{Four Years Later}
Katarina had both hands on Vessa’s hips, fingers digging into soft pink skin, and she was fucking her so hard the headboard was leaving a dent in the wall.
Vessa was face-down on the pillow with her ass in the air. Every thrust pushed a moan out of her that got louder and more ragged and less concerned with the fact that Ottavia was probably in the kitchen two floors down, annoyed at hearing all this. Katarina’s cock slid in and out of Vessa’s ass, slick and tight, the sound of skin hitting skin filling the room. Katarina’s brain had been offline for about five minutes and she did not miss it.
She came so hard her vision went white.
Her hips stuttered through the last few thrusts while Vessa pressed deeper into the pillow and whimpered. Katarina’s cock pulsed inside her, filling her. Vessa’s back arched, her pink fingers twisting in the sheets, and she pushed back into it like she wanted every last drop.
[God. God. Fuck.]
Katarina pulled out and collapsed backward onto the bed, chest heaving, sweat on her stomach. The morning sun was warm on her skin. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears. Her cock was still twitching against her thigh, wet and spent.
She was seventeen years old now, and the hormones were going to kill her.
At thirteen, it had been manageable. Distracting, sure. Her cock got hard at inconvenient times and she spent a few months being furious about it, but she could compartmentalize. She’d had thirty years of practice compartmentalizing things. Desire, loneliness, the persistent urge to kiss everyone around her. Standard stuff. She could box it up and shelve it and get back to work.
At seventeen, the box was on fire and the shelf had collapsed.
Now, finally, she understood that maturing was not quite the same for valdari as it was for humans. Mainly because her body had apparently decided that four years of polite restraint was enough and had flipped every switch at once.
She couldn’t think straight until she’d cum at least twice, which was humiliating for a woman who used to run board meetings on four hours of sleep and cold coffee. She was horny before breakfast. She was horny after breakfast.
And her lower half didn’t discriminate either, she really did want to mating press anyone around her.
Case in point, Marga would show up, Vessa would walk past her in a sundress, or Seris would wear something with "cleavage" (if it could even be called that) so wide her areolas showed, or Brynn would show up covered in sweat and half-naked, and Katarina’s brain would simply leave and she’d turn into a sex zombie.
And that’s why she was currently railing her girlfriend like her life depended on it.
[... My dick hurts.]
Vessa shifted on the bed. Katarina felt the mattress move and opened one eye.
Vessa was straddling her.
Her dark hair was a mess, her pink skin was flushed darker across her chest, and her tits were right there, full and round and shiny with sweat. She was smiling down at Katarina like she hadn’t even gotten started yet.
Right, Vessa was in the same spot, but instead of wanting to stick her dick in everything in sight like Kat, it’s like she looked at everything around her and went: "could I put that inside me?"
And for now, that was Katarina.
"Again."
[I’m gonna fucking die here.]
She didn’t die. She came three more times before Vessa finally permitted her to leave the bed, which was a personal record that Katarina was simultaneously proud of and alarmed by. At some point the Valdari body had limits. Vessa did not believe in them.
The walk into Vellasera was ten minutes from the estate and Katarina needed every single one of them to get her legs working properly again.
The port town was alive with the late morning crowd, vendors calling out prices, carts rattling over cobblestone, valdari kids chasing each other between stalls. Katarina walked through it with her hands behind her back, a habit she’d inherited from Vivienne Ross and never managed to drop, trying to regenerate her dignity. Her professionalism.
"Good morning, Signora!"
That was the baker on the corner. She waved with a flour-covered hand and Katarina nodded back.
Signora. That was still new.
Seris had made it official six months ago. A small ceremony at the estate, a few witnesses from the district authority, and a document with enough seals on it to wallpaper a bathroom.
Katarina Montecardi, Signora of House Montecardi, age seventeen. The youngest house head in the southeastern district by about twelve years!
Seris had cried. Brynn had cried louder. Katarina had read the document twice, checked it for errors, found one (a misspelled date), corrected it in front of the notary, and then just said a quick and simple: "let’s get started".
That title changed things. People said hello to her now. Not the polite, distant hello you give a stranger’s kid, but the hello you give someone who controls your port tariff rates. It was a specific kind of friendliness that Katarina recognized from her old life. The kind that came with an invisible price tag.
She was still getting used to it.
"Piccola!"
Seris was at the fruit stall near the harbor road, holding a melon against her melons and squinting at it like it owed her money.
Her black hair was loose and her dress showed half her tits, which was just Seris being Seris. Nobody on the street batted an eye because this was Valdari country and modesty was a foreign concept.
"That’s not how you check if a melon is ripe," Katarina said.
[Though I’d like to check if her melon is ripe- what? Shut the fuck up, Kat. What does that even mean?]
"I’m not checking. I’m intimidating it." Seris put the melon back and fell into step beside her. "You look well-rested."
