[BL] Transmigrated as the Villain CEO's Mermaid Secretary

Chapter 443: Groans

Up close, Neville’s breathing made the tiny, soft sound. The fine hair at his temple was slightly damp.

His sweat had a dark hue to it. Did he dye his hair? Since when?

Ethan reached out and wiped Neville’s sweat away.

Is it because he hadn’t had his daily dose of electrolytes again?

He pursed his lips and restrained himself from getting too angry.

I couldn’t believe that Grayson hadn’t noticed Neville’s condition. Did he not know that Neville always needed some kind of electrolyte to maintain his condition?

Ethan looked at Neville’s shirt that had loosened and revealed his tantalizing collarbones.

He unconsciously licked his lower lip and thought, He really didn’t deserve Neville. How could Neville choose Grayson of all people?

Ethan tried not to look at Neville’s collarbone, only to stare at Neville’s throat. A sweat dripped slowly down Neville’s Adam’s apple.

His scentless secondary gland began to pulse painfully. Begging him to take a bite and take advantage of Neville.

Thump thump thump

He could hear his heart pounding hard as he leaned in closer to Neville’s neck. His warm breath was inches away from Neville’s throat when he wavered again.

He already knew that Neville hated him for reasonable reasons. But he still didn’t want to be hated by Neville on things like this.

Ethan closed his eyes tightly before sighing resignedly. Then he slid the circlet under Neville’s hairline.

He carefully set it up around the curve of his skull and pressed the activation node behind the right ear.

The circlet turned on against his fingertip with a tiny hum.

Click.

Confirmation.

Ethan waited three seconds for a reaction, but Neville still didn’t move. His breathing was still the same. His pheromones didn’t rise or sharpen.

It worked.

He thought as a wave of relief broke over him so hard his knees nearly buckled. He braced one hand on the lip of the pod and breathed through it.

It worked. It worked. He didn’t wake up.

Ethan almost laughed out loud, but he managed to stop it by covering his mouth with his hands.

He didn’t wake up, and now he can’t.

His smile widened, showing his teeth, but his eyes became even more unhinged.

For a while, he maintained that position, but when he came back to his senses, Ethan began to lower the lid of Neville’s pod.

In his head, he was already thinking of the next steps. He needed to send a signal to Keres and initiate the plan to retreat since they already got what they needed.

Next, he needed to cut off the power to turn off the barrier and distract the people around. So, they wouldn’t have the mind to think that Neville was even missing.

Finally, he needed to take Neville’s body into the nearby hover car that was waiting in the forest.

Salia and Keres could survive on their own when a lot of Lowborns become sacrifices for them to use. After all, he already left them a powder to utilize; they shouldn’t hope for more help from me from this time forward.

Just as he was finalizing his plans, Ethan heard a low groaning sound.

He froze and thought it was just his imagination or maybe Neville’s unconscious reaction while playing the game. But then he heard it again, not from Neville but from someone nearby.

"Hh—hng—"

Ethan turned and saw Lilianna thrashing inside her pod while asleep. She couldn’t do wide movements because she was inside the virtual pod, but still, she kept moving uncomfortably.

It was like Lilianna was fighting her right hand with her left hand, a kind of situation. Her face was contorting with a painful expression. A thin line of sweat was tracking down from her hairline along the side of her face.

Ethan had only ever seen those in a lab footage of late-stage neural conflict subjects.

A second groan tore out of Lilianna, more desperate than before.

"Oh, no," Ethan uttered, grimacing at his own blunder.

How could he have forgotten?

Keres had already warned him about this.

That Salia would sooner or later lose her patience with this Lilianna.

Keres had even told Ethan about administering liquid to calm Salia down. But Ethan completely forgot about it the moment he saw Neville.

Now he had to fix Lilianna before her groaning started attracting people around. Because there was no way that Salia would stop halfway into invading Lilianna’s consciousness just like that.

If he at least administered a little bit of the liquid, Ethan could send a message to Salia that it wasn’t time yet for her to come out.

Then Ethan suddenly heard the second virtual pod where Lilianna was chime in a soft, polite notification: Player experiencing irregular neural activity, please press the emergency log out button.

Ah, shit! If Lilianna woke up now, the match would stop halfway. Lilianna wouldn’t wake up immediately, but she would leave Neville inside the game.

With that, Neville would immediately suspect that something was wrong because he was the only one who would be in the game and unable to log out no matter what he do.

And if someone in the living room noticed that, everyone in there would be alerted that something was wrong. Soon, they would rush over the mecha simulation room, and all his plans to quietly take Neville away would be all for nothing.

Ethan stared at Lilianna’s contorted face for one long, awful moment. Then, he carefully closed the lid to Neville’s pod.

"I’ll be back," he murmured. "Just—give me a minute."

Ethan turned and crossed to Lilianna’s pod. The release pad accepted access biometrics, and Lilianna’s lid breathed open.

The smell that rolled out was different—alpha pheromones. A disgusting smell for someone of the same gender.

Lilianna groaned again, shorter this time, more like a sob. Her eyes were moving rapidly under her lids. A thin trickle of blood had started at her left nostril.

Salia was really tearing this woman from the inside out.

"I know," Ethan muttered, filled with annoyance and indifference. "I know, I know. Wait a second."