CHAPTER 333: 333: WIND BETWEEN FINGERS

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A corner of his mouth lifted before he could stop it. He did not let it become a smile. "You are weak," he said, and let the word be plain so that if she were the sort of traveler who only liked sweet tea she would taste the bitter and decide to leave. "I do not mean your body. I mean your species. What are you."

She met his eyes without flinching. "I am an ant."

He did not bother to disguise his immediate disbelief. "If you are an ant, why do you look like a human? You are not even a one star rank. Beasts do not transform until three star rank. Are you trying to jest with me? If you try anything funny I will end your life."

Her mouth opened in a small O and then closed. "Oh my," she said, and for the first time a real laugh touched her voice. "Do not say such scary things. I used to be over three star rank but my rank dropped to zero. I cannot tell you the reason. But I mean you no harm."

He watched the way she said cannot, not will not. He watched the way she set that boundary and made it a fact instead of an invitation to argue. A royal habit. Not court, necessarily. But a life where some things were not discussed and everyone nearby knew which things those were.

"By the way," she added, and lifted her eyebrows with innocent exactness, "I have answered all the questions you asked. You did not even introduce yourself."

He exhaled a breath that might have been a laugh in other company. "Ahem. I will believe you for now." He placed his palm against his own chest for a moment and then let it fall open, offering the air between them the simplest truth. "Hi. I am an ant. My name is Kai. I live nearby. Nice to meet you."

She stepped closer and took his offered hand as if she had been waiting to be invited to do so. Her grip was warm and firm enough to tell him she knew how to hold on without bruising. "I used to know someone with that name," she said. "It is a rare name. Not many people had it."

Their eyes found each other without trying. It felt less like a choice and more like gravity. There was no ceremony at the moment. There was only the simple fact of touch and an old instinct rising like a tide. The forest did not change, but the air between their fingers did. It grew warmer. It gathered a scent like sun on stone and something faintly floral that might have been the cloth of her dress remembering a garden far away.

The handshake did not end in the ordinary interval where polite people let go. It went on because both hands forgot how to stop.

Kai’s body roared without sound. It did not roar for battle. It roared for claim. It roared for warmth. It roared because some part of him older than speech recognized an anaconda fit and wanted to step into it the way a blade wants the right sheath. He did not move. He did not drag her closer. He did not bear down. He let the want burn and did not give it a door to run through.

Her body answered him without shame. He saw it in the way her breath went high in her chest and then deep again. He felt it in the way her fingers flexed once around his and then relaxed as if to tell him she was not afraid. Heat rose along her throat. It colored the base of her neck. Her pupils widened and then steadied. She was not a girl who had never been looked at. She was a woman who had forgotten what it felt like to be looked at by someone whose gaze made her remember the shape of her own skin.

The System chose that heartbeat to make itself heard again. Not with forgiveness. With function.

[Ding! System Notification: Luster’s Mark activated. Beauty detected.

Score: 95.

Target found and bound to host.

Impression point: 05.

Reach impressions point 90 to gain complete control and loyalty. The target will be unable to disobey the host after the threshold is reached.]

The message hovered in front of Kai’s eyes like a veil you cannot push aside because it is made of light. It framed Ikea’s chest by accident and then made the accident worse by sitting there as if it had been placed with care. He was looking at the words. From the outside, it would not look like that.

It would look like he was staring at her breasts.

Her hand tightened half a degree. Heat flushed brighter along her neck. The corners of her eyes narrowed as if focus were suddenly difficult. She swallowed again.

"How long will you stare at my chest," she asked in a voice that had lost none of its composure and had gained something else. "Please let my hand go. My body is becoming warm. If you do not let go, we might do something we both will regret."

He forced his gaze up and away from the stupidly placed rectangle of light. He cut the message with a thought and sent the System a look that might have killed a lesser machine. The machine ignored his ire like a palace not who has just delivered a letter and will not read the expression of the recipient.

His mind began to form the apology that would allow them both to step back with dignity when the forest reached in with a hand of wind and rearranged everything.

A gust came down the bowl as if a large bird had dropped its wing for one pass. It took the needles and lifted them and set them down again. It pushed through the high branches and made them whisper.