Lily stayed close to Dahlia, glancing back at every step as they walked. She looked at Lucien several times, clearly reluctant to part from him. Lucien almost felt sick from it. As soon as Kael and the others left, Marcus came out of the lounge. He spotted the six storage bands on the table. He grabbed one at random and put it on. Then he spoke to Lucien, "I've helped you quite a bit this time. I get a share of these storage bands, right?" Lucien nodded. "You do get a share." He reached out to Marcus. "The one on your wrist is yours. Hand it over." Marcus looked at Lucien, speechless. "You just said it's mine, so why should I give it to you?"This is what I deserve. Lucien said, "It's true that this one is yours, but everything you own belongs to Emma." "Give it to me now. When we get back, both my share and yours will go to Emma together." Marcus was stunned into silence. When Marcus didn't answer, Lucien raised an eyebrow, his tone suddenly dangerous. "It seems like you don't want to hand it over. Does that mean you want to keep some secret stash for yourself?" The moment he heard "secret stash," Marcus immediately yanked the storage band off and tossed it to Lucien. "I'm not hiding anything. Emma already said last time she isn't mad at me anymore." Lucien is so annoying. He actually threatened me over a secret stash. Lucien caught the storage band and set it with his own. When the adjutant returned, Lucien tossed him two storage bands."One of them is for you. Give the other to your guys." Lucien was always generous to the people below him. "Yes." The adjutant took the storage bands happily and left. Once he was gone, Marcus looked at Lucien and asked, "Kael just now gave you ten storage bands altogether, right? "You kept one, gave me one, gave two to the adjutant, so what are you going to do about the other six? "You're not planning to give them all to Calum, are you?" Lucien nodded. "Of course I am. He's my superior, after all." "That guy doesn't deserve it." Marcus wasn't having it.He said to Lucien, "Give me all the leftover bands and I'll bring them to Emma. "Calum's Emma's suitor now, so whatever he owns is Emma's." No one in the house could keep a secret stash. That went for Calum, too. "And in a couple of days, we'll be home. "We already made a deal. "Once we're back, we'll get Calum to meet up and fight it out. "Whoever wins gets to call the shots from then on." Lucien nodded. "Don't worry, I gave you my word. I won't go back on it." Lucien honestly wanted to know if he could beat Calum. He handed the remaining six storage bands to Marcus. "Take them. Just give them to Emma when we get back."He'd worked hard to scam these out of Kael, so he wasn't about to give them all to Calum. After all, Marcus was family now, too. ... Two days later, inside the manor, dawn was just breaking, and Emma was sleeping soundly in Silas's arms. Suddenly, there was a huge crash from downstairs. The whole manor shook violently. "What happened?" Emma woke up with a jolt and sat up. "Are the Chitinids attacking?" Silas frowned and rolled out of bed. "It sounded like it came from the kitchen. I'll go check." "I'm coming with you." Emma hurriedly got dressed and left the room with Silas.Downstairs, Edric's face was completely blackened with soot. He was yelling at Calum, who looked just as sooty. "Marshal Calum, I told you to just wait for breakfast. Why didn't you listen?" Calum hung his head. His white hair was now pitch black. He stood in front of Edric, his tall and imposing figure suddenly looking guilty. "I… I wanted to learn how to cook." Calum tried to defend himself. He had seen all the other males in the house cook for Emma whenever they had time. He wanted to learn, too, so that he could cook something for Emma. He just didn't expect to blow the kitchen up. Edric took a deep breath and asked, "It's fine to learn to cook, but why did you throw your ability into the fire?" He was a level twelve, for god's sake. He was actually dumb enough to toss his ability into the fire. Edric was glad he reacted fast and ran out in time. Otherwise, everyone would be eating roasted snake meat today. Calum explained, "I thought the fire was too small and wanted to make it bigger." He'd done this in the wild before, and nothing ever exploded. Calum honestly had no idea tossing his ability into a fire at home would blow things up. "Ha!" Edric actually laughed out of frustration at that. "Well, now the fire's big enough. So big that it blew up the kitchen." He looked at Calum and asked, "What are you going to do now? "The kitchen's wrecked, so where's Emma supposed to have her breakfast later?" Calum thought about it and said, "Maybe I should just go buy some food from outside?"