Becoming Lailah: Married to my Twin Sister's Billionaire Husband

Chapter 334: The Goat

THE FIRE had dwindled to a soft, pulsing orange when the first sign of trouble arrived. It wasn’t the Council. It wasn’t an assassin.

It was a goat.

Specifically, a very large, very persistent goat that had decided the cottage’s porch was its new administrative headquarters.

A sharp clack-clack-clack of hooves on wood shattered the silence of the night, followed by a rhythmic, demanding thump against the door.

Grayson was on his feet before his eyes were even fully open. He didn’t reach for a blade—he’d left that behind on the hearth days ago—but he did move with that dangerous, coiled fluidity that usually preceded a neck-snapping event.

"Grayson?" Mailah murmured, blinking awake as he loomed over the threshold, his chest heaving with phantom adrenaline.

"The perimeter," he hissed, his hand hovering over the door bolt. "Someone is testing the structural integrity of the entrance."

"It’s three in the morning," she groaned, pulling the quilt up to her chin. "Who would be—"

THUMP.

"It is a heavy, blunt-force impact," Grayson whispered, his face darkening with tactical suspicion. "A battering ram. Or a siege weapon."

Mailah stifled a laugh, which turned into a muffled snort. She crawled out of the warmth of the bed and moved to his side. "Grayson, it’s a goat. Old Man Miller’s goat, likely. He has a taste for the salt on the porch railings."

Grayson stared at the door. "A creature of war?"

"A creature of snacks. Open it."

He threw the door wide, ready to face a battalion. Instead, he was met by a pair of glowing yellow eyes set in a rectangular, horizontal pupil that regarded him with supreme, goat-like judgment.

The animal let out a long, pathetic bleat and promptly attempted to eat Grayson’s leather boot.

"It is aggressive," Grayson noted, not moving. "It has seized the high ground."

"It’s eating your footwear, you giant idiot," Mailah said, stepping around him. She reached out and firmly bopped the creature on the nose.

The goat looked offended, bleated again, and trotted off into the mist, presumably to find a less grumpy target.

Grayson remained standing in the doorway, staring into the dark. He looked down at his boot, which was now damp with goat saliva.

"I have commanded armies," he muttered, his voice flat. "I have held the line against entire legions. And yet, I am currently being harassed by a ruminant."

Mailah couldn’t hold it in anymore. She collapsed against the doorframe, her laughter ringing out into the cool night air. "You were ready to defend us with your life! You had that ’I will burn the world’ look in your eyes!"

Grayson turned, his expression caught somewhere between annoyance and the realization that he was, indeed, standing in his nightshirt, covered in goat spit.

He let out a slow breath, his shoulders finally dropping. "I suppose," he said, his lips twitching, "that the goat did not respect my rank."

"The goat doesn’t know what a rank is, Grayson. That’s the magic of being here. To the rest of the world, you’re just the man who lives in the cottage with the nice woman."

He looked at her, his eyes softening as the last of his tactical edge smoothed away. He reached out, pulling her back toward the warmth of the hearth. "Being ’just a man’ is significantly more complicated than I anticipated."

"Welcome to humanity," she whispered, leaning into him.

The next morning, the "simple" life proved to be just as dangerous.

They woke to the sound of something crashing in the kitchen.

Grayson was up in a heartbeat, but this time, he didn’t check for weapons. He walked into the kitchen to find Mailah’s cast-iron skillet on the floor and a very frantic squirrel currently trying to climb the inside of a chimney.

"Structural collapse?" Grayson asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Culinary mishap," Mailah sighed, holding a bag of flour that had exploded everywhere. "I think I’m officially a disaster in the kitchen."

Grayson watched her for a moment—the flour in her hair, the way she was trying to wipe the counter with a cloth that was also covered in flour, only making it worse. He didn’t see a flaw. He saw a messy, beautiful, human struggle.

"Step aside," he commanded.

"Grayson, no. You’ll just turn it into a military operation."

"I am simply going to apply the principles of force distribution," he said, taking the bag of flour from her.

He didn’t organize it. He just scooped, poured, and mixed with a strange, focused intensity that looked like he was trying to solve a high-level equation. When the dough finally came together, he looked at it with the pride of a man who had just won a war.

