Chương 137: Chapter 130

Siobhan"Howya, ye gorgeous shower of degenerates." I tilted the projection until the light sat where I wanted it and gave the lens the smile that pays my bar tab. Forty thousand of you were already watching, which was sweet. By the end of the night it would be a great deal more, because tonight I had something worth watching.

"Some of you have been asking who the lucky man is. I've seen the threads. I heard the meltdown. Yes, it is real. No, I did not lose a bet." I let that land.

"His name is Cale Arcanus. He is an upper-year, though good luck getting anyone to tell you which one, the man is a rumor with a jawline. And he is, and I want to be fair to the historical record here, unfairly handsome." I flicked his image up into the corner of the feed. The chat did what the chat does. RedQueenStan: the MURDER is FED byrdiii: ok he's fine what the hell hollowpoint_hattie: Siobhan you cannot just DO that to us MyIrishFantasy: come on, tell me what he's got that I don't have.

"I know," I told them.

"I know. Try to hold it together. We have a whole night ahead."

"Now. For those of you new to the less formal end of the dating market, you know the ones I'm talking about: the people who do not have an arrangement in their future. Well, they all ask the same thing. What do you do on a first date?" I leaned into the lens like I was letting them in on a secret, because performance is mostly knowing your audience wants to lean in with you.

"Here is the key, darlings. You do whatever you want! That is the entire rule. Some people will tell you it has to be a fancy restaurant." I paused for it.

"He is, as it happens, taking me to a fancy restaurant. But that was his idea, which is the correct sort of idea for a man to have. Especially when it comes to yours truly." I gave the chat a dazzling smile.

"You know he's only doing it so he can have the opportunity to see me in a fancy dress. Let's face it, who wouldn't want to see me in a fancy dress?" I struck a pose with pouty lips. The chat lost its bloody collective mind. I let it. RedQueenStan: "the correct sort of idea for a man to have" IM SCREAMING byrdiii: she has TRAINED him already and they haven't even LEFT hollowpoint_hattie: correct sort of idea = obedient.

we all heard it feralforquinn: this man is walking into a lion enclosure holding a steak and thinks it's a picnic saintofnothing: pray for cale arcanus. pray for the boy Oh, my audience is so funny. I picked it up before they could get too far going.

"Now watch this, because I have been practicing." I set one hand high on the doorframe, dropped my weight onto one hip, and tipped my chin so the light ran down my throat and along the line of my shoulder. I held it, still as stone, the pose every girl on this feed has tried in a mirror and half of them get wrong. I held it long enough for the capture to catch it clean. Then I broke it with a wink, because a pose you cannot walk away from laughing is a pose that owns you instead.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. feralforquinn: FRAMED. PRINTED. WORSHIPPED. saintofnothing: how is she real. I'm calling it. It's a Technica Illusia Arcanum. It has to be. I grinned my girlish grin.

"Thank you. Thank you, and I saw that, Saint Man. I don't know anything about Illusia Arcanum. To the rest of you lovelies, thank you, thank you. Now, the getting-ready portion, which is the real reason you are here and we both know it." I stood and turned slowly in the green silk robe, the good one, the one that drinks the light and gives back just enough. It fell open past the knee when I moved, and I let it, because I trained these legs and I refuse to be modest about the results.

The silk caught the lamps and threw them back gold.

"What do you think?" They thought a great deal. In capital letters, mostly.

"So. Where is he taking me. We are going to La Falle." I said it like a name I wanted the room to repeat.

"Very fine dining. The kind of place that serves you three perfect bites and calls it a triumph. Which, I will be honest, is going to be an adjustment for a Morrigan." I let my voice go fond.

"My father, the man some of you know as the Dire Bear, considers a meal a failure if the animal did not arrive whole. Three bites. He would weep. He would ask where the rest of it went, and then he would go and find it." I let out a dramatic sigh and flourished my arms. It was so ridiculous, it was funny.

"Which brings us to the important question. What does one wear to be underfed beautifully?" I crossed to the wardrobe and pulled the first option where the lens could see it. It was the wicked one. Open down the back to the base of the spine, cut low enough in front to make a statement and hold it, twin slits running green up the legs, tight everywhere it had an opinion. I hung it off two fingers and let them look.

byrdiii: MA'AM hollowpoint_hattie: call an exorcist that dress is POSSESSED RedQueenStan: he is going to walk into a door"You like it." I turned it in the light so the slits opened and closed.

"I like it too. I am not going to wear it." The feed rioted. I waited them out, because letting them beg is half the show.

"I pulled it for you, my loves. For the glamour. A girl should own one dress she can only wear on a stream, where the worst that happens is a man drops his drink two dominions away." I laid it across the chair like a retired champion.

"For the actual date I want him thinking with the top of his head. Mostly." I went to the wardrobe again and took down the real one, and this time I turned the camera to the wall.

"Eyes off, gremlins. My under goods are a paid tier and none of you are current." saintofnothing: THE DISRESPECT (deserved) feralforquinn: turning the camera should be illegal A rustle, a pin, a breath held while I got the line of it to sit right across the hip. Half a moment, no more. Then I turned the lens back and stepped into frame and gave them the slow spin I had earned. Emerald satin, this one, long and liquid, the kind that pours down a body instead of just covering it.

It hugged every curve I have earned and a few I was born with, cut low enough in front to be generous and high enough to still be invited places, with slits that ran up both legs and opened only when I moved. Not the club. The club came later. This was the version of scandalous that gets seated at the good table and thanked for coming.

"There. That is the one." I ran a hand down the satin at my hip.

"For dinner." I let the pause do the work.

"What I am wearing after dinner is a different conversation entirely, and it is not one we are having in front of the starter. Some of you will be there to find out. The rest of you can read the recaps and cry." They agreed at volume. I let the noise wash over me and fixed my mouth in the mirror, and I did not tell them the rest, because the rest was not theirs. The rest was this.

I have staged a hundred nights for a camera and felt nothing under the paint, and tonight my hands were not quite steady doing the clasp, and I knew exactly why. He is the one man on this island who looked at me across a table and did not perform back. Everyone performs back. It is the tax you pay to sit near me. He just watched, mild as weather, like he was waiting to find out if I was interesting, and walked off before I decided whether I had been the one hunting or he had simply let me think I was.

I have not stopped turning that over. It is inconvenient. It is the inconvenient kind of liking someone, the kind that does not care that it is bad for business. None of which goes on the feed. The feed gets the emerald and the wink.

"All right, darlings. Wish me well. Or do not. I do not need it." I leaned in one last time.

"And do tune in. I will be giving periodic updates through the night. This is not one you want to miss." It was the most interesting thing that had happened to me in a year. I blew the screen a kiss, killed the feed, and went to be collect a man who had no idea he was already famous.