Co-written by Phil Valesquez

Winds hissed through wooden shutters, like snakes kissing.

Princess Anna fluttered open her eyes, feeling a warm body snuggle up to her. She frowned. How could she keep doing this to herself?

She sat up, letting the soft blankets fall from her nude form. Moonlight poured in from the half shuttered windows, lending a dim, graphite luminescence to her expansive, luxuriously-furnished quarters. If she squinted, she could just barely make out the person next to her on her silken sheets, curled tight with a thin arm over Anna's curvy hips. One of the newer, younger maids, what was her name? Maria.

Anna pulled the blanket down from the girl to get a better look at her body. Just barely into her adult proportions, with dark hair, creamy skin, and pert little breasts, Maria was the picture of innocent sensuality. A prize any man--or properly inclined woman like herself--would be proud to have bedded.

How boring.

Maria had been just like the dozens of other playthings Anna had bedded since coming of age. There was no real challenge or thrill to it anymore. It seemed to the princess she kept spreading her legs for the steady supply of servants and minor lords simply out of a bad habit she could not bring herself to end. She might as well have been guzzling wine skins or licking kref powder.

At twenty-three Anna had been sexually active for ten years now, and seemed to have exhausted all possibilities that could offer, even with her sorcery-enhanced body. Her lovers were just more of the same old routine, night after night.

She only had one lover who still truly excited her any more. She sighed, imagining his cool, dry scales gliding over her skin, his coils squeezing lightly with sinuous strength...

"I'm sick of humans," she mused out loud. "Sick of being human. There must be more..."

Maria blinked open her eyes, looking up at the princess. "Mistress?" she asked, dreamily.

"Leave," Anna said in a quiet whisper.

"Must I, Mistress?" the maid asked, with playful gleam in her eye. She kissed at the princess's waist. "I could stay, and please you even more eagerly this time..."

"Leave," Anna snarled, no longer quiet, "before I have your arm cut off and fed to you."

The girl looked stricken. "M-mistress...?"

Anna screamed, "Leave!" The girl, sobbing from hurt and fright, practically jumped from the bed and fled from the chamber.

The princess grabbed up the pillow Maria had been using and shredded it with her fingernails in a fit of rage, just because she could. Afterward, breathless and lips pouting, she called for her servant. "Trundle!"

The misshapen half-human creature opened her chamber door a few heartbeats later. He had greater than human hearing and could be summoned from almost anywhere in the palace. With thick tree-trunk legs, a hunched back, little twisted branch-like arms, and patches of oddly-colored leaves everywhere on his body, Trundle had been one of the old court wizard's many magical cross-breeding experiments. He was also, ironically, one of the least ghastly results. Those radical experiments were the reason why her horrified father, the King, had been forced to have that leathery fossil of a wizard killed in his sleep several years ago.

"Mistress?" Trundle drawled, one of only a dozen human words he could speak clearly.

"A bath, Trundle," she said, throwing the covers off her. She was completely unconcerned about her nudity in front of the tree-creature; he had the sex drive of a blade of grass. "I need to wash the stink of that stupid girl off me."

- - -

The princess admired her body in the mirror as she dried herself off. She could have summoned servants to attend her, but the last thing she wanted now was people around her. She was just tired of humans. Trundle waited quietly nearby with the patience of trees.

She twisted this way and that as she worked her long golden hair with an ivory-handled brush. Her body was perfect, as always. Before the old wizard had gurgled his life away with an axe blade in his throat, he had at least done the service of casting a number of magical enhancements on the princess in her youth, ensuring she would always be the pinnacle of female perfection. Her green eyes were bright in a rounded, sculpted face, punctuated by full lips which always shone with glistening redness. Her breasts were large but not overly so, perfectly complimenting her slim form. Perfectly symmetrical, they would never sag. Her tiny, ruby-hard nipples seemed almost pouty as they angled toward the ceiling. Her hips and legs could never lose their rounded shape as long as the wizard's spells held, and her taut bottom always caused excited chatter among any crowd of men she passed.

Too bad she had to constantly waste such perfection on the parade of mediocrity that her lovers had become.

She hoped Prince Alan would be different. Her parents had arranged a betrothal between him and the princess a few months ago, and he would be arriving at the palace in another few days for their first formal meeting. She had heard he had carnal desires that rivaled her own, and had sorcerous enhancements as well. She didn't expect the marriage to change her habits that much; she would just play as she always had, just in a different palace. All she would really have to do is just take time out for pregnancy to occasionally give him a few bratty heirs.

She smiled at her image as she hefted her expansive bosom, thumbs massaging the nipples. She wondered what her pert breasts would look like full of milk...

She threw on a robe. No sense sleeping now, she might as well indulge in her "hobby" a bit. She stalked toward her private study, Trundle in tow.

- - -

Once safely in the study, Trundle standing guard outside, Anna threw her garment to the side and lit a few oil lanterns for reading. She walked to a bookshelf which held many boring texts and scrolls about flora and fauna classification, reached behind, and pulled out her stack of sorcery grimoires.

Her father had ordered all of the old wizard's belongings destroyed or sold off, but a number of well-placed sexual favors had ensured that most of his spell books had made their way back into her hands. Despite the old wizard being a gross perverted lizard of a man, she had always found his magic and witchcraft fascinating, and fancied that she could one day become a sorceress herself.

Except that she had found most of the old wizard's texts to be indecipherable, and what spells she could read she couldn't make to work, no matter how hard she and her little "circle" of followers tried. She was missing something, some tidbit of magical knowledge or power she couldn't quite put her finger on. Yet.

Still, she kept trying, and many nights she found herself pouring over the old wizard's grimoires, trying to worry out some new facet of magic for herself.

Her favorite of the books was a leather-bound bestiary of magical creatures, complete with beautifully detailed hand-painted illustrations. It had clearly been lovingly created by a master book-maker before it had the misfortune of falling into the old wizard's gnarled hands.

