Normally, Lucas would have just told her that it was none of her business what he did with his time as long as she got her shit. Barring that, he would have lied his ass off and just made up something plausible. In this moment, the way she was looking at him with her intense, gold-flecked eyes, though, he didn’t think that was possible. The way that she was staring at him right now made him quite sure she could stare right into his soul if she wanted to.
She might appear to be nothing but an aging beauty, but past all that, she was a predator, and now that he saw it, her very presence raised the same hackles on his neck as the time his buddy had tried to wear a wire on him, a decade back.
Whatever I say next, I have to be very fucking careful, he reminded himself.
So, he told her the truth, just very selectively. “I hooked up with this old school alchemist,” he explained, “Annoying guy, but he knows his shit, and I’ve been using that to… refine my techniques, I guess you could say.”
He went on to explain some of the elemental techniques he was using to refine his Blue, just long enough for boredom to start to show in her eyes. Then he changed topics, glossing over everything else, and said, “Anyway, the point is, we’re making great progress. The other day, with one of my most recent batches, we got closer than we'd ever gotten before, actually. I can feel it like we're on the verge of a breakthrough.”
He left out the fact that the batch he was talking about wasn’t this one and instead flourished the tiny bottle of blue he’d been carrying for just this moment. Her eyes were unable to study both him and his drug at the same time at that moment, so they flicked to the faintly glowing vial instead.
“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me,” she sighed, pressing her body against him hard enough that he could feel her nipples through her dress. “I can smell it - the faintest hint of the divine on you. You might really have finally done it…”
“Well, you’d have to try to find out,” he said, faking a smile as he tried to ignore how this was exactly the opposite of the woman he wanted to be pressed against.
“In time, my dear, in time,” she whispered, taking it from my fingers before she very slowly and deliberately slipped it into her cleavage. She was obviously putting on a show and was a touch disappointed when she looked up to find that my eyes had never drifted down. She was hardly the first cougar I’d known, and I was onto her tricks. “First, we must go dancing. The night is young. Intoxication and inebriation are best saved for later and indulged in private.”
Dancing. That was the word he dreaded the most out of all possible fates. Lucas would rather be flung into the moat a second time than go out and twirl in the ballroom with all of the fancy people. He fought in vain to delay that fate. He tried to ask questions about Skylara, to run out the clock, and barring that, he tried to flirt with her, however distasteful he found it, but she had set her heart on dancing with him, and she could not be dissuaded.
“It’s the least I can do,” she explained as they strolled. “You’ve worked so hard for me. The least I can do is show you off a little. The people will talk, of course, but then, that’s the point. You deserve some recognition, even if we can’t recognize you publicly for your fine product.”
“I dunno,” Lucas said half-heartedly. “I do my best work from the shadows.”
“You live in my shadow now,” she said, a bit too possessively for his taste as she clung to his arm a little tighter.
He might have asked her about that, but by then, they were in the thick of the crowd and surrounded by people, and he could no longer say anything that might give away secrets. Instead he walked forward like a man condemned.
Truthfully, though, it wasn’t so bad. He’d dreaded the whole thing, but this was why he’d taken all those damn lessons, after all, and fortunately, the song that everyone was currently waltzing to was rather sedate. If it had been one of those songs where everyone was constantly switching partners, he was certain he would have embarrassed himself in a grand fashion, but this he could probably handle.
“Isn’t this lovely?” she asked, obviously enjoying the attention as much as the dancing. “I so rarely get to show my treasures off, and you are very much a treasure, Mister Blue.”
“You probably have a whole mountain of gold all to yourself,” he joked. “I can hardly compare to all of that.”
“Discussing my mountains, and in public no less,” she teased. “How utterly inappropriate.”
Lucas cursed his words and tried to apologize, but she wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. “Now, now. All the treasure in the world can’t make me feel the way you do,” she said with a smile that was far too eager to be coquettish in the way she’d intended. “And all your labors get me ever closer to my true goal.”
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“True goal?” he asked, perking up. He’d already validated what the Goddess told him during his uncomfortable conversation with his tailor, but if she was going to give away information, he was happy to listen.
