Page 103 of Brutal Union
“Rub your lips together,” she hums gently.
I do, feeling the smooth lacquer spread evenly across my mouth. The color stains my reflection in the lacquered mirror beside us—an image both feral and divine. My gaze slides back to Aoi.
“You’ve done this before,” I murmur.
Her lips twitch. “I used to prepare the girls before they met the men in the black cars.” Aoi pauses. “Sometimes, I was one of them.”
There’s no shame in her voice—only memory. She reaches for a pot of shimmer to dust along my cheekbones, her fingers soft and clinical. But when she speaks again, her voice is different. Warmer.
“But none of them ever looked like you. I don’t know a more strategic and deadly woman of the night.”
I smirk, tilting my head just slightly. “Not a compliment I hear often.”
“It should be,” she says, now carefully tucking a silk strand of hair behind my ear. “In this world, beauty is temporary. Fear is currency. You’re both.”
I chuckle under my breath. “So are you.”
Aoi scoffs, but her cheeks tint with something soft. “There was a woman in high court who once killed an entire house of men in one night, and it was all because they were stupid enough to think she was pretty. She used her hairpins to kill each and every one of them.”
“Is that why you are putting pins in my hair?”
Aoi sighs. “If anything goes left, just remember to pin your hair.”
“Pins in the hair,” I repeat to myself. “Any other hiding places?”
She pauses, considering. Then: “Depends on how deep you want to dig inside.”
I pause for a second bursting into a consuming level of laughter that Aoi shortly joins me in, and right as we’re mid-giggle, as Aoi reaches for a final touch of gold across my collarbone, the door clicks.
Sho leans into the room, one hand still on the doorframe, the other shoved into his pocket like he owns the air we’re breathing. His shirt is unbuttoned just enough to hint at what lies beneath, and his eyes flick between us with an unreadable glint.
“Aoi,” he says smoothly, “could I have a moment alone with her?”
Aoi doesn’t respond immediately—her hand still lingers near my skin, and for the briefest second, I see her fingers curl as if she doesn’t want to leave. But she rises gracefully, smoothing her skirt and dipping her head.
“Of course,” she says.
And before she walks out, she leans toward me, just close enough to whisper, “Don’t let him win too easily.”
Then she’s gone, the door sliding shut behind her with a soft click.
Sho takes a few steps in. That smile—the one that says he already knows what I’m thinking—curls across his mouth.
“You clean up nice, Hime,” he murmurs, voice low and charged.
“Don’t touch me,” I snap, looking into the tiny mirror across from me. “Aoi just finished.”
Sho steps fully into the room, closing the door behind him, as he kneels down behind me. His fingers graze the nape of my neck—warm, calloused, and too familiar—as he studies the high knot pinned at the crown of my head. The same knot Aoi carefully constructed only moments ago.
“You sure, because Ireallywant to mess it up,” he murmurs, his breath brushing my skin like a warning, “ and besides I think I know the male gaze better than Aoi does. Like this for example, I love the top knot. Itistraditional…”
His fingers slide into the base of the knot, gently teasing the pins loose.
“But you’d look so much better with your hair down.”
One by one, the pins drop into his palm with quiet metallic clicks. Then my hair tumbles down in a silken cascade, sliding over my bare shoulders, framing my face like a veil of temptation. His fingers don’t stop—they comb through it slowly, reverently, as if every strand tells a story only he’s allowed to read.
Then he leans in.