She hefted the thick book to a lectern and flipped through the pages, leaning on the thickly carved podium. She paged idly through it, curiously regarding illustrations of creatures such as dragons, gryphons, unicorns and more. But as always the pictures that completely captivated her were that of the Nagas.

The upper half of a Naga's body looked human enough, but their lower half, starting at the hips, was that of a large, sinuous snake, covered over with shimmering colored scales. The pictures of the creatures in the book looked very sensual to Anna, with their well-sculpted features, bountiful bosoms, and long, muscular, very phallic-looking snake bodies. One picture even had two Nagas mating, both with female upper bodies but one possessing male anatomy down below. The way their snake-bodies twisted and curled together elaborately was one of the most sensuous things Anna could imagine. She rubbed her thighs together just thinking of it.

She could make out only sporadic passages of the ancient language, but she could decipher enough to know that Nagas had other powers besides their powerful-looking snake-like forms. Control over others, especially human men, was mentioned. Poison. Speaking a tongue only other lizards could understand. And other things she would have to puzzle out in the future.

She grabbed the book and lay on her naked back on the large oak table, giggling and kicking her feet playfully as she studied the Naga pictures in every detail next to the lantern. Oh, she would love to be a Naga! She would be one of the most beautiful and sensuous of them, she was sure. Once her parents died, she could rule over the kingdom as a Naga, all powerful! Oh, the fun she could have! And sex would never have to be boring again.

She rubbed her thighs together harder, a familiar tingle building between her legs. That foolish maid hadn't really satisfied her earlier. But she knew someone who could...

In a large glass pen attached to her study lay her favored pet, even more so than Trundle. Prince, a golden-scaled boa constrictor just a little longer now than she was tall. She'd had the creature since she was a little girl, when he was a little bigger than her hand. He had grown steadily over the years.

Anna opened the lid and took Prince out, draping the snake across her shoulder. The boa hissed experimentally, no hostility at all, as it had long since gotten used to being on the princess' body. He began slithering down and around her body, as she had taught him to do through long trial and error, his cold-blooded form reveling in her body heat.

Anna was reveling in another way as the boa slithered down between her heaving breasts. She loved the feel of his soft but dry scales, his long suggestive body, the interplay of his powerful muscles against her sensitive skin. As one hand held and guided the snake over her nude body, the other dropped to her cleft, slicking through her already slippery folds. She pumped herself hard, concentrating on the reptile undulating over her. Three heartbeats later she orgasmed powerfully, her cries echoing through the chamber.

Afterward, gasping, she brought the snake up to kiss it on its nose. The reptile flicked its tongue out at her to better smell her breath, uncomprehending but grateful for the warmth.

Anna replaced the snake into its pen, leaning on the lid and regarding Prince with a sigh of loving affection. It was a reaction she had not had since her first lover had taken her over a decade ago, when she had been a stupid and love-struck little girl. When humans had seemed fascinating to her instead of the dull, predictable creatures they had turned out to be.

Anna decided, then. "Trundle!" she called.

The door creaked open, revealing the ruined countenance of the man-tree. "Mistress?"

"Gather my circle. Its time we discussed my becoming a goddess."

- - -

Anna threw the heavy tome at the trembling scholar's daughter, bashing her head hard with the three pound book. The rotund little creature crashed to the ground, whimpering. The other girls cowered and drew back from the two.

"Three words, Ven!" Anna yelled, accusing. "You've had a week, and all you've been able to translate is three gods-shitting words from this grimoire!" She called for her servant. "Trundle!"

"P-please, princess!" Ven begged. "I can only steal so much time away without my father becoming suspicious! You said this must remain secret! And the dialect is so obscure..."

Unheeding, the princess grabbed her left hand and held it up as Trundle approached. "Break these fingers," she told the creature.

Ven begged and sobbed as the man-tree grabbed hold of her hand with his spindly arms and place all four of the girl's fingers into his dry, wooden mouth. He worked his jaw tight and bent his head up an inhuman distance until everyone in the room heard loud, multiple cracks intermingled with Ven's muffled screams.

Anna sneered down as the girl cried and cradled her tortured appendage. "You disappoint me like that again and I'll whore you out to the royal kennels. Understand?" The scholar's daughter could only whimper and nod. Trundle moved to the side, content to stand in sunlight slanting in from the window.

The princess turned toward the rest of her circle. They were all girls similar to her in age, who like her were interested in becoming sorceresses and witches. It had started out as a game when they were younger, but Anna had quickly turned it toward serious work once she'd gotten hold of the old wizard's grimoires. Only one had tried to quit, and she was now permanently lame and begging for food in the city's filthiest slum. "I trust the rest of you have better news for me?"

Onyx, always the most brash and streetwise of the group, spoke up. "I believe I have, Princess. There is an old hedge wizard, quite a cackling hag actually, who said she might know where we--um, you--can get more magical grimoires. Real ones, written with translations into the classical languages. Her name is Tyree. I can take you to her..."

"Give me directions. I'll go myself." Anna smirked, pleased there was at least one in her circle with some brains. And daddy always taught her that she needed to reward servants as well as punish...

"Well done," she told Onyx. She turned to the scholar's daughter, who was still kneeling and carefully wrapping a rag around her broken digits. "Ven, Onyx deserves a treat for her good work. Pleasure her."

Ven regarded her pitifully. "But Princess, my hand..."

Anna just smiled wickedly and said, "Woof." Ven's eyes went wide with horror, and dejectedly, meekly, she crawled one handed to where Onyx was lifting her skirts and spreading her legs. Tears streaming from her eyes, the plump scholar's daughter began licking out the other girl's dark-haired sex.

The princess smiled at the ecstatic moans mixed with painful sobbing. It was a music she hoped to hear much more of in the future, if her plans worked out.

