Lewd System: Every Scream and Moan is EXP Chapter 404: Terms Set by Her

"When I first saw you at that academy," Athanor said, "you were furious. You called me a creep in front of half a courtyard. And something inside my chest reacted to it."

He looked at his own hands. "You need to understand what that meant. I hadn’t felt anything in there for so long that I’d stopped believing there was anything in there to feel. And then a mortal girl insulted me, and I discovered I owned a heart, purely because it started hurting."

"And it wasn’t only that day. Every time you stayed near me, the thing forgot it was forbidden to behave that way. Which made everything considerably more complicated."

His eyes moved over her then, from the ruined pins in her hair down to the one boot she still hadn’t bothered to take off.

"And tonight it crossed every boundary I had left. The moment it saw you step out of that carriage."

He shook his head slowly. "I don’t have the words to describe you. I was never taught them, and I’ve never been in a situation that required them. So let me simply show you the evidence instead."

He took her hand and pressed it flat against his chest.

It was hammering. Not the polite flutter of a nervous man, but the full, undignified drum of an organ that had spent centuries doing nothing at all and was now making up for it with interest, right there under her palm.

Lysia didn’t say anything. Her fingers curled slightly against his shirt, and she stared at her own hand like it had betrayed her by proving him right.

Athanor let the silence sit for a moment. Then, quietly, "My turn to questio now."

"...Fine."

"Will you forget me? Once the contract is over." He wasn’t looking at her now. "I know I’m a terrible person. I know you resent me for enslaving you. But still, I—"

"Oh, come on." Lysia flapped her free hand at him. "Don’t go making it sound like I’m living in some hell down here. Life here is I do whatever I want, I live out every fantasy I’ve ever had, all thanks to the backing of a great deal of money and one particular person."

She gestured around the room. "Look at this place. I eat like a queen. I train under an actual celestial and get stronger every single day with art forms nobody in my world has even heard of. I terrorize your entire duchy for sport. And I bleed a bottomless treasury that isn’t mine with absolutely zero consequences."

"So no. I could never hate my life here." She shrugged. "But the second part is completely true. You really are a terrible person."

Silence settled.

Then Lysia said, "...By the way. Will forget me?"

"Never."

It came out without a breath of hesitation.

"You’ll forget me. In months, maybe a few years, once you’re swallowed back up by your day-to-day life. But when the doors between our worlds close, I’ll be standing on the other side of them, replaying the small, worthless, unrecorded moments that no history will ever bother to keep."

His voice stayed level. "And I’ll keep every one of them. Because each of them thrilled me more than any war I’ve ever won. That’s what my next two hundred years are for now. Until death finally gets around to me."

He kept going. He seemed unable to stop now, the way a man can’t stop a vault door once he’s already thrown the lock.

"And my life will be returned to me, of course. My orderly, efficient life. No more spying on a fiend inside my own house while she drafts yet another attempt on my life. No more crouching in market alleys that reek of fish, keeping one notorious woman in my sight while she starts three separate arguments before lunch."

A faint breath of a laugh. "No more quietly burying the fools who plot against her behind her back, because heaven knows your talent for collecting enemies is the only thing about you more impressive than your spending."

"No curses at breakfast. No poison at dinner. No antidotes gathering dust in a cabinet."

"The mansion will go back to being what it was before a menace conquered it. A storage room." He stared at the floor. "With me inside it. Stored."

"I intended to enjoy whatever time remained on our contract. Four and a half years is a long while, I told myself. That’s what I said."

His hands had gone tight on his knees. "Instead I’m haunted, Lysia. Every single time the thought of you leaving so much as enters my head, something in here—"

Lysia grabbed him by the collar and yanked.

"And who exactly," she said, "said anything about me leaving?"

Athanor blinked. "...What?"

"You heard me." Her grip tightened. "Why in either realm would I walk away from a life this luxurious? Do you take me for an idiot?"

"Lysia, what are you—"

"No. You listen to me now, you stupid, hopeless of a duke." She hauled him closer.

"I already made up my mind. Just now, about thirty seconds ago, while you were busy narrating your own funeral. When this contract ends, I’m renewing it. For the rest of my life. And then I’m marrying you and taking this whole wealthy, gloomy, gorgeous duchy as its duchess."

"It’s the obvious solution to your little disease." Her voice caught, just slightly.

"And don’t you dare think I’m doing it out of pity. It’s just... it was exactly like you said. I was jealous of that bitch getting close to you. Not her specifically. Any of them. Because I’m sitting in the same damn boat you are, and I don’t know why every single day of my life keeps dragging me toward one stoic idiot."

Her eyes locked onto his.

"So let’s call this what it actually is. Revenge. You imprisoned five years of my life."

She pulled him that last inch. "So now I’m imprisoning the rest of yours. By making you my man."

And she kissed him.

There was nothing gentle about it. She had both fists in his collar and she used them, dragging him down to her height and holding him there, refusing to give him even the option of retreat. For one heartbeat he went rigid, a man with no protocol for this and no training that covered it.

Then he gave up.

His hand came to the side of her jaw, uncertain at first, like he was asking permission he wasn’t sure he’d been granted, and Lysia answered by fisting her hand in his hair and pulling him closer still.

She kissed him like she did everything else, greedy, unhurried, and completely certain she’d already won. His other arm went around her back and she made a low, satisfied sound against his mouth, the sound of a woman collecting on a debt she’d been carrying for two years.

When they finally parted, Lysia was already moving. She rose onto the bed, drew the zipper of her gown down, and let the fabric slide from her shoulders, revealing the thin lace of her bra and underwear beneath.

"Oh," she whispered. "And one more thing, Duke. About that new contract."

She rested one leg on his shoulder and stepped closer, guiding his face upward until his chin brushed from the soft silk of her stockings all the way to the warm skin of her thigh.

"The terms will be set by me this time. And this time... you’ll be the slave."