i see nothing better, i'll keep him forever, like a vendetta
The Ark's smirk deepens as he speaks, the pads of her fingers raking down his chest with deliberate softness, tracing the lines of muscle and old scars before drifting lower, over the plane of his stomach, until they hook into the waistband of his trousers and tug him just a fraction closer. The expression she wears then is unmistakably wolfish, sharp and pleased and entirely unapologetic. "You’re forgetting something," she says, voice low and steady, her thumb pressing lightly against the hollow just above his hip. "If she can’t retaliate, neither can anyone else."
The logic settles comfortably in her mind, clean and simple. If Kaisel were foolish enough to run his mouth—and if anyone were going to, it would be him—he would lose the very thread of what he meant to avenge the moment it slipped too far. Memory would fold in on itself, motive dissolving before it could sharpen into a threat. And all those carefully polished demigods Flora likes to rattle like weapons in a drawer would have no cause to suspect Jack had a hand in anything at all, not if the path leading back to him simply...vanished.
When he admits he’d pretend not to know Flora either, her brow lifts. "Why?" she asks, curious in a way that is almost playful. "So she’d think she misheard the deal? Or so she’d convince herself you’d already gone ahead and done it on purpose?"
When he lays the beginning of all this at her feet—when he reminds her that she’d been the one to spill the kerosene at the rodeo—she doesn’t apologize, or even pretend to. Instead, she rises from the desk in one fluid movement, sliding off the wood and into him until there is no space left between them. Her body aligns with his without hesitation, heat to heat, her hands still anchored at his waist as she tips her chin up and grins, feral and pleased. "You’re welcome," she purrs, the words thick with satisfaction.
Then she claims his mouth again, pressing her lips to his hard and certain, not to soothe him but to remind him that whatever sting the evening carried, whatever bile and bitterness had clung to his bones when he stepped through that door, she intends to strip it away piece by piece. He might have hated the way it unfolded, but they walked out of it with more than they’d held walking in.
The logic settles comfortably in her mind, clean and simple. If Kaisel were foolish enough to run his mouth—and if anyone were going to, it would be him—he would lose the very thread of what he meant to avenge the moment it slipped too far. Memory would fold in on itself, motive dissolving before it could sharpen into a threat. And all those carefully polished demigods Flora likes to rattle like weapons in a drawer would have no cause to suspect Jack had a hand in anything at all, not if the path leading back to him simply...vanished.
When he admits he’d pretend not to know Flora either, her brow lifts. "Why?" she asks, curious in a way that is almost playful. "So she’d think she misheard the deal? Or so she’d convince herself you’d already gone ahead and done it on purpose?"
When he lays the beginning of all this at her feet—when he reminds her that she’d been the one to spill the kerosene at the rodeo—she doesn’t apologize, or even pretend to. Instead, she rises from the desk in one fluid movement, sliding off the wood and into him until there is no space left between them. Her body aligns with his without hesitation, heat to heat, her hands still anchored at his waist as she tips her chin up and grins, feral and pleased. "You’re welcome," she purrs, the words thick with satisfaction.
Then she claims his mouth again, pressing her lips to his hard and certain, not to soothe him but to remind him that whatever sting the evening carried, whatever bile and bitterness had clung to his bones when he stepped through that door, she intends to strip it away piece by piece. He might have hated the way it unfolded, but they walked out of it with more than they’d held walking in.
i see how this is gonna go, touch me and you'll never be alone
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
