Chapter 83 The Rose and the Snake 23
At the same time, Voldemort's right hand, which was originally casually placed on the armrest, instinctively raised up due to the severe pain, trying to grab something for support.
As luck would have it, the hand was exactly and firmly clasped on Abraxas's thin waist, which was tense with pain.
An icy and powerful restraining force instantly came from that palm.
Abraxas, who had just gotten a moment's respite as Voldemort loosened his grip and was about to struggle to get up, was firmly and domineeringly pressed back to his original position by this force, and even embedded deeper into Voldemort's arms.
The two bodies were pressed tightly together, Abraxas's cold back pressed against Voldemort's hot and solid chest. He could even clearly feel the frantic beating of the other's heart in his chest.
Abraxas froze completely.
The excruciating pain of the branding, the danger of Clarisse's poisoning, and the embrace he was forced into at this moment, which was full of aggression and burning body temperature...the multiple impacts made his mind go blank.
The gray-blue eyes widened slightly due to extreme shock, and the long eyelashes trembled like the wings of a frightened butterfly.
And after experiencing that momentary excruciating pain in his soul, Voldemort quickly regained consciousness.
He realized immediately what was happening—it was synchronicity.
It was the severe pain brought by the branding punishment in Abraxas' body, which was amplified and fed back to him through that damn symbiotic link.
What made him even more shocked and furious was his own posture at the moment. Driven by the excruciating pain, he had instinctively hugged this damned Malfoy tightly in his arms? His hands were still tightly gripping his waist?!
Humiliation! Unprecedented humiliation! Worse than being draped in a poisonous robe or being forced to listen to love poems. This was the ultimate trampling on his dignity as the Dark Lord!
His scarlet pupils burned wildly with rage, almost bleeding.
He wanted to immediately push away the cold and stiff body in his arms, and wanted to chop off the hand that dared to hold Malfoy's waist.
However, the moment he tried to push Abraxas away——
“Sizzle…”
A subtle sound, like a branding iron burning flesh, resounded clearly on the inside of his left wrist, followed by a sharp, burning pain.
Voldemort's head snapped down.
He saw that on the inside of his left wrist, where the golden system pattern was originally just a shadow of thorns, an extremely clear thorn mark, burning with dark red flames, as if it was carved in an instant with the finest chisel, was emerging under the skin at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The shape and aura of the brand were strikingly identical to the mark on Abraxas' chest! Like a silent shackle, a symbiotic mark of shame.
Time seemed to freeze for a moment between the two bodies pressed tightly together and the newly formed thorn mark.
The garden was eerily silent.
Everyone was stunned by this "deeply affectionate" scene where the Dark Lord couldn't help himself and hugged his lover in public.
Minister Millicent's magic quill was scribbling frantically on the parchment, and her cloudy old eyes were flashing with a fanatical light of insight.
The shutter of reporter D's camera clicked like popcorn, and the flashbulb flashed wildly, recording this "beautiful moment" that was enough to make the front page of the Daily Prophet.
Clarice's fingers froze on the edge of the crystal glass. The drop of dark blue venom was teetering on the edge of the bottle, but it failed to fall because of this sudden change.
She looked at Voldemort's hands tightly around Abraxas' waist, and the way the two of them were so close to each other. Jealousy and resentment gnawed at her heart like a poisonous snake, making her almost crush the crystal bottle.
Abraxas was the first to break free from this strange stalemate.
The excruciating pain of the brand remained, but the burning heat from Voldemort's chest and the feeling of confinement brought by the hand tightly clasping his waist made him feel a chill deep in his bones and... a rage of being completely offended.
He exerted force suddenly, trying to break free.
Voldemort instantly recovered from the shock and anger of the brand. The burning pain and humiliation brought by the new thorn brand almost drove him crazy.
His scarlet pupils locked onto Abraxas's attempts to break free, and murderous intent and a twisted thought of "not letting him escape easily" instantly dominated his mind.
Instead of letting go, he suddenly tightened his right hand that was clasped around Abraxas' waist.
At the same time, the left hand with the brand on it once again grabbed Abraxas' wrist as he tried to push him away, like an iron clamp.
The two of them wrestled silently on the gilded throne in an extremely ambiguous and confrontational posture.
Abraxas' pale face was abnormally flushed due to the struggle and the severe pain of the brand, while Voldemort's handsome face was slightly distorted by rage and the burning pain of the brand.
"Let go..." Abraxas squeezed out two words from between his teeth, his voice trembling with humiliation.
Voldemort's scarlet pupils approached him, his scorching breath sprayed on his cold earlobe. His voice was low and hoarse, like the whisper of a devil, with a kind of destructive pleasure: "Don't even think about it... my 'accomplice', sir."
He deliberately emphasized the word "accomplice".
In this silent and fierce confrontation, a drop of sticky, warm liquid with a strong smell of rust suddenly seeped out from the inside of the sleeve of Voldemort's right hand, which was tightly clasped around Abraxas' waist, and quickly spread a small spot of glaring dark red on the dark green fabric of the dress.
Abraxas's struggles suddenly stopped. His gray-blue pupils instantly constricted! He clearly saw the dark red, and also clearly felt a slight... wet, hot, sticky sensation coming from the arm pressed against his waist?!
Almost at the same time, at the edge of the garden, next to the champagne tower that was knocked over and then stood up again by the house-elf CC.
The old elf CC, with his arm bandaged and cowering in the shadows, had a cold and violent scarlet light in the depths of his cloudy green eyes that had been briefly extinguished last night.
Like a will-o'-the-wisp fire awakened by the bloody aura and dark magic, it suddenly burned again with incredible clarity and stability.
It stared intently at the two people wrestling on the throne, especially at Voldemort's bloody cuffs. An extremely subtle, sandpaper-like hissing sound came from its throat, as if it was silently... longing for something.
Voldemort also noticed the wetness on his cuffs and the momentary stiffness of Abraxas in his arms.
His scarlet pupils drooped slightly, and when he caught a glimpse of the glaring dark red, his heart sank suddenly.
Was it the backlash of the uncontrolled magic when the mark appeared just now? Or... when Abraxas struggled, he used too much force and broke the old wound caused by the poisoned apple?
Abraxas' fingertips, stained with cold sweat and humiliation, unconsciously touched the damp, dark red color of Voldemort's cuffs.
The touch of warm blood on his cold fingertips brought a shuddering sensation. Deep in his gray-blue eyes, beneath the frozen surface of the lake, for the first time, a trace of... uncalculated, pure suspicion surged.
Voldemort's hands were tightly clasped around his waist, and he felt the instantaneous touch and the slight trembling of the body in his arms. Deep in his scarlet pupils, the new thorn mark seemed to be stimulated by the blood and suddenly lit up for a moment.
An even stronger feeling, a mixture of severe pain, rage, and an indescribable twisted pleasure caused by this fragile tremor, ran through his body like an electric current.
His hands clasped around Abraxas' waist did not loosen due to the bleeding. Instead, like a predator locking onto its struggling prey, he tightened his fingers even more forcefully, almost greedily.
It was as if he wanted to crush that waist, along with the cold and stubborn body in his arms, into his hot and bloody chest.
"Keep reading," Voldemort's voice was as hoarse as a broken bellows, carrying the smell of blood and an unquestionable madness. His burning lips almost touched Abraxas's cold earlobe. "My poem... is not finished yet."
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