The scalding water of the shower finally washed away the lingering fatigue and the phantom scent of copper from Ethan’s skin. Stepping out into the dark, quiet suite with a towel slung loosely over his shoulders, he found the dining room completely empty, the grand feast now cold and abandoned under the pale moonlight.
He walked into the master bedroom. There, buried deep beneath the thick woolen blankets of the larger bed, was Louisa. She was curled into a tight, defensive ball, wrapped so tightly in the sheets that she looked like a fragile silk cocoon, completely hiding herself from the world.
Ethan quietly walked over to the secondary bed across the room. He sat on the edge, his athyst eyes tracking the slight, rhythmic tremble of the blankets.
"Are you still awake, Louisa?" Ethan asked softly, his deep voice carrying a gentle, low resonance through the quiet room.
Absolute silence.
Ethan let out a short, tranquil breath and pulled his own blanket over his chest. "Alright. Rest well. Tomorrow will be a completely different day."
More silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.
Ethan stared at the wooden ceiling for a few minutes, a sudden, highly mischievous glint flashing across his purple eyes. He turned his head back toward her cocoon. "Hey, Louisa... can I sleep in the sa bed as you tonight?"
The blankets twitched, but no words ca out.
"If you don’t answer within three seconds, I am going to take it as an absolute yes," Ethan murmured, a wicked, dangerously handso smirk curving his lips in the dark.
Before she could even process the warning, Louisa felt the heavy, solid weight of the mattress shift violently behind her. The unmistakable, burning warmth of Ethan’s massive, shirtless fra slid directly beneath her blankets, pressing firmly against her back. Her heart instantaneously short-circuited. Every single muscle in her body locked up as a wave of intense, electric nervousness washed over her, causing her to shiver uncontrollably against the mattress.
Suddenly, she felt his lips brush against the back of her neck, tracing a line up to her ear.
Chomp.
Ethan gave her soft, delicate earlobe a sharp, playful little bite.
"Am I really that terrifying to you?" Ethan whispered directly into her ear, his hot breath sending an aggressive shiver straight down her spine. "I an, it’s true that I eat monsters for breakfast... but I only devour won under the covers. Who knows? You might actually enjoy being eaten by ."
The sudden, sharp sensation of the bite made Louisa jolt violently. Forgetting her absolute terror for a split second, she sharply turned her head around, her tear-filled, wide eyes locking straight into his piercing athyst gaze in the dim moonlight.
"Why are you doing this to ?!" Louisa gasped out, her voice cracking with a volatile mix of panic and deep-seated frustration. "I am not even remotely close to being the most beautiful girl in this town! I am completely, utterly ordinary! Why would a supre monster like you ever want to keep soone like by your side? I already promised you—I swore on my very soul that I would never tell a single soul about what I saw! You don’t need to humiliate like this just to keep quiet!"
Ethan’s playful smirk instantly vanished, replaced by a genuine, deeply puzzled expression. "Humiliate you? Why in the world do you think I am trying to humiliate you, Louisa?"
"Because I don’t want to be just a useless, decorative bird locked inside a golden cage in your future mansion!" Louisa cried out in a suffocating whisper, the tears finally spilling over her flushed cheeks. "I don’t want to be soone who is only tied to your bed and your shadow just so I don’t run away and talk! It’s cruel!"
Hearing her desperate outburst, the tension in Ethan’s shoulders completely lted away. A soft, incredibly amused chuckle vibrated in his chest.
"I never once said I was going to keep you tied up, Louisa," Ethan murmured smoothly, his fingers reaching out to gently brush a damp strand of hair away from her forehead. He leaned in a bit closer, his eyes dancing with a playful warmth. "Well... unless you explicitly ask to tie you up in the future, of course. Ha ha."
"Take things seriously for once...!!" Louisa hissed dramatically, her small fists clenching against his chest as she practically despaired over his utterly relaxed, unbothered attitude. She was crying for her life, carrying the weight of a world-ending secret, yet this shaless rogue was treating the entire situation like a casual bedroom ga.
"I am taking this with the exact amount of seriousness it deserves," Ethan said, his deep voice dropping into a calm, grounding rhythm that cut right through her panic. He caught her small, trembling wrists in a gentle but unbreakable grip, holding them against his bare chest so she could feel the steady, reassuring thrum of his heartbeat. "Let’s make a deal, Louisa. I will give you three absolute rules for our arrangent. You can demand whatever conditions you want for your three rules, and then I will state mine. Once we agree, we will seal the pact with a kiss. Fair?"
Louisa rely stared at him, her wide eyes blinking through a veil of fresh tears, her mind still too tangled to process the sudden shift in his tone.
"Well," Ethan murmured, a trace of that playful, dangerous smirk returning to his lips as he leaned a fraction of a closer. "If you aren’t going to speak up, I’ll just assu you have absolutely no requests—"
"I want to be free!" Louisa burst out hysterically, forcing the words past her trembling lips as she finally exploded. She squird against his heavy fra, her voice cracking into a desperate, suffocating sob. "I don’t want to be restricted! I don’t want to be kept under lock and key! I don’t want to be just a caged bird in your house, a hostage to your secrets, a prisoner in a golden room where I have to ask permission just to look at the sky! I don’t want to be hidden away like a piece of stolen property! I don’t want to be confined, I don’t want to be trapped, I don’t want to be—"
She completely lost her footing, her words tripping over one another in a frantic, circular torrent. She babbled the sa desperate plea in a dozen different ways, her tongue catching on the syllables as her mind completely locked up, her entire soul focused entirely on the terror of losing her agency to the monster in her bed.
"Alright, alright! Calm down before you wake up the entire inn," Ethan interrupted softly, a genuinely amused chuckle escaping his chest as he raised his hands in mock surrender to appease her frantic spirit. He looked down at her flushed, tear-stained face with an expression of pure, unbothered tranquility. "Rule number one is yours, then. No one is going to tie you up, Louisa. You can co and go as you please. You can walk the inner peaks, visit the markets, and run through the valley whenever the mood strikes you. Satisfied?"
Louisa’s frantic panting slowly trailed off into a series of small, confused hiccups, her wide eyes blinking up at him in utter disbelief as the weight of her chains simply evaporated into the quiet room.
-------------------
From this mont forward, to avoid confusion regarding cultivation ranks, I will include this footer with the current established levels.
Note: These are only the ranks ntioned so far to avoid spoilers.
Body Refinent Realm
Skin Refinent / Bone Refinent / Organ Refinent
Spiritual Gathering Realm
Spiritual Perception / Spiritual Mist / Spiritual Condensation
Spiritual Core Realm
Core Solidification / Core Awakening / Spiritual Collapse (Half-step Spiritual Core)
Spiritual Soul Realm
Spiritual Soul Awakening / Soul Nourishing / Soul-Core Fusion
Golden Core Realm
Pri Fusion / Core Perfection / Core Destruction
Spiritual Sea Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Dao Manifestation Realm
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
Spiritual Transcendence
Stage 1 ?? / Stage 2 ?? / Stage 3 ??
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