Chapter 658: A Very Important Question [Bonus Chapter]
The morning breeze swept through the open gates of the Silverleaf driveway and rustled the branches, but the temperature within a five-foot radius of Silas was spiking toward combustion.
’She’s hot...’
He meant that figuratively and quite literally too... Her body was growing hotter by the second and in extension so was the air.
However Sera on the other hand could not form a single normal thought.
For the first four seconds, she had moved purely on hot-blooded momentum in an explosive assault fueled by the sight of that oversized violet-haired vulture standing in Silas’s doorway but momentum was a finite currency.
As the seconds dragged out, the stark reality of her own ignorance slammed into her nervous system like an ice-water bath.
’I’m a fool...’
She had read the courtly romance scrolls in her mother’s private study.
She had watched the theatrical holographic dramas imported from the southern empires.
In theory, Intimacy was a battlefield of leverage, subtle parted sighs, and dominance but in practice, she was eighteen, possessed zero field experience and had completely forgotten that human beings required oxygen to stay conscious.
Even someone like her...
Her breath came short and frantic through her nose.
Her tongue, which had darted forward with such predatory swagger, grew clumsy and tangled against Silas’s teeth, because it turned out she had no idea what came after the initial breach.
Her fingers, knotted with such authority into the dark hair at the base of his skull, began to tremble as a furious dizzying heat rushed into her ears and turned her vision into a kaleidoscope of dancing crimson sparks.
In the doorway, Harper knelt with her knuckles white as she collected the dropped honey roll and its wax paper.
’I’m going to kill her... One day... be sure of it.’
Finally, with her lungs burning and her balance tilting, Seraphina broke the seal.
Pop!
She pulled back with a breathless wet gasp with her chest heaving beneath the oversized white cotton shirt.
Her crimson hair was a disheveled storm around her flushed collarbones and her red eyes, normally as sharp and serious as a magistrate’s, were wide and dazed and swimming with flustered watery panic.
Silas stood frozen on the limestone tread, blinking slowly.
He reached up with the back of his violet silk sleeve and wiped his chin and mouth with a dull scraping drag then he looked down at the heiress of House Bloom.
"Sera," he said, in a dry voice like two slate shingles rubbing together. "Were you trying to greet me, or were you attempting to detach my lower mandible and eat it for breakfast?"
A violent shade of scarlet detonated across Seraphina’s porcelain cheeks, raced down her throat, and vanished beneath the broad collar of the shirt.
"I... What...?!" she stammered, her voice pitching up a bit as she took a frantic half-step backward with her hands flying to her hips in a desperate attempt to reconstruct her shattered dignity. "H-How dare you! An uncultured brute like you wouldn’t know a mark of favor if it struck you in the forehead! It was a demonstration of marking your territory! You should be on your knees thanking me!"
"Right," Silas muttered, rubbing his sore neck. "Next time send a formal dispatch... It’s safer for my teeth."
’You’re the one that kissed me and I’m the one at fault?
A few paces behind Seraphina, standing tall and broad on the driveway, Valerius cleared his throat.
"Ahem!"
The blond scion was staring at the back of Seraphina’s neck with an expression of deep bewilderment with one hand hovering over his chin and his golden brows knitted into a tight disbelieving knot.
’I still can’t believe it...’
Valerius had known Seraphina since they were toddlers, hauled to the same insufferable noble galas and guild functions and told to be polite.
Their formal names were long and exhausting to say during formal greetings, so at some point they had shortened them to "Seraph" and "Val."
He had watched her throw a flaming dagger at an ambassador’s son because the boy had stepped on her shadow so he knew exactly how rare it was to see her lose her composure and he was well aware that over the past week or two she had taken to calling Silas her "prospective husband" with all the stubborn arrogance of a girl claiming a rare drop in a dungeon.
’But they’re actually swapping spit on the driveway?!’ Valerius thought, his jaw slightly slack. ’In broad daylight?! At seven in the morning?!’
His golden eyes drifted past Silas’s shoulder and locked onto the front door, where Harper Whitmore had just risen to her feet.
She was wearing a violet silk pajama shirt dotted with tiny golden stars.
Silas was wearing the exact same violet silk pajama shirt, with the exact same golden stars.
