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...35...
WHO AM I?⁉️
Hours later met Xiera and Vura still administering the punishments to the offenders with zeal, taking pleasure in doing so. Sweat ran down their glistening foreheads to their necks, soaking their clothes as they worked. Their skin glittered with the sweat. Xiera sighed with pure satisfaction as the whip descended on Hera-Mera once more. She halted as Vura went next. They looked at each other and smiled as the Draco Princess screamed in pain at each stroke of the whip. Xiera hit her next and then Vura did so. And so they continued, turn by turn, listening to her screams and gasps and winced and pleas. Hera-Mera screamed and cursed through it all. Vura became mischievous, adding two extra strokes to her twenty strokes, making it into twenty two strokes.
Princess Zoë was the worse when it came to receiving her punishment. She cried and screamed at each stroke of the whip. She winced and writhed in-between, cursing Xiera and Vura out loud like an undignified lady. None would agree that she was the crown princess of any kingdom of they saw her like that. She was like that, uncultured till her whipping ended. Winnie bored her own punishment on a lighter note, having been trained to endure pain as a warrior. The rest were not any different from the princess' for the two warriors wee ruthless in dealing out their punishment. They all cried and pleaded to be spared with each descent of their hands.
They took a much deserved rest and had food before returning to the last if the culprits, the guards. These they had planned to deal with without any form of mercy. They had promised to be irrational to the little bastards that had dared to ignore their mistress distress and their own cry of alarm. The guards who had almost allows their mistress to die. They whipped their bared backs with all that they had, wishing they could do more than stylishly increase the number of their strokes by three. After hitting them to their near death, theyade sure abof them were stuffed in the deepest and darkest part of the dungeons to suffer without food, water and medicine as ordered by the Emperor. And finally, they were soon done with it all.
'I will make you pay. I will make you regret this!' Hera-Mera promised her as they locked up her cell. She and Zoe had been placed in different cels with only their maids as companions. Xiera didn't mind, chuckling even -but rather evilly at her threat.
'You will have to get out of here first Draco Princess,' Xiera in turn taunted her. She was furious. But, before she could speak, the two warriors turned and left her there. She wondered why her cell was in the deepest of the deep of the dungeons.
Meanwhile, at the emperor's quarters in his bedroom, the emperor sat beside the rather peacefully sleeping lady. He was by her side, awake when she stirred around from the holds of unconsciousness. She moved her hands lightly and let out a small groan, seemingly uncomfortable with the face down, belly down position that the royal physician had asked that she remain in because of her wounds, so they could heal properly and also not give her any form of pain of discomfort. She groaned again as she tried again to turn around when she felt a sharp pang of pain on her back. His hands reached her and held her down gently, lovingly. It stilled her, the tender hands. He leaned closer, watching her so closely as if to ascertain if she really was awake or if she was half asleep. Her lashes fluttered softly at that gesture, like the wings of a beautiful butterfly. He stared at her, studying her patiently as she opened her eyes. Her green orbs met his sable gaze unsteadily. She closed her eyes almost instantly with another groan of discomfort. He noted that her eyes was trying to adjust to the light. He waited for her until she opened then again. This time, her gaze was firm.
'Mine,' he whispered softly to her with a contented look on his face while stroking her hair which he had knotted at the top of her head earlier. She closed her eyes, going still for several minutes before she opened them again to stare at him with an expression that said I am looking at you right now, aren't I? 'Mine,' he said again to her with a reassuring smile to tell her that she would know that he was really there with her.
'Gideon,' she said softly, almost inaudibly that he was unsure if he had heard her well. But, she repeated his name, a bit louder than before. He smiled then, surprised and elated that his name was the first thing that left her mouth the moment she came out if several hours of unconsciousness. Her eyes slipped close again.
'Yes?' he answered her. Her even breathing after a few minutes of waiting told him that she had fallen asleep, again. He smiled at how quickly she did so. She must be really tired, yet she was fighting the sedative that the royal physician had given her. He didn't bother her anymore, sitting there with her, watching her sleep and allowing her to sleep off the rest of the sedative. He took her hands in his, caressing it, stroking her hair and whispering sweet words alongside romantic promises for next to an hour. She stirred awake once again then and murmured his name yet again in her state of slumber.
'Gideon.'
'Yes?' he answered her while waiting expectantly for her to open her eyes. She did so ever so slowly, her lashes lifting languorously, almost seductively. She tried once again to turn around but stopped abruptly as a sharp pain went through her body at the moment, acute. She laid still as his hands came down on her shoulders, holding her down. 'Do not move,' he told her. 'Your back is not well, you hurt it remember?' she remembered then why she was feeling so broken -for she was indeed broken.
'You are back,' she said to him burying her head into the pillows and then lifting it to turn it to the side and take a look at her.
'Yes I am,' he said in answer.
'When?' she said. 'When did you return?' she asked him.
'When I returned, does it matter?' he asked her still stroking her hands. She smirked at him for his reply.
'That is not why I asked you the question beast?' she asked him with a snap, his real name forgotten at his thoughtless mistake. He instantly regretted it.
