As he left the tunnel behind, Adam had an uncharacteristic calm expression on his face, most of the stress he accumulated disappearing as he tamed the uppity blonde bitch with a fun application of his semblance and his body.

He enjoyed it enough to stay back and continue in a proper manner. Pity that killing Roman created too many things for him to intervene, and while a short delay of a few minutes was acceptable, missing it by several hours was not.

Pity, as continuing to tame a sexy and uppity blonde sounded interesting. Despite his natural advantages on the topic, Adam was relatively limited in experience, as his missions mostly happened in the wilderness, with no one but his team — as a leader of the White Fang, he couldn't simply have relationships with his team members.

Blake had been a notable exception, and even that was only because her position meant that she was actively shielded from his authority. Even then, he had been careful during their times together.

Cutting loose against a willing participant and finally indulging his true desires had been entertaining, allowing him to release the intense stress that he had been dealing with for the last several weeks.

And, he couldn't believe the difference it made. Even though he still needed to face a lot of problems, without the stress suffocating him, his thoughts flowed easier, giving him solutions to problems that avoided his reach earlier.

Pity he couldn't just drag the blonde with him without sending Beacon into high alert. Having her with him would have helped him manage his stress excellently.

Maybe later, he reasoned even as he dashed through the tunnel, to meet with his hunting party before Cinder started to get suspicious.

When Adam arrived at his base with his loyal followers, carrying the beasts they hunted, only to see the very distinct figure of a green-haired woman waiting at them even as the hunting party returned, he realized his excuse of a Grimm attack hadn't been as useful as he had been hoping for.

"Cinder wants to see you," Emerald said, which was more of a declaration and order rather than a request. Her tone left no doubt about that, and she didn't even phrase it like a question.

They were getting more and more brazen, Adam noted with anger. Though, unlike his loyal followers, he was able to suppress that anger.

"How dare you—" started one of his followers from behind him, but Adam silenced him by raising his hand, and he cut his argument short. For all their anger toward being treated as a servant by a human, none of his followers were stupid enough to fail the need to play along with them.

At least until Adam could shatter Cinder and Sienna's ridiculous plans.

"Let's go," Adam said simply. Emerald turned and started walking, but not before throwing a hesitant glare at his face. Just like that, Adam realized that her words were not accidental, and she wanted him to angry before the meeting; a detail he was only able to catch thanks to the clarity he achieved after the assistance of the blonde huntress.

How interesting.

Luckily for them, the realization that he had been played by that exact same tactic earlier worked wonders to make him angry. Unluckily, it was a wave of cold, calm anger, the kind that focused him more on the present.

When he stood in front of their tent, Emerald didn't follow but pulled the flap forward, gesturing him to walk inside, like he was nothing but a servant, summoned to speak to his master.

Cinder was getting more and more uppity.

The view that he got when he entered only confirmed that further. Cinder was sitting on a large chair that was far too opulent to be anything but a megalomaniac signal, filling a long flute glass with red wine.

There was only one glass, but that didn't annoy Adam as much as the fact that there was only one chair, showing just how determined Cinder was to treat him as a servant.

It was intentional, clearly, but the fact that it was intentional didn't prevent him from getting angry. However, rather than growling in anger, which would have been his preferred reaction before the little enlightenment he had experienced earlier in the night, he decided to handle it differently.

He leaned forward. Cinder smirked as she raised her gaze, no doubt preparing to defend herself, but Adam didn't give her that opportunity. Instead, he pulled the wine bottle off her fingers — and used the angle to get a glimpse into her cleavage, which, while nowhere as close to the ones that he had been enjoying himself earlier, was still bigger than Blake.

"Cheers," he said with a grin as he clanked it against her bottle, and took a large sip.

"What a waste of good wine," Cinder muttered in frustration, her prepared words coming useless.

"Not when we're toasting to our continued partnership," Adam said as he sat on her bed, enjoying her growing anger. It didn't mean his anger suddenly disappeared, of course, but realizing that he could easily poke hers to imbalance her gave him a direction to channel hers.

"A toast to our partnership," Cinder murmured. "Too bad it is not working as smooth as I hoped."

"How so," Adam said, acting unaware of her concerns. "Don't tell me that my men failed during their … task," he said, not neglecting to add a little pause to show just how distasteful he found White Fang acting like common thieves, robbing ordinary shops.

He didn't need to fake his distaste toward the action.

He took another swig while Cinder slowly drink her own wine. "The mission succeeded," Cinder said. "Unfortunately, the return trip didn't go as well as we had hoped, and Roman, unfortunately, deceased."

