Page 14 of The Princess’s Pet (Soul Match #1)

The Princess took great care marking me before we left for classes. She was gentle, careful of her bite marks, which from their placement ached when I turned my head, and she took her time asking mirthfully, “Are you satisfied with my work this morning, pet?” When she had completed her task.

“Very, Ma’am, well done,” I replied and earned a quick swat to my backside, resulting in my playful giggle.

It was only once we arrived at the main school building did I realise that something was different. The main entrance was always busy, but it was more crowded today with an air of excitement and the Princess did not direct me towards my class. She led me, her arm around my shoulder, to a large assembly hall, where it seemed all the other servants in the school were gathered.

“Today the servants will prepare the school buildings and campus for the Spring Festival. Unfortunately, I still have class,” she told me. “I’ll find you around lunch and we will eat together,” she added before pulling me close by my blazer her head dipping, and more than simply scenting me she nipped at her bite mark. It was a domineering, possessive, and very public display among many other servants. The way I breathed in, releasing the smallest of surprised moans I was sure was not unnoticed. “Be good,” she commanded as she grinned down at me before she released my blazer and left me standing there, red-faced and trying not to make direct eye contact with any of the faces turned my way.

“Percy!” I turned to see Dylan making his way past other servants. Ana was closely behind, apologising as Dylan moved and bumped into and knocked others around him. He was like an overly excited puppy making his way toward me.

He swung his arm carelessly around my shoulder in greeting and I winced in pain as his arm landed heavily against a bite. He pulled away from me.

“Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry Percy I didn’t mean,” he paused his eyes zeroing in on my neck. “What the fuck Percy!” he exclaimed angrily his hand reaching out towards me, to push my hair away. I ducked away from his hand. “What has that bitch done to you?” he practically yelled, gathering more attention than he already had. And I felt flustered and angered by how he had charged in throwing himself around and now was loudly making a scene.

“Dylan, calm down!” Ana demanded as she reached us.

“Don’t speak about her that way!” I said angrily. “She hasn’t done anything,” I defended the Princess.

“Like fuck she hasn’t done anything Percy! Your neck looks like she mauled you!” he shouted angrily back.

“That’s enough Dylan,” Ana said more calmly grabbing hold of Dylan’s arm and pulling him back as he tried to step forward and look at my neck again.

“Ana, this isn’t okay, that bitch can’t attack Percy and leave her neck like a pincushion. Personal servant or not. It’s not okay!”

“She didn’t attack me!” I answered back feeling a protectiveness for the Princess bubble up and fuel my anger further .

“Don’t defend that monster Percy, you don’t have to,” he replied still angry but had stopped trying to reach out to me.

“She’s not a monster! I asked her to mark me!” I told him. My anger made me forget that there were many people to hear my outburst.

“What the fuck Percy,” he responded yelling. “What’s wrong with you!”

“Enough Dylan!” Ana commanded her hand reaching out to touch Dylan’s face and I saw as her magic worked passing over his skin in veins of red. Dylan immediately calmed and while the anger in his outraged stare did not die, his chest was no longer heaving.

“What’d you do witch?” I turned to see Edward close and walking closer with his gaze narrowed towards Ana. Instinctively I moved in front of my friend at the menace in Edward’s stare.

“I calmed his blood, lowered his heart rate,” Ana explained.

“Back off Edward,” I told him and he looked at me, I watched as he took a deep breath and gritted his teeth.

“We prepare for the Spring Festival together with our houses,” he told me, his face became neutral masking whatever he felt, and that apprehensive feeling he gave me the previous time we had interacted returned.

I turned back to Ana and Dylan. Dylan looked at me as if I had betrayed him in some way. Ana smiled apologetically.

“We do have to work with our houses,” she told me. “Don’t worry about this Percy.” She pointed between Dylan and me. “Dylan is protective of his friends.” The boy in question looked away from me as if ashamed and allowed Ana to lead him back through the crowd .

“This way please, each house has been given its schedule of tasks,” Edward spoke after a moment, and I followed him through the crowd to where I recognised Justin, Jasper, and Evie but there were more Borealis servants than I was familiar with. On my arrival, there was an air of tension and I felt very much a spectacle of curiosity, only politeness holding back blatant staring.

“We will be decorating the entrance foyer and great hall.” A young woman I didn’t know began speaking to the group of about a dozen Borealis servant students. “I think we’ll get things done faster if we split up into two groups.” She looked around the faces for objections or agreement and when bored indifference met her, she huffed and began to split us up.

