Chapter 278: The Contrast

As if he worried Serena could not see clearly enough, Elias used that same finger to pull at the corner of his mouth.

He opened his mouth wide on purpose, showing her the warm, damp pink of his tongue and the breath rising from him.

Same old trick, he thought.

He had done this to Giselle a long time ago. That little untouched ice queen had managed to stare at him with no expression at all. Serena, with all her experience, power, and appetite, should be able to accept it much more easily.

What Elias did not know was that the sight in front of Serena now was nothing like the Elias in her memories.

Not the old Elias who had fought her with stubborn silence.

Not even the Elias she had brought back from the Maldives, sweet, dependent, spoiled, and hypnotized into loving her.

This Elias was too different.

Shock was not enough to describe what Serena felt now.

Anger, disbelief, fury, humiliation. All of it hit at once, tangled so badly her mind could barely separate one emotion from the next.

While Serena was still doubting her own life, Elias braced both hands lightly against her and slid into her lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He did not care that she was still injured. His weight pressed down, and Serena’s brows tightened at the sudden pain.

Her hands moved by instinct, wrapping around him before she could think.

Elias sat in her arms.

This time, he was the one looking down.

His posture changed at once, chin lifted slightly, gaze lowered, like some arrogant young emperor inspecting a subject kneeling beneath his throne.

Before Serena could even raise her head to look properly at her little king, Elias bent down.

A warm, wet touch flashed across her cheek.

Then he laughed.

"Mm."

His lips did not pull away. Instead, he moved closer to her ear, the sound low and lazy.

Serena had never heard Elias make a sound like that before.

It was not his cold laugh, the kind full of sarcasm.

It was not the dismissive little scoff he used when he looked down on someone.

It was not even his pleased laugh, bright and careless.

This one carried ease and provocation. A careless hook buried under velvet. It was the kind of sound a man could not make unless he understood exactly what it did to the woman listening.

Serena knew she should not describe the current Elias this way.

But the feeling was undeniable.

Even the boys who had spent years surviving in private clubs and expensive lounges, trained to please rich women with a glance and a smile, could not have produced this kind of natural allure.

Serena’s head throbbed.

It was not real pain, not like the bruises on her body or the cuts in her palms. This was phantom pain born from the mind, the kind of ache that made her feel as if the person sitting on her was not Elias at all, but a blade lowered against the center of her skull, ready to split her thoughts apart from the top down.

She wanted to push him off.

She wanted to stop him.

She wanted to grab his shoulders and ask him who had taught him these things, when he had learned them, and how much of the old boy she had thought she knew had ever been real.

Her body betrayed her first.

Excitement.

Stimulation.

Every nerve in her seemed to answer him honestly. Her body had fallen into Elias’s control, responding to the lift of his mouth, the movement of his hand, the faint sound of his laugh, with a sincerity Serena hated.

In that moment, the person in front of her was not Elias.

He was some creature made to ruin people.

Serena heard that creature part his lips beside her ear and laugh softly.

"Big sister," he murmured, "you don’t look like you’re hurting that much. So let’s do something that helps you relax."

The first button of her white shirt slipped free under Elias’s smooth, slender fingers.

Then the second.

His movements were too practiced. Too easy.

Serena finally reacted. "Stop. What are you trying to..."

Her pupils widened slightly.

She did not finish the sentence.

Elias had already sealed her mouth with his.

Elias truly wanted to answer her.

What am I trying to do?

Obviously, I’m trying to do you.

But that would reverse the persona too completely. Besides, judging from Serena’s current state, she was already close to her limit. She probably could not take a harsher stimulus right now.

So Elias chose not to say it.

For the moment, he spared her.

Verbally, at least.

When they parted, Serena’s brows were drawn tight. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she turned her head away, unwilling and humiliated. Anyone who did not know better might have thought Elias was harassing some respectable woman who had never been touched in her life.

Elias cursed inwardly.

What was this strange contrast?

