To be or not to be

I blacked out for a long time; I can tell that when I feel sunrays casting on my face. It has always been like this whenever I awake on sunny mornings in my room.

However, my body weighs as if it is set on warmth and softness. Feels awkward, not like any sensation I have had when I wake in the morning.

For a moment, I wonder if I have transitioned to a new world like in some stories that Katelyn read to me. They tell the warm tale of an ill-luck girl who somehow finds herself in a safe haven. Although the tales sometimes ended well, most times it did not.

“Does he frequently treat you this way?”

My eyes flutter open when I hear the old Japanese’s low-pitched voice, my mind running through thoughts of why he is here—and right beside me. “Get up to eat,” he mutters as he moves across to a table.

I crane my neck to watch him while he draws out a chair and leans against it, facing me. He raises a brow and cocks his head as I still stare at him wide-eyed.

A few seconds ago, I lost it. I was in a reverie maybe, because when realisation strikes me, I push myself from the bed and struggle to stand up, only that my weak bones take this time to fail me.

“Stay calm. I wouldn’t hurt you,” the old man mumbles again as he leans out of the chair to sit in it, his back now facing me. “Come, sit. I have a fresh Brunch for you.”

“Is… it that late?” The Japanese nods without a glance at me, and as if it is my only motivation, I get up and saunter toward him. He pulls back the chair at his right and I sit on instinct, my eyes narrowing on the meal before them.

The steam from the pottage courses into my nose, and I cannot help but take it all in greedily. I feel like this meal offered to me by this man is all I need to feel better, perhaps the only thing that can drive away the slow pang in my head.

“You might be wondering. My men found you sprawled on the hallway.” I look up to find him staring toward me, though not at me, but at my hands that toy with the steak knife.

I gawk down at them to find my long nails slowly brushing along the blade. I do not know how I laid my hands on the knife, but I once caught a glance of it beside my plate even when I had no steak.

The Japanese shakes his head, handing me a bowl of Tri-tip roast. “When I met your Father a few months back, he seemed so nice; loving. I never expected him to treat a young maiden the way he does.”

“Yet, you find it customary to buy this ‘young maiden’, do you not?” I point to myself as I say that, and I notice the old man’s jaws drop.

He might wonder how my Father’s strict training never stops me from talking back to a person of his standard. He may have also had the thought that I will be a timid cower who would not know what to respond at the right time.

I hate rare steak. I could eat anything else, but not that rosy beast, which is why I occupy my time by simply chopping it as I wait for my pottage to cool off. The old man, however, scoops his pottage from time to time. He does not seem to mind the extreme warmth in the room.

“How would you love to be my Luna?” He asks, while I look up at him, and for the second time, our eyes meet.

As I see them clearly now, I notice that his irises do not stay in place. They look like they are rotating on his sclera, seeming so ethereal that I cannot help but think how charming he looks for an old man.

I raise my brows and look away. “What is that?”

“You haven’t heard or read of werewolves?”

“Well,” I shrug, “It would be nice to learn something new.”

“You can’t understand; because you are human.” Then what was the point of mentioning it? “Werewolves aren’t human, albeit they take the form. They are beasts, thought to be a mythology but actually exist.” The Japanese man counts his words, sounding like a clever, aged fellow telling a story to a group of young ones, though his voice still betrays him.

“So, what is the essence of this discussion?” I stare at him through my lashes as I raise my bowl and scoop pottage into my mouth.

When I bring the bowl down, I notice that the old man’s eyes are still on me. “This here is proof that I am a ruler—An Alpha.” He points to an age-stricken ring around his left index, and as much as I love to learn new things, I find the topic utterly vague and uninteresting. Adding that I have just finished the last of my pottage and am itching to sleep and meditate for the rest of the day.

“To be a Luna or not to be is never my choice to make. I just take things the way I see it.”

“Everyone has the liberty to choose. Your father did not just let you exercise it.” Somehow, I begin to feel that the old man is trying to paint himself as a saint while shoving Lord Owen to the hollow, but really, I see them all in the same way.

He chews his steak slowly, trapping my gaze. Then I get lost for that second, only driven back to reality when a sharp pain in the tip of my index forces a short cry from my mouth. My eyes dash to my hands.

I drop the knife on instinct, thinking of when in the creator’s name did I pick it up again. I hear a screech beside me, and I look to find the Japanese quickly straying from my side, horror plastered on his expression even as he tries to hide it with a stoic look.

