Chapter 424: A Malicious Kiss [II]
So I snickered instead, smug and insufferable as I’ve always known to be. “And what’s your endgame here? This is your signature ploy. I know you’re good at this. I’ve watched you dangle yourself tantalizingly like a carrot in front of desperate fools, always feeding them just enough crumbs to keep them begging, but never actually giving them a damn thing. Then you discard them.”
Pulling my hand from her chin, I leaned back until I was fortably sprawling with my legs parted wide and arms stretched out lazily over the raised back cushions.
I knew I was looking big, unbothered and confident. “But you should know better. That won’t work on me. I’m not like those weak, lovesick fools you’re used to making puppets out of. If I’m starving, I don’t do appetizers. You want to use seduction to bypass the rule of malicious intent and make me subservient to you? You’ll have to actually deliver, sweetheart. And we both know you’re too terrified of losing control to ever truly give yourself to anyone.”
She wasn’t the only one good at wearing masks.
She wasn’t the only one who knew ourselves and each other better than anyone else, even if we seldom admitted it out loud.
We had spent years together, living with and influencing one another, both up close and from a distance.
We had taken two very different paths that had led us to bee these two very messed-up teenagers that we were.
I knew the rough edges of her paranoia, and she knew the exact dimensions of my pride.
I knew I had always starved for affection since I never got any from my family.
That’s what happens. If you are never given love freely growing up, you will gladly bleed yourself just to taste it.
Juliana knew this too. She was basically playing a high-stakes game of emotional chicken, using the lack of ‘malicious intent’ to ignore the oath.
Seduction wasn’t malice. Affection wasn’t a weapon.
If she managed to make me dependent on her presence, to make my decisions revolve around keeping her close and safe, she wouldn’t need to break the oath to control me.
And since I wouldn’t register that as harm, the oath wouldn’t stop her.
Better yet, even after the oath ended, I’d still voluntarily tie the leash around my own neck and hand her the chain like a well-trained dog.
Good plan, I must say.
Unfortunately, where I was desperate for affection, she was scared of it. She would never give herself pletely, because that would leave her exposed as well.
It was unknown territory she wasn’t yet ready to chart, because what if she got lost in there?
What if she indulged too long, shared the warmth of her fire more than necessary, and found herself starved too?
But that was exactly where she needed to go and what she needed to do if she really wanted to tame my heart.
I laughed. Wretched, both of us.
“I can switch off my emotions in a blip. I can use the Bloodworm and remind you of your place at my feet,” I rose, standing close to look down on her. “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Juli. I have all the power between us. Real power. Stop before you get hurt—”
I don’t remember what I was going to say after that. All I remember was the way Juliana tipped her head up.
I had all the time in the world to get away, but I wasn’t nearly as alarmed as I thought I would be.
Not nearly as alarmed when she brought her mouth to mine.
I have a lot of experience with kisses, with debauchery in general.
I don’t remember the exact count, but I must’ve shared beds and broken hearts across half the high-society circles.
So I knew the mechanics of a kiss, the intimate rhythm meant to pass the time or declare passion.
But I had never felt the way I felt kissing her — like an adrenaline strike of lightning, like when you spin around so fast you feel lightheaded, like the start of a daring adventure that makes your knees weak.
Juliana’s cruel lips were unsurprisingly soft, softer than anything I had dreamt them to be.
For a long moment after the first contact, I was still as a statue.
Her eyes were closed, silky lashes brushing my cheek and her hands ing up to grip the fabric of my tunic right over my chest.
She was trying to anchor herself.
As if she, too, was feeling the sudden, dizzying drop off the edge of the cliff we had both been standing on.
She tasted like cold wine, undercurrented by a sour tang that I registered as her natural flavour.
She tasted like cigarettes and strawberries.
There was no elegance to what she did to me.
She kissed me hard, devouring me desperately, as if making a silent, intense demand for my submission.
In response, my brain pletely emptied out. I gave up and gave in without meaning to.
All my smugness went up in smoke as my hands, which had been frozen mid-air, acted entirely on their own instinct.
I brought them down, my fingers burying themselves into the small of her back and the flesh of her hip to pull her closer and grip her tighter.
The world spun as I kissed her back with savage intensity that scared even me. Our mouths slid and lapped against each other, teeth over lips over tongues.
We kept at it for a heartbeat, for a minute, for an eternity — until our hearts threatened to break out of our ribs and it was just physically too much.
When Juliana finally broke the kiss, her movements were slow and her eyes drunk.
Her bow-shaped full lips were flushed and her cheeks were the shade of a rose in full bloom.
