Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 847: Jokes In The Car And First Stop [Bonus Chapter]

Silas cracked one eye open and looked at the dashboard.

”Nito,” He said lazily with a sigh. ”Think very carefully about your next sentence.”

Nitocris ignored him completely as her tail gave a slow, insolent swish against the windshield.

”When he dragged my royal person into that steamy bathing chamber,” she went on, projecting every syllable like a herald, ”he decided to upgrade my body with his reserves... The divine energy was so great that I took my true form right there in the water, Nyaa~”

Harper’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but her head turned by a few slow, terrifying degrees toward the dashboard.

”Your true form,” She repeated with her voice sounding unnaturally sweet and calm. ”In the bath... With Silas.”

”Indeed!” Nitocris purred, practically glowing with the thrill of gossip. ”A magnificent display! Bare skin, long hair floating on the water, steam everywhere! I was pressed right up against his chest, licking the bubbles off his cheek like a devoted consort, Nyaa~”

”She licked my face because she’s a cat,” Silas said, settling deeper into the leather seat with his arms folded behind his head. ”Cats lick things, It’s a whole thing with them...”

”...and while I was teasing him about his lack of composure,” Nitocris plowed on, merciless, her violet eyes glittering with unholy triumph, ”I felt the water getting remarkably warm beneath my knees... The mighty Lord got completely hard right underneath me, Nyaa~”

The inside of the car dropped into a silence so total it felt like a vacuum.

Silas didn’t flinch at all though. He just let out a laugh and looked out the window at the passing trees.

’Of course she told her,’ he thought, amused. ’I’d have been disappointed if she didn’t... For an ancient Empress, she sure is trying to cause a lot of trouble.’

Harper drove in total silence for two full seconds as the engine purred softly beneath them like a big cat.

Her lips had parted slightly.

Behind her glasses, her brain was very clearly processing the image of Silas pinned in a steaming bathtub beneath the stunning bronze-skinned woman she’d once seen standing on a desert dune with a khopesh in her hand then the shock cracked.

The confusion melted off her face and was slowly replaced by a brilliant smirk.

Her competitive streak, honed by years of high-society warfare, rose straight to the surface.

”Oh, really...?” she drawled, her voice sinking into a smoky purr that sent a jolt straight down Silas’s spine. ”Is that true, hubby~? You got all hot and bothered over an ancient empress in your bathtub?”

Silas turned his head and met her eyes with a slow grin.

”She dragged me into the tub, turned into a gorgeous naked woman and started licking my face,” Silas said. ”I’m a healthy man, Harper... I’d be more worried if nothing happened.”

Harper’s mouth opened and shut... She hadn’t expected him to just admit it.

’At least be embarrassed about it, meanie~’

”Mmhmm.” She recovered, and her eyes flicked sideways off the road and dropped down to his lap with shameless scrutiny before flicking back up. ”Sounds like an awfully convenient accident to me...”

”Road, Harper,” Silas said mildly, not moving an inch.

”...My eyes are exactly where I want them, thank you.”

”I can tell,” Silas said, and his grin widened when her ears turned pink.

”Truly a tragic scene,” Nitocris added from the dashboard. ”He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed, Nyaa~”

”Why would I?” Silas asked.

”Barbarian,” the cat sniffed, and turned her face away with enormous dignity. ”Shameless barbarian, Nyaa~”

Harper’s smirk wavered for a fraction of a second as she drummed her fingers on the wheel.

”Nito,” she said, very casually. ”Out of curiosity... Purely academic curiosity of course so you can choose whether you want to answer it or not.”

”Yes, Nyaa~?”

”Your true form. Is it...” Harper cleared her throat. ”Is it the same as the one in the desert?”

”Taller,” Nitocris said smugly. ”Curvier and younger. I believe your Lord’s power was extremely generous... Possibly a little too generous. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about why, Nyaa~.”

Harper’s eye twitched.

”I didn’t design her,” Silas said with a shrug. ”She came out like that on her own after I pumped some mana into it”

”You looked pleased about it, Nyaa~”

”I was, actually,” Silas agreed.

”Bigger than mine?” Harper asked the windshield in a small deadly voice.

