In Kuroinu

The note arrived while I was packing.

Mila had organized the travel bags with her usual precision and I was going through mine, checking the kit, when a palace page appeared at the inn's door with a sealed letter and left before I could ask who sent it. The seal was plain wax, no crest. The paper was heavy, expensive. The message was one line in handwriting I'd seen on royal documents all morning.

My study. After dark. Come alone.

No signature. She didn't need one.

I told Filia I had a meeting at the palace. She looked at me for two seconds longer than casual and said "Don't stay out late. Dawn comes fast." I told her I knew. Llusse said "If you get assassinated the night before we leave I'll never forgive you." Mila was already asleep on the common room bench with her head on a pack she'd finished an hour ago, her ears twitching at sounds only she could hear, and her tail was curled around her own leg.

The walk to the palace was dark and quiet. The streets were empty except for a man leading a donkey loaded with firewood who nodded at me as we passed. The palace was lit by torches at the gate and the guards let me through when I showed the medallion Sophie had given me that morning. One of them looked at the seal on the note and straightened up and didn't ask questions.

The side entrance. The narrow stair. The carpeted corridor with the tapestries. I knew the route from this morning.

I knocked on the dark wood door. Two taps. Waited.

"Come in."

I went in. She'd dismissed the guards. The study was lit differently at night, warm from the candles on the desk and the fireplace in the far wall that had been cold that morning and was burning now. The tea set was gone. A bottle of wine sat in its place with two glasses, one poured, one empty.

Sophie was standing beside the desk. She'd taken her hair down. It fell past her shoulders in waves, lighter brown than I'd expected, and without the pinned arrangement it softened every line in her face. Her dress was a simple thing, dark fabric that wrapped and tied at one side, no embroidery, no jewelry. Her feet were bare on the stone floor.

The crown was on the desk. Set aside, carefully, next to a stack of correspondence. She followed my eyes to it.

"I'm not wearing it tonight," she said.

"I noticed."

She picked up the empty glass. Poured wine into it. Held it out.

I took it. Our fingers didn't touch on the glass. She'd been precise about the handoff.

"My ancestor had your Blessing," she said. She was watching me over the rim of her glass, the same attention she'd used in the throne room and the study that morning, but closer now. "He had many women. Powerful women, grateful women, women whose bodies responded to his power before their minds could decide whether they wanted to."

She drank. Set the glass down. The firelight caught her face from the side and her light-brown eyes were gold at the edges.

"None of them chose him," she said. "The Blessing chose for them. Their bodies reacted to his presence. Their desire was amplified, manufactured. He never knew if a single woman in his life wanted HIM or wanted what the Blessing made them feel."

She stepped toward me. Close enough that I could smell wine and warm paper and a faint trace of herbs pressed into the fabric of her dress. She was my height in bare feet, maybe half an inch shorter, and she was looking straight at me.

"I'm immune," she said. "You can't influence me. Your Blessing doesn't work on my body. My desire is my own." She touched my face. Her fingers were warm from the wine glass and they rested against my jaw, the tips just reaching my ear. "So when I tell you I want this, you know it's real."

I set my glass on the desk behind her.

"I know," I said.

She kissed me.

Her mouth was warm and she tasted like the wine, red and dry, and the kiss was deliberate. She knew the angle she wanted and she took it. Her hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck and she held there and the kiss deepened and her tongue found mine. I put my hands on her waist and the fabric of her dress was thin enough that I could feel the shape of her underneath, the curve of her hip, the warmth of her skin. And then her mouth opened wider and her other hand came to my chest and gripped my shirt and the deliberateness was gone and it was hungry and open and she caught herself and pulled back.

An inch. Her breath on my mouth and her eyes open and looking into mine.

"The desk," she said.

She stepped back and untied the wrap of her dress in one motion. The fabric fell open and she shrugged it off her shoulders and it pooled on the floor. She was wearing a slip underneath, silk, that stopped at her thighs, and she pulled that over her head and dropped it on the chair.

Naked. The queen of Lesdea standing in front of me in firelight. Straight-backed, chin level, weight even. Her body was lean and maintained, her breasts full and sitting lower than the younger women I'd been with, her nipples dark, her stomach flat with a softness at the hips. A thin white scar on her left side below her ribs. The firelight moved across her skin and she didn't shift or cover herself or look away. She stood there and let me look.

"Your turn," she said.

I pulled my shirt over my head. She watched. Her eyes moved down my chest and my stomach and the corner of her mouth moved. I took my pants off. My cock was hard. Had been since she'd said the word "real" with her fingers on my jaw. Her gaze dropped and her chin came up and the firelight caught the faint color that rose on her chest.

"Adequate," she said.

"Flattering."

"I said adequate. That's generous for me."

I stepped toward her and put my hands on her waist and lifted her onto the desk. Papers shifted under her. She didn't look at them. She sat on the edge with her legs apart and her hands flat on the wood on either side of her and she looked at me and her hair was falling across one shoulder and the firelight was behind her.

