Chapter 111: His mate, His pride.
"Are you sure, Theodore?" She asked, turning swiftly to meet his eyes, a dark smirk gracing her lips as she looked into his fear-stricken ones that he tried to hide by breaking the stare. "You look pretty shaken up to me." She added again, the cream before the cherry.
"I’m perfectly calm, Princess." He defended again in a very deep, low tone, glancing at her sideways.
A chuckle almost broke through her lips as she watched him. She found it very amusing that from where she stood, she couldn’t help but feel taller than him despite the fact that she was several inches lower than him, but as always, your rank or level would always be determined by how much power you’ve been able to accumulate against your opponents.
He was defending again. Disappointing her. Her father had taught her when she was younger to never defend but to attack. Defending would always cement your position as the substitute and not the main, but when you attack or you’re patient, that gives you an upper hand absolutely no one can reach or decipher, until you decide to show them that is.
"That’s your defense?" She asked, chuckling. " Your fists are clenched, fear is swimming freely in your eyes. The worry lines on your forehead and face are very much evident despite your efforts to keep them hidden. Maybe when you rectify all of these, I can believe you’re calm." She said smoothly, blinking slowly, a satisfied smirk sitting on her face.
"I won." She said after a few seconds, winking at him.
Theo chuckled, shaking his head. No one, absolutely no one, has ever been able to not just block him from reading them, but block his mind completely, stopping him from reasoning.
Surely his brothers have read him before, sometimes like an open book, but they never used the master weapon: fear.
Fear is like the master key to unlocking all emotions. Fear of incompetence, fear of loss, fear of failure. It’s like spilling oil on specific parts of a tiled floor.
If the person on the receiving end is careful enough to avoid stepping on it, he’s safe. But if he’s not, he loses complete control of his movements, his thoughts, everything. He’d make rash decisions, his mind would become numb, everything else would disappear, save him and his fear.