Mature Content Warning: This chapter is fairly tame, but it includes concepts that are adult in nature. Please be advised that it might not be to your liking.

Author's Notes: This is a ridiculously short chapter. However, it serves its purpose well. It gives a little backstory on how John became a bastard over time, and lets us get to know a bit more about Tera. This chapter sets the stage for the rest of the story. :)

Ortlande, the largest city in the Southern Marche. It was home to over four million people, human and Demi-Human alike. Home to the Orange Cup, and numerous fighting arenas, Ortlande was the first destination for many people in the Merikan Demi-Human sports leagues.

If you won the cup, you won the right to challenge the other major tournaments without further qualifiers. In that respect, tournament winners could be seen as people who were granted a permanent pass to entry into the national tournament circuit. Those without a tournament win on their hands would need to pay entrance fees and go through several qualifying matches just to earn the right to be placed on the official roster for that individual tournament.

John and his harem drove up to the city gates at noon and had to wait as each vehicle entering the city was searched. Ortlande was under a form of martial law while the tournament was in place. Due to the proliferation of high-powered Demi-Humans in town, police presence had to be high as well. At any moment a stray Hyperion Wave, or a rogue Tsunami might crash down on the city courtesy of an annoyed Demi-Human.

“Master, what are we doing after we get into town?” asked Kara. The Steel Valkyrie had finally stepped down from her spot on the gun position to stretch her beautiful legs. They would probably have a least another hour before they could move forward to the next check point on the road into town.

John leaned his head out the window. “We’ll report to the local headquarters of my sponsor. They have a room set aside for us.”

“Ah, good. It would have been nearly impossible to get a room anywhere in the city otherwise.”

The master and his alpha continued to chat freely. The conversation was moderately pleasant and professional. Yet, in the eyes of one person watching it was quite frustrating.

Tera looked at the alpha of her current harem and fought down a sigh. She had no personal interest in their master, but it would have been nice to be able to chat so freely with the man. She had rarely had a chance to talk to a human without being ordered around.

Kara and John, two cold people who thought only of their positions, Tera could not understand it. The banter between them was almost friendly at times.

“Doesn’t matter...” mumbled the Blazine. She pressed her thighs together and fought down a growing urge that she knew would need to be attended to, soon. Her master had barely touched her in the short few weeks since he had claimed her. It had kept her from regressing, but that was a concern that she could not overlook. As much as she hated the man, she needed him to fulfill his obligation.

Tera looked away from the politely chatting duo then looked toward Mindi. The Kraken was doing worse than she was, she was certain. She had steadfastly refused to ask for a taming. John never asked them, and left it up to them to make such a decision.

The aquatic Demi-Human had not spoken all morning, and would occasionally slide her hands between her thighs when she thought that no one was looking.

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Chapter 7: ...Master

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The spacious townhouse on the outskirts of town proved to be the perfect accommodation for John and his team. The six bedroom house was quite spacious, and everyone had their own room. Compared to living out of tents and the back of a truck, it was quite a luxurious location.

The private residential area that they had been granted access to sported a fishing pond and a swimming pool, two things that Mindi loved greatly. As a Kraken, the water was like her second home.

Honey enjoyed the flowers at the corporate garden, though she refused to go there unless John went with her. That had been a source of confusion and annoyance for the man, but he had accepted it as one of her immature quirks.

Kara liked the military style gun range, with pop up targets. She had been itching to get a little target practice in and had been unable to scratch that particular itch until now.

At the moment, Kara was at the gun range and Mindi was swimming at the pool. That left John, Tera, and Honey to walk through the park.

The succubuzz flittered about quickly, the sights and scents of the garden made her quite happy. While she wandered around enjoying the flowers, her harem sister Tera was attempting to bring up a very important topic with her hated master.

The Blazine started to speak, but stopped. How could she broach the subject to the man? What did she say to him? Was she supposed to say something like, “Excuse me, asshole, could you please stick your hateful penis in my butt?”

