Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)-Chapter 369 - Terminals & The Given Direction Of Potential Velocities

Chapter 369: Chapter 369 - Terminals & The Given Direction Of Potential Velocities

Watching the story unfold. The hero of the tale getting the girl. The family accepting the match. Everyone getting their happy ending in a fountain of flower petals... and choreographed mass dance.

> Unrealistic. But pretty. <

I was so focused on the screen - or maybe on deliberately not thinking about anything else - that I didn’t notice the system text glowing blue where water was displayed on the screen until the object appeared above us.

Shaped like the TV I was looking at, but smaller dimensions. And the backside of it that I could see as it tumbled downward had that same kind of pale-violet color that the foreign technology of the system seemed to have.

Arms lunged upward, catching the device before it could fall on either of us. Kyrie held it up like she wanted to immediately throw it away, but slowly lowered it to the coffee table instead.

"Does that happen often?"

"...system reward. I don’t choose when they complete. And they didn’t used to always be so... physical."

I’m not sure if there is some limit to how it can affect this body - or if it is because of how clear I made it that I didn’t like those kinds of adjustments to my soul. I guess it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that the glowing checkmark that I’d ignored meant something different.

> Task completed? Even though the actual modeling part had gone so spectacularly wrong. <

Or maybe because of *how* it went wrong? The system has a twisted sense of completion sometimes. Maybe it could have been my thoughts on being carried through the basement corridor counting as my bit of ’runway’ modeling.

It also could be because the company that hired me is getting destroyed? I’m sure some models have fantasized about ending their careers by taking down a whole crew that wronged them.

Either or any way, Kyrie poked at it and made me nervous with her fearless behavior. So I pulled her hand away before she could poke the screen a third time.

"What does it do?"

"No clue. It doesn’t give me the idea of how things work every time. Though sometimes it does when I touch them, which is why it’s best not to-"

She entwines her fingers over my hand and presses it down even as I talk. And has the audacity to laugh as I growl and stomp on her foot.

"So?"

Tomorrow. I’d deal with what I know now tomorrow. For now I shoot to my feet and get a step away before jerked back into her - spun so that her chest smooshes into my collarbone.

"Citra. Sorry, I was just-"

"I’m tired, Kyrie. Let me go to bed."

It wasn’t entirely a lie. My body felt heavy. So did my mind. I’m not actually sure I’ll be able to get to sleep easily, but I did know I wanted to try.

Brown eyes studied my face for a long while. I even almost snapped at her to stop. Then she simply nodded and let go. Creating flickers of orange that betrayed her wariness.

"Bed, then. Goodnight, Princess."

It was clear she was trying to allow me to go off to the guest room. That might be the smarter of choices. But since my decisions today have not been the best, why should I begin to make competent ones now?

My fingers curl around her shirt collar and I spin on my foot. Tromping on hard flooring and tugging along the stupid wolf that wants to restrain herself at the last moment. Into her bedroom, where I point and make her sit.

"I hope we are two adults that can sleep without making anything more of it in this situation."

As I speak, I take off these clothes of hers I’ve been wearing for many hours by now. Then I steal the position she has had all evening, grabbing her waist as I climb over the covers and spooning her from behind.

Because she should only restrain herself from things I’ve ordered her not to do. And sleeping together in practical, platonic fashion is one of them I clearly have trouble deciding should not be done.

⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖

The penthouse was quiet except for the sound of one CEO’s breathing. Deep and even, unlike my own, which had been woken from slumber by much of nothing around 2AM. Perhaps because she killed someone for my safety.

It’s easy to think to myself that I can carry that, but the truth is I’m simply choosing not to examine the emotions of it too closely, sticking to cold logic like I always had with those assassins. And I’d never slept well the night of those incidents.

But look at this woman and the wolf in my mindscape, just as content as two ’peas in a pod’. Even shifting around to a seated position on the bed, my back to the headboard, doesn’t wake her.

She looked nothing like the predator who’d torn through her own pack members to reach me, but just... the woman who’d given me a bank card. Asking for nothing but hoping for all of it.

I reached out and touched her hair where the blood had been. Got up to my feet and made use of her bathroom. And when I came back after walking to the kitchen and getting a glass of water, while checking for the fifth time this evening that the child inside this body’s womb was still safe according to the system?

She shifted slightly toward my return to the empty spot on the bed behind her. But the too sweet wolf did not wake. Some part of me me really wishes she had.

Because it just makes plans solidify, when she does not.

⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖

Dawn came with Kyrie’s arm draped over my waist and her face pressed against the back of my neck. The way her breath tickled my skin made it difficult to think about anything practical.

Yet, I didn’t know how to explain any reversal... towards not allowing her to touch me back. It’s probably fine, but I’m a bit uncomfortable suddenly - now that I can feel some body changes. That she might feel them too.

That she might ask a question. So I don’t roll over and begin to start anything I can’t finish. Prodding her not to waste her time on me seemed smarter.

"Your employees probably-"

"I’m where I need and want to be. A CEO has other employees for a reason. We can’t and don’t do everything ourselves."

Interrupting me with a good point was not what I was hoping for.

"...Well a word to your pack at least might be a good idea."

"Luca knows what to tell them."

"Can you at least make your assistant come up here for a while and... I don’t know, work on something other than holding onto me today?"

This practical captivity is... fine. The white cage shrunk a lot, suddenly, but I can deal with that as a consequence of my mistakes. However, I’m not sure my heart can take another sixteen hours of nothing but her affection.

"If that’s what you’d like. You want to give her whatever that thing was, don’t you?"

"Yes. It... yes."

There’s no sense lying about it. That | Survivor’s Wisdom Terminal | was meant for no one else’s hands but hers, if I’m not mistaken.

However, I can think of a few reasons why my thoughts might have bent the reward to that sort of end... which I do not wish to share aloud.