It made him want to bully Serena even harder.

[System Theta: ...]

Was the host really not going to play Serena Blackwood to death?

Should it say something?

But even if it spoke up, would the host actually stop?

After thinking it through, System Theta chose to watch from the sidelines. It did not dare disturb the host’s rare good mood.

A cool, soft touch landed beneath Serena’s jaw.

The next second, Elias turned her face back toward him with his hand.

"Look at me."

Serena’s eyes were full of disbelief, the pupils slightly blown.

The curve of Elias’s mouth climbed higher.

He looked at her as if she were a consort brought to his bed for the night, his green eyes narrowing. The clean, innocent brightness from earlier had vanished. What remained there was forceful, spoiled dominance, so arrogant it made the morning light seem indecent for witnessing it.

Elias lowered his head and kissed Serena’s lips again.

This time, she did not resist.

Her mind had completely stalled. Thought had stopped moving. Strangely enough, she truly felt a faint trace of relaxation under it all, as if the sharpest edges of last night had been buried beneath the storm Elias was deliberately pulling around her.

The only thought she could still form was simple.

Elias had definitely had contact with other women besides her.

Otherwise, he would not be this skilled.

Which meant his awkwardness and shyness before had all been an act.

While that thought was still forming, pain suddenly pulled at Serena’s scalp.

Her mouth twitched.

She lifted her eyes and fell straight into Elias’s displeased gaze.

He had a light grip on her long hair. His voice was gentle, almost soft, but he held absolute control.

"Don’t get distracted," he said. "Look at me."

One sentence forced Serena’s gaze to lock onto his eyes.

She did not look away again.

Only then did Elias smile with satisfaction. As a reward, he rubbed her head lightly, his voice warm, carrying an order that did not allow refusal.

"Good puppy," he said. "Help me take off..."

Serena had barely moved when Elias spoke again.

The tenderness in his tone stayed, but dissatisfaction slipped beneath it. He tugged her hair once more, not hard enough to injure, enough to sting.

"With your hands?" he asked. "What are you supposed to use? Did you forget already?"

He looked down at her, disappointed.

"So naughty."

In front of that high, arrogant young emperor, the lowly subject could not seem to summon even a thread of rebellion. All she could do was accept the strange favor of fate, lowering herself beneath the king she had tried so hard to own.

Serena had once thought she was the one who held Elias.

She had brought him back, paid his debts, cut his ties, arranged his clothes, his meals, his home, his future. She had made an entire world narrow around him until every road led back to her.

But now, under the pressure of his fingers and his voice, she had the sickening sense that every chain she had placed on him had somehow ended up wrapped around her own throat.

In the chaos that followed, Serena recovered a sliver of clarity.

What she saw was Elias’s face.

The expression there was too moving. Too bright. Too ruined and pure at the same time, almost impossible to connect with the arrogant posture he had carried moments earlier.

That contrast made Serena’s mind blur.

For an instant, she felt as if she were someone low enough to belong in the dirt, and yet by accident, she had been given the chance to profane a being floating above the clouds. To catch him by his pale, flawless ankle and drag him down into the mud by force.

Any woman faced with that kind of scene would go mad.

This time, even Serena could not exclude herself.

By the time everything ended, Serena’s face was blank.

Her gaze drifted, unfocused, landing nowhere.

What had just happened was too difficult to describe. It had nearly emptied her of everything. The resentment, jealousy, humiliation, pleasure, rage, and desire, all the positive and ugly things inside her had been dragged out and scattered under Elias’s control.

Only the pain at her scalp told her it had all been real.

Elias lay in Serena’s arms.

He seemed to have returned to the spoiled boy who loved his big sister with his whole heart. His brows and eyes had softened, docile now, and he rubbed lightly against Serena like a cat seeking affection, nuzzling her in a small act of sweetness.

"Big sister," he said, voice tender and pleased, "you were so good this time. You really looked like some pure little girl who didn’t know anything."