...

Weeks later, Linuel's room

"Aren't you bored?"

"Never! I get pampered by a cute, nice boy who is not as boring as a copper plate. What else is there to ask from life?"

Patricia frowned at her, "But doesn't it get boring?"

She turned around on her bed and smiled at her like some old pervert, "Not at all!"

Patricia moved uncomfortably on the bed while sitting, "I never understood you. Didn't you say you want someone strong? As much as I can see, Narsiz is not the type."

Linuel blew a raspberry, "Pfft, it was years ago, and I said I want someone strong but not stronger than me! I don't need a meathead as a husband. Otherwise, we will die from dumbness at some point..." She remembered the last days, "...well, he has been training quite a lot for the last few days and visiting me after it..." She suddenly blushed and mumbled, "...I wish he wouldn't use the cleaning spell, though."

Patricia looked at her in disgust, "You really have problems."

Linuel looked back at her and shrugged, "So what?"

Her little sister sighed and looked down in slight distress, "Sorry, I just... Alexander is..." She started to shiver again.

Linuel moved slightly toward her, as much as she could with her injuries, trying to pet her, "I am sorry. He at least woke up the same night and was alive and well, right?"

Patricia buried her head into the pillow she held, "Don't touch me! He was not well! I heard him screaming even from my room..." She suddenly turned around and looked at her with teary eyes, "...you heard him too. I know this because everyone did in this forsaken mansion!"

Linuel knew what she was talking about. It was already over three weeks since Alexander woke up and screamed so loud that everyone gossiped about it. Worst, he wasn't even close to being healed, while she would need at most a couple more days for her bones and some muscles to recover.

She luckily didn't remember anything since she was unconscious, but it was hard not to imagine since the gossip reached her the moment she woke up. After listening to what happened, she wasn't even angry at Patricia, who didn't visit her even once for the three weeks. This was her first visit after the assassination, which he knew about. Apparently, she came once when she was unconscious.

Linuel looked to the side where the night commode was, and on it were multiple flasks of different elixirs and potions, which reduced her pain significantly. They were all empty.

She thought about how he could've gone through it without anything, but his skills were unbelievable to her. Even though she was much less injured, the healing was incredibly painful for her, and she always needed to gulp down an elixir to reduce the pain before the healing session started.

After the first week, she got a schedule from the fairies, who would visit her twice a week and heal her for two to three hours. The estate healers didn't even touch her anymore and were mainly on standby.

She was fine with it since it was truly painful to regenerate muscles and bones. So, it was even more baffling when she heard from Narsiz how long the golden pup was going through recovery: Eight hours every day and without any potions. However, she knew he had at least two dozen talismans to reduce the pain. From experience, she knew that they were strong and gave a great buzz,

So, it was natural to see Patricia in distress, who loved Alexander. Linuel wouldn't know what she would do if Narsiz went through something like this, but she tried nonetheless to comfort her and empathize.

"You are there for Alexander, right?"

Patricia turned around and glared at her sister, "Of course!"

Linuel smiled at her, "See? Do what you can do, and don't try to beat yourself up about what happened. Nobody is even blaming you..." She started to mumble, barely audible, with a sad smile, "...not like Narsi. Everyone blames him for my current injuries."

Patricia calmed down visibly, "Yeah, I heard it from everyone already, but I am over it and working on something..." She changed the topic, "...what is happening with you and Narsiz? I heard that there was some kind of scuffle because you kissed him. That's not true, right?"

Linuel saw the abrupt change of topic and didn't want to probe more into it. She could see how her little sister was already becoming more adult-like after the assault and her breakdown, which she also only heard about from gossip. So, she trusted her to decide when she would need her help and when she could handle it herself. It seemed now that she wanted to manage her emotions by herself.

Yet, she believed that Alexander tried to help her and that she, as an older sister, was not needed anymore. It made sense to her since she visited him daily and bonded very openly, not caring about anyone else. Through a maid, she heard Patricia would stay with him all night and sleep together. She wished she could see this cute scene.

Now, Patricia wanted to know more about her relationship, which was a little more complicated, especially after interacting with Narsiz's mother.

