My Scumbag System

Chapter 557: Professional vs. Personal

Natalia took my hand and led me through the dark hallway. Her room was three doors down from mine. The door opened silently because Natalia maintained everything in her life with obsessive care. The room smelled like her. Cold flowers and expensive shampoo and the ozone undertone of someone whose Aspect leaked frost into their sheets.

She closed the door behind us. The lock clicked.

Maki sat in the hallway, tails swishing. I heard a faint, disappointed mewl before Natalia’s room swallowed all outside sound.

The moonlight through Natalia’s window turned everything silver. She stood at the foot of her bed and let the towel fall. It puddled around her feet like a surrendered flag.

I’d seen Natalia naked dozens of times by now. It hadn’t gotten less devastating. Her body was athletic and soft in the right places, the product of years of training married to genetics that didn’t play fair. The hickeys from two nights ago had faded to faint shadows on her collarbone. The bruise from Reyna’s punch darkened her cheekbone in a way that made her look dangerous instead of injured.

She stood there and let me look. Not posing. Not performing. Just existing in her own skin with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she was worth and refused to negotiate.

"You’re staring."

"I’m always staring."

"You could do something about it."

I crossed the space between us. My towel hit the floor somewhere in transit. Her hands found my shoulders as my mouth found her neck, her jaw, the spot behind her ear that made her breath stutter. She tasted like bathwater and mint and the electric hum of our bond, which sang louder when skin touched skin.

My hands mapped the familiar geography of her waist, the curve of her hip, the small of her back where she was most sensitive. She arched into the contact. Her nails found my shoulders and dug in. Not gentle. Natalia didn’t know how to be gentle when we were alone. She fought for affection the same way she fought everything else. Full force, no retreat.

"Careful with the ribs."

"I’m always careful with your ribs."

"You literally punched me in the ribs six hours ago."

"That was professional. This is personal."

She shoved me onto her bed. I landed on the mattress, and she followed, climbing over me with the predatory grace of someone who’d spent two months learning exactly how to take what she wanted. Her thighs settled on either side of my hips. Her hands pressed flat against my chest. The Cryo-Lich Ring left a cold spot above my heart.

"I need you to understand something."

"I’m listening."

"Tomorrow, other women are going to watch you fight. Reyna is going to watch you. Millions of people are going to watch you. And when you win, because you will win, they’re all going to want a piece of you."

"Natalia."

"I’m not finished." Her fingers traced the line of my jaw. "Cel will look at you with those quiet eyes. Emi will cry happy tears and hug you. Skylar will pretend she doesn’t care while her heart rate tells me she absolutely cares. Akari will say something inappropriate that makes me want to freeze her tongue to the roof of her mouth."

"Probably accurate." ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

"And Reyna." Natalia’s expression hardened. "Reyna will look at you like you’re something she wants to own."

"Reyna wants a rival, not a boyfriend."

"Those aren’t always different things for women like her."

Natalia leaned down. Her hair fell around us like a curtain, the white streaks catching moonlight.

"I know what I signed up for. I recruited Emi myself. I accepted the System. I accepted the bonds. I kissed you on camera in front of the entire country. But I need to hear it."

"Hear what?"

"That I’m first. Not because the System says Rank Ten. Not because the Covenant makes it permanent. Because you choose it."

The room was quiet except for our breathing and the distant crash of waves against the island’s shore. Somewhere in the building, Juan snored. Somewhere else, Maki was probably terrorizing a houseplant. The world continued turning, indifferent to the two people in this room having a conversation that mattered more than any fight.

I sat up. Natalia adjusted, staying in my lap with her arms looped loosely around my neck. I cupped her face with both hands. Her skin was cool beneath my palms. The Ring pulsed against my wrist.

"You were first before the System existed. You were first when you were just the angry girl who hated me for breathing in your space. You were first when I carried you out of that Gate and realized I’d do it again every day for the rest of my life if you asked."

Her breath hitched.

"I don’t say this because a cosmic interface tells me to. I say it because you punched me in the ribs during a nationally televised event and I thought, yeah, that’s the one. That’s my disaster."

"You’re terrible at this."

"I know."

"Say it."

"You’re first. You’re always first. You’ll be first when I’m dead and whatever comes after figures out it has to deal with you too."

She kissed me. Not soft this time. This one had teeth. Her mouth claimed mine with the same ferocity she brought to everything, and the Nectar of Devotion flooded through the contact, amplifying what lived between us until the sensation bordered on overwhelming. Her fingers twisted into my hair. Her hips rolled against mine. The thin barrier of towels was long gone and there was nothing between us but want.

I pulled her closer. My hands slid from her face to her neck to her shoulders and then lower, tracing paths I knew by heart. She gasped into my mouth when my thumb found the dimple above her hip bone. Her back arched, pressing her chest against mine, and the cold of her Ring burned a brand into my skin that felt like a promise.

"Tomorrow," she breathed against my lips.

"Tomorrow."

"Win."

"For you?"

"For us."

She pushed me flat and settled over me, and the moonlight turned her into something from a myth. The girl who froze a cathedral to keep me alive. The queen who built an ice dragon from raw spite and willpower. The woman who chose to love a scumbag with a System and never once pretended he was anything less than what he was.

Natalia’s hand found mine in the dark. Our fingers laced together. The Cryo-Lich Ring pressed cold between our palms.

We fell into each other like gravity demanded it.

Later, much later, when Natalia slept against my chest with her breath warm on my collarbone, I stared at the ceiling and ran the numbers. Six events tomorrow. Four with my name on them. Three against Reyna. Nike’s quest demanding total victory. Seraphina watching from her tower. Julian nursing broken pride and a broken hand. Millions of viewers expecting a show.

Natalia’s hand twitched in her sleep, her fingers tightening on my wrist. Even unconscious, she held on.

I closed my eyes and let the warmth of her pull me under.

The last thing I heard was Nel’s voice, quieter than usual. Almost gentle.

Good luck tomorrow, Protagonist. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to.

Tomorrow, I’d show them all what happens when the Stray Dog stops playing nice.