Kaiden didn’t wait for Selena to finish savoring her little scheming revelation.
He brushed past the trio without giving any of them even a token glance, walking toward the exit of the private room. Selena imdiately moved to follow him with heels clicking against the floor. But just as she reached the threshold, Kaiden paused, half-turned, and flashed her a grin over his shoulder.
Selena raised an eyebrow as she realized that his grin was sharp, knowing, and... Amused at her expense?
Huh?
"I don’t know how you got in here," he said, tone deceptively light. "I hope you were sneaky."
Selena lifted her chin, every inch the superior noble daughter she imagined herself to be. "Of course we were. We had soone clear the space out. Can’t have people outside the governnt associating our prestigious family na with a sex worker."
Her voice dripped with disdain and condescension. Cassian and Calix smirked behind her, feeding off her arrogance like the loyal little leeches that they were.
But Kaiden just widened his grin. "Then you should replicate what you did before," he said as his gaze swept the area outside the door. "Because this place is packed right now."
"Wait!" Selena reached for his arm, wanting, no, needing, him to pause so she could leave first and turn the entire crowd situation into his problem.
That was the plan... Unless he wanted to beco enemies with their father, who was only tolerating him because he was Grey and not Ashborn, it would beco his problem to escape without being seen.
But Kaiden easily saw through their stupid little plot and moved before her fingers even brushed the air around him. With a sudden burst of speed that made her hair ripple backward, he stepped out into the light of the central area, passing through the doorway in a blur.
Gasps rose instantly. Murmurs flickered through the gathered awakened.
"What was that?"
"The alien dude!"
"The monster fucker?"
"Damn, life is unfair."
"He moved so fast!"
"So handso..."
A pretty girl in teal archer robes stepped forward with hesitant steps, clutching her phone with both hands. Her cheeks burned pink as she looked up at him. "Um... excuse ... could I maybe... take a selfie with you?"
"C-tier ranger-type awakened, Anna, is it?" Kaiden smiled at her, looking charming and comfortable in a way that twisted Selena’s expression into barely restrained fury behind him.
"Y-you know ?!" she squealed. Kaiden rely kept his smile up and stood next to the girl. He knew because they’d conducted a thorough research into fellow awakened combatants - though, of course, that did not an he would recognize them all by face.
Anna was just a cutie, so her face stuck with him.
And then his girls erged from the room one after the other.
Luna walked past the Ashborn trio first, though not quietly. She bead at them with the sweetest, most poisonous grin. "This is almost as bad as being seated in a cuck chair, no?" she chirped.
"Depends on who you ask," Aria said, chuckling as she shot Nyx a knowing side glance. "So are into that, no?"
Nyx answered with a playful wink, utterly unashad of her kinks and more than a little pleased at the jab. It was good to see this playful Aria instead of the murderous yandere one who wanted to yoink her out of Kaiden’s lap.
Bastet stretched her arms over her head and let out a leisurely yawn as she passed. "You can stand up from the cuck chair," she purred, voice warm and lazy.
"But you can’t leave this room without calling for help." Calypso finished it off as she strode past, eyes glinting with devilish amusent. "Enjoy the cuck room, losers."
Cassian and Calix bristled instantly with fury snapping across their faces.
Muscles tensed, fists clenched, and for a mont, both looked ready to strike the nearest woman just to reclaim so shred of dignity. But Selena shot her arms out, yanking them back with a sharp hiss that promised violence if they dared to attack anyone. After all, without a duel, that would be a brutal cri.
And as they were not just guild mbers but part of the upper managent and even family mbers, New Dawn would also be heavily punished.
As such, all she could do was slam the door shut behind Kaiden’s group.
Veins throbbed visibly on her forehead as she snatched up her radio artifact. Her voice ca out thinly controlled, layered with suppressed rage. "Clear the scene."
The artifact crackled in response, but Selena didn’t even wait for confirmation. She stood there, shoulders tight, jaw locked, and hands trembling with humiliation that burned hotter than any fla.
And outside, Kaiden smiled for the cara.
Outside the private room, Kaiden posed beside Anna while dozens of curious awakened watched from a respectable distance. The teal-robed ranger trembled with so much excitent that her phone almost slipped from her fingers twice.
When the shutter clicked, she let out an adorable, high-pitched squeal that echoed off the walls and made several nearby spectators snicker. Emboldened by the successful photo, she shifted a little closer, inch by inch, her shoulder brushing his arm. Her cheeks glowed bright pink as she tried - very subtly, or so she thought - to wrap an arm around his waist to make the picture look more "friendly."
And then...
"Khm!"
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t have to be. That single sharp, pointed sound carried enough murder to make the ambient mana ripple.
Anna froze.
Slowly, she turned her head and ca eye-to-eye with Aria. The Moon Valkyrie smiled. It was a pleasant, polite, absolutely charming smile that never quite reached her eyes. It was the sa one she wore right before blasting soone through a wall.
Anyone who watched the Sinners knew the rule:
If you were a woman and Aria was within close enough proximity for her yandere senses to tingle if sothing was wrong, you behaved.
Instantly, Anna’s hand, which had been hovering dangerously close to Kaiden’s waist, snapped back behind her as if she’d touched a live wire. She straightened, bowed slightly, and looked as if she might apologize to the air itself for breathing too close to him.
Kaiden couldn’t help the small laugh that rose in his chest. ’What a jealous girl.’
And then, just as Aria relaxed by half a milliter, a male awakened stepped forward with an eager grin. "Hey. Can I maybe get a picture with you, Aria?" he asked with eyes glued to Aria with clear interest.
Aria didn’t even need to take a mont to politely decline. Or that would’ve been the case if Kaiden weren’t faster.
"No," he said flatly.
The man flinched so hard he dropped his phone.
Aria’s eyes widened in surprise before her lips curled into the smallest, softest smile. It wasn’t mocking or cruel; it was pleased, flustered, deeply touched in the way only a hopelessly smitten yandere could be. She would’ve rejected the guy anyway because, one, she knew her lover’s possessive streak, and two, she just didn’t want to take pictures with random n, but hearing Kaiden beat her to it sent a warm flutter through her chest.
Aria might’ve been a jealous yandere, but she was perfectly matched in her outright fanatic possessiveness, if not outshone by their one and only lover.
Alice giggled inside his mind, her tone bright with wicked delight.
A chorus of amused reactions rippled behind him. Luna snorted, Bastet covered her mouth in a half-hearted attempt to hide her grin, Calypso openly laughed, and Nyx wore an appreciative smirk that suggested she found Kaiden’s possessiveness just as entertaining as Aria’s.
"No more photos for now. We need to get into the mindset of combatants about to face imnse danger," Kaiden announced lightly to the bystanders, though the underlying finality in his tone left no room for argunt. He ushered his group forward, weaving past the onlookers and turning toward the exit. The disappointnt that followed was loud but drowned out quickly by the crowd shifting back to their usual chatter.
They made it only a few steps out of the large tent-like building before the overhead loudspeakers ca to life.
A sharp buzz. A burst of static. Then a woman’s voice bood through the whole gathering:
"Attention all awakened in the staging hall, prepare for imdiate briefing."
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