MTLNOVEL Chapter 255: The Damsel Act
He lingered in the lobby while paperwork processed. Fingers tapping against his pocket, gaze idly scanning. And that's when he saw her.
Dolly.
She was in front of the hotel entrance. The girl looked like she'd been spun in a blender—hair wild, clothes rumpled, eyes wide with panic.
"Please—please, do you know where he is? A man named… Aris? He was here. He was just here—"
Lux's lips twitched. Aris. Of course. The flip-name of Sira. Leave it to Pride to drop a false alias so casually she'd hook some poor mortal into obsession within a second. Dolly was already unraveling.
Lux turned his head slightly, watching her through the reflection of the glass doors rather than directly. He didn't need her attention. He'd seen this before—mortals chasing shadows of Pride demons. It was like watching someone auction off their soul for a pair of designer shoes they could never wear.
He almost laughed. 'She really could make a girl crazy in a snap. Damn her.'
The staff stammered something about not having that name in their records. Dolly looked crushed, desperate, then angry. A cycle of emotions that Lux knew would fuel her for weeks until she burned out—or until Sira reeled her back in for sport.
Lux exhaled slowly, turned his gaze back toward the paperwork being stamped, and thought, 'Welcome to Pride's ripple effect. You never stood a chance.'
The receptionist was still fumbling with forms, her manicured fingers tapping nervously against the keyboard as if a mistake on Lux's checkout record would summon some kind of financial demon audit. Which, to be fair, it might. Lux's glare alone could bankrupt half a hedge fund.
Then the air changed.
At first it was subtle—just a shift in the balance of the lobby's perfume and polish. Then it hit full force. An odor so raw, so feral, so utterly unhinged that every staff member and guest in the lobby instinctively winced. A sour, rotting stench, like spoiled fruit married to sewage, dragged into sunlight and left to fester. People clamped hands over their noses. A couple even stepped back, muttering curses under their breath.
Lux's nostrils flared, but his expression didn't break. He'd dealt with swamp demons who stank of sulfur and moldy corpses for hours during contract negotiations. If he could survive bargaining with the Marsh Consortium while their slime dripped onto his ledgers, he could handle this.
But it was that bad.
And then—of course—it was Dolly.
She stormed into the lobby, wild-eyed, hair disheveled, panic clinging to her like the odor itself. Lux had to bite back a smirk.
'Sira definitely dumped her in a dumpster.'
It was exactly the kind of cruel joke Pride demons loved. Leave a girl desperate, dirty, and convinced it was somehow her fault for not being perfect enough.
Dolly rushed to the counter, pressing herself almost against the receptionist's desk. "Please!" Her voice cracked. "There was a man—Aris Shadowborn. He's here, isn't he? He has to be here!"
The receptionist, who had already been battling nausea, froze. Her professional smile faltered. "I… I don't have any guest under that name."
"Check again!" Dolly snapped, gripping the counter hard enough her knuckles turned white. "You're lying. He's here! He was here! He said—he said—"
The poor clerk looked like she'd rather wrestle a demon than argue. With a reluctant sigh, she typed furiously at her screen.
Lux stood half a step away, watching, amused. He already knew how this would end.
"No one by that name has ever checked in," the receptionist said firmly.
Dolly's face crumpled. Panic. Rage. Disbelief. All of it swirling together. Then her eyes slid sideways—onto Lux.
And there it was.
That look.
He recognized it instantly, because he'd seen it a thousand times across boardrooms, ballrooms, and bedrooms. The look of a mortal who'd spotted an anchor, a savior, someone with gravity too strong to ignore. Dolly's gaze flicked down his sharp suit, up his jawline, lingered at his mouth. Her pupils dilated.
'Here we go,' Lux thought, jaw tightening. 'The damsel act.'
Sure enough, she straightened, wiping at her dirty cheek as if that made her more presentable, and forced a tremble into her voice. "I—I don't know what to do…" She leaned slightly closer, trying to appear fragile, breakable. "Everything's falling apart. He abandoned me. I—I have nowhere to go."
It was a performance.
He'd seen better ones from demon interns trying to fake quarterly losses. But mortals always thought playing the helpless card would work. They thought men were wired to swoop in, to play knight in shining armor.
Lux let the silence drag. Then he turned fully to her, cold as winter steel.
"I don't do drama," he said flatly. His voice cut through the lobby chatter like a guillotine. "Stop playing victim and take a bath. That smell will cling for a week if you don't."
Dolly blinked, stunned. The pity she'd been fishing for slipped straight through her fingers.
The receptionist tried—and failed—to hide a snort behind her hand.
Lux turned as if to leave, but Dolly wasn't done. Desperation made people stupid. She swayed forward, her knees buckling like a bad theater routine, clearly angling to "accidentally" collapse into his arms. A fall that begged to be caught.
Lux saw it coming three seconds early. His incubus instincts registered every subtle twitch in her body language. So when she stumbled toward him, he extended a hand—pretending to catch her—then pulled it back at the last second.
She hit the marble with a sharp yelp, the impact echoing embarrassingly loud across the lobby.
Gasps. A mutter of, "Serves her right," from somewhere near the elevator.
Dolly looked up at him from the floor, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, clearly waiting for him to relent, to soften, to offer her a hand.
Lux didn't.
Instead, he crouched slightly, just enough so only she could see the sharp edge in his expression, the way his gaze pinned her down like a contract clause written in blood.