Lord Ose guided Kapri into his expansive living room, a space that felt both imposing and intimate. Rich, dark woods adorned the walls, their intricate carvings depicting ancient battles and celestial beings locked in eternal struggle. The air was thick with the scent of incense, an aromatic blend designed to soothe the mind, yet it heightened her sense of unease. Much like an uninvited guest lingering in the corners of her consciousness.
"Expose your back to me," he commanded, his voice a velvet whisper laced with authority. The mere sound sent a shiver down her spine.
She hesitated, the weight of his gaze prickling her skin like the sharp edges of a blade. Reluctantly, she turned away with her heart racing with each passing second. As she lowered her clothing, a shiver ran down her spine at the cool air brushing against her bare skin. The moment she revealed herself, she felt the gentle caress of his fingers along her back. His touch was surprisingly delicate, yet it sent waves of discomfort coursing through her body, each stroke igniting a battle of conflicting emotions.
"Relax," he murmured softly, as if sensing her anxiety. His voice was warm and wrapped around her like a blanket, but the tension in the air crackled like static."You're in good hands."
Kapri fought against the rising tide of panic within her as she struggled to steady her breath. She closed her eyes, attempting to focus on the sensation of his fingertips gliding over her skin and traced the contours of her back. They moved like a skilled craftsman weaving threads of fate and traced the faint lines where her soul was tethered to her body. Yet, as he took hold of the threads connecting her essence, a sudden chill coursed through her, deeper and more profound than any physical cold she had ever felt.
"Just breathe," he urged. She felt utterly exposed, not just in body but in spirit, like a fragile bird stripped of its feathers.
"Why do you keep avoiding my questions?" she managed to ask, her voice barely above a whisper, but the words hung heavily in the air. "Why do you keep coming into my dreams and bothering me? More so, why do you allow these things to happen to me rather than assisting me when I am in trouble?"
"Because your suffering is a tale worth experiencing," he replied with his tone shifting to one of genuine curiosity. "Tell me about the battlefield, about the hospital, Lord Dazriel. What haunts you almost every night?"
Kapri took a deep breath, her mind flashing back to the chaos of the hospital, where time had blurred into a haze of urgency and despair. The long beep of the heart monitor, sickening in its persistence, echoed in her mind—the sound of her heart flatlining. A grim reminder of her mortality.
She remembered how her soul slipped closer to the abyss of Ose's control as soul weavers frantically tried to knot together the fraying threads of her severed existence. Blood flooded her mouth, the relentless suction catheter working to drain it as chaos erupted around her, an orchestra of panic playing its discordant tune.
"Blood filled my mouth," she began, her voice trembling as memories flooded back. "I was surrounded by frenzied bodies, desperate to keep me alive, but all I could feel was the pull of darkness, an insatiable void tugging at my very essence. While dying, I felt the abyss—your palms looming over my spirit."
A surge of anger ignited within her as the memory crystallized. "You were waiting to take me," she said, attempting to turn around.
Ose leaned against her as he grabbed underneath her chin to turn her face forward. His body heavy and his heart pounded rapidly.
"Aht Aht, you're not allowed to see my face." he said, before his arms wrapped around her waist as he rocked side to side with her. "Besides, what wrong with me taking you?"
"Would you prefer I let someond else collect you for themselves?" His chest pressed further against her back with a tantalizing divine pressure that both comforted and unsettled her. "If you do, that's impossible."
His fingers danced through her hair braids while he tangled his threads while he pressed his lips against her back.
"Please, don't tell me you don't want me to take you," he asked, as if coaxing her into hell.
" I—" she started to say, the words caught in her throat like a fish on a hook. Before she could articulate a response, a servant burst into the room as he disrupting the charged in the air.
"Forgive the interruption, my Great Lord," the servant said, bowing deeply, eyes averted in respect. "Great Demon Lady Lira has arrived."
Ose's tone soured, annoyance flickering in his voice behind her.
"Centuries to bother me, and she chooses this day," he muttered, before he grabbed his mask that was next to them and placed it over his face.
As the servant left, Kapri felt the weight of Ose's gaze. It was both possessive and yearning, it left her with a sense of annoyance and unease. She had never felt so vulnerable yet strangely powerful while she constantly stood on the precipice of an abyss she didn't want to fall into.
"Perhaps we'll finish this conversation later," Ose said with a promise that she knew he was going to keep.
"Well, I won't be looking forward to it," she answered as she pulled her clothes up and he moved back from her. "Also, another question."
She turned towards him, and he listened attentively. "Why is it that everyone else could see you, except for me?" she asked him.
"Because, I want the first time you fall for me to be the first time we meet in person," he said, the three pair of eyes on his mask narrowed as he chuckled. "If you're so curious, why don't you come see me soon?"
Her head jolted up, she found herself having fell asleep in the sunroom as she lifted her head from lying on the couch. A few of the children had followed her into the sunroom, they seem to be one of the few who didn't avoid her because of the tension in her mind. Luckily, they had fallen asleep, rather than stayed up because she definitely was not watching them.