"See?" he said, gesturing to the lumpy, misshapen loaf. "The dough has yielded."

Mailah laughed, picking up a handful of flour and tossing it at his chest.

Grayson froze. He stared at the white smudge on his tunic. He looked at Mailah, who was bracing for him to snap.

Instead, he reached into the bag, took a handful of flour, and, with the precision of a master marksman, flicked it directly into her face.

"Oh, it is war now," Mailah gasped, wiping her eyes and grabbing a damp towel.

The next ten minutes were a blur of flying flour, spilled water, and laughter that made Grayson’s lungs ache. He wasn’t the man who stood in the shadows; he was the man who was currently losing a kitchen fight to a woman with a soggy towel.

When they finally collapsed against the table, both covered in a fine layer of white powder, Grayson looked at his hands—the same hands that had held swords and shields—and felt an unexpected surge of joy.

"You have flour in your eyebrow," she said, reaching up to brush it away.

He caught her hand, holding it against his cheek. "I think," he said, his voice quiet and genuinely happy, "that this is much better than the war."

"Much better," she agreed.

"However," he added, looking at the destroyed kitchen, "we should probably discuss the disadvantage of storing flour on the top shelf."

"Grayson!"

He laughed, a genuine, booming sound that surprised even him. "I am teasing, Mailah. I am learning the language."

She smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder. "You’re doing great, you giant, flour-covered fool."

"I am a giant, flour-covered human," he corrected, and for the first time, he didn’t care about anything else.

By midday, the kitchen had been scrubbed clean, though Grayson still found a stray puff of flour in his hair whenever he moved.

He stood on the porch, squinting at the garden plot. It was a sorry sight—half-cleared weeds and soil that looked like it had been trampled by a stampede of goats.

"The soil is inconsistent," he remarked, propping a shovel against his shoulder. "It lacks a defensive perimeter."

Mailah stepped out, squinting against the sun. She had a basket tucked under her arm. "It’s a garden, Grayson, not a fortress. It needs light, water, and for you to stop staring at it like it’s about to betray you."

Grayson jammed the shovel into the dirt. "If it is not orderly, it will be choked by weeds. If it is choked, it dies. That is a threat to our resources."

"It’s a threat to our breakfast," she corrected. She knelt and pulled a particularly stubborn weed, shaking the dirt from the roots. "Here. Help me with these. Don’t think about geography or tactics. Just pull."

Grayson knelt beside her, his large frame awkward in the soft earth. He stared at a dandelion. He leaned in, scrutinized its root system, and then plucked it with such precise, surgical force that he launched it over his shoulder into the woods.

"Too much?" he asked.

Mailah giggled, pulling another. "Just a bit. Try to be... less lethal."

They spent the next hour in the quiet heat. It was a strange, grounding rhythm. For a man who had spent years calculating the trajectory of arrows and the movement of supply lines, the simple act of clearing dirt was hypnotic.

He found himself actually looking at the plants—not as obstacles, but as living things that needed care.

"My brothers would have had a fit watching me do this," he muttered, brushing a streak of dirt off his nose.

Mailah paused. "Your student? You haven’t mentioned them before."

Grayson went still.

A stray breeze turned sharp and cold, and the first heavy drops of a summer storm began to drum against the broad leaves of the nearby trees.

"So much for the perimeter," Grayson sighed, standing up and offering her a hand.

"Run!" Mailah shouted, grabbing the basket of weeds.

They scrambled toward the porch, boots sliding in the thickening mud. Grayson hit the steps, spun around, and caught Mailah just as she slipped, swinging her up into his arms. The rain turned into a deluge, a sudden, blinding curtain of gray. They collapsed onto the porch, breathless and damp, as the world beyond the roof blurred into a misty, green smear.

They sat there for a long time, the rain drumming a frantic, metallic beat on the shingles above. Grayson watched the water turn the garden into a series of miniature rivers, his mind drifting. He was just listening to the sound of it hitting the earth.

Mailah leaned her head on his shoulder, her damp hair tickling his chin. "You know, for a man who is supposed to be ’just a man,’ you’re very good at rescuing people from puddles."

Grayson looked down at her, his expression turning uncharacteristically tender. He reached up, tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering on her skin. "I’ve had practice. Although, usually, the target isn’t quite as chaotic as you are."