Chapter 7A warm hand trailed slowly across Zen’s neck and down his naked body. The bed beneath him felt plush, familiar.
Then a second hand joined the first.
Then a third.
Then more, some smaller or larger or rougher or smoother than the others, but as Zen roused, the hands were everywhere.
He awoke with a shudder, but the hands on him were no dream or illusion. Zen was on the bed from his dreams, Gaian and Zenos’s bed from years past, though Gaian himself was not among those with Zen, who were touching him as though he were some specimen under their scrutiny.
The brides—all five of them—not dressed in their minstrel clothes from before, but in sheer flowing nightgowns for the women, and long loincloths in similar fabric for the men, each their own color.
Leela, the dark elf, was in
