Chapter 747: A Big Hug Fixes Everything [Bonus - ]

Chapter 747: A Big Hug Fixes Everything [Bonus Chapter]

’They’re Heroes, but I haven’t been treating them like Heroes,’ he admitted to himself with a bitter knot of guilt twisting in his gut. ’Since they came here I’ve barely spent an hour checking how they’re doing or what they need... Lupina runs around the woods hunting stray beasts to keep herself useful, Morrighan keeps to herself practicing her magic, and I’ve been running back and forth between worlds like a lunatic with his hair on fire.’

His mind drifted wider, over the whole growing household.

’And I plan to add more girls too...’ he thought, staring past the tree toward the misty valley below. ’If Blessed Land is going to survive what’s coming, I need more girls, maybe even divine beings that fit Blessed Land even better, and more defense for the territory but how am I supposed to manage that when I’m already dropping the ball?’

A silent self-critical breath slipped out through his nose.

’I’ve barely been giving attention to Aurelia, Rowenna and the rest as well,’ he thought. ’Aurelia never asks me for anything... Rowenna practically lives in the Library, and the golems only work because of her runes and I treat their loyalty like it’s never going to run out... Being with a bundle of women is truly hard, not to mention the rest of the Troop girls. Every one of them deserves their Lord’s time.’

He curled his hands into fists inside his pockets and made himself a hard quiet vow under the shadow of the old oak.

’I’ll make this right,’ Silas promised himself. ’Once I’m mostly done with the Human World, I’m going to give one hundred percent of my time to my girls... No, more than one hundred percent. They won’t have to hunt for scraps of my attention but even then... I’ll still need to move after Aki finishes her Novice Trial. That’s how hard this is.’

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, took a step forward and stopped two paces in front of the trembling wolf-girl.

He didn’t make a joke, instead Silas lowered his chin and bowed his head to her, and he held it there in quiet sincere respect.

Lupina’s breath caught in her throat.

Her eyes went wide in shock. The nervous guilty look that had clouded them faded at once, and in its place came frozen disbelief.

’Why is my Lord bowing...?’

Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped rabbit’s.

’He’s the master of this land! He beat Lady Evelyn in the Lord War and took us as his Heroes! A Lord doesn’t lower his head to a Hero he won! Did I do something wrong by hiding in the branches...? Is he angry that I followed him?!’

"Lord Silas...?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

Silas slowly lifted his head and looked straight into her eyes with plain unvarnished honesty.

"I took you away from Evelyn and brought you here as my Hero," he said softly, and the quiet mountain air carried every word, "yet you’re barely getting any of my attention. I apologize, Lupina..."

Lupina’s silver ears shot straight up and trembled, and a bright frantic red flooded her cheeks all the way to the tips of them.

"N-No!" she stammered, waving both hands in front of her chest so fast her fingers blurred. "P-Please don’t bow, Lord Silas! You haven’t done anything wrong! I’m... I’m doing just fine! The meadows are wide, the forests are full of game, and the meat at the mess hall is always fresh! I’ve got plenty of room to run, and the other girls are really kind! You don’t owe me an apology at all, really!"

Silas looked at her flustered desperate face and let out a long quiet sigh that clouded in the cool air.

He stepped in close, raised his hand and laid his broad palm gently on top of her head, right between her soft silver-furred ears.

His fingers stroked down through her silky bangs in a slow steady pat that carried all the warmth he had been holding back.

’She’s lying,’ he thought. ’Badly... Her tail’s been tucked since she hit the ground, and her ears haven’t come up once.’

"I know I’m a bit of a bad Lord, Lupina," he murmured with a rueful little smile, "but you don’t have to lie to make me feel better."

The gentle steady weight of his hand on her head made Lupina’s breath hitch.

She stood frozen under his touch with her eyes wide and glistening in the dim twilight.

Behind her the bushy silver tail gave one slow tentative flick and brushed the backs of her bare knees.

The warmth of his palm seemed to sink straight through her, melting the cold of the mountain fog and the quiet lonely ache that had been sitting in her chest for weeks.

She hadn’t said it to anyone.

...Not to Morrighan, not to the girls at the mess hall. She had told herself it didn’t matter, that a Hero who was won in a war should just be grateful to be fed and housed, that she shouldn’t expect her new Lord to look her way at all.

So she had run the woods every day and brought back whatever she caught and left it at the kitchen door, and every evening she had told herself that tomorrow he might notice.

...Today he had come home, and she hadn’t been able to stop herself from following him.

She looked up at his tired handsome face and she saw the faint shadows under his eyes and the slight slump in his shoulders that came from carrying a whole territory on his back.

’He blames himself...’ she thought, and a sudden fierce warmth swelled in her chest until her throat felt tight. ’He goes off and fights in the dark places so we can sleep in warm beds, and he thinks he’s failing us just because he can’t be everywhere at once...’

Without a single word of hesitation, Lupina stepped forward, closed the distance between them and wrapped both of her slender muscular arms tight around Silas’s waist.

"Oof..."

The breath left Silas in a quiet puff as she buried her face right in the center of his chest.

Her soft silver hair pressed against his jaw, smelling of clean pine needles, crushed clover and the cold sharp air of the high ridges.

