Chapter 1093: Tsundere Cat Sorcerer [Part 1]

Chapter 1093 – Tsundere Cat Sorcerer [Part 1]

Runa gripped the sink with both hands and panted.

Her reflection stared back.

Golden hair was wild.

Face scarlet.

Cat ears trembling.

Lux’s shirt sliding off one shoulder like a traitor.

She looked like a woman who had escaped battle.

Her body was flaring.

Not just warmth and embarrassment.

Heat.

Her skin felt too sensitive beneath the fabric. Her breathing was shallow. Her tail lashed behind her in frantic denial. The scent clung to her, faint but still there, because the shirt itself smelled like him. She had run away wearing the evidence.

Runa stared at herself.

That Lux... was shameless.

Utterly shameless.

Runa should hate shameless men.

She did hate shameless men.

Kaelmor had been shameless in the end. His love became demand. His desire became entitlement. His pride became a prison.

But Lux was different.

Lux was shameless without being entitled. Seductive without grabbing. Dangerous without pretending danger was romance. He had looked at her through that doorway and offered the choice with his eyes, wicked and amused, but he had not pulled.

He let her run.

Runa pressed one hand over her face.

No.

No, this was pheromones!

Magic!

Biology!

Incubus nonsense!

She was not attracted to him.

She was reacting.

Temporarily.

Chemically.

Cattily. Okay, that was not a word, but she was using it.

She lowered her hand and glared at her reflection. "You are not a pervert," she mouthed silently.

Her reflection looked unconvinced.

Runa’s ears flattened.

Lux was the pervert.

Lux and his body.

Also his voice.

That low voice that had turned rough even through the door. She had heard only fragments, muffled by distance, but enough. Enough to know he sounded different when desire stripped the polish off him. Less teasing prince. More beast with manners he chose not to abandon.

Her stomach fluttered again.

Runa slapped both hands onto the sink.

No.

Absolutely no.

She had escaped a tower today.

She was not going to be defeated by a handsome demon’s abdomen.

Or the V-shaped line of his body.

She turned on the water.

Cold.

Splashed her face.

Once.

Twice.

Her ears twitched miserably as droplets ran down her cheeks.

The heat did not vanish.

Because the shirt still smelled like him.

She should remove it.

For dignity.

Her fingers touched the hem.

Stopped.

The fabric was warm.

Comforting.

Runa closed her eyes and inhaled by accident.

The scent curled through her again.

Her knees almost weakened. She grabbed the sink harder.

"Shameless," she whispered.

But the word no longer sounded like an accusation.

It sounded like surrender trying to disguise itself as insult.

Runa opened her eyes again. Her reflection stared back, flushed and furious and far too alive.

That was the problem.

For centuries, she had been stone.

Now she had blood again.

Heat again.

Want again.

And the first man her body noticed after freedom was a demon who fed her.

Runa hated him.

Probably.

Maybe.

She straightened slowly, clutching the shirt around herself.

She should go to bed.

That was the intelligent decision.

A wounded soul needed rest. An unstable vessel needed recovery. A woman who had just escaped centuries of stone imprisonment and accidentally acquired cat ears should lie down, close her eyes, and let healing do its work.

Simple, reasonable, yet impossible.

Her body was still flaring.

Not painfully. That would have been easier. Pain could be endured. Pain could be named, measured, pushed aside with discipline.

This was different.

This was heat beneath the skin. Restlessness in the bones. Every sense sharpened until the air felt too thick, the shirt too soft, her own heartbeat too loud. Her tail swayed behind her with humiliating rhythm, as if it had no loyalty to her dignity whatsoever.

"No," she whispered.

No to the pheromones.

No to Lux.

Especially no to that.

Her ears twitched.

Runa turned toward the shower room.

Cold shower.

Her soul recoiled.

Absolutely not.

She preferred warm baths. Luxurious baths. Baths with oils, herbs, moonstone steam, maybe citrus peel if she felt indulgent. A grand sorcerer did not wage war against her own nerves under freezing water like a punished apprentice.

Also, cats hated water. ℯ

And whether she liked it or not, a portion of this vessel agreed violently.

Her body stiffened before she even reached the bathroom door.

The cat instinct said ’no water’.

Her pride said ’no weakness’.

Her current condition said ’choose quickly before you embarrass yourself further’.

Runa entered the shower and shut the door.

She glared at the shower.

Then peeled off the shirt.

For a moment, her fingers hesitated against the fabric.

It smelled like him.

Not as strongly as before, not with that dangerous pheromone sweetness, but enough. Warm cloth, faint darkness, traces of expensive soap and something male beneath it.

She almost brought it closer to her face.

Then froze.

Absolutely not.

She threw it onto the counter like it had insulted her lineage.

The shirt landed softly.

Mockingly.

Runa stepped into the shower and turned the handle to cold.

The water struck her.

Her soul tried to leave.

A strangled sound escaped her throat, somewhere between a gasp, a hiss, and a declaration of war against plumbing.

So cold!

Her ears flattened instantly. Her tail puffed. Her shoulders jumped. Her entire body wanted to leap out, shake herself dry, and claw the tiles until the room apologized.

But she stayed.

Hands braced against the wall, teeth clenched, water running over her hair, down her back, across skin that had been too warm only seconds ago.

"Fine," she breathed shakily. "This is fine."

It was not fine, it was barbaric! But it worked.

Slowly, brutally, the cold cut through the heat.

Her breathing steadied. The flare beneath her skin dulled. The pheromone haze thinned, washed away by water, discipline, and a deeply offended feline survival instinct.

Runa exhaled.

Better.

Still humiliating, but better.

Then she found the soap.

A small mercy.

It smelled nice.

Not sweet in the dangerous Lux way. Clean. Herbal. Soft. A blend of white tea, cedar, and something floral but not childish. She rubbed it between her hands and let the foam cover her skin, grateful for something normal to focus on.