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"Well who would have known." Lilith's gaze drifted between them, amusement settling into the lines of her expression. "You really are compatible with our bloodline. I thought you would be converted into a demon but I was wrong."
Arthur looks at her with a deadpan stare.
'...'
She turned to Arthur.
"Oh, don't mind it darling. It's simply that making someone of my bloodline fall under control isn't an easy thing." A pause, measured and unhurried. "I truly didn't think there was someone with a bloodline that could handle mine." Her eyes swept over him with seeming revalueing his worth. "Your bloodline must be rather greedy to have taken hold of my daughter the way it has, even if she's only at the Gold tier."
She straightened.
"But this will work."
Her gaze shifted briefly to Vespa, then back to him.
"I'll leave you two to your own practices. And should you need anything—" She raised one finger, light already gathering at its tip. "—feel free to reach out. I'll be watching from now on."
The finger swung toward him.
Crack.
A bolt of lightning crossed the room in an instant and hit Arthur square in the chest. It ran deep into his skin, burrowing past muscle and bone, and like a serpent it found its way to the web of cascading lines tattooed across his chest. He felt the new thread weave itself through the existing pattern a coiled serpent now threaded through the webs, restless and alive, as if it had always been there.
When the sensation passed, he could feel it without looking.
"Anyhow." Lilith's voice had already softened back into leisure, the gesture forgotten the moment it was made. "I will be taking my leave."
She stepped back.
And was simply gone. Nothing left but the fading warmth of displaced air and Vespa, standing across the room, arms still crossed, tail lashing.
Arthur returned his attention to her.
'Now then.'
"You're joking, right?" Vespa let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You think because my mom handed you a leash, I'm just going to — what? Behave?" She jutted her chin out. "I'm not some obedient little—"
"Hush."
Vespa's mouth clamped shut but not by her own will. The collar had pulsed faintly at her throat, with red light bleeding through the engravings. She looked down at herself, startled, then up at him. Her amber eyes burned.
"Sit."
Her legs gave out.
She hit the floor on her knees, the collar flaring again as it forced her body to obey.
He walked around her slowly, hands loose at his sides.
He stopped in front of her.
"I don't know why a girl in your situation feels so entitled." His voice stayed even. Conversational, almost. "You've been misbehaving your entire life, and the first thing you do in chains is misbehave again." He crouched to her eye level. "I can see why your mother wants me to train you. You clearly haven't learned a thing, have you?"
He grabbed her by the collar and pulled her up to eye level. Her amber eyes went wide, tail snapping rigid behind her.
"Brats like you need to be corrected swiftly." He held her there for a moment, letting it settle. "But since your mother asked me so kindly to shape you into a proper wife—"
He released her.
"—I think it's best to show you what that actually means." He stepped back. "Stand up."
Vespa stood, rubbing at her collar, shooting him a look that landed somewhere between wounded pride and fury.
"If your mother really wants me to make you into a proper wife," Arthur said, "we'll have to set some rules."
Vespa's expression shifted brow furrowing, suspicious.
"First rule. You're allowed to say no to anything."
She blinked.
"Second rule. You can refuse any request I make, but you have to give me a reason." A pause. "And if I start hearing too many bad ones you'll owe me a request of my own. No refusal."
She stared at him slowly nodding her head.
"Third rule. You'll train with me on proper etiquette twice a week."
She frowns even more than when her mother told her to become his slave.
"And fourth. You don't feed without my say-so. Who, when, and where that's mine to decide."
Silence.
Vespa looked at him the way somebody looked at you when they were just confused. But if there was anything truly different about her expression, it was that she didn't seem so defensive against Arthur anymore.
"Let me get this right." She held up a finger. "You're giving me the right to refuse any of your commands. But I have to give you a reason why. And I get punished if you don't think the reason's good enough." A pause. "That's not very much of a leeway, is it?"
"That's true." Arthur circled her slowly, eyes on her. "But if you obeyed everything without question, you'd never grow. And we don't want you going back to your mother the same as you left." He stopped. "So I give you the choice. You either learn to accept your situation, or you fight me on it." His gaze settled. "Ask yourself what your mother would rather see a wife who serves because she chose to, or one who serves because she was forced."
Vespa closed her mouth, frowning at his words.
She'd never been in a situation where she had to put herself second and somebody else first. But as far as she could tell, Arthur was trying to teach her the difference between being made to do something and wanting to do it.
"I don't know," she said finally.
"Well. If there's anything we do know," Arthur said, "it's that we need to work on your cultivation. I can tell your mother wasn't happy with you being stuck at Gold." He reached down and took his shirt off in one motion, throwing it onto the chair beside him. "It's about time I give you a taste of my own bloodline." His eyes settled on her. "Strip."
Vespa's eyes drifted to his chest, eyeing him up, knowing exactly where this was going.
The tail behind her went very still.
Then a small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.
Because whatever complicated feelings she may have had about the arrangement, the collar, the rules, the reasons, all of it there was one thing that couldn't be changed about who she was.
She was one horny bitch.
Immediately she walked forward, closing the distance between them in two steps, and smashed her lips against his.
Her full breasts pressed into his bare chest through the fabric of her crop top, warm and heavy. Her tail swung around behind him, hooking at his hip and pulling him in flush against her as both hands grabbed behind his head making sure he wasn't going anywhere.
Her tongue moved like a snake's, slithering into his mouth and curling around his, deliberate and unhurried, like she had all the time in the world and intended to use it.
'Damn.'
'She's good.'
Arthur couldn't help it. They entwined with one another, breath growing hot between them, and for a moment he simply let it happen.
Then she pulled back, dragging her tongue slowly across her bottom lip.
Her eyes eating up Arthur as her hips weight out showing her mewtoo thighs and figure.