She was panting slightly, her shallow breaths addictive and hot against my face as she touched her forehead to mine, her fingers still knotted into my tunic.
I was grateful that I didn’t have to meet her gaze.
“Did it live up to your imagination?” she asked, her tone sounding a bit harsh to my ears. “Because you must have imagined.”
I didn’t answer, not trusting myself to lie, and the truth was just too embarrassing to admit. Because yes, it did live up to my shameful imagination and then some.
“Even as little as we were back then, I knew you held me in high favor. You used to sit and talk with me, bring food and trinkets, take me out on walks and shield me from your siblings’ whims. I told you, don’t think of me as ungrateful. I remember it all,” her whisper was warm like her, a far cry from her usual icy posure. But then it turned haughty. “Looking back, it’s obvious you had a cute little crush on me, didn’t you? Was it because I was one of the only few servant girls our age? Or maybe I just caught your fancy?”
My grip on her hip tightened so much that I had no doubt it would leave a bruise for days.
“Or maybe I just took pity on a freshly orphaned girl,” I tried, but my traitorous voice didn’t sound as convincing as I’d hoped it would.
“Don’t jest now,” she chuckled, a breathless sound. “Would you have taken a bloody beating by your sister for just any orphan girl?”
When I tried not to answer again, she lifted her head and suddenly brought our lips close again. Only this time, to my annoyance, she refused to let them touch.
Her eyes, when I met them, pelled an answer out of me.
“…No,” I found myself acknowledging tonelessly, which was as good a confession as any.
She seemed weirdly proud. “It was disgusting to even think about your affection after what you did to me, after how ruthlessly you hurt me. That is the only reason I didn’t rope you in before. But… I think I’m over it now. You’ve proven yourself changed and useful. I can put you to good work.”
I wanted to push her, but due to our almost-touching proximity, I felt her words on my skin more than I heard them.
And I found my body was as much a traitor as my voice when it demurred my mand to get away.
“You’re right. You’re not like those other lovesick fools I dallied with, Mael,” she said, and I shuddered when she used that cherished nickname she had not used in years. Aside from being a cheap trick, she did it to establish equality between us in this not-so-safe space tonight. “Because I had to put in work to control them, whereas you are already wrapped around my lap. So go ahead, use that Bloodworm and break my heart again. But I know you won’t do it. Or go ahead and emotionally isolate yourself as you do. But I know you won’t do that either. I will make every breath you take yearn for me. I will make you addicted to me out of your mind. And you will not resist. Because I know you won’t.”
With that, she detached herself from my tunic. Her hand slowly uncurled from the fabric, smoothing down the wrinkles she’d left there with an almost possessive pat, like I was her belonging.
Then she stepped backward out of the cabana, even as her breathing remained a little shallower than she’d ever willingly admit.
Leaving me in the cold of the night, she disappeared behind the glass doors of the villa.
•••
Later that night, I was tossing and turning in a nest of coverlets and scrolls and books and documents littered all over my bed.
I was trying, and failing, to do some research on the region of Iron Height, wanting to familiarize myself with the geography and sea routes.
I should’ve been focusing, but my mind wouldn’t stop replaying the soft touch of her kiss.
Shame and heat burned constantly on my face.
The Samael Kaizer Theosbane — the despicable philanderer, the trash son of the Golden Duke, the Beast of Luxara, the Tyrant of Apex — reduced to a blushing, hyperventilating mess by a single kiss from his own Shadow.
Utterly pathetic.
I aggressively shoved a leather-bound journal off myself, watching it thud against the carpet, and dropped my face in my hands while groaning out loud into the empty luxury of my bedroom.
My heart wouldn’t stop speeding, beating in my chest like a caged bird that wanted nothing more than to fly off and slip under Juliana’s sheets, pride and ego be damned.
And so, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my own heart, growling at it in accusation. e on, dude. I can’t be that easy. Resist a little!
You’re actually even easier, my heart replied.
…Fuck this.
She had declared war on me.
And the timing was impeccable, since I was soon going to fight in two back-to-back wars anyway. What’s one more, right?
Grunting in frustration at no one in particular, I took to my feet, dressing myself in the lavender lawn of my button-down and the off-white silk-linen of my trousers.
I needed to clear my mind.
I needed to get out, go somewhere, anywhere.
That kiss was corroding my mind.
More than that…
Mael.
She used to call me that when we were kids.
But now that nickname felt like a brand, a curse unraveling me as much as it made me happy for reasons I was not ready to name.
I checked the clock. 23:46.
Bursting out of my room, I barged into Michael’s and hauled him out of his bed. Confused, tired, and obviously sleepy, the boy protested helplessly as I dragged him with me.
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