Chapter 47: Simping the Queen

“The Apex Hero,” she uttered with a hint of shock, her voice a husky, haughty tenor with a surprisingly posh and crisp enunciation of each syllable. She wasn’t dressed in rags and ratty armor like her guards or the other orcs I’d encountered, but a fine shimmering white dress.

Her hair was braided and black in a most regal fashion, with two small beaded braids in the front hanging down to her shoulders, and four more much thickers ones down her back. Atop her head was a rather sharp and imposing-looking silvery crown–though I wasn’t sure what metal it was actually made out of.

As for her physique–she dwarfed me, and I was well over six feet tall. She must have been at least seven feet tall, and built like a goddess, with wide womanly hips, a powerful abdomen that you could see through the gossamer-like white dress, and full, round breasts that heaved once as she inhaled sharply upon seeing me.

Her yellow eyes darted from me to my party, and we all stood there for far too long like deer caught in the headlights. “Darkmaw sent us,” I said. It was the only thing I could think to say–and it proved to be the right choice.

She nodded, and her guards took a step toward us to engage, but she just reached out, palmed their heads like a basketball superstar palming a ball, and slammed the two ugly green noggins together with so much strength that they cracked like eggs, spilling out blood and brain fluid onto the ground between us.

The Goblin Queen peered out into the hall behind her, looking both ways like she was about to cross a busy intersection. Satisfied, she stepped over the corpses of her lackeys elegantly and closed the door behind her, locking it.

“We haven’t much in the way of time, Apex Hero. Bucky Drake, am I mistaken? And you–” she looked at Aldon. “A second Apex Hero. I can smell it on you, but I know you not.”

Hoooly shit, she was hot. I immediately found her so attractive that I knew it had to be some power of hers, or an enchantment. The way she spoke, so refined for a giant goblin goddess, and the her stature, her physique–the shimmer of her black hair under the subtle flicker of torchlight. Each crinkle of her nose, each slight movement of her fingers captivated me.

She sighed with irritation. I looked over at Aldon out of the corner of my eye and realized he too was similarly afflicted. “I command you to speak, human.”

“I–uh–well…”

“Gosh,” Aldon mumbled. “You’re pretty.”

The Goblin Queen rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous. Surely men of your hierarchy in herodom can endure the gaze of a Queen.”

“Apparently not,” Autumn mumbled. She reached out and pinched me, and that was all I needed to snap out of it.

“Oh, uh. Darkmaw. Right. Okay, so–”

“Waste no more of my time, Lord Drake.”

Oh shit, she called me Lord. “Mommy…” I muttered, and then I shook off her gaze, slapping myself in the face, focusing on trying to redirect the flow of blood heading toward my penis back to my brain. “We’re here to save you.”

“At the moment, I wonder if you could save kobold from a cockroach,” she whispered, though she smirked as she said it. “Pray tell, dear heroes–from what do I need ‘saving.’” She accentuated the last word, leaning on one hip. “Spit it out, child, we haven’t much time.”

“Darkmaw was approached by Keenfury,” I said. “He is trying organize a coup–they want to make you a breeding slave to empower the generals,” Autumn explained with dizzying efficiency.

“And why would you want to help me?” she asked, looking shockingly unconcerned. “Hurry now, children, I fear there isn’t much time for pleasantries.”

She was right. I thought I heard feet shuffling in the hallway behind her. I managed to speak up coherently at last. “Darkmaw told us the truth about you–your relationship to the other queens, how you insulate this region from their influence. You may not be strictly good, but you're a stabilizer and buffer against greater evils. Without you, the Demon Queen would make her way in. And I know for a fact that what Darkmaw told me is true.”

“And how do you know this?” she said with amusement. “Aside from Darkmaw’s naughty tongue telling tales, of course.”

“Tater Town was attacked–our home was burned to the ground. An undead troll led the attack. He was a tough bastard,” I said, recalling the intense fight. “He told me I needed to make a choice–that the time of the Goblin Queen was coming to an end, and the time of the Demon Queen and the Witch Queen was about to begin. Or something like that. Don’t quote me. It was the gist, for sure.”

“Please trust us,” Ivy pleaded. "We don't have time for you not to."

“It’s hilarious to be asked for trust from a wood elf,” the queen said with a sneer. “Do you know my name, hero?” she asked, turning back to me.

