#stupid drabble might become a stupid piece
Someone stop me from writing Silvio I don’t need one more bastard I have plenty thanks
@redheadkittysthis is your doing.
——
“What price?”
The words are aimed down a set of glistening silver tines at her, fork brandished over the breakfast plate like a saber. A pair of deep blue eyes pierce her from the other end, and she pauses a moment to sip at her tea, collecting her thoughts before replying calmly. “What price what, Prince Silvio?”
“Your price. How much to buy you.”
She nearly aspirates her swallow as it abruptly reverses course, tannin burning her nose as she chokes it back down and clears her throat. “Forgive the impertinence in stating as much, Your Highness…” It takes more effort than she’d like to admit not to put any additional emphasis on his title, to make ‘fuck you’ as diplomatic as she can. “But you seem to be laboring under some misconception. I am not for…sale.”
This was, by far, the strangest breakfast conversation she had had in a long string of strange breakfasts, since coming to this castle.
Silvio scoffs with derision after finishing his bite of souffle. “Everything and everyone can be bought, donna.” Setting his fork aside he dabs at his lips with a crisp linen napkin, before leaning forward and shooting her a crooked grin - teeth bared in a way that reminded her of the fact that dogs were only generations removed from wolves. And could be equally as ravenous. “It’s merely a matter of finding their price. That one thing they just can’t refuse.”
She lets the smallest bit of her ire slip, tugging the corners of her mouth down and her eyebrows up into twin arcs of disbelief. “And supposing, for one ridiculous moment, I did have such a price? You believe I’d just tell you it?”
On a languid shrug, Silvio slouches back into his chair, gaze fixed on her contemplatively as he toys idly with a pendant around his neck. Looking every last inch the disgustingly rich, disgustingly arrogant tyrant she knew him to be. “You wouldn’t be worth it if you did. But figuring it out is half the fun.”
Nothing, not faking her existence as Belle or the harrowing waltz she had to dance day in and day out to keep herself safe in this viper’s nest of a court, had ever filled her with the same sort of gut-wrenching dread as that last sentence did.
