Reynard Arderne was having a grand evening. Sure, he had a pair of his favored sluts servicing him during what he expected, despite the promise of some new, rare item, would be another vaguely memorable night of drinks and victories at the Creature Marketplace, but that was an everyday occurrence. He was wealthy enough to buy everything sold that evening; why shouldn't he indulge?
No, what made tonight especially grand was that he'd finally bought something that would be capable of replacing his beloved Delsanra.
Well, he mused, perhaps beloved was a bit exaggerated. She'd been with him for a decade, though, and he'd seldom wanted for any others in that time, content instead to sell most of his purchases from the marketplace to his contacts in other nations for inflated fees. Only citizens of Charus City could make purchases at the marketplace, and none were keen to invite foreigners to attend as guests. Naturally Reynard's idea had sparked imitators, but they were simple enough to snuff out. He simply purchased everything they bid on. It truly paid to be a visionary in this market, and his surplus of coin was proof enough of that fact.
He didn't sell all of his purchases, of course. No, that would be foolish. He'd had a natural comprehension of the matters of economics from an early age, and it was easy to surmise what the result of too many exported items would be. Better to allow the nobles and others from his kingdom to purchase most of what they wanted, then gift some of his own acquisitions to those he wished to be owed favors from.
And that same gifting was, more or less, how he'd lost Delsanra. Reynard frowned—an impressive feat considering the skill of the tongues and mouths at work on him at that moment.
One moment of ill-advised decision-making after a night of heavy drinking, and it had happened. What if he had a child with her, he'd thought at that time. He'd had some delusion that they were in love due to the dwarven spirits, and he'd asked if she would bear his child. Obviously she would. She would do anything he asked.
But it had been the excitement and joy she'd shown when he asked that had pushed him over the edge and caused him to request that she unweave the magical pregnancy ward on her womb. Their coupling that evening had been full of pleasure and happiness, he recalled as the memories came back through the drunken haze, but it could not account for the shock, and fear, and regret he'd felt when he awoke next to her the following day.
He'd been close. Had he asked, she would have done it.
But she'd said it was a boy.
Reynard already had a daughter from his late wife, but he'd always wanted someone to leave his legacy with at some point in the distant future when he finally passed on to meet the Goddesses. The girl was everything he'd wanted in a daughter, but she'd had no head for business. She lacked a certain ruthlessness that was necessary to succeed. He'd long imagined that it was something a son of his would possess.
He'd wept in Delsanra's confused bosom that day, knowing that he could not ask her to terminate his future heir.
And so they'd separated. He left Delsanra to his son, aware that the boy would need a mother. His wife, Odelina, had died over a decade earlier, and he'd never remarried. He would not leave his heir to some uncaring maids or caretakers, as some nobles did. No, he'd wanted the boy to have some semblance of a family that Reynard himself was too busy to reliably provide.
It hadn't turned out as he'd expected. By the time he'd realized his mistake of giving an adolescent boy a completely obedient long-ear, it was already too late. The boy had grown too attached, and in all the wrong ways.
There were few who knew the true relationship between the two, and it had been simple enough for Reynard to silence them. He was uncomfortable with the situation, but it seemed harmless enough. Tomas showed a normal interest in human girls and occasionally other long-ears, even, and he was reputed to be a bit of a virgin-hunter, just as his father had been in his own youth. Truly they were alike in so many ways.
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Reynard grabbed his drink and tipped the remainder down his throat.
Neither of them had taken it well when it had been announced that the third Hero, Normannus, was to be wed to the fourth princess. The ceremony itself had been delayed some time, as per the request of the Hero himself while he made certain she was the one that the Goddess had told him to marry, but it was clearly not something that would be changed according to the rumors and tales he'd heard of the sounds of pleasure that echoed from the princess's bedchamber nearly every night.
Nor, it seemed, did Tomas have much interest in the girl once her purity was known to be gone. Reynard had held some hope that his son could finally bridge the gap and tie their family to the royal line, but more and more it seemed the boy had simply been infatuated by a pretty face and sizable bosoms which had not yet lain with a man.
The idea troubled him. Did his son not realize that royal blood was the only thing that all the coin in the world could not buy? The girl's unwed older sisters were quite out of the question; they were annoying, aggravating shrews, the both of them, and he couldn't stand to listen to either one. He wouldn't inflict that on his only son. No, it would have had to have been the fourth princess.
Isemeine was quite pretty. Reynard at least would acknowledge that much. Stunning, even. But if that had been the only attraction, then why had Tomas feigned interest for so long? Why not simply use one of the long-ears or other creatures from the marketplace? They were far prettier, he thought, and they certainly needed no courting or romance to be taken to bed. Why, the floor of his balcony at this moment was practically a giant puddle, and that was only the result of two of them pleasuring him.
If anything, Reynard was disappointed that his son hadn't been able to hook the princess much sooner. Sure, she was a bit of an eccentric, he knew from his very brief encounters with her as well as the plentiful information regarding how she spent her time, but she was only an eighteen year-old girl. Girls were trivial to woo. And if that took too long, a slip of a certain tonic into a lady's drink would have her panting with desire in minutes, and a girl that young would likely be too addled and dim-witted to recognize the aftermath as anything but the fires of a newly-blossoming love.
But Reynard wasn't interested in thinking about love. He'd loved Odelina, and she'd passed away from old age nearly forty years ago. He'd had Delsanra for a time to fill the brown-haired hole that his wife had left in his life, but now she was long gone as well. Perhaps this new long-ear, whom he considered to be far prettier than either, would remain with him longer. He'd need to come up with a good name for her, though. He could ask whether she recalled her birth name, of course—as Delsanra had—but he suspected this one would not be able to, just like the pair he'd brought with him tonight.
He gripped the edge of the balcony as the nameless long-ear kneeling before him began swallowing repeatedly.
His son kept coming to mind, however, and it was a problem he just…
Or could he? An epiphany struck Reynard Arderne at that moment of newly-acquired clarity. It was a bit underhanded, sure, but Isemeine Charus should have belonged to his son. She should have been the bridge between his family and royalty. Stealing her away from some outworlder was well within Tomas's rights as the one who'd been successfully courting her for so long previously, wasn't it? She hadn't been wed to the third Hero yet.
Yes, Reynard mused, nodding to himself as the idea continued to develop in his mind. If his son could somehow manage to impregnate the fourth princess, her pending marriage to the Hero would surely be called off. Royalty would never terminate a pregnancy. It would be a scandal, of course, but nothing a well-timed infusion of coin to the royal coffers couldn't remedy. And it would be so easy with how carelessly she drove about the city in her steamcar without even a single bodyguard to protect her. Bystanders could even be bribed or produced in order to recall that it had been her to initiate the encounter, lessening the blow to his son.
The girl might face some hardship as well, but she was already disgraced, removed from the line of succession. Her reputation was practically in shambles within the court. This would be in her best interests, though she might not realize it immediately. No one had the resources to challenge the crown save for the Arderne family. She might even regain her chance at succeeding the throne with his formidable backing!
Reynard Arderne had much to think on, and his thoughts were so focused on creating a plan of action around his genius new idea that he'd completely forgotten that there was one last auction about to begin.