Mess 175

175.

“Your ears are red.”

Seraphie forced herself to suppress her laughter.

“Can I touch them?”

“Why are you like this today…” Orkis grumbled, running a hand down his face. Nevertheless, he obligingly lowered his upper body toward her.

Seraphie reached out cautiously.

His reddened ears were hot, the heat palpable even before she actually touched them. Her fingers paused in the air, then lightly brushed the edge of his ear.

“…Whew.”

His hunched shoulders flinched; the breath he had been holding brushed past her ear in a resentful sigh.

Seraphie found herself breathing a little quicker too.

Neither spoke; instead, the two of them expressed everything through the rhythm of their breath.

Each time her fingers daringly traced his ear, Orkis let out a rough gasp. In response, a thin breath escaped Seraphie, as if answering him.

“Are you tormenting me?” Orkis asked, teeth gritted with effort.

“No.”

To speak of torment—if anyone suffered, it was Seraphie.

‘My legs are shaking…’

They hadn’t even begun, and already she was like this. She honestly doubted she’d be able to go through with what was about to happen, fully conscious.

“Sera.”

Orkis wrapped his arm around Seraphie’s waist.

“Would you like some tea?”

“……”

“I already boiled some water.”

Only then did she notice the small kettle set upon a stove.

She allowed herself to be led to a chair and handed him the pouch she’d brought.

“Put this in. One pill should be enough.”

“This is it?”

“They say if both people drink it, it’s more effective.”

“Karl said one per cup.”

Orkis prepared the tea in silence. He dropped a small, spherical pill into each cup, causing the tea to turn faintly opaque.

They both drank quietly from their cups.

‘I should probably never tell him the one who made the medicine was Penny…’

Seraphie allowed herself to imagine Orkis finding out the manufacturer of the pill he’d just drunk was Peonia.

He wouldn’t spit out the tea like Luni, but every time he thought of his younger sister, he’d probably shudder for a while.

‘Good thing Penny ran away in the night.’

Her lips curled in wry amusement, hidden behind the teacup.

“Sera.”

The sound of his voice startled her so much that she lost her grip on the cup; it clattered noisily against the table, spilling a few drops of tea.

But neither of them looked at it.

Orkis was suddenly close, his kiss rough and insistent. Every bit of his usual restraint was gone.

But there was no time for surprise. Seraphie had to answer him, desperate, possessed.

“Mmh…!”

The weight pressing down from above was too much; by reflex, Seraphie threw her arms around his neck, and those great arms swept her up by waist and hips.

In that brief moment when her body was lifted, their lips parted for only a second. Orkis licked away the saliva from her lips with deliberate satisfaction, swallowing it for her to see.

Breathlessly, Seraphie gazed up at him, eyes glazed.

The bed soon swayed beneath them.

They kissed again. Although there was a touch more composure now, their hungry longing only grew. With every tangle of their tongues, heat and yearning accumulated between them.

When their eyes met for a fleeting second, the air grew heavier, charged with promise; something more than mere heat pressed in, a heady sensuality binding the two inescapably together.

“…I feel like such a scoundrel,” Orkis murmured, raising his upper body a little.

“To take advantage of someone who just recovered.”

For all his self-deprecating muttering, his hands showed no signs of restraint.

Those hands—once habitually dignified, always tucking Seraphie’s clothes for her—now ran over her half-bared skin, hungry for more. But he hadn’t removed her clothing completely; even now, out of force of habit, some restraint lingered.

“Sera.”

His exploring hands grew bolder, more persistent.

The slow, humid traces of his touch set Seraphie trembling with heat that built deep inside.

“Are you certain you won’t regret this?” Orkis bit gently at Seraphie’s lower lip as she panted. Her body, already at the threshold of pleasure, flushed bright red.

He wanted to devour her right then.

With a flick of his lips, his mouth traveled to the full curves of her chest. For all the reverence in his movement, his amethyst gaze seethed with feverish wanting.

“If I regret it, will you stop?”

Seraphie lightly lifted a leg, nudging him. Orkis’s face twisted into a wicked expression.

“I am scared, a little…”

But there was not a trace of regret.

“If I fall in love with you, I feel like that’s the end of everything.”

“What ends?”

“I don’t know.”

She no longer remembered.

The truth was, she had always known: when she was with Orkis—when she shared happiness with him—she forgot things. Important things.

Blissful, terrible oblivion. Eventually, she forgot even that she’d forgotten.

“Maybe it’s something I’ll never get back…”

Not even she knew what it was she could never return to.

Not even she truly knew what “end” she spoke of.

‘But right now…’

This moment was too precious to let abstract anxieties intrude. She wanted to devote herself, heart and mind, to this eternal instant.

Seraphie tilted her head and softly kissed him.

“I love you.”

His violet eyes quivered.

“Kiss, I love you.”

That confession was both a signal and a permission.

Their greedy longing and melting tenderness rose together like an overwhelming tide, drowning them. Together, Seraphie and Orkis suffocated and revived in the raging heat of their love.