”Careful, Nito,” Silas said, smiling. ”She’s got lightning, and you’re sitting on her dashboard... You’re risking our lives here.”

Nitocris looked from Silas to Harper and back, savoring every second of it.

”I’m a cat,” she said at last, with enormous dignity. ”I don’t concern myself with mortal measurements, Nyaa~”

Harper exhaled through her nose and Silas chuckled.

”Though yes,” Nitocris added. ”Bigger, Nyaa~.”

”NITO!”

Ahead of them, the light turned red as Harper eased the car to a smooth stop at a quiet, tree-lined intersection and then she did something without thinking.

Fueled by a sudden giddy rush of adrenaline and the intoxicating high of being alone with him in her brand-new car, she took her right hand off the gear lever and reached across the console.

TAP!

Her manicured fingertip tapped the denim right over his crotch as Silas went still.

One eyebrow rose slowly, and the gold ring in his eyes flared though it was more interested than surprised.

Harper leaned over until her lips were barely half an inch from his ear and her warm breath tickled his skin as she whispered.

”Next time you want to get hard in a bath, handsome...” she purred, letting her fingertip linger against the denim for half a heartbeat before she slowly drew it away, ”...you make sure it’s for me~”

The words left her mouth like a velvet whip and then the universe caught up with her.

The reality of what she’d just said, what she’d just done, and exactly where she’d just put her finger slammed into her brain like a falling meteor.

Her whole body snapped rigid.

The sultry billionaire seductress evaporated in a single microsecond, and in her place sat a girl whose brain had completely melted under the weight of her own audacity.

A wave of scorching scarlet surged up from under her silk camisole, flooded up her neck, swallowed her cheeks and turned her ears so red they looked ready to burst into flames.

”U... Ummmmmmm...”

She snatched her hand back and gripped the steering wheel with both fists so hard the leather creaked, staring straight ahead through the windshield at the red light like it was the only thing keeping her alive.

’WHAT DID I JUST DO...?!’ Harper shrieked inside her own head.

The panic came from the deepest parts of her soul.

’WHY DID I TOUCH HIM THERE?! WHY DID I SAY THAT TO HIS FACE?! I WAS TOO HORNY! THAT WAS WAY TOO HORNY! HE THINKS I’M A DEVIANT! HE THINKS I’M A PERVERT WHO CAN’T CONTROL HER HANDS! PLEASE LET THE SUPPRESSION ENGINES CRUSH THIS CAR RIGHT NOW! JUST OPEN A HOLE IN THE ROAD AND LET ME FALL INTO THE SEWER!’

Her glasses had started to fog up from the sheer heat coming off her face.

Harper tucked her chin into her chest and wished with every atom of her soul that she could dissolve into black sand and blow away across the city.

Beside her, Silas turned his head and looked at her.

He saw the rigid trembling curl of her shoulders, he saw the bright crimson burning at the tips of her ears, and her white knuckles locked around the wheel, and her eyes squeezed shut behind fogged-up glasses while the light was still red.

The shock faded out of him, and a very tender feeling bloomed in its place.

Harper was a billionaire heiress who ran a corporate empire, she was a Second Stage Lord who could summon lightning storms out of the earth... She’d held the line against a pack of Lords in a secret realm and fought a god from inside her own body and here she was, curled up into an agonized knot of embarrassment because she’d made one bold joke.

Silas let out a soft warm chuckle as he reached over and laid his hand on top of her head.

PAT! PAT!

He stroked her soft violet hair slowly.

”Hey,” he murmured with his voice low and soothing right beside her ear. ”Don’t worry about it, Harper... You don’t have to turn into a tomato over a little teasing.”

Then his voice dipped with a smile tucked into the edges of it.

”Besides,” he said, ”who says it wasn’t?”

Harper’s eyes flew open and her head turned very slowly toward him.

”W-wasn’t what?” she squeaked.

Silas just smiled at her and kept stroking her hair as her brain made a sound like a kettle boiling over.

’Who says it wasn’t...? Who says it wasn’t for me...? Does that mean... was he thinking about... in the bath...?’

She couldn’t finish the thought, Harper didn’t dare... Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her fingertips.

