Chapter 200

Chapter 200: Chapter 200

"Where is Dulce?" Kath’tan strode into the leisure room, taking off the cloak draped over his shoulders.

Asael glanced up from the book he had picked up to pass the time, because returning to the witch’s shop was simply tempting fate.

"In Fairwyn." He deigned to reply, mildly displeased to see the return of another Demon.

To his surprise, the Fiend didn’t leave immediately, taking his seat on one of the armchairs instead. Asael ignored him, returning to his book. It was a piece on seasonal flowers, Dulce’s tastes were rather peculiar.

He tuned the Demon out, grudgingly impressed at how long he managed to sit without breaking the silence. Kath’tan’s tapping foot fractured the peaceful silence of the room and as he reached for the same paperweight for the seventh time, Asael cracked.

"Why are you still here?"

"What do you know about being gentle?" Kath’tan blurted out instead, his brows furrowed. This was clearly a very important subject to him.

"Are you picking a fight?" Asael asked coldly.

"That was a serious question." Kath’tan doubled down.

Silence fell and stretched out after his words, and just as he was about to stubbornly repeat his question, Asael replied. "I don’t."

Kath’tan shot him a skeptical look, unconvinced. The assassin had incredible self-control, that was easy to see, and seeing as lighthearted hobbies were of no use to him, perhaps learning to have a rigid control over himself would.

"Maybe you’re not gentle," He retraced his steps, putting a lot of thought into the matter. "How do you have so much patience?" He asked instead, ready to learn.

Asael shot him a dark look, what little patience he did have already running out. "I don’t." He repeated through gritted teeth.

Already in a sour mood, the Fiend’s aggravating presence wasn’t much help. Without Kath’tan to antagonize, Ruoxi had zeroed in on him. While he usually spent his nights alone or in Huayuan, the Incubus had dogged his steps every day for the past handful of weeks, constantly clinging to Dulce.

"Was it specialized training as an assassin or do Shadow Demons just have innate self-control?" Kath’tan barreled on, rising to his feet to close the distance.

Asael’s glare grew frosty, he had never been so tempted to stick a shadow blade in the Fiend as in that moment, not even when he was generously paid to do so.

"You’re in an intimate relationship with Dulce as well, yet I’ve never seen you leave behind even the faintest of marks..." Kath’tan went on, enthusiastically digging his own grave.

Unaware of the danger brewing, he was coming to a very important realization and wondering why he had taken so long to ask Asael for pointers.

"...Surely, there must be a method or two..." He trailed off when the Shadow Demons warped away from his sight.

Momentarily confused, Kath’tan glanced to the side and saw the Demon standing outside in the snow. Without stopping to question his strange actions, he followed right after him, hooked on getting a solution.

As soon as he warped outside, he was launched across the white expanse of snow. The familiar sensation of the Shadow Demon’s punch slamming into him.

Standing next to the cottage, Asael reabsorbed his Shadows, frowning. Was Ruoxi rubbing off on the Fiend or was there an even more sinister influence? Because even the aggravating Incubus had never been this accomplished in taunting him.

It didn’t help that Kath’tan recovered in record time, warping next to him again. "So, have you considered my request?" He asked calmly.

The Fiend’s silver crown was lopsided and he had lost his purple cloak in the snow but save for that, he was completely unharmed - expected, seeing as Asael had no killing intent behind his blow.

"Scram." He tossed out, intending to return to his boring task of reading.

Kath’tan unsurprisingly didn’t move, the Fiend even had the nerve to look a little aggrieved. "You even hit me. Why are you hoarding all your useful knowledge?"

Asael just stared at him blankly. He had told the Demon repeatedly that he had neither patience nor the ability to be gentle, yet he kept taunting him. In that moment, he decided that Ruoxi was the lesser devil and warped away to Fairwyn without another word.

He froze as he appeared in the witch’s shop, the raging storm outside muted in the safety of the building.

A short distance away, Ruoxi froze as well. The Incubus held a strangely shaped glass bottle up to his lips, but the sinister contents of the bottle were the least troubling about the scene.

Asael watched the Demon’s black hair slowly change to a bright green, the bottle he held releasing a concerning smoke the same hue as his newly-colored hair.

