Chapter 74: Boundary Synchronization

Leo’s large fingers clenched with a white-knuckled grip into the plush fabric of the grey bedsheets, his muscles trembling with a volatile mixture of suffocating fear and raw, unyielding anger. He tracked the digital system timer pulsing aggressively in his vision. It was almost 09:00 PM.

[SURVIVAL TIMER: 02:59:58 REMAINING]

He had less than three hours left before his heart permanently stopped beating, and Eleanor was stuck on a private jet in another country. He let out a cold, cynical scoff, staring blankly at the dark ceiling. "You win, System," he muttered bitterly into the empty room. "You finally cooked up a trap I can't outrun."

Knock. Knock. Knock.

A sudden, remarkably soft and hesitant sequence of knocks groaned through the wood of his front door. Leo let out a long, exhausted sigh, swinging his legs off the bed frame. Assuming it was Alistair coming back to check on his dizzy wave, he dragged his feet to the entryway and twisted the brass deadbolt open.

Slam!

The door was violently pushed inward. Before Leo could even see anything, a slender silhouette rushed straight through the threshold into his personal space. Leo froze completely in absolute, jaw-dropping shock, his eyes widening as the ambient hallway light hit her face.

Standing flush against his chest, her breathing shallow and rapid, was Eleanor.

"E-Eleanor?..." Leo stammered out, his voice dropping into a dazed rumble. "What the hell are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be with your mother shopping for the engagement clothes in another country?"

Eleanor didn't answer with words. Her piercing violet eyes shimmered with a deep, emotional warmth beneath her loose bangs. Breaking past every remaining layer of her high-society pride, she threw her slender arms tightly around his neck, burying her face straight into his broad shoulder as she hugged him with a desperate, crushing intensity.

"I couldn't stay away from you, Leo," Eleanor whispered breathlessly against his neck, a beautiful, intense crimson blush rapidly painting her pale cheeks. She looked up at his sharp face, her fingers clutching his shirt sleeves with absolute devotion. "We managed to get done with the boutique shopping early... and the second the royal jet touched down at the runway, I ran out of the terminal. I came straight here as soon as possible because... because I missed you so much."

Leo stared down at her beautiful, flushed face, his gaze naturally drifting down her silhouette. His breath caught sharply in his throat. She wasn't wearing her structured royal garments. Resting tightly against her skin was the exact same floral sundress he had seen in their virtual date, the premium fabric flawlessly accentuating her narrow slender waist and exceptionally full bust.

Eleanor noticed his unblinking, heavy gaze. She knit her eyebrows together into a cute, flustered pout, her violet eyes flitting around the dim room in absolute shyness. "Well? Are you just going to stand there like a statue? Do you... do you miss me as well?"

A profound wave of genuine relief and surging warmth exploded through Leo's chest, the icy terror of the death clock instantly evaporating from his veins. He let out a low rumble of a laugh, reaching out to gently pat her soft purple hair. "Yeah, Eleanor. I missed you too."

A radiant, beautiful smile broke across Eleanor's lips. Moving with a slow, deliberate confidence, she leaned her upper body forward on her tiptoes, her face closing the remaining inches until her soft lips gently pecked a sweet, lingering kiss straight onto his lips.

She tried to pull her face back to retreat, but Leo, moving with effortless speed, his large hand shot out, firmly catching her slender wrist and yanking her tight hourglass curves directly back flush against his chest.

"Why did you do that, Princess?" Leo teased smoothly, his voice dropping into a low, seductive voice that fanned right against her skin as his dark eyes locked dead into her wide violet gaze. "You can't just do that and run away."

Eleanor's entire face violently painted itself in a white-hot crimson blush. She couldn't look him in the face, her high-and-mighty defense system completely melting under his intense proximity. "Y-You arrogant dummy..." she murmured vulnerablely.

Unable to control her longing any longer, she surged her face forward, pressing her lips back onto his in an intense, devastatingly passionate, and deep close kiss.

Leo didn't waste a single second. Driven by an unyielding physical power, he swung her frame around, backing her hard against the wall. He reached up with his large hands, firmly catching both of her slender wrists and locking them securely over her head, pinning her completely beneath his physique.

Eleanor looked straight up into his intense dark eyes, her gaze clouding with an absolute, unblinking hunger and raw submission. "I love you so much, Leo," she whispered in a frantic, broken thread of sound, her chest heaving violently against his torso. "... I want to belong to you for life."

