Violette felt the tugging of an invisible thread, reminding her to be careful. “What kind of magic?” she asked.
“He loves artifacts, rare curiosities and things similar to it.” He carelessly waved his hand, relaxing in his chair. “He is not a wizard, but I believe he has interest in anything magical, including people as well.”
“I might not like where you are leading me.”
“Oh, of course, you're not.” The corners of his eyes raised. “Not like someone asked you about it.”
“Careful,” she warned. “We were talking about it. You have to be respectful.”
He cracked his neck muscles as the words “You are no fun” left his mouth and it earned him a side-eye from her. “Relax. I'm joking. There's nothing extreme in my plan. Lord Adrogans has a collection of magic gizmos, I believe he might have a map that will lead us to the grotto.”
“What is my role in this?”
“You just need to make him give it to you.”
“It's very unlikely he'd just hand me the map, especially if he really treasures his stuff,” Violette doubted.
“Ask?” The vampire nearly snorted. “I'm not saying you should ask him. I want you to charm him.”
“To charm? With magic?”
“With your skills in seduction.” His expression turned serious.
“My what?” She drew back, her brows creasing. “You want me to seduce him?”
“What, fear you won't cope with it?”
Oh, she knew what he was doing – trying to test her.To hurt her pride.The jerk.
She'd much like to prove him wrong but there was one thing: she knew nothing about how to talk romantically to a guy. She was pretty confident in her speech while talking with males but she'd never flirted with any or dated someone. It felt strange to imagine she had to seduce someone when she barely knew how to get a romantic conversation going; how do people even…start it?
She might read about it in the books but she'd never felt enormous attention from boys. She actually didn't remember if someone tried to flirt with her before, even if so, she was thinking they were just being nice. It came to her mind that she possibly never was really attentive to the guy's behavior. And while it'd be nice to feel cared about, romance wasn't really bothering her mind that much before.
“Is there any other way?” Her brows twisted in incertitude.
“What is it? A ghost of doubts?”
She swore he looked kind of surprised that she didn't jump in with refutations of his words. No, he was right, she will not give him such satisfaction. There's nothing hard about charming a guy. It's just aguyafter all.
“And what do you want me to do then?”
“Charm him, talk about magic things and then make him take you to his collection,” he said with such ease as if it was indeed that simple.
She had an urge to ask why he wouldn’t try to lure him as it was not ordinary for his behavior – never would she believe Dante would choose a more difficult path.
“Weren't you saying it's a bad thing to do?” He raised his gaze, mystery played in his eyes and the corner of his mouth yanked upwards, she couldn't read what was that about.
Her brows pulled together. “Of course it is. But it's something you'd do.”
Dante's face slightly twisted but his voice remained calm.
“How many people I lured for that time you were with me? Aside from that couple I didn't use my vampire ability to charm others. As you can see I don't do it as usual.”
It was true though. He didn't use his luring powers, as she assumed. And though Dante wasn't a person to believe, somehow it felt like the truth – she didn't notice any strange behavior from the people they had any contact with. That woman and man he lured to stay the night wasn't the best memory of their journey, though she couldn't continue to blame him so she'd decided to close this chapter.
“Wasn't it an easier thing to do?” Her fingers brushed the saucer edges. “Why are we not arguing where you’re suggesting to lure him and I am trying to dissuade you, reading you a full moral speech about how it is wrong to take someone's choice and you can't do it to people?” Her eyes raised to him again.
“Yes, I decided to skip that part,” his lips curved into a selfish smile, “I thought it would save us time.”
