Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs

Chapter 1075: Young Love to New Life

Ashley came down the stairs with her packed bag in one hand, a jacket half-on, and that scattered breathless energy you get when someone has given you ten minutes to pack for a trip your brain hasn't caught up with yet.

Her mother was waiting in the entryway.

I was standing beside her mother. Not quite as close as a stranger would, but not quite as far as a stranger would either.

Ashley did not register the distance and that was one of my favourite things about her that no one knows about.

"Okay," she said, adjusting the strap on her shoulder. "Okay. I'm ready. I think I'm ready. Mom, did I forget—"

"You forgot nothing that matters. Anything you missed, we'll send."

"Okay." Her voice caught. She set the bag down, hugged her mother, held on. Her mother held her back with one hand at the base of her skull, the other flat between her shoulder blades, and neither of them spoke for a long moment. I let them have it.

"Call me."

"Every day."

"Not a text."

"A call, Mom. I know. I promise."

"And if you change your mind about anything—for any reason—"

"I won't."

"If you do."

"I won't. Ever!"

Her mother pulled back and cupped her cheek. Kissed her forehead.

And then, while Ashley was still turning to face me with her bag slung back over her shoulder, her mother lifted her eyes from the crown of her daughter's head and found mine.

One look.

No nod or word. No tell anyone else in that entryway would have clocked.

It was just a quiet exchange between the two adults in the room, who had spent an hour in a living room earlier and had a private understanding about what would not be discussed in the morning and what would or would not happen the next time she came to Paris alone.

I inclined my head the smallest possible amount.

She did the same.

It closed as quietly as it had opened. Ashley, her back to her mother now, saw none of it.

Good.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Ready."

I took her bag off her shoulder and slung it over mine. Put a hand at the small of her back and steered her out the door.

Nyxire was already ready, head turned, ears forward like she was annoyed at us for keeping her waiting. By the time Ashley got within ten feet of her, Nyxire had lowered herself at the knee in something between a bow and an invitation.

Ashley stopped walking.

"Are you kidding."

"She likes you."

"She hasn't met me."

"She likes you because I like you."

"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever today and I'm going to think about it every day."

I caught her at the waist. Lifted her clean—she made a small embarrassed sound at the ease of it, which I enjoyed more than I had any right to—and settled her at the front of the saddle. Swung up behind her. One arm around her middle. The other reaching past her shoulder for the reins.

"Hold on," I said, near her temple.

"To what."

"Me."

She pressed her hands flat over the arm at her waist and leaned back against my chest, and something small and warm unclenched behind my heart at the shape of her weight settling against me.

I tipped my chin down onto the crown of her hair. Closed my eyes for exactly one second. Opened them again before anyone could notice.

Her mother, from the doorway: "Be safe."

I did not take my eyes off the top of Ashley's head.

"She will be."

Nyxire rose from her half-bow, adjusted her hooves on the path, and walked us out the gate.

I did not put her into a canter.

No need.

This was not the part of the evening that required speed. Nyxire ambled us through the quiet residential streets at an unhurried walk, hooves clopping one-two against the pavement, streetlamps throwing long pools of gold across empty sidewalks, and I let her set the pace because I was, for once, in no hurry to get anywhere.

Ashley did not speak for the first couple of blocks.

She was, I could tell, cataloguing the arrangement her body had been placed in.

I was entirely the length of her back. My thighs bracketed hers on either side, shifting against her whenever Nyxire's stride rolled under us. My arm lay across her middle with my hand wide enough that my thumb had, without consulting me, found the line of her lowest rib and decided to stay there.

I could feel her heart going faster than the hoofbeats and feel, very distinctly, that this was the first time in her life she had ever been encompassed by someone.

Her hands found my arm and pressed flat against it.

I tightened the arm by a breath—I have you—and let my thumb trace once, slow, along that bottom rib.

She exhaled a laugh she'd been holding.

"You're dangerous, Master..." she murmured.

"Mm."

"You are weaponizing this horse ride."

