Just as everyone had expected, Persephone joined the game too.
The first sight to greet her as she pushed the door open was Rose, a bright thread at the corner of her mouth, her eyes soft and swimming, her cheeks crimson, slumped on the bed in a duck-sit with one white knee-sock bunched down at her ankle and the other hanging off the tips of her toes.
And beside her, sprawled and boneless, murmuring vague half-words through her lips, her body shivering now and then, like a doll that had been played with until it broke, was Jeanne, who had long since lost consciousness entirely.
"Ara~ Miss Persephone, finally made up your mind? And here you'd been standing outside the door for quite a while."
Rose said it thickly, swallowing down the warmth in her mouth, then lowered her head once more and went devotedly back to her service.
"Hss...!"
Leon's body gave a slight shudder, his fingertips burrowing without thought into Rose's soft hair, but his gaze had drifted to Persephone in the doorway, a play of light and shadow shifting in his eyes.
"You..."
Shyness spread across Persephone's face, yet she hesitated only a moment before she began, one piece at a time, to shed her clothes.
The black high-necked wool sweater, the jeans hugging her legs, the over-the-knee patent-leather boots, and the layer of gossamer-thin black stockings hidden beneath the trousers...
As the clothing came away layer by layer, the light in Leon's eyes only burned brighter.
And when she finally bared the tips of her black-stockinged toes...
"Mm...!"
Rose, serving with her head bowed, abruptly lifted her face and gave a small cough, the corners of her eyes gone faintly red, and shot Leon a slightly reproachful glance.
The sudden turn had caught her off guard, and she'd very nearly choked.
A look at Persephone at her side, and in particular at Persephone's little "stockings-under-the-trousers" bit of scheming, and Rose understood at once why this scum of a man had gotten so "worked up."
She threw him a silent, sidelong look, half resentment and half amusement, then lowered her head again and carried on, more meticulous and more drawn-out than before.
As if in revenge.
"Hss...!"
The back of Leon's hand tensed. He drew a light breath and barely reined his composure back in.
Rose really did know exactly what she was doing.
A hair's breadth, just a hair's breadth more, and he'd have lost his composure right there in front of Persephone.
He pressed lightly on Rose's head, signaling her to ease off a moment.
But by now Persephone had already leaned in, flushed and shy. In the blink of an eye, Leon found himself caught in a "no way forward, no way back" bind.
Rose raised her moist eyes, gave a small lift of her lips, and then bowed down deep.
Leon's frame hitched, his breath pulling suddenly tight.
And below, Rose pressed her lovely face in hard, her eyes charmingly hooded as she swallowed and swallowed, until she had taken every last bit of it.
Faintly, on the Falna across her back, that special skill, the Beloved's Crest, flickered on and on in a wild, frantic light.
...
...
Two hours later.
Persephone pulled the door open in something of a fluster.
Her hair was a little mussed now, her eyes like rippling water, her cheeks still carrying a red that hadn't wholly faded, a languid, hazy air hanging over the whole of her.
She looked half drunk, her legs weak beneath her, her steps unsteady, a broken-heeled shoe dangling from one hand and a wet thread of gleam still at the corner of her mouth.
Persephone made to flee Leon's room in her disarray, but before her leg in its ruined stocking could clear the threshold, an arm reached out from behind and hauled her roughly back.
Bang.
The door swung shut tight once more.
From inside, faintly, came Leon's utterly unabashed voice:
"Persephone, come when you please and leave when you please... what exactly do you take this place for?"
"And besides, just two rounds and you're satisfied? That'll never do!"
"Keep going. We'll start with learning how to serve!"
"Here. Step one, learn to kneel!"
"Guh... kill me!"
Smack.
"Scum! Pervert!"
"This is too much... I honestly never imagined you'd... ngh."
Persephone felt as though she was already suffocating.
It was hard to believe. This kind of technique... how in the world did Rose manage it?
"Ara~~ Miss Persephone, you have to swallow all of it, you know. If it's only this much, that simply won't do."
"Watch closely. I'll demonstrate just the once..."
"Mm..."
...
...
The morning's "lesson" only came to a hasty close near eight o'clock, when the sky had brightened over completely.
Hissing at the cold air and kneading his lower back, his face haggard, Leon came down the stairs into the reception hall.
Hearing the movement, Aura, one leg crossed over the other and deep in a book, only lifted her head for the briefest glance before returning her attention to it, sinking back into the sea of knowledge.
As for the business between Leon and Jeanne, Rose, and Persephone, sharp as she was, Aura had long since seen it all clearly for what it was. To her mind, this big-family style of familia life was fine in every respect but one: the chaotic private lives of Leon and the older sisters, which honestly gave her something of a headache.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... looking so run-down, what's gotten into our Mr. Leon? Don't tell me he was so wound up over landing that big contract that he didn't sleep a wink all night?"
Laurier, silly girl that she was, had no idea about the "game" of the night before, and naively assumed Leon was simply worked up over the income.
Leon nearly shot back a retort. He was worked up, all right, just not over anything to do with money...
But out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Persephone at the far end of the second-floor landing, standing in her fuzzy slippers with her face cold and blank, watching him with an icy stare, and he swallowed the words back down.
"Ahem. I'll go make breakfast."
"Right, Laurier. Go chop some firewood out back, the dry kind, then get the fireplace roaring. It's bitter this early in the morning..."
"Hmph, I know already!"
The little elf got up grudgingly, pulled her shoes on, bundled herself into a thick padded coat, and headed for the backyard with her shoulders hunched.
Aura, sharp-eyed as ever, set her book down too and pushed up her glasses:
"I'll lend a hand as well."
Only once she'd watched Leon's figure vanish into the stairwell down to the cellar did Persephone slowly draw her gaze back.
"Ara~ still sulking?"
Rose had appeared behind her at some point, both arms winding lightly around her waist, cheek close to her ear, asking in a low, smiling voice.
Ambushed out of nowhere, Persephone's body stiffened all at once, and then the mortifying scenes from that morning with Leon, Jeanne, and Rose flashed through her mind, and her face went instantly, scaldingly red...
"Pervert! Scum! Filthy!"
Persephone cursed Leon under her breath, and then, thinking of all the things she'd done under Rose's coaxing, every one of them past a line she'd sworn she'd never cross, she flushed harder still, her voice shaking:
"You, you all... how can you carry on so... so shamelessly!"
"This... this is just..."
Rose laughed softly, one hand roaming slow across her belly:
"All that talk, and in the end you agreed to it too, didn't you..."
Persephone's body gave a small shiver. She lowered her head and bit her lip:
"I..."
The thought of the unrestrained things Leon had done with her feet, her hands, her thighs, her mouth, and the rest of her set her toes curling with shame, and she wanted nothing more than to bolt straight back to her room, lock the door, and bury herself entirely under the covers.
"Come on now. You'll get used to it in time..."
Rose let up on teasing her at last, took her by the hand, and headed downstairs without the least shred of self-consciousness, ready to begin the day's busy round.
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