Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan

Chapter 315: A Royal Dishwasher

Syris stared down at her as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head right out of her neck. He blinked his striking amethyst eyes slowly, his expression a mixture of profound bewilderment and suspicion.

"Is this... a joke?" Syris asked cautiously, his tone flat.

Ever since she had introduced him to the concept of sarcasm and jokes, Syris was having an incredibly hard time figuring out exactly when his mate was pulling his leg and when she was being serious.

Ren frowned, shaking her head. Her wet, soapy hands hovered over the massive stone basin. "I am not joking. Am I supposed to know who Bia and Las are?"

Syris let out a long, exasperated hiss. "They are the snake females, Ren. The ones with the pink scales and the white scales. The females who live only to serve you."

Ren’s jaw dropped. Her mouth formed a perfect, silent ’O’ shape, and her eyebrows shot up as the realization finally hit her like a ton of bricks.

He was talking about the coral and albino snake females!

"Oh my god," Ren gasped, burying her face in her soapy hands. She had no idea those were their actual names! From day one, she had just been calling them ’Coral’ and ’Albino’ in her head and to their faces. And they had never once corrected her!

Ren quickly grabbed her sponge again and continued washing to hide her embarrassment. "Well, I sent Bia and Las away to rest already. They did an amazing job with the prep work yesterday, so I gave them the morning off."

"Rest?"

Syris repeated the word as if she had just hurled an offensive, unforgivable slur at his ancestors. His nose wrinkled in pure disgust.

"Ren," Syris lectured, his deep voice taking on a dark, authoritative tone. "The only reason those females are still breathing my air and living in this castle is because they serve you. They do not need ’rest’. They should be constantly working to make you happy in order to properly show their gratitude for their useless lives!"

Ren rolled her eyes. She expertly moved around Syris’s towering, muscular frame as she cleaned, wiping down the stone tables.

"Happy workers are efficient workers, Syris," Ren tutted, tapping the stone with her finger. "Besides, you just said they are my servants, right? If they belong to me, then isn’t it up to me how they are treated?"

Syris opened his mouth to argue, but Ren didn’t give him the chance.

She stopped right in front of him, planting her hands firmly on her hips. She looked him dead in the eye. "Are you going to stand there complaining about my management style, or are you going to help me clean?"

Syris froze. He looked past her at the terrifying mountain of crushed, butter-stained crab shells and the stacks of dirty pots and other metal things he couldn’t name. He looked at the dirty disaster with extreme hesitation, staring at the mess as if a monster might suddenly jump out and bite his hand off.

Ren couldn’t help but giggle. She wiggled her eyebrows playfully, picking up a sudsy, woven marsh-sponge and offering it directly to his chest.

"Go on," Ren teased, bumping his abs with the sponge. "You might actually enjoy it."

Syris highly, highly doubted that. The King of the Swamp had never cleaned anything but his body, in his entire, centuries-long life. But, completely unable to deny his mate anything, he gingerly reached out and took the wet sponge between his long, pale fingers, holding it away from his snakeskin robe as if it were feral.

Ren grabbed a dirty wooden platter and showed him exactly what to do. "You have to press down firmly to cut through the rendered fat. Use circular motions, like this, and make sure you rinse it completely in the clean water basin before stacking it."

"Hmm," Syris hummed smoothly.

"And be careful with the cast-iron pots," Ren continued, pointing a soapy finger. "Do not let them soak, or they will rust."

"Hmm," Syris hummed again.

Ren paused, looking up at him. She honestly couldn’t tell if he was actually understanding a single word she was saying or even listening or not. He wasn’t even looking at the dishes. He was just standing there, staring down at her face with a blank, unreadable expression.

"Just scrub," Ren sighed, handing him a wooden plate.

Syris finally got to work. It was the most hilarious, jarring sight Ren had ever witnessed.

Ren would glance over at him every now and then as she washed. Syris was moving the sponge over the wooden platters so incredibly lazily, barely applying an ounce of pressure. The annoyance was plastered so clearly across his face that Ren had to bite her inner cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

He looked exactly like a grumpy, stubborn teenager who had just been forcefully grounded and made to do his household chores.

They washed the dishes side-by-side for a long moment in comfortable silence. Ren happily hummed a random, upbeat pop tune from her world, entirely in her element as the mountain of dirty dishes slowly began to shrink.

Because she was so focused on the task, Ren completely failed to notice that Syris had stopped washing.

His amethyst eyes were dark, dilated, and tracking her every movement. He was openly, hungrily eyeing her body.

He watched the mesmerizing way her soft breasts jiggled and bounced against the silk of her dress every time she leaned forward to scrub a difficult spot. He watched the way her short, emerald silk dress would inevitably ride up just a tantalizing bit whenever she lifted her arms to stack the clean pots, revealing more of her soft, smooth thighs. He tracked the delicate, glistening sheen of sweat that had formed across her collarbones.

The sponge in his hand was entirely forgotten.

Syris suddenly broke the comfortable silence, his voice dropping into a husky register that sent a shiver straight down her spine.

"I have an idea where we both get what we want."

Ren paused her scrubbing. She furrowed her brows, looking up at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"