Linuel blushed slightly, ignoring that the Lady almost killed her, "Well..."

Suddenly, Patricia became overly emotional, "You can't be serious?!"

Linuel understood her outburst and where it came from, but it didn't matter since she would never force Narsiz to do such things. She would immediately stop if he felt uncomfortable in any way.

However, she reacted casually since she had a clear conscience and shrugged, "So what?"

Linuel clearly didn't care at this point. Even though his mother gave her a stark warning, she also implicitly allowed it. So, she saw no problem doing what she did and would keep doing it. Of course, as long as Narsiz also wanted it.

Patricia looked at her dumbfounded, stood up, and became even more outraged, "You are a moron! Let's forget that you actually disrupt his pheromones and try to manipulate him only to love you. What about your standing?! What did the Lord and Lady say... wait, what did Scarlett say? Since you are alive and not crippled, it means you stopped, right?"

Something inside her understood the problem, but she also trusted herself fully to take full responsibility for Narsiz. So she looked at Patricia and shrugged again since she couldn't gesture much otherwise while injured, "Well, we had a nice chat, and she said that it's okay as long as I am serious, and by the way, the thing with the pheromones is a myth... I think."

Patricia calmed down a little, and it was silent for some time until she suddenly asked her something weird, "Did you ever kiss someone while being premature or a puppy?"

Linuel was a little confused about the question, but after some thought, it made sense to ask something like this. In her mind, Patricia worried about her and tried to prevent her from doing stupid things. By appealing to her experience, she wanted her to remember them so she would stop doing it, probably thinking it felt terrible when she kissed while being young, 'Wow, she is really clever... and I need to thank Narsi for Alexander's pamphlets about psychology. I wouldn't understand what she was doing without them.'

Because she was so bored, Narsiz brought her a lot of reading material. After he got her many drama and romance novels, which she didn't like, he gave her Alexander's notes about skills, alchemy, etc. Of course, it was with his permission, and they were great, especially the one about how to interpret someone's mental status.

It was a step-by-step logical deduction of the most common behaviors and how they could influence a person's actions with many examples. After reading it and understanding some of them scholastically, she got the [Psychology] skill and some levels to boot. However, there were a lot of notes scribbled she couldn't understand, like about snakes, knives, and young boys visiting the big city.

She nodded and smiled, "Yes, remember the parrot-kin... what was his name again?"

Patricia's eyes opened wide, "You mean Max?! You actually kissed, Max?! Wait..." She suddenly distorted her face, "...I know he left two years ago because of his sick mother... this means..."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Linuel shook her head, preventing her from thinking the worst, "Don't worry. We were both young... I think I was nine or eight or something. Can't remember really."

Patricia stared baffled again at her and asked, "So, it didn't feel good, right?"

She became a little thoughtful, "It depends, really. It was weird the first time. I felt really close to him, which weirded me out in the end since I only wanted to test it out..."

She smiled again like a pervert, "My next one was Joseph, and I actually had a small crush on him..."

Patricia interrupted her, "Okay, Max was around your age, but Joseph was actually... wasn't he a great-grandfather?!"

She shrugged, "I had a phase where I found older ones attractive. I think it was because of a novel I read..." She stopped herself from telling any more embarrassing details, "...however! Don't tell Narsi, but while kissing Joseph, it felt fantastic, not as good as him, but since I liked him, it felt good to be as close as possible to him."

Patricia looked at her like she was stupid, "You know that they were all Nila's servants?"

Linuel started to laugh, "Hahaha! So what? Like I would actually start something with mine."

Her little sister became even more baffled, and her eyes suddenly twitched while her upper lip went up in disgust, "You didn't force them, right?"

Linuel scratched her cheek slightly, "Well..."

She could understand her little sister as servants rarely started something since, if they got rejected, a firing was usually the next step, as having a servant who was in love with their mistress or master was a sure way for a disaster to happen.

Patricia suddenly showed her fangs and yelled, "This is even worse! You forced a servant to..."

