Casual Politics

[The Cedar Witch]

It was natural for him to turn his body toward her as they spoke and she moved to make herself another drink.  She had only five for enforcement?  Well, the North West did seem to be one of the lesser-populated districts, at least in comparison to West and Central, but she had the ports to contend with.  The Ward was meant to be independent and impartial, from what Zeus understood.  Funding would ensure they could properly do their job, and it should come equally from all of them so one district was not favored over the other. 

Admittedly it was something that should've been brought up at the meeting, but at the time Ward was mentioned Zeus' attention was fixed on an entirely different subject.  "What gives you the impression that the others wouldn't be willing to contribute?"  His tone was conversational and expression stern before she let out a laugh.  Presumably in response to his question, and he patiently waited for her to elaborate.  When he realized she'd commented on the whiskey, the side of his mouth tugged upward and he quirked an eyebrow.

"What?"  It wasn't as if his taste was shaped by irony.  The whiskey was an exquisite make.

[Saiketsu]

Her eyebrow perked higher as he smirked up at her, something written in his expression that told the dark angel that he was, in fact, enjoying the irony of the situation.

"McCloud, Charon, and Saraekiel all have their own private..." Zoheret waved her hand around nonchalantly, "...companions who find them the things they need to know and fight their battles for them. Why would they fund someone else less loyal to them to do that while they're already funding others privately?"

She had a small, mostly-human staff at Attica Villa. She had her money, her wealth, her resources. What she lacked was allies and the armies that the other District Leaders seemed to have, like they were preparing for a war. She had faith in her trusted five when it came down to it, but the Ward was a huge benefit to her position, especially when decisions had to be carried out in the NorthWest. It wasn't ever a comfortable situation to admit to, and she sure as Heaven wasn't going to allow that information pass to Chtahzus'aak, regardless of the amount of alcohol they consumed together. Obtaining and keeping allies had always been a priority since the Oligarchy had broken down.

She kept her eyes on Zeus and tossed back her new drink, swallowing it all quickly before the subtle burn could catch her and make her throat sting. Had the whiskey been any cheaper of a quality, it probably would have scalded her with volatile fumes, overwhelmed her with the underlying harshness. To its character, nothing of the like happened, though a pungent wave of flavor and spice did spin her senses briefly. She lowered the glass and puckered her lips at him, tasting the remnants of the heat that flooded her body now.

"Funny," she said waspishly, though with a strong taste of her particular brand of humor, "I still don't feel envious." She wiped at the corner of her lips, ensuring her lipstick remained exactly where she intended it to be. With a smile, she added more whiskey to her glass (though not as much as before. Admittedly, it would probably be a few minutes before she took another sip anyway and she sensed their drinking wouldn't continue much longer with Zeus in this state of mind). She placed the bottle back on the shelf where it belonged and turned back to the demon with her glass in hand.

With the poise of her kind, she moved lithely towards the couch on which Chtahzus'aak sat looking at her and seated herself gracefully on the arm. She reclined against the back of the couch leisurely and crossed her legs as they dangled off the edge of the arm of the couch. Her hand with her renewed glass of whiskey in her lap while she arched an elbow against the backrest, the first finger of her hand propped delicately against a gorgeous cheekbone. From there, Zoheret looked down at Zeus with a curious expression - something trapped between amusement, challenge, and expectation.

[The Cedar Witch]

"To keep them less loyal," Zeus answered quickly, "To ensure some sense of accountability equally amongst the districts."  So the events surrounding the taking of the West wouldn't be recreated.  He thought it was a simple enough conclusion to come to.  It only made sense to have an entity without a personal agenda police the city.  Perhaps the Districts should make an effort to send a certain number of their own recruits to the Ward to diversify it.

Her last comment drew a smirk from him, and with eyebrows raised he watched her move to sit on the arm of the chair.  Here she was again, toeing past the line of what would be considered a polite professional boundary.  What sort of game was she playing?  Was this some kind of test?  Did she expect him to yield where she pressed, as if he would bend to her wishes?

