Shuraina headed straight for the bed and laid down. She needed to wash up so she glanced towards the restroom, but soon looked away because she was too tired. She used magic to clean herself without standing up, then removed her clothes and changed into some sleepwear and headed straight under the blankets.
"Eugh. Swanhaden. So smart."
The blanket had a relaxation spell on it. The blankets were thick, so Shuraina felt like she was buried under it. The room was perfectly cool, just enough to fall asleep. It felt like she was in a relaxing bath. Shuraina completely knocked out.
Shuraina opened her eyes slightly at the feeling of someone stroking her forehead. The cool hand felt nice on her forehead. She could see Swanhaden with her bleary eyes.
"...Swan?"
She blearily spoke his name when large hands covered her eyes.
"..."
Swanhaden gently shoved Shuraina back onto the bed and tucked her back under the blanket. It was past noon at this point. The sun was up high and sunlight poured in through the window. Swanhaden sat on the edge of the bed before standing up to close the curtains before coming back and sitting near her.
The dark almost dragged her back to sleep. But just then,
'I'm hungry.'
Her stomach told her that it was time to wake up. Shuraina gave up and properly opened her eyes. She needed to ask Swanhaden to get her some food. She needed to greet the duke. It was unbecoming of a guest to act this way.
Just when she forced the remaining exhaustion away and she sat back up, Swanhaden gently laid her back down and tried to make her go back to sleep. Shuraina, forced back onto the bed again, glared at him with a scowl. Swanhaden blinked.
"There's something I want to try."
"What."
When she spoke with a bit of an attitude, Swanhaden lowered his head and took something out from beneath the bed. After a while of rustling, he soon placed an incredible amount of food onto a large tray. Shuraina looked at the food and slowly sat back up when Swanhaden laid her back down.
When Shuraina was unable to eat the delicious looking food in front of her, her eyes went wide with misery.
"Is this some new type of torture?"
"I'd never do that to you."
Swanhaden immediately responded, before thinking for a long time and then adding.
"I wouldn't do that to others either."
Swanhaden scooped up an omelette with his spoon. When steam rose up from the food, he blew on it to cool it down.
"Here."
When he placed the spoon right in front of her mouth, Shuraina scowled.
"Thank you for bringing it my way, but I'll eat it on my own."
When she tried to sit back up and take the spoon from him, Swanhaden laid her back down and shook his head. Then, he placed the omelette that he had scooped up for her into his own mouth.
"Swan....?"
Was he trying to show her that if she didn't accept the food from him, she couldn't eat it? Wow, stingy.
"Then eat up."
Shuraina narrowed her eyes and glared at him. Swanhaden shot her a sad look.
Swanhaden fanned the smell of the food towards her. When Shuraina swallowed her saliva from the delicious smell, he then scooped up another piece of the omelette and placed it in front of her mouth.
His eyes were sparkling as they looked at her. Swan wordlessly placed the food in front of her and continued watching her. If Swan was so desperate to feed her, then she would just have to follow what he wanted.
"If I eat when I'm lying down, I'm going to die of indigestion."
"I'll bring you back to life."
"I'll get annoyed to death."
"..."
Swanhaden helped Shuraina sit up.
There was a spoon right in front of Shuraina once more. His hand was still up–didn't his arms ache? If it was anyone other than Swanhaden, she would've lectured them about playing with food, but she could forgive him because it was him.
When Shuraina sighed and turned her head to bite down on the spoon, the spoon fell back. When Shuraina felt that her mouth was empty, Shuraina looked up to stare at Swanhaden. Swanhaden just looked at her, expressionless, as he pulled the spoon back.
He moved the spoon from left and right, as if he was trying to toy with her. He placed a piece of ham onto the omelette as he moved the spoon around again.
"What are you doing?"
"Hurry up and eat it. Hurry."
...are you serious right now? Then don't pull the spoon back. When she opened her mouth near the spoon once more, the spoon moved to the side. Shuraina now felt the urge to beat it. She began to chase the spoon around.
Then, the spoon was right in front of Swan, and Shuraina threw her body towards the spoon for the mouthful of food.
Smack!
Swanhaden moved the spoon behind him and placed a small kiss on Shuraina's lips. Then, as if it wasn't enough, he placed a loud kiss that let out a resounding smack. Swanhaden's face was annoyingly calm, but his ears and nape were blushing a dark red.
Then, Swan finally placed a mouthful of food into Shuraina's mouth as it opened in shock. When she seemed unable to swallow her food from the shock, Swanhaden looked taken aback as he gave her some water.
"If you want a kiss, then just say it."
Shuraina snatched the spoon and fork from him, turned her head, then sighed. Then, she turned her head back and placed a cute peck on his lips.
Heat rushed from below to her face and ears. Her heart was beating so hard that she felt sick. A wave of destructive need swept over her. She was so shaky that she wanted to throw her pillows and her blankets and scream. Swanhaden, how could you just rush in like that? Whew, that was dangerous.
She was finally gearing up to eat her meal when she noticed that her side was empty. Swanhaden, who had been staring at her with such intensity just moments ago, was gone.
