Chapter 185: A Sexy Dress Made to Tempt

Chapter 185: Chapter 185: A Sexy Dress Made to Tempt

The words main dish kept running through my mind no matter how many times I tried to put them away.

Giselle had said it flatly, like a weather report, and then left me with two hours and a formal suit that still smelled faintly of seals.

I spent most of those hours doing what I did best when the alternative was thinking too hard about an Empress: teasing her until the air between us turned sharp enough to cut.

She almost put a knife through my chest twice.

Once when I asked whether the fragment under my ribs preferred the left side or the right when she stood close.

Once when I suggested that if someone cornered me on a balcony tonight, she should at least look jealous for the cameras.

Both times she stopped herself with the same controlled exhale she had used in the atelier.

Both times the fragment pulsed like it was laughing at both of us.

By the time the clock hit 19:00, the Guilder’s Tower was already filling.

The building had been designed for exactly this kind of evening: high-level discussions about dungeon policy and the hard ceiling of women’s power, dressed up as celebration.

Few dampeners ran so clean the air itself felt expensive.

Private lifts.

Observation galleries.

Enough ranked signatures in the lower floors to make the Hunger sit up and pay attention even through the fabric.

I stood in the private antechamber booked under Giselle’s name and stared at my own reflection.

Black formal coat. Clean lines.

Violet hair that refused to look entirely civilised no matter what the attendants had done to it.

The mirror showed someone who could pass for a support worth inviting and, at the same time, someone who had forced an Empress-line fragment into his core in front of half the academy.

"Okay... no weird eyes," I muttered, and slapped my own cheek lightly.

The yellow ring that sometimes leaked through when the Hunger rose stayed gone.

For now.

I turned my head and checked the line of my spine in the mirror, half-expecting the violet tail to have decided formal wear was optional.

Nothing.

The transformation percentage sat quiet.

The Golden ticket remained unopened at the edge of my vision like a second, larger problem I still refused to touch.

The inner door opened.

I turned.

Giselle stepped out of the adjoining room, and the air in the antechamber changed temperature.

The gown was the colour of deep water under sunlight: sea-glass blue that shifted toward green when she moved.

Full-length, flowing, cut to move with her rather than against her.

The neckline sat low enough to show the clean line of her collarbones and the faintest shadow of pathways beneath the skin.

Her white hair had been left mostly loose, gathered over her left shoulder in a deliberate fall that framed the sharp red of her eyes.

No heavy jewellery.

She didn’t need it.

For one unguarded second, a thought slipped through before I could stop it.

God, she’s beautiful.

I caught it, filed it, and locked it down.

Giselle’s eyes narrowed.

"Stop staring."

"If only your words were as good as the dress."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means you walked out of that room looking like the reason half the women downstairs are going to try to start a political incident tonight, and I’m the idiot who has to stand next to you while they decide whether to kill me or collect me."

She gave me a flat look.

"You’re not standing next to me. You’re being displayed near me. There’s a difference."

"Semantics."

"Survival."

I stepped closer, slow enough that she could stop me if she wanted.

She didn’t.

The fragment under my ribs gave a single pulse of recognition.

"You clean up well for someone who spent the afternoon threatening to put me through walls," I said.

"You talk too much for someone about to walk into a room where my mother will be measuring every micro-expression you make."

"Then it’s a good thing I practiced my resting ’I definitely didn’t force a drain on your daughter’ face in the mirror."

Giselle’s mouth twitched.

Not quite a smile.

Close enough that the Hunger noticed.

"You’re going to get yourself killed."

"Probably. Question is whether you’ll look surprised when it happens."

"I won’t."

"Liar."

She held my gaze for another second, then glanced toward the private lift that would take us down to the main gallery.

"Two rules," she said.

"One: you do not activate any technique, pheromone, chain, or whatever that class is cooking — unless I give you a signal or someone is actively trying to remove a piece of you. Two: if my mother addresses you directly, you answer with the shortest truthful sentence that doesn’t make the situation worse. No jokes. No flirtation."

"And if someone who isn’t your mother decides they want a private demonstration of whatever I did on that rooftop?"

"Then you remember Draven’s warning, and you don’t make them angry. Everything else is secondary."

"You won’t mind me being taken away?"

"..."

I offered my arm.

The gesture felt theatrical and necessary at the same time.

Giselle looked at it like it might be a trap, then slid her fingers lightly against the inside of my elbow.

No skin contact.

Still enough for the fragment to stir.

"You’re shaking," she said quietly.

"I’m cold."

"You’re lying."

"I’m also cold."

The private lift doors opened with a chime.

The moment the doors sealed, the ambient noise of the tower dropped away and left only the two of us and the low hum of expensive machinery.

Giselle spoke without looking at me.

"She will already have a profile on you. Height, output signature, the exact moment you took the fragment, the smile afterward. Do not give her anything new to work with in the first five minutes."

"Understood."

"And Revien."

"Yeah?"

"If the fragment starts reacting the way it does when I stand close, you will keep your face neutral. She will be watching for exactly that."