Free Web NovelChapter 8: No Milk Tonight
Puff opened her eyes, still mumbling against the front of Kael’s shirt.
"Milk... milk!"
"You little idiot, there’s no milk!"
She had only just hatched.
Her stomach was empty, and her body wanted food. She did not know what was holding her. She did not know if it could feed her.
She only had instinct to go on.
There was a small bump beneath Kael’s shirt, and in Puff’s newborn mind, that looked close enough to food.
So she bit down.
Then she sucked.
Kael’s breath caught.
His jaw tightened.
"Let go."
Puff did not.
She sucked a few more times.
Her round eyes opened wider.
The serious look on her face slowly turned into confusion.
She tried again.
Nothing.
"None...?"
"How could there be!?"
Night covered the capital of the Suncrest Empire.
Walls, towers, banners, sleeping streets—all of it sat under the dark.
But the dark was not empty.
Cold starlight fell from the sky and scattered across the huge black gate ahead.
Light caught on the iron studs. Frost shone in the cracks between the stones. High above, wind slid along the wall and tugged at the hanging banners.
It could have been a beautiful night.
If not for Kael.
"Hey! You idiots! Open the damn gate!"
His voice burst outside the city and ruined the quiet.
The guards on the wall had not even answered before Puff lifted her head in his arms.
Her hands still clutched Kael’s shirt. Her eyes were half sleepy, but she copied his tone in a soft baby voice.
"O... pen!"
Kael looked down and glared at her.
"Tch. Shut it, brat. Keep yelling and I’ll smack your butt. And stop biting my chest."
Puff closed her mouth.
She did not know what "smack your butt" meant.
But Kael looked vicious when he said it.
So it was not food.
And it was not going to be fun.
She blinked, hugged his neck, and kept quiet.
A moment later, hurried footsteps sounded above them.
Someone leaned over the wall.
A thin, shaking voice came down from the dark.
"Master Kael! Please come back! Her Majesty is already worried sick!"
Kael stood in front of the capital gates with Puff in his arms.
He lifted his head and squinted at the high black wall.
The starlight was weak. The wall was too tall. Whoever was up there had almost melted into the night.
After a few seconds, Kael spotted a small black-and-white figure near the battlements.
"Hah? Who are you to tell me to go back?" Kael’s voice was all attitude. "Where are my useless people?"
The figure froze.
Then her voice became even smaller.
"It’s me, Master Kael... Zera. The maid who woke you up this morning."
Kael stared at her for another second.
Under the starlight, the girl stood by the edge of the wall in a black-and-white maid uniform, both hands gripping the stone as she looked down.
She was not tall.
Beside the thick battlements, she looked so small the shadow nearly swallowed her.
If she had not spoken, even Kael might have taken her for another dark lump on the wall.
"Zera?"
Kael thought for a moment.
A bit of recognition finally crossed his face.
"Oh. The maid with no presence."
His face darkened again.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Hurry up and open the gate!"
To be fair, Kael did not remember Zera well.
She was supposed to serve him, wake him up, bring him what he needed, and handle small errands around the Ashborne Wing.
It was not that Kael had no sympathy.
It was not that he refused to remember the names of the people around him.
Zera’s presence was just too low.
Ridiculously low.
If she walked into the palace one day and insulted Empress Aurelia Valemont to her face, she would become famous across the empire before sunset.
The guards would remember her.
The maids would remember her.
The court ladies would remember her.
Everyone would whisper, That maid is finished.
But the next morning, if Zera put on the same maid uniform and carried a tea tray down the same corridor in front of the same people...
Most of them would slow down, frown, and wonder if they had really seen her yesterday.
A few hours later, they would forget her name again.
That was Zera.
Even when she stood right in front of you, she felt like an old scrap of paper shoved into a corner. You only noticed her when the wind blew it against your foot.
"Y-Yes, Master Kael!"
Zera hurriedly lifted the edge of her long skirt and ran down the inner stone stairs.
Her heels tapped against the steps, the sound echoing down the wall.
Kael waited outside the gate with a sour face.
Then Puff moved again.
Curled against him inside the cloak, she felt the hunger in her belly getting worse.
It started low in her stomach, then crept upward until she could not ignore it anymore.
Her fist tightened around Kael’s shirt.
She raised her head and looked at his jaw as if he held the answer to life itself.
Then she called out with all the sincerity in the world.
"Da... da."
"Tch. What now?"
Puff placed one hand on her stomach, then looked back at Kael.
She could not say much yet.
But she managed to squeeze out the word that mattered most.
"Hung... ry."
Then she lowered her head, sniffed, and looked back at Kael’s chest.
Maybe because he had carried her all this way, she had decided that Kael was the answer to every problem.
So she reached out, grabbed the worst possible spot on the front of his shirt, and yanked.
Hard.
Quick.
No hesitation.
"AAAAAA—!"
Kael almost jumped out of his skin.
The veins at his temples bulged as he slapped her hand away.
"You little demon brat! I am not a milk cow! There’s no milk there! Why are you squeezing?!"
Puff shrank her neck after being yelled at.
But she did not give up.
She was hungry.
She did not understand what was wrong.
All she knew was that when she grabbed there, Kael reacted like crazy.
In her small head, a big reaction meant that place was important.
And if it was important...
There was probably food.
Kael gritted his teeth.
Then he freed one hand and gave her a light swat through the cloak.
Smack.
It was not hard.
But Puff went still.
"You dumb dragon. Behave."
Puff’s eyes widened.
Her mouth slowly twisted.
She did not cry out, but her whole face scrunched up with the misery of a baby wronged by the world.
Still, wronged or not, she was hungry.
She sniffed.
Then, stubborn enough to fight him to the death, she reached out again.
"Milk... milk!"
As she said it, she tried to grab him one more time.
"You idiot dragon—!"
Kael was about to lose his mind.
He glared down at Puff, caught between shouting louder and throwing himself into the nearest wall.
Puff had no sense of danger.
She clung to his clothes, face scrunched up, wet eyes fixed on him with one demand written all over them.
Feed me.
