‘I don’t know if I can say this but…he’s kind of cute today.’
Doubtless he was twice her size and incomparable when it comes to strength. However, she couldn’t help but to feel like he was craving for her affection as if he was a child. And even though her body was tightly locked within his arms, she felt like it was rather her who was actually giving him a hug.
Before long, the carriage started to speed down and spurted for the last moment before it finally came to a halt. And just as Eugene was thinking wistfully about having arrived so quickly, she heard a light tap coming from the other side of the door.
“Your Majesty, I’ll be opening the door.”
Eugene remembered how it seemed to take forever on her way to the Arse manor yesterday. But gathering from the fact that the returning trip took shorter than she expected, she must have been too nervous yesterday that the ride felt much longer than it actually was.
Startled by the voice, Eugene pushed away Kasser at once. She clearly wasn’t strong enough to break away from his arms, but he let go of her rather submissively. However, in the blink of an eye, he inclined his head towards her to steal a kiss off her lips along with the sound of the door being clicked open. It was a light kiss where his lips gently lingered on hers for only a second.
Eugene brushed across her lips with her fingertip as she watched him alight from the carriage. The kiss touched her heart in an unexpected way, despite all the intense kisses she had shared with him so far. She could almost feel her heart pounding like a girl who just experienced her first kiss.
‘He’s….’ She can’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something different about him today.
A loud commotion was then heard when she took Kasser’s hand to get off the carriage. As she turned to the sound, she saw a black horse come galloping toward her with all its might.
Abu, who came up to Eugene in a flash, excitedly shoved its head against her. She was all smiles although the sight of a huge black horse, which easily exceeded a man’s height, could come off as threatening.
“Abu.” Eugene reached out and gently stroked on his muzzle. “Did you come to meet us?”
Abu puffed in reply and rubbed its muzzle on Eugene’s hand as if asking her to pet him some more. The stablers gasped for their breath with pale faces as they came running after Abu from behind. Eugene couldn’t help but to feel sorry for them when she saw their frightful faces. She went on as she gave a light tap on Abu’s muzzle.
“Abu. You should behave without making any trouble.”
Abu neighed back in protest.
“All right. All right. You just have been bored, haven’t you? I’ll come play with you in a while.”
Kasser did not hide his displeasure while listening to the two of them communicate in their respective language and animal cry as if they really understood each other. He got frustrated even more as he couldn’t understand why he had to share his wife with that beast in the first place.
He just got her back in a day. It wouldn’t be barely enough even if he had her all to himself throughout the day. Kasser sneaked up behind her and placed his arm on her back as he scooped her up by putting his other arm under the crook of her knees.
“Not now, Abu. Umm, maybe tonight…”
Just when she was appeasing Abu that she’ll come back to play later, a short shriek escaped from her as she felt her body tilt to one side before she realized she was up in the air. After taking Eugene in his arms and with his knees slightly bent before he leaped into the air, Kasser swiftly landed on the roof of the carriage with ease.
Eugene looked up at him with her rounded eyes. “Your Majesty?”
“One more time.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Without further explanation, Kasser bent to prepare for another leap. Eugene quickly flung her arms around his neck when she saw his knees bent deeper than he did before he leaped up to the carriage’s roof. Soon, his body soured into the air e as he kicked off the roof of the vehicle.
Eugene looked down over his shoulders and saw their surroundings shrinking into the distance. A split second passed by as if in slow motion. It was such a ludicrous sight to see everyone wearing the exact same expression as they gaped up at them from the ground.
Abu however, had let out a cry into the air while its eyes flickered in crimson. Abu could have easily caught up to them in the form of a black panther, but it was quite impossible as a horse. The sight of Abu stamping on the ground with chagrin was piteous but also funny at the same time.