Chapter 1461: Murder at Breakfast 101

By the time Phei finally returned to the penthouse, breakfast had already been cooked, carried out, arranged across the enormous dining table and left waiting long enough that several people had entered that dangerous stage where loyalty to family began losing ground against hot food.

When space finally folded beside the entrance to the dining area and Phei stepped through, he returned with two women rather than one. The Undead Queen emerged first; pale and immaculate within flowing darkness with hair falling beautifully around a face carrying the faint amusement.

Sienna followed a moment later with the calm, untouchable dignity of a Nether Goddess who appeared firmly convinced that dignity could survive absolutely anything so long as one refused to acknowledge the existence of witnesses of what had just happened in her bedroom.

Unfortunately for her, walking had become slightly less committed to preserving the illusion.

The change in her stride was subtle enough that most people might never have noticed, only the smallest care in each step and an almost imperceptible adjustment of her hips beneath the dark fabric of her clothes, so elegantly controlled that Sienna herself probably believed the matter had escaped everyone.

Phei noticed because he was perpetrator behind ravaging her until she had to walk awkwardly.

Melissa noticed because Melissa seemed capable of noticing anything involving Phei and her daughters before Phei himself realized there was something worth noticing.

The Goddess noticed because very little involving another woman and her beloved Dragon escaped those dark eyes while Eira had ancient perception and the unfortunate personality of someone who considered another person’s embarrassment a natural resource provided for public enjoyment.

There was nothing physically wrong with Sienna:

Phei had already washed Sacred Healing Essence through her before bringing her, healing every trace of strain and leaving her body healthier, placed a Life Flame within her Soul and body.

Whatever discomfort had existed before was gone; it was jus her pride simply refusing to recover with equal speed, and as Sienna crossed the dining room with the measured poise of an ancient Goddess determined to bully reality into agreeing that absolutely nothing unusual had happened.

Maddie watched her for three steps, then five, her eyes narrowed with growing interest before she leaned slightly over the table and called brightly:

"Say, Sienna, did you break your leg all the way from the thigh early this morning?" The entire dining table seemed to die around the question. Forks stopped halfway to mouths, cups paused beneath lips and conversation vanished with such completeness that the soft clink of one spoon settling against porcelain became offensively loud.

Phei slowly turned his head toward Maddie while everyone else looked at Maddie first, then toward Sienna, then very carefully discovered urgent reasons to examine breakfast.

Lydia gave a tiny cough into her fist; poor girl.

She had feared Sienna long before the Nether Goddess fully revealed herself, and Phei suspected that fear had only become more rational with time.

Sienna did not need to threaten anyone. She could stand quietly inside a room and allow the ancient weight of Death sleeping within her existence to perform all necessary warnings on her behalf.

Apparently Maddie had misplaced whatever survival instinct should have informed her of this.

Phei studied her for several seconds while one question floated through his mind.

’Is she somehow immune to the Nether Goddess’s aura and presence, or merely catastrophically brave?’

There had to be a third possibility involving stupidity, yet Maddie looked far too delighted with herself for him to settle comfortably on that explanation.

Sienna had already stopped walking, but Maddie, apparently interpreting continued existence as permission to proceed, she smiled even wider and added:

"You really should leave the morning exercises to us."

Soraya immediately lowered her face toward her plate while Melissa pressed her lips together so tightly Phei could practically watch the battle against laughter happening behind them. The Goddess lifted her cup with perfect elegance, although the dark gleam in her eyes had already betrayed her, and the Undead Queen who’d been the subject of her Goddess’s moans, lowered her gaze toward the table with such solemn devotion that Phei could not decide whether she was instinctively showing reverence to Sienna or desperately avoiding being caught laughing at her Goddess.

Eira did not bother pretending.

The little fairy had both hands over her mouth, shoulders shaking violently while she hovered beside Phei’s chair.

Everyone in the room understood exactly what Maddie meant by morning exercises, and she was very obviously not discussing jogging.

She was referring to Phei’s little dragon!

