The next few hours were almost impossible for me. All I could do is hover and watch as Brandr dealt with taking care of Isabella, without being of any real assistance myself. I tried to keep myself busy by repeatedly attempting to possess both girls so Cloudme’s skills would go up, but I always got that same “insufficient skill” message. The only positive thing I can say is that I was improving my Spiritual Manipulation faster than ever before now, which was helping me move and push Cloudme along with much less effort.

“My Lord,” Brandr’s quiet voice could still come to me, even while I was dead and I was grateful for that. “I’ve gotten her tied firmly. May I ask why I needed to use wire instead of but simple rope? She normally doesn’t have the strength to worry about escaping from any bonds, I don’t believe. Has she grown stronger?”

“Not that I noticed,” I told her mind to mind. “I don’t believe her physical strength has increased any, but rope probably wouldn’t be a good thing to attempt to use – she can produce fire and burn her way free. The wire should be much less flammable, I hope.”

“If she’s not stronger,” Brandr asked, “why did you allow her to kill you? Could you not have held and restrained her?”

“Truth is,” I confessed, “I probably could have overpowered her. Isabella has little strength, and not the most health. Had I pushed her away, or head-butted her a few times, chances are I could have defeated her.”

“So…” Brandr started to ask.

“To what purpose?” I interrupted and answered. “If I simply had her trapped in my arms, how would that save her mind? Her heart? Even now, all you’ve done is restrain her body. What will we do if she doesn’t regain her senses? How does tying her up help her at all? It helps us stay safer from her, but how’s it actually help her?”

“It doesn’t” I answered my own question.

“I was hoping that by allowing her to feed,” I continued, “Isabella would come to her senses. I don’t think she would ever want to harm either of us, and I was hoping that as her hunger faded and my life grew low, she’d snap out of it and regain herself. I’d suffer the pain of a thousand deaths by walking up your blade to try to reach your heart. I’d also suffer the pain of a thousand deaths by her fangs and her hunger, if there’s the slightest chance I can reach her heart at the end of it.”

“I truly serve a great Lord,” came Brandr’s quiet voice to me, so soft in my head I could barely hear it.

“Not that great,” I replied ruefully. “After all, even dying didn’t save her. I was hoping that my death would shock her back to her senses, even if the pain she was causing didn’t, but it didn’t work.”

“Then why allow her to feed the second time, and die again?” Brandr asked gently.

“We’ve both fed her in the past,” I answered. “She has more mana than I do health now, but it’s never been more than twice my health. I was hoping that by allowing her to feed the second time, she would have her fill, lose her hunger, and come back to us. I really wasn’t expecting or prepared to die then, and I don’t think I would’ve. Isabella passed out when her energy rose to full. Unfortunately, her fangs were still buried in my neck and I was bleeding too quickly to heal. I bled out, which is why I needed you to come and pull us apart. I didn’t want my corpse to harm her when the fires of rebirth consume me.”

“A truly great Lord,” was Brandr’s soft, but firm response. I don’t know what I’d done that she viewed so greatly – all I did was stand there and get myself killed twice in a row – but I wasn’t going to argue with her. Isabella was always making fun of me or teasing me, in some way or another it seemed, so it felt nice to have someone praise me for a change.

Brandr kept watch over Isabella silently, lost in her own thoughts, and I tried to pull up Isabella’s stat window to pass the time. It didn’t work. Either whatever had happened to her had broken that ability, or something else funky was preventing it with the system. I could still pull up Brandr’s windows and view them, but Isabella’s icons weren’t currently responding.

“Brand, can you pull up Isabella’s stat window? Or her skills or spells?” It never hurts to ask.

“I cannot,” was her soft reply. “Even in the best of times, I cannot. I am not married to her; only to you.”

OH! That was a shock in its own way. I’d always just assumed that all three of us were married. We were all three quite intimate together. But thinking about it, I did have two different Newlywed statuses, and Isabella and Brandr only had one each, and I was the only one amongst us who had the Polygamist title. I had two wives, but they only had me. I’ll have to think on that a bit more in the future. I think I was incorrectly taking some things for granted in the past; but for now those musings could wait.

I have to admit, I was quite happy to feel the pain of my corpse burning and then me being reborn this time around. Sure, it was the same intense agony as ever before, but at least I was back in the real world once more and could interact with Brandr and Isabella again.

