, apparently her property now.
They were known collectively as the Duodecaplets, the term for a multiple birth of twelve and the name would not make sense should they be separated. To call them the Triplets and Nonuplets would be both confusing and inaccurate but Anastasia suspected that Zarron did not give this exchange enough thought on a number of fronts. He had always been dismissive of the lot of them, from not expecting them to survive their birth at all to not giving them individual names, even when they proved to be twelve, healthy young boys. They all had not only survived but grown strong and sharp, with an uncanny connection with one another and a superb ability to collaborate as a unit.
After becoming savvy to that connection, Zarron steered their lack of identity into a new experiment on raising them a hyper-disciplined, elite team of soldiers. Rather than separate them, he concluded that could sell their services as mercenaries once grown and he spent quite a sum to have them trained by well-known battlemasters from around the world. So far, he only used them for training and security, admitting to having little knowledge in the field of mercenary contracts. Zarron had complained on a number of occasions on the extra mouths to feed while waiting for that side business to pick up.
The promise of sex magic with the feline had the three Duodecaplets more visibly excited than any of them had been used to seeing. They didn't have many opportunities for pleasure in their guarding and training routines and that Zarron insisted, was by design.
At the tail of the procession walked the massive, stoic bull and wolverine bodyguards who had hovered at Marmalade's side and not said a word throughout the entire exchange. They may as well have been golems from the amount of personality they expressed. Perhaps they were simply so disciplined as to not offend their fiery, feline master but their demeanors sadly reminded her of her own brother, the simple, inbred, giant, Stone. She was certain of more to him than his basic interactions and orders followed but never found any evidence of such.
The two bodyguards walked not right with their feline mistress as they had been before but behind the three Duodecaplets, like prisoners being escorted. Only as the double doors at the end of the hall swung open did their formation change, with the two brutes taking posts on either side of the entryway while Zarron and Marmalade led the three half-wolf, half-foxes into the ritual preparation room beyond.
The doors closed behind them and a moment later, Evangeline's magical paralysis finally broke, out of time or out of range. Ana tensed and braced herself to catch her sister though for her overabundant bust compounded by her sister's not insignificant chest, she was more likely to provide a cushion upon landing rather than actually stop her from falling in the small space between her arm's reach and the girth of her bosom. Evangeline recovered on her own, swinging her arms around in front of her for balance before tensing them and clenching her fists. Hunched forward, face almost against her younger sister's enormous chest, she cursed.
"I'm so fucking tired of magic!" Anastasia reached out for Evangeline's shoulders to help her stand upright but she twisted away, angrily. "How did Mother get the best of Zarron? He's supposed to be some great wizard but he got beat up by a deadbeat whore?!" In a lucid moment, she looked pointedly to Anastasia. "He said she had a charm?"
"She must have. Probably relagite or espum. Either one could have done it." Ana's arms fell and she blurted out the words before considering for a moment, if her hot-headed sister should know these things about resisting both hers and Zarron's greatest strengths. "Relagite would be something she'd be wearing. It's a metal. Espum she'd have had to consume in advance." It fell out of her mouth. Not often did her elder sister have any interest in the kinds of things that she studied.
Duayne, the red fox, their younger, half-brother and the least dangerous person in the room hovered behind the raised voices and confrontation that preceded but now with the room clear, he hurried to Evangeline's side and threw his arms around her waist, looking up between his two sisters. "You really met mother?!" he blurted out a whisper, looking over his shoulder to double check that Zarron's absence.
"I wouldn't say we met her so much as we interrupted her having sex with Joseph!" Evangeline hissed. Duayne winced in disgust and Eva appeared to relish in his revulsion. "Your brother, Joseph. A child! Her own son! I guess there are no lines that witch won't cross."
"Why didn't Zarron just kill her?!" the young, red fox barked incredulously. Anastasia craned her head aside, listening. "Couldn't he make mother fall over dead with a blink?! Or a fireball?"
"Relagite or espum," Ana repeated, more shortly than last time. "The real question is why would he try to kill her at all?"
Eva cut in then. "He's probably HER best customer, Duayne. She sells her unborn babies, he buys them, grows them to sell them off for slaves. I just thought he would have more care for the ones he helped raise. Like us." She swallowed visibly and dipped her head toward the floor.
"Zarron said she sold him all of her eggs. He already has them all," Anastasia said with a dismissive shake of her. "Zarron had other business with Mother. Business he didn't want you and I to hear."
"Well, they're both awful. I'm sure there are other evil schemes they're working on."
Ana looked between her three siblings: The black-haired Eva's rage and Duayne's need for the eldest sister's approval. Stone stood there, blank-faced without orders and that's what was needed to activate him into acting alive. Per Zarron's command, he waited for Duayne to ask him for help with the sleeping, monster of an equine, still sprawled out on the foyer floor, unconscious.
The bustier vixen's eyes darted back to Eva, the only one she had any chance to reason with. "Zarron just gave away three of our brothers right in front of us and he didn't find that worth hiding. But a conversation with our mother needed to be a secret. Zarron wasn't even expecting her. He thought she was an intruder at first! Remember?"
"I'm not going to try to make sense of a woman who sells her children for servants and slaves, Anastasia. Use your brain, for once."
Ana inhaled slowly through her nose and out through her mouth, the kind of calming, ritual breathing she learned as a child when mastering the energies required to perform magic. She closed her eyes and spoke distantly. "'Do I know you?'"
Evangeline's muzzle twitched before she recoiled in confusion at the words. "Have you lost your mind? I'm your fucking sister."
