Ivar smiled as he kept basking in the gentle pleasure Alita was giving him, "Oh, I'd never consider Alita a slave. She's a loyal and devoted servant, something very different.
Slavery would imply a complete loss of freedom and will, but Alita is perfectly capable of refusing me whenever she wants. Assuming she finds the desire to do so."
That wasn't untrue. Although the relationship of sub and dom between therians could only be changed by the sub turning the tables on their dom, like Nova had tried to do in their fight, the sub was never actually forced to obey.
But they would still have to find the willpower and desire to resist, which would become harder and harder as time passed.
In Ivar's case, this was represented in the resistance stat provided by Selene.
Alita, for example, was already at -20 resistance, so before she could start disobeying Ivar, she would first have to raise her resistance through willpower to be at least in the positive numbers again.
And for that, she first had to have the desire to disobey in the first place, which was unlikely, as Alita seemed all too happy to drown herself in service to Ivar.
Shaking himself free of his thoughts, Ivar said, "Now, enough stalling. Are we going to exchange information or not?"
Molly sighed as she took another look at Alita, "Fine. I'll tell you what you want to know in exchange for you doing the same. But when you talk, I… need to hold your hand."
That was quite possibly the last thing Ivar had expected her to ask, so he couldn't help but chuckle, "You want to… what? Isn't that a little lewd?"
Molly groaned, "That would be funnier if you weren't literally getting your dick sucked right now."
Ivar grinned, "On the contrary, I think it would be less funny then. So why do you want to hold my hand?"
She grew serious, "As I said earlier, my species is very sensitive to the world's energy, and by being in physical contact with someone, I can use that sensitivity to determine if they are lying, at least on those weaker than me.
I'm sure you understand I'm unwilling to simply take you at your word."
Ivar gained a thoughtful look and panned his gaze slightly to the right of Molly, where an excited Selene had been enjoying this scene for a while now.
Ivar had long since realised that Selene enjoyed any situation where he behaved dominantly and figured it had to do with her origins as the goddess of therians.
He asked her out loud, "Selene? You're the expert on energy here. Is it possible? And can you do the same? Or disrupt her ability?"
Tearing her eyes away from the erotic scene, she answered, "Well, theoretically, yeah, all three of those things are possible. She would definitely notice, however, so you can't lie to her without her knowledge."
Ivar nodded and refocused on Molly, who was looking at him with confusion; although Nova had warned her that Ivar could somehow see anything happening in the building, she had not told her how.
Ivar smirked. Honestly, he could hold every conversation with Selene in his head if he liked, but he enjoyed confusing others like this. It would increase the mystery around him, making people more hesitant to go against him.
Still smirking, he said, "Don't worry about it. I was just talking to my partner. I agree to your terms, but only if we hold hands from the start."
Molly looked even more confused now, "Why?"
But Ivar just shrugged, "I have my reasons. Now, do you agree or not?"
Molly glared at Ivar fiercely but finally gave in, "Fine."
Ivar smiled, "Good, just give me a moment here." He felt himself getting closer, so he said to Alita, "Here it comes, Kitten."
Alita was barely aware of the outside world anymore, as all that existed right now was Ivar's cock, but her subconscious still recognised the words, so she sped up and tried to take Ivar as far as she could.
But it wasn't enough for him, as he grabbed the back of her head and groaned as he pushed himself an inch deeper and came hard, directly into the girl's throat.
Molly, finding herself once again unable to look away, heard Alita sputtering and choking but also couldn't help noticing the excited smile on Alita's face, making her wonder if that was just another part of whatever Ivar had done to Alita or if it actually felt good.
When he was empty, Ivar pulled a drunk-looking Alita off his cock and smacked her ass to wake her up. Alita shot up at the sharp pain and pouted at Ivar, "Bully! You never let me enjoy the post-cum bliss, Master."
Ivar grinned at her, "I'll make it up to you later, alright? But for now, clean up the mess you made and make some room for Molly."
Happy with Ivar's promise, Alita quickly cleaned him up and then took a seat on Ivar's lap again while they were both still naked.
Molly had to take another deep breath to stop herself from scolding these two for their depraved behaviour before she took a seat on the couch, as far away from Ivar and Alita as possible.
She smirked at her behaviour, "Don't tell me you're afraid of sitting closer?"
But Molly didn't let herself get goaded, so she just closed her eyes and stuck out her hand towards Ivar, who chuckled at her but stretched his arm to grab her hand anyway… and then pulled Molly closer to him before he put his arm around her, locking her in place.
Since Molly was physically not much more powerful than Nova, at least while in her human shell, she didn't have the strength to resist him and could only allow herself to be pulled while yelping an objection that Ivar happily ignored.
She was now sitting next to him with her arms crossed as she glared at Ivar in silent fury.
She kept quiet, however, as Molly realised there wasn't really anything she could do, at least not so long as she still wanted information from Ivar while being unwilling to unleash her true form.
However, if he tried anything further than this, she wouldn't hesitate to unleash her true form to deal with him, even if she would have to go back on the run afterwards.
Ivar grinned. Since he was unlikely to be able to turn Molly into a therian, the only way left for him to get her on his side was through seduction. And the only way of seduction he knew right now was the therian way, aggressive and sexually charged.
His display of sexual dominance from earlier was part of that. As is his current attempt at pulling Molly closer to affect her with his pheromone ability.
He spoke up, still smirking, "This is fine, right? This way's more comfortable, and we are still in physical contact."
Molly snorted, "I'm warning you, Ivar. You can only go so far before I decide the consequences of unleashing my true self are worth it."
Ivar grinned and nodded, "I got it, don't worry. So tell me everything you know about myths in this world, starting with yourself."
Molly sighed, resigning herself to the current situation as she started her story, "I am a phoenix, or to be more precise, I am a blue phoenix. Every type of phoenix controls a different type of flame, and blue phoenixes possess the power of ice flames.
We control these flames through a core in the centre of our bodies; this core also gives us our close connection to the world's energy, and... it is also this core that has caused my kind to go nearly extinct."
As Molly continued her story, she stopped crossing her arms and rested her hands against her knees instead while her gaze went into the distance,
"I'm sure you know this, but most humans can't absorb energy and rise in the ranks of power like us myths can. However, there are ways for them to do so.
One of them is through extensive training and meditation… and the other is by using body parts of certain mythical species, like a phoenix core."
She sighed, "So naturally, phoenixes and every other race that can provide the same thing to humans have been hunted across the globe for as long as history recounts.
In the last hundred years or so, it has gotten a little better, as most humans live in the various megacities across the globe, turning the areas in between into no-mans land, perfect for mythic communities trying to hide."
She had now pulled up her knees and hugged them against her chest as she was getting increasingly lost in her story while Ivar and Alita simply listened, "And so it was with my clan… until we were betrayed."
At this point, intense hatred burned in her eyes as the small blue flames made another appearance.