"I slept fine."
Seris raised a brow high, smirking.
"Is that what we’re calling it?"
[She knows. She absolutely knows. The walls in that house are not thick enough for what Vessa and I did this morning.]
Katarina didn’t take the bait (though her cheeks did get a bit darker). They walked together through the market. People waved, vendors called out to Seris by name. A few people called out Katarina.
"The Midsummer Market Festival is in six weeks," Seris said, turning down the harbor road. "As Signora, you’re organizing it this year."
"I’m what?"
"Organizing it. It’s tradition! The head of the host house handles the festival. Vendor stalls, food, performances, a big opening ceremony." Seris waved a hand. "Your grandmother used to do it. Well, your great-grandmother. On Brynn’s side. Well, someone did it. The point is, it’s yours now."
[I restructured the regional trade economy and now she wants me to plan a party.]
"Fine. How many people attend?"
"Oh, the whole district comes. A few thousand, probably. It’s the biggest event of the summer."
[A few thousand attendees, six weeks of lead time, and she dropped this on me during casual conversation between a fruit stall and the harbor road. Wonderful.]
"I’ll handle it."
Seris kissed the top of her head, which she could still do because Katarina had inherited Seris’s height instead of Brynn’s, a betrayal she had not forgiven genetics for.
She had kinda been looking forward to being intimidatingly tall. Instead, if the way her clothes strained a little harder every day was any indication, she was clearly taking more from Seris’s side of the equation.
[... I pray my breasts will at least be modestly big and not as... ginormous as hers. Though I suppose it would help with negotiations. Maybe.]
"You’ll be wonderful, piccola."
"Stop calling me that. I run this house."
"Ah, yes, you need to be respectable and professional... When you’re not plowing your friend into the mattress."
[Low blow, Seris. Low blow.]
She didn’t actually mind. But her reputation had a reputation to maintain.
The estate was quiet when she got back. Brynn was in the training yard beating a practice dummy into splinters and Ottavia’s too-salty lunch was already filling up the hallway.
Katarina went to her study. As in, Seris’s study, which was now hers.
Katarina sat down at the desk and the Ledger opened automatically, gilded calligraphy blooming at the edge of her vision. It had started doing that a few years ago, like it could tell when she was ready to work.
[Status.]
THE SOVEREIGN LEDGER
Signora: Katarina Montecardi
Age: 17
Sovereign Qi: 96/???
[Attributes]
Analysis: 10/10
Negotiation: 9/10
Leadership: 9/10
Intimidation: 6/10
Charm: 7/10
Physical Ability: 4/10
[Cultivation]
Rank: Late Foundation (all four paths)
Path of Elements — Late Foundation
Path of Grace — Late Foundation
Path of the Artisan — Late Foundation
Path of Whispers — Late Foundation
She lingered on the numbers. The age penalties were finally gone. Intimidation and Charm had both climbed since the Signora title, which made sense. People took you more seriously when you had legal authority over their port fees.
Though...
[... My charm is higher than my intimidation and I HATE what that says about my future. I really am gonna turn into a titty-monster.]
Physical Ability was still a four. Brynn’s personal tragedy. Katarina had explained, repeatedly, that she didn’t need to punch things because she had people who punched things for her, and Brynn had responded by looking so heartbroken that Katarina agreed to keep training twice a week out of pure guilt.
[House status.]
[House Montecardi]
License: Active (Full standing)
Revenue: B+
Trade Routes: 3 active
Alliances: 5
Reputation: B
Three trade routes. Five alliances. Revenue up a full grade, and the Greypass Corridor in particular had been upgraded to an A with expanded capacity. The vineyards were the standout performer at A-minus, thanks entirely to Silvana, who loved grapes more than she loved people and was Katarina’s ideal employee for exactly that reason.
Four years ago, the estate ran on loyalty and inertia. Fourteen staff, three of them dead weight. Now it was nineteen, every position filled by someone Katarina had picked, every one of them reviewed quarterly, because some habits from Vivienne Ross’s life were worth keeping. Nadia in bookkeeping hadn’t made an error in two years. Renata in trade coordination thought in logistics the way Brynn thought in punches. Lyn kept the preservation arrays running on every route.
She closed the status screen and leaned back.
[So. The festival.]
Through the wall, she could hear Vessa breathing softly in the bedroom. She was still asleep, still naked in Katarina’s bed with the sheets kicked off because Vessa ran hot and refused to sleep covered, which meant that every time Katarina walked back into that room she was confronted with all of Vessa laid out on full display. Tits, ass, cock, those long legs tangled up in nothing at all.
[No, stop it. The festival.]
Right, the festival.
[Six weeks. Vendor logistics, security, entertainment, supply chain, sanitation, an opening ceremony that I apparently have to lead because that’s what Signoras do.]
She picked up her pen.
[Where do we start?]