Chapter 98: Giving In

[This is bad.]

System Theta sounded almost shrill in Elias’s head. It was plainly convinced that he and Serena were about to come to blows at any second.

That was what it expected.

Instead, Serena moved first in a completely different direction.

She reached out in one swift motion, caught Elias by the arm, and yanked him forward hard enough to pull him straight into her chest.

Elias struggled on instinct. His shoulders twisted, his body tensed, and for a second he tried to wrench free, but Serena had already locked his arms down with practiced force. The moment he realized he was not getting out of it cleanly, he stopped fighting altogether.

Their bodies pressed together from hip to shoulder.

At that distance, there was no room left between them. Their faces were close enough that each of them could feel the other’s breath, warm and shallow and far too intimate for the way they were glaring at each other.

Serena lowered her head.

Elias tilted his chin up.

Their eyes met.

Serena saw the stubborn fury in his face at once, and beneath it, something so childish it was almost absurd. His look seemed to say only one thing.

I counted all the way down. Why haven’t you hit me yet?

The last of Serena’s anger thinned out right there.

"Are you finished yet?" she asked.

[What?]

System Theta stalled out completely. Based on every model it had run, Serena should not have been reacting like this at all.

Elias laughed inwardly. You don’t understand feelings.

He had already softened as far as he possibly could without humiliating himself outright. Serena’s temper had burned through most of itself. At that point, how could she still lay a hand on him?

That only made him bolder.

He widened his eyes, sharpened his glare, and snapped, "No."

The answer had barely left his mouth before Serena bent and lifted him clean off the ground.

Elias’s lips parted on reflex. He was a second away from making a startled sound before he caught himself and bit it back. Even so, his body reacted faster than his pride did. To keep from falling, his arms came up instinctively and wrapped around Serena’s neck.

Serena’s mouth curved very slightly.

"So your body is more honest than your mouth," she said. "Interesting."

Elias immediately tried to pull his arms away.

Serena’s gaze cooled. "Let go and I’ll drop you."

"Do it, then."

He said it with all the force he could manage, but his hands never quite left her. Serena could still feel the soft pressure of his fingers at the back of her neck.

That was why the whole thing kept reading strangely to her.

No matter how angry he looked, no matter how sharp his tongue got, his body kept giving him away. It looked less and less like real resistance and more and more like some childish, twisted attempt at showing hurt without admitting it.

Still holding him, Serena carried him out into the living room.

Liora was stretched across the sofa like a woman who had given up on exertion as a concept. She looked over as they entered, her seductive eyes taking in the sight of them in a single, lazy sweep.

"Go back to your room," Serena said.

Liora arched one brow. "Isn’t that a little authoritarian, even for you?"

On any ordinary day Serena might have laughed and tossed back some light remark. Tonight she could not afford that. The second she softened, the posture would be gone, and with it the advantage she still held over Elias.

So she only frowned. "Move."

Liora looked at her for a second longer, then pushed herself upright without argument. Her bare feet found her slippers one by one, and she stepped away from the sofa.

As Serena carried Elias past her, Liora caught sight of his face.

He had been expressionless in Serena’s arms until that exact moment.

Then he blinked at Liora.

Just once.

A small, slow flick of those long lashes, as if a hooked finger had curled toward her from across the room. Provocation disguised as helplessness. The kind of invitation that only needed one second too long to turn into something dangerous.

Liora smiled.

Just like that, the sourness that had been lingering under her skin eased.

She turned and headed upstairs.

Elias, smug as ever, thought to himself, I really am a good man. I make sure everyone’s emotions get taken care of.

System Theta had no reply to that which would not have gotten it in trouble.

Serena crossed the room and sat down on the sofa with Elias still in her arms. Now that the danger of being dropped from a height was gone, he started restlessly shifting again, preparing to become difficult.

Then Serena spoke.

"What happened in the car that day," she said, "was my fault. I’m apologizing."

Elias went still.

The shock on his face was so complete, so real, that it looked almost comical.