She thought of such things and occasionally fought down a giggle. Tera was in a bad situation at present. John aggravated her to no end, but she needed to be tamed. The lack of human interaction was quite draining on her psyche.

Had he been a more kind and caring man she might have been able to survive without his touch for several more weeks. However, he was quite cold and logical most of the time.

Tera risked a glance at the man. What she saw confused her. He had a strangely focused expression on his face. She turned to see what he was looking at, and of course it was Honey. What was it about that insect that fascinated him so much?

When the man actually cracked the barest hint of a smile, her eyes widened in surprise. Was he actually in a good mood?

She could not stand it anymore. “Master... why do you always look at Honey like that?”

John shook his head, as though he were trying to clear away some sort of mental debris. He turned to look at the fiery girl. “What are you asking about?”

The Blazine sighed. “It’s just... you are always looking at Honey in a way that you never look at any of the rest of us, even Kara.”

“Do I?” John was not the sort of man to casually disregard someone’s questions. A lesser man might have tried to tell her to mind her own business or deny that he did such a thing. In truth, her question was one that he had been trying to answer as well.

“Yes, you almost seem happy when you look at her.”

The man turned to look at the happy hybrid Demi-Human then let out a soft breath. “She reminds me of someone.”

Nostalgia? This bastard could feel nostalgia? Tera could scarcely believe it! “Who, master?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He turned back to Tera and granted her a short nod of recognition.

The girl’s face immediately began to take on a rosy color. He was being oddly indulgent today.

“You wish to know all of my secrets then?”

“If you would not mind sharing.” Tera was strangely excited now. He was actually talking with her, just like he talked with Kara! Not that she cared about that, or anything.

John acquired a thoughtful expression. “Have you ever had a friend?”

“A friend? I... well, I don’t really know.” Truth be told, she had not. There had been harem sisters but a lot of the time that position changed frequently.

John pointed to a bench. She followed him over to it, and then they sat together. The Blazine was both thrilled and confused by this simple acceptance.

Her master looked to the succubuzz as she hummed merrily and sniffed at flowers. “I spent the entirety of my childhood training to me a mage. I do not mean that metaphorically. Save for moments of sleeping, eating, and other necessities, I was forced to train.”

“Really?”

He nodded once, curtly. “During that time, I had no friends and no concept of what friendship was. I barely knew that there was an outside world. I rarely left the family estate.”

Tera listened to his story, fascinated by his upbringing. She learned about how he would be whipped for the least infraction. He had to do everything exactly right. Everything had a purpose and a place. A thing that did not perform as it should perform had no purpose or place in this world.

He looked up at the bright blue sky. “One day, when I was twelve years old, I was training in the back garden. A shadow crossed my path. I had not seen my father in days, or even one of the servants since the day before, and I could not help but wonder what the shadow belonged to.”

“Did you find out?”

He nodded. “Yes, it was a young Demi-Human girl. Probably just a little younger than you, but older than me at the time.”

“Oh?” This was certainly interesting.

John looked at Honey then down at the ground. “The girl was some sort of insect Demi-Human, a Hunni. She was one of the Demi-Humans who worked in the garden. I would see them sometimes, but they never came near me until that day.”

The Blazine listened as her master regaled her with the tale of friendship and growing love that he had developed with the Hunni. He was young and impressionable. She was the only person who ever seemed to give a damn about him. They spent several months meeting in the back garden.

“However, one day that changed.”

“What happened?”

John shrugged. “My father, the archmage, found out about my friend.”

Tera did not like the tone of voice that John had used. Something about that seemed disturbing.

“My friend and I had made plans. When I was a little older, I would take her and be her master. It seemed logical. I was the heir to the family estate. She was not quite old enough to need to be tamed at the time, but would be within another month or two. I could have done what was necessary to keep her tamed despite my age. It could have worked, or so we thought.”

“What did your father do?”

John shook his head. “He set me straight on the nature of Demi-Humans.”

