"I just don't think you're the one to say those words."
Gaël's brows shot up at his ward's outburst. Juliette had always been docile as a lamb, and the part of him that wasn't used to being questioned and challenged like this couldn't help but bristle.
"Everything is a tool for you—-"
Had his ward just insulted him?
"But in a good way," she then clarified so earnestly that it had Gaël torn between exasperation and resignation.
His ward was basically telling him he was a ruthless SOB, wasn't she? And he was that, and he had never any problems admitting this. But Juliette being Juliette, she still ended up describing his flaw like it also happened to be a virtue.
She started wringing her hands, and Gaël's blue gaze narrowed. Why was she so damn anxious?
"I'm not a child, okay? I know about how you used to visit several virginity auction houses in the past—-"
Gaël had the grace to flush even as he felt the need to defend himself. "Those were extraordinary times. It had only been months after the first attack," he reminded her curtly, "and it made me paranoid. I wanted to make myself stronger, and I was determined to exhaust all possible means to do so. Everything I did, it was to honor my duty to protect our family."
Juliette was touched that he thought of her as family, but at the same time she had this foolish urge to cry. The duty he spoke of involved deflowering other girls, and the mere thought of it devastated her.
But...
What was done was done, Juliette reminded herself. She needed to move forward, and so she heard herself say, "That's what I want, too."
Gaël wondered if something had been lost in translation. Exactly what did she want as well?
"I want to do my duty, too," Juliette stressed, "and that's why I'd like the center to take my sangferia—-"
What the fuck?
"—-and have them bottle it up for you."
Gaël didn't know whether to snort himself...or strangle his ward for even thinking such a thing. "It is not your duty—-"
"If you meant what you said that I'm part of your family—-"
"You are," Gaël said sharply.
"Then we all have a duty to protect House Bellecourt," Juliette said feelingly, "and this is my way of doing mine."
Jean Luc's words came back to haunt him as Gaël studied the flushed features of his ward. Could this truly be it? Could this be that something Juliette would want, and he wouldn't be able to give? And if he were to deny her this, would she then do something stupid - perhaps something as grossly idiotic as giving her sangferia to another man just to spite him?
Juliette's hands curled tightly against her lap as she saw Gaël's expression darken. He had never looked at her like that before, and she had to remind herself that this was all part of the plan.
"Fine then."
Juliette nearly jumped out of her seat at the abruptness of her guardian's words.
"Tell me what you know of sangferia."
Juliette swallowed hard. "I know that if its source is a chemically compatible match, its extraction—-" She stopped speaking when her guardian shook his head.
"That's where you're wrong."
Juliette lowered her head at his words.
"Sangferia loses its potency when it's extracted indirectly in any way," Gaël spelled out with a curl of his lip. "It cannot be, as you had not so delicately put it, 'extracted' and 'bottled up' like some fucking pseudo-miracle-water that one can then peddle off in eBay."
Juliette kept her head down...because she didn't want to risk giving herself away. There was nothing Gaël had said that she didn't already know, but this, too, was all part of the plan. Since she couldn't tell him that she wanted him to take her virginity, she had pretended to play dumb so that the proper method of consuming sangferia would come from him.
Gaël hardened himself against the sight of his ward's bowed head. She was the one who had insisted on talking about this. She had made her bed. Now she had no choice but to lie in it.
"Sangferia must be directly consumed from the source's flesh if one wants to maximize its potential. Moreover, a source's chemical compatibility also depends on the assessment of numerous variables, some of which include the thickness of one's hymen and the amount of pain the source experiences in her deflowering."
Although all of these extra details about sangferia were something she had also studied, Juliette could no longer keep herself frum blushing by the time Gaël finished speaking.
Sex might not be a taboo subject for a race that enshrined pleasure, but she was human, not Caro. Moreover, it was one thing to read about virginity...and another thing entirely when it was her own guardian talking about the thickness of one's hymen and the pain of a woman's deflowering.