Chapter 798: Princess’s Sacrifice
Melissa’s penthouse wore wealth the same way Melissa herself wore composure: deliberately, beautifully and with enough restraint that people mistook restraint for softness right before realizing those were not the same thing at all.
Unlike Phei’s suite, there were no cathedral ceilings stretching upward with the desperate energy of architecture trying to negotiate itself entry into heaven or polished obsidian floors reflecting their occupants from every angle like some expensive exercise in narcissism.
His penthouse existed because Chaos loved her grandson with the terrifying enthusiasm of a woman who had watched empires rise, watched them fall and concluded that none of them had been ambitious enough when it came to spoiling family.
Melissa’s home was different.
Not lesser.
Never lesser.
She was simply quieter.
Earth tones layered naturally across deep navy walls while warm recessed lighting softened corners instead of dominating them, creating spaces that invited people inward rather than reminding them how expensive breathing nearby probably was.
Bookshelves stretched along entire walls carrying novels whose cracked spines and folded pages proved something increasingly rare among wealthy people: the books had actually been touched, reread and loved rather than color-coordinated by consultants earning six figures to fake personality.
Fresh white orchids rested along the entry console where moonlight occasionally touched them through the glass walls, not because a designer insisted orchids were fashionable this season but because Melissa liked the way pale petals looked beneath morning sun.
There was a reading nook tucked near the windows overlooking Hell’s Paradise itself, complete with a cashmere throw draped carelessly across the chair in that specific way only people who genuinely used spaces managed accidentally.
Even the kitchen island carried a bowl of actual fruit not decorative nonsense polished hourly by staff.
Civilization had survived wealth after all.
The entire penthouse carried the quiet beauty of a woman who had accepted something long ago without bitterness: she was not the favorite.
And Melissa genuinely preferred it that way.
Because Melissa Ryujin Tiamat had spent enough years around the family matriarch to understand exactly what happened when her mother decided somebody deserved everything and she didn’t want any of it.
The answer involved customized multi-floor penthouses, private intercontinental jets because apparently commercial aviation offended family dignity, security details large enough to overthrow governments and the calm systematic destruction of every inconvenience unfortunate enough to exist near the beloved.
Chaos did not spoil people; Chaos altered reality around them.
A trillionaire’s love expressed through architecture, logistics and through the stubborn belief that discomfort itself was simply another problem money had not bullied hard enough yet.
So let her mother spoil Phei wen the gloves came off and it was time her grandson enjoyed the privileges of his family he’d been denied of the past years.
Melissa had closed her eyes and let mother wealthy enough to casually distort economies bury her grandson beneath luxury so excessive it practically developed weather systems because honestly, after everything the boy survived, every marble tile, every private elevator and every absurd expense had already earned itself justification.
Still, all of that wealth quietly lost importance the moment the penthouse doors closed behind him.
Because she was already there... and to Phei, he’d rather have her for eternity than the wealth of Chaos, she was everything to him.
Melissa crashed into him instead of walking toward him with all the full force of Melissa Ryujin Tiamat; she collided with his chest hard enough that Phei wrapped his arms around her almost instinctively before his mind fully caught up with reality.
Her arms locked around his torso immediately afterward, her face disappearing beneath his collarbone while the familiar scent of her surrounded him completely.
’Melissa.’
Her scent simply only belonged to her and a simple invasion of it in him made everything feel perfectly fine.
Melissa stayed there, pressed fully against him; holding him tightly enough that understanding arrived immediately while her whole being melted in him... her entire body encompassed in his like a cocoon that would burn before it touched her.
Something happened.
Phei’s arms tightened naturally around her smaller frame while his chin lowered gently onto the crown of her head. His one hand moved upward into her hair without conscious thought, his fingers slipping through that long dark silk that he once thought had been tormenting his teenage years and now mostly existed as something he liked touching whenever she seemed tired, overwhelmed or quietly carrying too much or when himself wanted to either escape reality or ground himself to it.
His fingers moved slowly.
Not hurried.
Not questioning.
Simply there.
Melissa trembled slightly.
But it was not anything dramatic enough that strangers would notice and certainly not enough that Melissa herself would admit it, but Phei noticed immediately because loving somebody for long enough eventually taught you strange things.
It taught you how their breathing changed when upset.
How silence sounded different depending on what hurt or when the tiny tremors moving through their shoulders could reveal more than words.
Her fingers twisted tightly into the fabric behind his back; too tightly.
Melissa missed him often. That much had never been hidden; her affection always carried the low constant ache of somebody who spent years loving quietly before life finally stopped punishing honesty.
But this felt different.
Melissa hugged him often.
Melissa leaned against him and she always absolutely monopolized his attention whenever possible.
Melissa Ryujin Tiamat did not shake against him like this.
Not with her entire body or with enough desperation that it almost felt like she feared loosening her grip would let something terrible return.
Which meant something had breached the walls.
And she was not going to tell him what.
He knew that instinctively.
Phei had spent too long enough learning the architecture of his woman’s heart to recognize the pattern now.
He knew where her reinforced walls stood and which doors remained permanently locked. He knew Melissa carried pain the way dragons carried treasure: privately, protectively and with enough stubbornness to make intervention feel like warfare.
Honestly, the Melissa hoarded grief with the discipline of long-term investments.
The only way to get answers from Melissa was pressure.
Push harder and crack composure; demanding truth she had not prepared herself to surrender.
Phei loved her too much for that.
So, he chose patience.
The alternative.
The quieter thing.
Be another wall instead of breaking more.
Besides, where exactly were either of them going?
He wasn’t leaving, neither was she.
Eternity stretched in reach ahead of them like an ocean too vast for maps and too long for fear to measure properly, so for now all he offered was warmth: his arms around her shoulders, slow fingers moving through dark hair, his heartbeat beneath her ear and the unspoken promise that whatever wounded her tonight would have to go through him first when it returned.