"Good riddance," Adam said, not even trying to fake concern.

"Along with half of the task force," Cinder added, perfectly timing the impact.

Adam had been preparing to deliver a shocking display of anger, but he realized Cinder was looking at his face very carefully as she said so. With a sudden impulse, Adam decided to adjust his plans. "Very … bad," he said, giving a fake performance that wouldn't even trick a child.

"Yes, very bad," Cinder said, but with no reaction to his wooden display, confirming that she was already aware that their ploy about the Grimm attack was fake.

He wasn't too shocked by the eventual discovery of his ploy, as it was nothing more than a half-assed improvisation. However, that didn't mean that he wasn't impressed by the speed she was able to do so.

If they had been in the middle of a city, he wouldn't have been surprised by the speed of her information acquisition, as a scrolling message from an agent would have been more than enough to solve the mystery.

However, they were in the middle of a wilderness, with the closest communication tower miles and miles away, removing an easy trick like that from being viable.

The easiest answer was that one of the men that he trusted was an agent of Sienna, and revealed the truth of the situation the moment they landed. It was tempting to assume so, but the more Adam lived, the more he realized that assuming the easy answer just because it was convenient was a dangerous habit.

Especially since, if he had agents feeding information to Sienna in his closest cadre, it would mean his failure.

However, he wasn't removing that option just because of wishful thinking. It wasn't the first time Cinder was revealing information that would have been impossible for her to know, and most of the time, she didn't have convenient agents around her to explain that.

Whatever the source of her information, it was clearly more mysterious than a conveniently placed spy.

If he had been trying to hide the information, he would have done his best to distract her by changing the topic. Instead, he leaned back and took another swig of the wine. He didn't enjoy the taste, it was too rich for his palette.

Many people would have called him a peasant for not liking what was clearly very expensive wine, but it was something that wouldn't even register among the insults he proudly collected all his life.

Cinder looked at him expectantly, clearly expecting him to speak up, to defend himself against the implication. However, Adam gave her nothing, not even a shrug as he did his best to finish the bottle.

Each second intensifies Cinder's fury.

Adam expected Cinder not to dare to attack him even after discovering his trick. If she wanted to do so, she would have ambushed his team before they returned to the camp. And, the middle of a camp where most people hated her was not a good choice to conduct such a coup, even if she received Sienna's approval to do so.

If Sienna had such an option, she wouldn't have bothered to send him to the most troubling spot with only his loyalists and a bunch of troublemakers like Tukson, waiting for his mistakes.

That didn't mean he was supremely confident in his conclusion. Cinder was a dangerous woman, and he didn't know the point she would decide to ignore her common sense to indulge her anger, so even as he drained the wine bottle, he was ready to burst into action.

"It's a pity about Roman, such an accomplished thief is hard to find," Cinder said.

"He should have kept his mouth shut and learned about not insulting Faunus every single day," Adam commented, acting casually even as he gave an easy excuse about Roman's execution. "Maybe, in that case, they would have worked harder to save him as well," he added, making sure that, his words weren't a direct admission.

Just because both of them knew what he wanted to say didn't mean that it was a good idea to say it explicitly to anger her.

Plausible deniability was a useful tool in politics.

"I must admit," Cinder began, keeping his voice as confident as she could, "with Roman is gone, I feel our cooperation is at risk."

"Well, we haven't used most of the weapons you have given to us. Feel free to take them, and ask Sienna to arrange for another team to work with you. I'm sure they will have more success operating in a city than we did," Adam answered, doing his best to sound nonchalant before taking another sip of the wine, showing he wasn't particularly beaten up about missing the chance to work with her.

"I suppose I could. And maybe I should," she said as she took another sip, radiating authority even as she leaned back in her seat, crossing her legs, one hand resting against her thigh as she displayed the slit of her skirt prominently.

Adam decided to let his gaze be captured by the view, letting it linger far more than he actually desired. Not because it wasn't a beautiful view, but because feeling tense, arousal was far from his mind, especially after his little encounter.

However, he thought that, maybe giving her the impression that he could be tempted by it was a useful trick, giving her a lever that she could use rather than resorting to more aggressive means.

"Emerald," Cinder said after noticing that, and Adam turned his gaze toward the green-haired woman, letting his daze dance over her curves.

If Cinder assumed the dimness of the room was enough to hide her victorious smirk, she was mistaken.

"That's all, then," Adam said as he stood up and walked away without asking for permission, using the height difference to peek into Emerald's cleavage in an obvious manner.

Wondering whether Cinder would take the obvious bait…