"I will massage you again later... but now you must eat. Porridge is good for your stoma—"

Arkai froze.

At dinner, the spoon hovered in the air, suspended between the bowl and Cecilia’s lips, caught in the terrible crosshairs of her gaze. She had turned her head just slightly, and though her face was hidden beneath a veil, the weight of her stare was a physical thing.

It literally felt like a blade of ice pressed directly against his windpipe.

The century-old wolf knew that right now, he was, in the grand scheme of things, just a man holding a spoon and hoping his wife would not murder him in front of a dozen of guests.

Eastiel had fled back to the warzone the moment they returned to the residence. Something about "urgent battlefield developments" and "troop movements" and "I definitely cannot stay for breakfast, good luck, Brother."

Fucking coward.

Oathran, had murmured something about checking meat pie recipes and had disappeared into the estate’s back kitchen, where he was almost certainly not checking on anything and was instead hiding behind a counter, sampling sauces, and pretending he could not hear the impending domestic disaster.

Arkai had been left alone.

Alone.

To salvage whatever remained of their collective worth in their wife’s eyes after the frozen fountain. The guard. The squirting. The passing out.

Especially the fact that she had woken up in her own bed with no memory of how she got there and three husbands standing at her bedside like penitent schoolboys awaiting punishment.

[Arkai: Cece... I will find you a dildo, I promise—just please, eat the porridge...]

The telepathic plea was desperate. He truly had approximately zero ideas how to fix the situation and was throwing offerings at the altar of his wife’s forgiveness like a worshipper trying to appease an angry goddess.

His black wolf ears had flattened completely against his head. They were plastered to his skull, entirely submissive. His tail, that proud, bushy banner of his lineage, had curled small behind him knowing he was in disgrace and had accepted his fate.

The guests stared.

Honorable, strong Beastlords, lords of packs and clans and herds and flights, beings who had lived for a century or more and thought they had seen everything the world had to offer, sat frozen in the great hall of Arkai Dawnoro’s Capital Residence, their jaws somewhere in the general vicinity of the floor.

This...

This was a canon event.

History was being made.

Arkai Dawnoro.

The Black Wolf King of the North. The wolf who had never bowed, never bent, never flinched in the face of any threat. This same Arkai Dawnoro was sitting before his veiled wife with a spoonful of porridge, looking like he would lay flat face down on the floor and beg for forgiveness at the slightest provocation.

Whatever the offense was, and none of them knew what it could possibly be, it was clearly unimaginable.

So it was official. The rumors were true. This woman was a dragon. She must be a dragon. Nothing else could explain it. No human woman or beast woman, no creature of any species could have reduced the Black Wolf King to this quivering, tail-curled, ear-flattened state with nothing but a glare.

But why porridge?

If she was a dragon, what would porridge do? A dragon did not need porridge. A dragon subsisted on... on... whatever dragons subsisted on. Gold, probably. Or magic. Or the fear of lesser beings. Not porridge. And what was this about a massage? Would a massage improve her health? Was this a dragon thing? Some kind of scale-polishing ritual?

It sounded more sensual than beneficial. Far more sensual. The kind of sensual that made the gathered beastlords suddenly acutely aware that they might be intruding on something deeply private that they were not supposed to witness.

Did they even have permission to hear this?

"Luna."

Anton called, warm and earnest and clearly without the self-preservation instincts that would have told a wiser man to stay out of it. The Tiger King leaned forward on his seat, his face creased with concern.

"What ails you? Please listen to this cousin of mine and get better... he said you do not feel well." His eyes flicked to Arkai accusingly, then back to the veiled woman. "Everyone will get worried."

The gathered beastlords exchanged glances.

This tiger too.

Anton Vasiliev was now fussing over his cousin-in-law. This was weird. This was beyond weird, making century-old beastlords question everything they thought they knew about the natural order.

Seeing Anton’s worry, Lady Sees, seated right at the leading seat of the banquet table, the position that should have been reserved for the Alpha, looked even more displeased at her husband.

And the more she ’glared’, the smaller the Alpha’s tail shrank itself.

What had happened?

The question ricocheted through the gathered beastlords like a stray arrow. What could possibly have occurred between the Black Wolf King and his Luna to create this situation?

What offense had he committed? What sin had he perpetrated that required porridge and massages to remedy?

Well.

They would never know.

They would never know that Cecilia Araceli had returned from a wild adventure that had left her thoroughly and comprehensively wrecked. That she had been loved within an inch of her life on a public square, invisible and surrounded, and had passed out cold when a guard named Brad had reminisced about his wife.

She was sated. She was loved. She was, objectively, fine.

So what was the problem?

Well—

[Replace the fountain with a new one. I do not want it to stay there after... after...] 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Cecilia hissed mentally, unable to complete the sentence. The memory of what had happened on that fountain ledge was still too fresh. Too raw.

[Oathran: We have discussed this. The fountain will be honored to remain there as our intimate landmark. Let it stay.]

The dragon said serenely. Reasonable, even.

[Eastiel: Indeed. Now we can return there and remembe—]

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASHUTUP!]

Cecilia’s mental scream echoed through the bond like a thunderclap, and somewhere in the back kitchen, Oathran smiled into his sauce.

Even now, they were still bullying her through the telepathy network. Still teasing her. Still reminding her of what she had done, what she had let them do, what she had enjoyed despite every protest.

[I have enough money. Let us buy the land and make it restricted for children. No children should set foot around that area.] She said firmly in her mind.

[Oathran: Cecilia. All children came from wherever their parents conceived them. It is the same act. The same... sexual mechanic. I am the Dragon Lord, the Allfather of this world. Which makes you the Allmother of this world. The area was blessed. That is all.]

[...] Cecilia didn’t know why she couldn’t retort. There was no way to counter the unassailable, infuriating logic of a divine dragon claiming that her public, invisible, triple-stuffed climax had somehow consecrated the ground.

[Eastiel: Also, we scrubbed that area, okay? It is clean. No trace of us, no DNA, okay? Cecilia~ please~ let us keep it? Pleeeeease~?]

Ah, the wheedling tone and the drawn-out vowels. The golden lion was begging her with the same voice he used when he wanted extra kisses, and it was working, damn him.

These men—

A spoon of porridge entered her lips.

She blinked. Arkai had taken advantage of her mental distraction to slip the spoon past her defenses while she was occupied. The porridge was warm. Mild. Gentle on the stomach, just as he had promised.

He was looking at her.

His black wolf ears still flat. His tail still curled small behind him. His black eyes fixed on her face like a puppy who had chewed up a favorite shoe and was waiting to see if he would be forgiven.

In front of his colleagues.

In front of a dozen of ancient beastlords who were staring at him with their jaws on the floor.

And he did not care about their looks. He cared about her.

Cecilia sighed.

The tension in her shoulders eased by a fraction. Her glare, still visible even through the veil, softened by a degree.

[Fine,] she transmitted. [The fountain stays. But we are never speaking of this again.]

[Oathran: Agreed.]

[Eastiel: Agreed!]

[Arkai: ...agreed.]

"More porridge?"

Cecilia opened her mouth for another spoonful, and Arkai’s tail gave a single happy wag.