A sudden sharp pang of bitter injustice pierced Valerius’s chest like a wind-lance.
He was the heir to the Sterling Conglomerate... He stood six-foot-two, the same height as Silas, with thick golden hair that practically sparkled in the dawn sun.
...And what did his social life look like? Zero girlfriends.
The only women who ever approached him at society galas were third-tier socialites trying to extract corporate contracts for their fathers’ logistics guilds, or his father Lohan barking at him to review shipping margins.
’Why does Silas get all the luck?!’ Valerius lamented silently, kicking a piece of loose gravel with his leather boot. ’He wears unbrushed hair, lives like a hermit, spends ninety percent of his time in rifts, and he’s out here juggling the heiress of House Bloom and the Head of House Whitmore in matching sleepwear! What kind of forbidden cultivation manual is this?!’
Silas, blissfully unaware of the existential crisis rotting his friend’s brain, let out a quiet sigh and gestured toward the open front door.
"Whatever," he said, rolling his stiff shoulders. "You’re already here. Come inside before the neighbors start calling the police about a public disturbance."
Harper stood in the doorway with the crushed wax paper clenched in her palm.
Her violet eyes were narrowed into two icy slits as she puffed out her pale cheeks and aimed a venomous unblinking pout straight at Seraphina.
Seraphina’s chin snapped up, and her red eyes narrowed right back, throwing off enough invisible heat to ignite dry tinder.
The two women stood five feet apart, glaring at each other with open hostility... It was a silent standoff between purple lightning and crimson flame that made the air hum with static.
"Much obliged, Silas," Valerius broke in cheerfully, stepping past the line of fire and wiping his boots on the mat. "The breeze off the eastern bay is brisk this morning, it smells like someone’s roasting fish in here!"
Silas ushered them inside and pulled the heavy cedar door shut, engaging the interior lock with a solid click.
The front hall was warm and quiet and filled with the lingering aroma of Martha’s glazed salmon and roasted dashi broth.
The hardwood floor gleamed with fresh lemon wax, reflecting the pale morning light that filtered through the sheer drapes.
Seraphina stepped into the open-plan parlor with her arms crossed, the oversized sleeves of her white shirt swallowing her wrists, and cast a slow hyper-critical gaze around the vaulted living room, scanning the leather sectionals and the polished staircase leading to the upper gallery.
Her nose wrinkled with a bit of distaste.
"Honestly, Silas," she scoffed, tapping one loafer against the parquet. "You’re a Lord who survived facing a god like us, yet you insist on living in such a... profoundly tiny shoe box... A single living area? No central atrium? How do you even circulate your spiritual pathways in such a cramped little cupboard?"
Silas nearly choked on his own saliva. He stared at her with his blue-and-gold eyes wide in offended disbelief.
’A shoe box?!’ he screamed internally. ’It has a half-acre walled courtyard in one of the most expensive residential districts in Valoria City! The place has empty rooms! Martha counted them! What part of this is cramped?!’
He opened his mouth to defend the integrity of his real estate, but Harper stepped smoothly up to his left side.
She adjusted her glasses which she had pulled out of somewhere with an elegant flick of her index finger, and her cool polished-glass voice rang out with as much defensiveness as she could muster.
"Pay no attention to her, Silas," she said softly, her violet eyes glinting with serene calm.
A desperate spark of hope kindled in Silas’s chest as he looked down at her.
’Yes! Thank you, Harper! Tell this spoiled council brat what normal housing looks like.’
Harper continued without skipping a beat.
"She has no concept of modest living. Though, to be fair to her criticism... my own estate is about thirty times the size of this plot... There are several pavilions, an artificial lake, and a lawn so large the groundskeepers use carts."
The spark of hope in Silas’s chest withered into ash as he turned his flat dead stare on the Head of House Whitmore.
Harper didn’t notice.
She turned toward him with a sweet smile and lightly brushed a speck of lint from the lapel of his violet pajamas.
"If you ever feel the walls closing in, Silas," she purred, "House Whitmore would be more than happy to extend an interest-free line of sovereign credit... Forty million credits? Fifty? You could purchase a sector and build a proper estate worthy of your station... You wouldn’t even have to worry about collateral, Your personal company would be collateral enough."