He is looking at my hand while small pints of blood drop on the table. Something certainly must have frightened him, or maybe the smell of my blood disgusts him too.

I have gotten used to that heady ozone-metallic smell. It is something I first found strange, but over time, I had to live with it. However, it may have unsettled the old man because he turns around and hurries out of the room, and I find myself thinking if he will ever return.

 *****

There seems to be a faint pink tinge to the sky, branches bowing to the gentle breeze as house servants feed the birds.

I stand in front of the window to watch how the maidens hide their pitiless manners behind a courteous stance. I suppose they intend to attract the attention of one or two genteel Japanese, if not more.

Earlier Lord Owen sauntered into the Japanese lord’s room with the sole purpose to mock me. ‘Your ship is ready to sail,’ so he said, and I could not discern if it was the wedding or the journey to Asia. ‘Your story would do well on a yellow sheet, telling the tale of a cursed maiden who brought calamity wherever she found herself,’ he added with a leer while he treated my wound.

The old Japanese man has not returned since the incident, and I got more convinced that it is more than the smell; he knows what my blood can do.

‘You told him,’ I muttered with a crack in my voice, after all, there was no other excuse I could come up with to explain the old man’s fright when he saw my blood. Lord Owen must have said something of its acidic nature. It killed the ones who touched me at birth, killed… my mother, but somehow managed to ignore my Father.

‘He seems to know already, seeing that he is not interested in you, but your blood. Believe me, I do not know why.’ Yet, you did not care to know. I looked into his blue eyes before I watched him leave in silence, my thoughts centred on my ruse marriage tonight.

Katelyn often rasped about her marriage fantasies; her speculations in a man and all other troubles that she found interesting. I, however, knowing that I have no opportunity to place any dream into reality, prefers to see it as a pointless piece.

The Archbishop, Lord Owen and a few of his peers are the only ones present to bear witness that I am now an asset to someone else. Then our journey to Asia takes place afterward, and for my sake, we ride a cart.

The old man remains withdrawn to himself on one side of the cart, while I am left to ponder about my gloomy future, though I later feel his gaze on me, his warm hands sliding atop mine, causing me to jolt.

“Don’t worry,” his hoarse voice comes as he rubs my hand. “Japan is a nice place to stay, you’ll be appreciated.”

“No… I— I am fine.” I cannot tell what he thinks, but I am not so concerned about how I would be treated. Maybe that is the best part of living in shame and agony my entire life. “The rumours in Chester have it that you are a demon,” I say when my eyes wander to the bronze ring around his finger, making me only realise now how I did not appreciate its beauty when I saw it earlier.

It indeed carries an aura of Lordship— having a heavy, spiral, sea dragon. I really do not know how much it means to him, but I have also noticed how he spends most of his time caressing it.

“I have nothing to do with demons,” he murmurs as he withdraws his hand from mine, once again, touching the ring. “My younger brother is. I only bear his name and title because he is very hideous.”

“You bear his name?”

The old man smiles and takes his eyes back to his fingers. “Yes. He is Xaulfur, the demon-obsessed. I’m Daymion, the Alpha.”

“Then you both might have a few likenesses that make people think you are him.” I say it as if I am certain even when I somehow doubt myself. I have an absurd feeling that this younger brother is a psycho, lowlife scholar who spends most of his lifetime in libraries and local museums, or even shrines.

“We have separate fathers, and…” the old man chuckles as his head drops, the very first time to see and hear him laugh. “I am much older. We are not alike in any way even. He might be the opposite of me.”

“Oh really now; fierce and brutal, and never going to buy a maiden when he is scared of her blood?”

“You’re not bringing that up now, are you?” The old man looks guilty, yet sounds pissed, but I should be the pisser one here seeing that I am just a tool that can be bought and sold anytime.

I cannot help thinking though. He is not perfect. His extremely cautious actions made me know that he has never sired a child in his existence, neither is he married.

According to him, he is supposed to find a Luna who would bear him an Alpha heir, but, somehow, it seems as if his humanity struck him whenever he thought to lie with a maiden who was supposed to be his daughter.

I still have my doubts about him—I do—judging from the fact that anything concerning him yet remains vague. He refuses to tell me about himself despite knowing nearly everything about me.

“He told you so much about his interracial brother and still you found no need to meet this psycho demon man since the night of your arrival?” one calm voice barges into my morning thoughts before my eyes gradually flutter open.