Read Novel Full Chapter 371: What Jax Has Earned
Chapter 371: Chapter 371: What Jax Has Earned
Jax smiled. “I don’t remember exactly when, but from the very start, from the moment we met, I had my suspicions about you.”
One of his hands was still threaded through hers, the other settled at her waist, and her hand rested light on his shoulder. The music had ended ages ago.
The floor had cleared around them, every other couple melting back into the crowd and leaving the main stage to the two of them alone. And still neither of them had budged so much as an inch, locked in that closing pose like neither one could stomach being the first to let go.
“Not gonna lie,” Jax said, and there was real appreciation in it. “You played the part beautifully. You had every single soul around you convinced of being the real one. Even Lavinia’s own sister never noticed a thing. Fooled completely, start to finish, by your acting.”
The girl’s smile vanished. Then she slid Lavinia’s persona back on like a coat. “Oh, professor, you really are too kind. At least there’s someone willing to compliment my efforts. You have no idea how hard I worked to climb my way into the shoes of this innocent, naive little chatterbox.”
She sighed, almost wistful. “I was having fun too, you know. For the first time in a very, very long while. But what can we do? It was always destined to end sometime. Still…”
She made an angry little pout, glaring up at him. “You figured it out sooner than I expected. If only you’d waited a few more minutes, I’d have treated you to the whole grand reveal. The ultimate betrayal, the dramatic music, all of it. But noooo. You had to go and spoil the entire thing, you meanie.”
Jax’s face went flat. “I have no interest in playing your little games any further. So tell me. What is your true purpose here, Loki?”
Her smile came back, and this time the voice that carried it was her own, with no trace of Lavinia left in it at all. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m here for you.”
“I’m not buying that crap,” Jax said. “Because if that were true, you wouldn’t have been playing around for this long.”
“What?” Loki cocked her head to one side. “I told you, I was having fun living here. Maybe I got a touch carried away. Or maybe I was simply taking my sweet time, locking in a guaranteed win.”
Jax stayed unconvinced. “I figured talking to you would be a waste of breath. So I’ll shelve this question for later. For when you’re answering it all on your own, at my feet.”
And as the words left his mouth, the hand he had resting behind her waist moved. It slipped into the dimensional ring Astrid had given him and drew out his sword.
He swung it out from behind her back in one clean motion, the edge aimed to take her head clean off her shoulders. But Loki dropped backward, dramatic as a stage actress, and the blade carved through the empty air where her neck had been a breath earlier. She landed flat on the floor.
Jax didn’t give her a single second. His sword came down and pinned her by the throat. But before he could press it home from that distance, Kessiri, chatting away with her friends nearby, caught the commotion out of the corner of her eye. The instant she saw her little sister sprawled in danger at Jax’s feet, she hurled her wine glass straight at his head.
Jax felt it coming and tilted out of the way, the glass shattering somewhere behind him. He turned to find Kessiri already burning with rage.
“How dare you humiliate my sister in front of everyone?” she snarled. “You’ll pay for whatever sick little game you’re playing, you bastard.”
She was about to launch herself at him when a knot of servants appeared out of nowhere and threw themselves between the two, flinging their bodies into a battle they understood absolutely nothing about.
The same server from before stood at the front of them, knee-deep in his redemption arc, scrambling to bury the mess he’d made earlier. “Lady Talli’nah, I beg you, please calm yourself, and refrain from taking any further action until you understand the situation.”
“Calm down?” Kessiri advanced on him, each word climbing in heat. “And what in the hells do you mean, the situation? What could my sister possibly have done to deserve a humiliation like this? Stolen some candies? Snuck off with a few desserts?”
She seized his collar in one hand and hoisted him clean off his feet. “Answer me. What exactly did she do wrong to deserve this, before I find out for myself how far your head bounces?”
The poor man couldn’t squeeze a word out past the chokehold, so one of his friends leapt in to save him. “Y-your sister was seducing the professor, ma’am! I saw it with my very own eyes, I swear it on my life!”
Another server jumped into the fray. “Yes, Lady Talli’nah, I can confirm it too! She even threatened me, said she’d spike Sir Jax’s drink!”
A few more piled on after that, each one backing the last, carrying the lie forward in perfect, beautiful harmony, every one of them simply obeying the order handed down from on high to back the professor no matter what.
And so they began to compete. Each fool strained to out-lie the one before him, every man dead certain that whoever contributed the most to this noble cause would walk away with a fat raise for his stellar performance.
Little did the poor things realize that the only thing their performance had earned them was an express ticket to early retirement. The permanent kind. The sort where the pension gets delivered straight to the grieving family, and the contributing employee gets delivered straight into the ground.
On the other side of it all, Loki, or rather Lavinia, began to cry. Kessiri’s eyes dropped to her little sister’s plight, the heavy tears spilling down those cheeks, the sharp edge of the sword kissing her throat and drawing a thin red line across it.
“Sister, it hurts,” Lavinia whimpered, gazing up at her. “It hurts so much. I swear I didn’t do anything wrong. They’re all framing me.” Her voice cracked, right on cue, precise to the last tremble. “Why is everyone lying about me, making up these horrible stories? I just wanted one dance, that’s all… please, sister. You believe me, don’t you? You have to believe me.”
Something inside Kessiri snapped clean in two. The server she’d hoisted up went flying, hurled into the little barricade of his fellows up ahead, shattering both their bodies and whatever spirit they had left.
The rest of them scrambled clear out of her path on pure fear alone. That was when two guards drew their swords on her for the violence she’d just dealt out.
Kessiri couldn’t have cared less. Her eyes never left Jax for an instant, even as her body moved on its own, snapping the bones of both guards and tearing their swords from their hands. Then she charged.
Seeing the murderous intent rolling off Kessiri straight toward Jax, Astrid moved first. And seeing Astrid move, Albert had no choice but to throw himself into this absurdity right alongside her. But Astrid was a hair too slow to pull her mana together, and Albert was too far away to close the gap against Kessiri’s sheer speed.
Jax was already turning to meet her, ready to fight and show the woman the truth of things, but then he stopped himself as there was no need to waste a drop of his own energy on this. Not right now.
“You will pay for this with your life!” Kessiri roared.
But before she could so much as cross into striking range, a beam of dark energy slammed into her back and sent her tumbling, rolling across the polished marble.
Kessiri ground her teeth and dragged herself back up to her knees, eyes snapping toward the source of the attack. She found Lilith.
Lilith stood with one hand still raised and ready for the next blast. “I won’t let you lay a single finger on the professor.”
Kessiri snatched the two swords back up off the floor. “Then I’ll kill you first, demon before I end him.”
She charged, weaving clean through Lilith’s attacks, and got within an inch of splitting the girl in half, and that’s when she crashed into a wall that hadn’t been there a moment before. Cleenah, both of Kessiri’s swords caught and locked against her own disguised holy blade.
Cleenah stood there in her maid’s outfit, golden eyes glowing. “You shall not lay even your shadow upon her while I yet stand. And don’t let the apron fool you, girl. This blade has spilled more blood than your entire bloodline has ever laid eyes on water.”
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[A/N: Ugglymug and Kevin_Sheets thank you for the golden tickets 🙏🔥
(👍🏻ᴗ _ᴗ)👍🏻]