Chapter 391: The Wolf Assistant’s Jealousy

Janina was gone, and with her, the only person who could explain what had happened.

Ryan walked toward the castle doors with the dignity of a king who definitely hadn’t just had his ear bitten by a dragon. His ear, by the way, was still there. Intact. Slightly wet, but intact. He preferred not to think about that part.

Two figures awaited him at the entrance. Eva and Alicia. Standing, stiff, wearing the expressions of someone about to hear a sentence.

Great.

"Your Majesty, what... what was all that?"

Alicia’s brow was barely furrowed. Barely. With her, that was the equivalent of another person screaming and breaking furniture. It was evident that she had seen everything from the courtyard. Absolutely everything.

"If the others were awake..." she murmured, leaving the sentence hanging.

There was no need to finish it. Ryan could complete it all by himself, and no version ended well for the castle’s furniture.

Eva, who until then had kept a very thoughtful silence, took a step forward.

"I haven’t been in the castle for long, but long enough to know that Lady Helen and Lady Mirian, even Lady Lise, would be capable of starting a war over this."

A war.

Over an ear bite.

’What an exaggeration. Janina only bit my ear, though I must admit that surprised me.’

He thought about the size of the teeth that had passed centimeters from his head and concluded that "surprised" was a generous word. A word used when one doesn’t want to admit that an action like that could contain hidden motives.

He took another step forward and adopted his best expression of calm. It was the same one he used in council meetings, when someone proposed something terrible and he pretended to consider it.

"Don’t pay it any mind. Not even I can know what goes through that dragon’s mind, but I’m sure it’s not for sexual reasons."

Silence.

Eva blinked once. Alicia, not at all.

Ryan realized, too late, that the phrase had sounded much worse out loud than in his head.

The best thing to do in the face of such silence is to leave. Luckily, he had more important matters to attend to, and also luckily, that was a perfectly respectable pretext.

He entered the castle.

Alicia followed him. And she was jealous. Clearly, undeniably, in an almost architectural way.

The curious thing was that she didn’t usually act like this. She was used to the other girls surrounding Ryan; she even had a mental system to tolerate it, with its categories and its exceptions. But those girls were comrades. They were from the castle. This was something else: a strange dragoness, from another kingdom, who appeared out of nowhere, did what she did, and left as if it were nothing.

And to make matters worse, the walk didn’t help.

As Ryan advanced through the corridors, the demon maids, the elves, and the half-beasts followed him with their eyes, and the whispers of praise spread in his wake like a very polite wildfire. Ryan pretended not to hear them. He heard them all.

Behind him, Alicia’s anger rose a little more. Then a little more. Eva tried to calm her down with a hand on her shoulder and a nervous smile, the kind of smile you give an animal that hasn’t decided if it’s going to bite.

The maids noticed it. That bloodlust hung in the air, thick and palpable, and suddenly they all remembered they had urgent chores elsewhere. They scattered with a speed no foreman could have ever achieved.

Ryan reached the main hall, crossed a door, and entered a resting room. There he could finally breathe. He told Eva to go fetch Edwin: they had business to plan.

Eva nodded and left. Alicia, on the other hand, stayed glued to his side, saying nothing. There was no need. Her silence took up more space than any speech.

However, the peace was short-lived.

Lise and Ivis arrived earlier. Although Lise wore a huge smile upon seeing Ryan and quickly moved toward his side, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.

’Where were these two?’

They had left halfway through the party, and now their clothes were dirty and torn. Truly torn, not in the elegant way a garment is torn in an action scene. There was no need to ask. They had been fighting.

"But what the hell happened here?" said Lise, the wind dragoness.

And then she caught the scent in the air.

Her face changed. Slowly, like a darkening sky.

"That homewrecking bitch... I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her..."

Ivis brought a hand to her mouth, surprised. But her surprise lasted only an instant, and she immediately leaned toward Ryan.

"Since when do you and Janina get along so well? She left her scent on you."

That pair of dragons could clearly smell Janina on Ryan, like someone detecting chimney smoke on a stranger’s coat. There was no denying it. There was no hiding it. Ryan briefly considered that a situation like this, at least in his old world, was worthy of throwing himself out a window.

"It’s not at all what you think, you should know that by now."

"Precisely because I know," said a new voice, "I support what these two are thinking."

Ophelia, the demon queen, appeared before them. She had heard the entire conversation. Probably from the very beginning.

"Even I am surprised..."

Perhaps Alicia’s bloodlust had woken her up. It was the only possible explanation. Luckily, Helen and the others were still asleep; otherwise, this would have turned into a commotion of epic proportions at a ridiculously early hour.

Small miracles.

Then the door opened.

"Did you call for me, Your Majesty?"

Edwin entered, as calm as could be alongside Eva, and found himself face-to-face with a hostile scene. Four women standing, each with a different kind of fury, and Ryan in the center looking like a condemned man. Edwin stopped mid-step. He seemed to very seriously consider walking right back out.

"Yes," Ryan said, as if nothing were wrong. "Did you enjoy the party?"

Edwin brought a hand to his head. Maybe he still had a hangover.

"Yes, Your Majesty. I didn’t think I would feel so at ease. What you have achieved in this nation is truly admirable."

"I’m glad to hear it." Ryan smiled, relieved that someone in that room could hold a normal conversation. "It’s time I tell you why I asked you to come."

He looked at the other women.

"Leave us alone."