My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

The evidence was damning.

It was so obvious what had happened.

A man and a woman had spent the night together, and when they woke up without a single article of clothing between them, there were very few conclusions anyone could draw.

The room itself was even worse.

The scent lingering in the air.

The tangled blanket.

The scattered clothes.

Every single detail seemed determined to testify against them.

Maids were among the greatest distributors of gossip within noble society.

Collectively, what they knew could rival entire intelligence agencies, at least when it came to the affairs of noble households.

Damon could already imagine it.

By tomorrow morning the story would have spread through the capital.

By next week it would reach every major city in the Empire.

By next month foreign nations would probably be discussing it.

If that were the only problem, he could simply take responsibility.

Unfortunately, it was not.

He was the beloved grandson of Grand Duke Brightwater.

Even though Damon personally didn’t care much about titles, it was common knowledge that the old Grand Duke was grooming him to become the next head of House Brightwater.

Damon once asked why the Imperial Family and the Four Great Houses rarely mixed blood through marriage.

The answer had come with one of the sternest looks his grandfather had ever given him.

Remembering it now made cold sweat crawl down his neck.

"That’s it."

He dragged both hands through his long hair and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling as though divine intervention might descend at any moment.

"My grandfather is either going to disown me or die from a heart attack."

Abellona sat frozen beside him.

The blanket was pulled tightly around her body, covering just enough to preserve her dignity while revealing enough to make Damon immediately avert his gaze.

Her crimson eyes darted around the room.

Her fingers were clenched so tightly around the blanket that her knuckles had turned white.

The calm and elegant Imperial Princess was nowhere to be found.

In her place sat a panicking young woman trying very hard not to imagine the consequences of getting caught.

Another rattle came from the door.

The handle twisted.

Both of them stiffened.

Abellona’s head snapped toward it before she immediately whipped back toward Damon.

Her eyes were wide.

Far wider than he had ever seen.

"Okay."

She took a deep breath, failed to calm down, then took another, slower this time.

"We need to hide the evidence."

Damon slowly swept his gaze across the room.

The clothes.

The blanket.

The wine bottles.

The overturned chair.

The broken glass.

Then his eyes returned to Abellona.

"Princess."

His voice was unusually serious.

"What?"

"We are the evidence."

Abellona stared at him.

Damon pointed at himself.

Then at her.

Then at the blanket.

The realization visibly struck her.

Her face turned completely red.

Another knock echoed through the room.

"Your Highness?" a maid called from outside.

Abellona nearly jumped out of her skin.

Damon watched her panic escalate with morbid fascination.

For years he had known her as the cold and lethal princess.

Graceful.

Deadly and very cunning.

A woman who always seemed to know exactly what to do.

Watching that image crumble before his eyes was almost surreal.

She lunged forward and grabbed his arm hard enough to make him wince.

"Damon," she hissed.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Fix this."

"Why am I the one fixing it?" he asked indignantly. "I mean whatever happened here yesterday was a team effort."

Her grip tightened.

"Because you’re supposed to be good at impossible things."

"I wouldn’t count fornication as an impossible thing, but sure, whatever."

He rubbed his chin before reluctantly nodding.

"But fair point."

The doorknob rattled again.

The maids were becoming suspicious.

Abellona leaned closer, lowering her voice to a desperate whisper.

"Damon."

"Yes?"

"If this gets out, my father will kill me."

Damon rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"My grandfather might actually beat your father to it."

The princess looked moments away from strangling him.

Outside, the maid knocked once more.

"Your Highness? Is everything alright?"

The two of them froze.

They both knew the princess hadn’t left. Her knights were still waiting outside for her.

The silence stretching between them felt longer than an entire battlefield campaign.

Then Damon slowly raised one finger.

"I have a plan."

Abellona’s eyes immediately lit up.

"Really?"

For the first time all morning she sounded hopeful.

"No."

A grin spread across his face.

Her expression instantly darkened.

"I just wanted you to experience hope one last time."

The grin widened into something distinctly sinister.

"This isn’t the time for jokes."

The door opened and the maids froze at the sight before them, their eyes widening at the carnage inside the room.

Almost everything had been charred and destroyed.

The smell of ash and destruction filled the air, overwhelming any other scent that might have remained. The curtains had been consumed by crimson magical energy. Cracks spread across the floor. Furniture lay broken and overturned.

At the center of all that destruction stood a single woman, fully dressed, her hair slightly disheveled.

"Who was it... who dared wake me?" she whispered.

The quiet words made the maids tremble.

The Princess had apparently been sleeping here all by herself, and they had disturbed her badly enough to send her into a violent outburst.

