Uriel Wayne Dana Alfred
“Mm...”
Euphemia rubbed at the sleep gathered in the corners of her eyes and let out a thin sigh.
Lately she had been waking in the night to the need to relieve herself. The womb, swelling little by little around the child settled inside her, seemed to have begun pressing on her bladder. Today alone—was this the fourth time?
Even so, setting aside the extra sleep, the morning sickness, and the frequent urge, she was passing a reasonably peaceful early pregnancy. She threw back the covers and carefully lowered her feet from the bed.
“Ah...”
But when had he come back?
In the room sunk under a dim darkness, Perzen was drinking water. Euphemia blinked, then slowly turned her head to check the clock.
Seven-forty in the morning.
So it was already this late.
“W-welcome... home.”
A little sorry that she had failed to notice him in her sleep, she greeted him awkwardly, shyly.
“I’m back.”
His face was weary enough to fall asleep on the spot, yet he answered in a calm, pleasant baritone. He set the glass down, came to where she sat on the edge of the bed, and gently stroked her shoulder.
“You won’t be going out today anyway. Why not lie down a little longer?”
“I... I have to... use the bathroom...”
“I see.”
There was no holding back a bodily need. Perzen let her go without protest, drew the covers up, and lay down at his ease.
The sight of him so utterly unbothered left Euphemia half-risen—she did have to go—and yet she could not bring herself to take a step.
“Is there something you want to say to me?”
He asked it with a note of puzzlement. Standing stock-still while her legs trembled faintly under the mounting urge was strange enough to deserve the question.
“I...”
At that, Euphemia flushed and answered in a voice so small it was barely there.
“I’m... going to... p-pee...”
An unsolicited, detailed report. Sleep was already dragging at him, and still Perzen’s expression soured.
“You don’t have to tell me that much.”
“I-I know...”
Euphemia herself found her own behavior a little absurd. But he was unusually sensitive to scent, and she could not help it. If she invited some needless misunderstanding and came back only to find him reluctant to draw her into his arms, she thought the wound would not be small.
“It’s because of you... No. Never mind... I’ll be right back.”
More talk would only make her look worse, and cost her besides. She opened the door and went to the bathroom.
Just as she had said, she finished as quickly as she could, washed her hands, and returned to the bedroom—
Perzen had sat up and was reading a letter.
The air around him looked heavy enough that she needlessly watched his mood, sat primly at his side, and covered her pale legs with the blanket. Gathering up the torn envelope, she checked the house crest stamped on it and understood at once that the sender was Alfred.
What could Alfred want...
Even Euphemia, who had lived on the northern frontier, knew as common knowledge that Brutein and Alfred were on bad terms, and puzzlement showed on her face.
When he at last set the letter down and looked at her without a word, she awkwardly swept her hair back behind her ear.
“What... is it?”
“Do you remember what I said before?”
“What you said?”
“I asked whether you would be sad if I took a concubine.”
“Mm... that’s right. I remember.”
She nodded and turned her eyes to the letter lying there, reading down what had been written. But set in the middle of all that white was a single line.
June... the ninth?
Nothing but a date.
“On this day... I intend to take the second daughter of House Alfred as a concubine.”
“Alfred’s second daughter...”
“The mistress of faculty office 403.”
“Ah...”
“The reason...”
For the first time. Perzen, who had always said she had no need to know, who had kept information from her, began to explain in detail why he was taking a concubine.
It was not a welcome thing. Even so, Euphemia called up the black-haired woman she had met once and did her best to keep her face blank, because she had no sense of what expression she ought to wear. To say she disliked it would have been strange. It was not an odd thing, and she had expected something of the sort someday, so she felt no severe revulsion. What was more, his careful explanation made plain that this was not simply a matter of sating lust, but—just as he had told her before—a step toward Luerg becoming the head of the North.
Even so.
She had no particular reason to be glad of it, either.
And if she was neither displeased nor pleased, then strictly speaking, wasn’t that the same as being displeased?
Ah...
Looking into a nearby mirror, Euphemia touched her own face. A few lines seemed to have appeared. And yes—perhaps because she was carrying a child—the belly that had rounded, if only slightly, grated on her strangely today. Alfred’s second daughter, the woman called Uriel, had seemed a little fairer and lovelier of skin than she was, and her figure...
“Euphemia.”
“Y-yes...”
“Are you anxious?”
“Not really...”
“Do you think Alfred’s woman will take your place?”
“I don’t think that...”
“Haven’t I told you? You’re truly terrible at lying.”
Smiling faintly, Perzen drew her into his arms, caught the strap of her negligee, and drew it down. He gently caressed breasts grown fuller still, kissed her cheek, buried his face against her nape, and whispered.
“Don’t worry. So you won’t fret over nothing... so a concubine cannot set her sights above the wife... I will make the difference plain.”
“I’m... not that small-hearted a woman.”
“Taking offense at sharing your husband with someone else isn’t being small-hearted. It’s natural. If I had to share you with someone, I couldn’t have borne it either. I would have been jealous.”
“I’m not... jealous...”
Was it only pretty flattery? His words eased her, and yet she wondered whether she was jealous after all, from a wish to keep this man entirely to herself, and her hands fidgeted in the confusion.
Then Perzen, as if to make a comparison—
“Uriel gave off a better scent than you.”
He drew in her smell.
“Her breasts and her hips were fuller, and her waist was narrow, too.”
His hands traveled over her. The intent was all too obvious, and Euphemia could feel herself welling up for no good reason. How many thoughts could crowd in over so short a time. A good scent was obviously nothing but perfume. Those breasts were not full so much as excessively huge; the areolae would surely be large and wide enough to look vulgar. Startled that she could slander someone else so viciously, she gently pushed him away as he tried to bury his face in the valley of her breasts.
