Page 36 of Is It Wrong to Escape My Fate? (Dealing With Fate #1)

“We don’t know which detail might be helpful,” Uriel explained neutrally. “This is for your sake too.”

They were right, but there were just some things that didn’t need to be said …

I would try to confront this objectively. Time to prove I could be mature about this, too.

Squaring my shoulders, I exhaled. “Okay. Like I mentioned before, I woke up on the floor. Wrists and ankles tied up, gag in my mouth.”

“You were gagged, too?” Elias growled. There were curses all around.

It was sort of funny watching them get all worked up, despite the seriousness of the situation. “Hey. How am I supposed to tell the story if you’re going to react to every detail?”

“We’ll try to control ourselves,” Winston promised, but the way he gripped the armrests of his chair had me thinking otherwise.

Ignoring that, I continued. “It was late afternoon then. Since I was on the floor, my ear was pressed against it, and I figured I was in some kind of brothel based on the, err, sounds.”

“A fucking brothel?” Surprisingly, it was Vincent who reacted this time, standing up from his seat, while there were curses thrown around again. “What were they planning to do with you?”

Samuel looked at him. “What are you —” He paused, and then a dark look passed over his face. “Motherfuckers.”

“I’m going to kill them,” Theodore announced from the shadows.

“Not if I kill them first,” Claude beamed, and as if to prove his point, his Oracle-blessed sword was already in his hand.

“No killing just yet,” I frowned. “And what’s that about reacting to every detail, again?”

“I said we’ll try , princess. Please continue.” Winston’s face held a calm, serene look, and I would’ve believed it if not for the broken pieces of his armrests. Huh, so that was possible by pure, raw strength.

“I don’t know if they plan to do anything with me in that context,” I informed them before they get any worse ideas.

“Anyway. When I heard them coming in, I pretended to be unconscious. That’s when I figured there were three of them — their leader and two lackeys.

I also learned they were following some lord’s orders to kidnap me, and they shouldn't touch me.”

There was a collective release of relieved breaths. Oh boy.

“Then they figured, technically, looking isn’t banned, so they undressed me —”

Elias growled, or maybe roared, which had my heart rate climbing up to the highest peaks, remembering he harbored an actual fucking dragon inside of him. He must have seen the look of fear on my face as he sobered up quickly, hanging his head as he tried to calm himself down.

Holding a hand to my chest to still my heart, I realized everybody else stayed quiet, so I continued.

“It’s not as bad as you think. They just lifted my skirt up, so my panties showed, and the leader guy pulled down the neckline of my dress, so my breasts popped out.

” I did an imitation of the actions without revealing anything.

“Bea …” It was Derrick who called me, holding my hand. “Don’t downplay it. What happened was horrible.”

“Listen.” I made sure everyone could see or hear me. “Nudity is not a big deal to me. It was bad for sure, but not as bad. What was really bad was when the leader guy made the two others leave the room so he could fondle me, clearly breaking their orders.”

“Fuck!” Amos suddenly yelled, kicking his chair in anger.

Winston stood up from his half-broken armchair and walked to a window, Elias cried again, my knights shook behind me, Derrick held tighter, Samuel broke his wineglass, Vincent covered his face with both hands, Uriel sat unmoving and expressionless, Claude stabbed his sword at the broken chair.

I couldn’t even see where Theodore disappeared into the shadows.

I formed a fist with my free hand. “I knocked him out, so don’t worry. Broke his nose and all.”

“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Elias wailed, standing up from his chair to kneel at my feet. “I am so sorry, Ela. Forgive me. Please.”

I wiped away his tears. “It’s nobody’s fault except those kidnappers’ and the Lord who gave them orders. We’ll make them pay, I promise.”

Glancing around, I pushed on with the retelling. “The other two bastards came in to see what happened to their boss, but I knocked them out, too. I got a knife from one of them to cut myself loose.”

To further keep their minds occupied, I pulled out the knife from my pocket, surprising them as I placed it on a nearby table. “Is it possible to trace the knife’s owner?” I directed the question at Uriel since he seemed the most knowledgeable among us with magic.

“If magic was already embedded in it, like an enchantment, it might be possible,” he answered, unusually stiff, like he didn’t want to move at all.

