landbeastnovel Chapter 365 : Yandere vs Future Yandere?
Chapter 365 : Yandere vs Future Yandere?
"Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests one and all, the moment we have awaited the whole evening through has arrived at last. Raise your glasses high, for only now does the night find its true light. Please welcome the radiant jewel of our celebration, the Lady Astrid."And the instant those words left the herald’s lips, every stare in the hall snapped to Astrid, her beauty seizing each guest by the throat before they could so much as breathe.
Her cold and elegant descent and that distant and unbothered expression set countless man’s hearts racing, until the cruel truth caught up with them all at once, that a woman like this stood a whole planet beyond their reach.
The room sank into utter silence as she descended, the quiet grown so complete that the sharp click of her heel meeting the marble below rang out like a verdict the very moment she abandoned the last stair.
The maids came scurrying in to fuss over her gown, smoothing deep crimson silk that hugged every curve as though it had been poured straight onto her and dared the world to object, the skirt fanning out in slow waves that drank the light and handed it back as gold.
One glimpse of that daring slit and those bare shoulders, and half the hall promptly forgot their own names, their dance partners, and, in two thoroughly confirmed cases, the spouses standing directly beside them.
Astrid dismissed the maids with a single lazy wave of her hand and started out across the floor, straight toward the one pair she had locked onto from the very top of the stairs.
A handful of nobles with more nerve than sense tried to ease into her path, congratulating her, murmuring sweet little nothings about the gifts they had prepared, fishing desperately for a single word or glance.
She cut through them like fog, not one of them earning so much as a flicker of acknowledgment.
Jax took in the entire approach and read the storm on her face for exactly what it was. He stiffened, hauled Roxana back upright onto her feet, and muttered low. "Stay behind me, and try your hardest to hold that tongue of yours. Things are about to turn very dangerous indeed."
Roxana could only blink in pure confusion, baffled at the sight of Jax, of all people, beginning to sweat.
Inside his own skull he was busy cursing the god of luck with everything he had. ’Why now, of all the conceivable moments in existence?’ he lamented. ’I’ve gone and done something foolish yet again, and there wasn’t a shred of ill intent behind any of it. Surely she might find it somewhere in her heart to trust me, just this one time.’
Echidna stirred awake in his mind, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. ’Aww, would you just look at her. Those big, beautiful, absolutely murderous eyes. Yes, surely a woman wearing a face like that is simply dying to sit you down, pour you a drink, and patiently hear out your side of the story.’
She dissolved into laughter at his expense. ’My, my, this is going to be far too much fun to watch. But fret not, my child. My blessing rests gently upon you.’
By the time Echidna’s sarcasm ran dry, Astrid had already closed the gap between them. Jax wasted no breath. "Astrid, listen to me, just try to—"
"I will deal with you in a moment." She cut him off without so much as slowing her step, and brushed straight past him toward Roxana standing at his back.
Roxana met her with that natural, faintly insolent ease of hers. "Oh. The guest of honor finally deigns to grace the rest of us mortals. Many happy returns, brat."
"What," Astrid said, every syllable filed down and held under iron control, "exactly do you think you’re doing?"
"What now, are you my mother?" Roxana lifted a single brow. "Can’t you see I was merely passing the time so I wouldn’t drop dead of sheer boredom in the middle of this little party of yours?"
Astrid fought for her composure with all her might, and the vein steadily throbbing at her forehead happily gave the whole game away. "If you’re so dreadfully bored, then why not do every soul in this room a tremendous favor and leave?"
Roxana answered through a wide, unhurried yawn. "Sorry, can’t do that. My sister couldn’t make it tonight, so I’m here standing in for her and for the family name. Walk out now, and your dear father tallies it up as one more fresh insult from our household, doesn’t he?"
"Then attend," Astrid bit back. "Drink, eat, mingle, do whatever the hell pleases you. But know this much. You do not get to stay glued to the professor’s side, and you certainly do not get to stoop so low as to beg him for a dance."
"I’m sorry, come again?" Roxana said in confusion. "Though just so we’re crystal clear on the matter, he was the one who asked me to dance."
Astrid’s head turned toward Jax, slow as a falling guillotine, and Jax very suddenly discovered that the side of Roxana’s face was the most fascinating thing in the room, fixing his eyes anywhere at all so long as it wasn’t on Astrid.
’Oh, wonderful,’ he thought. ’By all means, keep dumping kerosene on the fire and burn me alive where I stand, why don’t you.’
"I could have refused him, of course," Roxana carried on, untroubled by the daggers sailing past her. "But I took pity on the poor man, with every eye in the room watching him beg for my hand. And refusing a gentleman’s invitation in front of the whole assembly is the true breach of etiquette at a noble’s gala, is it not? So I simply went along with it."
She finished with a careless little shrug. "Besides, I was doing you a rather generous favor while I was at it. Someone had to keep a leash on the resident troublemaker and make certain your big night didn’t go up in flames the very second whatever disastrous idea wanders into that head of his next decides to come out and play."