It should have taken weeks or even a month or two to heal the burns, but the doctor seemed to also to be a magician, making the burns heal completely within a few days. Her cuts and burns were just gone, she touched where they had been as if it were some illusion, but it was as if they had never existed. She stood before a mirror, touching her lips, feeling them with her fingers and her tongue but there was nothing, not even the slightest hint of a scar anywhere.
'No, that's not true. The mark.'
Every time she looked in the mirror, there below her left shoulder blade, there was a mark. She hadn't the slightest idea what it was, no idea what it meant, but it had healed smooth and level with the rest of her skin. Alex had informed her that there was no removing it, no matter the burn or how deep the cut, the blood made its mark on the bone, his blood was in her blood. Her flesh was no longer hers, she could feel something. . . . foreign. It was strange. . . . it was. . . . compulsatory.
'It doesn't matter, no. It just means I can't go home. Oh, my sisters! I will never see them again?' She bit her lip, fighting tears. 'No, it doesn't matter.'
She was alone in bed. He would always come to bed at night, wrap his arms around her, but in the morning he would already be gone. She woke so early, he would have had to leave during the night. She did not want to sleep there, in his bed, in his room, but all the will power she could muster could do a thing. Just one word and her body would bend, her muscles redirect. It was not a thought apart, her body would simply comply with his command as if her own, before her own. He would call to her, she would undress and lay still, and he would adjust her body according to his comfort or pleasure.
It had been three days since she recovered from the burns, and she had seen little of him since. For those days, her entire body had felt feverish, and he had held her the entire time. He told her it was necessary, he spoke softly to her. She could not hear most of what he said, but she heard his voice. In one moment she would find it comforting, but the next she would feel rage or sorrow. Though she thought it strange, he had talked and slept with her, and nothing else. He would lay her naked body down and lay beside it.
'Am I just a trinket? A decoration to be added to his room?'
He had asked nothing of her, despite his acute fascination with sirens. He had not elaborated upon who he was either, although she had wandered around his large mansion, saw the largest collection of books she had ever seen, and wandered his expertly groomed garden and labyrinth. He was rich, but not only rich, supernatural. Now more than ever she wished she had talked to Lagina more about that mansion, it was all she could think about. Is this that mansion? It had to be, right?
'Do I even bother getting up?'
Anioa sighed and rolled over. She had already had so much time to herself, so much time to herself, all she could do was think about the whole situation. When it came down to theories, she had a few. First: Alex, he was a wolf, between all the sniffing and wolf portraits everywhere, right? Second, his mansion was in the same city as Lagina's apartment. She suspected he was into crime on a large scale as well, it was the only real way to explain the. . . . estate. It was huge! Most other wolves she knew lived nowhere near this scale.
Then there was what the witch had been chanting, a lot of "secundo luna" 's, so he was now her second moon? Sure sirens are daughters of the moon, but there was a different relationship between the moon and him. Sirens are not dictated by the moon. Then there were a bunch of other words that she couldn't understand, so they had to have been a bit more significant than the whole "second moon" thing.
If there was only a way to get out and find out more, but he had said: "you can go anywhere on my property, and it's large enough that you won't go anywhere unless I am with you, or say otherwise." He had been smiling when he said it, but she felt the switch flip in her mind, and it broke her heart. But there were the books, she could try to find something there, although she had the feeling he wouldn't leave answers out where they could be found.
That when she noticed the paper. She crawled across the large silk bed to the nightstand, pecking at the paper nervously. Slowly, she unfolded the paper:
Will finally be caught up on work by tonight, but it was worth it for you. Special plans for tonight, Caitlin will be by to prep you.
-A