“You had that dangerous weapon in your skirt this entire time,” Samuel pointed out, grimacing. “It’s official — we all absolutely suck as Bea’s keepers.”

Keeper. What a funny word. Strangely versatile, depending on how you use it. I decided not to comment on it.

While the rest of them were still seething, in various stages of anger or maybe even grief, I concluded the story. “I escaped after locking them inside the room. The brothel’s name is The Maiden Fair. I doubt they’re still there though.”

“No, we can start there,” Winston exclaimed, turning around from the window. “Based on the events, the Lord is likely a student too. They knew exactly when to attack you, so he must have passed the information to your kidnappers.” He turned to the others. “We have a few suspects on our list.”

“But how can you investigate without confronting the suspects?” I had thought the Prince wanted to keep this under wraps for now.

Claude walked over to my other side, stroking a hand on my hair. “Let us worry about that, baby girl. You’ve already been through enough. Anyone who touches you without your permission will die. To be honest, it’s like they’re defying the Royal Crown. How stupid is that?”

“Huh? Why?”

He beamed, but unlike Winston, he didn’t try to hide his ire through sweet smiles; Claude was genuinely happy at the thought of destroying someone.

For my sake. I didn’t know whether I should be flattered or terrified.

“Not only had they committed a crime at the Magical Academy, which is governed by Win, they had kidnapped the Caregiver of the Champions. They must think we were joking.”

“There’s gossip circulating the school that Bea’s your maid, after all,” Vincent muttered as he brushed a hand through his bright blue hair. “It's likely they think her kidnapping won’t be a big deal. Maybe even doing the Champions a favor if they think you’re making fun of her.”

Winston huffed before plastering on his usual angelic smile. “That can be easily rectified.”

I knew exactly what he meant. Of course I was against it.

“No, you will not,” I gasped. “You’re not going to make a Royal Decree out of it!”

Once again, I was painfully reminded that I shouldn’t be mixing with this company. I had already caught the attention of too many men, and adding more eyes on me would severely impact my escape plan.

The escape plan that was slowly disintegrating before my eyes.

Winston, surprisingly, nodded. “I defer to you, princess. But you can’t expect us not to do anything about it unofficially.”

And then Theodore stepped out of the shadows, covered in copious amounts of blood, holding a severed hand.

Before this past a-little-over-a-month I had been living in this universe, I was a fast-food worker, making ends meet, about to attend state university, with too many ex-boyfriends.

The worst type of violence I had experienced was a beat down.

There was blood, sure. If it were in a fighting ring, it was exciting in a sick kind of way.

Never severed limbs.

Then it all dawned on me when the rest of the men glanced at him without a huge amount of revulsion — this was normal .

We lived in a world where monster attacks were not uncommon, where the Demon Lord terrorized the northern territories, where there was an ongoing, Everlasting War, where students like me were expected to participate.

My experience for the past month had been extremely sanitized.

“Not so tough missing a hand,” Theodore mumbled, tossing the thing in the middle of the room. It landed in a pitiful heap on the stone flooring.

“A little decorum, please?” Samuel quipped.

“W-what the fuck is that?” I couldn’t help it; I stuttered.

Theodore froze for a second before his face fell. He already looked gloomy on a normal day, so this expression was something else. “Sorry you had to see that. I forgot you haven’t been through any combat yet …” He pointed at the thing. “My gift to you, wife.”

Questions of “Wife?” echoed throughout the room as he began pulling off his blood-soaked gloves, ignoring them.

“Whose hand is that?” I ignored them too.

“The bastard who touched you,” Theodore simply answered, settling on an empty wooden chair, staining it with the blood that wasn’t his.

I felt a chill, glancing at the thing again before focusing on him. “But how do you know you had the right bastard?”

“Nothing a little coin and torture doesn’t fix,” he mumbled. He gestured to the hand, looking at the others. “That one is nasty. Has a Unique that can make someone fall asleep through skin contact. No wonder he had a kidnapping business.”

The information made my blood run colder.

“But how? How did you know where to go? How did you get there so fast?” There was a point he had disappeared from my sight, but even then, that wasn’t long ago for him to travel across the city. And if he had left then, he wouldn’t have heard the additional details of the kidnapping.

“Uriel had been feeding me information,” he murmured, and I cast my look at Uriel, who still had an impassive expression. Was that why he looked like that? He was communicating telepathically with Theodore the entire time the man wasn’t here, so his attention was split.

