Chapter 228: Whispers of the Past

The soft, golden ambient light of Amira’s living room cast a warm, luxurious glow over the entire space.

This light was different. It was intimate. It made the marble look like warm honey and the white couches look like clouds. It made all fourteen women look like they were glowing from within.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass patio doors, the night had settled completely, leaving only the tranquil blue light of the heated pool reflecting off the manicured gardens.

The capital was still awake beyond the walls, airships crossing the sky, mana billboards flickering, but none of that sound reached them here. The estate’s barrier sealed everything out. Inside these walls, it was its own country.

Inside, the atmosphere was thick with warmth, rich wine, and the laughter of fifteen breathtaking women gathered in a cozy circle around Lynx.

And the warmth wasn’t just from the wine. It was from relief. The tournament was over. The political games were over. For the first time in months, none of them had to pretend to be rivals or seniors or juniors. They could just sit.

Nyx sat contentedly on Lynx’s lap, her long, midnight-blue hair spilling over his chest like dark silk.

It was heavy, glossy, and it smelled faintly of night roses. Her sharp, crimson eyes, glowing like polished jewels, scanned the living room with a mixture of amusement and deep affection. She had seen empires rise and fall.

She had seen her father rule a continent. And yet, she had never sat in a circle like this, where women laughed over cake and teased each other.

This was more alien to her than any human war. And she loved it more than any throne. Her long, pale legs dangled over Lynx’s thighs as he casually rested one hand on her hip, gently stroking her smooth skin through the silk, form fitting fabric of her dress.

He didn’t even realize he was doing it. It was an absent, possessive habit that told everyone in the room, she’s mine, and she’s safe.

Eleanor, Layla, Iris, Rhea, and Nadia were still taking in the sight. While Isabel and the core Group, Ophelia, Kira, Ava, Lira, Eira, and Emily, were completely at ease around the demon beauty, Eleanor’s squad was still adjusting to the sheer absurdity of Lynx harboring a high-tier demon inside his soul.

Eleanor, for all her title as Queen, felt like a first year again. She had prepared for politics, for battles. She had not prepared for a demon princess to sit on her new boyfriend’s lap and ask about his childhood like a curious little sister.

"So," Nyx purred smoothly, her velvety voice breaking the quiet rustle of wine glasses. She turned her head slightly, looking at Isabel with a sweet, playful smile.

That smile was genuine. "Don’t stop on my account, Isabel. I want to hear about Lynx’s childhood too. What was my handsome man like before he became this unstoppable force?"

Isabel let out a soft, nostalgic sigh, her deep orange eyes shimmering with memories as she swirled the red wine in her crystal glass. She leaned her back against the plush velvet sofa, her face softening into a gentle, bittersweet expression.

She stared into the wine, and for a second she wasn’t in Amira’s mansion. She was younger at her home, holding a feverish boy who refused to cry.

"He was always special," Isabel began softly, her voice carrying a quiet warmth that hushed the entire room. Her voice made even Kira stop.

"Even as a little boy. But... life wasn’t gentle with him. It tried to harden him. Every single year, it tried."

The playful banter in the room quieted down. You could feel it shift. The girls who were giggling a second ago went still. Eleanor leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, her purple eyes fixed attentively on Isabel.

She leaned in because she understood loss. Layla, Iris, Rhea, and Nadia all leaned in closer, eager to learn more about the dark horse who had taken the entire academy and continent by storm. To them, Lynx was a legend. To Isabel, he was just Lynx.

"When Lynx was just ten years old," Isabel said softly, her voice dropping a fraction in tone, and this time her hand trembled slightly around her glass, "his parents were killed. They were murdered by a Blessed."

She let the word hang. Blessed. A word they all wore with pride. "A woman Killed them. His parents fought hard, but they weren’t strong enough. I still don’t know what they did to her that make her kill them."

A heavy silence settled over the room. It was no longer just heavy. It was crushing.

Nadia gasped quietly, her hands tightening against her lap until her nails dug into her own skin. Her jaw clenched.

