Ch. 68 – Rock, Meet Hard Place

Time lost its natural momentum, slowing to a agonizing crawl that made the ambient light in the room freeze into static beams. Rhys stood rooted to the hardwood floor, watching the entire sequence play out as if he were trapped in bullet time, a passive spectator observing his own life collapse.

There was Vespera—the dark, intoxicating "rock" he had tried so desperately to excise from his soul—stepping straight toward Shula, his brand-new, volatile "hard place." And they were about to detonate right in the middle of his spotless living room.

Rhys couldn't even muster a physical reaction. His limbs felt leaden, his jaw locked tight, his breathing suspended in a paralyzed silence while he just waited for the inevitable impact. The scene unfolded like a slow-motion film reel viewed from the back row of an empty theater.

I hope I have a dumb smile on my face at the very least, a stray, absurd thought drifted across his mind.

Vespera glided into the entryway beside Marcus with an air of absolute, casual ownership. Technically, as the landlord who held the deed to the property, she did own the place, but her aura projected a far deeper, far more invasive dominance. Beside her, Marcus looked thoroughly out of his depth—a bit shy, sheepish, and visibly "convinced" by Vespera to make an unannounced detour. Apparently, she had grown wildly excited during their date, abruptly changing their plans and practically demanding they drop by Rhys’s residence.

Well... shit, Rhys lamented silently.

He suddenly remembered the single, frantic ring he had dialed to her phone just hours prior before hanging up in a panic. Vespera had undoubtedly seen the missed call notification on her screen. That was all it took. One fleeting moment of weakness on his part, one accidental signal sent into the ether, and she had materialized on his doorstep like a summoned phantom.

So that was all it took to finally see you, huh? Rhys thought, a bitter, dark edge cutting through his daze.

Yet, beneath the sudden surge of panic, a treacherous, forbidden fluttering stirred in the deep cavern of his chest. He felt an intense, immediate wave of guilt for even feeling it—that sudden, electrifying warmth that bloomed simply because he was standing in the same room as her again. He couldn't lie to himself; Vespera looked breathtaking tonight. She wore a tailored, midnight-black ensemble that hugged her sharp curves, her dark hair falling in silk waves over her shoulders. Rhys’s desperate, starving mind immediately began etching every detail of her face deep into his memory, storing the image where he could never lose it.

And now I’m going to turn this way, Rhys thought hazily, his inner voice acting like a detached tour guide directing his body. His neck rotated slowly, his face fixed in a polite, vacant smile as his eyes tracked past Vespera to his left.

His gaze landed on Lira.

The moment his eyes registered his wife, Rhys’s entire heart fluttered with a genuine, overwhelming tenderness. He had been waiting for her all day, desperate for her warmth to anchor him against the tide of predatory women circling his life. But as he looked at her now, he noticed a subtle, exhausting tension around her eyes. Lira looked oddly tired, bearing the subtle weariness of someone who had spent the last twenty minutes trying to herd feral cats.

I know which cat, Rhys thought with a grim, internal smirk.

Vespera and Marcus had clearly caught Lira in the driveway just as she was pulling up to the house, cornering her in conversation before she could even reach the front porch. The worst part of it all was the realization that Lira could have been inside with him the whole time, acting as his shield against Shula and Darius, if not for Vespera's deliberate ambush outside. Furthermore, looking closely at his wife’s tight jaw, Rhys could tell Lira had been fighting some subtle, losing verbal battle out on the lawn. What it was, Rhys didn't know, and frankly, he was too terrified to ask.

And now we look over here, the distant, floating guide in his mind announced, directing his vacant eyes across the room.

He looked at Darius. The high-ranking hero sat innocently oblivious to the hidden, psychological warfare raging beneath the surface of the room. In Darius’s mind, the hard part was over—he had secured Rhys’s vocal consent to help his wife, achieving a massive personal victory.

Shula, however... Rhys froze the second his eyes met hers.

The striking Ifrit woman was a terrifying sight. She looked like a majestic, pristine mountainside that was secretly an active, superheated volcano preparing for a catastrophic eruption. Rhys’s survival instincts—sharpened by years of high-stakes superhero combat—instantly spiked to red alert. His senses were rarely wrong, and right now, they were screaming at him that Shula had locked her fiery gaze onto Vespera and instantly identified her as the ultimate opposition.