Ragged gasps, skin pressed to skin—everything melted into one.

“……”

As pleasure shook her to her core, Seraphie gazed vacantly at the moonlight shining between the curtains.

The soft-edged fullness of the moon was blurred by her misted vision.

“Sera.”

A large hand gently turned her face.

“I love you, too.”

Tears fell from the curve of Seraphie’s eyes.

Wave after wave of breathtaking ecstasy swept over them.

---

When Orkis opened his eyes, dawn was just breaking.

A delicious lethargy enveloped his body; he felt no urge to hide the smile that threatened to spread across his lips.

This was the happiest he had been in a very long time. Contentment like this had been a stranger to him for years.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, his vision grew clearer too. Rolling his body, satiated as a beast after a feast, he saw Seraphie before him—still fast asleep, turned away.

“……”

Orkis gazed for a long while at Seraphie’s back.

‘Do you have a grudge against my back?’

Seraphie’s words, spoken breathlessly during a lull in their passion, came to mind.

‘I overdid it, didn’t I.’

He had left his mark on Seraphie—perhaps, particularly on her back, almost to excess. Looking at the bruised, bite-marked skin filled him with both guilt and a strange satisfaction.

‘…If I had bitten deeper.’

What would have happened then?

Maybe no wings would sprout at all.

Of course, humans do not grow wings, but Seraphie had sometimes found mysterious feathers stuck to her back—enough that the odd thought sometimes haunted him.

“Mmm…”

Seraphie, shifting in her sleep, stirred slightly. As her body brushed against him, Orkis instinctively bit down—coming perilously close to a forbidden spot.

Suppressing a resurgence of desire, he pulled the comforter, which had slipped to her hips, all the way up to her neck.

At that moment, something brushed his hand.

He reached beneath the covers and pulled out a tiny feather.

Finer and slimmer than even his finger, it gleamed white and delicate in the darkness.

But as Orkis looked upon the feather, a faint grimace crossed his face.

To him, the feather was more sinister and loathsome than poison. There was no real reason; at some point, he had simply grown hostile to the feathers that sometimes appeared on Seraphie’s back.

For her part, Seraphie had long since stopped caring. Whenever feathers appeared, she simply collected them, depositing them in a jar like pennies in a piggy bank.

Her reaction was utterly different from those early days, when just seeing a feather would make her faint.

“……”

He watched the feather for a while.

Then, slowly, he put it in his mouth.

With no hesitation at all, he chewed, swallowing hard as his Adam’s apple bobbed.

‘…It really isn’t pleasant.’

It had no taste to speak of.

Still, the act of making it disappear from sight was satisfaction enough.

Content at last, Orkis slipped his arm under the covers and pulled Seraphie close. The feeling of her cool skin warming anew against him was ridiculously sweet.

“…Kiss?” murmured Seraphie, eyes still closed.

“Get a little more sleep.”

“Mmm…”

At that, Seraphie nestled in, clutching tighter at the arm around her waist, lips curving into a lazy grin.

Raising himself up to steal a glance at her childish smile, Orkis found himself grinning too as he pressed in close once more.

Until morning came, the two of them allowed themselves a rare bout of delicious indolence.

---

The remainder of their vacation passed in the blink of an eye.

Seraphie could not have wished for a more satisfying holiday.

By day, she joined everyone in countless activities. They picked wild strawberries for jam, showed off drawings learned from Bia (which only had the children in tears), tried splitting wood with an axe and ended up breaking a window—drawing a stern scolding from Grandmother. When it rained, she enjoyed a cup of tea with a good book.

All the while, she kept pondering the tasks that awaited her upon their return.

At night, she spent the hours with Orkis.

Until the eve of their departure for the capital, the two of them tangled every night, caressing and whispering love until dawn.

“That’s really… enough…”

Unable to keep up physically any longer, Seraphie finally surrendered, hand feebly signaling her defeat.

“We have to leave early tomorrow…”

Seraphie had no desire for further rumors about their night-long trysts.

After their blissful first night, she’d slept in later than usual—a rare thing. That morning, Orkis (already up) had ordered the maids to bring bathwater—

From Seraphie’s own room.

Wearing only his trousers.

His bare chest still blatantly displaying tales of the night before.

From then on, Seraphie had to endure a hell that was hell in everything but name.

Her mother and grandmother lectured her on the importance of contraception, while Luni and Batisa grinned at her every time they passed, and Karl could do little but blush and stumble.

Worst of all were the children—

‘Countess, why did you sleep in?’

‘Did you get a bug bite on your neck?’

‘Why did you sleep with the Duke? Why?’

Their guileless questions rained down in a barrage. When Seraphie was left dumbstruck, guardians would quickly whisk the children away.

“At this rate, I’ll never be able to hold my head up again…”

“You’ve committed no crime—go about boldly,” Orkis retorted.

“This brat…”

Offended, Seraphie gave his hair a light tug.

But Orkis was even more shameless than she expected.