Check her, he told System Theta at once. See if she’s been possessed.

Even if Serena had cooled off, this still did not sound like something her personality should have been capable of.

System Theta, far calmer now, answered with unbearable composure.

[You don’t understand feelings.]

Elias went silent for a beat.

Wonderful.

It had learned how to throw his own words back at him.

Looking at his expression, Serena felt something unexpectedly light pass through her. She might even have laughed if she had been in a different mood. Was she really so impossible in his eyes that an apology from her counted as supernatural evidence?

Perhaps sensing that she had him off balance for once, Serena found the next words easier to say.

"I shouldn’t have treated you that way."

Elias recovered quickly.

"In what way?"

Serena regarded him. "Do you really want to hear me say it?"

"Yes."

A faint smile touched her lips. "Fine. I shouldn’t have done that to you in the car. I shouldn’t have kept you crying out like that the whole time. I shouldn’t have left you wearing only one layer and nearly exposed in front of everyone after."

"Shut up."

His voice came out hot and immediate, and Serena spread her hands slightly.

"You asked."

Elias stared at her.

Interesting. Serena Blackwood had evolved too. She had learned how to be shameless and slippery at the same time. That made fighting with her a lot more entertaining.

He shifted, straightening up on her lap until he was sitting more squarely, and his voice turned cold.

"You don’t even know what you did wrong, so what exactly are you apologizing for?"

Serena rested one arm around him more securely, as though the contact were the most natural thing in the world. "Then tell me. What did I do wrong?"

"You shouldn’t have answered that call."

At once, something colder passed through Serena’s gaze.

So that was the real issue.

Giselle mattered that much to him?

"My hand slipped," she said.

Elias looked at her as though she had personally insulted the entire concept of intelligence. "Your hand did not slip. You did it on purpose."

Serena remained infuriatingly composed. There was even a trace of amusement in her eyes now. "You hit me first."

They were fighting about the stupidest possible thing, and still neither of them seemed willing to let it go.

Elias suddenly made a movement as though he might raise his hand again.

Serena caught him immediately, tightening her hold before he could follow through. "What, you want to hit me again? Did your parents never teach you not to go around striking people? Don’t mistake restraint for weakness. I only refrained from hitting you because you’re a man."

Elias struggled once, found it useless, and quit as abruptly as before.

"So I’m supposed to thank you?" he said evenly. "You already forced me into doing that with you, and now you’re still pretending to be some kind of lady."

The line landed cleanly.

Serena’s temper flared again.

She had already compromised more than enough tonight, and he still refused every inch she gave him.

"You..."

Elias cut straight across her before she could finish.

"What? Are you going to drag my parents into it again?" His eyes flashed. "I told you already, if you have the nerve, then hit me. Worst case, my whole family reunites in the underworld. But you’d better keep a wooden prayer block next to your bed and tap it every day to earn some merit. Otherwise if you end up reincarnated as one of the pigs in my family’s yard, I’ll kill you while you’re still a piglet."

Serena actually laughed.

It came out sharp and disbelieving, almost against her will. She should have been angrier than this. She was angrier than this, on paper. Yet something about the familiar rhythm of his threats, the sheer vivid stupidity of them, kept breaking the force of her irritation before it could fully harden.

She was just about to dump him off her lap altogether when a thought stopped her.

For all his snarling, for all his endless mouthing off, Elias had never once gotten off her lap.

He kept sitting there.

Even now.

It was resistance, yes, but twisted into something softer. Combined with the childish way he had sulked all evening, it left Serena with the increasingly ridiculous impression that this was less a true standoff than an elaborate bout of pouting.

He looked furious.

He was probably furious.

And yet he was still here.

Serena had already apologized once. She was not going to coax him any further. After a brief pause, she chose a different route.

"I’ll give you another two million," she said coolly. "What do you think?"

The change in Elias was instant.

His spine, which had been stiff with outrage a moment earlier, seemed to lose all structural integrity at once.