"I wanna say this isn’t what it looks like, but that sounds like a pointless endeavor."
Damon closed his eyes, his hands still resting on Renata’s waist.
He could still feel Sylvia’s murderous intent crawling over his skin.
’Huh, why am I getting worked up? I’m single. I don’t owe anyone an explanation,’ he thought with a frown.
Yet for whatever reason, he felt it was wiser not to voice those thoughts. There was no need to add fuel to the flas.
He shifted his legs slightly, a clear signal for Renata to get off him, but the mont she saw Lilith, she smiled instead.
"Ahh, my lord. It seems our secret affair was discovered. I suppose we should have gone sowhere more private."
Sylvia’s murderous intent exploded.
Damon sighed. Renata, what the hell was she doing. Throwing him under the carriage like that.
Thud.
He pushed her off his lap.
That was what she got for making him look bad. No, for making him look worse than he already did.
He stood up and walked toward the two of them.
Lilith wore a weary expression, a faint mixture of disgust, anger, envy, and frustration flickering across her face.
’What’s her deal.’
Sylvia, on the other hand, was radiating a cold, lethal glare.
"I want to say I’m glad to see you guys, but the last ti I saw you two, the world looked like it was ending and you were trying to kill each other. So what changed."
Sylvia glared at Renata, then bit her lip. When she looked back at Damon, her expression flipped instantly.
She smiled and jumped into his arms, as if she had not been radiating murderous intent just monts ago.
"Heheh."
She giggled softly.
"I missed you so much. You won’t believe how worried I was."
Damon lifted a hand and gently stroked her hair.
"Why would you be worried? I’m the last person who’d die in a place like this."
It was obvious to him. Sylvia had deflected his question.
He turned his gaze to Lilith and smiled, but she did not return it. Instead, she stared at him as if lost in thought.
There was no heartfelt reunion. No scolding. No relief.
She looked at him like he might vanish at any mont, caught between joy and pain, anger and heartbreak.
Lilith said nothing to Damon. She walked past him and stopped in front of Renata.
"Hm. So you finally stopped pretending."
Renata scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"I figured you already knew."
Lilith nodded slowly.
"I wondered how long you’d keep making a fool of yourself, but I see you’re back to acting like a common slut."
Renata crossed her arms.
"I’m not the one who looks like she’s been run through. What’s that withered flower supposed to an? Is that a new aesthetic."
At those words, Lilith subconsciously touched the naless flower pinned to her hair.
The gesture did not go unnoticed by Damon.
He narrowed his eyes.
Since when did Lilith care about flowers? No, that was a gardenia.
That particular flower blood where her nanny had died. Lilith always carried the faint scent of gardenias with her. It was the scent he had always associated with her.
But she had never carried one physically before.
He turned away from Sylvia and pulled several chairs from his shadow storage.
Lilith sat down without a word, her posture stiff, as if she did not know what to say.
Damon stepped closer and gently lifted her chin, forcing her to et his eyes.
"Hey. What’s on your mind? You’re not pissed about Renata, are you."
She forced a small smile.
"No. I’m not. I’m just travel weary. That’s all. How have you been."
Damon’s expression did not change, but he knew sothing was wrong. Deeply wrong.
It was as if soone had stripped the confidence from the proud Lilith Astranova piece by piece, leaving her spirit dulled.
Lilith saw his look.
She thought she was fine. She truly did. She thought she had the advantage in this tiline.
Things had changed more drastically than before, but not enough.
She could still see that bleak look in his eyes.
Maybe it was because she had failed to steal the elixir of pseudo immortality from the Black Tower.
Maybe it was because, in all her past incarnations, she had fought Damon, hoping to stop him from choosing his own oblivion.
Seeing him now, all that failure and frustration surged back at once.
She wanted to clutch her head and scream.
It was unbearable.
Only she rembered.
Worse still, with every passing mont, her mories of previous regressions blurred together.
She was no longer certain which details were real.
"You seem like you’ve been causing trouble for soone," she said softly.
She tried to sound strong, as she always did, but she just wanted to break down and cry.
Damon smiled at her.
For a brief mont, she saw that sa smile again. The one he wore while laughing, drenched in his own blood.
"Care for so tea. You can tell all about your journey and why you were trying to kill each other."
He changed the subject decisively.
He pulled out a teapot and began pouring hot tea into a matching set.
Renata glanced at the fragrant steam.
"It looks like you have almost everything in there."
Damon chuckled.
"I’ve killed a lot of people. So of them drop interesting loot. Like this teapot that automatically produces hot tea."
He raised a hand at Sylvia, who was about to speak.
"Don’t ask how it works. I don’t know."
He lifted the teapot slightly, showing the faint runic system etched into it.
"Probably made by the unknown god, judging by the craftsmanship."
"I wonder if the tea is infinite," Sylvia said.
Damon shrugged.
"Who knows. I never checked."
Sylvia smiled and nodded.
"You know what else I’m wondering."
"What."
He realized too late.
Her tone turned cold.
"What you were doing with this bitch in the dead of night."
He sighed.
He really should not have asked.
’She was such a sweet girl. What happened?’
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