Both maids immediately dropped to their knees.

Even a thousand lives would not be enough to pay for such insolence.

"Please forgive us, Princess. We did not wish to disturb you..."

They lowered their heads until their foreheads touched the floor.

Abellona’s aura pressed down upon them like a mountain, leaving no room for thought and even less room for questions.

Not one of them dared ask why the Princess would go on a rampage over something so small.

Then again, nobles were known for their tempers.

Ironically, Abellona was more terrified than they were.

If either maid had actually dared look at her face, they would have realized she was panicking far more than they were.

She took a deep breath.

To the maids it felt like the breath of death itself.

"Forget it. This is on me for drinking by myself. I’ll be leaving now. You will not speak of my hangover to anyone, or else."

The maids nodded frantically.

Abellona was certain the story would still leak eventually, but that was fine.

People were more susceptible to lies they told themselves.

If they believed she was simply hiding an embarrassing drunken incident, they would never dig any deeper.

That was enough.

She slowly walked out.

No one noticed that her shadow seemed deeper than before.

No one noticed how unnaturally dark it looked as it stretched behind her.

Even though her hair remained slightly disheveled, she didn’t care.

Relief washed through her with every step she took away from the room.

Abellona hurriedly entered her carriage.

The moment the door shut behind her, she slumped back against the seat and finally relaxed.

Pulling her hair aside, she noticed several very obvious marks on her neck.

Her eye twitched.

"Ahh, you animal. What did you do to me?"

The shadow at her feet rippled.

Darkness peeled away from the floor before rising into the shape of Damon Grey.

"More like what we did to each other."

Abellona immediately snatched the nearest cushion and hurled it at his face.

Damon caught it effortlessly without even blinking.

This had been Damon’s plan.

While Abellona unleashed enough destructive magic to explain the condition of the room, Damon had hidden himself inside her shadow before the maids entered.

Simple.

Effective.

And completely ridiculous.

He didn’t need to teleport out. As for the question of where Damon Grey had gone and how he had supposedly left, well, that wasn’t important. Damon Grey was the sort of person who appeared and disappeared whenever he pleased. If anyone asked, he must have slipped away somewhere amidst the confusion.

That being said, Damon had managed to avoid a major scandal.

"We got away with it this time," Abellona said, releasing a long breath as she sank back into the carriage seat.

The tension draining from her body was almost visible. Her shoulders loosened. The rigid posture she maintained before the world softened ever so slightly. For the first time since waking up, she looked less like the Imperial Princess and more like an exhausted young woman who had narrowly escaped disaster.

Damon folded his arms while leaning against the opposite side of the carriage.

"That’s one way to put it."

Abellona shot him a look before reaching up to adjust her hair, carefully covering the marks on her neck. Even now her fingers lingered there for a moment as though reminding herself they were real.

"We have to be more careful next time," she added quietly.

Damon’s expression immediately changed.

One eyebrow rose.

"Next time?"

Abellona blinked.

The realization struck her a heartbeat later.

Her composed expression cracked.

A faint blush spread across her cheeks as she turned her face toward the carriage window with remarkable speed.

"I meant if we ever find ourselves in a similar situation again."

"A similar situation?"

"Yes."

"Alone."

"Yes."

"In a room."

"Yes."

"With no clothes."

Abellona’s eye twitched.

"Damon."

"Princess."

She slowly turned her head.

The look she gave him carried enough murderous intent to kill a lesser man.

Unfortunately for her, Damon was not a lesser man.

He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

"You know," he continued thoughtfully, "normally when people say next time, they’re implying there will be a next time."

Abellona grabbed another cushion.

Damon immediately raised both hands.

"Violence isn’t the answer."

The cushion struck him in the face anyway.

He caught it before it could fall.

Abellona crossed her arms and looked away with all the dignity she could still muster.

"Forget I said anything."

"Too late."

"Forget it."

"Impossible."

"Damon."

"Abellona."

"Stop smiling."

"I’m not smiling."

"You absolutely are."

Damon’s grin widened.

Abellona closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Somewhere between the kidnapping of a noble child, the political crisis threatening the Empire, and accidentally spending the night with the most troublesome man in existence, her life had become significantly more complicated.

The worst part?

A small corner of her mind suspected Damon wasn’t nearly as bothered by that fact as he should have been.

Meanwhile Damon sat comfortably inside the carriage, looking entirely satisfied with himself.

For a man currently hiding a kidnapped child, deceiving half the Empire, and narrowly avoiding a scandal that could have sparked a political catastrophe, he seemed to be having a remarkably good morning.

"Why do good people like me always suffer?"