“Justin, Paul, Sarah, Evie, and Percy.” She knew my name; “you will be with me, here in the great hall.” She turned to the others, “The rest of you will decorate the foyer. You will be helped by house Vouna and Obscurum. Edward will be your leader today as I trust him to aim for perfection in the name of House Borealis.”

No one seemed to argue with her, although it was obvious from some of the faces made that not everyone was happy with Edward overseeing the group. She turned back to those of us remaining in the great hall. “We will be working with house Viridis and Syngeneia.”

The great hall began to empty as groups of servants left to attend to their tasks.

“Excuse me.” I turned to the woman giving out orders who looked a little older than me. “We’ve not been introduced. I’m the head servant of Borealis, if you lived in the servant residence halls we would have met by now. I’m Leilani.” And it felt like she already didn’t like me. “I’m not a student I’m a servant coordinator, I’m who you come to if you have a problem with your classes, lecturers, fellow students. It’s my job to help make your time here at Sanguis Academy productive and enjoyable,” she explained .

“It’s nice to meet you, Leilani,” I replied. And she smiled with too many teeth on show.

Eventually, it was only me, the other Borealis servants, and I was surprised to find that Viridis and Syngeneia were made up solely of Ana, Dylan, and Harris.

Our two groups met at the top of the great hall where supplies were waiting for us. I immediately went to Ana’s side. Dylan looked away and occupied himself with talking to Harris.

“Is Dylan very upset with me?” I asked Ana.

“I think he’s more upset with himself. He almost lost control,” Ana whispered back. “He might have a hard time seeing the Princess’s marks on you, but he’ll just have to get over it,” she added.

I smiled warmly at Ana, she was becoming fast one of my favourite people.

“It looks like we’ve got a lot of floral decorations and lights to hang,” Leilani began. She split us up into teams of two, with a ladder to each set. I stuck to Ana like glue, not particularly liking the looks any of the others gave me. Dylan wouldn’t look at me and Harris was obviously confused having missed the show and the other Borealis student servants just didn’t seem to like me much, if the side-eye directed my way was anything to go by. Evie's outright glare was expected.

“I’ll hold the ladder if you think you could reach better,” I told Ana as we decided the best way to hang the thousands of fairy lights we had. We had already hung a couple of dozen baskets of wild, colourful spring flowers around the room and now we were on to the next task, while others focused on decorating windows and entrances and along the edges of the room. Ana was slightly taller than me, not by much at all, and even on the top rung of the ladder, which was more than a little nerve-wracking, I couldn’t reach the ceiling .

“Okay, but seriously Percy, hold the ladder steady, I’m not ready to die yet,” she agreed.

“I will hold onto it with my life,” I told her just as seriously.

“You better, if I fall to my death, I’m coming back to haunt you,” she promised as she ascended the ladder with a heavy bundle of lights over her shoulder.

I was watching Ana climb the tall ladders and it did seem a bit too dangerous, scaffolding would have been better. The Academy didn’t seem to care that much when it came to the safety of its students, or maybe it just didn’t care about the safety of its servant students.

Paying so much attention to holding the ladder, I didn’t see or anticipate before Evie shoulder-checked me as she walked past. The ladder wobbled precariously, the lights falling heavily and loudly to the floor as Ana clung to the ladders and shrieked in fear.

“Oops,” Evie said turning to laugh.

Ana quickly descended the rungs of the ladder and when I was sure she wasn’t hurt, I turned and marched to Evie pushing the girl hard from behind. She stumbled forward catching her balance and spun on me. “You could have caused her to fall!” I yelled completely unimpressed and livid.

Her face twisted in anger and she surged forward knocking me to the ground landing on top of me. “Just because you’re the Princess’s whore doesn’t mean you get to shove me,” she said her hand coming down to slap me hard.

I heard Ana and Leilani shouting for us to stop and I braced for Evie’s fist that was raised high, covering my face, and shutting my eyes tight. But all at once, the weight of Evie was off me and there was a deadly silence in the hall.

I moved my arm from over my face and opened my eyes to see the Princess standing over me dangling Evie in the air by her neck. Tears ran down Evie’s face, ruining black make-up and her hands clawed at the Princess’s.

I scrambled to my feet. Glowing silver turned to look at me and the Princess growled loudly before turning back to Evie and without warning, snapped Evie’s neck and dropped her to the ground.

“No don’t.” I turned to see Harris, arms wrapped around Justin who sobbed loudly and turned into his embrace. As my eyes took in the others in the room all their heads were bowed in submission.