"'Do I know you' was the first thing Mother said to Zarron when she saw him. Would she forget the face of the man she sold her children to?"
"Zarron must've been much younger and less disgusting way back then."
"He hasn't aged in our lifetimes but she didn't recognize him. She was in HIS house and didn't know it!," Ana spoke matter-of-factly, glancing back to the now closed doors to the Ritual Room. "Why would she... be having sex in the living room if she expected us to find her? Zarron is hiding something about mother. The only thing you know about her is whatever he wants you us to believe. And you hate her for it."
"She sold us all for slaves!" Duanye tried his best to add his outrage.
Ana turned her stern attention to the young fox . "Did you hear what Marmalade said? A Runaway Princess. Zarron never said anything about that. If our mother is a runaway Princess and she had the wits enough to defeat Zarron twice, wouldn't she have grabbed some jewels before running away? Why would any Princess be so desperate for money?"
"Because she didn't care about us!" Duayne whined.
"Or because she never wanted us." Evangeline snapped and spat. "She wanted to be a whore without the risk of pregnancy."
Anastasia shook her head. "That doesn't make sense, Eva. We're missing something important." She glanced to the far end of the hall, behind the closed doors of the Ritual Preparation Room. She was missing something else too.
Evangeline drew a quick, wide-eyed breath. "What about Joseph? Did I see that wrong too?!"
Ana tore her eyes away from the Ritual Room doors to her sister before she paused and considered for a moment. She swallowed and brought her hand to her mouth with a momentary puff of her cheeks. After a pause and a long blink, she gave a small nod. "No, that happened."
"Disgusting woman," Eva hissed and Ana turned away from them, toward the outside of the room.
"Perhaps," Anastasia gave a small shrug and another impatient glance down the hall before excusing herself without announcement. She headed towards the nearest staircase, one of the smaller side ones toward her chambers.
"My sister. The know-it-all." Eva threw up her hands and shook her head before spinning and storming off in the other direction, leaving Duayne and the blank-faced Stone alone in the foyer to manage the still-unconscious Darren the stallion.
"I know more than you," Anastasia muttered to herself before starting up the stairs. While reserved in demeanor, Anastasia's brilliance escaped none in Zarron's house, which irritated her older sister endlessly. Eva's destiny was to be wife where Ana would be a wizard.
A Prodigy of the Magical Arts, the younger of the two had been slinging spells from her toddler years and now in her late teens, she was as competent an apprentice and understudy as Zarron could have wished for, other than some clumsiness in his study thanks to her over-abundant physique. After some accidents of expensive and rare things being swept off tables by her turning this way and that, they two of them had summoned the Duodecaplets to rearrange the tighter spaces of the room to better accommodate her and raised some of the lower surfaces to prevent her chest from brushing over any of them.
With such a sharp mind, few would be surprised to learn that Anastasia's memory was a secretly trap of which little knowledge escaped but the vixen been wise enough, young enough to keep that fact to herself. Zarron needed to feel like he had total control of her education lest he feel like she could become a threat to him and he had strict rules about what magics she could study. She was not allowed to visit the library unattended, though he allowed her check out books he approved of, to read in her bed chambers on her own time.
To keep the access she had to the library, he couldn't know how fast she could consume and retain knowledge from a spellbook. He had to think her education was managed wholey by him. She played along with the plan since five years old, learning fast but not suspiciously so. She even learned to pretend-forget things at times to avoid suspicion and she had been doing so for long enough now that she was quite convincing.
Her biggest obstacle to mastery of magic was the one that Zarron cruelly bestowed upon her in an in-vitro experiment of alteration, then had the callousness to joke about with the feline sorceress: the limited range of motion of her arms due to her impractically enormous breasts meant a number of common spells became impossible for her to perform, thanks to the broadness and angles of gesture they required to cast. Some of those, she learned as a young girl and still committed to memory but were now denied to her, post-puberty.
Still, her thirst for magical knowledge was insatiable, making her an ideal student but also why Zarron insisted he traveled with her when he did: he said it was because his apprentice shouldn't leave his side but she knew he was afraid for her to be alone with his library.
Spells in spellbooks typically detailed their instructions impeccably but rituals, she found to be more likely to omit important information. As a child, she tried a few simple ones from the text and discovered them to be often flawed or incomplete, leading to results that were ineffective, unpredictable or even dangerous. The best way to learn a ritual was by witnessing one. If she saw it happen, she could remember and repeat it herself. And there was a ritual that was new to her, about to take place within the walls of her own home.
Ananstasia was cautious enough not to tip her hand and overextend her hunger for knowledge needlessly. It was common for her to learn every spell in a book she checked out when she was meant to be only studying one of them. Other books she could only study while supervised. For a few, key spells that she was determined to know and forbidden from learn, she found she could sneak books out of the library under her robes and hide them from magical detection with some simple, concealment magic.
He didn't want her to learn how to Teleport like he did with such ease, professing the many, well-known dangers of teleportation but it was too powerful of an ability to ignore. After some months of being mindful of the conjuring spellbook section, she found a book containing the spell and snuck it out for a middle-of-the-night read.
The many, well-known dangers of teleportation had not been exaggerated, neither from Zarron nor the repeated warnings in the spellbook: To teleport into an inanimate object could kill her instantly and to do so into another being would be even worse. As such, she only tried it in the same room and used teleportation sigils for extra precision at her destination. The symbols provided a focus for the spellcaster and were most often used for long distance, pre-planned travel as Zarron had done to get them back here but for shorter trips, they theoretically acted as another layer of insurance.