"Hah!" Seraphina scoffed loudly, throwing her head back with a sharp, derisive laugh. "Fifty million? How quaint! How painfully bourgeois! House Bloom could wire eighty million credits into his account before noon, and we wouldn’t even require a promissory note! If Silas wants an estate, he won’t be groveling for Whitmore scraps!"
"Scraps?" Harper’s voice dropped into a silky whisper with her glasses flashing. "At least House Whitmore manages its own liquidity, unlike certain council heiresses who run to their mothers whenever an investment account dips below eight figures."
"Why you...! You insolent little corporate leech!"
"Spoiled brat."
"Purple-haired vulture!"
Silas stood between them with his left eyelid spasming in a rhythmic, agonizing beat.
He pressed the palms of his hands to his temples and let out a long groan that vibrated down his collarbone.
Over by the hearth, Valerius had already kicked off his loafers and collapsed onto the broad leather sofa.
He stretched his long legs out, rested his arms along the back cushions, and let out a loud contented sigh as the leather molded to his back.
His golden eyes tracked the bickering women for a second before drifting to the matching violet silk.
"Hey, Silas," he called, pointing an idle thumb at the pajamas. "What’s with the matching set? You guys joining a private cultivation cult, or did you buy a two-for-one bundle at the night market?"
Harper’s chin snapped around, and her face brightened into an expression of proud triumph.
"It is not a cult, Valerius," she corrected smoothly, smoothing the soft silk over her hip with a graceful, deliberate stroke. "It is House of Valois silk with micro-temperature wards woven into the thread... I commissioned bespoke sets for the entire household. Midnight blue for Martha, lavender for Penelope, forest green for Lia, and this one for Silas and myself. It regulates spiritual fluctuations during REM cycles and prevents nocturnal meridian strain. Do you like the cut? The little golden stars were embroidered by hand in the southern workshops."
Valerius tilted his head and whistled softly with genuine appreciation.
"It actually looks pretty sharp and sleek lines too... The shoulders look comfortable as hell."
FREEZE!
A wave of volcanic heat washed over the sofa, and Valerius’s words trailed off.
Three feet away, Seraphina was glaring at him.
Her red eyes burned with an intensity that suggested she was calculating how many degrees of third-degree burns she could inflict on his torso before the city guard arrived.
Her jaw was set in rigid stone, and her hands were balled into tight fists at the ends of her oversized sleeves.
Valerius’s golden skin went pale.
’A-ah... I fucked up.’
He snapped his mouth shut, swallowed hard and stared straight ahead at the empty television screen, locking into the stiff motionless discipline of a soldier waiting for an artillery shell.
’Rule number one of surviving Seraphina Bloom,’ he reminded himself frantically. ’Never compliment the enemy’s wardrobe... Keep your mouth shut, Sterling...’
Silas took a deep breath and clapped his hands once to shatter the suffocating tension in the room.
"Look," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Martha already left to take the girls to the academy and handle some morning logistics. She only prepared enough breakfast for the household, and since the table’s cleared... I can head into the kitchen and whip up something quick. Eggs, toast, whatever we have in the pantry."
He turned toward the kitchen archway and behind him, two pairs of eyes locked onto each other.
BZZZZT!
An invisible bolt of competitive electricity flashed between Seraphina and Harper.
These were two nobles and now they had been presented with the most primitive way of resolving a territorial dispute... It was the best known one to civilization, providing morning sustenance to the male in question.
"I’ll do it!" Seraphina barked, stepping forward so fast her loafers squeaked against the wood.
"Out of the question," Harper countered instantly, cutting across her path with the grace of a dancing blade. "You are an uninvited guest who arrived at dawn without notice... I have been residing in this house since yesterday evening so domestic duties naturally fall to the established occupant."
"You don’t live here, you parasite!" Seraphina snarled, baring her teeth. "You slept on his couch!"
"I slept in his bed," Harper purred, with venomous calm. She really was like a snake.
Seraphina’s jaw dropped, and her hair sparked with tiny red embers of ambient fire-mana.
"YOU...!"
"Ladies," Silas interrupted, holding both hands up like a referee trying to separate two rabid mastiffs. "Do either of you even know how to cook?"