Lie To Me

Kieran

Kieran returned to the cottage approximately one hour and twenty-four minutes past the time when he had departed it. The news that he received had satisfied him, and Mistral's sharp eyes did not miss the alteration in his demeanor.

"Have a good time?" she asked.

"Not a good time, per se, but not a bad time, either," Kieran answered.

She nodded thoughtfully. "You don't have any more evening escapades planned, I hope?"

Kieran set the keys down in front of her in answer. "I'll be in my room if you need me."

The only answer he received was the sound of the keys jangling together as Mistral palmed them, inclining her head in acknowledgement.

Turning away, Kieran strode down the hall and into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. He shrugged out of his coat, setting it over the back of the desk chair. Sitting on the bed, he bent to remove his shoes before swinging his legs up onto the bed, ignoring the wrinkles that were surely to mar the expensive fabric of his pants. Kieran slowly lowered himself down onto the bed, tensing momentarily at the aberrant sensation.

With a conscious effort, he relaxed, letting his body sink into the bed. His mind, lax and unrestricted for the moment, drifted. To thoughts of Raven and her manipulativeness, her sheer cunning--both of which were at a point that nearly rivaled Kieran's own. It had been only several days since Kieran had met Raven face-to-face, but the girl's reputation had preceded her by a number of years.

She had been involved in all of the most prodigious, noteworthy machinations--and formulated a decent number of them herself, Kieran reckoned. The only reason he hadn't recruited her sooner was because of her age; she was twelve when she carried out her first mission, to great success. Admittedly, Kieran himself was only fourteen then, but his sense of pride had overruled his perspicacity.

But he had grown and developed since then, evolved for the better. Now, he allowed nothing to inhibit his acuity.

Kieran knew that Raven wasn't all that she seemed, but his respect had increased fractionally when he witnessed firsthand how skilled she truly was. He had planned in advance, the whispers swirling around her not going unnoticed, and was gratified by the genuine surprise on her face when she encountered Mistral.

In the end, Kieran had decided to go along with whatever it was that Raven had planned. There was no chance that even Raven, clever as she was, could outplay him, and the way that she executed her plot could serve to provide entertainment; it would be didactic, at the very most.

And now, having made all of the necessary arrangements, Kieran was planning to sit back and observe Raven's scheme play out.

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A/N:
What do you think Raven's up to, hmm? Do tell--I'm quite interested to know what your take on things is, and you might even lend me some vital inspiration. Yes, you guessed it... I'm scrambling for ways to end the story. You'll be a darling and go ahead and comment some ideas of what you think is going to happen, won't you? My gratitude to you, in advance ;D