Jon looked at herself in the mirror, still hovering somewhere between a state of shock and one of total panic. Jon could hardly believe she was thinking it, but she would make a very lovely bride - - even if it looked to be a shotgun wedding. The white gown's low-cut bodice lifted and compressed her brests to create massive cleavage. Her short red hair was crowned with a circlet of white roses, which combined with the long white gloves encasing her arms to give her a regal air. She looked more mature than her years, but that could have also been due to DeMorrell tweaking her age while he had reshaped her body into her new female form. Of course, there wasn't much the dressmaker could do to conceal the pronounced swell of her pregnancy, but, all in all, she was a vision of fertile female loveliness, a woman any man would be proud to have as his bride. The baby rolled over inside her, reminding Jon of what was to come in the next month or so. The young redhead hung her head and cursed beneath her breath. The dressmaker and his small swarm of assistants did not even notice.
Obviously, her little plan had not gone well at all. Jon had thought that she might trick DeMorrell into sending "Nora" back to her hometown, ostensibly to earn a living as a waitress at a local restaurant. In reality, Nora was actually Jon's grandfather, Jack Merlin, an adventurer who through a series of misadventures had become trapped in the body of an avaricious young woman that had betrayed their mutual enemy, Lucius DeMorrell. After months of captivity, punctuated by multiple rapes and beatings, Jack had become pregnant by DeMorrell, hardly a condition that lent itself to staging a rescue from a heavily fortified compound, but any help was better than nothing. Once back home, Granddad would have been free to pursue whatever means she had available to thwart DeMorrell and rescue Jon. Instead, DeMorrell decided to send "Nora" back to her family in the physical and, worse, mental state she had enjoyed prior to her tampering with the stone. All of which meant that Granddad was free and no longer pregnant by his arch enemy, but it also meant she had no idea of her grandson's plight. She even thought she was the real Nora Volancort!
Jon's plan to dupe DeMorrell into releasing Granddad so she could return with help was undone in a single stroke. Nor was Jon looking forward to making good on all the promises she had made DeMorrell if only he would "just send Nora away!" First, she would have tomarry him. DeMorrell had wished for that and, short of obtaining the stone to reinterpret the wish, Jon had figured she would have to go through with it. But she had promised to be a dutiful wife, obedient to his will, and fruitful as well, providing him with as many children as he might desire. Examining her face in the mirror, Jon guessed her new age to be anywhere from eightteen to twenty-two. That meant she had nearly two full decades of childbearing years ahead of her.
The only upshot to all this was her release from confinement. DeMorrell had a small private ceremony in mind and Jonni, as he referred to Jon, must be prepared. To that end she had been brought from her wing of the mansion to DeMorrell's private sanctum, the chambers they would share together before much longer. Jon had desperately tried to remember the paths they took, which hallways, where they turned, how many doors and windows they passed on the way, if they were guarded or not, and so on. Awkward and front heavy as she was it wouldn't be easy to make a run for it. In fact, she probably couldn't run at all in her fecund condition, but if escape were to be possible she would have to doit herself and she would have to remember the way out. Jon didn't think DeMorrell would be foolish enough to leave the stone where she might get at it. He wasn't a stupid man. Still, anyone as rich, powerful, and corrupt as DeMorrell had enemies. It stood to reason the man might have hidden weapons or secret passageways in his private chambers before the stone made such things obsolete - - just in case he was ever attacked on his homeground.
So Jon was determined to search for these weapons and escape routes if they still existed. All she had to do was get some time alone. To that end, Jon began complaining. She was hungry. She was tired. Her feet hurt. Her back hurt. She didn't like the way the dressmaker was poking and prodding her. When DeMorrell was finally summoned to confront his fussy fiance, Jon looked him in the eye in that surly way her mother had once addressed her father when pregnant with the twins. One hand in the small of her back, the other rubbing her belly, she scowled and exhaled loudly.
"Yes, my dear?" DeMorrell seemed distracted as if he had other matters to attend to.
"I'm tired. The baby's tired," Jon pouted, "I don't want to stand up anymore. I want my nap."
"So be it," DeMorrell nodded, "All of you leave. My intended needs her rest."
After the small entourage of servants had left DeMorrell turned to her with something of a leer, "You may sleep here in my bed, Jonni, dear. We'll be making extensive use of it soon enough!"
DeMorrell left. It briefly occurred to Jon that if he caught her plotting trachery what her grandfather had endured would be a walk in the park. And yet, Jon knew she couldn't live with herself, especially as DeMorrell's baby-making sex slave, if she didn't try. What to do? To search his chambers or not?
