Chapter 104: Prayer Time

I woke up because something was squeezing me.

It was Lily. At some point during the night, she had wrapped both of her arms around my waist and thrown one leg over my hip, and now she was pressed against my back with her face buried in the fur at the base of my tail. Every time she breathed out, it tickled. Every time she breathed in, she held on a little tighter.

It was warm. Her hair smelled like the lavender soap she bought in bulk because it was on sale, and I could feel her heartbeat, slow and steady, against my spine.

It was really, really nice.

"Mm," Lily mumbled into my tail. "So fluffy..."

My whole face went hot.

[Nope. Absolutely not. I can’t handle this at six in the morning.]

I spent the next five minutes peeling her off me one finger at a time. When I finally slid out of bed, I stuffed my pillow into her arms. She hugged it, sighed happily, and smiled in her sleep. I grabbed my uniform off the chair and got dressed in the hallway.

It was a bit too much right now. I needed somebody who wouldn’t smile at me like that. I needed somebody who wouldn’t hold my hand, or save me sausages, or say anything soft to me at all, ever. There was exactly one person at this academy who fit that description.

---

It took me twenty minutes to find her. Serena was standing on the terrace outside the Noble Course salon, gripping the stone railing with both hands, and a tall woman in a black dress was standing exactly three steps behind her.

"Serena!"

Serena turned around. The woman in black turned around at the same moment. She looked at my face, then my ears, then my tail, and she took a small leather notebook out of her sleeve and wrote something down.

"Lady Frostfall," she said. "Identify the animal."

"The animal is a classmate," Serena said through her teeth. "Kohaku Sakana. Sakana, this is Dame Ottilie Brask. The palace sent her to teach me how to be a princess."

I’d never heard someone say the word "princess" with more venom than that.

"Your Ladyship will not be a princess until the engagement is made official," Dame Brask said. "Until then, you are a candidate, and I am here to make sure you remain one." She checked a pocket watch. "Your rest period has six minutes remaining. You may speak to the animal for four of them. The last two are reserved for posture."

I laughed. Dame Brask wrote that down too.

Serena’s knuckles had gone white on the railing. There was a vein standing out on the side of her neck that I had only ever seen right before she tried to kill somebody.

"Two hours," she said, very quietly. "I have spent two hours learning how to hold a teacup. Apparently, I hold it like I’m about to throw it at someone."

"Lady Frostfall held it like she was about to throw it at someone," Dame Brask said. "Then, on two occasions, she did."

I looked at Serena, who was about one more comment away from throwing Dame Brask off the terrace. Then, I thought about Lily, asleep upstairs and cuddling my pillow. The two of us were running from completely different things, but we were both definitely running.

I had an idea.

"Dame Brask," I said, "does a princess candidate pray?"

She looked up from her notebook.

"Daily. The Crown expects its princesses to be seen as devout."

"That’s great! Because the chapel’s completely empty this time of morning, and Lady Frostfall told me just yesterday that she’s been neglecting her prayers."

Serena turned her head and stared at me. I watched her figure it out. Her eyes narrowed, and then the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Yes," she said. "I’ve been meaning to pray."

Dame Brask considered this for a long moment. Then, she closed her notebook.

"Prayer does not count against your rest period. I will wait in the vestibule, since prayer is between a lady and Lux." She turned to me. "The animal may not enter a house of Lux."

"Of course not," I said.

---

The chapel had a small window behind the altar, in the room where the priests kept their robes. It was just wide enough for a fox like me if said fox held her breath and didn’t care about her dignity.

I dropped onto the floor on the other side and brushed myself off. Serena was already waiting in the front pew with her hands folded and her head bowed. Anybody watching from the vestibule would have seen the most devout girl in the kingdom.

"You took too long," she said without looking up.

"The window was smaller than I thought."

"Why are you here, Sakana? Shouldn’t you be with Everdawn?"

"She was hugging me."

Serena finally looked at me.

"And?"

"And it was nice! Horribly nice! She was nuzzling my tail and making little noises, and I couldn’t take it, so I climbed out of bed and ran!"

Serena stared at me for a second. Then, she stood up, grabbed a fistful of my blouse, and dragged me into the confessional booth at the side of the chapel.

It was built for one person. With the two of us inside, there was no room at all, so she pressed me against the back wall with her whole body. Through the lattice on the door, I could see the vestibule at the far end of the chapel, and the black shape of Dame Brask standing in it.

"Don’t say anything nice to me," Serena said.

"I wasn’t planning on it~"

She kissed me. It was nothing like Lily’s kiss. She shoved her tongue into my mouth, bit my bottom lip hard enough to make me gasp, and dug her fingers into my hip while she did it. Her other hand went straight up under my blouse and squeezed my tit until I made a noise into her mouth.

I slid my hand up under her skirt. She was already hard. When I wrapped my fingers around her, Serena hissed through her teeth and pushed her hips forward into my grip.

"Two hours," she growled against my neck. "Two hours, and that woman corrected the angle of my fucking pinky finger."

"Tragic," I said, and stroked her slowly from base to tip. Her whole body shuddered against mine. "Truly, the life of a princess is suffering."

She bit my neck for that. Then, she yanked my skirt up and pressed herself against me, so her cock slid hot along the length of mine, and she took both of us in one hand.

My knees nearly gave out. The booth was so tight that I didn’t even have room to fall.

"Lady Frostfall?" Dame Brask’s voice echoed down the length of the chapel. "I heard a noise. Are you well?"

Serena didn’t stop moving her hand.

"I dropped my prayer beads."

"Then pick them up with your knees together."

Serena mouthed "I am going to kill her." I clamped my hand over my mouth because otherwise I was gonna cackle.

Serena pressed her forehead against mine and stroked us faster, her grip tight and slick, and her breath came short and hot against my lips. I could feel her pulse throbbing against me. Her hips started to jerk.

"Don’t you dare make a sound," she whispered.

I came first, hard, with my teeth sunk into my own palm. Serena followed a second later. Her whole body went rigid against mine, and she buried her face in my shoulder and bit down on the fabric of my blouse to keep quiet.

For a while, neither of us moved. My legs were shaking. The front of my skirt was a complete disaster.

Then, Serena lifted her head and kissed me again. This one was slow. She held my jaw with one hand and took her time, running her tongue along my bottom lip and letting out a small, soft sigh against my mouth. My tail curled around the back of her thigh on its own. She kept going until a floorboard creaked out in the vestibule, and then she pulled away at once and scowled at me, as if the whole thing had been my idea.

Serena stepped back, fixed her own skirt, and smoothed her hair down with both hands. Her face was completely calm again.

"Clean that up," she said, nodding at the kneeler, "and go out the way you came."

Then, she walked out of the booth and down the aisle with perfect posture.

I watched through the lattice as she reached the vestibule. Dame Brask looked her up and down, then opened her notebook.

"Your Ladyship’s color has improved."

"Prayer helps," Serena said.

"I will make a note of it. We will schedule prayer daily."

I sat down on the confessional bench and put my face in my hands.

[I ran away from the sweetest girl in the world and straight into a confessional with the villainess. And now it’s on the palace schedule.]

I had a bad feeling this was going to become a habit.