The moment the doorbell chimed, a slow, knowing smile touched Ardyn's lips. She had felt it. Not just heard the bell, but felt the precise, weighted pressure of a gaze on her skin moments before, as tangible as a physical touch. In her world, a world of ghosted steps, silenced monsters, and contracts written in blood, hyper-awareness wasn't a skill you cultivated; it was the bedrock upon which you built your continued existence.
You learned to feel the shift in air currents from an opened dungeon floor, to parse the subtlest change in a shadow, to distinguish between the benign scan of a security camera and the predatory focus of a living, breathing creature.
Noctar's gaze hadn't been casual. It hadn't been the accidental sweep of a neighbor glancing at a lit window. It had been a focused, deliberate pressure. Intentional. A laser of pure, undiluted male appreciation, hot and specific, tracing the line of her spine through the frosted glass as she reached slowly undressed.
The surprising part wasn't that he'd done it. He was an S-Rank Debugger, a man who lived by assessing threats and opportunities as far as she knew him. She was a woman who, even in the simple act of undressing, moved with a lethal dancer's grace. His looking was a data point, almost inevitable. The surprising part, the part that curled warm and unfamiliar in her gut, was her own reaction.
She wasn't angry.
A flicker of professional disappointment, perhaps, that he hadn't waited a few moments longer for the full reveal, a completionist's annoyance at an interrupted sequence. But that was cold, mechanical thought, and it was quickly vaporized by a warmer, more primal response: a smug, thrumming satisfaction that he'd looked, and a grudging, tactical respect that he'd had the self-control, or rather, the exquisite tactical sense to leave before crossing the irrevocable line from 'peeking' into 'stalking'.
A stalker was a threat to be neutralized. A peeker… was a man playing a game she understood all too well.
Here she was, a knight who can dismantle a monster's bones or a human trachea with equal efficiency, feeling a flush of vanity because a handsome man had admired the view of her body. It was absurd and yet It was human.
For someone who had spent so long pretending to be normal in front of cameras, the authenticity of the feeling was as disconcerting as it was exhilarating.
Ardyn took her time. Letting the water run, letting the steam dissipate. She meticulously wiped away the sweat of a day's work, not the sweat of exertion but of maintained vigilance, of navigating a city that pretended not to see the monsters in its alleys.
She chose her loungewear both for sleep, and to make a statement. A set of dusky-rose silk, pants and a camisole, that felt like a whispered caress against her skin. It was comfort weaponized, elegance in a state of undress. It said comfy but not lazy; it was armor of a softer, more disarming kind. Finally, with the pace of a queen approaching a mildly interesting audience, she descended the stairs.
When she opened the door, the sight of him almost, almost, made her lose her composure. The cheap, nondescript gym clothes were gone. In their place was an outfit of understated, devastating chic. Dark, tailored trousers that spoke of custom work, and a simple shirt of such fine cotton it seemed to hold the dying evening light within its weave.
It was a uniform for a different kind of war, the social kind, and on his divine physique, it made him look both more approachably human and more unreachably perfect. The contrast was a masterstroke. He'd cleaned up for her.
A blush, traitorous and warm, bloomed on her cheeks before she could veto it.
But Ardyn Vermont was never one to be flustered for long. She collected the fractured pieces of her surprise, melted them down in the furnace of her will, and forged them into a weapon. She let the smirk she'd been suppressing finally show. It was sharp, knowing, and carried a glint of promised punishment.
"Your dinner is in the garage," she announced, her tone breezy and dismissive, as if informing him of a delightful picnic spot. "There's a spare bed out there, too. It's quite comfortable. I had it made up for contractors. I'm sure you'll find it adequate."
Noctar's perfectly composed mask shattered. For a glorious, fleeting second, the S-Rank Debugger vanished, replaced by a scolded schoolboy. His ice-blue eyes widened in a parody of innocence, his brows lifting. And with an audacity that was both infuriating and endearing, he had the nerve to ask, "Why?" The single word was accompanied by a look of such genuine, puppy-dog confusion that it was a performance worthy of a stage.
Almost.
Ardyn didn't engage with the word. Words were tools and distractions. She dealt in truths written in action. Her hand moved, not with the killing speed she possessed, but with a deliberate, almost casual swiftness. She flicked his forehead with a sharp, resonant thwack. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but it was a physical punctuation mark, a shock to the system.
He blinked, the feigned confusion melting into startled awareness.
She didn't say a word. She simply lifted her hand again, not to strike, but to point. Her finger was an unwavering arrow, a judge's gavel, aimed directly at her second-floor bathroom window. Her golden eyes held his, the message clear as lines of code in a dark room: I know. I felt the weight of your gaze. I tracked your retreat. I always knew.
The silence between them was louder than any accusation. It was filled with the hum of the evening, the scent of her roses, and the electric acknowledgment of a move countered, a gambit seen through.
Then, without another word, because no word could improve upon the perfect, succinct lesson she'd just delivered and she turned. The silk of her pants whispered a secret as she moved. She stepped back into the warm, rose-scented gloom of her foyer and closed the door. The click of the heavy lock engaging was a full stop to the sentence.
Noctar stood frozen on the porch, the ghost of the flick still tingling on his skin. He stared at the unyielding wood of the door, then let his gaze travel up, up to the now-dark and accusing window. The grin that spread across his face was slow, born not of embarrassment, but of profound, exhilarating delight.
He hadn't been caught because he was sloppy; he'd been caught because she was that good, her perceptions honed to a razor's edge he hadn't fully appreciated. She hadn't screamed, hadn't threatened. She'd administered a correction, perfectly calibrated flick for a glance, a garage for a transgression.
He turned, finally, and made his way to the detached garage. Inside, as promised, was a covered plate of food and a neatly made bed in a small, clean side-room. It was indeed adequate. It was also a demotion, a temporary exile from the castle keep.
Sitting on the edge of the stiff bed, the events replayed in his mind. The game, it seemed, was far from over. It was more nuanced, more dangerous, and infinitely more fascinating than he'd anticipated. He took a bite of the excellent pasta she'd left for him, and the laugh that escaped him was one of pure, undiluted anticipation.
For the first time in a very long time, Noctar, the unassailable Debugger, found himself not just playing to win, but perversely, thrillingly, looking forward to the possibility of losing, if losing meant being outplayed by her. The stakes had just been raised, and the prize had become utterly irresistible.