Witch's Daughter And The Devil's Son

Seren's body remained unmoving as she submerged everything aside from her head in the hot water, wishing she could hide in the bathtub forever and never come out again. She couldn't get out of the embarrassment she was feeling after remembering the previous night's incident. She was too engrossed in her thought, she did not even realize the hot water had turned cold. 

Outside the side chamber, Marie and Eva stood in worry. Even after so much time had passed by, their queen didn't call for her servants.

"Her Majesty is taking too much time. I know she ordered for us to leave but..." Eva paced as she stared at the door. Despite her worry, she dared not enter the bath and disturb their queen.

"I will check," Marie assured the younger Eva.

"What if you are punished?"

"Our Queen is benevolent. Besides, Her Majesty is truly acting strange and we only wish to make sure all her needs are satisfied."Marie entered the bath though she herself was conflicted about whether to go against the order given by their queen or not. However, she truly cared for Seren's wellbeing. Even if she received punishment for this, she alone would shoulder it, and Eva could remain behind to serve Her Majesty.

Upon entering the side chamber, Marie saw that the young queen was still sitting inside the bathtub. She had buried her face in the crook of her folded arms that were wrapped around her knees. Her shoulders and arms were trembling ever so slightly, her fragile-looking form evoking pity on her servant. 

"Your Majesty!" Marie gasped as her mind was filled with countless questions. "What is wrong? Let me help you out of the bath. Your Majesty, you are freezing!"

There was no reply from Seren so Marie stepped closer to the bathtub and called again, "Your Majesty?"

After a few more calls, there was finally movement from the queen. Seren slowly lifted her head and spoke out weakly, "Marie?"

The servant sighed in relief. "Do you need any help, Your Majesty?"

Seren looked at the woman as if she was the answer to all her questions. "Do you also feel embarrassed after your husband touches you and gives you comfort?"

Marie finally understood why Queen Seren was like that. The previous night, the King and Queen of Megaris had visited the opera house and thinking about the way they returned with their king carrying his wife in his arms, she was sure something strange must have happened to this young queen. 

Marie lowered her head for a while. "To answer Your Majesty, when I was newly married and still not familiar with anything, I was also embarrassed, but later on, I got used to it."

"Later?" Seren gave her a questioning look. "Does it happen often?"

Marie was once again stunned by the queen's straightforward questions. No royal lady—no, not even the nobles or the commoners would dare voice out these questions to anyone aside from their own mothers or sisters. How innocent was this queen to keep exposing her private life to her servants without any hesitation?

"Y-Yes, Your Majesty," Marie replied as she hid her own embarrassment. "You have also read in books, haven't you?" 

Seren remembered that in the stories in the books, they showed the man and woman used to do such things every night, and sometimes even in the day. She felt worried as this was all so embarrassing for her. How would she ever get used to it?

Marie could understand how Seren must be feeling at this moment. She offered the younger woman a comforting smile. "Your Majesty, you should not worry much about it. It is the way a husband and wife show their love for each other. As time passes, you will start liking it."

'Liking it?' Marie's exact words caught Seren's attention as what she was trying to hide till now finally came to the surface. 'I sure liked it when…' However, Seren couldn't make herself say it out loud, much less inside her mind. She could only sigh helplessly.

"Your Majesty, the bathwater is already cold. It's not good for you," Marie reminded.

Only then did Seren realize that her body was already shivering.

"Let me help you get out of it," Marie said as she called for Eva, who entered the bath and picked up the bathrobe kept on the table.

Seren stepped out of the bathtub with Marie's help. After drying her body with a towel, Eva helped put on the bathrobe on her. Marie and Eva readied Seren and once she was out of the room, both Lady Tyra and Lady Xena happened to enter the Queen's bedchamber. 

"Good morning, Your Majesty," they greeted as they bowed. 

Seren accepted the greeting with a light nod.

"Your Majesty, how are you feeling now?' Lady Tyra asked. 

Seren's face turned red under her veil as she knew Lady Tyra must be aware of everything. "I am fine, Lady Tyra," Seren replied. 

--

It was almost noon and Seren had her late morning meal quietly inside the dining room. Once she came out of the dining room, she met Lady Tyra once more. It seemed like the old lady was waiting by the door the whole time. 

"Your Majesty, King Drayce has invited you to his study," Lady Tyra politely informed her.

All the colors on Seren's face faded away. "Invited to his study?" she repeated hesitantly. Here she was trying to find out a way to not come across Drayce anytime soon, but the first thing after she barely calmed herself was to face him.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Allow me to guide your way. There has been some delay, but His Majesty is still waiting for you," Lady Tyra informed. 

There was indeed a delay since her day started late. Even the food had to be prepared once again because Seren had woken up later than usual due to the effect of the spiked drink. As Drayce had been waiting for her for hours, there was no way she would disobey his order. 

Just like before, Seren's lady servants had accompanied her to the connecting pathway between the King's and Queen's chamber. From that point, Seren walked alone until Slayer welcomed her at the other end of the pathway.

