Chapter 42: Answer [2]

"Not at you, sweetheart," Cane drawled, rolling his head on the grass to look at her bare knees. Her thighs were pressed together, the plump flesh spreading enticingly against the ground. "I’m marveling at the sheer, miraculous laziness of this entire operation. Look at them. We’re in the middle of a cutthroat tactical exam, surrounded by rival brackets with weapons, and we’re running this clearing like a cheap beach resort on the southern coast."

Priya let out a soft sigh, dropping her chin into the cup of her palm. Her elbow rested on her knee, which pushed her impressive cleavage together into a deep, shadowy crevice.

"I know," she murmured, her voice carrying a rare trace of fatigue. "I’ve thought the same thing every time Marcus starts grumbling by the fire. We’re sitting ducks out here. If another team stumbles into this pond, we don’t even have sentries posted."

"Yet you’re still here pouring drinks instead of building palisades."

"Yelena says to hold position, so I hold position." She tilted her head, giving him a look of simple, uncomplicated devotion. "I follow her. That’s just how it is."

Cane already knew the shape of that chain. Back at the Ayula estate, Priya wasn’t a fellow student or an allied lady; she was Yelena’s personal maid, bound to the family by contract and childhood history. She washed Yelena’s dresses, braided Yelena’s hair, and apparently fetched juice for whatever scumbag Yelena was currently failing to manage.

A shamelessly filthy image bloomed behind Cane’s eyelids. Priya, stripped of the academy’s casual shorts, squeezed into a traditional black maid’s uniform. A frilled white apron cinching her narrow waist, the starched lace straining across those massive, pillowy tits. A skirt cut so criminally short that every time she bent over to polish a table, the plump, round cheeks of her ass would wink out from beneath the hem, framed by dark stockings digging into soft, squishy thighs. It was a visual so potent it sent a sharp, hot throb straight to his groin.

He took another sip of his drink to cool the fire in his pants.

"So," Cane asked, keeping his tone casual as he eyed the smooth swell of her throat, "has her ladyship made up her mind yet? Or is she still agonizing over the terrible burden of my company?"

Priya’s breath hitched. A bright, sudden flush climbed rapidly from beneath the collar of her halter top, painting her chest and cheeks a delicious shade of dark rose. She looked down at her lap, her fingers twisting into the fringe of her denim shorts.

"She... she told me," Priya whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "She tells me everything, Cane. About the five boys you pulled from Marcus’s side. About the leadership vote." She swallowed, her eyes darting toward the distant tents before snapping back to his face. "And about what you asked for in return."

"Did she now?" Cane grinned, resting the cup on his bare stomach. "And what did she say?"

"She’s still thinking. She’s terrified, honestly. She’s never... no one has ever talked to her like that. Or demanded things like that." Priya paused, her chest heaving as her breath grew shallow. She chewed her lip, looking at his broad chest, his tanned shoulders, and the easy, insolent smirk on his face.

She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a breathy, frantic whisper.

"Cane... what if... what if you didn’t push her?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Take me instead." The words tumbled out of her in a hot, desperate rush, her cheeks burning like coal. "I—I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not engaged to an heir. There wouldn’t be any complications, no court scandals, no angry lords coming after you with dueling gloves. If it’s just... if you just need a girl to touch... to have your way with... I can do it. I’d do it gladly."

Cane looked at her. Really looked at her.

She was breathtaking. The kind of curvy, stacked little maid that most men on Earth would have crawled over broken glass just to smell. Her tits were straining against the fabric, practically begging to be freed and kneaded until she whimpered, and the flare of her hips promised the kind of tight, plush grip that made a man forget his own name. A clean, uncomplicated lay with zero strings attached.

He waved a hand through the warm air, shaking his head with an easy, unbothered smirk.

"I appreciate the charity, Priya. Really, I do. But no."

Her mouth fell open in genuine shock, her eyes wide and bruised. "You’re... turning me down?"

"Don’t take it personally," Cane chuckled, shifting onto his side and propping his head up with an elbow. "You’re gorgeous. A blind man could see that. But you’re missing the point."

"The point?" she stammered, crossing her arms defensively, which only succeeded in shoving her massive rack higher toward her chin. "The point is sex, isn’t it?"

"Sex is a side effect, sweetheart. The real prize is leverage." He winked at her, sharp and predatory. "Yelena runs this team. She carries a noble title that actually means something in the capital. There’s a specific, filthy kind of satisfaction in taking a haughty, high-born bitch who looks down on everyone and bringing her straight to her knees."

Besides, Cane mused silently, the Bitch Stealer System had an undeniable appetite for drama. Stripping away the loyal maid of an antagonist was fun, but corrupting an engaged, high-status noblewoman right out from under her aristocratic fiancé’s nose? That was the kind of flag-shattering degeneracy the system handed out massive stat points for. A clean arrangement with Priya wouldn’t move the needle on his survival meter by an inch. Yelena, however, was a loaded cannon.

Priya stared at him, caught between horror and an odd, flustered awe. She let out a ragged breath, the tension leaving her shoulders in a rush.

"You really are an awful person," she murmured, though the corner of her lips twitched upward.