Raymond entered his room with Jasmine following behind him. He quickly dried himself off and wore a new pair of tunic and trousers.
He saw that Jasmine was looking out the window seemingly deep in thought. He went behind and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"What are you thinking, Jasmine?"
He asked, placing his chin on her left shoulder. In response, Jasmine leaned into his body and sighed in content feeling his body warmth that gave her comfort from the cold rain showering outside.
"Master, don't you think there was something strange about those thugs back in the streets?"
Jasmine asked, feeling unsure of herself if she was the only one who felt that way.
"Hmm? What do you mean?"
He couldn't tell what she found strange about those guys. To him, they were just some bugs he crushed on his way. He didn't even think about them once after throwing them away.
"Why would any grandmaster be out on the streets drinking and annoying people? Don't they have something better to do?"
Jasmine added, the more she spoke the more confident she felt in her assumptions.
"Hmmm, you are right. I would believe if it were you who was wandering the streets and annoying people but why would any other grandmasters do that?"
Raymond slowly nodded his head as he thought about it.
"Hmph!"
He felt Jasmine elbowing him on the stomach and chuckled at her annoyed face.
"I don't annoy people, you are the only person I like annoying."
Raymond snickered hearing her reply and pulled her closer to him.
"So you need more spanking, huh? Morning wasn't enough for you?"
Jasmine shuddered, feeling his hot breath on her ears coupled with the events of the morning replaying in her mind, made her heat up. She squirmed in his arms trying to calm down but that only made her even more hot and bothered.
Raymond let out a loud laugh seeing her trying to control herself.
"Hahaha, what's up with you? Why are you squirming like that?"
"Don't act like you don't know. I am feeling funny because of you, master."
She tried to control herself but her defences crumbled further every time he whispered in her ears. Just as she was about to give in to her lust and ask him to take her, she felt his hands around her loosening.
"Oh dear, did you think we were going to do it? That was a test and you failed miserably."
Raymond spoke in a sombre voice appearing as if he was saying something very important.
"A test? Really?"
Jasmine's face fell at his words. What kind of a test was that?
"Yes, it was a test to check your mental fortitude, and guess what? You have zero. Go cultivate and improve yourself."
Raymond nodded his head sagely as if he had judged her accurately.
Looking at his serious face Jasmine nodded dumbly and went to cultivate. If her master was saying that then it must be true.
She sat cross-legged on the divan placed near the bathroom door and closed her eyes to meditate.
Raymond opened and closed his mouth repeatedly as if he was trying to say something but couldn't find the right words.
'Damn! I can't believe she believed it so easily.'
Raymond was just trying to mess with her. He never expected her to believe him so easily. Feeling awkward he went to bed to take a nap.
He very much liked sleeping and doing nothing when it was raining outside.
Although he felt like he was missing something very important he was too lazy to think about it. Fully wrapping up himself in the blanket, Raymond slept like a log.
*******
-Swish!
With a burst of mana, Lyla dried herself off and sat on the bed simply looking at her wrist.
Even though she looked calm on the outside, her mind was being run over by so many thoughts that it was starting to hurt.
She tried to get some sleep by laying down on the bed and closing her eyes, but a certain voice kept ringing in her head.
'You are not a monster, Lyla. You deserve to be happy.'
An angelic yet haunting voice repeatedly echoed in every corner of her mind threatening to overwhelm her sanity.
"Kuhh!…make it stop."
Lyla muttered to no one and rubbed her forehead furiously trying to get rid of the splitting headache.
'Someday you will find someone who will hold you close to his chest and caress your head as you drift off to dreamland.'
'Urghh! Please stop.'
Lyla could not control her thoughts and kept hearing a woman's voice inside her head.
She started rolling on the bed clutching her head, desperately trying to quell the intense headache she was feeling.
'You are not a monster, Lyla.'
But no matter how much she tried she couldn't get rid of the voice in her head.
-Thud!
Finally, after squirming and rolling on the bed for a long time she fell onto the floor.
"Huh?!"
Lyla rubbed her eyes and looked around in a daze.
'What was that voice? Who was saying those things?'
