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“I don’t know,” he whispers in a voice that makes me want to disappear from this world. “I’m thinking about turning you into a slave. What say you?”
That would be the worst way to live. My world crumbles.
“Say that again,” a cold, threatening voice echoes through the night, and everyone suddenly turns dead silent.
Chills run down my spine as my gaze lands on the person I’m supposed to take care of.
Liam Carter.
The younger king of Eagle Wings enters the site. Everyone is on alert.
“Liam,” Kelvin’s eyes widen as he watches Liam walking toward him.
Liam is blind, but he has excellent orientation of where he’s heading, just by using his hearing and his other senses.
“I said…” Liam clenches his jaw. “Say that again,” he repeats in a menacing tone.
“Well,” Kelvin begins nonchalantly, but I can hear the slight shake in his voice, a sign that he’s intimidated but trying to hide it. “Since you practically announced that you wanted her gone, we were discussing how to get rid of her.”
I can feel the air getting tense, like everyone is holding their breath. The silence that follows after is so gripping, you would even hear it if a pin dropped.
“We figured out that it would be better if we could make her our slave.” As if he can sense that Liam is about to counter that, Kelvin quickly adds, “I mean, she could be useful. You don’t even have to feel her presence around. We will make sure that she won’t bother you.”
I never felt this low.
I feel so humiliated and degraded. Do they even see me as a person?
Liam opens his mouth and what comes out surprises us all, “And what made you think that you shouldn’t offer her to me first?” he asks in a cold voice.
Kelvin stares at him with a lost expression. “But you didn’t want her anywhere near you.”
Liam steps forward again, his aura giving off unmistakable authority. “Well, apparently I wouldn’t mind if she offered herself as my slave.”
“Come on, man. You told her to get lost,” a guy daringly shouts out loud, causing gasps and frantic whispers to fill the air.
Whoever just shouted doesn’t value his life because their king can punish him in an instant. Luckily, he’s hiding in the crowd.
Liam scoffs, facing the crowd. “Right. I wasn’t being completely fair to you. If you want her that much, we shall decide it in a fight. I’m your leader, and I’m now giving you equal opportunity.”
The crowd goes even louder, wondering what that means.
“Whoever wins the fight will get her,” Liam says.
My heart almost stops. It will be better if they bury me alive. They don’t even think of me as a human being. They’re stomping my dignity and feelings like I’m a piece of trash.
Does this always happen every time they find an intruder inside Eagle Wings?
Everyone goes silent after that challenge from Liam. No one moves. Kelvin doesn’t move either even though I can see him balling his fist.
“Anyone?” Liam asks.
Still, nobody dares fight him. Now, I see even more that everyone fears Liam when it comes to one-on-one fights with him. The blind man is their martial arts trainer, and until now, I don’t think that anyone here has ever beaten him.
“Well, it’s clear now,” Liam says. He turns his back to us to walk away. “Follow me, Emily.”
I freeze on the spot. I don’t know what to do. I might have escaped a devil, but I might just be walking right to another one.
I’m supposed to take care of Liam, but after what happened tonight, I don’t think that I can trust him anymore.
“Now,” he barks, making me jump in fear.
My mind is wondering if he’s going to hurt me. But maybe it’s better than staying here with these animals. Maybe I’ll still have a chance to escape Liam since he’s blind.
Whispers and murmurs are still echoing around me when I finally take a step. My legs are shaking, and I’m afraid that I’m going to collapse.
Yet, I’m trying my best to walk. I follow Liam back into the mansion that I will never be able to call home.
I feel her behind me when I step into my room.
“Close the door,” I command, and she does as I say.
What happened in the backyard angers me, but I must admit that it was my fault.
I still haven’t turned around. I expect her to talk first.
“What the hell is this?” her voice holds pain and anger, the tremor in it letting me know that she’s trying to hide her fear too.
I turn around, which makes her immediately step back. It’s bothering me that such a small movement from me causes her to draw back instantly. It’s obvious that she sees me as a threat.
“What is happening?” she demands. Her choked sob makes me imagine the tears running down her face.
I can’t blame her for crying. I heard the sound of water splashing when I found her in the backyard. They must have tried to drown her. Not to kill her, but to build the fear inside her.
“Your brother hired me as your caregiver,” she says, “but then you told me to get lost. Why didn’t you tell your brother about that, huh? And now you’re expecting me to be your slave?” The frustration is evident in her voice.
I don’t say anything yet. I know that she still has a lot to throw at me.
“This place is f****d up.” Her choice of words makes me off guard because it’s so different from the way she spoke to me for the first time in the basement.
That time, she sounded tentative, innocent. Right now, she sounds like a mess, like she’s falling apart.
Her ragged breathing lets me know that she is about to break down.
“This place–” Her voice is shaking uncontrollably. “What the hell is this place? I don’t want to be here. I don’t belong here. Please, just let me go.”
If she thinks that it will be that easy to just step out of this damn place, she’s mistaken.
“Unfortunately,” I say, and I do feel that word. I want her to leave this place too. “It’s not possible anymore.”
I step forward, and she retreats again. Her movement leads her to my bed. I follow her, causing her to be cornered against my bed.
“Once you step into this place, you can’t get out of it,” I say. “Either you’re a part of us or you’re dead. The only way for Eagle Wings members to leave this house is if they’re on a mission.”
“I don’t want to be a part of it,” she cries. “You guys are crazy. You’re all evil.”
Again, I can’t blame her either for feeling that way because of what they did to her in the fountain. But silently, I’m angry at my brother for choosing a girl like her to be here. She doesn’t belong in our world. She’s not suited to be with us. She’s pure.
“What do you guys do for a living? Killing people?” she asks, and I don’t even know whether she asks that out of genuine curiosity or sarcastically. She sounds both.
I tower over her. “We might.”
I can hear her faint gasp, and I can feel her trying to crawl away from me on the bed.
“What are you doing?” she stutters.
My blood starts to boil again. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but feeling her shaking due to her fear of me makes me angry.
I never thought that feeling someone shaking could annoy me this much. I felt people’s fear of me when they fought me, but it never bothered me like this.
I draw my face closer to her, causing her to yelp. “Are you f*****g crazy?” I hiss. “I’m not going to f*****g touch you.”
My words stop her movement, but then she cries softly. “I don’t want to be anybody’s slave. I’m not yours. I’m not a tool for you to use as you please, whether it be non-sexually or s*x.”
“Shut the f**k up,” I bite out. “Let me tell you something.”