SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
Perhaps the thrill lies in the fact that he is the only one capable of eliciting these things from her.
She is subordinate to no one. Not even to Ghaul.
She serves no one. Except, perhaps, herself.
And yet.
She feels some flicker of irritation in the very pit of her gut when he mocks her, just as she had suspected he might. But there is something in that cold smile that keeps her rooted there when she could just as easily leave.
She is not coy, Gospel.
But there is some thrill in knowing that he has come looking for her. And whether he chooses to bury her or not, she can siphon some sense of that early ecstasy from it.
She resists him for only a moment. Stays stock still, studying, before she finally relents and sinks closer. She makes no attempt to touch him, though there is some curiosity about how he might respond. Would he react the way she wanted him to? Wrap his cold fingers around her pulse and squeeze? Or would he refrain simply because he knew it would delight her?
The children. “I have raised them the best way I know how,” she muses but does not elaborate. There is no telling what that might mean. She does not tell him of the gifts she had asked for them, sees no purpose in it.
She tilts her head at his implication, the stirrings of a smirk tying up one corner of her dark mouth.
“I expect that the children care as much about you as you do about them.”