Chapter 9: A Liar

Erica focused her attention to the soup again and tried enjoying it. She knew that he was looking at her continuously. As she started to getting irritated she started slurping loudly on her soup to irritate Dominic as well. He was quiet for few moments but after sometime he could not stand the sound of her slurping. He punched the table loudly; Erica flinched but showed no sign of being scared. She finished her soup and stood up to go out of the hall. As she reached the dining hall gate, a strong wind came from behind her and forced shut the gate with a loud bang.

Erica felt a weird tingling feeling in her stomach, and the hair on the nape of her skin stood up with fear. She turned around to find Dominic standing a little too close to her. He sandwiched her in between the door and him. “I have told you very clearly, if you want to survive and get out of here, start acting like a prisoner.” He said through gritted teeth. Erica could feel her ear radiating heat because of all the anger. She pushed at his chest trying to create some distance between them.

“Why the hell are you even keeping me captive? What did I ever do to you? It is not because of your stag, I know it is not, what are your motives? What the hell do you even want from me?” She said angrily and he held her hands strongly. “YES, THAT IS THE REASON FOR KEEPING YOU CAPTIVE HERE, BECAUSE YOU HURT MY STAG,” he screamed at her, tears started pooling in her eyes. “You are hurting me,” she whispered lightly and he snapped back into reality, and all anger died down like a sea foam and was replaced by guilt. He let go of her wrist and she rubbed her wrists, they were red and probably hurting her a lot too. He backed away from her; she opened the door and ran outside the hall. Her vision was blurry but she wanted to get out of that place somehow.

She ran and instead of going up the stairs she made her way to the huge door that she thought would lead to outside of that huge palace. She ran outside of the gate and was shocked and mesmerized for few moments as she saw all the beautiful colors spread in the garden, the trees were so beautifully colored. She had never seen such vibrant colored trees in her life before. She wiped her tears and looked around in shock and pure adornment. ‘I wish father could see this as well,’

She looked around to find a way out of there, but the garden does not seem to end any where. She heard crunching sound of leaves and turned around to find the same black stag, Erica squinted her eyes in disbelieve, the stag came closer to her and licked her fingers, showing affection to her.

“I can not believe your master lied to me about you, you seem perfectly healthy to me,” she said as she patted the stag’s head adoringly. She saw the maids running towards her, “Are you okay miss?” they asked and Erica nodded, “Your master is such a liar, he told me his stag is not alright but look at it, it seems perfectly alright to me,” Erica said to them, they looked at each other in pure confusion, and back at her.

“Miss, we do not know anything about the stag, he looks after it personally himself. He does not let anyone else come near it, he is quite possessive about it,” One of the maids said and Erica nodded. As they were talking, they were joined by Dominic himself in the garden. The maids quickly went in the palace as they sensed his presence. Erica rolled her eyes at Dominic and continued patting the stag; the stag seemed to enjoy her touch.

Dominic whistled and the stag seem to snap into reality, it looked at Dominic and walked away from them, out of their sight into the bushes. Erica huffed in annoyance and made her way back into the palace, as she walked past Dominic, he got a hold of her wrist.

“Do not ever dare to touch him again,” he said and Erica looked at Dominic with so much anger, she felt heat radiating from her ears. “Or what?” she asked in anger, he was taken aback from her confidence and outspoken skill, she snatched her hand out of his grip and stomped her feet. She was too angry to stand near him, she walked back in he palace into her room and locked it from inside.

As she turned around, Dominic was standing behind her. She screamed and backed away until her back was touching the door. Dominic was smirking at her, "How the hell did you even came in here?" she asked as she tried calming h=down her breath and heart rate.

"This is my palace, I am a super natural being, and I have certain abilities." he said and walked aroung in the room with his hands behind his back. Erica looked at him with pure shock and her heart was still beating loudly.

'He is an arrogant idiot, i hate him,' Erica thought and Dominic roared loudly. "You just keep forgetting that I can hear your thougts, why?" he asked her as he continued to look at her with a smirk still plastered on his face, she wanted to slap it off of him.

"I have not forgotten anything, I know that you have the ability to read my mind, I thought that purposefully." she tried covering up for herself, it was true, she did actually forgot that he could read her mind. But she refuse to let him sense that at all. 

He chuckled and shrugged, "If that helps you sleep at niht sweetheart," he said and got up, "If you want to escape this place, you have to act nice with me, do not disrespect me, and I just might let you go," He said and Erica looked at him too stunned to speak. He was talking to her with so much authority she felt as she was burdenized with his kindness, she wanted to spat a sarcastic comment but he vanished with a blink of an eye leaving Erica surprised and shocked.