Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 861

Chapter 861: Little Prayers: Aurora Maria Potter

The chocolate soufflé arrived like a small miracle—risen perfectly, dusted with powdered sugar, accompanied by a drizzle of crème anglaise that the waiter poured with ceremonial precision, like he was baptizing it into the Church of Diabetes.

Charlotte made a sound that was borderline criminal when she took the first bite.

"Good?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"I would commit crimes for this. Serious crimes. Felonies."

"I’ll remember that next time I need an alibi."

She laughed, already going back for another bite. The kiss tension had melted out of her completely now. Her shoulders were relaxed. Her smile came easy.

She looked younger somehow—like the weight of being Charlotte Thompson, CEO, had been lifted for one blessed evening. Like she’d temporarily escaped whatever corporate hellscape required her to smile at people who looked like they still used Yahoo Mail.

I felt her before I saw her.

A presence at the edge of my peripheral vision. Small. Warm. Radiating the kind of innocent curiosity that only children possess—that pure, unfiltered wonder that adults spend their whole lives trying to recapture, usually through overpriced therapy sessions and celebrity wellness podcasts that somehow still end in a divorce announcement.

I turned my head slowly.

A little girl stood about four feet from our table. Maybe five years old. Maybe six. Dark curly hair that looked like it had been carefully brushed this morning but had since staged a rebellion. Big brown eyes that were fixed on my face with an intensity that would’ve been unsettling if it came from anyone over three feet tall.

She wasn’t moving. Wasn’t speaking. Just... staring.

Her eyes grew wider with each passing second, like she was peeling back layers of something only she could see. Uncovering mysteries. Solving equations that existed in whatever magical dimension children’s minds operated in.

The kind of focus most adults only reach when they’re stalking their ex on Instagram at 3 a.m.

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to break whatever spell she was weaving for herself.

Ten seconds passed. Fifteen.

Her little mouth fell open slightly.

Twenty seconds.

I watched her with gentle amusement, letting her have her moment. There was something sacred about the way children processed the world—this complete, unfiltered absorption of information before the brain caught up with words.

Adults rushed to fill silences. Children lived in them. Adults panicked if a conversation lasted three seconds without noise, like silence was a personal attack.

Where had she come from? I glanced around the restaurant, looking for a frantic parent, a searching waiter, any sign that someone was missing a tiny human. The nearby tables were occupied by couples and business dinners.

The staff moved efficiently between stations. No one seemed to be in child-recovery mode.

She must have slipped away from somewhere. The back, maybe? A staff area?

I turned back to her. Those brown eyes hadn’t left my face.

"You’re so handsome." The words came out like she hadn’t meant to say them at all—like they’d been sitting in her head and just... escaped. Tumbled out before she could catch them. Her cheeks flushed pink immediately, but she didn’t look away.

If anything, her stare intensified.

Charlotte made a small choking sound beside me, her hand flying to her mouth, like she’d just watched a child casually deliver a pickup line with more confidence than half the men on Tinder.

"Thank you," I said, keeping my voice soft. Warm. The voice I’d learned to use with children—gentle enough to not startle, clear enough to be understood. "That’s very kind of you to say."

She nodded slowly, still in her daze. Still studying my face like it held the answers to questions she hadn’t learned to ask yet.

Then she started circling.

Literally circling. Moving around my chair in a slow orbit, her head tilted back to keep her eyes on me, examining me from every angle like I was an exhibit at a museum.

She looked at my shoulders. My back. Frowned. Leaned closer to peer at the space behind me. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

What was this—National Geographic: Predator Edition?

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

She didn’t answer. Just continued her inspection, rising up on her tiptoes to check the area around my shoulder blades, her little brow furrowed in concentration like she was about to expose a government conspiracy.

She completed her circuit, stopping in front of me again. That wide-eyed wonder was still there, but now there was something else too. Determination.

The look of a detective who’d hit a dead end but refused to give up. The same look every celebrity PR manager gets when their client says "It wasn’t me" while standing next to a leaked video.

"My wings?"

"You look like the angels in Mama’s book. The ones with the pretty faces." She tilted her head, curls bouncing. "But they have wings. Big ones. So, I thought maybe you were hiding yours somewhere."

"Maybe they fold up? Like a bird’s? Or maybe—" Her eyes went wide with a new theory. "Maybe they’re invisible! Like a superhero!"

I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on my knees so I was closer to her eye level. Her face was so open. So earnest. This wasn’t a child performing for adults or seeking attention. This was genuine curiosity, genuine wonder, genuine attempt to understand something that didn’t fit her existing categories.

I loved kids. Always had. There was something about their complete lack of pretense, their absolute commitment to whatever reality they decided to inhabit, that felt more honest than anything in the adult world.

Adults lied for money, status, and social media likes. Kids lied because they genuinely believed they were a dinosaur for twelve minutes.

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