After learning the spell, She drew a few such sigils hidden around her bed chambers both in this house and back in The Pale Lands to practice. She tested teleporting to them with her eyes closed and back turned, just to be sure that she could do it without risking actually going any distance or through any obstacles.
Zarron had also refused to teach her metamorphosis spells, citing their danger and perhaps aware of what the at-the-time violently pubescent vixen's intention would be with such magic as her breasts swelled beyond all normality and kept swelling until they dominated her young frame. Anastasia dug around on her own until she confidently found a suitable spell to alter her own body. First, she tested it by growing her own head hair, which she promptly cut. Then she changed its color, one way then another before changing back to her natural one. She tried her coat after that, doubling the length of her fur in a way she had yet managed to reverse before she attempted the big job: reducing her gargantuan breasts to something reasonable, that she might be able to blend in among normal people someday.
That spell failed to do anything at all and she later learned her attempt to change herself was nullified against the more potent magic of Zarron's that made her that way in the first place. With her coat inexplicably long and thick the next morning, she had no choice but to confess of that particular snooping incident. He forgave her, professing sympathy to her motivation though he claimed to not be able to undo it himself. She didn't believe him but didn't press her luck. With a promise it would never happen again, she was forgiven.
It did happen again. The failure to normalize her obscene and impaired figure led her to one of the most valuable spells that she managed to steal: the ability to make herself both invisible and silent through archaic, runic magic. She found it in a tattered, old book, one of the many that Zarron collected only to neglect: a tome of power runes and sigils of an ancient era and going through it over time, his disuse of it made sense. There existed more elegant and recent solutions to spellcasting than drawing symbols in blood or ash all over one's home, weapon, enemy or own naked body and there were cleaner, faster versions of much of its contents but for true invisibility, there were no other options she had been exposed to.
Anastasia found a spring in her step the moment she was out of view of the others and navigated to her chambers with haste. Zarron was not inaccurate in the accounts of Ana's reaction to the manuscripts of carnal magic but a weak stomach wouldn't to stop her from learning.
She considered Marmalade's words about magic for profit as she walked with impatience and purpose. With her own sorceror's knowledge, she had potential to make money and maybe even a lot of it. Enough to support herself without Zarron, should the isolation of her existence ever become so dire that it would be worthwhile cut herself off from his vast, magical library. She rushed into her chambers and closed the door behind her before opening her purple robe down a double row of brass buttons held together by thick, figure-eight laces. The front flap of it started to peel away until the last button was opened at the bottom of her breast. With six sets of buttons freed from one another, she shrugged it off and let it fall from her shoulders and caught it in her hands behind her. Her naked form was exposed to the empty room and her vanity mirror now, her long, thick fur a light silver except for her charcoal socks from her elbows and knees down, just as she had seen her mother to have.
The robe stayed in her two-handed grip until she reached her bed, where she stuffed it behind the pillows. Should anyone come to check on her, she needed it to seem she was out of her room and not naked. She kicked off her sandals, one at a time, launching them under her bed and leaving her entirely in the nude now.
With a firm gaze toward the unlit fireplace and with a flick of her fingers toward it, the prepared stack of unburnt wood ignited into a full flame. Any elemental writing could form the runes she would need: natural dyes, animal blood and squid ink were easy enough but had a tendency to run in her long, thick coat of fur. The accuracy of the runes was paramount to keeping the results predictable so she preferred charcoal.
Not knowing when she might need to use rune magic, she always kept a few thin branches among the thicker logs on the fire, ready to write with. She let it burn for some moments before reaching in for two of the thin sticks. She raised them to her muzzle and blew them out thoroughly.
Anastasia hurried to the mirror with a bounce as heavy breasts collided in the violence of her motion then she stopped in front of it and turned her back to it before craning her head over her shoulder. She watched herself and started to steadily drew the first rune, inverted across her lower back. She preferred to start with the most difficult one and drawing on her own back was always the worst. The invisibility rune would need to be drawn twice: on her chest and on her spine, else she would only be invisible from one direction or the other, thanks to some ancient technicality.
She turned to face the mirror and drew the rune again across the top of her left breast, the size of her hand but she still used her reflection to ensure it was drawn right-side up. The accompanying rune that would make her silent only needed to be drawn once and she placed it across from the invisibility one, on her right breast. After a quick double check of all three runes for the correct shapes, she stared into the reflection of her own, dark brown eyes then spoke a clear, word of power in a forgotten dialect of ancient magic:
"SHONDULA."
The rune on her left breast flared a bright blue before she faded from sight. Looking in the mirror at the reflection of the now seemingly empty room was always shiver-inducing but she shook off the discomfort before speaking again.
"VITULAS."
On her right breast, the other rune warmed but nothing could be seen for the first spell's effect. She couldn't even see herself by looking down, which was especially disconcerting with the view of her bosom usually blocking her from seeing a good several steps in front of her. It was important to always do the Silence spell second, she had learned as she was now incapable of making any noise without breaking the drawn rune. That included any more power words or incantations.
She twisted away from the mirror then clapped her hands once to ensure she could make no noise. With a resolute nod to herself, the nude and invisible vixen walked briskly back to the door. With a deep breath to steady herself, she opened it carefully and stepped out into the broad halls of the manor, fully naked.
Anastasia hated the vulnerable feeling of being undressed out of her room and she didn't do it much for fear of getting caught or the spell failing at an inopportune time but the nudity was an unfortunately explicit detail. The rune would make the ONE thing it was drawn upon disappear. That much was clear from the spell's description. She did not however, expect it to be so literal that drawing the symbol on her robe would make it and only it, invisible as she wore it. Fortunately, she learned that lesson from her own, bedroom mirror, before ever leaving the room in such a state.
