Chapter 185: Heat, Horns, and Hurried Hands

A deep, guttural groan erupts from a room deep in the Pleasure Palace, rolling out through the walls and down the perfumed hallway into the waiting area, where every woman seated on the plush velvet benches gasps in unison, hands flying to mouths, chests, and strings of pearls alike.

The waiting room itself has settled into a strange, hushed rhythm over the course of the morning, polite conversation dissolving every few minutes into wide-eyed silence whenever another sound drifts down the hall, followed by a fresh round of nervous, excited whispering once it fades.

Maribelle bites back a laugh. "That’s the four one in an hour. He’s relentless."

Beside her, Eris is already quivering, thighs pressed tight together, rubbing restlessly at herself through the fabric of her clothes, a thin sheen of sweat gathering along her collarbone despite the room’s cool air.

"I can’t wait anymore," she growls, low and strained. "I’m going to burst if I don’t get him inside me right now."

Sparks begin crackling faintly across the curve of her horns, small arcs of crimson energy jumping between the tips with every ragged breath, her tail lashing hard enough to rattle the small table beside her chair and send a teacup clattering off its edge.

"You’re twenty-fourth in line." Maribelle says, laying a calming hand on her arm. "Just eleven more to go."

"I need it now!" Eris snarls, voice dropping into something deep and layered, ancient and resonant, like a second throat speaking underneath her own, older than the room itself.

A woman two benches over faints clean away.

Lula rounds the corner just then, takes one look at the scene, and freezes. Maribelle shoots her a desperate, pleading look.

Lula nods once, squares her shoulders, smooths down the front of her dress, and turns to the room with all the theatrical flourish she can summon, spreading both arms wide like an actress commanding a stage.

"So sorry, everyone... it looks like we have an emergency situation." She lowers her voice, grave, letting the pause stretch just long enough for the whole room to lean in. "I’ve seen this before. Tiger-kin women, deep in heat. Tore an entire waiting room apart before we got her to Pip in time. Splintered the reception desk clean in half, if you can believe it." She sighs, wistful, pressing a hand to her own chest. "One of the most beautiful sessions he’s ever given, honestly. Nearly brought half the staff to tears watching through the door. Truly saved that poor woman’s life."

The waiting room swoons collectively, a few of the women fanning themselves harder, one murmuring that she hopes she gets "an emergency" like that someday too.

Eris snarls again, baring teeth. "My thighs are aching. I need him now!"

"I’ve genuinely never seen a case this severe," Lula says, bowing apologetically to the room. "But she’s in desperate medical need. Please excuse us."

The women nod along, murmuring their sympathies, wishing Eris a swift and thorough healing session with Pip.

Down the hall, past a row of closed doors each humming faintly with residual magic, Penelo and Raikya emerge from Pip’s chamber carrying his last client. A drow businesswoman lay face-down across a stretcher, backside raised high into the air, faint wisps of residual magic still steaming gently off her bare cheeks while a blissed-out, unconscious smile was fixed permanently on her face. Her fine silk coat, still bearing the seal of some powerful merchant guild, lies discarded and forgotten in a heap beside the door.

Lula catches up to them at a jog. "Where’s Pip?"

"Still inside," Raikya says.

"Emergency! Two doors down. We need him now... Eris is about to pop!"

Raikya’s ears flick up. "Pop how, exactly?"

"I genuinely don’t want to find out." Lula says.

"He hasn’t had his cleanup yet." Penelo winces. "He’s not ready."

"Does it look like I care about ready?" Lula snaps, glancing anxiously back over her shoulder toward the waiting room. "There is a demon general back there vibrating hard enough to crack her own horns."

Maribelle, trailing just behind, grins wide. "Leave that part to me. I’ll have him gleaming in under two minutes." She darts past all three of them into the room and slams the door shut before Lula can follow, then pokes her head back out just long enough to add, "Keep Eris busy." before vanishing again and locking it behind her.

Lula stares at the closed door. "How, exactly, am I supposed to—"

"You’ll figure it out!" comes Maribelle’s muffled voice from inside.

Lula groans, dragging both hands down her face, smoke curling faintly from her nostrils, tail slamming against the floorboards hard enough to leave a small dent in the wood.

Inside the small, sunlit chamber, a simple space compared to the rest of the Palace’s excess, just a bed, a basin of fresh water, and neatly folded linens waiting for the next client, motes of steam still curl faintly off the bedsheets from whatever left them so thoroughly rumpled minutes earlier.

Pip gives a happy chirp at the sight of Maribelle and immediately hops up off the bed, where he’d been resting quietly through his usual post-session wait, plating gleaming faintly despite the mess still clinging to him.

She presses him back down gently. "Relax. I’ve only got two minutes." A wicked grin spreads across her face. "Let’s see how much I can get out of you in one."

She hops up onto the bed after him, tearing her own clothes off in one smooth motion, and folds herself down over him. Face buried at his crotch, her own settling snug against his faceplate.

She taps impatiently at his pelvis. "Hurry up." Gasping, biting down on her lip, she watches the plating slide open and his length rise free, glowing, thick veins of gold light pulsing beneath translucent wraith-glass, bigger and thicker than she remembers from last time. "Shitting sabers! You’ve grown!" she murmurs, breathless, "In more ways than one." before dragging her tongue slow from base to tip, savoring the faint hum of warmth radiating off him.

Pip shudders beneath her, hips twitching upward on instinct.

"Keep those hands busy while you’re at it." she adds, muffled, already sinking her mouth over him.

He gives an approving beep, and thick tendrils of water and fingers of swirling air begin curling slowly out from both palms, weaving up along her thighs and over the curve of her hips, tracing warm, glowing patterns across her skin that leave her shivering with every pass as they slither up between her legs.

Maribelle chokes down a gasp, already swallowing most of his length, every muscle in her throat working against him, one hand braced flat against his thigh for leverage while the other grips the sheets white-knuckled. The tendrils climb higher, curling slow and deliberate between her thighs, pulsing as she lets out a muffled moan around him, the vibration of her throat alone enough to punch a startled chirp out of Pip.

She pulls back with a wet pop, gagging, wiping her mouth with the back of one hand as her chest heaves for breath.

"This..." she mutters, glancing toward the door where muffled snarling was already building on the other side of it, "is going to take a lot longer than two minutes."