Chapter 169: ¹⁶⁹: you are hot.

Chapter 169: 1??: you are hot.

"Athena! I’m going to cry. This assignment is making me crazy!" Rose’s voice boomed through my phone so loudly that I had to pull it away from my ear for a moment. I winced, waiting for the volume to settle before bringing it back.

For the first time in days, a ghost of a smile tugged at my lips. I shook my head, leaning back in my study chair as I gazed out the window. "Rose, you’ll be fine. Trust me, it won’t eat you alive," I assured her, my voice carrying a hint of amusement.

Rose immediately groaned, clearly unconvinced. "The way it’s eaten up every single second of my life for the past seven days, I swear it feels like it’s slowly devouring me!"

I chuckled at her exasperated tone. For the past seven days, I had been glued to my own assignment, too. The difference was that I had finished mine within the first four days.

That should have been enough to give me some peace of mind, but it hadn’t. Instead, I had gone back over it countless times, determined to improve every little detail, no matter how insignificant.

My mind had been such a mess lately that I couldn’t stand being alone with my thoughts. The moment I had nothing to occupy myself with, everything I was trying so desperately to push aside came rushing back. So I kept myself busy, poring over the same pages again and again, searching for flaws that probably didn’t even exist.

It was exhausting, but at least it gave me something to focus on.

"It’s okay. Life is all about challenges, isn’t it?" I said, rocking gently in my chair. "And if the biggest challenge you have to deal with is a silly little school assignment instead of something truly awful, I’d say that’s a good thing."

As I continued talking to Rose, I felt some of the tension in my shoulders ease. There was something comforting about having a normal conversation with her, one that didn’t require me to think about my own problems or pretend that everything was fine. For a few minutes, I could simply listen to her complain and offer the occasional piece of advice.

"Well, easy for you to say," she shot back. "You have no challenges in your life. I bet this assignment was a piece of cake for you."

She delivered the last sentence in that utterly confident, *duh, obviously* tone she always used whenever she stated something she considered a fact.

I could only sigh. If only she knew how badly I wished her words were true. If only my life were as simple as she imagined it to be.

But there was no point in bringing any of that up. I wasn’t ready to explain everything, and I certainly didn’t want to turn our conversation into another discussion about my problems.

Instead, I shifted my attention back to her. "Where exactly are you getting stuck?" I asked, deliberately steering us away from her general complaints and toward the actual assignment. "Tell me. Maybe I can help."

"I’m stuck on the sheer stupidity of Garis as a state!" she exclaimed without a moment’s hesitation.

Her response nearly made me laugh. Honestly, anyone who had worked on the assignment should have been able to see the problem she was talking about.

"They’re facing such a terrible food crisis, and they could ask Salen for help, but no! They’ve put tariffs on them. And they could import grain from Lhyden, but apparently that’s too much to ask, because their relationship with them has already been ruined beyond repair thanks to their own meddling!"

Rose paused to take a breath, though judging by the sound of it, she was nowhere near finished.

I could practically picture her sitting at her desk, glaring at the assignment as if the fictional state of Garis had personally offended her. Knowing Rose, she had probably spent more time arguing with the imaginary king in her head than actually writing her recommendations.

She let out another heavy sigh before continuing, her tone suddenly taking on the exaggerated seriousness of someone who had been appointed the kingdom’s most important adviser.

"If this weren’t just some imaginary situation, and I were actually standing in front of the king of Garis as his adviser, I would straight-up curse him to death!"

"Yeah, Garis’s political situation really does suck, especially when you consider its financial situation," I replied, my eyes glinting as I thought over the problem. Then, an idea came to me. "But if you want a hint, I’d suggest looking into the internal power structure of the royal court. Solve that, and a lot of things might unravel themselves."

"Wait!" Rose exclaimed immediately. "You’re right! Why didn’t I think of it that way before? I could’ve saved myself so much time!" Her voice grew louder with every word until she was practically shouting into the phone. "I think I can actually finish the assignment on time now!"

Her excitement made me smile, and this time, it was a genuine one, a wide smile that reached my eyes as I listened to her practically bouncing with relief on the other end of the call.

"Then get back to work, and I’ll see you tomorrow!" I told her, pushing my chair back and rising from my desk. It was about time I went downstairs to get something for dinner.

"Okay! See you tomorrow!" Rose practically screamed her farewell before the call disconnected.

I lowered my phone and shook my head, still smiling faintly. I was glad she had taken the initiative to call me. In the state I had been in lately, I doubted I would have reached out to anyone myself, even her.

Yet, somehow, talking to Rose had done wonders for me. For a little while, I had been able to forget the mess inside my head and simply be Athena again, the person I had been before everything became so complicated.

I placed my phone on the table, ready to leave the room. But before I could even turn around, my bedroom door flew open.

Startled by the sudden noise, I spun around. And there he was. Kael.

"Kael... why are you—?" The words died on my tongue. I stood frozen, staring at him as everything I had spent the past seven days trying to suppress came rushing back all at once.

The feelings I had buried, the thoughts I had tried to silence, the foolish hope I had repeatedly told myself to abandon all of it came crashing down the moment I saw him standing in front of me.

What was I supposed to do now? After our last encounter, I had decided that I would see Kael again on the day of the eclipse and not a moment sooner. The days that followed had passed without even a glimpse of him, and I had gradually convinced myself that this was how things would remain until then.

But now he was here, standing right in front of me. And he looked nothing like the composed Alpha King I was used to seeing.

His hair was a complete mess, his clothes were disheveled, and his shoulders sagged with a kind of exhaustion I had never seen him display before. He looked as though he had just returned from a long, grueling run, barely giving himself enough time to catch his breath before coming here.

My gaze swept over him, confusion quickly mixing with the emotions I had been trying so hard to control. "Kael, what... why do you look like—?" I couldn’t finish.

He suddenly sprang forward, closing the remaining distance between us in a heartbeat. Before I could react or even make sense of what he was doing, his lips were on mine.

For a moment, my mind went completely blank. Every wall I had painstakingly built around my heart crumbled beneath the suddenness of his kiss.

The mere feeling of him this close to me was enough to make me question everything I had told myself over the past week. Had I really been foolish enough to believe that I could keep my distance from him simply by deciding to do so?

My breath caught as his hands came up to cup my face, drawing me closer while he continued kissing me.

There was nothing composed or restrained about him. His kiss was messy, heated, and desperate, as though he had rushed here without a second thought and could no longer hold himself back.

And the worst part was that, for one dangerously brief moment, I wanted to do the same.

I wanted to stop thinking. I wanted to silence every sensible voice in my head and let myself respond to him without questioning what it meant or what would happen afterward. My hands twitched at my sides, and my resolve began to crumble faster than I could rebuild it.

Bit then I felt the burn from his hands. His hands against my cheeks were unbearably hot, the warmth so intense that it cut straight through the haze clouding my thoughts.

I stiffened. What was wrong withMy hands moved before I could fully process the question. I planted them on his shoulders and pushed him back just enough to break the kiss, my heart pounding for an entirely different reason now.

"Kael, you’re burning!" Worry flooded through me as I lifted one hand to his forehead. The moment my palm touched his skin, my eyes widened. He was burning like a furnace.