But the tension drained out of her spine all at once, like water through a sieve.

Her shoulders dropped, and she let out a long, shaky breath and leaned sideways until her burning forehead rested against his shoulder, letting him keep stroking her hair while she hid her face against his jacket.

On the dashboard, Nitocris watched the whole thing with open royal revulsion.

She stuck out her small pink tongue and made an exaggerated, theatrical gagging motion that shook her whole little body.

”Ugh!” she hacked. ”The sickening stench of mortal affection is suffocating my royal lungs! Open a window before I die of secondhand embarrassment, Nyaa~!”

Silas laughed, his hand never leaving Harper’s hair.

”Keep complaining, Nito, and I’ll have Martha feed you mashed peas for dinner...”

”You wouldn’t dare, you crude barbarian, Nyaa~!” she hissed but she curled her tail tightly around her paws and settled her chin on the dashboard, looking thoroughly pleased with the chaos she’d caused.

BEEP!

A car behind them honked politely as the light had turned green.

Harper squeaked so loudly that Silas jumped, sat bolt upright and shot through the intersection so fast that Nitocris slid halfway down the dashboard and had to dig her claws into the leather to stop herself.

”Royal personage on board, Nyaa~!”

”...Sorry!”

”You’re not sorry at all, Nyaa~!”

”...I’m a little sorry, though that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you. Stop trying to seduce my hubby, you homebreaker!”

The drive continued silently for a while, well except for the occasional sound from Nitocris.

”So what are we looking for?” Harper asked once her face had cooled enough to function. ”Give me your list, Silas... Every requirement.”

Silas thought about it, watching the streets slide by.

”Close to the Academy, so Lia doesn’t spend half her life on a train,” he said. ”A real kitchen for Martha... Somewhere safe and somewhere quiet with enough room that nobody’s tripping over each other.”

He paused.

”And somewhere that doesn’t make you or Sera disturb me about being poor when you visit me...”

”I never wrinkle my nose,” Harper said, wrinkling her nose.

”And a sunny window,” Nitocris added. ”For my royal afternoon naps. This is non-negotiable, Nyaa~”

”...And a sunny window for the cat, I guess. Add that into the list.”

”For the empress, Not a normal cat... What do I look like to you? Nyaa~”

The car wound up out of Silverleaf into the quieter hills on the north side of the city, where the estates sat far apart behind stone walls and tall hedges.

The trees overhead had turned gold and red, and the leaves drifted down across the road in slow spirals.

Ten minutes later, Harper turned off onto a private cobblestone drive and stopped in front of a pair of tall wrought-iron gates set into an old fieldstone wall.

Behind the gates stood a tall stone manor with steep slate roofs, ivy creeping up its walls and four stories of narrow, leaded windows.

...It looked like something out of an old painting.

”Oh,” Silas said, sitting up a little. ”That’s pretty.”

”Hmm,” Harper said, in the tone of someone who had already found three things wrong with it from the car.

Nitocris squinted at it through the windshield.

”The windows are too small,” she declared. ”A Per-aa needs light... I give it a three out of ten, Nyaa~.”

”We haven’t even gone inside yet.”

”I don’t need to go inside to know when a building is lying to me, Nyaa~.”

Waiting on the gravel just past the gates was an eager-looking man in a sharp charcoal suit, clutching a glowing holographic portfolio to his chest.

The moment he recognized Harper’s car, his posture snapped ramrod straight, and a dazzling professional smile spread across his face.

Harper took a deep steadying breath and finally lifted her head from Silas’s shoulder.

’Mmm... I’ve done my best.’

She checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, made a small face at how pink her ears still were, and decided there was nothing to be done about it.

Harper smoothed down the lapels of her blazer, tucked a loose strand of violet hair behind her ear and wiped her glasses clean with a handkerchief.

The blush had faded from her cheeks and in its place was a radiant unstoppable glow of pure confidence.

She turned to Silas, and her violet eyes flashed behind her lenses with ambition and fierce affection and sparkling excitement as Harper pushed her glasses up her nose with a dangerous smile.

”Alright, Silas-kun... let’s go find our home.”