Chapter 100: What Are You Laughing At?

For a few long seconds, neither of them moved.

Elias was the first to come back to himself. The moment his mind cleared, he jerked out of Serena Blackwood’s hold like he had just touched a live wire.

Serena straightened a beat later. Unlike him, she did not react with anything so obvious. She rose at her own pace, spine unfolding, expression settling, though the look in her eyes turned a shade darker.

What had she just been about to do?

Kiss him?

Kiss this counterfeit stand-in?

Even as the thought landed, disgust and disbelief tangled together in her chest. She was still trying to understand her own lapse when Elias’s voice cut across the room, cold enough to leave a mark.

"Have you lost your mind?"

She lifted her gaze to him and caught something in his eyes that made her face go still.

Disdain.

He was looking at her with actual disgust.

That, more than anything, made Serena want to laugh. She had not kissed him because he did not deserve it. That was reason enough. But where, exactly, did he get the nerve to act as though she was the one unworthy of laying a hand on him?

If he did not want her to kiss him, then maybe she ought to do exactly that.

She had barely shifted before Elias stopped her with one sentence.

"Didn’t you always think I was filthy?"

He was not talking about his body.

He meant the rest of it. His background. The life he came from. The fact that he had been an adopted orphan. The fact that he had worked in places women like Serena would never admit visiting. The fact that he had once been pushed into the role of Lucien Hart’s replacement, a cheap imitation forced into a shape he had never chosen.

In Serena’s eyes, that kind of stain had always run deeper than skin.

Elias gave a sharp little laugh, but there was no warmth in it. Serena watched the curl of his mouth, then felt her own temper cool almost as quickly as it had flared.

What was she doing?

Why would she let anger push her into kissing him?

Before this, his behavior had already been a different kind of surrender. Not direct obedience, but a crooked form of softening, a bratty sort of coaxing. Even now, every movement of his seemed to carry the same ulterior motive.

He wanted to provoke her into it.

He wanted the kiss.

The thought settled over her so neatly that Serena’s lips curved. Her voice came out light with mockery.

"You really do know how to scheme." Her gaze slid over him. "Too bad for you. Keep dreaming."

Elias blinked.

For the first time in a while, he genuinely failed to keep up with Serena’s logic.

Still, from the look in her eyes, it was clear she was not angry because of what had almost happened.

Wake up, Elias.

She’s a domineering CEO with a control problem, not a middle-schooler pulling pigtails because she likes you.

Serena extended a hand toward him.

He dodged it on instinct and put real distance between them, his whole body wired with suspicion. "I have class this afternoon."

The ridicule at the corner of Serena’s mouth deepened. "What exactly is going on in that head of yours?" She gave him a slow once-over. "Do you think I’m trying to drag you back to bed right now?"

Elias looked at her for a moment, then nodded with sincere gravity.

Serena almost choked on the silence that followed.

The worst part was that he was not wrong. A few minutes ago, the idea had absolutely crossed her mind. But if she admitted that now, she would only be handing him proof of his own appeal, and Serena Blackwood had no intention of inflating his ego for free.

So she buried it.

When she looked at him again, it was with the same cool, dismissive expression someone might spare a bug crawling across the floor.

"Clear out all the filth in your brain," she said. "I’m taking you back to school."

Elias blinked once.

That look, honestly, would have driven the right kind of masochist insane.

Good thing he wasn’t one.

What surprised him more was that Serena had decided to send him back to campus at all.

What, had she turned over a new leaf?

Possession by a benevolent sainly spirit?

Then it clicked.

"Split personality," Elias said with a solemn expression. "I pushed her too hard and now she’s developed a second self. This must be the kind one."

[Really?!]

No.

Elias smiled.

That’s impossible. Dissociative split is practically an exclusive skill set for employees of the Trash Trope Intervention Division. Serena Blackwood doesn’t have the qualifications.

This looks more like a temporary easing of her latest psychotic episode.

[...]

The silence from System Theta felt almost offended.

Elias had to admit he was enjoying this a little too much. Maybe deception really was contagious in his line of work.

Serena held out her hand again.

