“I don’t,” she snapped, too fast.
Too loud.
Too telling.
“But I won’t be a fool.”
There it was.
The fear. The fury. The fire.
And God help me, I wanted to wrap it around my throat and choke on it.
I stepped toward her slowly, letting the tension throb between us like a second heartbeat.
“What makes you think I’d treat you like one?” I asked, my voice a low hum of warning and curiosity.
She didn’t flinch. That only made it worse.
“Because you enjoy this game,” she bit out, eyes burning. “You thrive on chaos and power.”
I chuckled, low and dark. “You’re not wrong.”
She shifted then, restless. On edge. Like a wolf too smart to flee, too proud to show its throat.
“Then you know what it means,” she said, quieter now, “if you play me for a fool.”
Oh, she didn’t understand.
She had no idea what game we were playing.
I moved in—close enough that our breath mingled in the space between us. Close enough to feel the crackle in the air as our energy collided, sparked, bled.
“Oh, Persephone,” I murmured, savoring her name like a secret on my tongue. “You’ve always been anything but a fool in my eyes.”
Her breath hitched.
I felt it more than heard it.
The way her body reacted, even as her words defied me.
And it was intoxicating.
“You think you understand how this works,” I whispered, voice velvet-wrapped steel. “But there are layers to this… to me… that you haven’t even begun to unravel."
Because beneath the masks, beneath the titles and the war of words, I already knew the truth:
She was mine.
And someday, she’d stop fighting it.
“But it’s good to know you’re jealous,” I said, letting the smirk curve slow and deliberate across my mouth. “That means you’re only a few steps away from caring.”
Her eyes flared, wide with fury, with something wounded just beneath the surface.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
God, it was beautiful.