“Now, now,” she teased. “That’s a secret, for now anyway, maybe after I get to know you a little better…”
Lucas nodded at that. He’d expected as much and had no wish to bait her further down this road. It was obvious enough that she was already trying to lead him down it, and he wouldn't make her job any easier. Her intentions had been clear for a while now, of course. He just needed to figure out how to get out of this.
It wasn’t that Skylara wasn’t a beautiful woman, of course. She was, but she was a monster underneath that thin veneer and only a century or ten too old for him.
“You’re moving a little stiffly,” she commented after a minute or two of slow twirling. “Did you have an accident in the lab?”
“More like a disagreement with a rival gang,” he said, surprised that she could tell that he still wasn’t quite one hundred percent. I gotta stay focused, at least around her. He reminded himself. If I don’t keep my head in the game, I’m liable to lose it.
That, in turn, caused her to stiffen, and for a moment, they were half a step off the tempo until she recovered her focus. “You were hurt? Fighting?” she demanded. “Tell me who did this, and I will murder all of them.”
“Well, I appreciate the offer,” he said, trying to play off the moment and ignore the way her full fury made him feel like a mouse playing with a cat. “But we already took care of that part. You know? Blood and fire and all that. There’s no one left to take vengeance on.”
“Fire, huh?” she purred, melting slightly at his reassurance. She pulled Lucas a bit closer before she said, “Tell me more about this fire.”
The last thing he’d expected was for Skylara to want the gory details. Still, he did his best to give them to her. “I wasn’t there for all of it, you understand. I have more important things to do than smash heads,” he explained. “But the way my lieutenants tell it…”
Lucas proceeded to spin a story for her that was pretty much the truth of what had happened when the Red Lantern Gang gals had crossed him. He told her how he’d fallen into their clutches in a business deal gone wrong, and after the Madam in charge had tried to sell him to the wrong person, his people had burned her little empire to the ground.
“For a human, you are quite intelligent, Mister Blue,” she purred. “This is exactly the correct response. When people think they have subtle forms of power over you, you must remind them of how easily their puppet strings can be severed with raw, brutal force. There is no other way.”
In the context of the conversation, her words were sensible enough. However, when they were viewed in the context of her arrangements with the Prince and before him, his father, the King, they were a bit more chilling. This was a woman who would burn the city down with everyone in it just to make a point.
Fortunately, the next dance was a little faster, giving him time to process all of this without giving her too much of a chance to study him. After that, he tried to beg off to get some wine, but Skylara wouldn’t hear of it.
“One more song, at least,” she insisted.
She got her way, of course, as she did in all things. He was in no mood to test her after she revealed that, in her mind, the correct answer to express dominance was to burn everything down. So, he suffered through one more slow song while she spent most of the time resting her head on his chest, and he tried to figure out if there was something more he could do.
It was only after that that they finally strolled off the dance floor. He had two glasses of wine in quick succession. One was for refreshment, and the second was for his nerves. While he indulged, she introduced him to all sorts of people, some of whom he’d already met.
All of them cared about Skylara and her opinions. That much was easy to see. She was supposed to be a very wealthy dowager duchess, of course, had she was hardly ugly. Any interest in Lucas was feigned, though, at least until she mentioned that he was a young Viscount visiting from abroad to assist the Prince in some important projects. That always perked up their interest rather quickly, but to Lucas’s annoyance.
“I told you,” he hissed after they left the company of the Lady Markim and her very eligible niece Bernadette, “The fewer people that know who I am, the better.”
“But if they don’t have even a hint, how can they spread all sorts of scandalous rumors about the two of us?” she asked.
Lucas smiled at that, but only to suppress the sigh on his lips. That was the very last thing he wanted.
The only silver lining to the whole thing was that he was able to avoid Adin and his new wife, though he had Adin to thank for that more than Skylara. There were several times she seemed to be leading them right toward the other couple, but each time, the newlyweds slipped away.
All of that came to an end rather abruptly when she said, “We’ve danced enough. I think we should go back to my rooms to continue this party in private.”
Lucas swallowed hard at that. The way her eyes sparkled told him exactly what she wanted, and while once upon a time he might have done her just to find out how dragon pussy was, these days he only had eyes for Danaria, and sleeping with anyone else was a line he definitely wasn’t willing to cross.
Still, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of it. The Prince’s words from earlier still rang in his ears. No wasn’t a word Skylara was used to hearing, and it was usually fatal for anyone who tried.