I tried to remember–I’d heard it first back when I was given my gifts by the gods of Lusteria. I nodded, feeling it on the tip of my tongue, releasing it. “Marrowheart.”

“That’s correct. And I will be queen of these lands at the end of this day, and at the end of every day thereafter, until the seas boil and the land goes ashen and dead. No coup can unseat me. You may go home, Lord Drake, if that was your concern.”

“Uh, I’m Lord Murphy,” Aldon said piping up.

“Of course you are,” she said, her face blank as she looked at him. Then she gazed back at me, showing far more interest. “Then again, if you’d like to stay as added insurance, I wouldn’t mind. It seems high time for a shuffling of the ranks. How would you like to be a general?”

I blinked in disbelief. “Excuse me? Don’t I have to be, like, a greenskin for that?”

She winced. “Foul word. We are orc-kind, not greenskins. That is a pejorative wielded by the elves.”

I cringed. “Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Excuse me,” Ivy said, sounding suddenly a bit bolder and more irritated, “But greenskins by and large don’t deserve a respectful title. They’re mindless killers—and you made them that way!”

She looked at Ivy, and I just knew that she shrank from the glare even without looking back. Who wouldn’t? “You know nothing. You elves are no better–choosing war when peace was offered time and time again. Your bitterness and adherence to the Old Hatred could be the downfall of us all.”

“Wh-what?” she whimpered meekly. “What are you talking about?”

“You know nothing,” Queen Marrow-Heart repeated with even more stank on her tone. For some reason, in that instant I realized she was unarmed, unarmored. She looked so vulnerable–almost naked beneath a see-through gown that didn’t even obscure her nipples or the mound of her pubic hair in any meaningful way. She noticed me noticing. “We have so much to discuss, Lord Drake,” she hummed at me in her sexiest, huskiest tone.

“We do?” I asked. I swallowed hard.

“Yes,” she said with a regal nod, never once slouching, always holding herself with imperious dignity and grace. She was maddeningly beautiful, like staring at a living goddess, an Amazonian in the flesh, but with exotic lime-green skin and feral yellow eyes that stared into mine in a most haunting manner. I shivered as she took another step toward me. “So much to discuss.”

She looked over at Autumn and smiled. Autumn, to my surprise, smiled weakly back at her. Even she seemed under her spell of lust.

“Lusterian Catgirl–spawn of Chelsea Elloway, am I correct?”

“Umm–yes?” she said, her voice meek and softer than I’d ever known it to be.

“I knew your mother. I even met your father once, before he went mad.”

She shook her head. “Dad didn’t go mad,” she said, regaining some confidence. “He–he disappeared.”

“They say he followed The Outer Gods into the Elder-Void when they were all but defeated–out of spite, to dole out even more punishment than was necessary.”

Autumn offered nothing back.

“I would make fine goblins with such a man,” she growled. She reached out and grabbed me by the throat. The others gasped, but they were all frozen, unable to act. The Goblin Queen pulled me in and took a deep, needful whiff of me. “But you will do sweetly.”

“Pardon, ma’am?” I asked. “Wh-what?”

“We shall forge an alliance, you and I. Our spawn will be demigods!” She released her grip around my neck and gestured to the sky outside the tower. “You will be my king, and I shall ruin and spoil you with riches and pleasures beyond imagining.”

“This is happening so fast,” I said, grabbing my neck, fanning myself with my free hand as I looked up at her in disbelief.

“It’s a good deal,” Autumn said. “We would be happy to negotiate such an arrangement for the betterment of these lands, and to protect Lusteria from the evil queens.”

“Are you so sure I’m not evil?” she asked, looking rather pleased with herself.

“I’m sure Darkmaw isn’t,” I said. “And I can tell you trust her. You knew we were coming, didn’t you?”

She grinned, showing a pretty mouth full of sharp teeth. “You guess correctly. Darkmaw, Princess of the Wolves, is my adopted daughter, and I love her like no other. She vouches for you, and she blesses our union–” she cocked an eyebrow suggestively, “so long as I don’t interfere with your love for her, of course.”

I sighed. “I don’t–you know what, fine. Okay.”

“Let’s get back on task,” Aldon said a bit more soberly than his 'Lord Murphy' comment. He was starting to get a grip of himself around her, like me. It wasn’t that her allure was wearing off, though–if anything it became even more imposing as time went on, but we were adapting to it. But just like cocaine, you can only really get so immune.

