Chapter 589: Bonus - 58: Gold god and Pink Girl: A New Scenery

Isabelle’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "You want me to keep an eye on them?"

"I want you to keep both eyes on them, and a third if you can borrow one. Titania most of all. Tera will follow wherever the queen leads..." Vaelora ordered."

Isabelle inclined her head in respect, as pink mist emerged in the air in front of Vaelora, soft as breath and edged with the shimmer of magic.

She nodded toward Isabelle and stepped into the mist

***

When she appeared at the other end of the portal, it was evening.

The light that met her was the deep orange of a sun already half-swallowed by the horizon. She stood in a room that was slightly lavish—comfortable in a way that spoke of discreet means rather than display.

Not the chamber of someone truly wealthy, and certainly not the chamber of royalty. Yet it was not the room of a common man either.

The bed was moderate in size, its covers looking soft enough to sink into.

A furry rug lay underneath it, the kind that would feel warm against bare feet on a cold morning.

The walls held no tapestries of victory or portraits of ancestors, only clean plaster and a single narrow shelf with a few books.

The overall aesthetic was restrained. The size of the room was average, neither cramped nor echoing.

Vaelora’s official and noble attire—her near-transparent sleeveless gown, the faint shimmer of her pink butterfly wings, the long curly pink hair that still carried the scent of Fairylynch’s gardens—seemed very much out of place here.

She felt the mismatch in the way the fabric of her gown caught the last of the light, too fine for these walls, too formal for this quiet.

She flew the short distance to the window on her right and looked outside.

The sky was painted orange, layered with soft bands of rose and deepening violet where the sun met the edge of the world.

She was high up in the building, about the second floor, and from this vantage she could see that the entire mansion sat quite far removed from the rest of the city.

Trees surrounded it on three sides. A long gravel path led away toward distant rooftops.

Spreading her senses wide, she could feel the density of life a mile’s walk distant—voices, wheels, the low hum of a city settling into evening.

Close by there was only the quiet of leaves and the occasional call of a bird that did not know or care that a fairy had arrived.

She took a deep breath, drawing in the air of the space.

It carried his scent.

The scent was faint but unmistakable: clean skin, and the particular warmth that clung to the places he had slept and lived.

Vaelora’s wings gave a small, involuntary flutter. She muttered the words under her breath, almost to herself.

"It smells like him..."

Then she flew the few wingbeats to the bed and let herself fall into it.

She wallowed. There was no other word for it.

She rolled onto her back and then onto her side, burying her face in the sheets, trashing lightly against the mattress the way a cat might claim a sunlit patch of floor.

Her long pink hair spilled across the pillows. Her wings half-opened and half-closed against the covers.

A soft, private giggle escaped her, the sound of someone who had carried too many ledgers for too many days and had finally, for a moment, put them down.

She pressed her cheek to the place where his head must have rested and breathed in again, deeper this time, as if the scent alone could answer questions she had not yet asked aloud.

The door clicked, and Velora stopped playing at once. She sat upright, wings settling, the last of the giggle dying in her throat. Her pink eyes fixed on the door.

It opened.

The person she had been looking for stood in the doorway.

Short, light brown hair that looked as if he had run his fingers through it more than once since morning.

Blue eyes that caught the orange light from the window and held it.

A face that sat somewhere between soft and sharp, androgynous in the way that made people look twice and then look again.

Extremely attractive, in the quiet manner of someone who did not seem to notice or care much about it.

He wore a pale, loose, long-sleeved tunic that hung easily on his frame and dark pants that had seen honest use.

He paused when he saw her, one hand still on the door.

"Huh? Vaelora, is that you? I knew something felt sweet in the atmosphere."

She bowed her head and closed her eyes for a moment, her wings fluttering in a small, delighted shiver she could not quite suppress.

"Good evening, Master Benjamin," she said. The title came out soft and formal. "I heard that you had taken a detour here, and I felt it proper to visit my master."

Benjamin walked toward the bed, scratching the back of his head with a small, rueful gesture. The door swung shut behind him with a quiet click.

"C’mon," he said. "I told you to stop using ’master’ when addressing me."

He reached the side of the bed. Without further preamble he leaned in and took her lips into his for a warm kiss.

Vaelora’s eyes softened at the gesture. The tension that had lived in her shoulders since the great hall of Fairylynch eased by degrees.

Her small hands rose and embraced him, fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic, deepening the kiss of her own accord.

The contact was familiar and new at once—familiar in the way their mouths already knew how to fit, new in the simple fact of it happening again after too long.

When they finally released, a thin string of saliva connected them for a moment before it broke.

Benjamin smiled. His blue eyes almost twinkled like stars in the fading orange light.

"Thanks for helping treat," he said, the words easy, affectionate. "Fairies’ lips still taste like candy, I guess."

Vaelora seemed to be in a trance. Her eyes had gone nearly clouded, soft with desire and with the quieter, more dangerous thing beneath it—need that had been waiting politely in the back of her mind for days or weeks or longer.

Her wings gave another small, restless flutter. She drew a breath that trembled at the edges and began to speak, the words coming uncertain and nervous, as if she were testing the weight of each one before she let it leave her mouth.

"Maste—I mean, Benjamin... I... I was thinking if you were..." She hesitated, searching. Her fingers still rested lightly against his tunic. "I mean, I yearn for your touch, Benjamin. We have only done it a few times in the past. So I hope you have not lost interest in me."