Chapter 125
“Ah, no. I don’t have time for this right now—nngh—I really don’t.”
“Just once.”
“Your ‘once’ always takes forever. Every single—mm, ah!”
Fay gasped, gripping the firm arms wrapped around her waist. He had lifted her from behind, leaving her unable to plant her feet properly on the ground. Her toes barely grazed the tops of his feet before losing contact entirely.
Suspended in the air, her legs swayed and kicked with every movement.
“I had a feeling today would work.”
“W-work? What do you mean, work? Wait, don’t tell me you’re actually trying to—!”
“Shh. It’s fine. Just relax.”
“It is not fine! Just tell me what you’re scheming, while I’m still asking nicely.”
She demanded he come clean, but instead of answering, he busied himself with his hips. As though he’d made up his mind to stay silent until he got what he wanted. He pressed his lips to the curve of her neck and moved faster, deeper, using his tendrils to spread her thighs apart so he could reach further inside.
Through the mirror, she could see everything, the way he moved in and out of her with complete clarity.
“See that, Fay? The place you used to touch all by yourself. I’m inside it now.”
“Mm—ngh—hah—!”
“Your witch’s familiar… is about to fill you up completely.”
“If you’re going to finish, then—ah, hurry up. I can’t hold on much longer.”
“It’s always a shame that such a small body can’t hold very much.”
He found himself seriously contemplating whether to hold back at all. Stretch or no stretch, Alnazir wanted to give her everything.
And if she never quite returned to the way she was before, well, at least she’d always be carrying a part of him. That ought to take care of any emptiness she might feel.
The roughness of his thoughts bled into the roughness of his movements.
“Hurry, please, hurry. I can’t—nngh—I’m going to, again. I think I’m going to pass out.”
“You can sleep. When it’s over, I’ll clean you up and carry you to bed.”
“I can’t sleep. I still have things I need to do—!”
Fay reached back and grabbed a fistful of his hair. Her eyes were hazy and unfocused, on the verge of losing consciousness entirely.
“Alnazir, I just, I need to say one thing.”
Alnazir noticed that the little honorific she usually tacked onto his name disappeared whenever she got too desperate to remember it.
“Yeah. What is it?”
He swallowed the smirk threatening to break across his face and answered in the most obedient tone he could manage. Like a familiar who would do absolutely anything his witch commanded.
“If you get me pregnant, I will not let it go.”
“……”
“Answer me.”
“……”
“Alnazir. Stop avoiding my eyes and look at me.”
Fay fixed him with a firm, serious stare, warning the man who kept pointedly looking away as though he hadn’t heard a word.
“I genuinely don’t think I could survive giving birth.”
She was anxious about how insistently he kept trying to finish inside her.
It wasn’t that she disliked the idea of children. Raising Zynie had been difficult, but also deeply rewarding and full of joy. Surely raising her own child would be exhausting and wonderful in equal measure.
But Fay was truly, deeply afraid of dying. And beyond that, he wasn’t an ordinary human. He was something else entirely. Even now, she still didn’t know exactly what kind of creature he was.
“If you’re thinking you can save me if I die in childbirth, stop that thought right now.”
At Fay’s warning, the man who had been avoiding her gaze this whole time let out a quiet, amused breath.
“I would never let you suffer or come to harm.”
He made the promise with a soft kiss.
“You only ever have to enjoy yourself. That’s all.”
There was something about his smile and that kiss that left a faint, unresolved unease lingering in her chest. Even so, as he tenderly cradled her stomach and made his vow, Fay chose to believe him.
He was her familiar, the one who had sworn never to lie to her or betray her again.
* * *
While Fay remained trapped in the bathroom, teetering on the edge of consciousness,
Zynie arrived at the castle and dismounted her broomstick. The people passing by did a double take, whispering among themselves as they stared.
Her face was familiar, but she had aged so suddenly that no one could say with certainty that the young woman standing before them was truly Zynie.
“It’s me. Zynie.”
Feeling their eyes on her, Zynie made her voice deliberately lower, more mature. The thought that it suited the reflection she had seen in the mirror, that poised, elegant adult witch, sent a thrill running through her.
People crowded around her, startled, demanding to know what had happened.
“What kind of magic did you use?”
Zynie dismissed the curious witches with a graceful, lofty air and strode boldly into the castle. There was only one place she needed to go.
The Guardian’s office.
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