She brought her arms around the front of her breasts at their widest purely by feel, squeezing them together until she took a firm grip of the opposite wrist, which was as far around them as she could reach before she pulled them tight. With them as secured as well as she could do without the kinds of supportive clothing didn't own any of, she began to jog back to the stairwell.
Neither particularly fit nor fit for running, the vixen was not fast but she made better time than she would in her usual, top-heavy waddle. At the stairs at the end of the foyer's catwalk, she tried to continue her hurry but she was never able to see the ground in front of her. Now she was unable to see her breasts or the feet that they usually blocked, which wasn't much better and she stopped and grabbed the banister for support. With the power of her runic magic, she considered how if she fell and broke her neck, no one would have any idea until they tripped over her corpse and nullified the spell, perhaps falling and breaking their own neck in the process.
And so she navigated the stairs blindly, with the care she normally did, planting her heel against the back of each step before allowing her weight to come down on it then repeating. She stopped for a moment to see that Eva, Duayne, Stone and Darren were all gone now. The room was empty and she continued down into it.
Anastasia reached the bottom of the stairs and secured herself again before she jogged across the giant foyer, breathing hard before reaching the far end of it. She wondered as she made her way down the long hallway, if there were some spell somewhere in that library that might help her endurance but she had found most magic to be almost anti-athletic. There was levitation or teleportation instead of assisted running. There were wnseen forces that bent the laws of nature over assisted lifting and all manner of other, over-complicated replacements for ever breaking a sweat.
The top-heavy, teen vixen panted in silence as she reached the heavy, double doors to the Preparation Room, which was the entryway for the Ritual Chamber. It was guarded still by the towering bull on one side and the ferocious-looking wolverine on the other but they were no concern of hers in her unseen state. She walked up and put her ear to small gap between the doors and listened.
There were spells that could help her eavesdrop on them but neither were at her disposal in the moment. Heightening her material senses required speaking to activate and for the moment, she had no voice. The other option, Clairvoyance, which she long ago used to spy on her sister as a child was one of the many spells that had been denied to her as she grew up and out. She could no longer reach across her chest at the correct angle to perform the requisite gesture.
She could tell though, that it was two males talking on the other side of door and neither of them was Zarron. Ana sighed in relief with her assumption confirmed: being sex magic presumably intended to do something to all three of them, it would need to be performed once per person. The first of the Duodecaplets had to be in the Ritual Room beyond with Zarron and Marmalade, which meant there were two more opportunities to witness the ritual. She would need to wait until the door was opened for her, lest either of the towering brutes see it open its own and endanger her invisibility.
The wait was painfully long, sitting with her ear to the door but eventually she heard new sounds beyond it and another masculine voice, this one Zarron's familiar tone. She stood and backed away with nervous excitement but it was another painful amount of impatient minutes before the door swung open and a single brother strode out, dressed in his armor once again. She gave him but a glance as she slipped into the doorway behind him but his expression was unusually blank for a teenager who likely just lost his virginity or at least, had some kind of sexual encounter with an older, experienced woman.
Anastasia looked around the Preparation Room. She hadn't been here often, with most of hers and Zarron's rituals taking place in the study up above this room on the second floor. This, much grander Ritual Chamber was intended for guest spellcasters or the supposed group rituals but she never personally witnessed one of those. She knew the Preparation Room well enough, having been in here before, with it's patterned, tile walls and floors surrounding a set-in-the-floor ceremonial tub of steaming water for pre-ritual cleansing. The room was self-maintaining with minor sanitation spells and always appeared immaculately clean, like every other room of the manor.
Only one of the brothers was in the tub, with ample room for up to five more of him. He was the only one in the room at all with Zarron, Marmalade and the second brother all unaccounted for. The second ritual must already have started while the first of the three Duodecaplets had gotten dressed. There were two pairs of boots and armor neatly placed on a bench running along the room, confirming that the second of the three was next door in the Ritual Chamber. Now, all she needed was for that second set of doors to open again. There was one more chance but until then, she needed to wait the duration of the ritual.
Anastasia looked back to the center of the room at a splashing sound and saw the half-brother step out of the tub, predictably naked with his back to her. She covered her mouth as his bare rump cleared the water, broad, strong cheeks a testament to his fitness. His thighs and calves followed, a model of physical perfection down to his feet. His whole body was sculpted from a lifetime of vigorous exercise, especially evident now with his wet coat clinging to the every contour of his youthful and athletic body.
The half-wolf fetched a towel and started to dry himself, oblivious to her presence or gaze. He turned away from the wall and her eyes fell to her half-brother's lemon-sized testicles hanging loosely from the hot water, under a sheath big enough to fit her fist into. She flushed a deep red under her thick fur, radiating heat and sweat.
In her isolated life of study, Anastasia had never seen a naked man in person. Not any of her brothers. Not even Zarron. While some rituals outside of sex magic did require nudity to perform, the raccoon wizard forced her out of the room the few times he needed to and that was all before she had any means to spy on him. For Zarron's dubious morals, he spent a lot of energy convincing himself and them that he was not any kind of pervert around his two, beautiful and massive-chested, adoptive, teen, daughters.