Kath’tan took a moment to arrive, and between the questions brewing in the Fiend’s eyes and the antics Ruoxi had gotten up to, Asael decided that he had tolerated enough.

Before either of them could say a word, he created a portal and stepped into it, leaving for his castle in the Hells.

"What’s his problem?" Kath’tan grumbled, unable to follow the Shadow Demon this time.

Ruoxi grinned and glanced into a handheld mirror that floated up next to him. "Nothing of concern." He said with unabashed glee, returning the strange potion he drank to pick up another without much thought.

"And why are you back so soon?" He added after taking a mouthful of the potion. "It hasn’t been a fortnight yet."

Kath’tan was forced to notice the Incubus’ hair this time, because his strangely colored hair seemed to gain independent thought. Locks of his hair wriggled and moved like snakes, yet it didn’t detract from his charming face.

He scowled, his agreeable curiosity from earlier dissipating like smoke. "Who decided when I can and can’t return?"

Ruoxi’s smile didn’t fade, he almost missed the Fiend’s blatant obnoxiousness. "Wasn’t that the agreement you made with Dulce?" He lied easily, dropping off the potion in his hand.

"What agreement? I didn’t know you added lies to your repertoire..."

As Ruoxi took another potion from the shelf labeled ’Hair Charms’, he decided that this was much better company than the brooding assassin.

-+-

By the time Dulce was done with his sigil classes, the atmosphere in the shop had long cooled. Outside, the blizzard had also slowed to falling snow, night coming early.

Ruoxi was seated in a corner, his black hair back to its usual majesty, none of the silly antics from before.

"You’re back," Dulce said in pleasant surprise at the sight of Kath’tan, it hadn’t yet been a fortnight so he knew the Demon didn’t return to feed him. "Do you need to return soon?"

Kath’tan closed the distance first, he pulled the Vampire up against him and warped away from the shop without a response.

This display didn’t surprise Moira, she simply turned to the Demon still left behind in her shop, expecting him to leave as well.

Demons were proud creatures, yet he had spent the entire day waiting alone in her shop just for Dulce, so she expected him to make himself scarce as well.

But he didn’t; instead, he rose to his feet and walked over to her, causing her to crane her head back to hold his gaze, apprehension bleeding into her eyes.

As much as she was interested in Demons, she preferred not to interact with Dulce’s Demons when the sweet Vampire wasn’t around.

Moira glanced down as he walked up, realizing for the first time that the Demon had his own hair in a tight grip. It was strange but she thought little of it until he loosened his fist.

"Can you remedy this?" Ruoxi asked calmly, his willful hair at odds with his handsome face.

Moira looked up in awe, instinctively reaching out to touch it. A lock of black hair whipped the back of her hand as she did, leaving behind a vivid red mark.

Ruoxi took a step back, a charming smile on his face effortlessly masking the discomfort brewing in his eyes. "Do you need to touch me to fix it?"

Moira gaped at her hand, not at all offended. "No, I apologize." She recovered herself to say, walking past him to a shelf. "I was merely impressed, charms are rarely that effective."

Ruoxi watched her retrieve a potion from the shelf he had been tinkering with earlier, his hair twisting up towards the roof and fanning outwards.

"Simply put this on your hair and it should be all better." Moira said, holding out a little potion in her palm so that the Demon could take it without them touching.

Ruoxi frowned even as a lock of hair wrapped around the bottle and brought it to him before he could lift a hand. "Put it on my hair?" He repeated, concerned. "I wasn’t supposed to drink it?"

Moira’s expression changed in quick succession, from confusion, to horror, to being incredibly impressed. "Humans can’t, but I suppose it wouldn’t matter to a Demon." She said in a rush, her dark green eyes sparkling with interest. "Try drinking it."

Ruoxi had let his curiosity lead him down this path so he had no other choice but to comply, his hair losing its autonomy and falling against his back.

Moira’s eyes were so sparkly they were almost blinding. "Do you want to take some with you? You can drink as many as you like."

Ruoxi looked away, not even the faintest hint of guilt on his face. "I’ll pass."

Moira watched him leave dejectedly, carefully returning the antidotal potion to its shelf.