Abruptly, Clyde felt something. Danger. An enormous sense of danger for…Alice?

[Talent Main character stuff. Hidden Skill. Tier 1 skill: Foresight.]

[This skill was forcibly triggered by your soul connection to Alice.]

In his vision, he saw Alice walking, no, running from a looming dark mass. Ashes rained from the skies. Then she was in chains, calling his name, apologizing. A blond man carried her on his shoulder into a room of torture devices and dead bodies and screaming women. The vision winked out the moment the man stripped her.

[Warning: this is but a possible future, among many futures; however, if you do not speak with Alice today, this become likely.]

Clyde silently stood, so deadly composed that the entire room snuffed into silence. He debated for half a second: should he use the summon or check his apartment to see if she was there? The answer was obvious. And so, he invoked the final summon.

Alice appeared to be just fine, Natalia holding onto the demoness’s waist as if for dear life. The two stepped out of a ripple of white and grey light, looking right at him. Her eyes fell on the bracelet.

“What’s going on?” he asked the demoness. She looked vulnerable for a second then dove into him. “Alice, what’s going on? I don’t remember ever being psychic until I had a vision of you being carried off to some torture room by a blond man.”

“You won’t pry,” Natalia said. “It’s House Hades’s problem—”

“I will pry,” Clyde said then pulled Alice back to look into her eyes. “Please.”

“She doesn’t want to get you involved with them,” Natalia snapped. “You will—”

At that moment, Clyde’s voice literally became a god’s chant. It rattled the room and the skies, shook every nearby object—his eyes shined too.

“I will get involved!” he snapped. Natalia cowered. His voice switched back to normal, but also calm and collected. “I told you, I don’t have visions, ever, especially like that. Never. Not until today. And it’s the worse thing I’ve seen since Mortem...” he paused, letting that drop. “I won’t stand by while you get hauled off to whatever hell that man has planned. Who is he?”

“You probably saw Nezerath,” Alice said softly. “The heir to the Ashfall family, our rivals. He’s the one my father’s trying to make my life mate. My sources told me he was invited to see Father on Saturday to finalize things. And since then, his goons have been trying to scare me back to the palace.”

Clyde nodded.

“What are the chances that he’ll target my place?”

“He has no idea about you,” Alice said quickly. “I never breathed a word, left no hints.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Natalia said, “you’ll be sniffed out eventually. It’d be best to leave the city, live somewhere else. The Ashfall family is just too big.”

“Where will you go?” Harumi said. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I,” Clyde said. “Is there any chance we can convince your father to call it off.”

“You could marry Alice,” Natalia said then laughed. Everyone stared at her in silence. “I’m kidding. Our human culture will be meaningless to their life mates. Besides, I can’t allow the pervy-monster to marry Alice unless they’re soulmates.”

Clyde and Alice stared at each other.

“What now?” Natalia said.

“Nothing,” the duo said simultaneously. And they continued, at the same time. “That’s ridiculous. Soulmates, like they exis—”

Clyde’s body continued to pulse with a craving for the demoness. He wanted to be honest with himself, but every time he did, the thought of the Viper crept into place. If he won, he’d be sent home, leaving her a widow. He still needed time to decide the risk. A couple of years to get to know her better…no that was the human way. For some reason, he didn’t think he could wait.

“Awkward,” Akane said in a singsong voice. Sahara simply sighed, glaring at her minion.

“That’s master to you,” Seth said. “Clare, you’ve earned yourself a daily customer. You should turn this into a café.”

A huge grin curled across the dark-haired woman’s face.

“I’ll have that arranged now and opened as soon as tomorrow. Bring your cash. We can talk vampires and killing them or cuddling, whatever.”

Alice gave them both a flat stare before turning back to Clyde, her eyes glistening again.

“I’ve tried everything to convince my father, but he’s insistent on building relations with the Ashfall for some reason.”

The horrible vision of Alice being carried off briefly entered his mind, before fading.

“Is there not anything we can do?” Clyde said.

Natalia smiled, giving the young man an uneasy feeling.

“First, she’s going to live with you,” she said. “For keeps. Your ambient Stone aura releases something that prevents demon lord minions from finding you. Sure, they’ll find Alice eventually, but it should buy us an ample amount of time. They don’t know you exist and apparently, Zeth is too dead to tell them.” She chuckled. “The second will be a surprise. Just go on to school tomorrow.”

“A surprise?” Clyde said. “Like we have time for that. What is it?”

“You’ll find out,” Natalia said, grinning at Alice. Even the demoness frowned.

Clyde looked at the time.

“Time does fly, but we’re still doing our patrol tonight. Toru, mind calling Chika.”

He groaned.

“You know she hates my guts. Let Kitome call her.”

“It’s Kitome who hates your guts,” Seth said, laughing.

Kitome glared daggers at the both of them. She muttered something under her breath before pulling out her phone.

“Chika, hi,” she said after a few seconds of ringing. “Will you be at patrol tonight? Sure. Fine. Okay, see you there.”

Kitome fixed her glare on Clyde.

“Is that so hard?”

“Team lead, you make calls, not me.” He laughed as he dodged Kitome’s punch. She almost fell over, but Clyde caught her without tripping nor putting his hands anywhere near her breasts. As if he’d make a careless mistake like that in front of Alice and she was watching. His blood pulsed.

What was happening to him?

“We’ve got a couple of hours before patrol,” Clyde said. “Who’s hungry?”

Alice’s eyes lit up. She’d be living with him, somewhat permanently now. There was no way a man could have this kind of luck. He pushed away the thoughts. Luck, eagerness, excitement—now wasn’t the time for that. The trope he definitely wanted to prevent was having all the women somehow end up moving in with him, maybe in some big house. It’d be impossible to get privacy. They would burst in and stop every attempt—Clyde wasn’t going to stand for that.

At the restaurant, Alice and Harumi surrounded him, seeming to compete for his attention. He happily accepted Harumi’s clichéd anime boob hug and Alice pull him away. The young woman’s boobs were just. He cleared his throat. A leader must think like a leader. Must be a leader… the jiggle.

Alice glowered at him. He smiled innocently. She just seemed to get cuter and cuter. Clyde took a deep breath then let it out slowly. He needed to compose himself. Whatever the soulmate thing was doing to him—now just wasn’t the time. Not until he dealt with the Ashfall family. Even the system agreed.

[Talent: main character stuff. Omen’s Sphere detected among Ashfall hands.]

[Quest: Destroy the Ashfall family. This quest is mandatory and cannot be refused. Reward: unknown.]

[Warning, this quest is beyond the importance of the main story. All watchers will observe your battles.]

Ashfall and vampires and watchers. What a mess, the young man thought. Still, the Ashfall family must be a truly fucked up lot to make even the universe want them dead. That vision... those people. And particular, there was a maid who reached a hand toward…somewhere. Him? Maybe she’s the blond man’s head maid or something. With a room of death like that, Clyde wouldn’t be surprised if he treated all of his staff like shit.

He’d prepare for this quest first before telling Alice. The deadline was Saturday, before her idiot father finalized the life mate thing. Alice was his. His soulmate. Shit, the possessive thoughts again.