Demian had been watching me in an odd way. He usually looked at me a lot. But now, he was blatantly staring at me regardless of the place we were in.“Who do you think it is?” I asked, not for the first time. “Is it Luke? But I don’t understand why he would do that. He might want to… you know, he might be attracted to my body, but I don’t see the point of his sending someone to kill me.”“I don’t know anything, Sully. I’m looking into it,” Demian said. He said the same thing every time I asked. It was getting tiresome. He was acting differently. I could barely recognize my husband.“What’s wrong?” I asked, placing my hand on his arm. His arm was strong and hard. “Did something happen?”He shook his head. “Nothing. I just have a lot of things on my mind.”I could not ask him what they were since he looked like he did not want to share.I lay my head on his lap. His whole body was like it was made with steel. It was not comfortable to lay on his lap, but I was in peace when I did it.“T
As usual, Theodore and I were at the library. Instead of his chamber, we spent our time at the library, reading books. Sometimes we both would read different books, sometimes he would listen and I read. I liked to read in silence, but Theodore sometimes insisted that I read to him. I did not want to disappoint him since he came to be library with me. I did not want to come to the library alone.In the afternoon most days, I would meet Rose. Rose said everything was going according to plan. She did not reveal the entire plan to me, although she acted like she did.“First, you need to gain the support of the wives,” Rose told me. “Dela and my mother already like you. Spend time with Clarissa. They live in three different part of the residence. In that way, no one will suspect anything if you go to that parts of the house.”She had a point. I had invited Clarissa to have tea with me and she accepted. I would have tea with her the next day. To be honest, I was rather nervous. How would we
The tea was nice. Not too sweet. Clarissa did not like sweet things, Rose told me. So, I had the maids prepare salty cookies and tea. Clarissa arrived just in time. She nodded at me when she arrived.Rose told me to treat Clarissa like I would treat a normal person, so that was what I tried to do.“I hope you are doing well, Lady Clarissa,” I said as I gave a small bow. It was a sign of respect to bow to elders.She nodded.Even at dinner tables, she only drank blood, wine and tea with a metal straw through a small gap between her lips. She drank tea the same way with me. I tried not to stare too hard. That would seem rude.I told her about my life with Demian. She nodded along, rather kindly. She communicated with me in sign language. Rose had not told me that she knew sign language. As it turned out, I knew sign language as well. I learned it at the academy.“You look like your mother,” she said in sign language.“I do,” I said. I tried to do sign language as well, but Clarissa said
My arms shook, the books almost falling down the stairs. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. It would be a disaster if I dropped the holy books.My head had not been working straight since coming back from home. Father showed me and other family members another package he received from House Silverclaw. It contained a light brown finger- a man’s middle finger. Jace’s finger.Mother had wailed over it while Father cursed House Silverclaw and every member of the family. I had checked the finger. I checked every part of it.“It has a message,” I said, holding the severed finger in my hand.“What?” Father walked over to where I was sitting. He bent over my shoulder to take a look.“Inside the finger. There is something written on the other side of the skin,” I said. “Look, you can see from the bottom here. It’s not a real finger.”Father took it from me. Indeed, there was a message engraved inside.“Third moon, it says,” Father said.“Tonight is a full moon,” I said. We prayed all n
Rose helped me send the message. On the third moon, we would send Jace back. I would go later.“I can’t go before Demian goes somewhere far,” I said. “He keeps an eye on me all the time. He knows about everywhere I go and everything I do. Sometimes he can tell word for word of the conversations I had with other people.”“Does he not have work? He keeps giving Father the reports. How does he do that?” Rose asked.I shook my head. “I don’t know.”“Is he watching us right now?” Rose looked around.“No. He is in our chamber, taking a bath,” I said. “It is more dangerous when he says he is out. Because those times, I never know when he is watching me.”“Are you sure he is not watching us right now?”“He is not,” I said, although it felt wrong somehow to be so sure about it. Because, what if he was watching us? Demian could be anywhere. He could walk alongside you without you knowing anything about it. You could not hear him. Demian walked silently. Sometimes it was like he did not even bre