At this point, Leo completely forgot about the system timer floating behind her head. Her extreme cuteness, mixed with the raw heat of her bare shoulders, sent a jolt of primal arousal straight to his core. He leaned down slowly, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of her neck, tracing a line of scorching, possessive kisses down to her collarbone. Eleanor arched her back against the wall, her fingers tangling frantically into his chocolate-brown strands as she let out a soft, whimpering moan of absolute ecstasy... as the bedroom shadows safely faded to black.

.....

The bright, crisp rays of the Monday morning sun sliced violently through the window blinds, illuminating the spacious guest bedroom in clean golden light.

Leo slowly blinked his dark eyes open, shifting his weight beneath the heavy blankets. Turning his chin sideways, he looked down at the mattress beside him. Eleanor was sleeping peacefully, her long purple hair scattered wildly across the pillow, her pale skin glistening under the sunlit sheet lines as her chest rose and fell in slow, rhythmic breaths.

Leo let out a long, grounded breath, a soft sigh tracing his lips. I honestly thought I was going to die last night, he thought to himself, his expression turning thoroughly serious. He looked down at his firm hands, a heavy wave of quiet overthinking pool inside his loins. This System is manipulating every single thing of my reality. I need to figure out an immediate way to get rid of this system before it completely controls my life.

Ding!

A straightforward golden interface screen quietly initialized right in front of his face, distributing his successful Master Claim rewards.

[REAL-WORLD CLAIM PROTOCOL: 100% FINALIZED]

[TARGET 5 DATA LOCKED: PRINCESS ELEANOR ROSLAV UNLOCKED]

[USER ATTRIBUTE UPGRADES DISTRIBUTED: PHYSICAL STRENGTH LEVEL 5, STAMINA LEVEL 4]

[GLOBAL BANKING FUNDS LEDGER: CURRENT BALANCE SECURED AT $20,740.00 USD]

Leo didn't smile smoothly, nor did he celebrate the massive fortune sitting inside his data balance. A sudden wave of intense guilt and psychological burden settled over his chest. He felt completely dirty, as if he was simply behaving like a mindless slave executing the commands of a bizarre digital machine. Waving his hand aggressively to dissolve the translucent text blocks into pixels, he carefully slipped out from beneath the sheets and walked over to the tiled washroom to get freshened up for the day.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A sudden, remarkably aggressive pounding rattled the outer wooden door, shattering the quiet morning quiet of the suite.

Eleanor violently bolted upright on the mattress, her violet eyes stretching wide in total, frantic panic as the loud noise snapped her right out of her peaceful sleep. She looked around the sheets, the vivid flashbacks of their passionate midnight union instantly flooding her brain, causing her face to flush an absolute shade of angry pink.

"Leo?!" Eleanor squeaked out frantically, scrambling off the bed frame to look around the empty bedroom area. "Where are you?!"

"Leo! Have you woken up yet?!" Alistair’s deep, authoritative voice loudly boomed through the cracks of the door frame from the concrete corridor outside.

Eleanor's heart hammered violently against her ribs. What if my brother finds out what we did inside this room last night?! Driven by absolute desperation, her bare feet clicked frantically across the floorboards as she ran straight into the steamy bathroom stall, grabbing Leo’s muscular bicep with a trembling, frantic grip.

"Leo! What the hell should we do right now?!" Eleanor whispered in a frantic, high-pitched rush, her voice carrying a heavy stuttering crack. "My brother is right outside the room!"

Leo looked down at her panicking, beautiful face, his lips parting into a relaxed, incredibly charming alpha grin as he turned off the running tap water. "Don't worry about it. We should just walk out there together, unlock the deadbolt, and greet Alistair casually."

"Are you a complete, absolute idiot?!" Eleanor screamed out flusteredly, her fingers digging defensively into his arm as she glaring-blushed at his composed face. "We can't do that! You don't understand the severity of our royal protocols! It is strictly, heavily prohibited for an unengaged couple to share a single bed mattress before the official festival ceremony here! My father will have the guards execute you before lunch if he sees this!"

Leo’s grin widened into a slow, thoroughly amused, and teasing smirk as he leaned down closer to her ear, his deep baritone dropping into a relaxed rumble. "Too bad, Princess. When Alistair pushes that door open and finds out that his pristine, high-and-mighty royal sister was so incredibly wild inside my sheets last night... what exactly do you think his purple-haired head is going to think?"

"Ah! You absolute devil!" Eleanor gasped out in absolute, wide-eyed shyness, her face turning an even deeper shade of furious crimson as she stomped her foot against the tiles.

SLAM! SLAM!

"Leo!" Alistair's demanding voice snapped through the wood once more.