When I turned my focus back to Theodore, he was giving an odd look at Winston.

I caught the slightest of nods from the Prince before Theodore faced me.

“Bea, since we’re all tied together now, you must know that I’m an assassin for the Prince.

Nobody knows this, not even the school staff.

” He glanced around. “And now, everyone here. Don’t think I have to say to keep this to yourselves. ”

An assassin. Not a librarian?

He had a small smirk. “Librarian is my official job. Dare I say I’m pretty good at it, too.”

Not if he spent half the time watching me read.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re an assassin. Cool.” Amos waved him off before exclaiming, “What do you mean, ‘wife’?”

“We’re not married,” I blurted. “Not even engaged.”

“Not yet,” Theodore corrected me. “Not my choice, nor yours, if my duke father has anything to say about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” I hedged, glancing at all of them.

“We have so many current problems that I’m having trouble keeping them straight in my head.

And we have school tomorrow — today! I haven’t eaten since breakfast, but seeing that hand is making my stomach turn, anyway.

” I faced Derrick. “Can you reattach a severed limb?”

He nodded, looking at the thing. “If it’s in good condition, it is possible with Recovery magic. It will leave a scar, though. Evidence of magic use.”

Good information to know for the future.

“I’m keeping him alive since he hasn’t spilled a name yet,” Theodore supplied as he bagged the limb in a satchel, leaving a puddle of blood. “Maybe the promise of reattachment will convince him. Great thinking, my lovely wife.”

“Stop calling her your wife,” Claude complained.

Theodore scoffed. “I will if you stop calling her ‘baby girl’.”

“But she’s my baby girl!”

“Precisely.” Theodore tied the satchel close. “All of you should thank me that I’m not claiming Bea only for myself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not even yours in the first place.”

“Not yet.” Theodore turned to Winston. “I delivered the bastard in the dark place. Up for some interrogation?”

Winston studied me instead of answering him. “Bea needs to rest. It’s very late. Have a big breakfast when you wake up. The healing magic should be curbing your hunger right now.”

“Recovery magic has a side-effect of removing one’s hunger for some time,” Derrick explained, as he brushed along my wrists, the rope burns long gone because of magic.

“Useful in dire situations, but understand you’d still need to eat since your body needs actual nutrition to recover energy and mana. ”

“All of you are welcome to stay the night,” Winston announced, arms wide open. “Plenty of available rooms. For the students, I’ll arrange something with the administration about your classes, and as for the staff … tough luck.”

Uriel was unamused. “This isn’t my first time staying up. What’s important is Bea’s condition. She was kidnapped on our watch. It’s unthinkable.”

“Security will definitely have a word with me. Samuel, if it is possible, come along with me when I have a chat with them.”

“I’m heading to bed now,” I proclaimed, standing up from my seat. “My knights will stay with me in my room. I’ll feel more comfortable with them around.” I turned and found my knights gazing at me with reverence.

Winston stayed quiet for a while until he conceded. “A reasonable request. Watch over her.” He directed the last one to Robin and Reuben, who had a hardened look on their faces as they nodded.

When Elias stood up next to me, I whispered, “Elias?” I hoped I didn’t need to add more words to that question, that he understood my intent.

But he shook his head. “I need to be outside right now. I’m sorry, Ela.

” He glanced at my knights and gave them an approving nod, too.

Ah. He figured it out. And at the same time, I learned something new about him — was it his dragon urging him out?

It made sense that the wilder half of his soul would crave to be in nature.

As the other men around me made sleeping arrangements with the Prince, my eyes strayed towards Uriel, and his complete attention was on our small group.

Was he reading their minds? Did he figure out my relationship to them? If he did, he remained silent about it, although it was nerve-wracking.

When he realized I was watching him, he turned his head away, hands gripping his thighs.

I left the parlor, followed by my knights, leaving the rest of the men behind.

This day had gone on for far too long and completely messed up my schedule.

Too many things had surfaced that I couldn’t even begin processing them in my head.

That Lord, whoever he was, would definitely pay for delaying my research.

I was just glad my distraction worked, that they didn’t ask for specifics on how I escaped, because I wouldn’t be able to explain it without making things worse.