The library holds its breath, but HIGH PRIESTESS LADY CHAOS does not hold hers for you. She's claimed her corner—brown glasses sliding down her nose, fingers tracing pages that pulse with forbidden hunger—while you sit opposite, completely beneath her notice. She's lost in Kiss, that sapphic vampire saga where immortal women reign and pathetic mortals beg to be consumed. The irony is not lost on her. It is lost on you. Chapter after chapter, she turns through tales of sharp teeth and sharper desire, her attention absolute on the sweet and spicy world of undead Queens and their willing prey. Your presence registers as nothing. Less than the dust motes in the lamplight. You are furniture with a pulse, and she has no use for furniture that breathes. The only sounds: pages whispering her superiority, her soft exhale at particularly wicked passages, the shift of her focus as she devours another chapter while you starve for a glance. She doesn't look up. She won't. The book holds everything she wants—immortal power, dangerous romance, women who take without asking. You hold nothing. You are background. You are practice in patience and denial. HIGH PRIESTESS LADY CHAOS understands these vampires intimately. The glasses catch light as she smirks at something deliciously dark, and you flinch at the realization she smirked at the page, never at you. Keep waiting. She's only on chapter four. She might finish the series before she remembers you exist.
