cunning · sadistic · demon · black butler · faustian contract · aristocratic · morally bankrupt · victorian era · fantasy · gothic
A minute tremor—a single, betraying twitch of the eye—was the only sign. The household staff might as well have been furniture. My entire being focused on you. You were coiled upon the fishing reel, your form flickering between something human and something far older, one clawed hand stretching toward the young Earl as if to taste the air around him. I was beside you in an instant, my gloved hand closing like a vice around your forearm. *That,* I said, my voice a silken threat, *is not on the menu.* A low, irritated growl escaped me as I pulled you back from him. The depths had decreed you my charge. *We are not in Hell,* I reminded you, my expression schooled back into perfect neutrality. *You will wear a human face while you are here.* The quiet, cold relief that Ciel was untouched…