Chapter 82: Pretty thrilling

Those memories belonged exclusively to Bunny.

They say a lover’s eyes are the eighth ocean—and right now, he was standing at the very center of it.

Rain explored this new reality with equal parts curiosity and greed, like a newborn baby straining to crawl beyond the confines of its crib. Wonder, shock, confusion, thrill, and heartbeat-skipping awe—a kaleidoscope of intense emotions flickered across his sharp, deeply defined features.

He lowered his gaze, finally seeing the true shade of Bunny’s lips for the first time in his life.

It was a breathtaking cherry red—a shade far more exquisite than anything he had envisioned through countless hopeless attempts.

For twenty-five years, a man who had never known the hues of the world had grown numbly accustomed to the dull void of black, white, and gray. He was like dried grass in a pitch-black vault, where lifeless roots had long overgrown the gravestones, yet still desperately craved the arrival of next spring.

The very first splash of color in Rain’s life had been brought by Bunny.

It was now, and it would remain so forever.

Seeing that Rain’s emotions had finally settled, Bunny pushed herself up from the floor and offered a quiet, apologetic note: "I’m sorry... I really didn’t mean to pry into your secrets."

Rain’s icy caution toward outsiders—and his deep revulsion toward Guides entering his mental portrait—were all rooted in that hidden trauma. He had been betrayed and left for dead by someone he trusted with his life.

That was why he had warned her earlier, "Never leave your back exposed to anyone."

Not even to teammates who shared life and death with you every single day.

With the training session concluded, Bunny turned to leave, wanting to give Rain some space to calm down on his own.

She certainly didn’t expect Rain to charge forward like an overgrown bear, tackling her straight into a desperate, tight embrace.

He locked his arms firmly around her waist, burying his face deep against her stomach, holding her with almost crushing intensity.

"I’m sorry..."

He had misunderstood her completely—and frightened her out of her mind.

Despite his towering, powerful build, he was clinging to her arms like a creature desperate for a sliver of safety.

"I was wrong, Bunny..."

His voice was rasping and low, laced with a delicate, trembling strain.

Slowly, his broad fingers slid down her hands, gently parting her knuckles one by one before intertwining his fingers with hers, locking their hands in a firm, protective grip.

It was the very first time in his life he had ever held hands with a woman. Her fingers felt soft and smooth like warm white jade. Rain stroked her hand with mesmerized, reverent care.

Like Orion and the others, he was an accelerated product grown in an incubation pod, discarded onto this territory at the age of sixteen. People starved of affection all shared a single universal trait—a deep, aching thirst to be loved.

Seeing her face still stained like a tear-streaked kitten’s, Rain pulled out a clean handkerchief and tenderly wiped away her tears and nose, line by line. Once she was cleaned up, he held her close, softly soothing her in his arms.

Suddenly, Rain pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.

From her lower angle, his sharp brow bones and deep-set eye sockets stood out with striking clarity. The intense emotions churning within those gorgeous, heterochromatic eyes were dark and overwhelming.

Rain gently cupped her face, his gaze dropping down to those crimson lips he had lusted after for so long.

He angled his head, slowly leaning in close to capture her mouth. He wanted to kiss her. Yet in her peripheral vision, Bunny glanced past Rain’s shoulder—and her eyes instantly widened in sheer terror.

Standing silently at the doorway was Liam.

He was watching them in total silence as they clung tightly to one another in an intimate embrace. Worse yet, Bunny’s eyes were still red and swollen, making her look precisely like a victim who had just been bullied.

With his hands casually shoved into his trousers pockets, Liam was staring at Rain as if he were looking at a dead man.

Just as Rain’s lips were about to touch hers—

BAM!

The next second, the golden-haired Sentinel was lifted into the air by a surge of terrifying psychic force and hurled across the room, crashing face-first onto the floor like a felled tree.

A dark, chilling voice echoed through the air:

"Seducing someone else’s woman... feels pretty thrilling, doesn’t it?"

Rain was slammed so hard that his entire skeletal frame felt on the verge of splintering, simply because Liam hadn’t held back his strength in the slightest.

Even among 3S-rank Sentinels, a vast gulf in power existed. Liam was a Dark Sentinel, and the additive effect of his decay attribute allowed him to utterly dominate any regular Sentinel of the same tier.

Of course, the steep price he paid for such power was that his demand for mental soothing was double that of normal Sentinels. That was precisely why, when Bunny first arrived at 616, Liam had been locked away in solitary confinement due to his sky-high corruption levels triggering a wild psychic riot in his mental sea.

Bunny loathed nothing more than people throwing blows at the drop of a hat. "Liam!"

This guy is always so short-tempered—he seriously needs to fix that awful attitude of his.

As Rain struggled to push himself up from the floor, Bunny rushed over to support him. "Are you alright?"

Rain clutched his chest, offering her a faint, helpless smile. His tone was coated in pure green-tea subtle manipulation:

"I’m fine... Thank you for caring, Bunny."

Liam’s blood boiled with jealousy and rage.

Yanking his hands from his trouser pockets, he closed the distance in a flash, snatching Bunny away from Rain’s side by force.

His face was contorted in an expression foul enough to stink out a sewer.

"Liam, why on earth did you hit Rain?!"

Facing Bunny’s angry interrogation, Liam let out a cold, venomous sneer. "If I hadn’t hit him, you two would’ve been swapping spit by now!"

How could his woman kiss someone else?!

Bunny thrashed violently in his grip, trying to break free. "You misunderstood!"

Yet Liam had always believed only in what his own eyes witnessed. That blonde bastard was blatantly seducing Bunny—seducing a mated woman, completely devoid of any sense of shame!

Liam told Bunny to wait outside the door for him first, claiming he still had a few words to clear up with Rain alone.

He had originally come to pick Bunny up after her lesson. He had been wondering why his woman hadn’t come out long after class was supposed to end—turns out some stray dog was harboring indecent intentions.

"If you ever lay another finger on my woman again, don’t blame me for showing no mercy."

Rain, however, was several years older than the hot-headed, impulsive Liam. He didn’t give a damn about Liam’s threat.