The moment my body had reformed and the fires had died out around me, Brandr came over and wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me. I’m not certain what I’d did to deserve such a warm welcome back to the land of the dead, but it made me smile and I stroked her hair gently while she laid up against me.

“Here, My Lord,” Brandr lifted the tiny loose Santa-top and exposed both her breasts fully to me. “Drink,” she commanded.

I shook my head in embarrassment. “Let me check on Isabella.” Just what has gotten into her? Is it something contagious that is making the girls behave so oddly? I was getting really worried!

“Isn’t my Lord always hungry upon being rebirthed?” Brandr asked gently. “And did you not alter me so that I could help relieve that hunger in such a manner? Come. Feed, my Lord.” Softly, she pulled my head down and this time I didn’t resist. I was always ravenous after being reborn and this time wasn’t any different.

For several long moments, I let her milk curb my appetite, and then I finally leaned up and gave her a gentle kiss across the lips. “Thank you,” I told her. “I’ll be fine now, and we still have Isabella to tend to.” Brandr just nodded, smiled lightly, and then leaned up and gently returned the kiss to me. She had a contented smile on her face as I pulled her up and hugged her tightly for a few moments before finally turning to go sit down beside Isabella.

Worried that it wouldn’t work, I tapped Isabella’s icon at the corner of my vision, and I was relieved to see her stat window pop up before me.

Name: Oathbound StarChildeTitle: Energy HogAge: 16Class: LifestealerLevel: 8CP: 23STR: 1SYI:14WIL: 15DEX: 15MYS: 26PRE: 6CON: 15SPR: -22LUC: 10STA: 190Status: Newlywed[td]HP: 90MP: 468SP: 0PD: 1DR: 0MR: 0

Looking over her stats, I was shocked to see that she’d almost caught up to me in level, but nothing really seemed out of sort to me. She had a huge mana pool, and I was surprised to see that she’d improved her DEX, CON, and WIL all up to a 15. Those seemed more like physical traits to me, and I suppose I saw her as mainly a wizard or bookworm. The CON I could understand, as it gave her more life and kept her alive.

The DEX, and I might be wrong on the reason, I think she might have trained up simply because of Brandr. Isabella used to enjoy stretching and showing off all her yummy feminine parts to keep my attention. But now, with Brandr’s intense DEX and double jointedness, she couldn’t shock me half as much with her yoga practice. I think she might have been training DEX as a way to compete more with Brandr, and if so, I was going to have to pay more attention and stare at her more often to make her happy.

As for the WIL, I think I understand where the need to increase it comes from. I’ve even been considering possibly raising it, when (if) I ever level up again. Seeing the two ‘weak ones’ with zero will has affected all of us, and I don’t think any of us want to ever become anything like them. When I level, I very well might spend my next bunch of points to take my WIL on up to at least normal. I don’t like thinking it’s lower than average at all, and I can understand the feeling of wanting to increase it almost as much as CON after seeing those girls. CON helps keep our bodies alive; WIL helps keep our minds that way. Both are things of large importance to me now.

As I sat there beside Isabella, I gently stroked her face. Brandr had used the wire to tie Isabella’s hands and feet together, and then rope to wrap around her waist, and pin the wings tight against her body. From what I could tell, Isabella had changed quite a bit once again. She looked larger, more mature somehow. I think her legs were longer, and her breasts were actually a few sizes larger.

To be honest, they were what I’d normally consider “too large” and a little abnormally unattractive. I liked breasts that were a handful, or maybe just a little larger; these were bigger, rounder, and fuller than that. She had quite impressive mounds now, and I didn’t know enough to know how to rate them. I guess you could say that I liked a nice full D-Cup set of breasts, and if I had to guess, Isabella was now probably a massive F-Cup! Isabella’s breasts were larger than what I truly liked, and her hair was longer than what I preferred now, but I really didn’t care about those things.

I was just concerned about whether she was going to OK again or not.

For the next several hours, I simply sat there, held her, and tried to send her calm, comforting thoughts – even though my own were worried and disjointed. Finally, Isabella started to groan and stir, and after what I think may have been the longest wait in my life, she opened her eyes and looked around. Icy blue, bloodshot eyes, which seemed to focus in and out as they tried to adjust to her surroundings.

