Chapter 180: Timed Make-Out Sessions

Chapter 180: Chapter 180: Timed Make-Out Sessions

I looked at the screen, properly creeped out by whatever the system was planning.

"You’re not lying to me, right?"

[Never.]

’This is definitely lying to me.’

A noise outside the cell, boots scuffing, low voices, the metallic slide of something being moved, cut the thought short.

"Quickly. Pull it in."

The tail kept whipping against the back of my thigh like a happy puppy that had just discovered motion.

It flicked once, twice, completely ignoring the rising urgency in my voice.

"Fucking pull it in."

For a second nothing happened.

Then, without any clear command I could claim as my own, the violet length simply folded in on itself and slid deep into the base of my spine.

The sensation of its absence was almost cleaner than its presence: no weight, no phantom twitch.

It settled so completely that I could no longer feel it at all.

I forced my breathing even, smoothed my expression, and sat on the edge of the bed before anyone could open the observation slit.

The Golden ticket still floated unopened in the corner of my vision like a second, larger threat.

I refused to touch it.

The last thing I needed was a morphological surprise involving anything that required new clothing.

And so the two-day sentence began.

The people in Draven’s building were, inconveniently, not the monsters the collar and the feeding schedule had prepared me for.

The three male supports who had been lounging with their feet on the table when I arrived treated me with the flat professionalism of men who had seen every possible scandal and decided none of it was worth the energy.

"You kissed her, huh? Pretty bold."

"How many have you fucked?"

"You like older women?"

They rotated observation duty, checked the collar readings, and otherwise left me alone.

The women were different.

Whether it was Charm still leaking past the hardware or simple entertainment value, several of them made a point of stopping by the slit with water, dry commentary, or open teasing.

One of them- late twenties, sharp eyes, name tag reading Yuna- seemed to enjoy it more than the others.

"Still alive in there, pretty boy?"

"Unfortunately."

"Good. Starving suits you. Makes the cheekbones meaner."

She tapped the glass once with a knuckle.

"Try not to look so tragic when the boss comes around. He collects interesting faces."

"I’ll work on my resting grateful expression."

She laughed and left.

The next time she appeared, she brought an extra protein bar she was not supposed to give me and watched me eat it with the quiet satisfaction of someone breaking a minor rule for sport.

"You’re going to get in trouble for that," I said.

"Only if you tell. And you don’t look like the telling type."

She tilted her head.

"Sector 7, right? Everheart’s new toy. The feeds made you look taller."

"The feeds lie."

"Everything lies. Drink the water. You look like you’re thinking yourself thinner."

"You’re being nice."

"So that you won’t fight when I get you to bed."

I didn’t reply to that.

Giselle’s visits were less predictable and far less playful.

She would appear without warning, dismiss whoever was on duty with a single look, and sit on the wrong side of the reinforced door as if the cell were a laboratory bench.

"Don’t let him get comfortable," she told Yuna once, loud enough for me to hear.

Then, once we were alone, quieter:

"The fragment is still inside you. I can feel it when I’m close. Why can’t you use it?"

"Collar. And I told you, I didn’t store it cleanly."

"Then learn to store it cleanly."

"There isn’t going to be a next time."

She studied me for a long moment, red eyes unreadable, then produced a sealed meal tray from nowhere and set it in the delivery slot with more force than necessary.

"Consolation," she said.

"Not kindness. Don’t confuse the two."

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

"You already are."

She stood.

"Your energy is changing. Whatever that class is doing to you, it’s accelerating. I can taste it in the air when the collar cycles. Tell me what it is."

"Acolyte."

"Lie better."

She left before I could decide whether the conversation had been an interrogation or something closer to concern.

The night, just before midnight, the pattern changed.

Giselle would enter the cell itself.

The collar would click open under her authorisation.

My sudden return of sensation always hit like cold water after two days of nullification.

She never explained the timing.

Giselle simply stepped in, caught the front of my shirt, and kissed me.

The first minute was always empty: clinical, almost scientific, the same testing pressure she had used in the academy confinement room when she tried to reverse-engineer the drain.

Her mouth moved against mine with the focused attention of someone collecting data.

Then something shifted.

The contact deepened without either of us consciously deciding it should.

Her breath changed.

The Hunger, no longer fully muted, stirred and recognised the Empress-line density still sitting under her skin.

My hands, against every conscious decision, found her waist.

She always broke it first.

A flash of anger that looked directed at herself as much as at me.

One clean hit to the shoulder or chest, hard enough to sting, never hard enough to damage, and she would turn and leave without another word.

The collar would reseal the moment the door locked behind her.

I was left in the dark with the taste of her and a rising, useless anger.

Angry at the class for rewriting the contact until even she responded.

Angry at myself for the part that leaned into the second half of every kiss and wanted the third.

Angry that the fragment of her core still sitting inaccessible under my ribs seemed to pulse in time with the memory.

On the second night she lingered half a second longer before the hit.

"You’re doing something," she said, voice low, almost accusing.

"I’m not doing anything."

"Your mana is climbing even with the collar. That shouldn’t be possible."

"Maybe the answer lies in your kiss."

She stared at me for a moment longer, then left harder than the night before.

The protein bar she had brought sat untouched in the delivery slot until morning.

By the morning of the final day, the pattern had become a private weather system neither of us acknowledged in daylight