“Thank you, Aldon.” That was Ivy. “We have to plan. We are in your territory, here to protect you. That’s why we’re here, so what would you have us do?”

The towering goddess of a woman looked down on the diminutive elf–Ivy was almost two whole feet shorter–and frowned. “Yes, what to do with you? Soon they will send more up here to look for me. Very soon, I fear.” She looked back at the locked door. If there were shuffling feet outside earlier, as I'd thought, they'd stopped or gone elsewhere, thankfully. Probably just orcs on patrol.

Autumn spoke up. “Here’s what we do. The four of us will hide somewhere. Up there,” she said, pointing at some rafters in the turret ceiling. “You will throw a fit, say that Bucky killed your guards and the men in the turret and then retreated into the woods out the window. Order all the guards and scouts to hunt him, leaving only you and the generals left in the keep.”

The queen looked genuinely impressed. “Crafty as only a catgirl could be. However, my generals will never believe the story. Why would the Apex Hero run when he had me in his clutches?" She turned to me and grinned. "Lord Drake, impale me with your lance.” She suddenly giggled. “I mean, your weapon. The alternative interpretation we can save for afterwards.”

I giggled like a schoolgirl. The Goblin Queen was flirting with me. It was fucking awesome. Ivy smacked the back of my head, though, helping me to refocus. “Right. Uhh… Wait. Impale you? That sounds… I don’t really want to do that.”

“Have some courage, man!” she growled in her husky voice. She looked at Aldon as if considering him for a moment, and then shuddered. Glaring back at me, she pressed further. “Prove yourself worthy. Stab me. Pierce me with your lance, before we run out of time.”

I grimaced looking at the others for approval, which they offered weakly with their iffy facial expressions. I summoned the lance, and it appeared in my hand. Grabbing it in both, I pushed the blade up against her shoulder, but she frowned.

“The best option is for you to pierce me through the heart,” she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “If they could reasonably think you believed you’d made a killing blow, your early retreat would make perfect sense.”

I cocked my head at her in plainly worn confusion. “Yeah but–we don’t want a killing blow.”

“I have two hearts,” she said. “A secret few know. Piercing one will hurt, but I will recover within the hour.”

“And what if they see you in your weakened state and decide it’s an opportunity?” Autumn asked. “That’s much too reckless.”

“They don’t want to kill me, kitten,” she reminded her, flicking Autumn’s nose. My catgirl blinked and took a step back in surprise. “They want to control me. Let them try to dominate me then if they want–it will only be a temporary victory. With you and Darkmaw in the wings, they shall meet a wicked end indeed.” She cackled at that, punctuating her point with raucous, confident laughter that did little to soften my throbbing erection.

“I think my pants are shrinking,” Aldon mumbled. “No, wait…”

“There’s no time to ponder your boners,” Autumn hissed at us. “Stab her!”

I swallowed a big gulping load of nerves, gripping my lance in both hands. She stood as tall and confidently as ever, even smiling slightly as her index finger indicated a specific target on her chest over her left breast. I lined up the lance, closed my eyes, and pushed.

She grunted in pain, and when I opened my eyes there was thick, dark red blood pouring freely from the open wound, staining the silvery metal blade of my weapon. I stared in horror at first, and her face twisted in pain but she remained standing to my utter disbelief.

“Go!” she said, pointing up at the rafters above. “Now!”

I nodded and boosted Ivy and Autumn up into the rafters, tossing them easily with Titan Strength. Aldon was able to hover up there himself, and I used Great Jump to get in there on my own.

“Guards!” she shouted, opening the door. “The Apex Hero is getting away!”

“Apex Heroes,” Aldon bitterly corrected her, but she paid him no heed if she heard him at all. She collapsed on the ground, and I worried for her–but I realized quickly from her bored expression as she lay there that it was just for show.

We waited in silence as guards poured in the room in desperation, thankfully looking everywhere but up. We watched the scene below play out just as we’d dictated. It was satisfying to see something go according to plan for once.

Within minutes, two burly ogres in full armor escorted her out of the room, and we heard assurances uttered that almost all the guards would be dispatched to hunt us down.

I let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a start. We were in, and the Goblin Queen, the ultimate MILF, was on our side. Or were we on hers?

Either way.