I kissed her neck. She tilted her head to give me room and her hands came to my shoulders and her fingers pressed in. Her skin was warm and smelled like wine and paper and herbs underneath. I kissed down her collarbone and she let out a controlled breath through her nose. Between her breasts. Her nipple was tight and when my lips grazed it she inhaled, sharp and short, and her hand found the back of my head. The grip was light. Controlled. She held me there for a second and then released and I kissed lower.

Over her stomach. The muscle tensed under my lips when I passed her navel and her breathing changed, the intervals between exhales shortening. Lower. The crease of her hip. I kissed along the line where her thigh met her body and her fingers tightened on my shoulders.

I went to my knees. The stone was cold through my pants and the fire was warm on my back and her thighs were on either side of my face. I put my hands on her knees and spread them wider and she let me, and her grip on the desk edge tightened. Knuckles going pale on the dark wood.

She was wet. The firelight catching the slickness. But normally wet. With the other girls the Blessing had primed them, amplified everything, made them soaking before I'd barely touched them. Sophie was aroused on her own body's chemistry, no magical assistance.

I put my mouth on her.

She inhaled. Sharp. Controlled. Her thighs stiffened and her hand left the desk and landed on the back of my head, firm. I licked up the center of her pussy, slow, flat tongue, and the taste was warm and clean and her hips shifted when my tongue found her clit. A controlled adjustment.

I circled her clit. Slow. And again. Her breathing was still through her nose, still measured, but the rhythm was off now. The exhales a beat too fast. I pressed my tongue flat and held and her thigh muscle jumped against my cheek.

"Nn-"

Through her teeth. Quiet. Her jaw closed on whatever was coming next.

I circled again. Slower. Letting her feel each pass, tongue on her clit, and she was getting wetter. The taste changed from one pass to the next and the slickness was spreading and the faint wet sound of my mouth on her was audible in the quiet study. Her hand in my hair tightened a fraction.

I looked up at her. From my knees. Her chin was high and her jaw was set and she was staring straight ahead at the far wall. Not looking down. The firelight was on her face and her cheeks were flushed and the tendons in her neck were tight.

"Sophie," I said against her.

Her eyes dropped to mine. For a second she was looking at me between her thighs and her face was open and unguarded. Then she looked away.

I slid a finger inside her. Her back straightened and her chin came up and she clenched around my finger, tight and hot. I curled forward and found the spot and circled my tongue on her clit at the same time.

"Ah-"

Loud. Her hand yanked my hair and her hips pushed into my face and the desk creaked. She caught herself. Pulled back. Tried to find the measured breathing. Her chest was rising and falling faster and the controlled exhales were gone and she was breathing through her mouth now.

I didn't let up. I worked her clit in steady circles and my finger pressed forward inside her and curled and she made another sound, higher, and her free hand was gripping the desk edge so hard the wood might bruise.

"That's- oh- don't stop-"

I pushed a second finger inside her. The stretch and she adjusted around me, clenching in pulses, and my tongue kept circling and the wet sounds were louder and she was soaking now, the taste thicker, her hips rocking against my mouth in movements she wasn't choosing anymore. Papers slid off the edge of the desk and hit the floor. She didn't look down. A quill rolled off after them and clicked on the stone.

"Haruto-" Through her teeth. Her hand in my hair pulling me harder against her. "Right there- don't-"

I sucked her clit gently and both fingers curled forward at the same time and held and she broke.

Her back arched and her hand clamped on my head and her hips came off the desk and she came with a sharp exhale that punched out of her chest, a sound that started controlled and ended ragged. Her pussy clenched around my fingers in hard waves and her jaw was locked and her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling, and her thighs locked around my head. Her knuckles on the desk edge were white. She held. Her whole body rigid. The desk groaning under her shifting weight. Then a second sound broke through the locked jaw, lower, a moan she didn't plan, and her hips ground against my face and the grip on my hair turned painful.

No Blessing pulse.

I'd felt it every time before. With Filia the warmth had bloomed the second she came. With Tianne the golden light had filled the room. With Llusse the energy had crackled. With Mila the world had gotten louder.

With Sophie there was nothing. Her body shaking on the desk. Her fingers in my hair. The wet sound of my mouth on her. The creak of the wood. The fire popping in the grate. Just her. Real.

Her thighs unlocked. Her grip on my hair loosened. She was breathing hard and staring at the ceiling and her chest was heaving and her hands were flat on the desk behind her.

I stood up. Wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My cock was aching. Had been through every sound she'd made. She was looking at me. Lips parted. Breath still coming fast. Her hair messed from the desk and the firelight on her skin and she looked nothing like a queen.

"Oh," she said. Quiet.

I waited.

"That was," she said. She stopped. Started again. "That was..."

"Real," I said.

Her eyes held mine. The gold flecks in the brown. The flush on her chest. The sweat on her stomach that the fire was drying.

"Yes," she said. "Real."

She reached for me. Her hand closed on my wrist and she pulled me toward her and the grip was strong and sure and her eyes were clear and she was Sophie and she was deciding.

"More."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!