Fat chance. 

His stare remained steadily locked with hers as he took another slow sip from his glass.

[Saiketsu]

She scoffed a bitter laugh at his remark. Had she not just told him that Ben Samson was funding the Ward since the fall of the Oligarchy? Had she not also said that they have all the protections they needed within their own little fiefdom of districts? Men never willingly gave up power. If they did, well, there would still be an Oligarchy, wouldn't there?

"I never took you for an idealist, Chtahzus'aak," Zoheret cooed wryly at the demon from her perch. "There hasn't been accountability since the days of the Oligarchy. Only the illusion of it." Or had you forgotten that part, she almost asked, but decided to keep it to herself, no longer interested in taking a dig at his disappearance lest he clam up again.  After all he hadn't stepped away from her challenge yet, but proved that he was going to hold his own against her. Fascinating. She kept that smirk firmly in place, her expression unchanged despite the fluttering in her body.

She thought about the moment she had realized that he had allowed her into his living quarters, the implications of such an action. Was this whole thing really about business? About getting whiskey? Or was there something else there?

Zoheret smiled wider when she realized he wouldn't back down until she did.

Wrong move, she thought with a flare of anger.

Instead she slipped off the side of the couch onto the cushion next to him, crossing her legs as she made herself more comfortable in the tension between them. His arm was on the back of the couch just behind her head now and their proximity filled her with a sort of tension that wasn't entirely unpleasant. With purpose, she looked arrogantly at his lips. Zoheret was close enough to smell the liquor on his breath.

"Why am I actually here?" She demanded quietly, leaning in towards him to increase the tension and allow him a better view of the cleft of her breasts, holding her glass over her lap again. The question, he would understand, was pointed at his motivations rather than hers.

[The Cedar Witch]

Slowly draining his glass, Zeus was sure to monitor his expression as she baited him.  Zeus leaned forward to set his glass down on the table.  He didn't consider himself an idealist - more of a realist.  Did he expect them all to play nice?  Not without reason.  But a joint-funding of the Ward could make being mean more difficult.  Not that he was about to argue that with her now. 

Not while she was cozying up to him.

Curious.

The shadow demon was stone as she moved even closer, though his eyes were unable to resist wandering where she no doubt intended for them to.  Yes, she was the very picture of smoldering beauty in that sickening way that her kind inherently was.  Of course, she was the very visage of temptation in an overbearing cliche sort of manner.  But Chtahzus'aak was no drooling fool.  His eyes did not linger on her form, returning to meet her gaze with a renewed challenge. 

"I thought you wanted to drink," his quiet answer and otherwise unreadable expression did not lack the subtle aftertaste of humor.  Zeus took the glass from her hand and raised it to his lips without breaking eye contact.  Fluidly he moved forward to set it beside his empty one before returning to his previous position.

[Saiketsu]

A heat she couldn't decipher rose in her chest and in her cheeks as he tossed those words back at her, his voice low, sharp, and tainted with his annoyingly attractive style of humor. He couldn't possibly be suggesting that it was her doing that had she was here, essentially in his bedroom. Absolutely preposterous.

As his hand moved closer to her, she inhaled and braced herself - for what, she wasn't sure. Blood rushed around her ears, fear and arousal flushing her into rigidness. Until he took her glass. Zoheret watched him take a sip from her glass with a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and disappointment pushing her eyebrows higher.

This time her scoff displayed more of her offense. "I distinctly remember inviting you out to a bar," she purred smoothly but not without a tang of indignance. "You could have gotten that whiskey and met me back in your office," she reminded him, enjoying first his wandering gaze and then immediately hating that even stare he gave her. Unreadable and challenging.

"Instead," Zoheret said, breaking eye contact with him to look seductively down at his lips and pull herself closer to the demon, her breasts gently grazing his chest as she leaned in, their lips separated by only a few inches of electric air, "you brought me down to your bedroom." Her eyes found his again and she grinned coldly at him. "What else am I to think?"

