The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 382: Why Did You Come?

Mingyu pulled Xinying down onto his cock, pressing in as far as he could go. He didn’t move at first, as if asking the room to memorize this: the emperor on his throne, the empress on his lap, the world on the wrong side of a locked door.

She let out a moan of appreciation as her muscles moved and shook trying to accommodate his length and girth.

And when she was sitting flush against his pelvis, his dragon robes wet with her very essence...then he took full control.

The throne creaked once and then resigned itself to its new duty. The servants outside looked at each other once before turning their attention back to the floor.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and rode the rhythm he set.

He guided her with a palm to her back and a second at her hip. He kept that slow control for as long as he could and then let it go with a soft curse against her throat that sounded like relief wearing the shape of a sin.

She laughed once, helpless, cheek against his temple, and then forgot how to laugh.

He did not rush the end.

He took her right to it, then steadied, then took her again, then steadied.

He knew exactly how she liked it because he had learned her with the same devotion he gave to a war: completely, then again, then once more to be certain.

She came with her hand fisted in the fabric at his shoulder and her mouth on his neck, teeth gentle as a thanks she didn’t know how to speak.

He followed a breath later, his grip tightening on her waist, his eyes shut as if the sight of the room would make him remember to behave.

He didn’t behave. He stayed inside her, his body still working, and his hips setting a slower roll that refused to say the moment was over.

He held her in place when her legs trembled. He kissed her mouth the way you kiss when you have fought the world all morning and won it again by noon: greedy, then gentle, then greedy once more because you earned it.

She leaned against him with all her weight. He liked it; she felt him like liking it. He slid his hands up and down her spine, calming something that wasn’t afraid but had been loud too long.

"You came to scold me for missing dinner," he said finally, voice rough, mouth at her hairline.

"I came to watch you work," she said.

"And found this."

"And found this," she echoed, smiling.

He nipped her lower lip and released it with care. "Again."

"Again," she agreed, and he gave it to her.

He kept himself clothed knowing just how much she loved it. Just like before, his robe was open, and his control was frayed but not gone.

He moved her through it, set and steady, like he was writing his name in the wood beneath them and wanted the carving to last.

Somewhere far away, a staff knocked stone, the traditional signal for the end of court, hours late. Nobody moved.

Between rounds, her head found his shoulder.

He rested his cheek against her hair and breathed like a man emptying a chest full of weapons and finding a bed underneath.

He set his fingertips to the small of her back and kept tracing the line there, slow up and slow down, until her pulse matched the stroke.

He would have kept her like that until dark. He had more in him. He always did. She lifted her head instead and kissed the corner of his mouth—soft, small. He felt the change before she spoke.

"I didn’t come here for this," she purred, lazy, pleased.

"I know," he said, equally lazy, equally pleased. "But you’ll take it."

"I’ll take it," she agreed, and brushed her lips on his jaw, once, twice, like setting a seal.

"Then what did you come for?" he asked, fingers moving up her spine and back down, drawing warmth the whole way.

She tucked her face into the place between his neck and shoulder. Her breath warmed his skin. Her voice came quiet; the throne room held it like treasure.

"I wanted to tell you that I am pregnant," she said. "About two months, according to the doctors."

Everything in him stopped and went on at the same time.

"Say it again," he said. Not because he hadn’t heard. Because he wanted the world to learn the sound.

"I am pregnant," she repeated, a little laugh in the words now, a little wonder she hadn’t let herself put in her voice for anyone but him. "Two months. Maybe three. I lost count. I didn’t want to count until I told you."

He closed his eyes. He didn’t bow his head—emperors do not bow—but something in him did. His hands were careful on her. His thumb traced the line below her ribs like it had found a star.

"Mine," he said, not a question, not a claim. No matter who it belonged to biologically, they were all going to be the father.

"Ours," she corrected, and kissed his mouth softly, a tiny, ordinary kiss that ruined him more than anything he had done to her in the last half hour.

Behind them, neither guardian spoke. If either man breathed differently, no one could prove it later. the door stayed shut. The world stayed out.

Mingyu opened his eyes and looked at them over her shoulder again, as if he needed three witnesses and heaven had sent the right ones.

Yaozu held his silence with both hands. Longzi’s jaw eased a fraction and then went iron again. They wouldn’t say a word. They would kill anyone who tried to bring one.

Mingyu’s gaze returned to her. He kissed her once, carefully. Then he kissed her again, not careful at all.

He pulled the robe up over her shoulders with hands that refused to shake. He tied the sash himself, slow enough to look like ceremony, quick enough to look like hunger.

"Come," he said, voice low, full. "We go home."

"Now?" she asked, amused.

"Now," he said, and lifted her as if the throne had never been a seat for one person in the first place. He stood with her in his arms, robes straightening along his legs, hair falling into his eyes. She smoothed it back with one hand and flicked a glance toward the barred door.

"Open," Mingyu called.

Yaozu lifted the crossbar. Longzi pulled the door wide. The servants turned their faces to the walls like prayer beads faceted to avoid this exact moment.

Mingyu stepped into the hall with his wife on his chest and an empire at his back.

They did not make proclamations. They did not call for drums. They did not summon the scribe. They crossed the threshold while the court remembered how to breathe.

The tiny woman walking between the three men was the reason why the entire country of Daiyu was experiencing the longest period of peace ever.

And not a single person inside or outside of the palace walls ever forgot about that.