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It must be understood: he kissed her first.
That’s the only way he wants it, that’s the only way to have it if he really is determined to prove to himself just how bad a person he really was now.
It had been Vivenna who’s hair had slightly and slowly tinged itself red, her hand on his shoulder, her leaning up towards him, but he wouldn’t allow her to be the one who kissed him. If it was going to happen, it would be his mistake to make. One more thing to add to the list, one more reason not to deserve the way her hand weighed itself on his shoulder or her genuine belief that he was a good person, to keep him away from even having a ghost of a prayer for something like redemption.
It must be understood, Denth doesn’t believe her ignorance or naivety is an excuse for him. Denth knows it’s not, even when the first thoughts that shoot through his mind when she leans in are something like: stupid, you don’t trust the mercenary
you don’t call him a good person
you don’t find yourself having feelings for him
and you don’t ever try to kiss him
but she believed in honesty, and she believed in him, and he thought everyone had the right to believe in such things because that’s how the world should work. People who are kind to you should be trustworthy, people shouldn’t lie, shouldn’t kidnap you or manipulate you into doing terrible things to start a war. People shouldn’t be like him, they should be better. They should always be better.
It’s not her fault that he’s who she ended up with
(he was the one who found her, after all).
It must be understood: he’s the one who kissed her.
This may be the cruelest thing he’ll do to her, not even a trap that he had tried to lead her into but one she offered and he took. He could have showed mercy, could have backed away and allowed her some thing to be relieved about when the time came to show the truth.
But he doesn’t.
Further - and he realizes it when he feels her kissing back, when he feels her soft hands cupping his face - that he’s not just doing it to hurt her and himself. He’s kissing her also because he wants to, because everything about Vivenna he’s been able to learn. Naive and ignorant as she was, when it came to technical things, to lessons in times of peril, she was quick to action and sharp. And, even when her ignorance had been pointed out to her, once she did learn the hard way, she was quick to take the lesson into practice. He was endeared to it and had even, once, while debating with her about whether or not to trust Thame, considered telling her, considered leaving, considered changing his mind. This is a different kind of hurt, because he wants this - the idea of redemption in the form of true love has been in the stories since the beginning of time, after all, and he’s walked enough of the world to hear them - and she’ll never know. He won’t let her know. He can’t.
(Stories are only stories, after all, and after all he’s seen and all he’s done Denth doesn’t even believe in the word redemption anymore. It’s a stupid, foolish notion and he didn’t understand how it had lasted three hundred years and beyond.
Further, it’s been proven to him time and time again that humanity will either die or will Return back, and the longer they live the less and less they deserve to be called good. To even think of a sliver of a chance of redemption.
The gods of T’Telir may give up their final Divine Breath to anyone they want
it’ll never erase the hundreds or thousands they may have consumed in the years before that.
And he's not above that.)
It’s important to him that he kissed her first, and though her hands wandered first - debating Idrian sensibilities with heat and instinct - Denth was the one who grew aggressive first. He’d pulled Vivenna closer, hands on her hips pressing against the bone, twisted his mouth to nip, made it more than it should have been. Vivenna would have been more chaste, he thinks, should she have been the one to initiate, would have taken him by surprise and frozen him with a peck before pulling away. It would have startled him, it would have been soft, it would have been too easily forgotten by her and too hard for him to justify. Too gentle for him, who’s comfort rested on the knowledge that he was a snake, that he was feeding her poisonous lies as he led her towards a war she wanted to avoid.
She beats him, though, when she breaks first, her cheeks pink and hair turned a bright red through the kiss. Her hands are shaking when she lowers them down, settling over his when he pulls back as well. She can’t even look at him.
This was cruel of him, he knew. This was the cruelest thing he would do.
Lie to her face, kidnap her, and then hurt her and hurt her and hurt her
and, to top it off, leave her with the knowledge that not only had she fallen for it, but that she’d developed feelings beyond just fondness for someone she wouldn’t be allowed to believe existed anymore. It was cruel.
Crueler still was that he wanted to do it again.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her hands slipping out of his as he climbs to his feet, pretending his mouth wasn’t buzzing, that his skin wasn’t warm, that he wasn’t trying so hard to hold back the colors of his own hair or a shift in the disguise that was his skin. He doesn’t let himself miss a beat, he laughs even as he offers a hand to help her up.
Her hair gets brighter still, and the sight keeps his at bay.
“When I said you shouldn’t trust a mercenary, princess -” he says, tweaking her nose, “- I meant with anything. Including your body.”
“Please don’t make fun of me right now.”
He allows a little softness to sink in, and knows immediately that any kindness he lets out will only make things worse for her in the end. “Sorry, you know I just can’t help myself.” I’m not a good person, he knows, I’ll never let myself have anything like this. I won’t even let myself pretend I could. I know what I’m doing, I’ve chosen to do it, I’m choosing to ruin her.
“Do you think that we could -” Vivenna looks thoughtful, eyes finally turning up to look him in the face, while she tries to force her hair back into control. She ends up with an auburn color, not fully able to remove her blush.
He breathes out, “forget it ever happened? Of course.”
“No. What? No.” Vivenna frowns, almost insulted by Denth’s suggestion. “I want to remember it, I just don’t really know what just happened and right now I don’t think I have the time to. But I want to talk about it at some point, I want to figure it out, so please don’t just brush it off.” There’s determination in her eyes, a need and will to understand something, another piece of herself to turn over but not before settling the others she had laying around her mind.
“You’re going to regret it,” he tells her, honestly.
“I’ll decide that,” she tells him back.
He doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t have to. He knows the truth.
(And she won’t, she never will, not about this. Later, when he twists her wrist down in their hideout, when the truth of his betrayal comes out, she’ll disbelieve even the truest thing he speaks to her.
I really did like you, Vivenna.
And that’s how it should be, for someone like him.)