Linuel shushed her immediately, "Shut up! Don't fucking yell! Every damn servant here loves to gossip as if their lives depend on it!"

Her little sister looked at her intensely for an answer, and Linuel became much quieter, "I keep talking, but do not tell this Narsi under any circumstances or any of his siblings, okay?"

Patricia's face only contorted into more disgust, which Linuel took as a yes, "I didn't really force them. I only somehow commanded them to do me a little favor... that's all..."

It was silent, and both didn't move one bit. Linuel smiled like it was a stupid joke she did while Patricia was looking at her sternly. After a good moment, Linuel agreed with her, "Fine! I was stupid, and they deserved better. However, I did it only those two times and stopped after that, okay? I also apologized to Max before he left."

Linuel knew that it was terrible what she did. It was even worse with Max since he moved away after telling her, years later, how he fell in love with her, and she rejected him coldly. For Joseph, though, he fortunately died a year later.

She knew about other premature nobles who forced their servants to engage in such and other things for fun, not regarding age, relationship status, or if they had even any interest in the first place. Most were fine with it for a certain reason: They resigned shortly after with some gold as a farewell gift, like Max.

Even though she knew she had done wrong, there was some anger toward him, 'This little shit cost me 100 average gold coins, all my savings, for a damn kiss.'

She remembered how much he cried and how depressed he was till she gave him the gold and asked him nicely to leave. If anyone found out what she did, her mother would beat the living shit out of her, and her sister, whose servant it was, would probably break every bone in her body. She would take this part of the story to her grave, though. It was too embarrassing to get blackmailed by a servant.

Patricia looked at her like she was the biggest moron on Obis and tried to change the topic again, bringing Linuel out of her thought about past mistakes, "Fine, I will not say it to anyone..." She sat down on a chair in the most unladylike way possible and groaned, "...Urgh..." Suddenly, she remembered, "...do you know anything about Fio?"

Linuel suddenly felt even more angry, "I don't want to hear this name... as far as I know, he is dead. It would be a wonder if he could see the next Veoc (new year, beast-kin calendar)."

Patricia clenched the armchairs and became overly emotional again, "I will kill him! I swear on my name that I will find him and kill him!"

Linuel wasn't better as strong killing intent surged out of her, "He is dead meat either way. For all I know, Mom is already on a killing spree in Foxteeth, and the underworld in Wolfsteeth, as far as I heard, is again in turmoil and looking for him."

Patricia became confused, "How would you know this? The Leonandra's hadn't got any letters, though?"

Linuel smirked at her as she was sure, "Well, let's say that you will see. Dad is also probably already hitting up every single underworld organization for information. For Fio to escape, he would need a miracle."

Patricia nodded and yawned, being overwhelmingly tired, "Huaaaw! I will believe you..." She looked at her sister and sighed as if she had given up on her, "...I will go and sleep."

Linuel smirked at her, "Let me guess, with Alexander?"

Patricia blushed a little but only nodded and left the room, but before she left entirely, she turned around and smirked back, "Greet Narsi when he comes to you, but don't do anything... you know..." and left.

Linuel looked at her, closing the door, but didn't mind her puppyish comment, 'Well, let's get dressed...' She looked at herself and wanted to crawl out of her bed and change into something a little more revealing but suddenly shuddered and decided against it, '...get yourself together! Damn it!'

She was told that having a relationship with someone premature was more than a little challenging as an adult. She needed to try and suppress her desire for him actively. She knew that he didn't have the same kind of wish to be close to her as she had. So, she hoped he would only need a year and not more to enter maturity.

It was challenging since he already gave off potent pheromones, which bombarded her nose every second he was with her. After the attack, they spent every second with each other, which she liked a lot, but it was also unbearable. So now she was actually happy that he used a cleaning spell on him. Otherwise, it would be a lot harder for her. She already needed to use every skill she had to suppress her desire. Even [Lust Control] leveled up multiple times.

Linuel now understood a young noble she met once at a ball. It was a man around twenty-five, and he had a fiancé who was fourteen. The moment they were alone, and he got drunk, all he did was complain about how he wanted to do nothing more than... well, he told a lot of things she found at the time quite disturbing but now understood.