Iris looked at Lynx with wide, sympathetic eyes, tears already spilling over before she could stop them. She didn’t even know she was crying.

While Eleanor’s chest tightened with a pang of deep sorrow for the boy he used to be. She looked at his heterochromatic eyes now and finally understood why one was cold like silver. That was the eyes that watched his parents die.

"After that night," Isabel continued gently, looking directly into Lynx’s heterochromatic eyes, searching his face to see if she was hurting him by telling this, "Lynx changed. He became completely withdrawn. He didn’t talk much, he didn’t cry in front of anyone, and he kept his feelings locked deep inside his chest.

For months he wouldn’t sleep in a bed. He slept on the floor by my door, because he was scared if he closed his eyes, someone else he loved would disappear.

But despite all that pain... he was still so kind. He never let his heart turn bitter. He would always help around the house, make sure I was okay, and try to bear everything on his own young shoulders."

Lynx offered Isabel a small, reassuring smile, reaching out with his free hand to squeeze her soft fingers. His thumb brushed her knuckles. "I had a good aunt looking after me. That was more than enough. You never let me feel like an orphan, Isabel." His voice was low, only for her, but everyone heard it.

Kira, who was sitting near Ava on the opposite couch with her arms crossed, let out a soft, huffing sigh, a slight blush rising onto her cheeks.

She was looking down at her own hands, ashamed. She remembered that thin boy who slept on the floor. And she remembered being cruel to him because she wanted her mother’s full attention.

"Yeah, well... I hated his ass growing up." She said it, but her voice cracked at the end. It wasn’t anger now. It was confession.

A chorus of soft giggles rippled through the room, but softer this time, more understanding.

Lynx turned his head, looking over at Kira with a lazy, wicked smirk. "You really did, didn’t you? You wouldn’t even look at me in the hallway half the time. You called me a stray cat once."

"Because my mom always put you first!" Kira retorted immediately, pouting slightly as her orange eyes flashed with playful annoyance, but her eyes were wet. She was finally saying the thing she held for ten years.

"Every single day it was, ’Lynx, eat your soup,’ ’Lynx, rest your body,’ ’Lynx, don’t push yourself.’ I felt like I was the adopted one in my own house! I was jealous, okay? I was a kid and I was jealous that the boy who had no one was getting all my mom’s love!"

The room went quiet again, but it was a different quiet. Tender.

Lynx threw his head back and let out a rich, genuine laugh that echoed off the marble walls. He didn’t laugh at her. He laughed because he finally heard the truth from her own mouth.

Isabel blushed, shaking her head as she looked at her daughter with a soft, affectionate smile. She reached over and cupped Kira’s face. "Kira, that isn’t true! I didn’t rank either of you above the other. I loved both of you equally, and I still do! I just... I loved you enough to know you would be okay even if I looked away for a second. Lynx... I wasn’t sure he would be."

Emily, who was sitting quietly beside Eira with a sweet smile on her face, tilted her head slightly and threw in a playful, teasing remark. She felt the tension and, in her gentle way, tried to break it with mischief. "What about now, Lady Isabel? Do you still love him just like a nephew?"

Isabel’s breath caught in her throat. Her face flushed a deep, brilliant crimson that spread all the way down to her neck.

The motherly composure she had held for the whole story shattered. She quickly took a large sip of her wine to hide her burning cheeks, looking down at her glass while avoiding everyone’s eyes. Her hands were shaking for real now.

"E-Emily!" Isabel stammered softly, her voice completely losing its usual composure. She sounded twenty years younger.

The entire living room erupted into warm, joyful laughter. The kind of laughter that heals.

Lynx chuckled smoothly, looking at Isabel’s flushed face with a warm, protective glint in his eyes. "Don’t pick on my aunt, girls. She takes good care of all of us." He said it like a warning and a promise.

"She certainly takes good care of your bank account now," Amira chimed in with a wink, holding up her glass from where she leaned against the sofa armrest. "Five hundred million H-Crystals transferred directly to her name. That’s a whole lot of love from the King. You made her one of the richest woman in Aether Empire overnight."