“Dra.. Drake?” Isabella’s voice was weak and cracked, but it was her voice once again. I felt like jumping for joy! Even though her appearance was still changed, at least she was speaking to us and not just howling like an insane demon-beast now!

“I’m here! I’m here!” I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead gently. Those damn horns were in the way almost, so I suppose I could add those to another one of the minor inconveniences which I didn’t approve of fully with this new form. “Are you OK now?” I asked.

“I hurt,” Isabella told us. “And my whole body feels out of whack, as if electricity keeps moving haphazardly throughout it from one place to another at random. I really don’t feel so good.” A few tears were slowly leaking from her eyes and running down her face.

“What happened?” I asked, while starting to undo the ropes and wires which had her tied. It didn’t appear that she was going to attack anyone in her current state, and I didn’t want to see her tied up and like that.

“I deciphered the skill book,” she weakly told us, “and it offered me the exact same choices as before. Lifebringer, Painbringer, and Lifestealer. I figured it was a chance to change class again, and I wasn’t interested in doing that, so I simply chose Lifestealer once more.”

Isabella paused for a moment before continuing quietly. “That’s when it started to change me again, and I knew something was wrong. I tried to yell at you for help, but there was such pain and agony that I blacked out. I don’t know what happened after that.”

Is she didn’t remember killing me; I wasn’t going to say anything.

“You killed My Lord.” Brandr’s thoughts were quiet, but somehow hard. “I was going to end you, but he wouldn’t allow it. Thank him for the life you still have; he is a greater man than I. Had he not sent me away, I would have ended you the first time you took his life, and there would not have been a chance for you to do it a second time. Be warned. I shall train the speed of my blade so that someday it will match the speed of my heart, and then should the time come again, I will strike you down before you can harm my Lord another time, and before he can stop me with his magnanimosity.”

Having said all that she needed to say on the subject, Brandr turned and coldly walked back towards the stairs. “I shall check on the others, my Lord. Simply call for me, if you need me or my blade.”

Isabella’s eyes were huge as she stared at me. Tears began to flow freely down her face, to fall unnoticed upon her large mounds of breasts. “I.. I killed you?” She could barely get the words out.

“Twice.” Sighing, I simply told her the truth. “But, I don’t blame you. I don’t know what happened, but you were lost to your hunger. You were like a starving person who gnaws the flesh from their own arm in an attempt to hold off death. I could’ve stopped you, but you needed to feed. I choose to let you feed on me. I didn’t fight you. I didn’t try to stop you. I chose to let you feed. Don’t you dare blame yourself for my deaths. I take full responsibility for them.”

Isabella simply shook her head from side to side and cried heavily as she tossed herself forward into my arms. I’d managed to untie her hands and arms, but her legs and wings were still entwined and trapped – not that she seemed to care. Isabella simply wanted in hold me in her arms, and cry, so that’s what I let her do for several long moments.

Worrying that she might cry herself to sleep again, I finally leaned down and smacked her across her ass – several times! The crying got harder as she buried her head into my shoulder, but I didn’t relent. This was a lesson I’d learned from my mother – sometimes it takes a pain to the flesh to ease a pain in the heart. The dumbass system would probably count it as me harming her in some way and finally free her of her oath, but I didn’t care. Without her thinking she’d paid some sort of punishment for her action, I was afraid she’d never forgive herself.

‘Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.’ – I don’t know where I’d heard such a phrase, but I believed it, and thus I pushed Isabella away from me and down upon the ground. And there I kicked her. And I stomped her. And then I kicked her again. And I continued to kick and stomp her until her health reached the point where she passed out, and then I sank down and pulled her up into my arms to hold her close.

Heaven forgive me, she might hate me now, but I knew no other way to ease her guilt. If she viewed the beating I gave her as being over the top and hated me for it, it’d ease the guilt she felt towards herself. How can you be upset that you killed someone who just kicked and beat you until you passed out?

Anger is best directed outwards than inwards. When we hate ourselves, we have a terrible time ever forgiving ourselves. We judge no one else as harshly as we judge ourselves. At least, that’s what I always believed.

I just hope I didn’t make a mistake. If Isabella hates me forever, I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself. Lost, and with a heavy heart, I simply wrapped my arms around her and cried while holding her. I don’t know…

I don’t think I know a damn thing anymore!

All I could do is lie there, hold her and rock her in my arms, and pray that things might get better soon. I really had no clue what the hell to do any more!