She looked frustrated and moved quite a bit around to only look at her right hand, 'Well, you will be my only grace for the next months, partner. Get ready.'

She suddenly looked around and blushed visibly, 'Where are his clothes... there should be some... Oh, right!'

Linuel slowly stood up and grabbed the brush, 'Hehe, I know why you like to brush my tail... it is nothing manipulative, right?'

She shrugged, thinking he liked it, but she was rather ambivalent towards it and only enjoyed that he cared for her. She slowly limped to the commode, "So, where is his pajama?"

...

Alexander Estate, General

Patricia was walking toward Alexander's room and thought deeply about what her sister said. She also wanted to be closer to the one she loved. Something inside her desired to be one with him, but something also felt weirdly out of place.

She knew about such feelings since her mother educated her about them. It was when someone was too young to have any sexual drive, but the emotions pushed her to be closer to the particular person. There were some missing parts, and she told her to be cautious around someone who was much older and tried to manipulate her. Yet, she now became the older person in the relationship and probably much more emotionally mature than the one she loved.

But there was no way she would act the same disgusting way as her older sister, who broke multiple taboos just out of fun—even remembering what she said irritated her. For some reason, she put Alexander into the role of Max and wanted nothing more than to rip Linuel apart for what she did.

'At least she apologized and had remorse for her mistake.'

Even though her sister was much older, Patricia saw herself as much more mature and superior to her. So, she would never force or manipulate Alexander to do something he didn't want.

However, remembering what her sister told her how it felt, she started to touch her lips, 'It can't be bad... right?'

She tried to imagine it and suddenly blushed, 'It probably feels great.'

Yet, after a second, she stopped the thought very quickly and needed to also think about what Alexander wanted. He was in terrible condition, to the point where he couldn't move except for his head and tail. So she needed to be careful about trying it since she didn't want to force him and be like her older sister, which she saw now very negatively. She was disgusted by her.

Nonetheless, it made her blush even more for some reason, thinking how she could do whatever she wanted to him, and he couldn't do anything. He was at her mercy.

Pack!

She slapped herself and tried to get the thoughts out of her mind. Since she could sleep together with her loved one, it should be enough. Yet, a multitude of strange ideas invaded her, making her imagine very bizarre things that she could understand were terrible but also something she was fond of.

It all started after she was allowed to visit him for the first time, and something inside her found it great that he was at her mercy after he overshadowed her in every aspect over the time she was here. She regained her ego and confidence again.

Other thoughts were normal, in her opinion. That they loved each other and that they would marry after meeting again. There was no question in her mind that it wouldn't happen.

But when she was close to him, her mind became empty, and she wanted to act by instinct, almost giving into things that maybe Alexander was too young to understand, like kissing. Ultimately, she knew he was around two years and three months younger than her, and since he was basically imprisoned at this estate, he had no real experience besides his magic and alchemy.

She shook her head, 'No, what he showed was true love. He just doesn't know it now, but... maybe he knows and is only shy.'

She tried to remember how she felt at six, and there was not even close to someone who she, besides her family, would treat like Alexander treated her. So, whatever the case it was with him, what he showed to her was, consciously or subconsciously, true love. There was no doubt in her mind.

Her mind went again in many different directions, not knowing what to do. Ultimately, she decided, 'He loves me, and I love him, so it should be fine to at least probe, right?'

Before, she would shame herself to even think about kissing him, but now, with her sister confirming that it felt fantastic and beautiful, she wanted it even more.

There was, of course, the possibility that he was too young even to understand what a kiss was, but if he did, she could try it. In her mind, it would be perfect to bond before she left so no other pests would even try to invade her territory since he already had the experience with her, and they would make memories together he wouldn't forget.

She sighed in relief that he didn't really have any sisters or cousins living with him who were the same age. Janina was too young, and Sarah or Lorient were too old. There was also a warm feeling toward the Lady who wouldn't allow him to leave and visit smaller balls, so this worry was also gone.

She could suddenly smell him again and saw the door to his room, 'A try... only a little probe...'