My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

Chapter 140: A Dance with Airam [6]

Then he would answer her in kind and show her the difference between reading steps and commanding them.

Ulrich changed.

The shift was slight at first, so slight that only someone already focused on him would have noticed. But Airam noticed at once. The pace of his movements deepened. The line of his body grew more demanding. He stopped allowing her those tiny openings where anticipation could become interference and began chaining each step into the next with less room between them, faster choices, harsher control.

Airam felt it immediately.

Her eyes widened a fraction.

Now she was the one forced to adjust.

If she failed, she would not merely annoy him. She would embarrass herself in front of the entire ballroom. In front of her beloved sisters.

Ulrich was stronger than she was. Faster too. And no matter how well instinct served her, he still had far more experience than she did. The gap between them remained real, however cleverly she tried to narrow it.

Airam shot a glare up at him.

Then she grew more serious.

Truly serious.

Whatever spite or pettiness had colored her earlier attempts dropped away. Her body tightened into concentration as she followed the new pace he set, matching him step for step with all the precision she could gather. Her skirts swept wider now. Her feet struck the floor with cleaner steps. She stopped wasting effort on open resistance and focused entirely on surviving the pattern he was feeding her.

That was better already.

Ulrich drove her into a quicker turn.

Airam answered it.

If not for her quick reaction, it would have definitely not looked this smooth, and they would have seen how roughly Ulrich had pulled her.

He shortened the transition to the next step. She caught it barely in time.

He widened the path across the floor, forcing longer strides and sharper changes in angle. Her shoulder stayed square, her chin lifted, her balance intact.

A small sneer curled on her lips, then directed toward Ulrich, prompting his brows to twitch slightly.

He wasn’t going to go easy on her then.

At the edge of the dancing floor, Esther had gone completely still, blue eyes bright and fixed on them with open amazement. Hermione, beside her, looked halfway between shock and disbelief. What they were seeing no longer resembled the more graceful waltzes from earlier. There was still elegance in it, yes, but it had hardened into something closer to a contest disguised as courtly movement.

Others had begun to notice too.

Couples nearest them started drifting aside. Some did so out of courtesy, assuming Ulrich simply wished for more room. Others moved because the pressure between the pair had become impossible to miss. Even nobles who understood little of dance could see that something had changed. The Count Rubenhart and his adopted witch were no longer merely dancing. They were pressing against one another through the form itself, deciding control by who yielded first.

The last phrases of the waltz ended.

Around them, the other pairs began to break apart as proper etiquette demanded, stepping back to clear the floor for the next arrangement of dancers. The musicians began moving toward the next piece.

Ulrich and Airam did not stop.

They continued.

The beat changed under them, faster than before, and instead of withdrawing, Ulrich carried her straight into it, catching the new rhythm without hesitation. Airam missed half a breath at the transition and nearly lost the line there, but she recovered instantly and stepped with him as if she had expected him to do something unreasonable and had prepared herself for it.

That alone almost pleased him.

"You wanted to lead," Ulrich said, throwing a jab back at her. "Then keep up."

Airam’s stare sharpened.

She adjusted again, faster now, no longer trying to steal direction at random but choosing her moments with more care. When he pushed, she absorbed it. When he cut across the floor, she matched the angle. When he turned her hard enough that another girl might have stumbled, Airam only set her foot down more firmly and came back into the hold with her expression colder than before.

Ulrich recognized the look.

She was enjoying this.

Not enjoying the dance but more like enjoying how he was trying to make her fall but failing to do it.

Well, perhaps she did feel some enjoyment in the dance; she would never admit, however.

She had stopped thinking about the nobles. Stopped thinking about Esther’s request, about the humiliation of the evening, about the unanswered questions sitting like old wounds between them. The dance had narrowed into something simpler for her.

She caught his next transition earlier than before and slipped half a step into his line, just enough to force him to alter the angle of his arm or collide with her.

Ulrich altered it.

He looked down at her, and this time there was no mistaking the challenge in his eyes.

Airam’s mouth curved by a hair’s breadth, satisfied by what she had just done.

Ulrich answered by tightening his hold, turning her sharply through the center of the floor.

But the instant Airam tried to answer him with another step of her own, Ulrich moved first.

He cut forward.

Airam had only a breath to register it before her foot slipped. Her knee struck his, the contact slight but placed with brutal accuracy, and her balance broke at once. The next step came wrong. Then the one after it came worse. Ulrich kept moving as though nothing had happened, drawing back into the turn without slowing, and that only sealed it.

Airam tried to recover.

She only made it worse.

Her hand slipped against his side. Her body swung backward. The line of the dance collapsed under her feet, and suddenly she knew that she was going down.

And it wouldn’t look good.

The only thing still connecting them was his left hand around her right, but even that felt uncertain now. She saw his grip loosen, just slightly, enough to tell her he could let go if he wished.

For one stretched instant everything seemed terribly clear.

He had beaten her.

Easily.

Then, midway through the fall, his hand closed again.

The grip that had almost vanished returned with force, jerking her just enough toward him to stop the full collapse. At the same time his right arm moved cleanly behind her back and caught her before she could hit the floor.

Airam froze there.

Her back hung so low that it was nearly parallel to the ground, her indigo-black skirts spilling beneath her, one foot dragged half out of line, her entire weight suspended in Ulrich’s hold. Surprise broke across her face before she could hide it.

She looked up at him.

Ulrich leaned over her, close enough now that she could see the exact stillness in his red eyes.

"You are in no danger," he said again.

Airam stared at him for a beat, still caught in his arm.

"Something will happen," she said.

It sounded more like a question than she intended.

"Yes," Ulrich said.

The answer came without softness and without denial.

"Stay by your sisters’ side. Everything should be fine."

Airam’s eyes narrowed slightly.

If something truly was going to happen, then he had known for some time. He had brought them here anyway. He had danced through it, watched through it, thought through it. The thought irritated her, but not enough to distract her from the more immediate point.

"If we are in danger, I will use magic," she said.

Ulrich did not release her.

"There is a Domain Spell around this place," he replied. "Magic is weakened considerably."

Of course there was.

This was a royal gathering. The King and Queen were present. No court in its right mind would leave such a hall undefended against sudden spells, hidden sorcery, or noble idiots with enough mana to mistake themselves for warriors. The protections woven over the place would not fully kill magic, but they would twist its structure, disturb its formation, and reduce most spells to failures, bursts, or half-made nonsense.

Airam absorbed that quickly.

"Then I will use witchcraft."

She said.

A month ago, she might have expected him to reject the idea immediately. Witchcraft was a different matter entirely. It did not depend on the same ordered structure as ordinary magic. It did not ask permission from the clean systems most preferred. That was exactly why witches were feared, and exactly why domain suppression could never truly account for them. A spell could be broken by disorder. Witchcraft lived inside disorder and answered it with its own teeth.

Airam looked at him, waiting for the refusal.

Ulrich only held her gaze.

"Only if it is necessary," he said.

There was nothing casual in the warning. The look he gave her made that clear enough. He was not granting freedom. He was drawing a line.

Airam nodded.

"Not a word to your sisters."

She nodded again.

That, at least, required no argument. She had no intention of frightening Esther or setting Hermione on edge before anything even happened. If danger was coming, then she would remain where she belonged.

Beside them.

Between them and whatever came.

"Good," Ulrich said.

Only then did he pull her upward.

One moment she was held against the space above the floor, the next she was back on her feet, spine straightening, skirts settling, one hand still caught in his. He released the supporting pressure at her back only when he was certain she had her balance again.

Airam stood upright.

So did Ulrich.

And only then did both of them notice the silence.

The hall had gone still around them.