Chapter 394: Chapter-394
A slow, devastating smirk curved Samuel’s lips. Completely defying her explicit command not to touch, his large, calloused hand shot out and wrapped firmly around her ankle. He slid her silk-clad leg upward, pressing her heel flush against the hard, muscular plane of his bare chest.
"My wife..." he murmured, his deep voice vibrating against her shoe before he corrected himself, the wicked glint in his eyes amplifying. "Oh, I mean... *my lady*. What exactly did this lowly guard do to make you so incredibly angry?"
Heena’s expression darkened instantly. The air in the room grew heavy, saturated with a suffocating, dominant aura. With a sharp, forceful shove of her leg, she pushed him back.
Samuel let out a soft grunt, his broad shoulders trembling slightly. But it wasn’t out of fear. Looking down at her husband, Heena could see a strange, intense eagerness burning in his dark eyes. Instead of being intimidated by her anger, the brilliant scholar looked like he was thoroughly, shamelessly enjoying the threat of what was coming to him.
She didn’t give him a moment to recover. Heena leaned forward, her fingers threading violently into his messy, dark hair. She pulled his head back with a sharp tug, forcing his neck to bow and his gaze to meet hers halfway.
"A mere guard," Heena whispered, her voice a lethal, silken threat that sent a visible shiver down his spine, "dares to talk back to the Lady of the Marquis house? Have you completely forgotten your place?"
Right at that absolute peak of suffocating, electric tension—a familiar holographic shimmer popped into existence right beside her shoulder.
The System, in his glowing little lion form, had materialized to deliver an urgent mission update. The digital feline paused, his glowing eyes taking in the scene: his Host aggressively holding her husband by the hair, while said husband looked completely enraptured by the abuse.
The little lion literally rolled his digital eyes.
*[Host,]* the System’s robotic voice echoed flatly in her mind, completely ruining the mood. *[Can you ever focus on your actual world-saving work without completely losing your mind here and there?]*
*’Shut up!’* Heena snapped viciously through their internal mental link, though her physical face remained a mask of cold aristocratic fury. *’Do you have any idea how exhausting it was for me to play a battered servant girl and handle all that provincial nonsense for years? Now I finally have the superior status. I am the Marquis’s golden daughter, and I am going to properly torture him for a bit.’*
The little lion let out a heavy, incredibly exasperated simulated sigh. *[Host, please, at least do not lie to yourself. Even when you were a supposedly poor servant, he was always right there catering to your every whim. Weren’t you always the one on top anyway?]*
*’Are you completely crazy or what?!’* Heena roared in her mind, her internal voice vibrating with genuine, petty indignation. *’Do you have any idea how ridiculously expensive decent contraceptives are in a backwards medieval-tier world?! Do you know how much coin that cost me?!’*
She glared down at Samuel, her grip on his hair tightening slightly as she continued her mental rant to the System.
*’And besides, I have a right to be angry! Because of this brute’s insatiable stamina and ridiculous postures, my waist is always the one hurting the next morning! Meanwhile, he wakes up looking entirely refreshed and radiant like a damn morning dewdrop! Let me just enjoy putting him in his place and having the absolute upper hand for a few seconds. After this, I still have to go back to dealing with my murderous mother and those Fiances of mine!’*
The little holographic lion stared at the scene unfolding before him, his digital tail flicking back and forth in absolute, profound judgment.
*[You know what?]* the System’s robotic voice chimed in her mind, flat and entirely done with their domestic dynamic. *[I am going out. Don’t call me unless the world is literally collapsing.]*
With a swift, pixelated motion, a pair of tiny, completely opaque black sunglasses materialized over the little lion’s eyes. He turned around, gave one last dismissive flick of his glowing tail, and vanished into thin air, dropping back into the hidden depths of the data stream. He didn’t just log out; he practically slammed the digital door behind him.
The room fell into a heavy, charged silence, save for the ragged sound of Samuel’s breathing.
Heena slowly turned her focus entirely back to the man kneeling at her feet. The cold, aristocratic mask she wore for the rest of the world melted away, replaced by a smile that was so breathtakingly wicked, so thoroughly dark and predatory, that it made Samuel’s heart skip a violent beat in his chest.
She looked down at him, her eyes tracing the line of his exposed throat, the broad span of his shoulders, and the faint, arrogant smirk that was still trying to cling to his lips.
"My lady?" Heena echoed his earlier tease, her voice dropping into a silken, dangerous whisper. She leaned down just a fraction more, her glossed lips hovering inches from his ear. "Let us see how well this lowly guard can serve his lady, then."
For the first time since he had seamlessly infiltrated this deadly Marquisate, Samuel did not know exactly what to expect. As that terrifyingly beautiful smile graced his wife’s face, a sudden, unfamiliar spike of genuine fear—mingled seamlessly with an overwhelming, intoxicating surge of anticipation—shot straight down his spine.
He swallowed hard.
Half an hour later, the sun had fully crested over the towering spires of the capital, bathing the Marquisate’s sprawling eastern gardens in brilliant, golden light.
It was a setting designed entirely to project wealth, leisure, and untouchable aristocratic power. Lush, meticulously manicured hedges formed a vibrant labyrinth of emerald green, leading into a grand, open-air pavilion crafted from polished white marble. The air was thick with the intoxicating fragrance of blooming jasmine and rare, imported blue roses that climbed the marble pillars. Delicate crystal wind chimes hung from the carved wooden rafters, singing softly in the gentle morning breeze.
Sitting at the center of the pavilion around a masterfully carved jade table was Heena.
She looked immaculate. Her dark hair was swept up into a complex, elegant chignon, secured with heavy pearl and silver pins that caught the sunlight with every slight movement of her head. She wore a gown of deep, midnight-blue silk, embroidered with subtle silver threads that depicted flying cranes—a symbol of longevity and rebirth.
Surrounding her were three high-ranking noblewomen who had arrived entirely too early for the afternoon social calls. They were the capital’s most notorious socialites, women whose smiles were as sweet as honey and whose tongues were as sharp as poisoned daggers. They had rushed to the Marquis estate under the guise of "welcoming the lost heiress," but in reality, they were a scouting party, desperate to find cracks in the armor of the girl who had miraculously returned from the dead.
"We were simply heartbroken, Lady Seera," Countess Vane murmured, bringing a delicate, gold-rimmed porcelain teacup to her painted lips. Her eyes, shrewd and calculating, swept over Heena’s flawless posture.
