An awkward silence stretched between us through the phone line, padded only by the faint crackle of static and what I was fairly certain was the sound of Iskanda's breathing hitching for just a fraction of a second before she forcibly smoothed it out.
The pause lingered long enough to become its own statement, heavy with all the things she clearly wanted to say but was still deciding whether any of them could be expressed without violating several internal rules of professionalism.
Then she released a long, carefully theatrical sigh—one of those exhalations that somehow managed to communicate exasperation, disbelief, and an alarming degree of reluctant fondness despite being filtered through the crude indignities of early telephone technology.
"Loona," she said slowly, measuring each syllable. "I'm going to need you to explain several things to me very quickly before my brain decides this conversation is a hallucination."
I smiled to myself—not smugly, not yet, but with the quiet satisfaction of someone who knew they'd just complicated another person's evening.
"Well, you see, it's quite simple really—I missed your beautiful face and decided a phone call was the next best thing to being there in person to witness your reaction to my latest string of completely reasonable and not-at-all-insane decisions!"
"Where the hell are you even calling from? And how did you get access to this line? Numbers like these are supposed to be restricted to—" She cut herself off, comprehension no doubt creeping its way into her consciousness.
"Oh, you know," I said with deliberate casualness, examining my remaining fingernails like they were the most fascinating things in the world, "just calling from Oberen's Den. You know Oberen, right? The gambling lord? Runs that casino in the mid-tier—Egyptian themed, lots of sandstone, questionable health and safety regulations, employs people who should really unionize for better working conditions? That Oberen. I'm currently sitting in his incredibly gaudy office using his private phone to contact you because I'm nothing if not efficient with my resource allocation."
There was a pause on the line—long enough to be meaningful. I could practically hear her thoughts tripping over one another, logic stalling and restarting like a machine desperately attempting to execute commands it had never been designed to process.
"You're—wait—Oberen's office? Loona, please tell me you didn't—" She spiraled then, her voice rising with each passing possibility. "That place is a death trap! I specifically, explicitly told you to stay away from there at all costs! Do you have any idea how many people have walked into that casino and never came out? How many bodies they've likely buried in the foundations? How insanely dangerous it is to even be in the same building as Oberen, let alone—" She cut herself off with a sound that might've been a growl. "What did you do?"
"Well," I said, drawing out the word for maximum effect, "funny story actually, involves Russian Roulette, some light document theft, strategic use of my crew's various talents, and the most elaborate con I've ever pulled, which is saying something considering my life has been one long series of elaborate cons strung together by spite and desperation. Long story short, I took him down."
What followed was a silence so absolute I briefly wondered if the line had gone dead, if the connection had simply surrendered under the weight of that sentence and wandered off to rethink its purpose.
Then I heard Iskanda's breathing—shallow, quick, carefully restrained—the sound of someone whose internal map of reality was being picked up, rotated, and set back down somewhere unfamiliar.
"You're kidding," she said finally, her voice flat with disbelief. "Please tell me you're kidding. This is some kind of joke. You didn't actually—there's no possible way you—"
"Would I lie to you about something this important?" I asked with mock offense, then immediately answered my own question. "Okay yes, I absolutely would, but in this specific instance I'm being completely honest! The casino's mine now. Well, technically it's ours—my crew and I—but I'm the one who shot him, so I'm claiming majority credit for the victory." I paused, letting that settle, then added, "Also I won it fair and square through gambling, which I feel like should count for bonus points in whatever cosmic scorecard tracks my achievements."
I heard Iskanda's breathing hitch again, sharper this time, and when she spoke her voice was genuinely breathless in a way I'd never heard from her before.
"How much—" She swallowed audibly. "How much did you win in total? All of it. I need to know the number or I'm going to assume I'm having a stroke."
I leaned back into the throne-chair and propped my boots onto the desk again, because if one was going to deliver news this delicious, one deserved to do so in comfort.
"Over two million crowns," I said casually, "Give or take a few hundred thousand. I haven't done the full accounting yet."
There was a beat. Then Iskanda lost it.
Her laughter exploded through the receiver, completely unrestrained, the kind that signaled a full surrender of rational thought. Whatever mental framework she'd been using to process this conversation finally collapsed under the strain, clearly deciding that the only viable response was to embrace the sheer, unfiltered absurdity of my existence.
The sound rolled through the line in overlapping waves, rising and breaking as she gasped for breath between the peals of her mirth.
"That's—you're—" she managed, "that's the most insane thing I've ever heard!" She paused for a moment to compose herself. "Gods, you're going to give me a heart attack," Iskanda said, though her tone carried more admiration than actual distress. "You know that, right? One of these days I'm going to get a phone call from you and it's going to kill me from the sheer incredulity alone."
"And what a way to go," I countered cheerfully. "You could tell people in the afterlife that you died because your former student was too successful too quickly and your mortal body simply couldn't handle the pride. Very dignified. Probably gets you into the nice part of whatever comes next."
