I Just Wanted A Soft Life, Not A Demon Husband

Chapter 229: Succubus Flattery, Burnt Parchment, and The Ballot of Destiny

Elyn’s POV

I stared at Velira.

My mind had gone somewhere else entirely for a moment because I genuinely could not believe what I had just heard. I had to replay it. Run it back. Check if I had heard correctly.

"What?" I asked her.

Velira smiled at me.

And her eyes darkened. The purple deepening into something richer as she looked at me and said, "Your handwriting is as beautiful as you are, Your Majesty."

Did I also add that her voice took on a sultry tone?

I had no idea whether to laugh or cry.

I was being hit on. By a child. A succubus child, yes, but still a child. A small child who had, not ten minutes ago, been arguing about tiny brains.

And yet here she was.

I didn’t even get the chance to respond.

Because from beside me came a sound.

"Blegh."

I turned.

Azerion had his face scrunched up like he had personally tasted something terrible. "I’m going to throw up," he announced.

Zayrion adjusted his glasses. "Is that how succubi flirt with people?" he asked Velira, rather curiously.

Velira rolled her eyes. "I was not flirting. I was speaking the truth."

"Your eyes darkened," Aziren pointed out.

Velira turned to him. "All succubus eyes darken when they see something they like. That is just what happens."

Aziren’s brows lifted. "Really?"

Velira nodded with complete confidence.

I had absolutely no idea if that was true. It sounded like something a child had made up on the spot to cover themselves, but the way she said it — smooth, matter-of-fact, unbothered — made it land with a certain authority.

And apparently it worked, because the other children were looking at each other like they were genuinely considering it.

"I had no idea," Zayrion said, adjusting his glasses again. "I haven’t had the chance to interact with succubi and incubi much after all."

Maybe because fox demons and succubi and incubi demons are enemies?

And again, how was it that instead of the fox and the succubus in my office arguing with each other, it was the succubus and the Syrenthis demon?

Azerion crossed his arms. "I don’t want to believe that," he said. Then he paused. "But I’ll believe it for now."

Velira turned to him slowly, her face scrunched up in disgust.

"Your belief," she said, "means nothing to me."

"And your liking the queen’s handwriting," Azerion shot back, "means nothing to her either."

Velira’s mouth opened, ready to speak, when a parchment slid across the desk toward me, stopping her words.

I looked down at it.

Then I looked at Aziren, who was smiling at me from the other side of the desk with that particular smile of his that made everything around it feel a little warmer.

The parchment was half burnt. The edges had gone, curled and darkened, and a good portion of the right side had simply ceased to exist.

I pressed my lips together.

Given the fact that Aziren was a fire demon who still couldn’t fully control his powers, I genuinely wasn’t surprised. I was more surprised that as much of it had survived as it had.

I looked down at what was written on it.

The handwriting was scattered. The letters were large and uneven, some of them leaning left, some leaning right, one of them seemingly unsure of which direction it wanted to go entirely. But I could read it. And I could see — in the way each letter had been pressed into the parchment with care, in the way the word sat slightly crooked but complete — the effort that had gone into it.

Catch.

He had written catch.

I turned to him with a smile. "Catch?"

His smile widened and he nodded. "Your games are fun," he said simply. "So I’ll play whatever you want us to play."

Something about that settled warm in my chest.

I smiled at him.

"Aziren," Zayrion said, turning to him, "why didn’t you tell me to write it for you?"

Azerion straightened immediately. "You should have told me too."

Velira, not to be left out, added, "And me."

Aziren laughed.

It was bright and easy, the kind that came without any effort at all. He really was a happy boy. There was something about the way he laughed that made it difficult not to smile along with him.

"I wanted to do it myself. Look," he said. He picked up the parchment and held it up — slightly singed, slightly lopsided — and showed them with great pride.

Zayrion looked at it for a moment.

"You did good," he said.

Aziren beamed.

I looked at the parchment, then at Aziren. "Can you not write?" I asked gently.

He shook his head. "I can write," he said. "But I don’t know how to spell many things." He paused, thinking about it. "Zayrion helps me most times. And my mummy and daddy. And our butler too." He looked up at me. "But I’m learning."

I smiled at him. Why couldn’t the others just be as cute as this little fireball?

"I can teach you too," I told him. "If there’s any word you don’t know how to spell, you can ask me."

His eyes lit up.

I turned to the others. "That goes for all of you."

The others nodded immediately.

That was the second time today they had all agreed on something. A record, genuinely.

"Alright," I said. "Write down what you want to do."

Velira moved first.

She pulled a piece of parchment toward her and wrote with the neat, deliberate strokes of someone who had been taught to present themselves well in all things, including handwriting. She wrote dress up, then paused, tilted her head, and added make up after it like the thought had arrived slightly late but was no less important for it.

Azerion wrote hide and seek. Quickly. Like he had been holding the pen and waiting for permission since the moment I suggested ballots.

Zayrion wrote guess who with the same measured confidence he did everything else, adjusting his glasses once before he set the pen down.

I looked at the four parchments, including mine with catch written on it, and gathered them together.

Then I held them out to Morthen.

"Roll them up," I told him.

Morthen took them without a word, adjusted his glasses, and began rolling each one.