A few hours later, Lara was beginning to understand that mating Sarisa had not, in fact, made her less stubborn.
If anything, it had made the problem worse.
The afternoon had gone golden and slow around them. They had spent it in the little house as if trying to teach the world a different rhythm by sheer stubbornness. Lunch had been eaten.
The dishes had been washed, though Lara had done most of that too because Sarisa's idea of helping involved standing far too close in Lara's shirt and making commentary instead of actual progress.
Afterward they had drifted through the rooms, talking in fragments, touching without urgency, discovering the house together properly now that neither of them was on the edge of panic, ritual, or collapse.
For a while, it had been peaceful.
Too peaceful, maybe. Peace always made Sarisa restless if it lasted long enough.
Lara noticed the shift when Sarisa stopped lounging in the armchair by the window and started pacing in small, elegant circles instead.
It was not real pacing, not the kind Lara did when violence was the only thing keeping her from climbing walls.
Sarisa moved with the offended grace of a woman who believed the day was wasting itself by refusing to become more interesting.
Lara, stretched out half-reclined on the sofa with one arm thrown over her eyes, pretended not to see it at first.
That lasted perhaps thirty seconds.
"Lara."
Lara lowered her arm but did not sit up yet. Sarisa stood in the middle of the room, loose hair spilling over her shoulders, one of Lara's dark shirts belted at the waist now.
"Yes, my difficult mate?"
Sarisa ignored the title. "Let's go visit now. Please."
Lara closed her eyes briefly.
There was no point asking what now meant. Sarisa had been circling the idea for the better part of an hour. The demon realm. The cliffs Elysia had mentioned.
The lake. The markets. The shape of the world outside this hidden little house. Lara understood it, in a way.
Sarisa had been caged for too long. Even safety could start feeling like another room if the door stayed shut long enough.
Still.
"No," Lara said, opening one eye to look at her properly. "We will go tomorrow."
Sarisa stared.
Lara pushed herself upright at last and braced her elbows on her knees. "I've got nothing planned for today except for us to rest."
Sarisa's mouth flattened. "That is not a plan."
"That is an excellent plan."
"It is a boring plan."
"It is a necessary plan."
Sarisa crossed her arms. "I was kidnapped out of my own wedding yesterday, mated by night, and now apparently imprisoned in a beautiful cabin by a shirtless demon tyrant who doesn't believe in outdoor activities."
Lara bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to stop the laugh before it escaped. Barely.
"That is a very biased retelling."
"It's completely accurate."
Lara leaned back against the sofa and watched her with the fond exasperation Sarisa had somehow made feel natural.
Gods, she was beautiful when she was annoyed. Alive with it. Her chin lifted. Her eyes sharpened. Even the way she crossed her arms looked like an argument with elegance itself.
"No," Lara said again, gentler this time. "You're tired."
"I'm not."
Lara raised a brow.
Sarisa lifted her chin higher. "I'm less tired."
"That is not the same thing."
"It is close enough."
"No."
Sarisa exhaled sharply through her nose, then tried another approach. "Lara."
"Mm?"
"Please."
That should not have been as effective as it was.
Lara felt the word in her spine.
Unfortunately, Sarisa knew exactly how much damage a carefully deployed please could do and immediately pressed harder.
"I will do everything you want."
Lara stared.
The silence that followed was not helpful to either of them.
Sarisa, apparently mistaking Lara's shock for negotiation weakness, stepped closer with all the confidence of someone who had spent the morning becoming something ancient and the afternoon discovering she quite liked using it.
"I mean it," she said, voice softening into something more dangerous. "Everything."
Lara had to physically stop herself from looking at her mouth.
"You cannot just say that like it's a practical offer," Lara muttered.
"Why not?"
"Because I know you."
Sarisa's expression shifted, just slightly, into deliberate innocence. "Do you?"
Lara barked out a short laugh. "Too well."
Sarisa came closer still, until she was standing right in front of the sofa, looking down at Lara with that calm, royal wickedness that always made Lara feel as though she had been caught in a trap she deeply wished to remain inside.
"Fine," Sarisa said. "Do you want a blow job so then we will go?"
Lara choked on absolutely nothing.
For one stunning second she simply stared up at her mate in mute disbelief.
Sarisa held the pose beautifully. As if she had just offered something perfectly sensible in the course of ordinary afternoon planning.
As if she were discussing weather or travel cloaks instead of trying to barter her way into an outing with highly targeted decadence.
Lara put a hand over her face.
"No."
Sarisa looked offended. "No?"
"No."
Her voice came out rougher than intended, so Lara dragged her hand down and looked back at her with something like determination.
"It won't be as good as the one you gave me this morning with the honey."
That stopped Sarisa dead.
The look on her face was priceless. Half triumph, half stunned affront, because this had clearly not been the answer she expected.
Lara smiled, slow and wicked now that she had recovered enough to weaponize honesty. "And before you ask, yes, I am absolutely using that against you."
Sarisa narrowed her eyes. "That is manipulative."
"That is memory."
"That is emotional blackmail."
"That is me having standards."
Sarisa opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again with renewed indignation. "So your argument is that because I was too good this morning, I have ruined my own bargaining power?"
"Yes."
"That's ridiculous."
"That's your own fault."
Sarisa stared at her for a long, dramatic moment. Then she said, with profound offense, "I hate you."
Lara smiled. "No, you don't."
"No," Sarisa said darkly, "but I may reconsider."
Lara held out a hand. "Come here."
Sarisa did not take it.
Instead she turned with a swish of the improvised belt and stalked two whole steps away before deciding that was not enough theater and crossing the room to the window.
There she stood with her back to Lara and all the unmistakable stillness of a woman entering a sulk with intent to excel.
Lara watched her and felt the laugh building again.
Sarisa, arms folded tightly, looked out at the shadowed trees beyond the glass as though personally betrayed by the concept of tomorrow.
"You are sulking," Lara said.
"I am not."
Lara rose from the sofa and crossed the room slowly. "You absolutely are."
Sarisa did not turn around. "I am being quietly displeased."
"That is just aristocratic sulking."
No answer.
Lara stopped behind her, close enough to feel the heat of her body through the shirt, and slid her hands around Sarisa's waist.
Sarisa let her.
The sulk remained intact in posture if not in principle.
"We will go tomorrow," Lara murmured against her hair. "I'll show you the cliffs. The market. The black lake if you promise not to fall in. Whatever you want."
Still no answer.
Lara smiled into the silver strands. "And tonight we rest."
Sarisa finally spoke, voice cool with exaggerated suffering. "You are very controlling for a woman who kidnapped me this morning."
"Yes," Lara said. "But I'm right."
"That makes it worse."
Lara kissed the side of her head. Then her temple. Then the place just below her ear where the mating mark warmed faintly beneath skin.
Sarisa's shoulders loosened by one treacherous inch.
"Tomorrow," Lara repeated.
Sarisa sighed the sigh of women in tragedies, queens in exile, and children denied sweets.
"Fine."
Lara grinned against her hair. "Good."
"But," Sarisa added at once, recovering enough dignity to be dangerous again, "you owe me."
Lara closed her eyes briefly.
The sulk was ending. The negotiations were beginning. And somehow, impossibly, that felt even more like peace.