"Please this way, Your Majesty," Slayer said while having his head lowered in front of the queen.

Seren nodded lightly and followed Slayer. Once they reached the King's study, Slayer opened the door for her. After she entered the study, the door behind her was closed.

The first thing she noticed was the handsome red-eyed king sitting in his chair as he kept the scroll in his hand aside and raised his head to meet her gaze. It was not the first time she was seeing him, but her heart felt flustered the moment their eyes met. Drayce looked unusually handsome and attractive, enough to mess with her senses. 

When he looked back at her, she felt as if everything around had stopped. The world was silent and all she could hear was her loud heartbeats. She stayed rooted in place while holding her breath as if waiting for her world to restart. 

Seeing his queen standing in a daze, Drayce stood up from his chair. He was about to stand up the moment she entered but he stopped himself once he lay his eyes on her. Noticing her vague reaction, he chose to remain seated to observe her. It worried him how his kitten would take in what happened between them last night. 

Soon, his ears caught the sound of her heart beating faster, causing his worries to fade. A smirk graced his handsome face. 

'She sure knows how to drive me crazy,' Drayce thought as he approached Seren.

Though he was making his way towards her, she merely remained where she stood, not moving her gaze away from him as if she was enchanted by something. Even when he stood directly in front of her, she neither showed any sign of discomfort or fear. 

Drayce couldn't help but feel happy that his wife was attracted to him, to the point she couldn't control herself from acting like this.

"My Queen?" Drayce called out with a light smile. 

It pulled Seren out of her daze and immediately lowered her head. "G-Greetings, Your Majesty."

Drayce looked at her lowered head and instructed, "Please have a seat, my Queen."

Seren just nodded lightly, not daring to look at him again. She was embarrassed with her actions, especially as she recalled how boldly she was looking at him mere seconds ago. She could not wrap her head around her reaction. Initially, she thought she would not even have the courage to face him as she didn't know what he thought of her after the previous night. 

That incident made her fear how he would view her now. As a lady, she was embarrassed about what happened. How about Drayce? Was he embarrassed too? Or did he think of her badly because she was unable to control herself? She wanted to first gauge how he would treat her and then apologize for showing such an unsightly side of her, yet she seemingly lost all reason and did not even lower her gaze in front of him. 

Drayce led her way towards the cushioned couch in the study. He sat on the chair with a high backrest meant for him and signaled her to sit on the couch opposite to it. 

Seren wordlessly sat down with her head lowered. She had decided to herself to not look at him for the meantime, lest she acted discourteously again.

With his hands placed on both handrests of that chair, and his one leg folded over another, Drayce sat tall as he looked at the quiet woman. "My Queen, how are you feeling now?"

Hearing his voice, her ears suddenly turned red and another round of embarrassment covered her body. 

'Why am I like this?!' she panicked inside as she replied, "I am feeling fine now." 

He was merely asking her how she was feeling. She knew that she was not sick and that her body was affected by something different; the thing was, asking about it was causing her embarrassment to uncontrollably spiral upwards.

"Good to know," Drayce commented, ignorant of her internal dilemma, and asked in his usual tone, "My Queen, do you know what happened to you last night?"

'Why is he asking about it again when I said I am fine? So embarrassing!' Seren frowned inwardly as she clutched the skirt of her dress in her hand. "I am not sure, Your Majesty."

Drayce stared at her for a while as the memories from the previous night flashed in his mind. The way she looked at him with her eyes filled with a need to satisfy her, the way she reacted to whenever he touched her, and then the part when she finally experienced a kind of pleasure that she had never before. He wondered what she thought about, whether she was scared of this novel experience or if she had understood and accepted this new kind of intimacy with him. 

Drayce shook his head lightly to get  those memories out of his mind. If he was not careful in controlling himself, he might have snapped as those images were enough to make him devour his innocent wife right then and there. "My Queen, the previous night, I had told you that there was one inappropriate fruit mixed in that juice which caused you to feel like that."

Seren recalled Drayce mentioning it last night and nodded. "I remember it." She paused for a moment and continued in a low voice, "Apologies for causing inconvenience to Your Majesty."

Drayce felt displeased at her apology, but he controlled his reaction. He did not want her to misunderstand. "My Queen, there is no need to apologize. It is in fact a husband's duty to help his wife. Though it was my fault for not looking into the situation carefully despite being the one who brought you there. I am to blame yet it is you who had to suffer.  It might be a mistake on my part, but if there is one thing I am glad about what happened, it is that I was given a chance to help you."

'Help me? That was an embarrassing way of helping,' Seren thought. She then slightly loosened her grasp on her skirt as she hesitated. "From now on, I will be careful of what I drink and will not let it happen again."

Again, Drayce felt displeased. As Seren kept her eyes down, not looking at him, she couldn't see the displeasure on his face. 'What does she mean? That she didn't like what we did? Why does it look like she didn't want it again? Was it not enough to make her feel good?'

Being polite and using ambiguous words had proven to not work with his innocent wife. That was why Drayce asked her in a straightforward manner.

"My Queen, did you not like what you felt when I helped you?"