"I am enjoying this horse ride."

My mouth found the top of her head without asking me.

A few blocks on, she turned in the circle of my arm.

Not much. Enough to tip her face up to mine, enough that her shoulder pressed into my chest and her mouth was suddenly very close to my mouth, and the streetlamp behind us caught her cheekbone at an angle I was going to think about later.

My hand found the back of her neck. Thumb along her jaw. Slow.

I kissed her.

The reins went slack in my other hand. Nyxire didn't break stride. Didn't care. She walked us on, patient, pretending very politely not to understand any of this, already mentally billing me for the apples she was going to collect later.

Ashley made a soft sound into my mouth.

I swallowed it. Tilted her chin up a fraction and kissed her again, longer, slower, and for the next half-block the only sounds in the world were the wet quiet of her mouth against mine and the steady clop of a mare whose riders had, temporarily, forgotten that riding was supposed to involve steering.

She pulled back for breath.

Not far. Forehead to mine, nose brushing my nose, breath sharing the narrow warm space between our faces.

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I am officially converted."

"Mm?"

"Horses. Riding. It has—advantages I had not appreciated." She laughed, dizzy. "Compared to a car."

"Does it."

"You cannot do this in a car. You have to hold the wheel. You have to watch the road. Nobody is watching the road right now. Nyxire is watching the road. She's handling everything. She hasn't missed a step. She is a genius, Eros, your horse is a genius, I want to personally apologize to her for—"

"Well," I said, mild, "most of my cars drive themselves. A lot of other companies make self-driving cars now, too. So technically people can—"

Ashley turned her face away from me against my chest and made a small outraged noise into my coat.

"Oh my god."

"What."

"For a man with as many women as you have, you really know how to kill a romantic moment."

I started laughing before she'd finished the sentence. I could not help it. She was trying so hard to sound offended and her mouth was pressed into my coat and her shoulders were already shaking with her own laugh, and I tightened my arm around her and let her hide her face where she wanted to hide it.

"Unbelievable."

"I was making a point."

"You were ruining the point I was making."

"Your point was horses allow for kissing."

"Yes."

"My point is that cars now also allow for kissing, due to recent advances in automotive—"

"Stop talking."

"—and so, the infrastructure of modern romance has been materially—"

She reached up, took my jaw in her hand, and kissed me mid-sentence.

I shut up.

Nyxire flicked one ear backward. I chose not to interpret it. Ashley chose to interpret it as solidarity. She was wrong. Nyxire was laughing at me.

When Ashley finally lifted her head, she was bright-eyed and grinning in a way that made her look about twelve and also made me want to buy her a country, which was a problem I would deal with later.

She tucked back against me. Laced her fingers through mine across her middle and held them there.

"If you keep doing things like this," she said, "I am going to be insufferable."

"You are already insufferable."

"I'm going to get worse."

"I'm counting on it."

"I missed you."

"I know."

"I missed you even when I was angry at you for not texting."

"I know."

"I missed you when I was telling Emma you were probably a figment of my imagination."

"That I did not know."

"Well. Now you do."

"I'll make it up to you."

"You're making it up to me."

"I've barely started."

The houses thinned. Streetlamps spaced further apart. An empty lot appeared on the left—overgrown, dark, with a single old oak at its centre and a low brick wall along its edge.

I slowed Nyxire to a stop in the shadow of the oak.

The world went quiet. No cars. No voices. No light except the distant glow of the neighbourhood behind us and the broken silver of moon through the branches above. Nyxire lowered her head and stood patient, because that is what she did when the two idiots on her back needed the ground for a minute.

Ashley did not move from where she was tucked against me.

"Why are we stopping," she murmured, sleepy-warm.

I turned my head a fraction and pressed a kiss into the crown of her hair. Lingered. Exhaled slow against her scalp.

"Because it's time to pick up our real ride."

"…Mm?"

I lifted my face a fraction toward the sky. Did not raise my voice. Did not need to.

"ARIA."