Chapter 277: 277 | Tell Me to Leave
Her breath caught. The tank top shifted as her chest expanded with the sharp intake of air.
"You’re impossible."
"I’ve been told."
"And arrogant."
"Also accurate."
"And I should hate you for what you did today."
"But you don’t."
She stopped advancing when less than two feet separated us. Close enough that I could catch the scent of whatever lotion she used. Something warm with notes of spice that didn’t match the aggressive personality she projected to everyone else. Something expensive. Something deliberate. The kind of thing you notice when you’re trying not to notice everything about the person wearing it.
"I haven’t decided yet." Her eyes searched my face with the same intensity she brought to diagnostic scans. "That’s why I’m here. To figure out whether I hate you or something else entirely."
The Oracle Feed was silent. I wasn’t reading her for tells. Didn’t need to. The information was right there in how she’d closed the distance without actually touching. In how her crossed arms hadn’t moved but her weight had shifted forward instead of back. In how her breathing had changed rhythm sometime in the last thirty seconds.
"Something else seems like the more interesting option."
"It’s also the more dangerous one."
"You don’t strike me as someone who avoids danger."
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The first genuine expression I’d seen from her since she walked through my door. Not the smirk she used in class. Not the sharp professional mask she wore in every formal setting. Something real that she wasn’t performing for anyone.
"You really don’t know when to stop, do you?"
"Stopping is for people who aren’t winning."
"You think you’re winning?" The question came out softer than she probably intended. Less challenge, more curiosity about what I thought winning looked like in a situation this loaded.
I let my gaze drop deliberately. Traced the lines of her tank top where it strained across her chest with each breath. Followed the curve of her waist down to where her shorts hugged her hips. Watched the way the ambient light from my desk lamp caught the smooth skin of her stomach where the fabric didn’t quite reach. Came back up to find her watching me watch her with an expression that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with something she was still deciding whether to acknowledge.
The air between us felt heavier than it had thirty seconds ago. Thicker. Charged with the kind of tension that doesn’t dissipate through conversation.
"I think you came to my room at midnight wearing almost nothing because you couldn’t stop thinking about what happened today." I stepped closer, eliminating the remaining distance until I could feel the warmth radiating off her skin. Until I could see the way her pulse jumped in the hollow of her throat. "I think you told yourself it was about talking. About figuring out whether to hate me. But I think you already know the answer and you’re just looking for permission to act on it."
Her pupils dilated. The green of her eyes went darker around the edges. Her lips parted slightly, breath catching somewhere between inhale and exhale. Her crossed arms lowered to her sides, leaving nothing between us but the thin fabric of her tank top and the few inches of charged air that neither of us seemed willing to close.
The room felt smaller. Warmer. The institutional hum of the climate control system did nothing to change that.
"That’s a lot of assumptions." Her voice had gone quieter. Not uncertain. Just more honest than it had been a moment ago.
"Tell me I’m wrong."
She didn’t.
The silence stretched. Somewhere outside my window, campus security made their rounds. Someone laughed in the hallway several doors down. The institutional hum of climate control provided background noise that neither of us was listening to.
Camille’s hand came up and pressed flat against my bare chest.
"Your heart’s beating fast."
"Wonder why."
"Could be fear."
"Could be something else."
Her palm was warm. Her fingers spread across my skin, tracing the line of muscle the Demigod trait had gifted me with. She watched her own hand move like she was cataloging data, processing information through touch instead of sight.
"I should go."
"You should."
"This is a bad idea."
"The worst."
"We’re classmates. Cohort members. We have to work together for two years minimum."
"At least."
"And you kissed me during a supervised exercise in front of everyone we know."
"I remember."
"The footage exists. It will follow both of us."
"Probably."
Her hand pressed harder against my chest, whether to push me away or pull me closer I genuinely couldn’t tell.
"Belmont."
"Camille."
"Tell me to leave."
I looked at her. At the conflict written across her features. At the way her breathing had gone shallow. At the strip of dark skin still visible where her tank top had ridden up again despite her earlier adjustment.
"Leave," I said.
She didn’t move.
"You don’t mean that."
"I don’t."
"Then why say it?"
"Because you asked me to."
Her laugh came out breathless. "God, you’re infuriating."
"I know."
"And I’m probably going to regret this."
"Probably."
Her hand slid up from my chest to my shoulder, her nails trailing lines across skin that suddenly felt hypersensitive. She stepped closer until her body pressed against mine, the thin barrier of her tank top the only thing separating us.
"One question," she said.
"Ask."
"When you kissed me in that hallway. For those three seconds before I bit you." Her eyes found mine. Held them. "What were you actually thinking?"
I told her the truth.
"That you taste like cardamom. That your skin was softer than it looked. That if I wasn’t in a fight for my life, I would have done it properly."
"Properly?"
"Without the rivets aimed at my head."
Her grip on my shoulder tightened.
"Show me."
The knock at my door shattered the moment like glass.
Three sharp raps. Urgent. Familiar in a way I couldn’t immediately place.
Camille stepped back so fast she nearly tripped over my desk chair. Her face shifted from heated to panicked to aggressive in the space of a single breath. Her arms crossed again, this time genuinely defensive rather than performatively so.
I held up a hand signaling her to stay quiet and crossed to the door.
It swung open to reveal the last person I expected.
Petra Lang stood in my hallway.
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