She laughed again, softer this time, and I caught something in her breathing that made my enhanced hearing perk up with interest—a slight raggedness, a subtle hitch between syllables, like someone exerting just a little more energy than conversation alone should require.
"So," she said, and I noticed her voice had taken on a slightly distracted quality, "why did you call me in the first place? I assume it wasn't just to brag about your death-defying gambling spree."
I straightened slightly in the chair, my playful tone shifting into something more focused. "Right, yes, getting to the actual point—do you happen to have a certain succubus in your custody? Wine-dark skin, emerald eyes, tendency to cause chaos wherever she goes? Goes by the name Willow?"
"About that..." Iskanda trailed off.
And then I heard it.
Faint. Almost imperceptible. The sort of sound you could miss entirely if you weren't cursed—or blessed—with ears tuned far too well for your own good. It was unmistakable—the rhythmic slapping of skin, punctuated by a few breathy moans that left absolutely no ambiguity about what activity was producing them.
I dragged in a long, slow breath as the pieces clicked into place with the precision of a well-oiled machine designed specifically to make me want to throw this phone across the room.
"Iskanda," I said slowly, my voice dropping into something flat and knowing, "are you fucking my crew member over the phone? Is that what's happening right now? Because those sounds are very distinctive and I feel like I should address the elephant—or rather, the sexual encounter—in the room."
Whatever suspicious sounds had been threading the background cut off all at once, snuffed out so fast it was almost impressive. What followed was the unmistakable sound of a muffled whimper, a shuffle, and then Iskanda had the audacity—the absolute audacity—to clear her throat as though this were a perfectly normal interruption in a perfectly professional conversation.
"Oh my gods," I groaned, dragging my free hand down my face. "You couldn't wait, could you?"
"Can you blame me?" Iskanda shot back, utterly unapologetic. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had access to someone who can actually keep up? Your little friend here is delightful. Very flexible. Makes the most wonderful sounds when I—"
"Okay!" I interrupted. "That's enough. I don't need the play-by-play, I don't need the director's cut, and I certainly don't need any bonus commentary. Can you please just put Willow on the line so I can confirm she's alive? Conscious? Or at the very least still operating within the standard definition of voluntary participation?"
I heard rustling, the sound of the phone being passed, and then Willow's voice came through—breathless and slightly dazed. "H-hello? Loona? Is that you?"
"Yes, it's me!" I said brightly. "Having fun? Enjoying your time in the Spire? Making good choices? Not being traumatized by my former mentor's insatiable appetite for sex?"
"Oh gods, Loona, she's incredible," Willow gushed, her words tumbling over each other in a breathless rush. "I've never—the things she can do with that—and the way she uses her strength to—ahh~she's—she's so deep—Loona I can feel her in my—fuck~" She cut off with a long, shuddering moan, painting a very vivid picture of whatever Iskanda was currently doing to her behind the scenes. "S-sorry, what were we talking about?"
"The documents," I said patiently, "Do you still have them? Are they secure?"
She tried to answer. Truly tried. Her lips parted on the fragile beginning of a sentence, breath just beginning to steady—only for it to splinter into another sharp, involuntary gasp, high and broken, as Iskanda's low, possessive growl rolled through the line like distant thunder.
The words were too muffled to catch, but the tone was unmistakable, the weight of ownership, of pride, of someone staking a claim without needing witnesses or permission.
"Oh—oh gods—Iskanda, I'm gonna—fuck—!" Willow's words melted into a helpless whimper as Iskanda drove home with a soft smack of her hips.
Then she shattered.
A high, keening wail tore from her throat—raw, helpless, climbing into a trembling crescendo that cracked on its highest note and dissolved into shuddering sobs as Iskanda came into her.
The release hit in heavy, measured waves; each one audible in the wet, rhythmic gluck of excess being displaced, thick ropes of Iskanda's spend squeezing out around the base and dripping in slow, clinging strands that snapped and splattered softly to the floor beneath them.
For a few heartbeats there was relative quiet before Iskanda began to pull out.
The withdrawal was slow, deliberate, accompanied by a long, liquid shlurp as her cock slid free from her inch by inch, the tight seal of Willow's cunt breaking with a soft, sucking pop.
A final thick gush followed almost immediately, heavy globs of creamy spend pouring out in a warm cascade, splattering against the insides of Willow's thighs before pooling beneath her.
Willow's knees buckled instantly.
She dropped straight down onto her shins with a dull thud, thighs splaying wide, palms slapping the floor for balance as her body folded forward. The impact sent a fresh ripple through her core; another sluggish rope of Iskanda's release oozing free from her ruined cunt and sliding thick and heavy down the cleft of her ass.
Then, very slowly, Willow clawed her way back toward coherence.
Her breathing began to steady—still ragged, still trembling at the edges, but no longer teetering on the brink of complete collapse. The frantic sharpness softened into something almost manageable, the sound of someone forcibly reasserting control over a body that had briefly forgotten how to listen.