Her grip was tight and fierce as she wouldn’t let go, and she pressed her warm athletic body flat against his jacket as if she was afraid he might vanish if she loosened it.

Silas stood very still in the middle of the dark lane with his arms hanging at his sides, completely caught off guard then, slowly, he lifted both arms and wrapped them around her back.

His right hand settled between her shoulder blades and his left came to rest just under her silver hair then he looked down at the top of her head in mild confusion as her ears pressed flat against his collarbone.

"Lupina...?" he asked softly, one eyebrow lifting. "What’s this for?"

Muffled against the dark fabric of his jacket, Lupina squeezed him a little tighter, and her voice trembled with earnest conviction.

"Don’t think about it so much, Lord Silas," she whispered, the words humming against his sternum. "You’re not a bad Lord... A nice big hug usually helps people calm down when their thoughts get too loud."

Silas took a slow deep breath.

He stood still in the quiet lane beneath the old tree and felt the steady beat of her heart against his ribs.

The knot that had been pulling tighter in his chest ever since Thora’s lecture began to loosen, coming undone under the simple uncomplicated honesty of the hug.

The fog drifted between the fence posts in slow white ribbons, and for a little while neither of them moved at all.

"Thanks, Lupina," he murmured, his voice dropping into quiet genuine gratitude.

His left hand slid down from her shoulder and traced the curve of her spine until his fingers reached the small of her back, where her thick fluffy silver tail met her hips.

And there, without thinking, driven by his hopeless weakness for animal fur, Silas sank his fingers deep into the dense velvety base of her tail, curled his palm around the thick plume and gave it a slow firm massage.

SQUEEZE!

Lupina’s whole body went stiff as an iron bar.

"Nyaaaahn~!"

A sound exactly like a strangled high-pitched barn cat tore out of the back of her throat!

Her back arched in a sharp helpless spasm, and her knees knocked together under the hem of her denim shorts as a sudden electric jolt shot straight up her spine.

Her silver ears flattened so hard against her skull that they nearly disappeared into her hair, and her arms tore away from his waist as if she’d grabbed a red-hot ingot.

SCRAMBLE!

Lupina leaped three full paces backward with her boots skidding across the damp dirt of the path...

She stood there hunched over with her hands clamped on her knees and her face burning a blinding crimson that put the sunset to shame.

Her eyes were glued desperately to the moss between her boots, and her shoulders trembled as tiny mortified whimpers bubbled out of her.

"Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh..." she wheezed, her chest heaving as she stared at the dirt, completely unable to process the undignified cat noise that had just come out of her wolf mouth.

Silas blinked and looked down at his empty hand.

’Ah,’ he thought, with a faint guilty smirk. ’I did it again.’

Lupina let out another tiny high whimper, and her cheeks burned so hot she felt like steam was about to start pouring out of her ears.

’Get a hold of yourself!’ her inner voice screamed as her fingers dug into the denim of her shorts and she fought to claw back a scrap of dignity. ’You’re a Hero! You fought in the Lord War! You can’t turn into a blubbering pup just because your Lord touched your tail! Show some spine! Tell him about the hive!’

She sucked in a huge lungful of cold air, puffed out her chest and forced her head up, though her eyes were still wide and a little unfocused from the aftershock.

Her silver tail twitched wildly behind her, puffed up to nearly twice its normal size.

"A-Ahem!" Lupina declared, her voice cracking before she forced it into a proud boastful tone. "T-That aside, Lord Silas! You should know that while you were away, we weren’t just sitting around! Morrighan, Aurelia and I found a hive full of monsters, and we raided the whole thing and killed every single one of them!"

She stepped forward and planted her fists on her hips with her chin lifted high in triumph, though the blush on her cheeks refused to fade.

"So... we want rewards!" she proclaimed, her eyes sparkling with hopeful expectant energy.

Silas couldn’t help chuckling.

Watching her bounce back from total embarrassment to proud chest-puffing bravado in the space of three breaths was endlessly charming.

"A whole hive, huh?" he said with a respectful nod. "Then I’ll make sure all three of you get rewards."

Lupina beamed, and her silver tail began to wag in wide happy sweeps that rustled the grass.

’He said yes!’ she thought, her ears springing upright at last. ’He said yes, and he didn’t even ask how big it was! Wait until I tell Morrighan!’

Silas tilted his head toward the lane ahead. "Walk with me... We’re going to the Beast Pavilion."

"The Beast Pavilion?" Lupina fell into step beside him on the wide dirt path.

Her long legs moved with the easy silent grace of a natural hunter, matching his stride without any effort. "Are you going to see the wolves?"

"The wolves too," Silas said, and his brow creased as another forgotten thing came back to bite him.

’...I forgot about the spider eggs too.’

He could still see them.

Six huge royal spider eggs in their hard translucent sapphire shells, glowing with that rainbow light deep in the nest where he had found them.

He remembered carrying them back like treasure and laughing like a madman over them, Silas also remembered Reina’s face going pale when he told her there wasn’t just one egg but six, and how she’d puffed out her chest anyway and said it was her duty to Blessed Land.

’They should have hatched by now...’ he thought. ’Given how the Spider Queen was, I just hope they didn’t scare poor Reina half to death.’