Disclaimer: I do not own any of the fabulous characters and/or settings of Crown Duel. I'm just playing.
Tamara's smile was a sweet, sublime poison. Boys buzzed about her like flies, attracted by the sweetness. But they did not notice what lay beneath the surface, bubbling, boiling, just out of view. They did not see the ambition, the cold cunning, the shrewd calculation in every smile. They did not see the careful measurement she had taken.
She had an extensive lexicon of smiles: Shy and maidenly, lively and dimpled. Each variety had an exact measure of her trademark charm to best suit its purposes. A cup of sugar here. A pinch of spice there. A drop of sweet, saccharine venom, just for good measure. A recipe for perfection. After all, that's what she wanted—something to flaunt, something to prove her worth, something her glamorous mother could never have:
Perfection.
And if a little poison was necessary to get it, it seemed no great misfortune to her. The one thing—the one person—that she did not enter into her calculations was Russav.
She smiled with full, innocent blue eyes, drawing a leaf from her dictionary: trembling and naive. Instead of being struck dumb with love and lust, he grinned rakishly back.
Leaving her struck dumb. Like a lamb led to slaughter, she thought, horrified.
She hid her momentary lapse with her most brilliant smile, meant to dazzle, to stun, to addle his brains.
But his grin only widened and Tamara hid a dainty, clenched fist in her skirts.
It was war.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed! All comments are welcome. I apologize for my brevity. A drabble wedged itself in the tiny space between the brain and the word document. I was powerless to stop it. Thanks for reading!
-music nerd