Anastasia knew her brothers had certain things in common across her, her sister and the rest of the bloodline: they were all exceptionally endowed. The difference being, breasts didn't have to go inside anyone to work. She reached down to her nethers with a reluctant hand, a part of her body she only knew through touch and mirrors since her over-development. She traced along the split in her thick, pubic fur and reminded herself just how small it was in comparison. Her stomach gurgled and she looked away, back to the heavy doors to the Ritual Chamber, wondering what the petite Marmalade must be going through if she were having sex with the second brother but no sound escaped the room. That was surely by design, either by architecture ,magical or both.
What could they be doing in there? What magic would be so important that it needed to be performed immediately? The answers would hopefully come soon enough but in the meantime, she stole one more look at her naked, half-wolf, who sat down on the bench, half-dried off but not getting dressed. There was a nervous energy to him as he reclined against the wall, his knees far apart, one foot twitching. His scrotum had tightened up since her last look, squeezing skin around those heavy testicles while a slick redness was peeking out of his sheath now. He breathed heavily and stared out into space, seeming to be contemplating what was happening to his brother in the next room and what soon, would happen to him.
Anastasia's throat was quite suddenly parched and her palms clammy with sweat as she looked on with intrigue. The half-brother, who she barely knew shifted himself to sit on his hands, restraining them while hard flesh cast a growing shadow over his belly at a cadence appropriate for a sunrise.
With nothing else to do but wait for the ritual to finish, the vixen's curiosity tugged her step by careful step around the tub towards him, watching it grow. She arrived at his side and stood there, looking down at a monstrous tower of flesh that must be a full erection now, laying along his stomach and reaching the bottom of his sternum in his slouched spinal curve. It was slick and red, pointed at the tip with a gradual swell to the thickest part halfway down, with a girth comparable to her thin and weak forearm. At the base was a second bulge of similar thickness but shorter, more of a ball or a small orange wrapped in glossy, wet skin.
The glistening, red flesh stood in stark contrast to the rest of his color and texture. She raised a curious, open hand, wondering what it felt like but to touch anyone deliberately while invisible would break the spell. She sighed and glanced back to the Ritual Chamber doors, still closed and silent. She moved her arms to restrain her bosom again before leaning in for a closer look, her head over his lap and holding her breath.
It had an odor to it and her nose twitched with this new information. She recoiled at first at the pungent intensity, racing her heart the way that magic did when she was unsure of an outcome. It was somewhere between the musk of a hard labor and the smell of the sea, if the sea were hot, just short of boiling.
Her belly churned at the second whiff. She twisted away and grabbed her muzzle, wide-eyed and afraid to blow it all with an eruption of her tender stomach but it thankfully held. As the rush of adrenaline passed, she became aware of the next effect it had on her beyond her beating heart and salivating mouth: a surge of warmth to her loins. A hand to herself confirmed the arrival of a hot dew at her labia, soaking into the surrounding fur.
Her eyes dragged along his solid shaft, ballooned with blood and excitement. It formed a bridge over his abdominal muscles to his relaxed chest, pectorals built from a lifetime of martial training. The red penis, emerged from his furred sheath was an appendage so alien to his canine furred body that it almost seemed to be attached as an afterthought. His shoulders were broad from his wolf heritage and singularly focused physical regiment. Corded, neck muscles held his head upright, as sculpted as the rest of his physique while his face and features were equally wolflike. Only the peppered birthmarks on his cheeks and throat reminded her that they had a direct, familial relation.
Anastasia and Evangeline were raised as sisters to each other and some kind of pseudo, adopted daughters to Zarron, with their respective and unfair destinies of sorceress and wife. There were but a handful of others that the sorceror had tried to raise himself: the twin, inbred boys, Tati and Titian and later, Joseph and Duayne for houseboys and Stone, who had been sold but returned.
The Duodecaplets weren't raised by Zarron so much as quartered by him, living in the shadow of their master's uncertainty that they would ever be viable merchandise. He was a presence in their lives as a Master to serve but where Anastasia, Evangeline, Duayne and Joseph had mostly grown up together, the Duodecaplets had been separated from the rest of the household to ensure they never mistook themselves to be a part of it.
And so the naked, powerfully-physiqued, young man before her was more of a stranger than the half-brother she knew him to be and her hovering near him in the nude didn't feel as wrong as she expected it would. She held her breath and leaned in, her nose hovering by his cheek and held there for moment, studying his face before her eyes fell back to his erection. She backed away, biting her lower lip.
With a glance back over her shoulder to the still closed doors, her hand fell back to her sex, finding more wetness still. Deft fingers lingered against the damp fur and flesh, pushing her lips apart from bottom to top until she pressed her clitoris like a button, inhaling a sucking breath. She stared down his erection and pondered how easily she could just mount him though anything entering or exiting her body was certain criteria from breaking the invisibility. She wondered what it would feel like pushing into her for the first time. If it would hurt and if she would bleed. How long would he take to orgasm? How long would it take her? How had she gotten so close again?
Her free arm moved across the top of her chest, holding them back from bumping the side of his thigh while she bent over her half-brother, filling her eyes and nose with his sex-reeking maleness. She pushed a finger into herself, imagining it much bigger and thicker like he was. She gave a long, luxurious sigh as she pictured herself atop him and him inside her.
The wolfox's oblivious stupor tightened at once. He must have felt her breath! Only his relaxed condition made him slow enough that she could observe the subtle change before she scrambled back. He jumped to his feet, looking around alerted, his stiff cock swinging in comedic echo of his every tight turn.