Sully brushed her fingers on the wound and took them back just as quickly.“Does it hurt a lot?” she asked.To be honest, it did not hurt much. It was a small wound. But according to Sully, even a scratch mattered.“It can lead to infection if left untreated. A wound might be small, but you should treat it just the same way you would treat a serious wound,” she said knowingly. “I could make you a healing potion if I had the ingredients at hand.”“There is ointment in my chamber, Sully.”I told her where it was. While she went to get it, I relaxed in the hot water. The water was hotter than I preferred. Sully said it was perfect. I should have realized by now that the water she called perfect was scalding hot.Sully had the maids prepare the bath for herself. But when I came with a small injury from a knife on my arm, Sully told me to get in the tub instead.After brining the ointment, she first cleaned the wound with practiced hands. She dried the area, put a little ointment on it and
Demian lay me down on the bed, still wet from the bath. The soft bedding stuck to my wet skin.Demian gazed down at me, his eyes burning with desire. He pried my legs apart. I felt a little shy as he was watching me so intently. It was not like it was the first time he did that. Sometimes he would look at me in a way that made me feel naked even if I was not.I shuddered when his hand touched me down there between my legs. His fingers were cold now. As he inserted them inside me, I let out a moan. Those moans came out involuntarily. I could not help voicing my pleasure and the need of more pleasure.Demian took out his fingers and licked them, his eyes fixed on mine. I felt my whole face burn up.He bent down and put his face between my legs. I knew what would happen, yet I called out his name when his hot tongue touched me. He moved his tongue slowly, teasing the folds before putting it inside.Before long, I cried out, clutching the sheet.***As we lay down under the covers, Demian
The honor of Jade Star- that was what I was preparing to rely on. When I would leave House Star, I would need a place to live for a while. I had to make sure I could escape properly. If Jade Star had the kind of honor my mother and Sully said he had, he would let me stay because I was his blood too. He loved his sister. He must let me stay for the sake of the love he bore for his sister.I was more worried about Sully. She did not have honor, it was obvious. She even admitted it. Would she betray me after I helped her escape? Not likely, but not unlikely either.Ruben said Sully seemed like a nice lady. She seemed that way to me as well. I had to believe that she at least would not betray my trust. She was my only hope.“When she talked to me, she had a nice voice. People with nice voice are mostly nice people,” Ruben told me.I could not share that kind of sentiment with Ruben, but probably he was right about Sully. She was a Star deep down. Stars did not betray others easily. They w
The ship reached our kingdom once again. Demian and I got down the ship with our belongings, which were not too many things.First of all, we went to an inn to eat something. I was hungry. Even though the ship was luxurious, the food had not been that good. Besides, I could barely eat anything with the constant movement of the ship.We took our horses and gave them to the son of the innkeeper who would feed the horses and brush them.We were served a beef stew with quite a lot of beef in it and bread to soak it up with. The bread was not stale, fortunately. Demian and I ate slowly, enjoying each bite.After we were done eating, Demian paid the innkeeper while I waited outside.Someone touched my shoulder and I almost screamed.“Selina!” Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around my sister, hugging her tightly. It had been so long since I had last seen her.She was wearing the usual priestess’s attire like she always did since the moment she began devoting her life to God. When we pull
All day long, Mother sat on her balcony and watched ships come and go. I sometimes urged her to take a walk with me in the garden, or down the streets, but she never took me up on my offers. She would smile and say that she was fine where she was.I brought a doctor to take a look at her. The doctor said that Mother should not remain idle all the time. It was making her body weak. She needed to walk at least for an hour each day.Mother did not listen to the doctor, or to me, or to anyone.Jace and I arrived two days ago. These two days, all she did was sit by the window and watch the ships like a little child who was fascinated by it.“My daughter will return in one of those ships,” Mother would say to everyone who went near her.“Sully is not here, Mother. She will not come back,” Jace said many times. We believed that Sully had settled her life somewhere far away and in a quiet place and was never going to come back. It was better that way as long as she was happy wherever she was.