'A long time ago, I returned a long time ago,' was his reply.
'Never mind,' she snapped at him once again. 'I want to sit,' she requested. 'I am tired of eating this pillow.' He smiled.
'The royal physician said that you are not allowed to do that. Your back is not well.'
'Please,' she insisted.
'But-'
'I am not comfortable. My comfort and the physician's comfort, which is more important?' she asked him. He gave up and began to help her sit. She winced and groaned at intervals as he helped her do as per her request.
'Are you better now?' he asked her when he was done.
'Yes,' she said alongside a nod. He sat beside her on the bed, returning to take her hands in his. 'She whipped me,' she suddenly said.
'Why did you let her?' he asked her in a very hard voice. She sighed inaudibly at his question.
'She is the empress to be you know? How could I challenge her? How could I when I am nothing?!' she asked meeting his gaze. His eyes were dark and blazing with what she deciphered as anger.
'Empress to be? Did I ever tell you that?!' he asked her.
'She was introduced in your palace as your affianced, an equivalent to an empress to be. You on the other hand never countered that. What then did you expect me to do?' she asked him in a weary voice.
'You should have acted as who you are sweet Rose,' he said.
'Who am I?' she asked him, turning slightly at the expense of her wounded back to look at him properly, into his eyes.
'You are mine,' he said. 'You should stand mine, with my backing. How in earth can you let her do this to you? I heard you resisted, what were you trying to prove this time?'
'I did not surrender to prove anything at all beast,' she told him. 'I only did so because she was apparently higher than me in status.'
'Really? Do not let such a thing ever happen again. No one is higher than you in status. You belong to me, and you are me. The respect accorded to me is also same for you. Do you hear me? This should never happen again, ever!' she said.
'I... I,' she stammered afore him. She didn't know what to say next.
'Rest now,' he said assisting her in lying down on her back as she preferred. 'This won't hurt you will it?' he inquired. She shook her head in the negative to assure him. 'Rest while I go and get the royal physician to take a look at you.'
'Are my injuries that bad?' she asked him as he made to leave the bed. He stopped and turned to her.
'Even if it were just a strand of your hair that was harmed, it is an injury that is bad if not worse.' She stared at him for a moment. Then, she giggled in an excited tone.
'Oh God!' she breathed in between bouts of laughter.
'What?' he asked her with lifted brows. 'Why are you laughing? Did I say something very funny?' he continued. She tried to stop laughing and instead stared at him.
'You sound like a husband,' she said to him with another giggle. 'That is the reason I am laughing, the thought of you as a husband is quite funny,' she explained to him. She thought that he would get angry at her slip of tongue, but the amused smirk that followed next said otherwise to her.
'Are you laughing because you do not view me as a husband? Or are you doing so because you like the thought of me being your husband?' he queried her with raised brows. She stared back at him and laughed in an uneasy manner. How on earth did he know what was going through her mind? She always wondered that. He acted as if he could very well read her mind. Was that possible?
'I never thought of such,' she quickly answered him after half a day of trying and also failing to nonchalantly laugh his direct and truthful words away.
'Deny it all you want Mine, but know that it is actually written all over your beautiful face, the same thing that you deny and wish to keep hidden,' he said to her.
'I said nothing,' she said, quickly being on the defensive. 'I did not deny anything at all.'
'I can see it,' he taunted her.
'Stop seeing things were there is nothing to see!' she snapped at him. It was then his turn to laugh softly. He was obviously enjoying teasing her. She grumpily looked away from him with a hump.
'Alright Mine,' he pacified her. She looked up at him then. 'But it is not that I believe you.'
'Seriously?' she asked him with anger dipping into her demeanor.
'Yes.'
'Believe what you want then.' There was silence for a while before she spoke again. 'My wounds?' she began but then stopped.
'Yes Mine? Your wounds? Do they hurt?' he asked coming closer to her. She shook her head at him.
'No beast, they do not hurt more than they should.'
'That means that they actually do hurt you,' he said to her with a worried look on his face.
'They are meant to. Stop fussing over me will you, like a husband!' she told him. He smiled softly.
'There you go again with the husband talk Mine,' he said jocosely. 'Do really want me as one that desperately?' he asked her with a smirk.
'No!' she snapped.
'But-'
'Will you stop with that and listen to what I want to say, will you?!' she interrupted him. He dared not laugh even if he wanted to, not with the murderous look on her face.
'I will.'
'Fine!' she said. 'My wounds, will they scar?' she asked him. 'I want to know if they will. Will they? What did the physician say about this? Or didn't you ask him?'
'Like a husband?' he inputted with a restrained smile.
'Stop with that!' she grumbled in a helpless voice. He finally let go of the laughter that he had since been holding back.
'Alright I will. Your wounds will not scar. The royal physician will make sure that it does not. So, be quite rest assured on that matter,' he said to her. She nodded.
'Okay.'
'Now rest,' he urged her. 'I shall be back in a jiffy,' he said to her, leaving the bed. He turned away and strode towards the bedroom door. She watched him as he stride powerfully out of the bedroom.
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...OmaPhinaPhire🔥