My Scumbag System Chapter 684: An Empire Needs an Heir

Soomin launched into it. The words tumbled out faster than her mouth could shape them. Braxton had them running combat drills every morning. Raphael had gotten into a fistfight with a Scarlet Phantom over something stupid and Braxton had made them both clean the entire training facility with toothbrushes. Emi had been baking constantly, worried sick, and the common room now smelled permanently of cinnamon. Isabelle had disappeared into the library for two days and come back with theories she wouldn’t share. Akari had won a betting pool on when I’d come back and refused to say what the wager had been.

"And there’s a thing," Soomin said. "A tournament thing. The inter-guild results got finalized while you were gone. We’re officially ranked first now. Like. Actually first. Everyone’s talking about it."

"Of course we’re first," Natalia said. "We’re the only ones who matter."

"The other guilds hate us," Soomin added. "Julian especially. He’s been saying things. Bad things. About you and Reyna and—" She stopped. Her eyes flicked to Natalia and then away, mortified. "Sorry. I shouldn’t have—"

"It’s fine," Natalia said, in a tone that made it clear it was not fine, that Julian Valerius would eventually pay for every word, and that she had a list.

Natalia always had a list.

We reached the training wing. Braxton’s domain. Even the air smelled different here, sweat and metal and the faint ozone tang of Aspects being pushed too hard. Soomin peeled off with a rushed goodbye and a bow that nearly dropped her books again, and then it was just me and Natalia standing outside the reinforced doors that led to the deeper training chambers.

"You enjoy that too much," Natalia said.

"Enjoy what?"

"Making her flustered. You do it on purpose."

"She makes it easy. It’s like flustering a kitten."

"She’s not a kitten. She’s got an S-Rank spirit living inside her that wants to eat your face off."

"The Fox doesn’t want to eat my face. The Fox wants to do other things to my face. There’s a difference."

Natalia’s jaw tightened. The temperature dropped a degree. Frost crept along the edges of the door handle beside us, tiny crystals forming and spreading in delicate branching patterns.

"You’re impossible," she said.

"You knew that when you climbed into my bed."

"I’m aware. I’ve made my peace with it." She stepped closer. Close enough that her chest pressed against mine, close enough that I could smell her, that clean cold scent underneath the sweetness of whatever she’d used that morning. Her violet eyes fixed on mine. "But understand something. Soomin, Emi, Skylar, Cel, Akari, Reyna. All of them. I’ve accepted them. I’ve made my peace with what we are and what you’re building."

"But."

"But you’re mine first. Always first. You said that. In my bed, three nights ago, with your hands on me and your mouth against my ear. You said I was first and I’d always be first."

"You are."

"Prove it."

She kissed me. Hard. Her hands fisted in the front of my blazer and yanked me down and her mouth crushed against mine with all the possessive fury of a woman who’d spent three days terrified she’d lost me. The Nectar sparked between us, that hum of connection that turned a simple kiss into something that made my knees threaten to buckle. Her tongue pushed past my lips. Cold. Demanding. Claiming territory that already belonged to her.

The frost on the door handle spread up the wall.

When she pulled back, we were both breathing harder than we should’ve been in a public hallway with a training class happening on the other side of the door.

"That’s cheating," I said. "Kissing me like that where I can’t do anything about it."

"Good." Her smile was sharp and satisfied. "Now you know how it feels. Every time you flirt with a pretty girl in front of me and I have to stand there and pretend I’m not planning her funeral."

"You’re not planning Soomin’s funeral."

"No. Soomin’s sweet. I’m planning a strongly worded conversation." She stepped back, smoothing my blazer down where she’d wrinkled it, the gesture almost tender after the violence of the kiss. "Go see Braxton. I’ll be in the observation deck. And Satori."

"Hm?"

"Don’t die. I’ve decided we’re having a child, and I refuse to raise it alone just because you got yourself killed doing something stupid."

The words landed somewhere in my chest and stuck there.

A child.

We’d talked about it. In the dark, with our bodies tangled together and the whole world reduced to the space between our skin. She’d wanted it. Asked for it. Demanded I finish inside her three nights running with the single-minded focus she brought to everything she decided she wanted.

And I’d agreed. Because in that moment, with her warm and pliant against me and her voice cracking on the confession that she’d almost lost me too many times, agreeing had felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Now, standing in a hallway with frost melting off the walls, it felt real.

"You’re serious," I said.

"I’m always serious." She met my eyes without flinching. "I felt everything you did on that pier. Everything at the integration. Every time the universe tried to take you away from me. I’m done being careful, Satori. I want something that’s ours. Something they can’t take."

I reached out and cupped her face. Her cheek was cool against my palm, always cool, the ice in her veins never fully quiet. She leaned into the touch like she’d been starving for it.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Okay. We do it. We build the empire and we raise a monster and we make the whole world regret ever underestimating us."

Something broke open in her expression. Not tears. Natalia didn’t cry easily. But something soft and unguarded that she only ever let me see. Her hand came up to cover mine where it rested against her face.

"You’re such a scumbag," she whispered.

"Your scumbag."

"Mine." She pressed a kiss to my palm. "Now go. Before I drag you into a supply closet and we give Braxton a reason to fire you before he even hires you properly."