- - -

Anna shuddered as she made her way through the narrow slums with Trundle in tow. Both he and she wore heavy hooded cloaks to disguise their identities, and with the gloom of twilight approaching, she was confident no one in these winding, sorrow-ridden streets would recognize her.

Onyx had been right, that Tyree had been a disgusting old hag. But she had known real, if limited magic, and directed the princess to a shop in the poorest section of the capital city.

The hag Tyree's directions were circuitous, but Anna followed them meticulously. According to the old woman, the shop could only be found by walking toward it in a complex magical pattern, diagramming magical sigils with her path while chanting a minor word of power the whole while.

The princess rounded the last corner, and astoundingly, saw a large, crisply-adorned shop amidst the run-down hovels that choked the rest of the street. Clean golden letters on its hanging wooden sign declared it to be Circe's Bookstore.

A bell tinkled as Anna and Trundle entered. A handsome older woman emerged from behind the counter, with a matronly figure and well-chiseled, slightly wrinkled features. Her long, well-coifed dark hair sported a single long streak of silver. "Greetings," the old woman said. "Feel free to look around. Let me know if you need any help. You may call me Circe."

Anna got right down to business. "I'm looking for magical grimoires written in the common languages. I'm especially interested in..."

Circe laughed, chimes on the wind. "I thought you were new. Don't worry, just look around. You'll find what you're looking for." She returned to her counter without a backward glance. "Or maybe it will find you."

Anna fumed at the woman's dismissive attitude. Raised as royalty, she was not used to being condescended to. She was tempted to return to the palace and bring back her father's soldiers, or loose Trundle on her. But then she remembered the nature of this shop, and what Circe would have to be capable of to hide it the way she did. Anna sighed. This one time, it would perhaps serve her better to just do as she was told.

She wandered the stacked shelves of books, looking in wonder at the apparently thousands of tomes the shop contained. An immense treasure in itself. The fact that they were all supposed to be books of magic made the shop probably worth more than the entirety of her father's kingdom.

A glimmer of metal on a far bookshelf caught her attention. When she looked closer, she saw a thin volume bound with what looked to be old, well-worn silver. When she hefted the book, she was surprised that it wasn't just metallic foil or gilt on a normal binding; the covers and spine themselves were made entirely of a dull silvery metal.

The book wasn't large or thick, but when Anna flipped through the pages, she was delighted with the wealth of spells and magical knowledge contained within. And it was written in an old dialect of a language she knew! She could easily do the translation herself.

She brought the book up to the shopowner, who arranged a pittance of a payment. Anna was perplexed. "Don't you want more? This grimoire..."

"...Is the one you need," Circe finished for her. "But it is also the one that wanted to find you. It has been seeking an owner for decades now, corrupting many of the other tomes, leaching their knowledge into itself to be more attractive to a buyer. Truthfully, I am glad to be rid of it."

Much to Anna's consternation, Circe would speak no more of the subject, and only laughed when the princess made a vague threat involving Trundle. Mortified, but still grateful for her purchase, Anna left the bookshop in a huff.

As soon as she and Trundle were out the door, she turned. The shop was gone, as if it had never existed at all.

- - -

Three nights of furious research and translation later, Anna was preparing her carefully chosen spell. She had no need for her circle or that whiny fool Ven. This triumph was going to be hers, and hers alone.

As soon as darkness fell and the palace settled into its quiet nightly routine, Anna snuck out of the castle through little known secret passages with Trundle in tow. A two hour walk later, they were deep in the ancient forest that her father maintained as royal hunting grounds. She meticulously consented her many scrawled notes, taken from the metal-bound grimoire. In a broad space between gnarled old trees, Anna drew a large white circle with white ash and chalk dust, then set about to draw a number of magical sigils within. Finally, with candles marking an eight-pointed star around the circumference, Anna threw her robes and slippers aside.

She knelt to the north of the circle, nude as the spell called for, and began chanting words that seemed to only barely fit in a human throat.

She chanted for she didn't know how long. The stars wheeled slowly overhead. Her voice grew steadily hoarser, exhaustion threatening her, when a sudden flash of white light boomed throughout the forest like a lightning strike.

Anna blinked. The circle was no longer empty.

In its center coiled what first looked to be an immensely large snake, the biggest the princess had ever seen. From the thickness and the number of black-scaled coils it looked to be fifteen to twenty feet long at the very least. But then, from its center, arose a human body, flowing into the rest of the snake body from its wide hips. A Naga!

The body was definitely female, with large, glistening breasts, bountiful and shapely enough to put even Anna's magically enhanced bosom to shame. A delicately curved waist and smooth shoulders belied the powerful muscles Anna saw coiling under the Naga's smooth dusky skin. Her dark hair matched her scales, and Anna could see curved demon horns springing from her skull.
Anna's was breathless. She had done it! According to the grimoire, this would not be just any Naga, but their queen!

Suddenly the Naga shook off her stupor and stabbed Anna with blood-red eyes glowing with otherworldly hate. Anna suddenly realized that she might be in real danger. "T-Trundle...um, restrain her!" she called, hoping for one magical creature to protect her from another.

"Four thousand years..." the Naga hissed as the tree-creature approached, stepping into the circle. The Naga grabbed at Trundle and hefted him off the ground, handling the massive magical hybrid as if she were handling an oversized doll.

She began eating him, tearing great huge chunks out of him with razor-sharp teeth, swallowing greedily. Sap-thick blood flew everywhere. Trundle screamed in way Anna thought nothing could ever scream. High pitched, keening, with tortured syllables nothing human could ever utter. He kept doing so, the scream coming not from his mouth but from every part of his malformed plant-like body, until the Naga had stuffed the last of his flesh into her gaping maw. She still heard the muffled screams of the tree-creature dying away within her body for long afterward, slowly being digested.

"Four thousand years in that stinking void," the Naga said. "Do you have any idea how hungry that made me?"

Anna could only work her jaw in terror. Trundle! What had she unleashed here?

