Chapter 75: Little Liar
At last, after a long stretch of polite noise and carefully curated smiles, everyone who had co to Lucien Hart’s birthday party was gone.
Only Lucien’s mother remained.
This ti, it was she who saw Serena Blackwood out.
Serena walked alone into the underground parking garage. It was silent down there, empty enough to feel hollow. Even the few cars left behind seed stranded in the vast concrete stillness.
The garage had no windows. No sky. No sense of ti.
But Serena knew it was night, and because of that, a sharp thread of loneliness slipped through her for no reason she cared to na.
Her headlights blinked.
She slid into the driver’s seat, tipped her head back against the leather, and let out a slow breath. The mont she finally stopped moving, the exhaustion ca for her all at once, along with a faint pulse of pain behind her eyes.
She had started preparing for Lucien’s birthday celebration ages ago. Tonight she had controlled the whole event like its true host. Even for soone with her stamina, that took sothing.
Serena lifted a hand and pressed two fingers to her temple, rubbing lightly.
In that half-dazed haze, Elias Kane’s face rose in her mind without warning.
She wanted to see him.
Now.
The thought jolted her awake.
Serena looked down and realized she’d already pulled out her phone. Her gaze sharpened. Then, without expression, she tossed it aside.
The phone hit the passenger seat, bounced twice, and fell to the floor.
She watched it happen and didn’t bother picking it up.
Liora Voss had been right.
Today was Lucien’s birthday.
How could she be thinking about another man?
Even if it was only desire, this was not the mont to indulge it.
So Serena started the car and drove toward the Blackwood residence through the thick weight of the night.
[Serena Blackwood favorability increased. Current: 30%.]
At the sa ti, another luxury car was moving in the opposite direction.
It was late. The streets were nearly empty, and Liora did not feel much need to pretend. She lowered the window all the way, draped her left arm along the edge, and guided the wheel with her right hand.
The night air ca in hard and cold, tearing through her hair in an instant. Loose black strands whipped across her face, half-veiling those seductive eyes of hers and making her look even more dangerously beautiful.
A faint smile touched her lips.
Liora knew exactly what she was doing.
She had just said goodbye to her sister.
And now she was driving off to et her sister’s lover.
At this point, Elias could almost count as half her brother-in-law. He had called himself that once.
This was no longer playing with fire.
This was Russian roulette.
A revolver with one bullet in the chamber, the cold barrel resting against her forehead, and then the trigger being pulled five tis in a row.
Her body gave a sudden shiver.
Maybe the wind was too cold.
Maybe the thought itself was too thrilling.
The kind of pleasure that could make her tremble on imagination alone.
Then the car ca to a stop.
Liora looked at the deserted front gate of Westbridge University. There was not even a shadow moving. She exhaled, and a thin wisp of white vanished into the dark. A low laugh escaped her throat.
So. He had tricked her.
And yet she was not angry.
If anything, it felt expected. Appropriate, even.
No one lied more skillfully than Elias.
Besides, she had pulled away from him the mont things turned unpleasant between them. Why would he let that go without retaliation?
This was his retaliation.
Liora folded her hands atop the lowered window and rested her chin there. Her eyes looked faintly blurred in the dark, soft with sothing almost dreamy.
She smiled.
"So petty."
Then, quieter, almost indulgent, "Little liar."
[Liora Voss favorability increased. Current: 33%.]
A shadow entered her line of sight.
Liora had been staring at the gate the entire ti, so she noticed it at once.
The figure did not head for the entrance. Instead, it lingered near the fence for a while before finally climbing up.
Her first thought was not who it was.
It was why they were avoiding the gate.
Then she understood.
Westbridge was not especially strict, but it was not the kind of school that let students wander in and out whenever they pleased in the middle of the night. If you stayed out, fine. But if you ca back, then unless sothing urgent happened, you were staying in.
The thought barely qualified as thought at all, but the haze in Liora’s eyes cleared anyway.
And then she saw the figure clearly.
Elias.
So he had not lied to her after all.
He had just failed to make it out in ti.
The faint disappointnt in her chest disappeared, but the sharp anticipation from earlier had already dulled under that brief mont of letdown.
At this point, even if Elias showed up wearing cat ears for her, she probably would not react much.
If he actually turned into a cat, though, that might be different.
Liora shook her head at her own ridiculous thought.
Then she noticed Elias had stopped moving on top of the fence.
She watched him for a full minute.
He still did not co down.
Stuck?
Elias was, in fact, stuck.
So he pulled out his phone and called for help.
Liora shook her head again. There was a trace of amusent in her expression, so quiet satisfaction, but more than that, helpless fondness.
After a brief pause, she opened the car door, stepped out, and started toward him on long elegant legs.
She had only gone a dozen steps before she stopped.
Sothing was wrong.
Her phone had not rung.
The person Elias had called was not her.
Liora had spent long enough navigating desire, attention, and the gas people played around both that she almost never mistook herself for the chosen one.
But now, for the first ti in years, she felt the full sting of self-delusion.
Heat rushed into her cheeks.
It was only her body responding on instinct, a reflexive flash of embarrassnt. Inside, she was almost perfectly calm. If anything, warmth spread through her from head to toe.
Because she already had a vague idea who he had called.
Right then, an engine roared through the night.
The sound ripped open the silence like a crack of thunder.
Liora turned.
A black luxury car shot past her like a blade through dark water, leaving wind and grit in its wake. It did not slow. With one clean, reckless drift, it cut through the access lane by the gate and stopped in front of the entrance in a blink.
A streak of silver stepped out into the night.
Even in the dark, she was striking. Luminous. Almost unreal.
The proud young woman flicked back her silver hair, swept her gaze across the area, and quickly found Elias stranded on the fence.
Then Giselle Frost walked over.
Tilting her long neck, she looked up at him.
For the first ti, she was the one forced to lift her eyes to et his.
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