How Shula could possibly sense the deep, unspoken history between Rhys and Vespera after mere seconds in the same room was beyond him. But the sudden, territorial heat radiating off Shula’s skin was undeniable. Rhys clung to the faint, desperate hope that she was simply being protective of her newly secured "donor," but deep down, he knew better.

The room’s atmosphere warped, transforming the comfortable living room dynamic into a jagged, unnatural Frankenstein’s monster of a social call. The heavy, intimate conversation about biological donation was instantly severed by the arrival of the unexpected guests. With practiced ease, Shula and Darius pivoted, slipping back into casual, polite banter with Lira, Marcus, and Vespera. On the surface, it looked like a pleasant gathering of heroic colleagues, but in the air above their heads, Rhys could practically see the razor-sharp, clashing spirits of the two possessive women hovering like storm clouds.

"Rhys? Honey?"

Someone called his name, the sound cutting through the thick static in his brain and snapping him violently back to reality.

He blinked, his vision refocusing on Lira, who was staring at him with gentle, searching concern. "Are you okay, sweetheart? You look a million miles away."

"I'm fine," Rhys said quickly, his voice smooth and steady despite the adrenaline hammering against his ribs. "Just... tired from cleaning all day."

From across the coffee table, Vespera caught his eye. She offered him a small, coy, devastatingly subtle smile—a silent, shared secret passing between them in plain sight. Rhys hated himself for realizing that he had been actively waiting for that look. A dark, twisted part of his subconscious whispered that maybe he wanted Vespera to destroy this insane situation—that maybe he wanted her to unleash her formidable, ruthless nature to tear Shula’s proposal to shreds, taking the burden of refusing completely out of his hands.

Vespera immediately went to work, her voice smooth as silk as she leaned back against Marcus's arm. "So, what were you three discussing so intensely before we walked in? We could hear the passion all the way down the hallway."

Darius and Shula visibly stiffened, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing such a deeply personal, intimate medical crisis with a relative stranger. Rhys remained completely silent, offering no lifelines, simply stepping back to let the chaos unfold.

Shula, refusing to back down or be intimidated, took a bold step forward. "We were actually just celebrating," Shula announced proudly, her voice carrying an absolute, triumphant ringing tone. "Rhys has graciously agreed to act as a private donor for Darius and me so we can finally start our family."

Shula looked positively radiant, beaming with a smug, shameless excitement as she laid her victory out on the table.

Surprisingly, Vespera’s expression didn't shatter. She didn't gasp, nor did she betray a single flicker of genuine shock. Instead, her dark eyes narrowed slightly, a masterclass in performative surprise masking a cold, calculating intellect.

Did she already know?! Rhys thought, his mind reeling.

Then he glanced past her shoulder at Marcus, who suddenly looked intensely fascinated by the pattern on the area rug, avoiding all eye contact.

Yeah, there was zero chance she didn't know, Rhys realized with glib horror. Marcus had undoubtedly let the details slip during their date.

Vespera clapped her hands together softly, her icy smile remaining perfectly in place. "Oh, how marvelous! What a truly... selfless gesture from our Rhys." She paused, her dark gaze drifting over to Rhys, her eyes burning with an intense, possessive protection that sent a violent spike of heat straight to his gut. Rhys hated how much that silent, possessive glare thrilled him.

"However," Vespera continued smoothly, her tone shifting into a tone of polite, analytical concern as she hurled her first tactical strike at Shula, "I do wonder how you'll manage the logistics. Rhys is going to be absurdly busy with his brand-new catering business. Building a company from the ground up takes every second of a man's time. I'm not sure he has the bandwidth for... extra medical obligations."

Shula’s smile tightened, her volcanic heat flaring subtly. "I am well aware of Rhys’s business ventures," Shula countered coolly. "In fact, I find his ambition inspiring. I am more than supportive of his career, and my husband and I will accommodate whatever schedule he needs." As she spoke the word supportive, Shula turned her head, looking at Rhys with a look so deeply, blatantly affectionate that it breached every rule of platonic friendship.

Vespera’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. The temperature in the living room plummeted by ten degrees. Beside her, Marcus visibly flinched, feeling his "girlfriend" radiating an aura of lethal, terrifying anger. Marcus opened his mouth to intervene—"Hey, babe, maybe we should let them—"—but Vespera completely cut him off without even looking at him.

"Supporting him is lovely," Vespera said, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, venomous register, "but he has a major, high-stakes launching event in less than two weeks. Surely he'll be far too overwhelmed before then to deal with anything else."

Rhys’s jaw dropped slightly. He stared at Vespera in absolute bafflement. How the hell does she know about the two-week event timeline?!

