Extra: Yandere Milfs Obsessed with me!-Chapter 194: Lady Seraphina, I desire you ~

To clear his mind from all the bullshit with Ariana, Kaiser joined his private lesson with this cold elf...

The air in the office was thick with the smell of old paper, a scent she knew by heart. Seated at her desk, Lady Seraphina Of Lake listened with one ear to young Kaiser’s hesitant explanations about the fundamentals of mana channeling. Through the window, the fading afternoon light drew orange diamond shapes on the floorboards.

She had always considered herself an ice woman. A frozen lake, as her nickname suggested. A calm, cultured, and impenetrable woman. That had been her armor, forged year after year in her husband’s manor.

She had been married to Krion Of Lake when she was only a young girl. A political agreement between two families, sealed by an exchange of spell parchments, high-quality potions, and a more than generous dowry.

Krion, for his part, coveted only the title of Patriarch of the Aqua clan from his brother.

During the first nights, she had waited, heart pounding under the sheets, a mixture of apprehension deep inside her. The nights passed, silent and empty. He never came. He had never touched her.

At first, she had wondered. Perhaps it was shyness? Restraint? Then the years passed, carrying her questions away with them.

She was not a woman in his eyes, just one more piece of furniture, a title attached to her name to consolidate his power. Desire, tenderness, the simple warmth of a presence, all of it was foreign to her.

She had eventually convinced herself that it was not a lack. She did not need those things. She was a mage, and a mage had no need for such frivolities.

She had then drowned herself in study... The theory of elements, the practice of spells. Over the decades, she had become a scholar, a respected professor, and the ice around her heart had thickened, protecting her from everything. Until today.

"...and so, if we consider the flow like a stream, channeling it too forcefully would risk making it overflow, wouldn’t it, Lady Seraphina?"

His voice pulled her from her reverie. Kaiser was looking at her, one eyebrow slightly raised, a smug smile on his lips. He had this gift, this damned gift, of destabilizing her. It wasn’t so much his words, but the way he looked at her. Not like one looks at a teacher, or a political pawn. He looked at her.

"It’s an acceptable analogy," she conceded, adjusting her glasses, a mechanical gesture to mask her unease. "However, mana is not water. It is more... capricious. More reactive to the state of mind of the channeler."

He leaned forward, his athletic forearms resting on the edge of the desk. The space between them, usually so vast and impersonal, suddenly seemed to shrink...

"And what is your state of mind right now, Lady Seraphina?" he asked, his voice lower.

The question hit her full force. No one ever asked her that.

’Except that insolent one!’

"My state of mind is that of a teacher facing a student who should focus on studying mana rather than asking irrelevant questions," she replied, her voice dry. She clasped her hands on the table to stop them from trembling.

He didn’t back down. On the contrary, an insolent smile stretched his lips.

"Irrelevant? Really?" He reached out and, with exquisite slowness, slid the tip of his fingers along a strand of her white hair that had escaped her bun. The contact, barely a brush, ran across her scalp and down her spine like a flash of heat.

"I find, on the contrary, that it’s the most relevant question I’ve asked today."

Seraphina froze.

She felt heat rush to her cheeks, recalling what had happened that day with him.

She had not been touched with such... intention since forever. Krion had never looked at her that way, with that mixture of challenge and desire in his gaze. She had forgotten what it felt like. The feeling of being seen and desired.

She stood up abruptly. She took a few steps toward the window, turning her back to him, trying to regain composure. The orange light enveloped her but could not warm the turmoil inside her.

"You are overstepping boundaries, Kaiser," she said, striving to keep her voice steady. "I am your teacher. I am... a married woman. What happened last time..."

She heard him stand up in turn. His steps were light, but she perceived them with heightened acuity.

"Married?" His tone was soft, almost compassionate, and that compassion hurt her more than an insult. "To a man who left you alone in your own life? To a man who, if the rumors are true, never laid eyes on you except as an ornament in his parlor?"

She turned around, a torrent of cutting words ready to pour out. But the words died in her throat. He was so close, almost touching her. The heat of his body was palpable, a striking contrast with the coolness of the room. There was no mockery in his eyes, only sincerity.

"I don’t see a title, Lady Seraphina," he continued. "I don’t see a political ally or a scholar. I see a woman. A woman of rare intelligence, of a beauty that has frozen under the weight of years of indifference, but that has not disappeared." Kaiser spouted a variety of nonsense.

He raised his hand, and his index finger brushed her cheek, just below the cheekbone. Her skin was burning. She should have stepped back. She should have slapped him, reprimanded him, thrown him out.

But her feet were nailed to the floor. The crack in the ice was widening, allowing forgotten sensations to rise to the surface, a primal need for recognition and warmth.

"You cannot..." she stammered, short of breath. "This is not... proper."

"I don’t care about what is proper," he murmured, his face so close to hers. His breath brushed her lips. "I want... to know you, the beautiful woman behind the ice."

His thumb gently traced the contour of her jaw. Seraphina felt her knees weaken. All those years of repression, of icy dignity, of neatly arranged certainties, everything wavered in the face of this man, this young man, who looked at her as if she were the only person in the world.

She was no longer Lady Seraphina of the Lake, Krion’s wife. She was no longer the eminent professor. She was just a woman, vulnerable and starving, on the verge of falling.

Her eyes, usually an icy blue, had misted over. She said nothing. She did not step back. She stayed there, suspended in that moment, the crack in her now wide enough for him to see, deep inside, the woman who had never been allowed to exist.

Their lips were so close...

"Lady Seraphina, I desire you ~"