"What do you need from me, Kirei?" Akane asked, her voice like a calm, still lake in the middle of a winter forest.
Despite the iron bars separating them and the frantic, animalistic rage radiating from her husband, she remained the picture of aristocratic composure.
She didn't even stand up; she simply tilted her head, watching him with the clinical detachment of a scientist observing a failing specimen.
Kirei gripped the bars of the cage, his breathing heavy and erratic. "Do you want to go out? Do you want to leave this cage and return to your room?"
Akane paused, and for a fleeting second, the elegant, stoic mask she wore cracked, revealing a razor-sharp, mocking smile. "Is it perhaps because you couldn't get Erina to return, so you wanted to use me as bait?"
Kirei remained silent, but the sound of his teeth grinding was audible in the cold basement air, and his fist clenched around the iron bars so hard his knuckles turned a ghostly white.