The Naga narrowed terrible red eyes at the human princess. "You are the one who summoned me. The one whose voice I followed that led me out." The creature slithered directly to Anna, grabbed the princess by her throat, and casually lifted the human girl off the ground. "And what a tender morsel you are..."

Anna struggled wildly, but could not even budge the arm. Before this moment she couldn't even have imagined such strength. "But," she squeaked. "You are to grant me a boon..."

"I am Kervirtorax, the Death Maw, the Naga queen! I owe mortals nothing." She hissed her long tongue into Anna's face, and then laughed. "But you're right, morsel. By the terms of my release, according to celestial laws you are too stupid to even comprehend, I must grant you any one--and only one--boon that is within my power to grant. And then I'll devour you."

"That can't be!"

"A real sorceress would have known enough not to send her servant after me, and break the binding circle that held me back in your presence. If you were competent, you could have bargained my freedom for your safety. But you're just a foolish girl playing games with powers completely beyond you, aren't you? Now tell me your boon, morsel. I grow hungry again..."

Anna was tempted to just scream and sob in raw naked terror in the monster's grip. Tears streamed, and her bladder had already voided itself. But if she were to die, she at least wanted to accomplish what she had set out to do. "I--I--I want to be a Naga!" she blurted. "I want to be one of your daughters!"

Kervirtorax's eyes grew wide, and she dropped the naked girl. Anna crumpled to the ground like a damp rag, gasping and wheezing for breath. The Naga bent low, twisting Anna's chin around to pierce the human's eyes with her own crimson orbs. "Let me look into your soul, foolish child."

In that instance, she could feel the Naga's presence deep in her mind, a dark cobweb of thoughts trawling at her own, and knew she had no secrets from the creature. Finally Kervirtorax coiled up, towering over the princess, and began chuckling. "Amazing. You truly do see my daughters as beautiful, and want to use the power I could grant you as a Naga to rule a human kingdom with unbreakable fear. Admirable, especially for one of my kin, who are usually too dull-witted to have that kind of ambition. Perhaps I underestimated you. You have asked for the one boon that ensures that you are safe from my appetite, because the transformation you seek would make you irreversibly of my own flesh. The _only_ thing in this hovel universe I would be loathe to devour is my own offspring. On your feet, clever morsel."

Anna wobbly made her way up to her feet, standing nervously before the Naga queen. The creature slithered around her on black scales, nodding and assessing. "Your soul told me your name is Anna. You're a pitiful specimen, like most humans, but I suppose I have worked with worse."

Kervirtorax grabbed both of Anna's arms, and to the girl's surprise, pulled her into a deep and very sensual kiss. The Naga's tongue parted her lips and thrust powerfully into her mouth. She could taste the faint bitterness of venom, mixed with the syrupy-sweet remains of Trundle's blood. Their soft breasts pressed together, nipple to nipple, sending tickle-sparks of pleasure everywhere over Anna's skin.

No. The tickle sparks weren't just pleasure, Anna realized, She could feel the Naga transferring magical energy into her with the kiss. Kervirtorax broke away and began planting kisses everywhere on Anna, on her chin, neck, shoulder, breasts, each time the girl could feel an intense fever of electric power flowing into her. She looked down and saw with wonder and dread as her body began to change.

Her legs fused together painlessly, the flesh between her thighs flowing and mixing like twin streams of water. They stretched and elongated, coiling about themselves, bright green scales popping up in row after row down their length with bright flashes of magical sparks. She felt the muscles under her still-human half flow and reorder themselves, coiling and bunching with new power like pythons. Her head flew back as black horns sprouted from her forehead, curling back over her skull, even as her ears twitched and grew sharp points like the Naga queen's.

Kervirtorax pulled back, looking over the transformed Anna. Anna examined her new form, undulating her coils experimentally. "Incredible," she whispered in awe, as she thrashed her lower body powerfully onto the ground and kicked up a wave of dead leaves with a resounding crash. What really astounded her was the sound of her own voice. It had a deeper, raspier, very lusty new timber.

Anna slithered in a small circle, laughing in joy, exulting in the beauty of her new body. She was delighted at how quickly she could slither over the ground, far faster than a human could run. The Naga queen smiled grimly. "Very well--daughter. Our bargain is concluded. You must prove to me now that you're worthy of the gifts of my flesh. Do not summon me again. The only way we can meet again that will not stoke my ire is if you can seek me out on your own."

Anna blinked. "How--how do I do that?"

The Naga queen's crimson eyes flashed with menace. "That you will have to discover on your own. Now it is time for me to tend to some long overdue vengeance on those who imprisoned me." Another bright flash of white light later, the Naga queen was gone.

- - -

"You--you summoned me, Princess?" Maria asked nervously.

Anna hid herself behind a dimly lit silk screen in her personal study, trying to make her new voice sound similar to her old human one. "I understand Prince Alan arrived earlier today."

"Yes, Mistress. He is most anxious to meet you, and was disappointed that you have been indisposed for most of the day."

"Well, I am prepared to meet him now. My...short illness seems to have dissipated for the most part. Have the royal musicians set up in my bedroom, but make sure they are well-hidden behind privacy screens. I may wish to welcome Prince Alan as his betrothed properly. Understand? Make sure he is well provided with food and drink, then make sure everyone but the musicians leave this wing of the palace. I wish only for our privacy tonight. Do this well and you may earn my favor again. My intimate favor. Understand?"

The maid bubbled with renewed enthusiasm. "Yes, Mistress! I'll see to it all right away!" She bowed low and left.

After Maria left, Anna emerged from behind her screen. She slithered over the carpeted floor, flowing up and over the table and chairs several times, marveling at how easily and quickly she could maneuver now. So much better than her silly human legs! For the hundredth time since her transformation the night before, Anna ran her hands over the shimmering, emerald-green scales on her snake half. And she was so much prettier too!

