My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

Airam’s eyes narrowed the instant he pulled her in.

For half a beat, her body stayed hard with resistance, every line in her frame refusing his lead on principle alone. Then the music pressed forward, and she moved because standing still would have made Esther’s eagerly fixed gaze the first casualty of her stubbornness.

Ulrich felt the change at once.

She followed.

Reluctantly, like granting a concession she already intended to resent later, but she followed.

The faster rhythm suited her better than he had expected.

Hermione had overthought every step. Esther had trusted him enough to let herself be carried through the dance. Airam did neither. She listened, and answered each movement with clean precision. There was very little softness in the way she danced, but there was balance, control, and a sharp awareness of timing that kept her from falling even half a step behind him.

Ulrich guided her through a turn.

Airam matched it.

Her hand stayed light in his, though not loose. The hand at his side never trembled. Her gaze did not drop once to watch her own feet. She looked straight ahead, chin slightly raised, as though the room itself could do nothing to embarrass her.

That, more than anything, made her different from her sisters.

Around them, the ballroom kept moving, but more eyes were drifting in their direction with every pass. A fast dance sharpened the contrast between partners. With Esther, he had looked soft. With Hermione, stern beside nerves. With Airam, the picture changed again. They did not look gentle together. They looked composed likewise, moving in strict time while something colder ran beneath the steps.

At the edge of the floor, Esther watched with bright, unguarded delight.

Hermione stood beside her with both arms folded, her expression torn between disbelief and reluctant fascination.

Airam caught sight of them on the second turn. Esther’s face alone was enough to keep her from pulling away again.

"You only accepted this because Esther asked," Ulrich said.

Airam flicked her eyes back to him. "For what else."

"Behave."

"I am behaving."

For Airam, that might even have been true.

Ulrich shifted her through another turn, faster this time, testing whether the increased pace would shake her footing. It did not. She adjusted almost immediately, dark indigo skirts moving in a clean arc around her legs, posture staying straight even when the tempo demanded more from her. She had clearly practiced enough with Elana to understand formal dance better than she had let on.

Airam kept following for several steps. Then, very slightly, she pressed against the direction of his next step and tried to redirect the turn.

It was subtle enough that most dancers would not have noticed until too late.

Ulrich noticed immediately.

His hand tightened at her waist. He corrected the movement before it could become visible, drawing her back into the proper line with enough firmness to make the point without causing a scene.

Airam looked up at him.

"You noticed."

She looked almost surprised under her neutral expression.

"I told you already. I am leading."

"I wanted to see if you were slow."

"And," Ulrich asked, taking his gaze off her again to look around.

"You are not."

For someone else, it might have sounded like praise. On Airam, it sounded like a reluctant entry in a private ledger.

Ulrich found that easier to handle than Hermione’s flustered honesty or Esther’s open affection. Airam spoke as though every word had to pass inspection before it left her mouth. There was no sweetness in her. No effort to please. When she gave anything, even acknowledgment, it came stripped to its barest shape.

He preferred that in some way; it made him less uncomfortable.

At least with Airam, he always knew the resistance was real.

They moved through the center of the floor, the faster piece drawing broader movement from the surrounding pairs.

After a while, Airam spoke.

"It was unpleasant."

Ulrich lowered his gaze to her.

For a brief moment, he wondered whether she meant the dance itself. That seemed unlikely. Airam was not the sort to complain about discomfort so quickly. So she had to be speaking of the nobles and their mockeries.

"What did you expect?" He said.

Airam looked back at him, her stare hardening, though not quite a glare.

"You brought us here knowing what would happen."

She was not wrong.

He had known exactly what kind of reception awaited them. He had known the nobles would whisper. He had known their children would mirror them with less restraint and more stupidity. He had known the sisters would be assessed, judged, and quietly scorned the moment they entered the hall.

He had brought them anyway.

"The sooner you and your sisters learn where you stand," Ulrich said, guiding her through another turn, "the better it will be when you have to face this again."

Airam’s expression did not change.

"In the future, I will leave with my sisters."

She said it as a simple fact.

A reminder.

Ulrich had never been naive enough to believe he could keep the three of them by his side forever. He already knew they intended to take what shelter, education, and protection they could from him until they were old enough and strong enough to stand on their own. In truth, that was only sensible. If anything, there was something worth respecting in that resolve.

Sooner or later, they would leave.

He knew it.

And he had never intended to chain them to his house by force.

"Until then," he said, "you are part of my House."

He turned her neatly and continued without softening his tone.

"You will behave as your status demands."

That made something flicker in Airam’s black eyes.

It was not anger.

Surprise.

He saw it clearly enough.

She had expected another answer from him. Something about debt, perhaps. About repayment. About all he had provided and what that should require in return. He had spoken that way before, bluntly enough that none of the sisters could misunderstand him.

But this answer was different.

Different enough that she did not know what to do with it.

Was he truly prepared to let them go when the time came? After everything he had spent on them? After all the effort he had put into shaping their future?

No.

Airam refused to believe that so easily.

It did not fit the man she had watched these last two years. Ulrich wasted nothing. Not time, not resources, not effort. He was too careful and too calculating to invest so much in them and then simply release them without purpose.

"I hate them," she said.

Ulrich did not ask who she meant.

"Hate them," he replied.

Airam’s fingers tightened around his hand.

"I hate this kingdom."

That made him look at her more closely.

There was no passing irritation in her face. No childish resentment stirred up by one miserable evening. He could see the hatred plainly in her eyes, restrained and under control but real, rooted somewhere much deeper than wounded pride.

How could it be otherwise?

This kingdom had taken her peace. It had taken her mother. It had left the three sisters to survive the aftermath. The bitterness left behind by that could not simply vanish because they now lived safely inside Rubenhart Estate.

Ulrich did not like that hatred.

He disliked it more because he knew how hatred like this could grow if it were left to feed itself unchecked. Still, for now, it remained contained. Airam had not yet made it the center of her entire being. Her sisters still came first. Her anger had shape, but it had not swallowed everything else.

That was enough.

For now.

"Hate it," he said.

Airam stared at him again.

She had expected correction. A lecture. Perhaps an order to be grateful for the kingdom that had allowed her to survive. Instead he had answered as though her hatred were obvious, understandable, and not worth pretending otherwise.

Which only sharpened the question that had lived in her for far too long.

"Why did you adopt us?"

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