The movie played on, completely forgotten. Sloane’s fingers tightened slightly in my hair, sending a shiver down my spine. She was so close now I could feel her breath on my face.

"Is this okay?" she asked again.

No, I wanted to say. This is manipulation. This is me using a system to make you feel things you wouldn’t otherwise feel. This is wrong.

But the words wouldn’t come. Because her blue eyes were locked on mine, and her lips were parted slightly, and everything about her body language was screaming that she wanted me to close the distance between us.

So I did.

The moment my lips touched hers, something electric shot through me. Her mouth was soft, yielding for a heartbeat before pressing back with surprising intensity. Her hand at the back of my neck pulled me closer, deepening the kiss as her other hand fisted in my shirt.

I slid an arm around her waist, drawing her against me. She made a small sound in the back of her throat – something between a sigh and a moan – that short-circuited my brain completely.

Nine years of friendship dissolved in an instant, replaced by something molten and urgent. Her tongue traced my bottom lip, and I opened for her without hesitation. The taste of buttery popcorn and something sweeter, something uniquely Sloane.

〘 Subject Sloane Fitzgerald’s Temptation Gauge has increased to 51%. Intermediate physical threshold crossed. 〙

She shifted without warning, pushing me back against the loveseat cushions and climbing onto my lap. The kiss never broke. My hands found her waist automatically, her skin warm where her tank top had ridden up. She bit my lower lip, not gentle, then soothed the sting with her tongue.

"I’ve been wanting to do this for days," she murmured against my mouth.

"Only days?" I couldn’t help asking.

She pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen, and her gaze was darker than I’d ever seen it. "Maybe longer."

Then she kissed me again, harder this time. Her body pressed against mine in a way that made coherent thought impossible. Her fingers tangled in my hair, tugging just enough to send another shiver down my spine. I tightened my grip on her waist, and she made that sound again, low in her throat.

The movie was still playing. On screen, an explosion rocked a temple. The sound cut through the haze for a moment, and Sloane pulled back with a breathless laugh. Her ponytail was half-undone. Loose pink strands framed her face.

"Maybe we should pause the movie," she suggested.

"Maybe we should," I agreed.

I didn’t reach for the remote.

Instead, I trailed my fingers up her spine, slow and deliberate. She shivered under my touch. Her eyes darkened further, and she leaned in to kiss me again, her hands sliding from my hair to my shoulders, gripping tight.

The theater door swung open. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"There you two are. I’ve been calling—"

Sloane jerked away from me so quickly she nearly fell off the loveseat. I steadied her with my hands at her waist, which probably didn’t help our case.

Diane Fitzgerald stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline. She was dressed in business attire – a sleek pantsuit and heels that somehow looked both professional and intimidating.

"Mom!" Sloane’s voice cracked. "You’re home."

"Evidently," Diane drawled, her Southern accent thicker than usual. "And just in time for the show, it seems."

Sloane scrambled off my lap, her face redder than I’d ever seen it. I wished I could melt into the loveseat and disappear.

"We were just—" Sloane started, tugging at her ponytail, but the words dried up before she could finish the excuse.

"Celebrating," I supplied.

Diane’s gaze hadn’t softened. If anything, it had gotten sharper. "Celebrating," she repeated, her drawl stretching the syllables out like she was rolling each one between her teeth. "How festive."

The silence stretched. I could feel Sloane beside me radiating enough mortified heat to power a small generator.

"I manifested an Aspect," I said.

Diane’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows drew together, the first visible crack in her composed exterior. Her head tilted slightly, the way it did when a client said something she needed to hear twice to process. "I beg your pardon?"

"Lukas manifested," Sloane jumped in, smoothing down her tank top for the third time and tucking a loose strand of pink hair behind her ear. "Today. During training. I was there."

Diane’s attention shifted between us, slower this time. Calculating. Her expression hadn’t changed, but the air in the room had thickened. She was reading the situation. I could feel it.

"After nine years of diagnostic tests saying otherwise," Diane said.

"Late manifestation," I replied. "It happens."

"Rarely."

"But it does happen," Sloane insisted, her voice firmer now. Her shoulders squared slightly. "I saw it, Mom. He can move things. With his mind. Objects. It’s a Channeler-type."

Diane stepped further into the theater. The door swung shut behind her with a soft click that sounded far too loud in the silence. She didn’t come all the way in. She stopped a few feet from the loveseat, her arms crossing beneath her chest, her posture shifting into something that looked less like a mother walking in on her daughter and more like a CEO evaluating a contract she hadn’t signed yet.

"Show me," she said.

I swallowed. The taste in my mouth had gone dry. This was the moment where Diane Fitzgerald, the woman who had built a career on reading people better than anyone in California, was going to watch me pull off a lie that depended entirely on an interface she couldn’t see.

Sloane’s flushed face, her disheveled hair, the fact that we’d both clearly been doing something that wasn’t watching the movie—all of that was still hanging in the air between us. But I had no choice.

I needed Diane to believe the Aspect story as much as I’d needed Sloane to.

I focused on the remote. It was still lying on the loveseat cushion where I’d dropped it earlier. I reached for Spectral Reach, felt the familiar weight of it settle into my awareness like slipping on a glove.

The construct extended from my hand, pale amber and translucent, coiling through the air like smoke given form. It wrapped around the remote, lifted it smoothly upward, and held it suspended between the three of us.

Diane’s eyes widened. The shift was fractional—barely a millimeter—but for someone who rarely showed surprise, it registered like a shout.

"Well," she said after a long pause, her gaze fixed on the floating remote. "That complicates things."

===

〘Traore’s Thoughts〙

Hey guys, I decided to make a Power Stone Goal for this novel.

Every 200 Power Stones this week = +1 Extra Chapter. (MAX 14 ChapterS)

We can have the normal 2 Daily Chapters + 2 Extra Chapters Every Day, is all up to you ;)