There it went; the wall of ice that he had kept around him from the day that they had met. Tera looked at him as the joy left his face and that cold, dead, mask of detachment returned.

“My father came to me one morning and bid me follow him. I did so, and we arrived at the small garden house that I often worked at when I trained or studied magic.”

Tera listened closely. She felt that something important was about to occur.

“I heard strange noises, and my father bid me to look in the window. I did so. The moment I looked inside, he struck me with a spell of paralysis so I could neither look away nor even close my eyes.”

“He paralyzed you?!”

“He did that frequently as a means of punishment. If I did not perform proper incantation movements; he would do that while citing that those who moved improperly should not move at all.”

“Why did he paralyze you this time?” Tera was not sure what to think about that. Her master’s father sounded like a real asshole.

“Oh, to force me to see what my friend was really after.”

“What was she after?”

John shrugged. “A rich master. She was in the garden house whorishly servicing the cock of the local minister of finance for the town chamber of commerce.”

“Maybe they forced her to do it?”

“I had thought so too at the time.”

“You don’t now?”

John sighed in deeply then exhaled slowly. “It’s hard to believe that someone is forced to do something when they see you watching, smile at you, then keep looking at you while they kneel down and present their ass to their new master.”

“She threw you aside for someone else?”

“Again, I thought so at the time. That was not the case, though.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, I learned a few years later that she had been told that if she serviced the minister that she would be released from duty and given to me.”

“Your father lied to her?”

“Yes. He lied to her and to me.”

Tera could barely process betrayal of that level. What kind of man was her master’s father? “What happened to the Hunni?”

“I found her about two weeks later in the woods out back. Sometimes I would escape the compound and pretend I was free.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No, that was impossible.”

Tera felt the hair rising up on the back of her neck. “Why?”

“She had been partially eaten by an Alraune of the pitcher-plant variety. I hated her at the time, but not enough to wish that on her.”

“She was eaten!”

John looked at Tera. “Yes, I learned only two years ago that my father told her to go wait for me there. When she arrived, a higher level wild Alraune had been put in place to ambush her. After I warned the house, the Alraune was killed.”

The horror story that he unleashed on her made Tera feel sick to her stomach. What sort of person does that to people?

“Are you unwell?” asked John, without a hint of concern in his eyes.

“Aren’t you? How could you stand growing up like that?”

He blinked. “How else was I going to grow up?”

She did not have an answer for that. However, she now knew that she would not be getting a taming sessions today. Her overall level of lust had plummeted. She did have to ask a burning question, though. “So, you dote on Honey because of that Demi-Human?”

John looked away for a moment then back to Honey. “If I do dote on her; then yes, that would be the reason.”

Tera bit her lip. She could not leave well enough alone. “If you cared so much for your friend, why do you treat other Demi-Humans so badly?”

John shrugged. “How am I supposed to treat you? Are we friends? No, we are not. I had thought that I had a friend, and I might have, but after another few lessons about the true purpose of Demi-Humans I lost interest.”

“What did that man do to you?”

John looked at the Blazine, a curious expression on his face. He knew that her question was rhetorical, but part of him wanted to try and answer it anyway. Finally, he said. “Why do you care to know these things?”

Her eyebrows pressed together slightly then she closed her eyes. “I hate you, master. I really do.”

He nodded at her, as though she had said the most natural thing in the world. He was quite surprised when she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him. Was she trying to strangle him? No, after a moment he realized that she was embracing him.

Tera made soft sniffling noises and held the man tightly. Her master, thoroughly confused, raised one hand and lightly patted her on the back. What had gotten into the girl?

After he started to pat her on the back, her soft cries and tears rose in volume. Was she sick? John, unable to grasp just what her issue was, decided to default to what he considered to be social protocol in this situation. He wrapped his arms around the girl and let her do as she wished. Maybe it was some sort of passing emotional trauma. He had dealt with a few of those earlier in life. They could be quite bothersome.