10x God-Tier Stealing System: Pumping S-Rank SuperHeroines Daily!-Chapter 183 - Did you really leave?

Ytrisia’s brows twitched, a delicate frown marring her sleepy features. Her hand searched again, dragging slower this time. Her pale fingers crept across the sheets like she had merely missed his broad frame by a fraction of an inch.

Still... empty air.

Her eyelids fluttered open, eyelashes damp with the ghost of tears.

Morning light spilled into the bedroom in soft, hazy shafts through the parted curtains. It was the golden, honeyed kind of dawn that was supposed to feel warm, safe, and tender.

Instead, her chest tightened the second she took in the vacant space on the mattress beside her.

Cruxius... was gone.

The white sheets on his side were already cooling against her skin. No dent in the pillow. No tangled rumple of blankets. No trace of the strong, tattooed arms that had anchored her through her trembling, breaking gasps just hours ago.

It looked as though he had never been there at all.

No.

No. No.

Her throat parched, a dry swallow scraping down her windpipe. She sat up too fast.

The deep, bruised soreness between her legs flared with a sharp bite, pulling a raw gasp from her lips.

Her body remembered everything, even if the bed looked innocent.

It remembered the way he had bent her over the cushions, how he had broken her down until she was nothing but a mess of nerves. The way her voice had shattered, echoing against the bedroom walls—begging, moaning, sobbing wetly into the crook of his shoulder. Her slender thighs had wrapped around his narrow hips like he was the only anchor keeping her tethered to the earth.

He was the only thing.

And now he wasn’t even here to see the aftermath.

A tremor traveled down her wrist as she pulled the blanket up to cover her chest. Her skin felt too bare, the cool air biting at her sensitive, swollen peaks. Everything felt wrong.

The slick, drying dampness pooling between her thighs made her stomach churn with a sudden, suffocating heat. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

It wasn’t arousal anymore.

It was shame.

Her bottom lip quivered, teeth sinking into the plush flesh to stop the trembling. Her gaze dropped to her own stomach.

Red, stinging marks painted her pale skin. Faint, blooming bruises dotted the sensitive insides of her thighs. Dark, crescent-shaped teeth marks claimed her collarbone.

All of it screamed the filthy, beautiful things they had done in the dark. All of it whispered promises she had so badly wanted to believe meant something real.

But Cruxius was gone.

And wasn’t this just so typical of him?

She stared at the closed wooden door, her chest aching, half-expecting the hinges to creak. She waited for him to saunter in like none of this mattered. To walk through the frame with that lazy, devastating grin and those careless, half-lidded eyes.

Maybe he would act surprised to see her awake. He would toss her a cheap compliment, crack a dirty joke, and brush his large hand through her tangled hair like a devoted lover.

But she knew better.

Didn’t she?

He had always saved his best smiles for other girls.

He touched bare arms in crowded taverns. Shared lingering drinks. Held sultry gazes far longer than any unattached man should.

She had seen it. Every single time.

Even after he swore he wasn’t that straying man anymore. Even when she foolishly let her guard down and let him back in.

Even when she opened her legs and gave him the very last thing she had preserved for so long—her first time.

Ytrisia pressed her palm flat against her sternum, right between the soft swell of her breasts, as if she could physically hold back the rising, crushing ache. Her heart thudded against her ribs, a raw, echoing rhythm of betrayal.

He said he loved her.

But maybe, in the harsh light of morning, she had been just another warm, tight body to conquer.

No. No, stop.

She shook her head, purple strands clinging to her damp cheeks, but the toxic thoughts refused to quiet down.

He had looked at her like she was the only woman in the world. He had gripped her hips like she belonged to him. He had fucked her like a starving beast finally tasting meat.

But then why wasn’t he sitting right here?

Why did he leave her shivering in the tangled sheets of what should have been a morning built on soft, lazy words and wet, half-asleep kisses?

Why... did the hollow feeling in her gut hurt this much?

Her breath hitched, snagging on a quiet sob. A single, hot tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracing a wet path past her temple and soaking into the pillowcase.

"Don’t do this," she whispered to the empty room, her voice cracking under the weight of it. "Don’t turn this into another lie."

But the vast silence was her only answer.

And that silence sounded awfully like every beautiful woman she had ever watched him flirt with.

Ytrisia pulled her knees up to her chest, curling into a tight ball. The white sheet twisted around her naked body, clinging to the curves of her waist and hips, as if the thin fabric could shield her from her own breaking mind.

She wanted to protect herself from the terrifying possibility that last night—all the sweat, the moans, the whispered praises—was nothing more than a beautiful, fleeting illusion for him.

And for her?

It was the monumental night she finally surrendered. Finally let herself trust. Finally belonged, wholly and truly, to a man.

Her throat burned with unshed tears.

She wasn’t angry.

Furious anger would have been so much easier to handle.

But this? This hollow, sucking ache in her chest. This agonizing quiet between her heartbeats. This sinking, pathetic realization that maybe she had fallen irrevocably in love with a ghost who only wore the shape of the man she needed...

That was infinitely crueler.

Her trembling hand slipped down past her navel, coming to rest gently above her lower belly. Right over the deep, sore place he had filled her, stretching her apart again and again, grunting her name like he could never get enough.

But apparently, his appetite was satisfied.

"Did you really left—"