[The Cedar Witch]

He found fault with her every point.  The point that he wouldn't talk politics in public during this time of unrest in the city was not something he intended on repeating.  No, that was an office conversation at minimal.  He hadn't set out to make it anything more than that, and he certainly hadn't expected to be summoned.  Nevermind the fact that when he did return, it was to a trashed office and he wasn't exactly keen on leaving her unsupervised to do more damage during one of her tantrums at being kept waiting.  He'd just dealt with the necromancer's assassination attempt - not even he could think clearly enough to remember that she'd consumed all that he kept in his office.

No, this wasn't about any of that, facts aside.  Zoheret was playing a game.

He would not be the one to break.

"Are you suggesting," There was a barely perceivable movement toward her, daring to claim a hair's breadth of space for his own, "that I tell you what to think?"

[Saiketsu]

She remembered what it was like to kiss a human for the first time, that (then) inexplicable pounding in her chest, the fluttering of heat through the surface of her skin, the curling sensation of arousal in her belly and between her legs. She hadn't been able to stop herself then and she had allowed that human to take her to his bed, overwhelmed with the feelings of his worship. It had been the beginning of her Fall, and the event was proceeded with hiding it, the new feelings of shame, the desire to feel that praise again, the need to feel eyes and hands on her naked body. She had been cast out after defending herself and her actions, dropped to Earth as if she were rubbish even after millenia of loyalty and devotion to Him.

It wasn't her actions with the mortals that caused her to Fall, He informed her. It was her desire to continue, to covet the attention, and then defend her sins that ultimately cast her down.

Zoheret remembered that now as she sat angled towards this demon, close enough now that she could feel the heat from his words on her face. Once upon a time, lore had poised them as supernatural opposites on Earth in a constant battle for their Masters. Now, centuries after her Fall and Ritual, Zoheret wondered how opposite they actually were, especially in the supernatural city where, for some reason, they were all drawn.

He was a demon, after all, and she had never really even touched a demon before, let alone been carnal with one. Heat again passed through her skin and settled in the pit of her belly.

She looked at Chtahzus'aak's lips as they challenged her once again, the familiar hatred of his cool cheekiness making the lips between her legs swell. What would it be like to Curse him with her lips? She had done it to humans before plenty of times, scalding them for trying to control her or force her or disobey her. But would it work on a demon if she needed it to? Would it teach him the lesson he clearly needed to learn? Zoheret couldn't be sure; she weighed her options for a long moment before responding to the demon.

Her grin widened but maintained its command and coolness, her eyes lingering on his lips before finding his steady gaze again. "No," Zoheret stated firmly, "I'm suggesting that you have an ulterior motive to inviting me to your quarters besides sharing your whiskey."

Before he could respond, Zoheret leaned in and placed a hungry kiss on Zeus' lips, grinning through it as if she were enjoying some private joke.

[The Cedar Witch]

What she assumed was utterly ridiculous, and he had every intention to tell her so.  For once, he had no ulterior motive, his decision to bring her here as casual and thoughtless as possible.

Perhaps not thoughtless - he was distracted.  But that was another matter. 

There was only enough time for his lips to pull back slightly in the shape of a laugh before the dark angel closed the distance between them.  While he'd expected that she'd draw the tension out long enough for her to get another quip or two into their conversation, this move was not completely unexpected.  Not that Zeus would go so far as to claim that he'd seen it coming, but it was within the realm of possibilities in this game.

Or maybe she was projecting her desires onto him.

This revelation came to him just as he responded to the kiss, hard and challenging.  The whiskey on their hot breath mingling with her delicate scent perfumed a bit of imagery lingering at the back of his mind - her hair splayed across his pillows and his hands around her throat.  Squeezing.

Moving closer, he laid a firm hand against her face, pressed his thumb against her cheekbone and cupped her cheek against his palm.  With his fingers gripping lightly at her neck, he deepened the kiss, wondering how she would respond - how far she would let this little game continue.

If it were just a game to her.