The hands on her sleek scales caused her to shiver in sensual pleasure. She loved the feel of her new body, especially her snake half. Her hands re-explored her hips and flanks, thrilling at the powerful muscles underneath, then squeezed and hefted her soft breasts. Even this felt so different! They felt fuller and more sensitive, but were as perky and well rounded as ever. She couldn't get enough of caressing them, her fingers on her nipples sending out soft shivers of pleasure throughout her body, human and scaled. She rubbed herself, up and down, back and front, reveling in her new non-human sensuality.

Her fingers eventually dropped down to her feminine cleft, still remarkable intact and unchanged unlike the rest of her body, an all but invisible seam among her scales until she spread it open. She had almost expected to end up with a reptilian cloacca, but this was one case where she was pleased to have retained some of her humanity. Female mammals did have a lot more fun with sex than female reptiles...

She reached into Prince's enclosure and pulled out the large boa gold-scaled constrictor. She let him slither over her body as he had done before, tracking over her shoulder and around her waist, but this time he also slithered lower, exploring her new snake-body. Anna moaned at the exotic feel of scaly flesh rasping across scaly flesh.

She brought the snake's nose up to her own, and as usual he flicked his tongue out to smell her. But this time she flicked her own long snake's tongue, twittering with his, tasting and smelling him directly in way she never could before.

She was tempted to have the usual sexual fun she did with Prince, but no. She had a real lover waiting, one she hoped could finally satisfy her.

She looked out the door of her study surreptitiously, pleased to see Maria had done as she was told and made sure this wing of the palace was cleared of servants. She quickly slithered down the corridor and cracked open her bed chamber's door.

The Royal musicians were already set up behind their darkened privacy screens. She had used them in this capacity before; they would know not to peek around or stop playing except in the most extreme circumstances. At least, not those musicians who didn't want to end up on the street penniless and missing the fingers that had once made them so skilled.

She also saw a man who could only be Prince Alan sitting idly on her cushioned divan, sipping at a chalice of wine. He was literally tall, dark and handsome, achingly so, with perfectly-chiseled muscles that could only be possible in paintings and on the sorcery-enhanced. He had a naturally-born arrogant sneer, something that would have normally had put her off, but on him it only added to his appeal. She squealed in naked lust. No better physical specimen she could imagine for testing her new body's pleasures on!

"Prince Alan?" she called from behind the door.

"Yes?" came a deep timbered-voice, tinged with slight impatience.

"I'm Princess Anna. I wish to welcome you to my home and my kingdom. In fact, I wish to welcome you...properly as my betrothed, if that's all right. But I must admit to being a bit nervous. No one has ever seen me like this."

Alan laughed haughtily. "I'd heard you were certainly not one for modesty, but perhaps those were just rumors. Well, don't fear. If the rest of you is as sexy as your voice, I will be very happy to receive a, heh, proper welcome from my betrothed."

"I am very glad to hear that." She took a deep breath, threw the door wide, and undulated into her large bedroom. She coiled up high, letting her guest have a full view of her new body.

His jaw worked in terror. "Gods!" he gasped, throwing himself back in instinctive fear and tripping over the divan to the floor. His cup flew and crashed loudly against the privacy screens. The musicians stopped.

"Keep playing!" she barked, and the music immediately resumed. In a way, Alan's naked terror was pleasing. No one would ever be dismissive to her again! She couldn't resist playing with him a little. "Do you not find me pleasing, my lord?"

"What--what are you?"

"Why, I'm your bride-to-be." Her eyes met his, and she could feel that she could reach into what lay beyond them, into his mind, and "push" him in certain ways. His thoughts were like wet clay, able to be remolded or rearranged. Not direct control, not exactly, but enticement and coercion rolled into one. She imagined someone with a strong will could resist it.

Alan was not one of those. His eyes glazed over, his expression softened as a wan smile overtook him. "You--you're beautiful," he drawled.

She slithered up to him, tickling under his chin with the retractable claws her fingernails had become. "Well, aren't you sweet? Let's see if you taste it." She bent down and kissed him, her tongue snaking between his lips. She shivered as she could actually taste the tingle of residual magic flowing through him from his magical augmentations.

She pulled back and instructed the musicians to play something seductive. She began swaying her hips back and forth hypnotically in time to the music. She rolled her shoulders, arching her back to display her shimmering ivory breasts. Her fingers ran enticingly over her form, sliding over skin and scale.

Alan became entranced again, this time by more than her Naga-spawn mental enticements. His breathing was ragged as he shifted back onto the divan, smiling up at her. His arousal becoming very evident by the growing tightness of his lower tunic.

She laughed, reveling in the power she had over him, magically and sexually. She orbited him on the divan, flowing her snake-body easily up and over the broad couch, mere inches from him. He reached his palm out to touch her, letting her smooth scales glide under his skin. He cooed, fascinated, as Anna shivered in pleasure. She wasn't cold-blooded like a true snake, but she was far more acutely aware of the heat emanating from his skin than she could ever have been in her old form.

She slithered over his legs, still dancing and swaying to the slow, erotic pulses of the music, just inches from where his shaft was now prominently tenting his clothes. He openly caressed her now, swirling his hands over her long, sinuous snake's body as she passed. His eyes followed her hips and swaying, ruby-nippled breasts as she circled him.

Heaping her tail-end on his legs, she came up and placed her hands on his chest, helping him remove his tunic. His hands immediately shot up to her breasts, hefting their weight in the palm of her hands and tweaking her already rock-hard buttons with his thumbs. Anna groaned and arched her back.

Impatient, she used her fingerclaws to shred his remaining clothes and scatter the tatters. She drew her claws over his broad naked chest, cooing to herself at his pectorals' muscular sweep. She scratched lightly at his bare skin, just enough to let him feel the sharpness of her claws. He gasped in pleasure as he bent down and took a nipple into his mouth.

