For a long moment, Lila stared at the dealer, and the dealer stared back.
"You should've bet more." The dealer said with a giggle, more than happy to give Zalan his winnings. Lila's were decent, but nowhere near the amount of Zalan's. The dealer was right, and Lila should have bet more. But how was she supposed to know that the dealer was going to let them win this round? Lila released a breath she hadn't realized that she had been holding, the tingle of fear along her spine that warned her that she had been caught peeping.
Was it Zalan? Had he maybe turned the dice to his favor?
Violet brows narrowed at being grabbed, feeling the weight of a man on her. He smelled like smoke and soot, an underlying sourness that ended bitter and masculine on her tongue, like champagne on an oyster, bubbly and briny and
mineral. Lila turned her head, not wanting to breathe in the scent of a traitor. What if it messed with her head? What if it messed with her loyalty?
The sole daughter of Beauregarde Lacrimosa had a crucial decision, one thrust upon her by the very man she sought to capture, to force answers out of. She breathed in, then out. The dealer hung on her very breath, calculating any movement in Lila's face. From her straight brows to the curve of her eyes, to the very space between nose and lip, the dealer watched everything. Lila hated feeling watched, hated feeling scrutinized. All her life, she was known as purple, she was known as other, she was known as strange.
If it didn't come from strangers, it came from her family, her mother, who had thought her womb somehow cursed and dreadful and waited years to have another. Lila's little brother, the only one to see her, to idolize her. For him, for him, only for him. Lila turned towards Zalan.
She hated how close their faces were to each other. He would be able to see that it wasn't the trick of shroud-light, her eyes truly were the color of twilight, even the pupil held a blue-violet sheen. Her eyes glimmered beneath the light, an array of fallen stars from the mother, a once in a lifetime event witnessed only by Zalan himself.
"We stay. And," She shoved every single chip but one she had onto one square and one square only: the three sixes. Only then was she offered a free drink, which she took.
"I do not belong to you, I am not yours." She took a sip, unintentionally coy in the way she tilted the glass, in how not a single drop fell from the corner of her lips.
"But, I'll allow you to be mine." She felt powerful saying such words, smiling and giddy with the euphoria of asserting herself. "
If you put everything here, I'll reward you."
A single finger touched the first placement Zalan had chosen in his first round. It was a test, follow after her lead, or do as she said—a crucial test, especially for a traitor like Zalan.
@Zalan