Anastasia's balance was never great to begin with for her lack of athleticism and coordination and that had only grown worse as the awkward little girl had blossomed into an overabundant mockery of femininity. She backpedaled a few, wobbly steps before falling on her rump on the tile floor, frozen in terror and wincing in pain. The wolfox scanned over her, still oblivious but eyeing all directions warily.
The Ritual Room doors pushed open abruptly before he could sit down and he righted himself to stand at attention. His brother emerged, naked with frazzled fur and a half-hard length spilling out from his sheath, surrounded by some clumps of wet mess. His expression was as blank as the first one of them she'd seen, surprisingly nonplussed for leaving a sex magic ritual. Were the Duodecaplets really so stoic? They certainly hadn't been at the idea of ritual sex with Marmalade. The second of the three brother's stood at the door, holding it open in silence and the third brother turned his attention to his brother and the doorway before heading towards them.
Her eyes fell to the second brother's white furred chest, where was drawn a dark, red rune of the same, ancient tradition of magic she was using now: she didn't know it but it looked like ones she had seen elsewhere in that spellbook: Loyalty. Duty. Love. Heart. Similar to those but also unique. Marmalade must have been charming them, which made sense given the circumstances.
She planted her feet and rolled herself forward on her hands, pushing up on all fours then off with just enough power to right herself. She wobbled back, her chest sloshing with inertia and countered before she was stable enough to start walking after him. She was some steps behind him now and hurried to catch up, nearly reaching him as he passed by his brother and into the Ritual Room.
Curious, brown eyes darted to estimate the gap between the Duodecaplet who held the door, the other side of the entryway and how much space there was to squeeze between them. Even the broad shouldered young man who entered the room before was not nearly so wide as she was for her cursed chest. She would never get past without brushing against him and breaking the spell. With the third of the three now inside the Ritual Room, the second one let go of the door.
Ana cursed to herself as the third brother disappeared into the Ritual Room, leaving her a clear view of the space beyond it. She stopped and righted herself, focusing and tensing before a sharp nod of her head and a blink sent her teleporting barely further than she was tall, right past the wolfox at the door and before the threshold of the Ritual Room, safely outside of the Wards that protected it. Luckier still, in the low light of the next room, the remnant smoke of her teleportation was difficult to see. She stepped in, clear of the door. Free of being held, it slowly shut behind her on it's own.
A sigh of relief was appropriate and well earned before she looked over the Ritual Room, which she hadn't been in for years. A single tapestry of occult imagery draped each wall of the hexagonal room except for the one she stood at, where the only doors were. At each corner was a pedestal of a macabre gargoyle, demon or other similarly unfriendly statue and framing each of them were a pair of lit candles on wrought-iron stands. In the center of the room were three steps up, a squat, octagonal pyramid with the top step some five yards across and in the center of it, was a stone dias, some eight feet long bt four feet wide, where the feline sorceress sat, naked, frazzled and panting.
"They're eager boys, Marmalade. And strong," the raccoon explained with some conciliation from the far side of the dias. "Maybe you should take a break?"
"Don't patronize me, Zarron. Your boys are freaks! Too big for any normal person," she shook her head with annoyance. "Nobody said magic was easy or painless. But this won't be happening again for these boys. I hope they enjoy it while they can." She looked up to see the last of three brothers had joined, looking momentarily hurt at her words. "Oh good. At least I don't have to get this one hard too. Come up here and lay down on your back." She scooted to the edge, making room for him.
The last Duodecaplet stepped up on the first level, looking over the clothed Zarron, holding a stone bowl in both hands before looking over the naked, orange feline. She was long and lithe but petite in her build, more thin than fit but youthful and attractive. He ascended the second level and Anastasia followed behind and at his flank for one step, then the next. Marmalade didn't move to accommodate him and he stepped around to reach a part of the stone altar where he could climb up on it, before turning on his rump. He scooted to the middle of it with his erection slapping his chest before laying down, flat on his back and looking over to the sorceress with both expectation and apprehension.
With a grumble, she pushed herself up and maneuvered above him with the natural grace of a feline until she settled on his lap, just below his scrotum and sheath. Zarron offered the bowl to her which Anastasia, now standing on the other side of the altar could see was pooled with a small amount of blood.
She had seen all three brothers and none of them had been apparently injured. With a quick scan over the other two of them, she noticed Marmalade's left hand was wrapped in a bandage just as she used her right index finger to dip into the blood. Steadily then, she begin to draw on the nervous wolfox's chest. It was the same rune the second brother had worn and once finished, she dismissed Zarron with wave of her hand and he stepped back. The teen vixen was unused to seeing him obey anyone! Marmalade blew out a strong breath before sitting back down and the Duodecaplet inhaled deeply, feeling her heat.
"Ammman zuuuuuk zalasta," Marmalade steepled her hands before her muzzle and spoke, beginning the ritual.
'Aman zuk zalasta,' Anastasia repeated to herself, in her head, committing it to memory. The words were in an ancient and forgotten language. Some of the words were familiar from other, runic spells and she repeated their rough meaning to herself. 'Temple of the Mind.'
"Joh tah zutana," Marmalade continued before reaching skyward, grasping and tugging down.
The vixen studied her intently, repeating the instructions mentally. 'Johtahzutana. Grasp from the moon.'
"Shalah Ran Quantulara." Feline hands clapped together before pulling in, thumbs to the bottom of her sternum.
"Shit." Anastasia felt her mouth move but no word came out. She slumped. Yet another ritual that she would never perform, whatever it was. The frustration was familiar for her but it couldn't hurt to know it anyway. 'Shalah Ran Quantulara. Thunderclap to Temple of the Heart.'