Technically, that description had become increasingly inaccurate with every absurd transformation Phei underwent, but he decided the breakfast table, while Sienna was slowly turning her head toward Maddie, was perhaps not the ideal place for that particular internal debate.

The amusing part was that nobody had ever formally announced anything about Phei and Sienna being together and fucking.

Over the last two weeks, however, the secret had gradually stopped respecting the duties expected of a secret.

Women’s intuition had apparently accomplished what direct confession had not.

A certain bastard had written a book explaining that a woman’s intuition became terrifying when another woman was concealing something involving a man they all knew— Phei could not remember the name of the author, but either way the bastard had been right.

They’d figured it out before he returned.

Sienna resumed walking, this time directly toward Maddie: "Say, Maddie," Sienna said pleasantly, and everyone was immediately distrusted by her pleasantness.

Sienna’s careful stride became considerably more noticeable now that every person at the table had committed the terrible mistake of watching her walk— the lingering consequence of a marital enthusiasm neither of them had approached with anything resembling restraint when they fucked.

Sienna could hardly place all the blame upon him either because a rather substantial portion had been hers. After the Primordial Lotus anointed him the previous night and Genesis Angel awakened, Sienna had apparently decided that the responsible response of an ancient Goddess was to personally inspect every important change in her husband with admirable thoroughness— they’d fucked before he went to bed with Melissa.

This morning she had concluded that the first inspection had been insufficient, and Phei, being a supportive and devoted husband he was, had naturally supported further research.

Standing there now, however, he suspected at least some of Sienna’s increasingly dangerous calm came from knowing Maddie was mocking a situation Sienna herself had enthusiastically participated in creating.

The Nether Goddess stopped beside Maddie’s chair, and Maddie’s grin only widened.

Sienna looked down at her with a beautiful smile and asked softly:

"I have always wondered, do you perhaps have a death wish?" The dining room became so quiet that Phei could hear Dragon Lady several seats away tearing meat from a bone. Maddie blinked up at Sienna while Catrina laughed slightly, and Phei decided intervention had become both husbandly and medically advisable:

"So Melissa and I are going to the hospital," he announced suddenly, forcing enough brightness into his voice to drag the entire room toward a safer subject. "Who wants to tag along?"

The change around the table was immediate. Heads turned, several mouths opened and, more importantly, Sienna’s attention shifted away from Maddie before the girl discovered whether Nether Goddesses accepted apologies retroactively.

Phei relaxed inwardly; he had just prevented a minor catastrophe and immediately congratulated himself. ’Excellent. Crisis successfully redirected.’

He looked toward Melissa and discovered that his next crisis had simply been waiting on the other side of the table.

Melissa was staring at him.

Phei discovered instantly that entire arguments could fit inside one woman’s stare.

Her eyes said: "Excuse me?" Phei offered the smallest possible shrug.

Melissa’s stare sharpened into something that very clearly reminded him: "We had a deal— you fucked me for that deal!"

His expression answered just as clearly that he knew, but Melissa’s eyes narrowed farther, reminding him that he had literally won their ridiculous bargain that morning because he wanted her to agree that nobody else was coming.

Phei flicked his gaze briefly toward Sienna and Maddie before looking back at her, silently trying to explain that he had needed something larger than impending murder before breakfast became an investigation scene.

Melissa’s right eye twitched.

Phei nearly smiled.

Melissa looked deeply satisfied.

Meanwhile, several women had already begun preparing to answer his invitation when Maya spoke from farther down the table:

"That’s not fair." The room paused again, and Phei turned toward her to find Maya sitting with one elbow resting lightly beside her plate, her expression was unusually serious. She looked between Phei and Melissa and said: "You two should have the right to your first time!"

The silence that followed lasted barely a heartbeat before Maya’s own sentence reached her ears and her eyes widened:

"Appointment," she added quickly, while Eira immediately burst into laughter. Maya frowned at her and hurried onward. "Obviously the appointment. I meant the hospital appointment, the baby appointment, their first time going to see the baby properly as parents together. That was very clearly what I meant, and anybody who heard something else has deliberately chosen stupidity."

Nobody answered but their shoulders were beginning to shake with contained laughter.