I heard her swallow, a tight, audible motion, her throat working as though she were trying to clear not just her voice but the lingering aftershocks of overstimulation that refused to dissipate on command.
There was a brief pause before she lifted her head toward the phone. When she finally spoke, her voice came in fragments. "The documents are—I'm sorry, what were we—oh fuck—"
I was about to repeat my question when the line shifted again—Iskanda's dark, velvet chuckle rolled through the speaker first, low and amused.
Then Willow's voice changed. It turned thick, choked, a wet, gagging gurgle that made the exact nature of what was happening extremely clear.
Iskanda had just shoved her cock straight down Willow's throat, and the way the muffled sounds kept coming—deep, rhythmic, unhurried—made it clear she wasn't planning to be gentle about it.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it for a moment, my expression settling into something that probably suggested I was contemplating the fundamental cruelty of the universe and my unfortunate position within it, before glancing over at Brutus who'd been standing silently through the whole exchange.
His face was currently twisted into an emotion I genuinely couldn't identify—somewhere between deeply uncomfortable, morbidly fascinated, and possibly traumatized.
"You okay there, big guy?" I asked conversationally.
"No," he said flatly. "No, I am not okay. Nothing about this is okay. We're having a business conversation while someone is clearly—I can hear—why is this my life now?"
From the phone—still held at arm's length—I could hear Iskanda's voice cutting through, low, teasing, and absolutely dripping with satisfaction.
"That's it, take it all... such a good girl... gonna fill that pretty mouth... you want it, don't you? Want me to cum all over that gorgeous face, streak it white and sticky, mark you like the desperate little slut you are?"
Willow's answer was muffled but unmistakable—enthusiastic, eager, a vibrating hum of assent wrapped around whatever was currently stuffing her throat.
Then came the shift, a sudden, wet gasp as Iskanda pulled free, the sound of Willow hauling in desperate lungfuls of air, followed immediately by the rapid slick of a hand working a shaft with practiced fury.
"Fuck~! I'm gonna cum!"
Iskanda's shout cracked and melted into a deep, guttural groan that rumbled up from her chest. The sound built—low at first, then swelled into something raw and primal, followed by the first heavy spurt landing with a clear, unmistakable splat against Willow's skin, then another, and another—thick ropes hitting Willow's face in rhythmic bursts, each one punctuated by her breathy giggles that tapered into soft, contented sighs as the final weak spurts landed in lazy arcs across her tongue.
"Look at you... covered in me... my perfect little mess. Don't swallow yet. Hold it. Let me see how full that mouth is."
The phone picked up the faint, wet click of Willow's tongue moving through the heavy load, the slow, deliberate sound of her showing off the creamy pool before she swallowed it down with an audible gulp that echoed through the line like a confession.
I took a very long, very slow breath, counted to ten in my head, and then brought the phone back to my ear with the resigned acceptance of someone who'd chosen this chaos and now had to live with it.
"Are you two finished?" I asked with exaggerated patience.
"Mmm?" Willow's said, her voice dazed and dreamy, like she was floating somewhere pleasant and had temporarily forgotten about material reality. "Oh! Right! The uh—" I heard her licking her lips, presumably cleaning Iskanda's cum from her face because why not add that detail to my mental trauma. "The documents! What did you want me to do with them?"
"Keep them," I said simply. "Don't turn them in. Don't show them to anyone. Just... hold onto them as insurance."
"Wait, you want me to keep them? But I thought—don't you want Oberen punished for his crimes? The money laundering, the exploitation, all of it?"
"I'll deal with Oberen myself," I said, my voice carrying a dark edge that suggested exactly how I planned to handle that particular problem. "He's going to pay for what he's done, but it'll be on my terms."
"Oooh," Willow said, understanding dawning in her tone. "Alright, I'll keep them safe! Nobody gets them except you!" She made a sound of approval. "I like that idea. Very sexy. Lots of—"
The line abruptly changed hands.
There was a brief scuffle of sound, fabric shifting, a sharp inhale—and then Iskanda's voice cut in, closer now, slightly breathless but markedly more composed than Willow's had been moments ago. "Are you done?" she asked without preamble. "Because I have important business to tend to."
I didn't even try to stop the laugh that escaped me. "Oh, is that what we're calling it now?" I said sweetly. "Important business?"
Iskanda laughed in response—dark, rich, promising all sorts of delightfully terrible things. "I'll be keeping her here for the time being. Keeping her close. Very close. She's going to learn exactly what it means to catch my attention. I'm going to teach her things about her body she didn't know were possible. We'll see how long it takes before I've mapped every sensitive little spot, catalogued every sound she can make, discovered exactly how many times I can make her cum before she passes out from—"
I hung up.
Just set the phone down mid-ramble, cutting Iskanda off completely, because there were limits to how much detail I needed about her sexual plans and we'd crossed that boundary about three sentences ago.
Then I glanced up from the desk... and froze.
Because the overseer was looming directly above me.