She stood up from the floor and went to the bathroom to wash her face. She must have fallen asleep at some point when she started having that weird dream.
As the cold droplets of water trickled down her exquisite face, Lyla tried to recall where she had heard that voice before.
After washing the drowsiness off of her face, she went back to her bed and sat cross-legged, intending to meditate and look into her memories.
Her consciousness wafted through the years of her memories trying to find something related to that voice.
The more she went down her memory lane the more she felt like the voice belonged to someone important to her.
Even though the voice sounded beautiful, Lyla was disturbed to the core by hearing it. She was determined to find the owner of that voice.
'Hah!'
Lyla's breathing quickened as she came across a haunting memory she had unconsciously buried in the depths of her mind.
-Rattle! -Rattle!
A continuous rattling of a cage resounded throughout a murky basement, its walls were damp and mosses grew out of cracks spreading throughout the walls.
-Bam! -Bam!
Someone was banging on the door to the basement, desperately trying to open it.
-Creak!
With the sound of the door opening, Lyla heard the voice of her father which was all too familiar to her.
"Hmph! You have five minutes to finish your thing. Understood?"
"Y-yes, My Lord."
Lyla recognised the second voice too, it was the voice that was in her dream before. But she didn't know who this voice belonged to.
When she tried to get a bit closer to the source of the voice, to her utter horror she realised that she was the one who was rattling the cage from inside.
As she looked at her small limbs and body, she remembered this horrible day.
It was when she was just 8 years of age, still a small girl unaware of her powers. She had accidentally poisoned two servant boys while playing with them.
Infuriated by the loss of two new servants that had just joined the house, Madam Denver had locked her up in the cage in the basement as a form of punishment.
She had cried till her throat was aching, till she was bereft of any more tears, terrified of the monster hiding in the dark and murky basement of Denver's manor.
It was all for nothing, no one had come to her rescue, and she had fallen asleep due to exhaustion by the time morning arrived.
She was so terrified of this incident that her mind had locked up this memory to keep her sane.
But as she looked through the gaps between the cage, she realised that someone did come for her that night.
She squinted her eyes trying to get a good look at the person who was coming towards her cage but the dense and dark smoke that spread evenly across the room made it hard for her to see.
Her eyes widened as she saw the rows of beautiful rubies and emeralds shining across the woman's neck who was nearing her.
They shone like beacons in the dark basement and Lyla was horrified when she realised that it was the same kind of choker that was wrapped around her neck.
She didn't want to believe what she was seeing in front of her eyes. The woman whose face was obscured by the smoke had another beautiful choker in her hands.
"Forgive me, Lyla."
With a cold and emotionless voice, the woman pushed her hands inside the small cage and tried to wrap that blasted choker around her neck.
Instantly, Lyla felt something stirring awake in the depth of her stomach.
It was 'Heartsbane'. Recognising the threat from the choker it surged into action trying to poison the hand that was holding the choker.
'No! Don't kill her!'
Little Lyla desperately tried to control the poison spirit while the adult Lyla watched with wide eyes.
Somehow little Lyla managed to bring the spirit under control. It was then she felt the choker being wrapped around her neck.
With a crackling sound, it shot an electric current throughout her body as if asserting its dominance.
"Arrghhh!"
Little Lyla's entire body twitched in pain as she lost control of her spirit. 'Heartsbane' instantly jumped into action and attacked the woman who had her hands on Lyla trying to calm her down.
"Kuhh…kukk—!"
The woman spat a mouthful of blood and her skin started turning purple with burn marks appearing on her hands.
She spasmed uncontrollably as she rolled on the ground for a few seconds before her body stilled.
"Forgive me, Ly…"
Deafening silence enveloped the basement as the little girl inside the cage slowly opened her lifeless eyes and looked at the corpse of the woman without any change in her expression.
Slowly, her eyelids grew heavy and she fell asleep inside the cold rusty cage.
"Noo!"
Lyla's eyes snapped open, aghast at the memory she had witnessed. Ropes of sweat trickled down her body pooling at her base, soaking the bed sheets.
Her eyeballs rolled back showing the whites of her sclera and she collapsed on the bed unconscious.