As the laughter settled, Layla turned her eyes back toward Nyx, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

She adjusted her position on the couch, looking at the deep blue haired demon beauty sitting comfortably on Lynx’s lap. After hearing about human cruelty, she wanted to hear about demonic cruelty.

"Hey, Nyx," Layla spoke up, her voice full of genuine wonder. And respect. "If you don’t mind me asking... how did a demon like you end up with Lynx in the first place? And who were you back on the Demon Continent? You don’t act like a demon from the stories I’ve read."

Nyx shifted slightly on Lynx’s lap, resting her chin on his chest as her crimson eyes looked up at Layla. For the first time tonight, her playful mask dropped completely. Her eyes looked old. Endlessly old.

"My father was Lucifer," Nyx replied casually, as if stating the most obvious fact in the world. "The ruler of the Demon Continent. The First. I was his only daughter. The Princess of all demons."

Clang!

Nadia accidentally dropped her dessert fork onto her plate, her dark eyes bulging out of her head. The silver rang loudly.

"L-Lucifer?!" Iris squeaked, grabbing Layla’s arm tightly. She had read about Lucifer in forbidden books. The being who escaped even punishment from gods.

Eleanor’s purple eyes widened in absolute shock. "Lucifer? The ancient Demon Lord from the texts?" Eleanor sat up straight, her mind racing through the historical records she had memorized during her years at the top of the academy.

"I... I read about the Demon Continent wars in the high archives. That happened almost two thousand years ago! The archives said his entire royal line was executed! They said no one survived!"

Nyx nodded smoothly, a calm smile playing on her lips, but there was no humor in it. Only cold memory. "Yes. About a thousand years ago or almost two thousand, my uncle mounted a coup using divine tier weapons and forced me to flee to the Forbidden Zone, where I was sealed in slumber... until my husband here found me and broke my seal. My uncle wanted to marry me to consolidate power, or kill me. I chose to sleep in ice for eternity rather than let him touch me. And then Lynx found me. And he didn’t ask for my kingdom. He just asked for my name, and sex of course."

The room was silent. Every girl felt the weight of two thousand years of loneliness in that sentence.

Nadia swallowed hard, looking at Nyx from head to toe. Her voice trembled slightly as she asked the question burning in her mind. "Wait... you’re... how old are you?!" She couldn’t reconcile the girl on Lynx’s lap with a two thousand-year-old princess.

Nyx offered a smooth, enchanting smile, her red eyes sparkling with amusement at how human they were about time. "I am roughly two thousand five hundred years old, maybe more, I don’t count."

"Two thousand five hundred?" Eira gasped, her mouth forming a perfect ’O’. She stared at Nyx’s glowing flawless, pale skin and her incredible, hourglass figure. "Wow... and you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life! How?"

Eira then quickly turned her head toward Isabel and Amira, waving her hands frantically in panic. "Ah! No offense, Lady Isabel! No offense, Lady Amira! You guys are super gorgeous too!"

Amira laughed out loud, tossing a couch cushion playfully at Eira. "Relax, shortie! We know we’re fine as hell!"

Isabel smiled gracefully, shaking her head in amusement. "None taken, Eira. Nyx is truly breathtaking."

Nyx purred softly, leaning in to press another sweet kiss against Lynx’s jaw. "Age is meaningless when you belong to a man like Lynx. Two thousand years was just waiting. This... this is living."

Lynx smiled, running his fingers through Nyx’s long black hair before looking around at the fourteen stunning women surrounding him.

The atmosphere was perfect. The trust was absolute. They had bled their histories to each other. The human orphan and the demon princess, both survivors of family murder, both saved by each other.

It was time to take things to the next level.

"Alright," Lynx said smoothly, his deep voice instantly capturing the attention of every woman in the room. "Since we are all here, and since Eleanor and her squad are officially part of my core circle now... there are things you five need to see. Things about the universe, about power, and about what we are going to accomplish together."