"Zuuuuk Alasta Olesta!" Marmalade reached out and planted her left hand over the young man's heart before covered her own with her right.
'Zuk Alasta Olesta. Your heart. My heart.'
"Zuk Alaste Calisima!" The palm on his forearm was now a pointed index finger between his eyes.
'Zuk Alaste Calisima.' She felt her brow crinkle as the words processed. 'Your... fishbucket mine?' She was less sure about the meaning of those, exact words and recalled that her knowledge of the dead language was still quite fragmented.
With another clap, the incantation was over then Marmalade was back up on all fours. Her hand reached down to grip the young wolfox's eager cock and she guided it up to meet her body.
"No interruptions," the lithe sorceress commanded Zarron. He gave a small nod to acknowledge.
With the ritual complete and secured to memory, Anastasia could now just watch and see what happened. She stepped around behind them so she might see better while the pointed tip of his canine erection brushed the wet fur around her well-used feline sex. Her jaw fell open as Marmalade drifted back and nestled it against her lips before she started to sink back.
The curious vixen planted her hands on the altar and leaned in for a closer look as the feline's body began to swallow the initial taper of that slick, red monster, inch by inch pushing into her, the vixen's eyes growing as quickly as the feline was stretching. She could hear the slimy, failed adhesion of fluids meeting fluids and as the apex of his thickness neared her body, the building strain of Marmalade fitting it all inside her.
She didn't even notice that her hand had fallen back to her vixenhood and fingers pushed into her warmth while she watched the strenuous coupling as her first witness to coitus. She moved to the side of the altar, minding her breasts to gaze on the brother she had fawned for, his attention now lost in lust with the sharp-tongued witch.
He was loud in his enthusiastic pleasure but Marmalade scolded him with short breath. "Don't push. I do the work," she commanded, sounding strong despite the clear strain in her face and body. It wasn't easy for her to take him. That much was obvious. She knew her brothers were big but perhaps felines were less suited to such a size? Maybe it was just her? But Mother must have taken the whole thing with Joseph as no room remained between them and she seemed to have been quite enjoying herself. At least until their interruption.
Anastasia's thumb was pinched along her straightened forefinger with her clitoris trapped between, her middle and ring fingers slipped up underneath it, trying to imagine such girth pushing into her. She'd never felt so ready for sex and allowed her thoughts to drift to her options. There were nine remaining Duodecaplets but getting one of them alone would be all but impossible. Duayne was too young, Stone would be too rough and Darren, the stallion would surely be far too big. Zarron... she shuddered in disgust with pity for her sister before she returned her attention to the moment. She stepped back around behind them to watch the pistoning penetration.
Marmalade was over the thickest part and it sounded like it now, with more grunting than groaning from her chest. "Hurry up and cum, you oaf," the feline complained and the young man winced and shrugged at the command. Maybe the blank expressions afterward had been justified after all.
"It doesn't seem so bad," she tried to say to herself but couldn't hear her own words. There was a thrill of excitement, hovering near the couple, unaware of her and her illicit activities. Perhaps after this, she would wander over to the Duodecaplet's chambers, still invisible and watch them bathe. Perhaps she would even crawl into bed with one of them.
The young vixen pushed her groin into the cold, stone corner of the altar, applying pressure below her fingers which thrust more aggressively. Her colossal chest heaved over hungry lungs, unseen and unheard by all. She glanced over to Zarron who looked on, transfixed but he showed no obvious arousal or self-stimulation. The penetration grabbed her eyes again and they moved easier than before, back and forth like the rocking sea.
Warmth started to grow in her lower belly and she panted excitedly, looking over the other three, oblivious to her while her body felt ready to burst in ecstasy. She held her breath for a long moment as the heat swelled until it formed a wave of bliss that washed through her, like a poured cup suddenly overflowing. She tensed her every muscle, bracing for it before the tingling warmth of it enveloped her, soothing waves flooding out from her groin in all directions. Her knees weakened and she planted her free hand on the dias, leaning on it for support, brows high and her breath ravenous for air.
"I should pull out! I'm going to cum!" the brother declared with some panic and started to move but Zarron snapped to attention. He reached out to hold the half-wolf's shoulders down to the altar, alarming the young man. Marmalade reacted with a similar panic and brought her weight down on him, wincing as the motion pushed him deeper.
"You pull out now and your mind, your soul... your very essence... just a splatter on the floor," she purred through gritted teeth.
Alarmed, Anastasia took a shaky step back then another, watching the two of them in profile again. The young wolfox's eyes darted with some panic but not enough to overshadow an impending, teenage orgasm. The feline rid him with vigor, clenching in a growl as she thrust down on him. "My.... what?"
She didn't answer and his body didn't make her wait any longer. He tremored and gasped before his fur stood on end, crackling with static. Was that normal? What followed was certainly not.
At first it looked like thin wafts of steam rising from his eyes but they thickened into an unnatural, bluish color and increasingly opaque, like smoke. His gaze darted to hers as the wisps snaked between clumps of his damp, matted fur before an entire, ethereal doppleganger of the young man started to lag behind his convulsions. It fell further behind and drifted slowly skyward, moving with more of it's own agency, independent of the physical body. But the blueish, spirit wolfox didn't get any higher than the top of her head before it was caught in her attraction instead on the ceiling's. Only then did the ghostly fox look down, cupping his ethereal muzzle with ethereal paws.
The wide-eyed, convulsing young man beneath her fell limp while the fox-shaped essence that had escaped him flailed now. It reaching desperately but was unable to hold anything in it's intangible hands. It turned around in place by an unseen forces, pulled and pushed while it tried to resist. The struggle was futile and his pose was pushed into reluctant conformity with the feline's posture before it became one with her.
