Capítulo 720: That’s because you’re not jealous, right?
“rcedes Vaintz…” Strax repeated the na slowly, savoring each syllable as if they were notes of a song he loved to tease her with, just to see her squirm between irritation and surprise.
The Monarch looked away, not because she was embarrassed… but because it did sothing to her. Sothing she wasn’t prepared to admit—not to him, not to herself.
Strax gave a slight, almost tranquil smile, the kind of smile that ca right before the next inevitable tease.
But not this ti.
He just took a deep breath, relaxed, warmth emanating from him like a small, living bonfire amidst the ice.
“rcedes, then,” he said. “Now that’s more like it… it feels like I’m finally talking to soone real, and not a crowned ice tower.”
She rolled her eyes with a sigh, fighting the urge to smile again.
He seed dangerously good at it.
After a few seconds of comfortable silence—a rare occurrence between them—Strax took a step back, gazing at the sky still bright with the artificial sun he had created.
“So,” he murmured, “I think I’ve thawed enough for today.”
rcedes frowned slightly.
“Are you leaving?”
Strax smiled.
“For now.”
He turned aside, already walking toward the corridor leading to the palace interior.
“I have soone to see.”
rcedes raised her chin, regaining so of her icy composure.
“The redhead?”
Strax chuckled softly.
“My wife, rcedes. Wife.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “If I don’t show up soon, she’ll storm the palace and give you a beating just for breathing near .”
An almost imperceptible blush rose across the Monarch’s pale cheeks—part irritation, part… sothing she preferred to ignore. “Hm. I understand,” she murmured, trying to sound neutral, but her gaze betrayed a hint of… jealousy?
Or perhaps it was just curiosity.
rcedes Vaintz didn’t easily—or clearly—show her emotions.
Strax started walking.
But he stopped.
He turned his head over his shoulder, his golden eyes gleaming with amusent and genuine interest.
“We’ll talk again later,” he said. “There’s a lot I want to know about you. About your kingdom. About what’s really going on here.”
She swallowed hard.
“And you think… I’m just going to tell you?”
“Ten minutes,” he replied with that indecent confidence, “and you tell everything.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“How presumptuous.”
“I know,” he said, with a smile that should have been illegal.
He made a casual gesture toward her.
“I’ll be staying at the palace for a few days. So if you want to talk, discuss politics, exchange barbs, threaten …” his eyes glead, “…or just take advantage of the fact that you’re finally feeling warm… I’ll be around.”
rcedes felt a shiver run down her spine—not from the cold, but from his tone.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” she retorted, crossing her arms. “I haven’t decided anything yet.”
“Of course not,” Strax replied, already turning his back to leave. “You only said ‘for now’ about three tis. It’s practically a polite yes.”
“Strax…” she said in a tone that was half warning, half… a plea for him to stop toying with her like that.
He raised his hand in a lazy wave, without even looking back:
“Later, rcedes.”
And he walked down the corridor as if it were his ho, his castle, his world.
rcedes stood alone on the balcony, the golden warmth reflecting off her skin, his na echoing in her mind—and the feeling that, for the first ti in a very, very long ti…
…the ice inside her had begun to crack.
Strax walked down the corridor illuminated by the golden reflection of his own artificial sun—now trapped sowhere distant in the palace sky, like a small, unsettling reminder that he didn’t belong in that realm, but still marked it. The warm glow trickled down the honey-blue walls, creating long shadows that seed to move behind him.
He wasn’t exactly in a hurry.
But the rhythm of his steps said he knew who was waiting.
The bedroom door was heavy, carved with runes that told stories of frozen glory—which Scarlet had probably completely ignored the mont she decided to push it open and occupy the space in her own way.
Strax opened the door slowly, like soone entering their own ho after a day that lasted ages. The room was hot—too hot by any palace standard—and perfud with sothing he recognized imdiately: her scent in the air. A sweet, tallic mixture, fire and flower, as if Scarlet had burned her own perfu into the atmosphere just to let everyone know she was there.
She lay on the king-size bed, legs crossed, body relaxed on white sheets that almost glead against the contrast of her skin. Crimson lingerie, almost as red as the na she bore. Her hair loose like a small fla scattered across the pillow.
Scarlet raised a slow gaze, one of those that analyzes, asures, and judges before you even open your mouth.
“It took you long enough,” she said, without even trying to hide the air of soone who owns the place.
Strax closed the door with a soft click.
“I was talking.”
“With the Monarch.”
He arched an eyebrow, already pacing the room while taking off his gloves.
“You feel the ice, is that it?”