Then the memory hit him—when Marcus had come over days ago to catch up, right before Rhys had been forced to drag Ariadne into his private office for their chaotic "meeting," he had mentioned the two-week deadline to Marcus. Marcus had passed that information directly to Vespera.

She really is keeping tabs on every single second of my life, Rhys thought, a sudden, hot flush creeping up his neck.

Lira’s voice suddenly cut through the tension, turning to her husband with wide, surprised eyes. "Wait... an event in two weeks, Rhys? You didn't tell me you finalized a timeline! Do you have a venue?"

Rhys scrambled, forced to speak quickly to save face in front of his wife. "I... I was working on it today, honey! It's the official premiere launch for the catering brand. I actually found the absolute perfect venue earlier today—an open-air cliffside pavilion overlooking the ocean. But," he added with a forced, self-deprecating chuckle, "it was way too expensive. Far outside my starting budget."

He meant it as a lighthearted joke to defuse the room.

Neither Shula nor Vespera laughed.

Instead, both women spoke at the exact same second, their voices overlapping in a bizarre, chillingly synchronized harmony that echoed through the quiet house:

"I'll pay for it."

The living room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Vespera immediately smoothed her dress, taking a step forward to assert her dominance. "As Rhys's official business partner and primary financial backer, it is practically my corporate responsibility to cover the operational costs of his launch venue. Consider it handled."

Shula didn't yield an inch. She stood tall, her bronze skin glowing with a faint, fiery aura as she met Vespera’s gaze head-on. "And as Rhys’s dear friend—and the future mother of the child he is granting us—I am more than obligated to fund his venue in full as a small token of our immense gratitude."

The moment the phrase "future mother of the child he is granting us" left Shula's lips, something deep within Vespera's composure violently snapped.

For a fraction of a second, the polished, seductive facade melted away, revealing a dark, terrifying abyss of raw, psychotic fury. The air around Vespera visibly distorted, dark shadows flickering at the edges of her silhouette.

Yet, with terrifying speed, Vespera swallowed the rage, forcing her features back into a mask of pure, crystalline ice.

"Well," Vespera purred, her voice dripping with absolute frost as she offered Shula a lethal, razor-sharp smile. "If you are so eager to burn through your family's savings, who am I to stop you? Please, go right ahead." She placed an unnatural, heavy emphasis on the word burn—a direct, derogatory dig at Shula’s fiery Ifrit heritage.

Vespera turned on her heel, grabbing a thoroughly bewildered Marcus by the arm. "We must be going, Marcus. We've intruded long enough."

She paused at the entryway threshold, glancing back over her shoulder one last time to lock eyes with Shula, her gaze promising absolute ruin. "Good luck, Shula. I do hope you manage not to... burn our poor Rhys out before his big night."

The hidden insult was so layered and sharp that it passed completely over the heads of Darius, Lira, and Marcus. Only Shula and Rhys caught the full, lethal weight of it. Shula’s eyes flared a brilliant, molten gold, her hands clenching into tight fists at her sides as Vespera swept out the front door, leaving Marcus to practically jog behind her while awkwardly calling out goodbyes to everyone.

With the dark storm of Vespera’s presence finally gone, the heavy atmosphere in the room slowly settled back down. Rhys let out a long, ragged exhale, running a hand over his face. He felt thoroughly battered, his mind spinning in a daze, yet he couldn't deny a faint sense of relief—he had somehow survived the collision of Vespera and Shula relatively unscathed.

The remaining four settled back down around the living room to discuss the practical realities of moving forward with the donor arrangement.

Shula, practically glowing with her apparent victory over the dark woman who had just left, turned her full, radiant attention back to Rhys and Lira.

"Now that we have the funding sorted," Shula gushed happily, clapping her hands together, "we can finalize the actual schedule for the conjugal visits!"

The room temperature instantly flatlined.

Beside Rhys, all the warm, friendly, loving content vanished from Lira’s face in a fraction of a second. Her golden eyes narrowed into sharp, terrifying slits, her skin turning deadly pale as her cosmic aura flickered dangerously beneath her skin.

"Conjugal?" Lira repeated, her voice dropping into a flat, terrifyingly quiet whisper that made the hair on the back of Rhys's neck stand straight up.

Rhys closed his eyes in absolute, profound despair, his soul leaving his body.

Aw, shit... Rhys thought with a dark, cynical smirk buried deep inside his panic. Here we go again.