She growled loudly, swooning. So hot! It had never felt like this when she was human! Everything was so much more intense as a Naga! She thrust her sweat-beaded bosom into him, pulling his dark-haired head to her roughly to encourage more eager suckling.

She brushed her coils against his hardness, smirking at the powerful shudder of sensation that flowed through him. She leaned down, kissed him, and began trailing her long tongue down his torso, flicking it over his skin in quick, snake-like bursts. She looked over his hardness, smooth and long and perfectly proportioned, throbbing its lust as she breathed hotly on it. Her tongue darted out, wrapping itself around it twice, before she slicked it back into her mouth. She did this again and again in rapid succession, making him groan and thrash about, before she took him into her maw.

To her delight and his, she found she could unhinge her jaw easily now, and still licking his member feverishly she easily slid his entire pulsing length into her mouth. She zummed happily as she sucked gently. It was so hot! She worked her jaw out a little more, and found she could engulf his sack as well. He yowled his pleasure into the room, causing a hiccup in the playing music.

Her agile tongue worked him over, back and forth, tip to balls, even as she held him in her and sucked for all she was worth. He thrashed about, gasping, until finally he could take no more. He thrust raggedly into her eager throat a few more times, then went rigid as his member spasmed, shooting hard into her. She swallowed greedily, feeling the hot seed coat the walls of her throat and bubbled down into her stomach.

Anna looked up at him, smiling, using her flickering snake's tongue to clean him. She tugged him over onto his side on edge of the divan, and wordlessly undulated her body up and over, lining up her slit with his mouth. She spread herself with her fingers, so he would have no misunderstanding of what she wanted.

Alan's strong hands encircled her snake body behind her hips, where the faint curve of a rump could still be seen, and pulled her to him. His tongue, unusually long for a human and perhaps another part of him enhanced by sorcery, easily found its way between her scaly outer folds and caressed the tender pink flesh within. A powerful shudder flew down her body at the contact, rippling over her coiled snake-body like a wave until the tip of her tail thudded hard onto the exposed stone floor, leaving a small spider-web crack in the polished rock. Anna hardly noticed.

Alan tortured her sex, holding her open himself now, tongue working in broad circles over her lips, slowly swirling in until he penetrated her and tickled her moist tunnel walls. He flicked his tongue up, molding it over her all-but hidden button, and vibrated it mercilessly, ripping a long string of muffled screams from the transformed princess. When he inserted one, then two, fingers into her undulating crevice she climaxed powerfully, ripples undulating down her long body. She went rigid, her folds squeezing his digits tight over and over in orgasm.

Even before her aftershocks fully abated she pushed him onto his back on the divan with the end of her snake tail. He hardly resisted, his arousal as evident as before. She slid over him, and without preamble or even much conscious thought, slid his shaft into her sopping wet sex.

They both cried out. Anna could not believe how intense the sensations were! She could feel every inch of him as he easily entered her to the hilt with one long push, his shaft pulsing with life and dizzying heat. She propped herself up on her arms to look down at him. His slitted eyes met hers, his hands pulling and squeezing at her heavy breasts.

Alan pulled back and thrust into her, tentatively at first, then with greater enthusiasm and strength. Anna was nearly in tears at how good it all felt. She wanted more! More of him, more of his heat! She began wrapping her long, thick snake-body around him, snaking under his legs, then stretching up to wrap around his torso. He didn't seem to mind at all, and only began pistoning into her all the harder as her coils encircled his body.

His fingers clutched at her heaving mounds tightly, his thrusts pounding in and out of her buttery entrance with renewed force, and Anna could tell his moment was almost on him. Her own climax was building quickly again as well, a powerful explosion of sensation coiling deep in her.

Finally, he buried himself into her as deep as he could go and exploded his seed deep into her reptilian womb. The searing heat of his male gift flooding her triggered her own climax. Her eyes snapped shut and she cried out, her muscles rippling and coiling powerfully as her folds spasmed hard around him once again. She heard him gurgle and some odd cracks and pops, but was far too gone into her own shuddering ecstasy to pay much attention.
She opened her eyes minutes later. Body-warm crimson splashed many of her green scales, with an unrecognizable mass of pulpy meat and bone where Alan should be. Only when she spotted his face, lolling loosely to the side, frozen into a rictus of horror and pain, did she realize what had happened. In her orgasmic ecstasy, she had squeezed him with all of her now inhuman strength.

Someone screamed, long and loud, piercing the whole palace. Only after she gasped for breath did Anna realize the scream was her own.

The musicians stopped, looked around the screen, and began screaming themselves. She pulled back from Alan's mangled corpse, half her snake body dripping with blood and gory viscera. Upon seeing her they ran as one for the room's veranda entrances.

Anna could only blink at the ruin of Prince Alan's body, stunned. She had no idea she'd had that kind of strength, or that it would be so hard to control!

Gods, was that going to happen to all of her lovers? She had always reveled in being cruel and merciless, as that's what a sorceress was supposed to be, but she had always stopped short at killing. Looking at her unintentional handiwork now, a sickening feeling suddenly overpowered her. She doubled over, vomiting violently.

Would she ever be able to have sex again, without something like that happening? Would she ever even be able to close her eyes again and not see Alan's mangled face staring into eternity?

Soldiers burst into the room, halberds and swords bristling, followed closely by Anna's parents. The queen screamed at seeing Prince Alan and his blood-soaked killer. The king, an old veteran of a half-dozen wars, brandished his well-worn battle axe at the creature. "What goes on here! What kind of monster..." His eyes narrowed on the Naga. "It can't be...Anna?"

She gulped in fear. There were too many for her to control or overpower physically. Her only hope was to convince her father what had happened with Alan had really been an accident.

But just to be sure, she reached into his mind, pushing him to sympathize with his transformed daughter. "Daddy, its not what it looks like! Its me, Anna! Your daughter! You have to help me!"