“I sll trouble on you,” Scarlet replied, resting her chin on her hand. “And I sense when you co back with the kind of humor that only appears when you’re trying to impress soone.”
Strax let out a short, low, almost intimate laugh.
Scarlet had this irritating talent for piercing any mask he tried to wear.
He began to unfasten the top of the garnt—slowly, always slowly—as if he were dismantling an armor that had been made for him and against him at the sa ti.
“So?” she pressed, impatient to wait. “How was it?”
Strax dropped the garnt onto a chair, approaching the bed.
The warm light of the fireplace (which Scarlet probably lit just to make him sweat) painted his face orange—and he knew very well how much more dangerous that made him.
“It was… interesting,” he said, resting his hands on the foot of the bed.
Scarlet narrowed her eyes.
“Interesting is a word you only use when you want to ask more.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Great. Then tell .”
Strax tilted his head, a crooked smile slowly appearing.
“She told her na.”
Scarlet blinked, showing little emotion—but he saw it.
The micro-reaction.
That almost-nothing that betrayed how much attention she paid to everything that had to do with him.
“Ah,” Scarlet murmured. “So you made progress.”
“I wasn’t even trying.”
“Because of course people just open up to you, don’t they?”
She sighed, rolling her eyes. “You have this habit of making people… relax. Or let their guard down. Or tell you secrets just because you smile that stupid way.”
Strax took a few more steps closer, removing another piece of clothing with the sa irritating slowness as before.
“Are you jealous?”
She gave a small—dangerous—smile.
“I don’t get jealous of snow, Strax.”
“But she’s not snow.”
“No,” Scarlet agreed, her finger distractedly tracing her own knee. “She’s beautiful. Cold. Powerful. And probably completely obsessed with control. In other words… exactly the kind of person who’s bothered by you.”
“Is that a complint?”
“It’s an observation.”
He laughed—and began to unbutton another zipper, slowly, as if offering a visual answer to a silent question.
Scarlet followed the movent with her eyes, impatient, but also appreciating the rhythm.
“You said it was interesting,” she returned to the subject. “Why?”
Strax shrugged.
“She’s… unique.”
Scarlet raised a finger.
“‘Unique’ how? Because ‘unique’ can an a lot of things, and I don’t like half of them.”
Strax stopped at the edge of the bed, looking directly at her. The heat between them was palpable, even without a touch.
“She has a different body,” he finally said. “Possibly a unique physique.”
Scarlet blinked slowly, assessing the phrase as if it were a riddle.
“Different like… you like?”
“Different like I’ve never seen.”
Scarlet sat up, supporting herself on her elbows, her hair falling over her shoulders like liquid flas.
“Strax, if that was supposed to reassure , you’re terrible at it.”
He laughed again, sitting on the mattress with the weight of soone who knows that space, that woman, that dynamic.
“I’m not trying to reassure you.”
“Great. Because it’s not working.”
Scarlet stretched her leg slowly, touching the tip of her foot to his arm—gentle, but full of intention. He didn’t flinch. He never flinched from her.
“So,” she continued, “you find the Ice Queen interesting.”
“I do.”
“And does that bother you?”
“Not at all.”
“And it should.”
Strax leaned slightly toward hers, the air between them becoming thick, charged with sothing electric.
“Why?”
Scarlet smiled slowly, mischievously, deliciously confidently.
“Because I know you,” she said. “And I know when you’re playing gas with soone… and when soone starts playing gas with you.”
Strax watched her for long seconds.
She never missed a chance to turn the tables—and he never complained.
“Scarlet,” he said, his voice too low to be casual.
“Hm?”
“I’m not interested in her the way you’re thinking.”
“You’re not?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you talking about her body?”
“Because it’s different. And because I’m curious.”
He smiled. “And because you asked for details.”
She huffed, but the smile didn’t fade.
“Strax…”
“Scarlet…”
Their nas always sounded sharp when spoken like this—almost a dance, almost a threat, almost a kiss.
Scarlet pulled the sheet aside, making a space beside her.
Not as an invitation.
As an order.
Strax stepped in with the naturalness of soone who already knew exactly where he belonged.
She stared at him, her face inches from his, her warm breath brushing against his skin.
“Just to be clear,” Scarlet said, in that warm tone that always preceded an attack or a caress that felt like an attack, “I don’t care about her.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not jealous either.”
“I know.”
“But…” She moved her face a little closer. “Don’t talk about a woman’s body to , you bastard!”
Strax smiled, “That’s because you’re not jealous, right?” He asked, smiling.
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