A warm hand gripped my jaw and I flinched, my head was turned, and I was looking at the Princess. She dipped her head and licked the corner of my mouth. It was only then I realised I had a busted lip from Evie’s slap. Molten silver met me, and I was in a state of shock.

Never had I witnessed someone die or be killed. Technically the tussle with Evie was my first fight. The first time I had ever done something like that. I looked beyond the Princess to the lifeless body on the floor and I felt my stomach twisting painfully. Pushing myself away from the Princess, who let me go, I turned and lost my stomach contents which thankfully was only coffee from the morning. I felt lightheaded and panicked.

A hand landed on my back rubbing roughly but soothingly and another held my hair back. I wiped my mouth on the back of my shirt arm and stood up shakily.

Again, the Princess took hold of my jaw, turning my head from side to side as if inspecting me and I couldn’t look at her. Sudden fear twisted my stomach again but there was nothing left to throw up. She released me, her arm sliding around my waist to steady me, and I was momentarily revolted by the touch. She seemed like a different person, not my Princess .

“Any, who harms my property will be dealt death swiftly. Am I clear?” the Princess spoke in a voice that was foreign to me, powerful, and commanding.

The statement was met with a chorus of, “Yes, My Royal Highness.” And all Borealis servants, even Justin who seemed very distraught, fell to their knees.

The Princess began to pull me along with her and the panic and fear within me decided to protest and I tried to twist myself away from this terrifying stranger. She stopped to look at me curiously before some sort of recognition crossed her face and in one fluid motion, she picked me up over her shoulder. The sudden change in position was disorientating and I gripped the back of her blazer for balance.

She threw me down into the back of a vehicle and I tried to push myself away from her as she entered and closed the door. She grabbed my ankle and pulled me roughly towards her until we were sitting thigh to thigh, her arm around my shoulder holding me to her. I felt her nose against my head and fear trembled down my spine.

“Why are you trying to get away from me?” she asked sounding confused. I looked up at her glowing eyes, but I couldn’t answer her, I was still panicked. I had seen her kill another person, so easily, casually, and I wanted to escape.

“You’re scared,” she answered for me. “You do not have to fear me, pet. I would never cause you real harm,” she said pulling me in tighter.

When we arrived back at the Royal residence halls, she pulled me from the vehicle and carried me back to her rooms.

As the heavy door closed behind us she went directly to the bathroom with me and placed me on my feet in front of the sink.

“Clean yourself up,” she commanded standing behind me. Her arms wound around me, her fingers working at the buttons on my shirt. I shakily raised my hands to take over. “Let me, pet,” she said pushing my hands away.

I let her unbutton and remove my soiled shirt. She reached past me handing me the mouth wash. I took the bottle from her swirling the awful taste from my mouth, washing my hands after. Her hand around my waist led me from the bathroom and to the bedroom.

My panic and fear had subsided in the bathroom with her soft commands and the simple act of cleaning myself up. I felt cold, shaky, and confused like my mind hadn’t quite caught up to the events that led me to stand half-naked and shaking almost violently.

She removed her arm from around me as she opened the closet. She turned to me with a set of pink fluffy pyjamas in her hands, sitting them on the bed she pulled me closer to her by my hips. I allowed her to continue to undress me before redressing me in the fluffy pyjamas. They were soft and warm, and I was grateful for them.

“Pet, how do you feel?” she asked softly her hand lifting my jaw to look at her. Her eyes were back to liquid silver and that terrifying atmosphere that had surrounded and exuded from her at the school was gone. She was mine again and the relief that flooded me resulted in only tears as my answer.

She undressed to her underwear and pulled the bed covers back ushering me into bed with her hand on my back. She followed behind me moving me between her legs, pulling the covers back over us and wrapping her arms around me.

“What happened? You killed Evie,” I began after my tears were dry. “I was so scared.”

“In hindsight, I should have killed that pathetic human away from your view,” she spoke softly above me .

“You didn’t have to kill her. You were terrifying. Like a different person, not the person I know.”

“You don’t know me very well,” she told me softly. “But that is my doing, I treat you differently, I’m careful with you, Percy, gentle. I do not tolerate disrespect from others. An assault on you is an assault on me. She drew blood, so I took her life,” she told me matter-of-factly without even a hint of remorse.

“You’re not a monster. You can’t be,” I said trying to reassure myself, Dylan’s words from the morning coming back to me.

She didn’t respond, only held me tighter. The emotional drain took its toll and eventually I fell asleep wrapped in the arms of the Princess. I wasn’t sure if my soul match was the monster I witnessed kill a person that afternoon or the woman that held me close and comforted me when I cried.