His eyes glazed over, and for a moment, Anna had him. But then he shook his head, blinking, a hideous anger building across his features. Her father had suffered through too much in his life to be so easily controlled. "You are trying to bewitch me!" he yelled. "Trying to fool us all! You are not my Anna! My daughter is not a monster!" He shouted to his men, hefting his own weapon. "Slay that abomination!"

The soldiers rushed forward, and Anna, in a pure panic, plowed through them in a mad dash to get to the veranda doors. They drastically underestimated how fast her snake-body could move, and that saved her. She made it out of the room with only a shallow gash on her hip from a lucky, half-hearted sword thrust. But she heard many harsh shouts behind her. The alarm was being sounded, and lights were being lit all over the palace.

She dashed into one of the castle's secret causeways, slithering fast through its twists and turns, emerging through the sewers into the midst of the capital city. But even there she was not safe. She startled a few townsfolk. One, a young girl, screamed so shrilly Anna could swear that she could rouse half the city. Soon torches were being lit everywhere and troops were running through the streets with spears brandished, poking into every shadow to flush her out. More than once she turned a corner only to have some peasant or another begin screaming and throwing things at seeing her.

Her newfound abilities meant nothing, she realized. She had no hope of fighting them all! If only Trundle were still here! But he had been inadvertently sacrificed for Anna's new form. She was now thinking that was a very poor trade indeed.

If she stayed in the city, it would only be a matter of time before she was caught in a trap she couldn't escape from. She seriously doubted that they would underestimate her again.

She made a dash for the harbor, gambling that they wouldn't think that she would try and escape across the lake. She had barely made it into the water when arrows began slicing into the water around her. Her large Naga tail propelled her faster through the water than any of them could have guessed at, undulating behind her wildly like a gigantic eel.

Anna heaved herself to shore on the other side, knowing she couldn't stay there long. What was she going to do? She couldn't go back! But she didn't have anything with her, not even any clothes! And no one she knew would even talk to her like this! She would be hunted throughout the whole kingdom! Unless...

She found her way, slowly, cautiously into the ancient forest where she had first summoned the Naga queen. She did not see any other way, she had to be transformed back into her old self. As long as she was a Naga, she would be hunted down. But if she could be transformed back, she could say she had been held prisoner, or was ensnared by magical forces beyond her control. Or something.

She was glad she had been so preoccupied with her transformation the night before that she had left her bag of chalk dust and candles where she had abandoned them. She quickly redrew the summoning circle, lit the candles, and began the spell again.

She began the chant from the night before with no small amount of fear, remembering what Kervirtorax had done to Trundle. But the Naga queen herself had said that she would never devour her own flesh, and once transformed Anna would always be her daughter. So the princess gambled that she would be safe enough from the Naga queen to ask for a further favor.

An hour passed as she chanted, then two. Far off, she could hear shouts and feel the vibration of many booted feet through the ground. Her fathers' soldiers were searching the woods for her, perhaps had even tracked her directly here. She hadn't much time, now...

A bright flash of light and Kervirtorax returned. She turned, saw Anna, and snarled. "You! I told you never to summon me again, daughter!"

"But you have to help me! They..." Fear stabbed Anna as Kervirtorax slithered out of the summoning circle and slammed her hard across the jaw with back of her hand. Anna went flying, impacting a small tree and nearly cracking it in half. She groaned in pain. "But...the circle..."

"That only protects mortals, the soul carriers of the Path. Its part of the laws all powers dealing with mortals are bound to obey. But as soon as you took my flesh you gave up the rules of the Path. Now the only rules that apply to you are mine."

She cowered low, pleading. "Please, you have to change me back! They're hunting me, they're coming even now! I--I killed someone, crushed him..." She started crying. "I don't want this anymore! I just want to be somewhere safe!"

Kervirtorax lifted her up by her neck, finger talons digging deep into her flesh. Anna thrashed as helplessly in the grip as she had as a human. The Naga queen would have made sure, of course, that her daughters could never come close to her in sheer power. "Pathetic! If you weren't of my flesh, you would already be sliding down my gullet in pieces. I gave you power as few mortals could ever know! And you fear soldiers with measly steel? You have abilities you have not even guessed at! Those were all part of the test, to see if you had the brains and strength to persevere and learn of them! And you failed so immensely it shames me!"

They heard the shouts of the humans growing louder, saw the dim lights of their torches growing brighter. Kervirtorax tilted her head, contemplating them, then turned back to regard Anna with a wicked smile. "I think what you need is a lesson, daughter. A long, painful, humiliating lesson"

Before Anna's astonished eyes, the Naga queen's form shimmered and flowed like water under her, but the steel-hard grip holding the princess up never wavered an inch. It was if The Naga queen's body was melting like snow over a hot fire, and then splashing into a new form. Only the new form made the princess gasp. It was herself, as she had been before Kervirtorax had changed her! The Naga queen had transformed herself into the mirror image of Anna's human self!

She could feel Kervirtorax's mind plumbing her own, pushing, shredding at things to get at Anna's memories. It was the last thing Anna remembered for a long time...

- - -

Her thoughts were dim and her memories slow to coalesce. She remembered agonizing pain first and foremost, as if her body had been pulled apart and being sewn back together with a thousand rusty needles. Then a long, arduous journey, much hunger, much pain.

Her eyes opened. She was lying on her belly on what looked to be sand. There was something odd in front of her eyes, tapering and scaly. It looked like to be a...snout?

She tried to bring her fingers up to feel it, but she quickly discovered she had no fingers or arms at all. She looked down at herself, and could only see scales and coils, all vestiges of her human body gone. Anna reared up, and spotted her own reflection in some sort of glass barrier. A large green boa constrictor stared back at her, even flicked out its tongue instinctively. She was nothing but all snake now!

She looked and smelled around, twittering her tongue. She was in a large glass enclosure, similar to the one she had kept Prince in, but much more spacious. She knew of only one such enclosure built for snakes, in her father's royal Menagerie in the city's gardens.