Hearing about Sully’s condition and what Father did to her made me disgusted. At that moment, I hated Father more than I ever hated anyone before. And I pitied my sister. I was worried about her.I knew that Father would be angry about Sully’s lost maidenhood. But I never thought he would take it that far. I never could imagine that he could hurt his own daughter like that.‘You knew he hurt Millie. But you never did anything. You knew about it all. You saw how he slapped her, hit her with a cane and sometimes whipped her. You saw it all, but you acted like a blind man. You acted like you did not see anything. You pretended like you did not know anything just to avoid any kind of confrontation or responsibility,’ a voice inside my head said.But then again, Millie was an illegitimate daughter unlike Sully.‘There is no difference. You know it very well.’I tried to shake the voice out of my head.“Do you think she truly went to another kingdom like Father thinks she did?” Selina asked
This ship was better than the one I took with Leo and Rose before. This one looked much luxurious. The cabin we got was quite big. The bed was meant for two and the sheet and covers were clean.Demian talked to the captain while I looked around our cabin. At least, I did not have to worry about catching skin diseases here, sleeping under the covers.I was truly going back with Demian. There was no turning back now. I had chosen this.Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if I did not want to go back with Demian. Would he have forced me to come with him?I did not know. I did not want to know the answer, lest it should make feel bad. Besides, I knew what kind of person Demian was. He might be better than Alexander, but in the end, they were similar in many ways. I could not expect him to change himself, not after the way he had to grow up. He had to kill his own twin brother. That kind of thing was bound to mess up someone’s conscience. It was a surprise that Demian had not tur
It was raining a bit. Demian brought us two horses which would take us to the port. We were to take a ship back to our kingdom. It would take a long time, but that was okay.The two horses were huge and black. They were not just like big horses. They were monstrous in size and look.“Where did you get them?” I asked.“They look like you brought them from hell,” Lloid said, who was a moderately religious person.“This one is mine,” Demian said, patting the one which was bigger than the other. “I brought him with me.”“On a ship?” I asked.“He did not like it, but that was the only way. I like this horse,” Demian said. Only Demian would bring a horse all the way from another kingdom.“What’s his name?” I asked.“Thunder,” Demian answered.“That’s majestic. He looks majestic,” I murmured. Indeed, Thunder looked like a horse that carried a conqueror on her back.Demian and I started our journey in the afternoon. We did not want anyone to see us, so we waited until it got dark. The port wa
I made a potion for me to prevent pregnancy. Instead of relying on others, I decided to make one for me.Leo said he would stay here a while more. Demian and I would leave in three days.Demian was painting something. He had painted a lot in the past few days. He had once painted bruises on my skin which looked oddly real. I still could not forget standing in front of the mirror with those fake bruises all over my body. But now, my father gave me some real bruises.I shook my head. I had promised not to think about that. Most of the time, I pretended like everything was fine and that I was not in mental and physical pain most of the time. However, it never was possible to forget. I kept remembering and reliving that day all over again.I hated the kind of effect my father’s action had on me. I could not stop thinking about it. Whenever I closed my eyes, I kept seeing him right in front him, hurting me, beating me, whipping me. And I cried and begged, but he did not stop. No matter how
Mother sat at the bench with her hands clasped together on her lap. Her eyes were closed and her brows knitted together, as if in pain. Someone might think that she was asleep and was having a nightmare.I touched her on the shoulder. “Mother?” I called.She opened her eyes, those red ruby eyes that she passed on to Sully and me. When I was a child, I read in a children’s book that demons had red eyes. Since then, I had been afraid to look into the mirror. I cried about it and asked my nanny if I was a demon, who said that children’s book sometimes lied to make children afraid.I did not believe her. I went to Mother and asked her about it, who said that it was better to be a demon than a god who did not listen to the prayers of the devoted ones. It seemed like she had been angry at God to say something like that.Later, Sully told me that it was because she was angry at Father because Father kept betraying his vows that he took during their wedding.“You look pale, Mother,” I said. “
“I have to tell you something.” I automatically expected the worse when Sully said this the moment I woke up and walked into the kitchen. She had cooked beef porridge and prepared orange juice. I had to admit that she had gotten very good at cooking a few dishes.I rubbed my eyes. I still was sleepy. I could not understand why I suddenly was so sleepy. I had not been like this in a long time.Lloid was still sleeping. I poked his back a few times with my finger but he did not even move. It was like he was dead, so I checked his pulse. He was alive. Just asleep.I turned my attention back to Sully, who looked like she did something she was ashamed of. It was not like Sully. She usually was never ashamed of anything she did. She rarely felt guilty about something. She always said that she never regretted a single decision she made.“Is something wrong?” I asked. My head felt numb. It was like I could not think straight. For this reason, I never took sleeping potion no matter how hard it
I opened the door of my room and tiptoed to Leo and Lloid’s room. I knocked once, but nothing. Both Lloid and Leo woke up at the slightest noise. I could wake up at the slightest noise as well, but since my body was weak, I could not do so anymore. I slept deeply. Otherwise, how did I not hear when Demian came in?“They will not wake up,” Demian whispered into my ear. I almost jumped.I was a little sore between the legs, so walking straight was difficult. It was not like Demian had been rough like he was all the time. In fact, he had been gentle and passionate. Yet, I was in a little pain. I did not tell Demian that since I had been the one who insisted on doing it.“Did you hurt them?” I asked.“Of course not. You care about them,” he said. “They are just sleeping. I injected them with sleeping potion. They will be fine in the morning.”“How?”“I could not get through the window without waking anyone since you locked all of them. So, I decided to get through the front door. I knocke