She wondered where he had gone so she put down the plate of omelette and looked around when she saw Swanhaden kneeling near the bottom of the bed and clutching the bedsheets.
His face was even redder than Shuraina's as his head hung down. He was even shaking. His heart was already struggling to take in the fact that Shuraina had kissed him first, but for her to look embarrassed as she looked at him… He was moments away from losing his mind.
"Swan."
"..."
"You accepted my confession, right? We're lovers, right?"
Swanhaden's legs completely gave way as he heard Shuraina verbalize the things that he couldn't believe had happened.
When Shuraina poked Swan with the back of her fork and demanded an answer, Swan nodded.
Shuraina rolled up her sleeves to officially begin her investigation into the problems within the Blanche family. Originally, she had wanted to go and find some ingredients she needed as soon as she woke up. Once she jotted down all of the ingredients she needed, she found that a few of them needed to be dug up from up in the mountain.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to get some ingredients. I'm going to go visit a store, then head to the mountains to dig up some ingredients."
When Shuraina tried to go out to buy the ingredients as soon as she got to the estate, Swanhaden looked displeased.
"Give it."
Swanhaden removed the outerwear that Shuraina had put on, then took the list of ingredients from her hand.
"Make me do it."
"There's quite a lot that I need to get, so it's going to be pretty hard, though? I'll go. I'll be back after two to three days."
Swan looked blank before bringing a hoe and running outside.
"I'll get all of the ingredients and be back by dinner, so don't say something so cruel."
It wasn't obvious, but he looked a bit desperate.
Shuraina couldn't believe Swan when he said that he'd be back with all of the ingredients, the things that would take two to three days to collect, by dinner. But seeing how he was moving at the speed of light, maybe it was possible.
Shuraina regretfully stared at Swanhaden, who had disappeared at the speed of light, and clicked her tongue.
'Maybe I should've gone with.'
Shuraina thought, feeling awkward after being left alone at someone else's home.
While he was collecting the ingredients, Shuraina moved around the estate to learn more about the family. Once Swan was gone, all of the estate's employees grouped together with dumbfounded expressions. The maids almost spilled the buckets of water they held, and they dropped the drink glasses onto the floor.
"For her to use the young lord like that. She's more incredible than I heard...?"
"That master Swanhaden is being trained…. Did he seriously volunteer to do hard labor to make sure she couldn't go away?"
"Isn't it terrifying how the young master's become so cheery after the young miss came?"
"I'm literally getting chills from it, but it's still a marked improvement than before, so."
All of the servants and maids had all suffered under Swanhaden's cruelty and single-minded rage. They feared his changes. Most of the Blanche family employees had their jobs passed down from their parents. Because it was such a secretive, closed family, they didn't often employ people from the outside or let them out.
Thus, being fired soon meant an untimely death.
Just to add, all of the employees that were assigned the job of teaching the heir classes were all fired by Swan. Honestly, they did have a cruel side to them. They had a cruel, sadistic side to them that seemed to actually enjoy abusing such a young, pretty child, and had gone too far. When Swanhaden tried to attack them, they used magic devices to ensure that he was in even more pain.
Moreover, they tried to use Swan as a money-making scheme and brought in those who were sick and injured to force Swan to treat them. Swanhaden, who had been unloved and forced to face a plethora of illnesses and injuries, had been close to madness before Shuraina had appeared. Even though he was crazy in love now.
As soon as Swan was able to leave his room, he locked all of the employees that had 'trained' him and brutally tortured them for weeks. The sound of screaming continued for days on end, and all of the other maids and servants shook, scared that they would be next.
Many of the employees witnessed the sight of the young child exiting the room after he was done with them. An angelic, beautiful boy was covered in blood as he stared dully at them. It was still clear as day and just as chilling to the employees who remembered the sight.
After that particular incident, the young lord was generally uncaring of the other employees, so they were all grateful. But if someone accidentally saw a picture of an orange alien and said that it was ugly or accidentally woke him up when he was sleeping, they were bullied to the point of mental exhaustion, so he was still as frightening.
And for those who lived under the tyranny of Swanhaden, Shuraina, who towered over Swan, was a new source of fear. She looked normal, but maybe she was hiding a face of evil behind it all.
"Do you have anything to say?"
Shuraina tilted her head, uncomfortable at the sheer amount of gazes being directed toward her. Then, she forced the corners of her lips to curl up into a smile and curved her eyes into a smile.
Recently, Shuraina tried her best to smile. If she wanted to join society and be social, she needed to be cheery and make a good impression–but her face a bit too frightening. She had ignored the good parts of her face before, but now she had to face reality.
Shuraina relaxed her eyes as much as she could and curved the corners of her lips up and smiled. As she grew older, her face matured and took on a dreamy quality. When she smiled gently, she gave off such an intensely intriguing aura that people felt chills.
They all rushed to shake their heads in denial. It was strange. She had definitely been scary just moments ago, but they felt relaxed and calm after a single smile.
"What is this."
Shuraina said, playing with her hair at the sudden change of air.
When the crowd of employees around her dispersed, there stood another person, staring at her as if she was a beast.
'For her to manipulate Swanhaden with such ease...'
It was the duke.