Elias glanced at it, then at her face. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Do you realize how strange this makes you look? You can’t glare at somebody like they’re sewer trash and then immediately ask to hold hands unless your entire personality is built out of deadpan contradiction.

Then again, Serena did qualify as tsundere by the loosest definition imaginable, provided a person was willing to accept ninety-nine point nine percent arrogance and maybe a microscopic fraction of hidden softness.

In the end, he let her catch his hand.

He tried resisting once, lightly. Serena squeezed just hard enough to remind him what she could do, and the struggle ended there.

As soon as his fingers settled in hers, Serena felt that old familiar pleasure bloom again.

Control.

There it was.

For all his thorns, for all his sarcasm and his sideways defiance, he was still standing here in her grasp, still quiet when she decided he would be quiet.

She did not take him straight outside.

Instead, she led him upstairs and stopped in front of a bedroom door before knocking twice, hard enough that the sound carried.

No servant in this house would have dared make that much noise.

Which was exactly why the door opened from the inside a moment later.

Liora Voss stood there, one hand still on the knob. Her gaze passed first over Serena, then over Elias, and then down to their joined hands.

Serena was taller. Elias stood closer. Both of them had turned their faces away from each other, neither willing to give the other the satisfaction of direct eye contact.

They looked absurdly like a couple in the middle of a fight.

The thought appeared in Liora’s mind before she could stop it, and something at her temple pulsed once, sharp and unpleasant.

By the time she looked back at Serena, the patience in her expression had thinned.

"What?"

Serena, by contrast, looked almost peaceful. There was even a trace of amusement in her eyes. "I need a driver."

Liora tilted her head. "Do I look like your chauffeur?"

"No." Serena’s smile stayed in place. "But I trust you behind the wheel."

The meaning under it was plain enough.

Drive.

Whether you want to or not.

Liora’s brows drew together. "Did I offend you somehow?"

Serena’s voice stayed mild. "You tell me."

That was enough.

Liora understood at once. Retaliation. Clean, petty, deliberate retaliation.

So this was still about the last time she had laughed at her.

Standing there with Serena and Liora facing each other, Elias found the whole thing unexpectedly entertaining.

The sisters really did know how to needle each other.

What made it better was the thought that slid into his mind right after. If Serena ever learned exactly what had already passed between him and Liora, would the two of them still be able to stand here acting civilized?

Probably not.

He took one quiet step backward, just enough to put himself in Serena’s blind spot while still staying within the edge of Liora’s vision.

Then he parted his lips and mouthed, soundless and shameless.

Take me back, big sister.

For the briefest instant, the corner of Liora’s mouth threatened to lift.

She pressed it down before Serena could see, then shot her adoptive sister one cold look and said, "Let’s go."

The three of them ended up in the car with Liora in the driver’s seat and Serena and Elias in the back.

Up until the moment they got in, Serena had kept hold of his hand. Their palms had grown damp where their skin stayed pressed together, but she did not let go. She seemed not to care in the slightest. If anything, she looked absorbed.

Because she was playing with his hand.

Elias’s fingers were long and fine-boned, the nails clean and naturally pale at the tips, the joints neat without looking fragile. Serena threaded her own fingers through his almost absently, as if testing the fit, feeling the flex of tendon and warmth and the quiet resistance under the skin.

Then Elias pulled free.

He turned and stared at her with an expression so strange that Serena felt it immediately.

He had never looked at her quite like that before.

Still, she understood why.

She had crossed too many lines today.

The near-kiss. The handholding. Interlacing fingers in the back seat like that. All of it had come too naturally, too quickly, as if her body had acted before her pride could catch up.

A sliver of ugliness passed over her face.

Serena withdrew her hand, turned toward the window, and fixed her attention outside.

From the front seat, Liora’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. She caught the entire exchange in one glance and would have looked away again if she had not met a pair of eyes in the reflection.

Innocent and beautiful eyes.

They narrowed slightly as Elias smiled, a quick, sly little curve that made him look more catlike than human for a second. There was mischief in it, and invitation, and the kind of practiced trouble that knew exactly when it was being watched.

Liora understood the message at once.

Flirting again.

That was enough to pull a faint smile from her before she could stop it.

From the back seat, Serena’s voice came cool and sudden.

"What are you laughing at?"