Her short, thin coat rose with static then and the blue, spirit fox faded back into nothing, shrinking into her. The crackle of energy filled the room beyond just Marmalade, lifting Anastasia's fur as well. Then the feline slumped forward, panting, her hands braced on the breathing but otherwise static, young man beneath her. His expression was not post-coital but every bit as blank as the other two of them had been.
And that was the effect of the ritual. His mind. His soul. His very essence. It belonged to Marmalade now. Just like their two brothers before him. Like her five siblings at the sorceress' home soon would be.
Such magics were dangerous and forbidden, Zarron had many times told her sternly. From a man like him, the warning had especial weight to her: magic should not be used to enslave. His twisted morality had allowed hundreds of her brothers and sisters to be sold as children, servants and slaves but even he seemed incapable of an act this heinous. At least until she saw him be an accomplice to this one.
Anastasia stepped back again, reeling away in an urge to escape, feeling the dark energy in the room of what had just transpired. Her hand held her abdomen, which was churning fiercely again. Another step back found no ground. She wobbled back on the second level of steps, off balance yet again and getting worse. Her stomach sloshed as her bosom did and she found the next step but the following disappeared with her gaining interia. She was falling now. And midway through the air, she was also throwing up.
The naked, teenage vixen stumbled off the last level of the platform and into the air. She crashed backwards into the pillar with the perching gargoyle, her immense, wobbling breasts coming into her own view after a small amount amount of vomit escaped but thankfully was outrun in mid air. She hit the pillar hard and it fell back while the gargoyle atop lurched forward. Zarron and Marmalade both turned their heads, nearly in slow motion as the statue fell, clipping her shoulder hard on the way down before it shattered on the stone floor.
Fire swelled in Zarron's eyes in slow-motion recognition, a stormcloud of destructive rage that she'd never seen from him before.
"Aaaaaannnnna..."
He was calling her name as he raised his fists, clenching them so tightly that they tremored. Never before had she seen his total loss of control. She didn't know his true power or age but she knew that she was in terrible, terrible trouble if not mortal peril to see him in such an fury.
"...Staysssshhhhh...."
Marmalade was still frozen in the fact that she had been decieved at all, reminding the young vixen that for any lack of spine Zarron may have had with the young-looking and pretty ritualist, he was the veteran sorcerer.
Ana needed to leave. Somewhere safe. Anywhere else. This moment was the last advantage she would have over him. Magics churned around his fists, swirling, brownish maelstroms of a spell he had never revealed to her. Dimensional magic? Destructive unweaving? Would he send her to a pocket realm or scramble her body like an egg yolk? Teleport her into the stratosphere and let her fall to her death? He didn't seem to be in the mental state to ensure any kind of reasonable punishment. Her curiosity spiked even with her life in danger but the adrenaline retook her focus.
Escape. Safety. The teleport sigil she had drawn in her bed chambers! But that would only buy her a few more moments. Unless it was her bedroom back in the Pale Lands! He didn't know that she could even use the spell! If he had found out about the hidden sigils, she would surely be disciplined for them so he couldn't know.
"...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"
It was her last chance before her fate would be in Zarron's hands. If her mother and Joseph were standing in the room over the sigil at that moment, all three of them would be merged into a monstrosity of interdimensionally overlapped flesh and bone before dying, either mercifully fast or in torturous, prolonged agony. But that off-chance was far less likely to kill her or end her life as she knew it than whatever Zarron was about to do. With a tense moment, she closed her eyes and nodded sharply, focusing on the sigil in her mind.

* * *

At first, Anastasia could not open her eyes. She felt nothing for a moment but feared for the worst regardless. Was she in one of those pocket dimensions Zarron spoke of? Did she even still have eyes to open or did he turn her into the gargoyle she had shattered?
But as the adrenaline thinned in her blood, sharp pain throbbed from her shoulder wjere the gargoyle had hit her. She at the very least, still had a shoulder and so one eye cracked cautiously open.
It was her bed chambers in The Pale Lands! Thousands of miles from her Master's Estate in a room smelling of ozone, she had successfully teleported across thousands of miles of land and sea. She gave an excited smile of disbelief before falling back on the floor. "There isn't a safe way back to the Pale Lands..." she repeated what he'd said after fleeing from her mother the second time. Her mouth curled into a smile before popping with a laugh of relief. "Not for you, Zarron." It was a relief to hear her own voice again.
She rose carefully and looked at herself in the full body mirror in one corner of her bedroom. Breaking the spells had erased the runes from her body as expected and there wasn't a trace of the charcoal drawings. She turned to her wardrobe and fetched another purple robe from it, this one a heavier material, more suitable for the winter that awaited her outside.
Once dressed, she stepped out into the hall. "Joseph? Mother?" she called out but there was no answer. She descended the spiral stairs with her usual care, down to the main floor. She yelled for them several more times but there was nothing in return. A quick detection spell revealed that the house was in fact, empty. They had already gone.
Her stomach gurgled again, reminding her of the time since her last meal, accelerated from the unintended emptying of it. She walked over to the couch and slumped down, only to realize that the corner legs of it had broken off and the whole thing was crooked, including now her.
Anastasia sighed and folded her arms atop the giant shelf of her ungainly bosom. She looked around and blew out a breath. She was far, far away from her Master or the fate he had planned for her. Quite unexpectedly, she was free.
"Okay. Now what?"
THE END