Chapter 71: Jealous

His face and his physique formed an extreme contrast.

That pure, fair, almost innocent handsome face sat above a chest that had been trained large, pale, and solid.

There were only four words to describe it: baby face, massive chest.

Bunny coughed twice. After finishing her appreciation of the scenery, she got to the point. "Orion, is my crossbow ready?"

He stood rooted in place without speaking, as though he was simply looking at her.

She was wearing a little-bear nightgown, her hair tied into two small pigtails, and a cute headband on top.

It was a gift from Xander.

She looked so adorable—just like a little doll that made a person want to thoroughly mess her up.

The deep, obscure look in his eyes made Bunny feel that something was wrong.

This Orion was not right.

Sure enough, in the next second the man curved the corner of his mouth slightly. His tone was both teasing and faintly aggrieved. "Bunny, why do you always mix me up with my brother?"

The hot-water pipe in Illai’s room had broken and the robots were still repairing it, so he had come to Orion’s room to shower.

Her expression changed. "Sorry."

This black mamba was far more dangerous than his king-cobra older brother. Not only did he keep filthy remarks hanging on his lips every day, he was also thoroughly underhanded.

She prepared to slip away at once. Just as her hand touched the doorknob, another large, bony, pale hand covered it from above.

The next second the door clicked shut with a soft clack.

The man’s other arm braced against the wall above her head. Warm, ticklish breath brushed the back of her ear.

"Little Bunny... why are you running?"

Pinned against the door, the other party’s scorching body heat continuously transmitted through the thin fabric of her clothes.

The skin on the nape of her neck tightened. "I came looking for your brother."

Illai’s gaze darkened.

Always looking for big brother, always looking for big brother—why did she never come looking for him? The two of them looked exactly the same.

"Whatever my brother can do, I can do as well."

The fir-scented sentinel pheromones grew denser, beginning to invade her skin.

"I have to go."

She tugged at the door, wanting to leave, but Illai simply locked it.

"Illai, what are you doing?!"

A strong arm slid around her waist. He lifted her face-to-face with her legs spread and carried her purposefully toward the bed.

Orion’s sheets were clean and neat, carrying a faint, fresh scent of soap.

He laid her down on the bed and leaned his upper body over her. White strands of hair fell across his brow ridge and swayed lightly. He suddenly decided that doing this on his brother’s bed was not bad at all.

"You are always so careless. You need a little punishment."

She looked at Illai’s vertical snake pupils—the clear sign of a snake that was excited and ready to hunt.

"Punishment?"

He pressed a light kiss to the corner of her forehead. The soft, almost spoiled tone of his voice could not hide the covetous intent underneath.

"A punishment that will make sure Guide Bunny never mixes me up with my brother again."

Illai leaned in close, softly inhaling the sweet scent emanating from the dip of her neck.

Prior to Bunny’s arrival in the 616, Illai—much like his brother, Orion—had never encountered a woman in person. Their grasp of the opposite sex was strictly theoretical, pieced together entirely from network files and digital literature. He had never caught the scent of a Guide’s pheromones, nor felt the touch of a woman’s skin.

Impelled by the restless hormones of youth, an overwhelming urge to explore a female body was bound to take hold—a primal drive encoded directly into his genetics.

However, Illai was far less dense than his older brother. Much like Brandon, he had thoroughly mastered all the theoretical knowledge beforehand, even if he had never been given a wife to put those lessons into practice.

She smells incredible...

Her fragrance surpassed every fine perfume he had ever encountered.

Illai’s gaze grew hazy, heavy with dark fascination. Pinning down Bunny’s squirming wrists, he trapped her securely beneath him. The cotton nightgown crumpled under his touch, blooming like scattered petals between his pale, cool fingers. The veins on the back of his hands stood out sharply; a slight flex of his strength would render her thin garment into shreds.

"Don’t move..."

He immersed himself in her warmth and softness, absorbing every sensation through touch and scent. Snakes are creatures that naturally seek out heat, habitually coiling to sleep wherever their owner’s scent lingers strongest.

At such intimate proximity, Bunny couldn’t help but notice the sudden, distinct physiological transformation in his body—a unique, unmistakable trait of his serpentine nature. Though the situation called for absolute focus, a wicked curiosity flashed through her mind: Could he really be built the exact same way there, too?

"Illai, let go of me!"

With such soft beauty in his arms, only a fool would let go. Illai hooked a hand behind her knee, bending her leg to rest over his solid, muscular thigh.

"Bunny, do you know what made me most jealous?"

The pad of his thumb brushed over the corner of her eye, the searing heat of his skin turning the surrounding flush a delicate pink.

"It was the very first time you gave my brother a deep soothing session."

"I could sense every single detail, and yet..."

Illai bit down lightly on her earlobe in playful punishment, his voice raspy and laced with dark resentment:

"...Yet I wasn’t the one you were cherishing."

He had been nothing more than a ghost lurking in the shadows, bitterly watching and sharing in his brother’s bliss—a dynamic that was rapidly warping his mind.

Why? Why couldn’t it have been him?

The dark, sinister side of the young Black Mamba was beginning to rear its head.

"My brother and I share the exact same face. He is me, and I am him. We’re inseparable. So why? Why can’t you care about me the way you care about him?"

All he wanted was an equal share of her attention, an equal measure of her affection. He wasn’t being greedy at all.