Chapter 4

Jasmine.

I looked outside the window and found the sun setting deep under the clouds of the west, the orange hue it left in the progress soon disappeared. The calm nature of nature itself, protruding as the night advanced.

I sat on the edge of the window, admiring the soft winds that caressed my face every once and then. Suddenly my eyes fell on a scene outside the window, my brows rose in surprise. Definitely, something I hadn't expected was to see the three brothers outside the palace.

King Lucien rode the horse back into a pathway, whilst King Micheal and Archer leaned against the limo. Even though their backs were facing me, within these few days I had excellently learned to recognize them just by a simple instinct. Though it was weird I didn't really pay attention to my thoughts.

It was a while before King Archer shifted to sideway and followed by him stood King Micheal, something about the faint shimmer in their skin caused my heart to skip a beat. I couldn't tear my eyes away from any of them. 

They had smiles on their faces as they seemed to talk, they looked unreal. The smile, the flight wind making their hair bounce, everything about them entranced me that I even forgot to breathe that moment.

It felt wrong, extremely wrong to be secretly looking at them. The last thing I had thought of doing after coming to this place was to do something this inappropriate such as what I'd found myself doing now. But I couldn't stop, as my gaze was glued on them in a never receding way. The only thing that made me tear my gaze was the knock on my door.

For some reason I found myself cursing under my breath before I proceeded to the door, the annoyance that'd seeped inside was surprisingly new but soon as I opened the door all my annoyance flew out of the window and the smile stretched on my lips.

"Martha," I quickly engulfed her in a hug.

Chuckling she responded to me and patted my head, "You always get excited like a child,"

"So now you're going to call me child?" I frowned, "Despite being in the palace you barely come to meet mean and now you'll call me a child for getting excited huh?"

"Okay, okay...I'm sorry," She raised her hands in surrender, "Now, will you let me get inside or keep me standing here for all day long?"

Rolling my eyes I moved to the side to give her some space to slide in.

She sat on the bed and motioned me to sit beside her which I did without any argument.

"So, how do you feel about everything so far? Are you getting used to the Job and the environment?" She smiled at me probably knowing my answer, if I had been uncomfortable I would have left the work the very first day without caring about the consequences. I could be very unreasonable sometimes.

"Yeah so far everything's good, I'm still getting used to the Kings' strange behaviors that often emerge," Upon my question, a slight crease appeared between her eyebrows perhaps due to confusion.

"Strange behavior?" she repeated as though as wanted me to explain what I'd meant by that specific term.

I sighed rested my back against the headboard,"Yeah, they act pretty strange sometimes," I began,"You know the last time, King Micheal asked me the strangest question ever possible," a laugh tore from my throat upon the remembrance of that event.

"What question?" The seriousness in her voice was something I hadn't expected but I continued anyway.

"He asked me if I was a human or not," I burst into a fit of laughter," Like imagine being asked such a question in the middle of your duty by the ruler of the empire, the people who can tell someone's identity by only their smell asking you if you are actually a human,"

Martha's expression was unbearable, I couldn't define that by any means. If only, I only noticed the slight unease that'd appeared in her movements. Her legs bobbed up and down had her hand tapped on the bed continuously almost as if my words had caused something very stressful to flow in her mind.

Her unexpected reaction caused my laughter to come to a halt.

"Martha, what's wrong?" I questioned.

My question seemed to break her off from whichever daze she was and her face that'd got fixated on the floor over the period now settled at my face.

"Uh, nothing. It's actually quite hilarious that he asked you that question," She laughed it off but there was less humor and more nervousness that emitted from her small attempt.

"Martha...." I began but she abruptly stood up probably for some reason I was unaware of.

"Jasmine sweetheart, I've got some work to do," She spoke and leaned in to place a kiss on my forehead, "I'll come back later, okay?"

"Uh-Okay," I hesitantly nodded and put on a smile on my face, "See you,"

With giving me one last smile, she walked out of the room leaving me in a chaos of thoughts.

There was something extremely unusual about her behavior today, the mention of that one single event had prompted it and I could either ignore this entire fact or just ask her which she certainly didn't want to disclose--That's what I could come up with judging by her reaction and the way she hurried out of the room.

There could be many reasons behind her reaction, maybe she knows something I don't know, or she doesn't want me to. And Perhaps nothing of it is true, and I am just overthinking?

Never in my whole life, I had seen Martha reacting this way, there was something awkwardly disturbing about the way her restlessness reflected. What could make her react this way? The mention of that incident couldn't be sufficient enough because there was nothing unusual in it other than King's Micheal's weird thought process.

But again, as much as they preferred silence why would any of them even bother to ask something so ridiculous. Somehow Martha's reaction has made me notice more details of that incident and now it was really bothersome. 

The more I thought about it the more perplexing everything seems to get. Not deciding to let myself stress over something that might not even be real and turn out to be my stupid imagination, I heaved out a huff and went to turn off the lamp even though I knew sleep was no way near me so whereas the night hadn't even shown its appearance.

Maybe my prior task could help me pass my boredom, with that small hope rising I went closer to the window. A smile stretched upon my lips, finding them still standing there.

I glanced at my canvas and then at the godly sculptured males, the paintbrushes and the paints hunched together in a bucket caught my sight. The absurd idea crossed my mind and surprisingly I found myself grinning and hurrying to gather my painting equipment.

"Paint a picture, it lasts longer," I chuckled to myself and set the canvas on the board.

But before I could even let the first stroke of the paint on the white surface, my eyes glanced back at the window, and unfortunately, none of the Kings were there anymore. I watched as they walked back into the castle, slowly.

The amount of disappointment I felt when they were out of my sight couldn't be described in words. The sigh fell off my lips that could give away only a bit of it. I let the brush drop back into the bucket.

"Notorious Vampires," I muttered under my breath, "Why the fuck do they need to go back just when I was about to start the painting?!"

I threw myself on the bed and looked at the plain white ceiling. I might have failed today but tomorrow I'd note every inch of their facial details so that I could paint them without them needing to be in front of me.

It was stupid but I was going to do it anyway.