Harem Startup : The Demon Billionaire is on Vacation

Chapter 403 – Does it Scare You?

Lux ignored it, lips twitching. He pushed off the hologram, strolling closer, bare feet silent against the tiles. ”Relax, Ariel. You don’t have to look away. I don’t bite.”

Her eyes flicked to his shoulder where deep indentations looked suspiciously like bite marks. She swallowed again. ”Someone else clearly did.”

Lux’s grin sharpened, wolfish. ”Clever girl.”

Ariel blinked, trying to focus on the pool instead of the man closing the distance. But her heart was hammering, her mind stuck on the horns, the wings, the tail.

She whispered, almost to herself. ”You’re... a demon?”

The word hung in the air like smoke.

Lux tilted his head, tail curling lazily. He didn’t deny it. Didn’t confirm it either. Just smirked, eyes gleaming. ”Does it scare you?”

Her lips parted, but no words came. Did it? It should. Every story said demons were cruel, selfish, dangerous. But the way he looked at her wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t hungry, not in that way. It was steady. Warm. Anchoring. Just like yesterday.

Her chest ached.

”I don’t...” she breathed out, fingers tightening on her robe. ”I don’t know.”

Lux’s smirk softened, just slightly. He leaned closer, wings shadowing her in morning light, his voice dropping low. ”Then take your time, darling. Decide for yourself.”

The music thrummed around them, sultry and slow. Ariel’s cheeks burned hotter, her heart pounding like a trapped bird. She should run. She should say something sharp. She should—

But all she could do was stare at him.

At the mess of scars across his chest. At the smirk that said he already knew every thought racing through her mind.

And help her, at how much she wanted to believe in him anyway.

Ariel’s pulse fluttered like trapped wings. She should’ve turned away, excused herself, slipped back into her room before anyone noticed her out here. But Lux... Lux had a way of catching her in his orbit. Like gravity. Like inevitability.

He caught her staring, of course. He always did. His grin widened, soft around the edges but dangerous underneath, as if he enjoyed the exact contradiction tearing through her.

”Come,” he said, motioning to the poolside chair beside him. His voice was silk threaded with steel. ”Sit. No need to hover in the doorway like a thief sneaking around her own house.”

Ariel hesitated, clutching the edges of her robe again. Her bare feet padded across the tiles almost without her consent, each step drawn forward by his presence more than her will. She perched on the edge of the chair, stiff, her legs curling under the robe—until they weren’t legs anymore.

The faint shimmer of mana in the air betrayed her. In the quiet morning light, her legs fused into a fish’s tail, iridescent scales catching the sun in pale blues and greens. The tail flicked nervously against the pool’s surface, sending ripples across the still water.

She flushed. ”I—I didn’t mean to—”

Lux leaned back, watching with lazy interest. His wings stretched out, horns catching the light, tail curling around one chair leg like a predator at rest. ”Why apologize? You’re beautiful like this.”

Her cheeks burned hotter, her eyes dropping to the water. No one had ever said that to her—not when she was forced to cry pearls, not when her body was nothing more than a resource for the Delmars.

Lux studied her quietly for a beat, his smirk dimming into something sharper. His gaze slid down, catching on the faint scars tracing her arms, her shoulders, even the soft line of her collarbone—old wounds that healing magic couldn’t erase.

He leaned forward, voice low but certain. ”I can help you with those scars.”

Her breath caught, head snapping up to meet his crimson eyes.

”I can erase them,” Lux continued, his tone softening just enough to feel intimate. ”Wipe them away. As if they never happened.” He reached out, his fingers brushing her arm with deliberate slowness, tracing along the pale line of one scar. His touch was warm, firm, grounding. ”But...” His lips curved faintly. ”Let them stay. For now. Proof of what the Delmars did to you. The Avariels need to see it. The whole world needs to see it.”

Ariel’s throat tightened. She could only nod, words lost somewhere in the chaos of her chest.

Lux tilted his head, studying her expression. Then his smile shifted, dangerous again. He leaned closer, close enough that his breath ghosted across her cheek. ”You don’t want revenge at all?”

She froze.

His voice was velvet sin. ”Don’t you want to make them cry? To strip them bare the way they stripped you? To take back everything they stole, everything that should’ve been yours from the beginning?”

Ariel’s hands twisted in her robe. She didn’t know. That was the problem. Her whole body screamed for safety, for peace. After all the pain, all the humiliation, wasn’t it enough just to be left alone? To rest?

Her silence spoke for her.

Lux chuckled under his breath. ”Peace, huh?” He sat back again, smirking like a man who already knew the answer but wanted her to say it out loud. ”That’s sweet. Really. But peace doesn’t come free, darling. Peace is bought. And it’s bought with revenge. Or money.”

Her heart clenched. ”I... I don’t know if I want that.”

”You don’t need to know yet.” He flicked his fingers, and one of the hovering charts folded into an image—a ledger, names scrawled across it in glowing infernal script. Warlords, debts, balances. ”What you need to understand is this: debts are always collected. One way or another. And the Delmars?” His eyes glinted like sharpened coins. ”They owe you. They owe you everything.”

Ariel’s gaze locked on his. Her pulse thrummed. She thought of the dark rooms she was locked in, the endless nights of being forced to cry, the way her pearls were taken from her body as if she wasn’t even human.

Her voice trembled. ”What if all I want is to be left alone? To never see them again?”