I Should Have Refused
Elbows on his knees, fingers laced tight, Elex muttered the same words for what felt like the hundredth time.
I should have refused.
His private carriage was exactly as he had ordered it built: the seats broad and luxurious, the interior spacious enough for a man of his height to stretch his legs without trouble. Yet in all that room, Elex sat hunched in on himself, repeating the same refrain.
He should have said no somehow. He should have told her to just go.
With brutal force he kept dragging his gaze back down every time it tried to climb. He knew. After breathing in that filthy gas so deeply only moments ago, he had no business sharing a carriage with Tilia. No amount of antidote could clear the fog settling over his reason; he absolutely should not have been sealed in an enclosed space with her. And yet even if the moment came again, he knew he would climb into this carriage after her as if under a spell. He simply had no strength left to refuse. No rational mind left to crush the greed.
The fire burning inside him had already eaten through reason and left no room to think about the future.
Just once. Only once.
No matter how hard he forced it down, his eyes kept straining toward Tilia.
You crazy bastard, get a grip.
He finally wrenched his gaze to the floor and clenched his laced hands until the knuckles cracked. He must not look. Desire was seawater—drink and drink and it only made the thirst worse. Elex ground his teeth and tried desperately to shove his thoughts elsewhere.
They used something seriously strong.
The thought of Gregory Myers made his eyes turn cold. If even he—whose body was not so different from a holy knight’s—was reacting this violently, the stuff must have left fatal scars on Tilia.
Was he not simply trying to provoke lust? Was he actually trying to kill her?
The moment the man’s intent reached him, Elex’s teeth locked again. He should have made the death more painful. No matter how he turned it over, he had let the bastard die far too easily, far too gently. Of course even that sight had been a shock for Tilia.
“……”
The memory of her terror darkened his eyes once more. But the instinct ruled by the holy water blocked any deeper thought. His mind instantly replayed the image of Tilia, terrified though she was, still opening the door for him. Those green eyes checking on him with worry. The hesitant manner she tried to hide, the white hands that fretted uselessly at a handkerchief……
Elex clenched his fists until they cracked again and squeezed his eyes shut.
Who the hell had made this stuff? Which godforsaken priest had concocted holy water that dragged out such base, ravenous desire?
An instinct wearing devil’s horns circled his head, whispering greed.
You want to grab Tilia’s hair right now and kiss her, don’t you? Want to steal that small, soft tongue and suck it hard?
Elex clenched until his hands felt ready to break and bit down harder.
No.
Stop pretending. You want to tear that dress off her however you please. Want to rip every neat little button free and shove your hand under all those layers of skirt!
The devil laughed viciously and clawed through his mind.
You already know how exquisite it is inside her. How hot, how soft!
Past experience bloomed in vivid detail behind his eyes. He almost wished he had never known. Because he already knew, he could not stop instinct from chewing reason to pieces.
Yes.
Elex muttered helplessly at the white flag of surrender.
He wanted to go back inside her. Into that impossibly soft, impossibly hot place that had once made him afraid he might hurt her……
“……x. Elex?”
Tilia’s voice was what seized his sinking reason again.
“Are you…… okay?”
Strength flooded back into hands that had half-loosened without his noticing. Elex violently drove out the devil that had already invaded the deepest parts of him and steadied his voice.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“……You don’t look fine.”
“I can handle it.”
But the pitch-black instinct clung like a leech no matter how hard he cast it off. Elex kept his neck rigid against the constant upward pull and stubbornly stared at the floor. Tilia’s small shoes came into view. In an instant the edge of his reason blurred again.
If I took those shoes off, would she be embarrassed?
With reddened eyes he imagined the small feet inside them. If he drew those white feet free and put them in his mouth, if he bit down slowly……
“Elex.”
He lifted his head without thinking, still half-drowned in the filthy fantasy. Their eyes met and he felt Tilia flinch back. For the first time since boarding the carriage she looked fully at his face; her voice came out flustered.
“Are you really okay?”
“……”
Ironically, the way she recoiled from him resurrected the reason he had thought was beyond saving.
……Right. Of course it’s disgusting. Even I feel sick at myself for lusting after her feet.
He gathered the scraps of his fraying patience and issued a quiet warning.
“If I’m not okay, are you planning to sleep with me or something?”
He needed her to find him even more repulsive. Strategy be damned—today of all days he had to make her thoroughly sick of him.
“You couldn’t handle it.”
His lips moved of their own accord toward the words she would hate most. No need to lie. The truth alone would do. Cloudy eyes overlapped the Tilia of the past with the Tilia of now.
“You couldn’t even stand me when I hadn’t taken anything. How are you going to stand me like this?”
Tilia’s eyes flew wide, then narrowed to slits. She was remembering that day too—the day that for him would go to the grave, the day she must regard as her worst experience.
That’s enough.
Certain that even her pity had vanished, Elex dropped his gaze and exhaled a short breath. This time his eyes went to the empty corner of the carriage—where neither Tilia’s shoes nor the feet inside them could be seen. Just empty space.
“……”
Yet the smoothly rolling carriage still gave no word of arrival no matter how long he waited.
When the hell are we getting there?
Whether the carriage had stopped or his sense of time had warped, the seconds crawled with nauseating slowness. Even the gap between one second and the next felt as wide as a canyon. And with every single one of those seconds Elex felt his senses sharpening further. It was as if antennae had sprouted all over his body, and every last one of them stretched toward only one place—Tilia.
He could feel her gaze without looking. Her green eyes moved from his face down across his shoulders to his laced hands. They paused near his waist, hesitated, then slid lower still. He felt her start when she registered the state of his lower body, then flinch her eyes away to some distant point. Her small shoes pulled farther back as if she wanted more distance; her clasped hands tightened.
Foolishly unaware that he had already read every last one of her reactions. Unaware that merely knowing she had seen his condition had blown away half of what little reason he had left.
His senses now rampaged across her body. She crossed her legs as if uncomfortable. Shifted awkwardly. Touched near her throat as if overheated, then snatched her hand down the moment she remembered he was there.
A blood vessel burst in the corner of Elex’s eye as he stared at the wall. To keep from reaching for her that very second he had to chew the inside of his mouth until the lining shredded. Even if his tongue were sliced in half right here, he had to endure. He had already ruined the first time. The second could not go the same way. This girl—timid and sensitive as a wild rabbit—needed patience. Needed a process that built trust.
So, so I absolutely cannot let myself get drunk on this damn holy water……
“Elex.”
Just as he was hanging on the throat of a wild beast and struggling to get a collar on it, she spoke. She who had been twisting and squirming the whole time opened her mouth in a trembling voice.
“I…… think I breathed in that smoke too.”
At those words he heard the clean snap of reason severing. His head came up. As if she recognized the savage wildness now filling his eyes, Tilia trembled slightly. Yet the first thought that crossed Elex’s mind in that ridiculous moment was of Gregory Myers.
That bastard. Is he dead?
No one was there to block the gas, so he’s probably long gone.
……Is there any way to bring him back just so I can kill him again?
Without taking his eyes off Tilia—who was shaking like a rabbit facing a hunter with a trap—Elex stretched out one long arm. The wall of the carriage thudded. A low voice slipped out.
“Not Ambrose Manor. Take us to the annex.”