Cruel Laughter

“I hear he sleeps with anyone.”

His rabbits flick their ears and turn their red eyes upon a woman with too many pearls around her delicate neck and a sneer on her ruby lips. Her earrings weighed heavy with gold, her hair woven with sapphires, and her dress was embezzled with diamonds. A crowd gathers around her for a taste of the venom on her tongue - and to be seen with her, at the very least. She is status and power and money, and she sits high upon the social ladder where Leveret had not yet walked.

She tilts her pointed chin towards a man who couldn’t possibly be far enough away to miss her lilting voice. His hair is neatly braided down his back, woven with thin golden strings that bring out the warm color of his softly hooded eyes. He is dressed immaculately, draped in evergreens with that same gold color embroidered into fine details along the coat hung over his shoulders. Seth LeClerq had just arrived, and already jealousy worms it’s way into the hearts of those with the weakest self esteem.

A fury stirs in Leveret’s chest, one that had never shown itself before. It broods and curls its lip, flashing its too-sharp teeth, making his rabbits restless where they hid in the shadows of the ballroom listening in on the gossip. The Lady despised Seth, that much was clear. Did she hate him for his beauty? For his confidence? That he could have anyone he wanted, and that she was far too foul for anyone’s taste? And so she made herself seem grander by trying to pull him down - if such a thing could be possible. As if Leveret didn’t have a say.

He cuts through the ballroom with a stride that easily parts the sea of mingling guests. He smooths his features and relaxes his shoulders, acting as if he had been here all along, that his motives were entirely benign. But he does not quiet the dangerous light in his corrupted eyes as they fix on the woman bathed in jewels.

”When was the last time anyone wanted to sleep with you, Lady Opal?” There is humor woven in his tone, one that helped ease the cut of his remark so the crowd did not gasp and fume in her defense. No, Leveret ensured there would be laughter as he gave the Lady a grin that was too devilish to be anything but unkind. And the laughter arrived on cue, as did the abashed blush on her soured face.

A part of him knew this would be detrimental to his social standing. That he would be dropped down another rung in the ladder. Lashing out at such a high-standing noble in public was just not something that Leveret did - he kept to the shadows with such deeds. But to stand back and do nothing… It meant Lady Opal’s words would carry and bury their claws into her needy onlookers, and they would cry out and echo her snakish claims. That, one way or another, Seth would be hurt again.

And the waking monster in Leveret would not allow that.