"Mhm?" Alex released a startled sound as Amelia kissed him, but it only lasted for a split second. He wrapped his arm around his sister's slender waist and pulled her closer to him, eagerly reciprocating her kiss.
Their lips intertwined in a sensual dance, rubbing and caressing each other with an intense, electric passion.
"Mmm," Amelia moaned in delight as Alex's tongue slipped into her mouth, eagerly seeking out her own. Their tongues intertwined in a passionate, intimate dance, heightening the intensity of their kiss.
As all of this was happening, Maya stared at the sibling with a blush of embarrassment on her face. She didn't appear to be shocked by their intimacy, and why would she be? It wasn't her first time witnessing the pair of brother and sister passionately locking lips.
Because of their carelessness, whenever the couple got lost in a heated session with each other, they completely forgot about the world around them. It was no wonder that Maya eventually caught them in the act.
With a final, ragged breath, Alex and Amelia reluctantly separated, a thin strand of saliva still lingering between them.
"No matter how many times I see this, I still find your 'family show of love' weird," Maya voiced out.
Hearing her, the sibling chuckled.
During these last few days, Alex and Amelia had learned many things about the young heiress. One of the most surprising revelations was her ability, which left Alex feeling quite shocked due to it being overpowered.
Maya's ability had to do with her mind, particularly her memories. To put it bluntly, the young heiress's ability was that she couldn't forget something....even if she tried. Her mind was akin to a computer.
Due to this ability, she had spent a great deal of her life reading books and slowly building a network of information inside her mind. However, despite the enormous amount of knowledge she possessed, the young woman was still very naive. This was likely due to her being sheltered for the majority of her life.
Using that naivety to their advantage, the shameless siblings presented their intimate moments, such as kissing each other, as a form of showing love in their family. They assured her that their kiss was just "a show of familial love" and nothing more.
Maya felt that something fishy was going on, but due to her naivety and her great trust in the two of them, she simply turned a blind eye to the matter.
Despite Maya being aware of their regular kissing, one might have expected that, as adults, they would have exercised restraint and kept their urges and lust for each other private, only indulging in such acts when the young heiress wasn't looking. However, the reality was quite the opposite.
Each time they kissed before Maya and she didn't say anything to stop them, they grew bolder and began pushing things from a mere peck on the lips to a full-blown kissing session. They even started feeling each other's bodies up.
Alex furtively placed his hand on his sister's round and juicy ass and lightly squeezed, earning him a moan from her.
"Gods, I love hearing you moan, it's so sexy," Alex whispered to Amelia, his striking silver eyes staring deeply into her exquisitely beautiful gray eyes.
"That's because I'm liking what you-"
"Hey, what are you two whispering about over there?!" Maya exclaimed, her tone tinged with suspicion.
Alex glanced at Maya and grinned, "I was just suggesting to Amelia here that maybe you're feeling a bit left out, so perhaps we could include you and demonstrate some 'familial love'."
"Familial love?" Maya tilted her head in confusion, not quite grasping Alex's insinuation. Then her eyes widened, and a deep blush spread across her face as realization dawned on her.
"Y-Y-You m-mean you k-k-kissing me?" She stuttered, her voice trembling with shock and disbelief, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
"Yeah, that's what I meant," Alex nodded with a teasing smile on his face, "so are you on board?"
"No!" Maya exclaimed, a little too loudly.
"Such a fierce reaction," Alex noted, "am I so bad looking?" he wondered, looking at his sister for confirmation.
Hearing that, Maya's cheeks flushed even more, something that Alex thought wasn't possible until it happened. "I didn't mean to say that you were bad looking, you're not that bad."
"Not that bad?" Alex raised a brow.
"I mean, you are handsome."
"Careful there, young woman. Some men might take you calling them handsome as you hitting on them. Are you hitting on me?"
"N-N-No..." Maya stuttered and came to a halt, her face glowing red.
"I think that's enough," Amelia giggled, "relax Maya, he's just joking with you."
"Am I though?" Alex wondered.
"What are you on about?" Amelia asked, squinting her eyes.
"Nothing," Alex replied, refusing to make eye contact with Amelia.
"What do you—" Amelia stopped speaking abruptly, noticing her brother's sudden change from amusement to seriousness.
Alex pulled open the carriage window and gazed out at the horizon ahead of them.
"A storm is brewing," Alex informed the girls, "a pretty big one."
Up ahead of them, the horizon turned foreboding as the sky darkened, with massive, swirling clouds rising ominously. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves and carrying a slight chill. A deep rumble of thunder rolled across the landscape, and occasional flashes of light pierced through the thickening clouds.
Alex sat back in his seat, pulled out a map from his space ring, and studied it.
"We won't be able to make it to the next town before the storm starts," Alex stated in a solemn tone.
Alex didn't know what would happen to his smoke carriage if it came into contact with a storm, and quite frankly, he didn't want to find out. That's why he lowered the smoke carriage until it hovered one or two meters above the ground, closed his eyes, and deployed the full extent of his senses, allowing them to travel dozens of kilometers from his current position.
At the same time, Alex increased the speed at which the smoke carriage traveled.
What he was searching for was obvious: a place where they could take shelter until the storm passed.
However, things were taking a turn for the worse as Alex couldn't find anything that could serve as shelter. The environment around them was more or less barren, with a few scattered trees.
On the other hand, the storm was dangerously approaching, its presence becoming increasingly ominous with each passing moment. The rumbling of thunder sounded like a foreboding warning, echoing through the air.
'Nothing here,' Alex thought with a grim expression, 'at this rate, we are going to get cau-'
Alex stopped mid-thought as he finally noticed something.
'What is this?' he wondered, a frown appearing on his face.
Still frowning, he directed the smoke carriage toward the location he had sensed.
"What is it? Why are you frowning so much?" Amelia wondered, seeing his expression.
"Don't you feel it?" Alex inquired.
"Feel wha-" Amelia came to an abrupt stop.
Similar to Alex, a frown appeared on Amelia's delicate features.
"What is it? What are you sensing?" Maya, who didn't have senses as sharp as her siblings, inquired.
"There's a huge concentration of mana in the direction we are heading to," Amelia explained.
"What do you think it is?" Maya questioned.
"I don't have a clue," Alex answered, staring through the window, "but it seems to be coming from a cave," he informed.
A few seconds later, Alex stopped the carriage right in front of a cave large enough for their whole carriage to pass through.
Alex and the girls glanced at each other and nodded. Soon, they got down from the carriage.
"Overwhelming..." Maya murmured as she stood in front of the cave's opening.
Even though she didn't have sharp senses, with her being so close to the cave's mouth, she could still feel a huge amount of mana enveloping the cave.
"What do we do? Enter this cave?" Maya wondered.
"Obviously," Alex nodded, "I mean, that is, if you want to take cover from the storm."
Alex cast a wary glance at the darkening sky and shook his head. "Yeah, I definitely don't want to be caught by this storm. I'm heading inside."
Alex dismissed the smoke carriage and walked towards the cave's mouth, Amelia following behind him like a dutiful wife following her husband.
Seeing that she was going to be left behind if she didn't move, Maya hurriedly caught up with her two companions.
"I'm feeling ominous vibes from this cave," she commented as she caught up.
"Don't worry so much, kiddo," Alex reassured her. "We're quite strong, you know. Nothing bad will happen to you under our watch."