The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 37: Her Claiming Call

The ringtone sliced through the room at the perfect moment, easing the razor-sharp tension that had been crackling like live wires between them. The air, thick with Serena Blackwood’s simmering rage, loosened its chokehold just enough for everyone to draw a full breath.

Serena exhaled slowly, her sharp ears locking onto the source. It was coming from Elias Kane—his phone. Again.

She started to rise, but a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her, the kind that follows hours of brutal workouts when every muscle burns. Instead, she stayed seated and lifted a manicured hand to rub her temples. "Liora."

Liora Voss understood instantly. She stepped around the chair and into the hallway, where Elias remained sprawled exactly as he’d been dropped. His body trembled faintly—fear, or maybe the aftershock of pain—while crimson wine pooled around him, soaking into his soft hands. Shards of glass glittered everywhere, scattered like tiny daggers across the marble floor.

Liora picked her way forward with careful steps, avoiding the debris, then crouched. As she reached for the phone tucked in his pocket, her gaze flicked to his face.

Up close, the wreckage was even more startling. Wine drenched him from head to toe; his cheap golden hair hung in sticky clumps across his forehead, dripping steadily onto the floor. His cheeks burned an unnatural scarlet, glistening with a thin sheen of alcohol that caught the low light and gave his skin a delicate, almost ethereal pink glow. The jacket—Giselle Frost’s custom piece—bore the worst of it, fabric dark with spilled vintage and speckled with glass. One tiny fragment had lodged dangerously close to his eye, just beneath the lid, and a thin trail of blood already seeped down his cheek like a warning.

He looked genuinely terrified. Liora had never seen Elias like this. In front of her he had always been the cocky, flirtatious rogue—more seductive than she was, even—yet now his face was deathly pale, lashes quivering, and those usually swollen, vividly red lips had drained to a ghostly white.

Her eyes lowered. He needed this lesson, she decided. Sure, he had leverage—the face that mirrored Lucien Hart so eerily—but that was no excuse to push Serena this far. A plaything with an owner was supposed to behave. She had warned him once already. Clearly he hadn’t listened. This was Serena’s most effective teaching method yet.

Her fingers finally closed around the phone. But just as she prepared to pull it free, Elias’s bowed head shifted. Slowly, he lifted it. Those trembling eyes met hers, regaining a spark of life, a flicker of defiance.

Under Liora’s unwavering stare, his tightly sealed lips parted. A soft pink tongue slipped out, deliberately slow, and licked the wine from the corner of his mouth before curling it neatly inside. He made sure she saw every second of it.

When he finished, those now-glossy lips curved into the tiniest, most insolent smirk aimed straight at her.

Liora’s pupils shrank. In the middle of all this, he was still teasing her?

Had Serena’s outburst not scared him at all?

And right under Serena’s nose...

Even though her body blocked the view completely, Liora’s heart slammed against her ribs. If the ringtone hadn’t kept ringing, she was half-convinced Serena would hear it.

She didn’t dare hesitate any longer. She plucked the phone from his pocket and stood.

[Liora Voss favorability increased. Current: 27%.]

Elias thought wryly, Those two sisters really are something—favorability rises in perfect sync.

Now that he could finally speak, System Theta panicked in his ear. "Host! Host, are you okay? Does it hurt? Your eyes—will there be permanent damage—" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Elias gave a soft, tired laugh. He glanced down at the faint glint of glass near his cheek. "I’m fine. Just a scratch."

"If I actually lose an eye, worst case I’ll just become a Caribbean pirate."

System Theta: "..."

Liora turned, masking every trace of her earlier reaction, and handed the phone to Serena with cool composure.

Serena’s focus had never left the device. She didn’t notice the subtle shift in Liora’s demeanor. She took it, eyes narrowing at the unsaved number glowing on the screen.

Both women’s expressions tightened the instant they saw it. That number had once been the prize in an exclusive elite auction years ago—people who wanted it lacked the funds, people with funds didn’t want it. In the end, Giselle Frost’s mother had snapped it up as a casual little trinket.

Giselle Frost’s mother would never call Elias herself. That left only one possibility: the daughter.

Liora tried to soften the atmosphere that had turned to ice. "I never imagined Giselle Frost’s mother, Victoria Frost, would auction that number for her own daughter. Seems she isn’t quite as cold to family as she is to everyone else..."

Serena lifted her gaze and gave Liora one cool, silencing look. Liora’s mouth closed immediately.

Serena’s face darkened like a storm cloud. She thrust the phone toward Elias so he could see the screen. "Who?"

This was his final chance.

Elias glanced at it and muttered, "Spam call. Hang up."

Any number he didn’t recognize was automatically a scam in his book.

Bang!

Serena slammed her palm on the table and shot to her feet. Liora moved on pure instinct, grabbing both of her sister’s arms to hold her back.

Serena’s icy stare snapped to her. Liora kept her expression perfectly neutral, speaking from Serena’s own perspective. "Sister, he’s just a plaything."

The implication was clear: he wasn’t worth the rage.

They stared at each other for a long, charged moment. Finally Serena dragged her gaze away, voice frigid. "I know. Besides..."

"I never planned to actually hurt him."

The words landed. Liora’s breath hitched for the briefest instant before she forced it steady again.

Just as the ringtone reached its final chime, Serena answered.

A cool, crystalline voice came through the line, clear and distant. "Where are you?"

Two simple words, like the first snowflake drifting down in early winter.

Elias’s eyes widened in pure disbelief.

It really was you, ice queen.

He had never once considered Giselle Frost might call. The last time they’d seen each other, she had dropped the heartfelt meal he’d painstakingly prepared straight into the trash without a second of hesitation.

System Theta muttered, "Wasn’t that takeout..."

Whatever. The host was always right.

One thing still puzzled him—how the hell had Giselle even gotten his number? Doxxing? That’s illegal, little sis!

The moment the voice confirmed it was indeed Giselle, Serena’s fury cooled into something far more dangerous: absolute, terrifying calm.

She pressed the phone close to her lips, glanced down at the young man still lying on the floor, and smiled with delicate, velvet menace. "Oh, him? He’s lying right beneath me right now..."