Chapter 11: Between Fangs and Smirks

The door clicked shut behind Cid.

Silence lingered in the aftermath.

The room was thick with heat and scent sweat, sex, blood, and the faint sweetness of perfume clinging to the sheets. The curtains fluttered in the still air, the only movement in the hazy room. The bed creaked as Iris sat up slowly, the sheets sliding off her bare shoulders.

Her skin was flushed, marred with fresh bite marks, scratches, bruises blooming like flowers. She didn't mind. She licked a smear of blood off her lip with a dazed grin, eyes wide and distant. Her thighs trembled slightly as if her body still remembered the rhythm he'd left in her. She wasn't here. Not fully. Her gaze wandered to the ceiling, her breathing slow, reverent.

She looked like someone who had seen the divine.

Rhiannon lay beside her, hair a black mess over one arm, her legs lazily tangled in the sheets. She rolled onto her side, propping her head up with her hand. Her eyes were half-lidded, glittering with amusement and something darker underneath.

"You look like you just found religion," she said.

Iris blinked.

Then smiled dreamily.

"I did."

Rhiannon snorted, but the sound held no real bite. "You're insane."

Iris turned her head, resting her cheek on her shoulder. Her hair clung to her damp skin. Her voice was sugar-laced venom.

"And you're jealous."

"Of you getting tossed around like a chew toy?" Rhiannon's voice was dry, bored, sharp as glass. "Not really."

But there was something tight in her throat. A flicker in her eyes. A tremor beneath the apathy.

Iris saw it.

She leaned closer, tilting her head like a cat toying with prey. Her smile sharpened.

"You were watching."

Rhiannon didn't deny it.

"I like to study my competition."

"Competition?" Iris's tone dipped low. Not angry. Curious. Hungry.

"You think he touches you because he cares?"

Rhiannon shrugged and ran a hand down her side, her fingers brushing faint red marks that still tingled.

"Didn't say he did. But he will keep coming back."

That landed.

Iris's smile flickered. Her eyes twitched just slightly.

Then the grin returned wider, crueler.

"I killed the others."

Rhiannon raised her brows. Unbothered. "So you've mentioned."

"I'll kill you too."

"Sure you will."

Iris blinked. That wasn't the response she wanted.

Rhiannon leaned in. Just a little. Close enough for Iris to smell the faint perfume on her neck. Her voice dropped to a whisper, soft mockery.

"But I'm still breathing."

Her fingers reached out and tapped Iris's cheek, feather-light.

"And you're still blushing."

Iris's gaze dropped.

Her cheeks were red.

Her thighs were wet again.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. There was more drool than blood.

Her breath hitched slightly.

Rhiannon shook her head with a low laugh. "You're not even mad he called you a toy."

"I'm not."

"Why?"

Iris giggled. A soft, unhinged sound. She looked back at the ceiling like it held divine secrets carved into the plaster cracks.

"Because I'm his favorite."

That silenced everything.

The air stilled. No more quips. No more smugness.

Just that one truth, hanging heavy in the room like incense over a corpse.

Rhiannon sat up, letting the sheet fall off her chest. Her skin still glistened faintly with sweat and satisfaction. She stretched her arms overhead, her breasts lifting, the motion slow and languid like a cat after the kill.

"You're batshit."

She stepped off the bed and padded across the floor, bare feet whispering on cold stone. She bent to grab her shirt, clearly not in a rush.

"But fun."

Iris watched her with the kind of stillness that precedes violence.

"You're still going to die."

"Not today," Rhiannon said, slipping the shirt over her shoulders. "And probably not by you."

"I hope it's me."

The words came soft, almost like a prayer.

But Rhiannon didn't flinch. She vanished into the bathroom, humming.

Iris sat there for a long moment, her nails digging into the sheets.

She touched the place where Cid had bitten her. A smile returned fragile, blissful, obsessive.

He called her a toy.

She wanted to hear it again.

Elsewhere, Cid moved through the halls of Veilborne Academy with purpose in every step.

His coat flared behind him like the wake of a storm. His boots struck the stone in clean, rhythmic beats. Students moved aside without needing to be told. Eyes followed him fearful, curious, reverent but he paid none of them any mind.

He had learned something in Hollow Vale.

The cult hadn't come for the seal.

They hadn't come for relics, or territory, or knowledge.

They had come for him.

Not because he was special.

Because he was dangerous.

Not a vessel.

Bait.

The thought didn't sit poorly with him. If anything, it amused him.

He stopped in front of a tall window, staring out at the courtyard below.

The sky above was a sheet of hollow gray, untouched by sun or storm. Still. Tense. Like the world was holding its breath.

It had been that way since the forest.

Since the screaming.

He could still feel the power under his skin, humming, waiting. The thing they tried to awaken had touched him. Or maybe the other way around.

He stepped away from the window.

Students whispered in the hallways as he passed.

His name. The battle. The monsters. The chains.

He turned a corner and passed three girls who immediately went silent.

One of them bit her lip. Another pressed her legs together.

He didn't even glance their way.

They didn't matter.

Only the truth did now.

He had seen it.

He was the rupture.

They knew it.

And soon, so would everyone else.

The courtyard was nearly empty when he stepped into it. Wind pulled at his coat. A crow croaked from a nearby archway and then flew off, disappearing into the gray sky.

He looked up.

The clouds were too low.

Almost like they were watching.

Time to make some demands.

He turned toward the Faculty Tower.

And maybe break a few more things on the way.