He laughed. The smile resting on that statue-like face looked unbearably smug today.
“Euphemia.”
“I’m... going to sleep. Touch this shabby body of mine or don’t. Do as you like...”
“I lied to you once.”
“Ah, that hurts...!”
With the sudden confession he caught her left hand, pushed it without hesitation inside his trousers, and forced her to grip the sex that was throwing off heat and throbbing hard.
“Ah...”
It was so sudden, and so shameful, that she was more than a little flustered. Perzen went on at his ease.
“In the past I told you that simply looking at your body would never make me lust without reason...”
“That wasn’t true.”
A hand that caressed her gently. A voice that whispered sweetly. Red eyes steeped in desire, and that place of his, desperate to take her.
“I... lust for you every time I look at you. Euphemia.”
The more those contradictions overlapped, the harder the sincerity struck her, strong and urgent.
He tightened his hold and drew her in. Her breasts were crushed against his firm chest, their shape distorted. Did he want to feel her warmth? Her face had come to rest of its own accord against his nape, and she lifted her head a little to look up at him.
A hand came out to meet her, gently sweeping her bangs aside. He pressed affectionate kisses to her cheek, the bridge of her nose, her forehead.
“Mm...”
So this was what it felt like to be loved. More addictive than pleasure that panted hard enough to bury reason—this, which filled the empty places of the heart with something tender and aching—and Euphemia chased his departing lips and kissed him first.
In another sense she felt a little self-loathing, like a dog wagging its tail in surrender. But under the hand that stroked down the back of her head as if in praise, she let out a heated moan and slowly moved the hand still gripping him.
It’s... sticky...
Not semen. Something seeping from the tip dirtied her palm. It was not unpleasant, so she used it as lubricant, rubbing slowly over the head, and looked at Perzen.
Did it feel good? Listening to his breathing, grown rather rough, she fumbled at his waistband, drew the trousers down, and pulled the confined sex out into the open.
“Ah...”
The smell of a tremendous male.
Without meaning to, Euphemia dipped her head and twitched the tip of her nose. Realizing too late what she was doing, she flushed deeply, lifted her head again as if nothing had happened, and with awkward motions caressed the sex that throbbed so hard. Her eyes, of course, kept stealing glances at his face. She knew her own hands were terribly clumsy, and learning from his reactions where it felt good was the fastest way.
Ah...
But watching his face, she realized that those red eyes were fixed, every time her hands moved, on her full breasts as they swayed.
A flinch. Eyes that had always been indifferent and overbearing today held a clinging, viscous hunger and looked at her as if he meant to taste her, and a strange pleasure prickled through her lower belly. Why did it feel so good, this—being looked at as a woman, as a female he wanted to take right now?
Was I...
Had she always been this sensitive to a gaze?
Of their own accord, the pink nipples that had sat shy and still slowly stood up. She felt shame at her body’s answer, but when his eyes grew even lewder at the sight, she used her free right hand to gently draw up the hem.
I...
Her hands were clumsy. If she did not give him something to look at, he would not come. The judgment was thoroughly crude, thoroughly primitive—and if that were all, her mouth would have been enough. Even so, she deliberately shifted her panties a little to the side and lewdly spread the smooth inner flesh with her fingers, showing it to him.
The moment his gaze dropped, she knew, though she had not meant it to, that the inner flesh was fluttering obscenely and growing wet.
A wet sound.
Ah...
Even more of it now, that sticky something that was not semen. His monstrous sex pulsed harder still. She spread her legs a little wider, slipped a finger inside, and opened herself deeper for him to see.
“Hnn...”
A lewd female scent rose in soft waves. Soon, when he showed signs of climaxing under her unskilled hands, she lowered her head and gently took him into her mouth. As if to encourage her, a large warm hand settled on her head and stroked it kindly, and Euphemia wrapped as much as she could of a sex too large to hold entirely in the warm flesh of her tongue, diligently licking the small slit with it.
“Mmph...!”
The sex, throbbing hard, struck the roof of her mouth and spilled thick, briny semen. She pressed her lips tight and sucked, careful and diligent, so none of it would run out.
Watching her, Perzen gripped a nearby length of white cloth. Euphemia shook her head as if she had no need of it.
A swallow. And just like that, she swallowed the semen that filled her mouth.
“Didn’t you say the briny taste was hard to take?”
“It’s a little... nasty, but... it’s all right...”
Wiping the corner of her mouth, Euphemia smiled, soft and shy. Right after, perhaps because the sweat of the subsided pleasure was cooling—
“It’s a little... cold...”
She trembled faintly, like a chick caught in the rain.
“All right... lie down.”
He drew his lowered trousers back up, meaning to take her into his arms, but—
“Mmm...”
She reached out to stop him and gently pushed at his shoulder.
“Lie down...”
At her touch and her voice—clumsy, yet carrying a trace of allure—Perzen obediently lay back on the bed. Euphemia pulled the blanket over herself, pressed close, and brought his sex, which had not yet gone down, against the smooth of her navel, rubbing.
“It’s warm...”
she whispered.
“Ha...”
Was this what people meant by a vixen’s tricks?
“Hnn! D-don’t hold me so tight... you’re poking me...”
As if soothing and coaxing him where desire was about to lead, she gently buried his face in the valley of her breasts.
“Do you... like the smell of my skin...?”
“Yes...”
“Sleep well...”
Because he answered as she wanted, in that pleasant voice, Euphemia wore a small smile, hugged him tight like a baby, and stroked his hair with a gentle hand.
And so, breathing in the softness of her flesh and her bewitching scent, Perzen slowly sank into a pleasant sleep.