“Stare any harder and you might actually set his hair on fire.”
Lips curling over the delicate rim of his teacup, Zhao Yuanzhou peers at the beauty who slides into the seat opposite his. Her pale hands smoothly fills her own cup before she too lifts her gaze to meet his.
“Even when he is 42, he’ll still be my nephew and I, his aunt.” The words cling to the air between like melodic chimes of a summer bell, but Zhao Yuanzhou has lived long enough to mark it for the warning it is.
The subject of their conversation sneezes in the distance. Soon after, they hear Bai Jiu fussing over him in a worried pitch, the lilt of his voice still caught between manhood and boyhood.
Zhao Yuanzhou tips his head at Wen Xiao when he hears Xiao Zhuo daren politely sniffle and thank the boy genius for his concern. “And this thread of familial protectiveness is being foisted my way, because of…?”
Wen Xiao’s sweet smile takes on an almost acrid edge. The gleam in her eyes flashes a touch more knife-like.
“The years I’ve lived may just be a drop in the bucket of yours. But I’m a woman. And a woman’s intuition is hardly ever wrong about a man’s intentions.”
“Oh? So, you think of me as a man now?”
“I can hardly think of you as a three-headed monster, can I?” Wen Xiao laughs, turning the cup in her hand. “Not when you’re one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen in my life. No, the fact is you’re handsome. Perfect in an otherworldly way that rankles my gut. This would not be an issue in any other case, but you’re looking at Xiao Zhuo.”
“Oh?” Flitting his eyes back to the young men basking in the weak sunlight, he does little to hide the smile that stretches his mouth. “And pray tell how would I have been looking at him?”
The little thunk when Wen Xiao sets her cup on the table is loud enough to break the little spell of the tit-a-tat between them.
“Like you want to devour him.” Comes the quiet answer and Zhao Yuanzhou can only hum in response to that.
He thinks of the way their first meeting had gone; the little test he had set to see the worthiness of Zhuo Yichen to play the part in the plan he has set in motion.
When Xiao hadn’t been wrong when she said that just because a mortal steel cannot kill him does not mean the cut does not hurt. If he allows himself to feel it, he thinks he can still feel Xiao Zhuo daren’s blade digging deep into his chest.
She still wasn’t wrong when she said he looks at Zhuo Yichen like he wants to swallow him whole and place him in his belly. Right where the world and all its hurts cannot get to him.
He wants to spare him as much of that which he can.
“How curious…”
Blinking away the bloom of warmth that has gripped him in his throat, the demon lord affects a languid lean, tilting his face to the sun instead of meeting her eyes.
“If I tell you that I mean him no harm other than what is necessary, would you believe me?”
“Yes.”
Zhao Yuanzhou can tell the moment his lips curl into something a little too honest for his tastes. It is only with long practice that he manages to keep his composure enough to squeeze out a gentle, “That’s enough, isn’t it?”