Novel Full Chapter 421: Suspects [I]
Chapter 421: Suspects [I]
The evening was peaceful. My mind was anything but.
Michael, Juliana, and I were all under a cabana by the pool.
My Shadow was lounging beside me on a canopy bed with raised back cushions.
Dressed in oversized silky pajamas and with a towel draped around her head, she looked as if she had just come out of the shower.
If you saw her, you wouldn’t be able to guess she was covered in gore and slime just a few hours ago.
Like a cat, she was curled on her side, close enough for me to spot every single enticing drop of fresh water dripping from the stray wet locks that had escaped her towel, tracing seductively slow lines down her neck.
She was holding one of the pillows tightly to her chest, her chin buried in its plush corner, looking thoroughly content after cleaning herself off.
I took a breath to gather courage. "Hey, Juli?"
"Hmm?" she hummed into the pillow, her breathtaking blue eyes shooting up to me.
"Can you scoot over a little on that side and stop invading my personal space?" I said, trying to sound slightly annoyed.
She raised both her eyebrows, quickly propping herself up on her elbows.
Since she had left a few top buttons undone, the sudden shift in posture offered me a tempting, entirely distracting glimpse of the delicate curve of her collarbone.
I was left internally swearing at my own biology.
Then, again like a cat, she dropped her face toward her shoulder and sniffed herself. "Do I still smell?"
Yeah, she did. She smelled amazing.
I tried not to focus on that. "No, you don’t. I didn’t mean—"
"Then what is it?"
"It’s just... you’re..."
"Mhm?"
"You’re way too close. The bed is big. Slide over there."
She tilted her head, acting overtly innocent.
Her usually sharp siren eyes turned soft and round and wide, looking at me with pleading vulnerability, like my words were hurting her. "What’s the problem?"
Her voice was so small and fragile it made me want to slap myself — both for trying to push her away and to knock some much-needed sense back into my delirious brain.
"The problem is that I have no room for my—"
Before I could finish, Juliana completely closed the distance, leaving me startled like a deer in headlights.
She shifted off her elbows and let her weight fall sideways, planting her head right onto my lap.
The plush pillow she was clutching became a buffer between her chest and my knees, but everything else about her presence was suddenly, overwhelmingly... there.
The faint scent of her luxury body wash and damp hair washed me immediately, a spicy yet sweet aroma thick enough to make my brain short-circuit for the second time that day.
What kind of cruel manipulation was this?!
"There," she murmured, her voice vibrating against my thigh as she adjusted her chin on the pillow. Her stunning blue eyes looked straight up at me, framed by long, damp lashes. "Problem solved. Now you have the rest of the bed to yourself."
I was still frozen, my hands hovering awkwardly in the air as I’d just been handed a live grenade. "Juli. T-This is the exact opposite of what ’slide over’ means."
"I am not moving again," she stated flatly, like my consent was optional. "My legs are sore from sprinting all day. Now be a good Young Master and let me rest on you."
I... didn’t even know how to react to that. She said it so matter-of-factly that I was almost compelled to comply.
Before I could express my discomfort — because I was totally uncomfortable! Trust me! — Michael interrupted.
From the nearby lounge chair, he let out an excessively loud exhausted groan that was more or less directed at Juliana. "Can you stop flirting with him for two seconds and listen to what I’m saying?!"
He had long since changed out of his tactical gear and was now wearing a sleeveless hooded vest with a pair of faded gray shorts, but he still looked like a man who had been run over by a herd of buffalo.
Juliana tore her gaze away from mine and rolled her eyes. It was the fastest I had ever seen anyone drop their mask. Her face hardened into the most irritating scowl she could manage before she turned over in my lap to face the black-haired boy.
"I am listening!" she snapped, conveniently ignoring the part about flirting with me and raising her voice into that sharp, imperious tone she reserved for the rare times she lost her temper.
No, seriously.
Juliana Vox Blade was someone who relished control — control over others, control over her environment, control over herself.
I don’t think there has ever been anyone aside from me who managed to draw genuine emotions out of her. I mean it in a good way. Mostly.
The only exception was Michael, and this time I do not mean it in a good way.
On god, that guy possessed the uncanny ability to press every single one of her hidden buttons without even trying.
If I remember correctly, there had only been a handful of times in her life when my Shadow had ever lost her composure, and in almost every single one of those instances, it was because Michael had somehow managed to vex her.
"If you were listening, you would have listened when I was explaining why we failed!" Michael said, massaging his temples as if trying to stave off a migraine. "I specifically told you to cover my left, and the very next second, what do I see?"
"What do you see?" Juliana mimicked like a child making fun of someone to deflect from the topic. "You see me successfully covering your back and retreating from an incoming barrage of beasts! Because unlike you, I can multitask."
"Can multitask, my ass! You didn’t cover my back, you used me as a meat shield!" Michael snapped back, throwing his hands in the air. "I had more than a dozen of those badger-like things trying to chew through my tactical vest while you were busy checking if the container was waterproof! Do you have any idea how traumatizing that was?!"
"The container needed to be waterproof. It had my bedsheets," Juliana argued, her head shifting slightly on my lap and sending unwanted shivers up my spine. "If the slime had seeped through, the fibers would have been permanently damaged. Your vest can be replaced. My peace of mind cannot."
"My life, Julia! My life was on the line!"
"And you survived. You’ve survived worse. Stop exaggerating."
"That wasn’t even your container, apparently!" Michael turned to me, hoping for support. "Can you believe this, Sam?!"
I palmed my face and hoped he’d take the hint to leave me out of this.
They were arguing about whose fault it was that their raid had flopped, blind to (or simply not wanting to acknowledge) the fact that they had bitten off more than they could chew.
Just defeating the Spirit Beasts in the lower wards was one thing. That would still be tough, but I was certain they could do it if they tried their best and went all out.
But safely exploring the dungeons, finding and retrieving their luggage, dragging it all back, and most importantly, working together without murdering each other first...
That was a statistical improbability.
So I kept my hand firmly clamped over my face.
If I didn’t look at them, maybe they would magically dissolve into the background noise.
Besides, I was in no state of mind to provide any sort of helpful input to their tactical analysis.
I was fighting a war on two fronts, and I was losing both.
On my lap, every time Juliana shifted or threw a sassy retort at Michael, the warmth of her breath would seep straight through my sweatpants and into my thighs, injecting my nervous system with a jolt of electricity.
It didn’t help that I could even feel the rhythm of her breasts rising and falling against my knees, and I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how soft they felt.
Honestly, that sensation was at least pleasant. So I was somewhat thankful.
Because on the other hand, my mind was still reeling back to that damp, suffocating prison cell with Selene Valkyrn.