She could feel panic welling up, the only thing keeping her from bashing the glass enclosure's wall over and over again was that her thought processes were still somewhat cottony. Why had Kervirtorax done this to her? She was still alive, true, but how was she supposed to live like this? What was she going to do?

Her tongue caught the scent of others in the cage with her, and craned her head around to regard them. One with golden coloring she recognized immediately: Prince, her former pet. At least he was still okay, and somewhere safe. There was another boa near him, just as big, but with darker scales.

Another flick of her tongue, and she was suddenly, acutely aware that they were both male snakes. The scent was unusually pungent. They began slithering toward her, dark intensity in their reptilian eyes. What did they want with her? Big snakes were solitary, and they certainly couldn't want to eat her. Unless....

She turned toward the glass suddenly desperate to find a way, any way out. She looked around panicky, even bashing her head against the glass in desperation, just as both males reached her.

They rapidly entwined themselves around her, pulling her down with their weight, writhing and wrapping themselves around her snake-body obscenely. She tried to slither away, but it was no use. They were both bigger, thicker, their squeezing and intercoiling having a near fanatic strength to it. She hissed a reptilian scream as she felt something long and insistent shove its way into an orifice far down her sinuous body.

"Enjoying yourself, daughter?"

Anna looked up to see herself, her human self, looking down at her from the other side of the glass. She suddenly remembered what had happened right before she had blacked out. That had to be the Naga queen! What was she doing?

"Taking you place. I thought that would be obvious," Kervirtorax said. "Yes, I can read your thoughts. As I said, you needed a lesson. I had hoped that you would be more intelligent than my naturally-hatched daughters, and I hope that still. A century or two living as a snake will no doubt teach you humility." She laughed. "I imagine your learning your first painful lesson of that right now."

But why? Why did you do this? Why are you me?

Kervirtorax shrugged creamy shoulders, adjusting her bountiful bosom under her sleeveless blouse. "Because I have to admit that I liked your original ambition. Ruling a human kingdom, raping its citizens and resources for selfish wants. Sounded like a very pleasant, hedonistic diversion after four millennia in that damned void. And the humorous thing is, they treat me like a hero now! It was so easy to make up a story of how I had been studying magic secretly and had used it to conquer the evil Naga that had invaded the palace, tried to take your place, and murdered that poor male you crushed."

That can't be!

"It is, idiot child. There were many powers you had as my daughter, including shapeshifting. If you had not panicked like a simpering fool after your first kill, you would have eventually have discovered that for yourself. You could have turned back into your human form whenever you wished. But that privilege is denied you now."

Anna writhed in agony, being mated by a lizard, screaming over and over again inside her own mind.

Kervirtorax laughed again. "You should also know that before the "evil Naga" was vanquished, she cast a horrible wasting sickness upon the king. After he was gone, your mother was overtaken with hysterics, clearly in no shape to run a kingdom. So, ever practical people little mortals are, they are going to coronate me tomorrow as the new queen. I plan on my rule being very cruel and unpleasant, especially for my lovers. That maid, Maria, she looked especially delicious, and so eager to please..."

You can't do this to me! Please! It hurts! I don't want to be a snake! Gods, what they're doing to me! She shuddered in horror. I don't want to lay their eggs...

The Naga queen's smile turned predatory as Anna began sobbing in her mind. "And not just any eggs, you should know. Your father is not dead, but I needed him to disappear. And I thought, if a solution worked well for one fool, why would it not work well for another?"

Anna threw open her jaw and worked her forked tongue in shocked realization. That black boa...that reptilian organ writhing sickeningly in her...

No!

"Oh yes, fool of a daughter. Have fun incestuously birthing many generations of my grandchildren." The Naga queen straightened and threw back her silky golden hair. "I'll return in a century or two to see if you're worthy of perhaps becoming my full daughter again. Hopefully by then you will have forgotten being human and its silly passions, and learn how to be more...cold-blooded."

Anna struggled futilely to escape the writhing grip of the two male boas. The transformed Naga queen walked away, laughing mirthfully, to tend to her new kingdom.

- - -

The Naga queen was good to her word. Nearly two centuries to the day, Kervirtorax returned for Anna. The Royal Menagerie had long since burned to the ground along with most of the rest of the city. All the other animals had perished, but for some reason the snake that had once been the princess had remained unscathed even in the hottest flames. She nested in its ruins now, hunting animals and the occasional human foolish enough to come near. She was now well over forty feet long, and just the week before had swallowed her first full-grown deer.

Kervirtorax slithered openly up to Anna over the moss-covered rubble, wearing her original half-snake form as the Naga queen. She had shed the need to disguise herself as Anna over a century before, when her reign over the continent as Grand Dark Empress had been fully consolidated. Much of the kingdom that her father had ruled had been ground into ruins and mostly forgotten, victim of decades of unrelenting warfare.

"That was very fun, daughter," Kervirtorax said to the gigantic boa. Anna just flicked her tongue at the smaller, snake-like creature. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized it as familiar, and it was the first thing that she had seen in decades that moved that she did not instantly classify as potential prey. "You have no idea the fun you missed, reducing a dozen human kingdoms to ruined husks, seducing and murdering and devouring so many of them along the way."

The Naga queen looked up into Anna's glassy black eyes, each as large now as a dinner plate. She glanced deeper into Anna's mind, nodding in approval at what she saw. "Interesting," Kervirtorax said. "There's nothing human left in you. I guess two centuries as a snake was enough to completely bury twenty measly years a human. I was going to see about giving you another chance, daughter, but truthfully, I think I prefer you like this. Far less whiny, and you are as reptilian as I could hope for."

She scritched under her daughter's massive scaled chin. "Come. I have sated myself here, and its time to return to universes that truly matter." Kervirtorax turned and slithered around a corner that wasn't there. A moment later, not even comprehending the power she was using, Anna followed her Naga mother into other worlds.