As she stretched above her head, she noted there was a little less pressure in her back and in her head. She sighed as she touched her shoulders, "Does he think he can just touch me whenever he wants?" She questioned softly, though he did in fact help her. "Seems he couldn't do anything about the intimacy pact though. Or maybe he didn't want to."
Her hand caressed over the tiny horns of a demon child lying on her lap. Before she noticed, a black smudge on its neck. At first she assumed it was a birthmark until she touched it, and her finger stung with the touch of kú—very chilled and nearly froze her fingers.
"What the hell?" she muttered.
"Ah, there you are," Velmuth walked into the sunroom looking completely battered. Looked like they really roughed him up trying to interrogate him into taking Kapri out of the pact. "They really gave me the works."
"If you just end the pact," she muttered to him, her heart aching as she looked at him. And he smiled.
"If I didn't you would kill me," he said happily as he wrapped his arm around her neck. "Did a soul weaver healed you? Your back feels more relax and warm."
She looked up blood from his busted lips drip on her shoulder. "Go to the infirmary, before you scare one of the children," she said to him.
"I can't, I escaped from the dungeon," Velmuth chuckled. "I wanted to see you so I could make it through."
"By the way, why is it I can't feel anything when they torture you?" She asked him.
"Because I didn't want you to," he kissed her lip. Taste of metal on her tongue made her shutter. "You think the pact doesn't work both ways? I genuinely fell for you at this point."
"Well, it doesn't seem that way with you and Count Lirael," she said. "You'll betray just as easily if she returned."
"Countess Lirael and I are not in a pact together," Velmuth said. "Don't need one to love someone."
"But you needed one to love me," she replied.
"Jealous?" He asked with a chuckle.
"Yeah, though it's probably the pact," she replied, before Jugo wrapped his arms around Velmuth neck pulling him back. Kapri rose gently holding the sleeping child in her arm. "Jugo that's enough."
"Is it not. You're being soft on him,"Jugo said choking Velmuth as he tried to breath.
"Jugo, I said that's enough," she reached out to Jugo and he grabbed her wrist, quite roughly. "He's not saying anything, so why keep going to almost kill him?"
This was the first time in a while since her and Jugo had a strong disagreement about anything. She snatched her wrist away from him.
"Good." he said without much emotion in his voice. "Did I hurt your wrist?"
"Don't mind that," Kapri said. "I know you're worried, but let's not do the unnecessary either."
"This is necessary, and I will beat and starve him for making you like this," Jugo said as he choked Velmuth until his body went limp. Kapri gasped as she tried to grab Velmuth, he tossed Velmuth at one of the guards of the manor. Then he grabbed at his belt buckle. "Fine, let's go to your bedchambers and give you the type of comfort you seem to crave so much from that demon."
* * *
As Jugo shoved Kapri onto the bed, the force of the impact rattled her, but before she could even gather her bearings, his lips were on hers in a bruising kiss. The action was swift, overpowering, and suffocating. His hands gripped her shoulders, his body pressing down on hers, and for a split second, she could feel the heat of him—his anger, his frustration, his desperation to control the situation.
But that flash of heat was all it took for something inside Kapri to snap. Whatever had simmered beneath her calm exterior exploded into action. She twisted violently beneath him as she threw her hands up in a surge of rage and disgust.
Her knees shot upward into his stomach with the force of the blow making him gasp and stumble back. His grip faltered just for a moment, before Kapri brought her elbow down sharply onto his face. The sickening crack of bone reverberated through the room as she felt his nose break beneath the impact. Jugo let out a strangled curse, his body recoiling in pain.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she spat. "You think you can take me like that? Like I'm just some object, how is that protecting me—"
Her fist collided with his jaw with a sickening thud. His head whipped back, and this time, he didn't immediately retaliate. For a moment, he seemed stunned and dazed by the violence that had come so suddenly from the woman he thought he could overpower.
But Jugo, though shaken, was no stranger to pain. He grabbed her wrists and forced her to halt her onslaught. He pinned her arms down with surprising strength. His breath was ragged with blood trickling from his broken nose, but his eyes were burning with a mix of anger.
Kapri knew something wasn't right with him.
"Stop," he demanded through gritted teeth, his voice rough. "Just stop, Kapri."
"Let me go," she hissed, her breath wild and shaky. "Now."
Jugo's grip tightened for a moment, and for a fleeting second. His expression softened, though not by much. His breath was still uneven.
"I said… stop."
Kapri, chest heaving, continued to glare up at him, her body still tense and ready to fight. She wanted to hurt him more, make him feel every bit of the humiliation and control he'd tried to impose on her. This isn't something Jugo would do, this wasn't his nature.
After a long pause, Jugo's hands slowly loosened their grip on her wrists, though he didn't let go entirely. His eyes never left hers as if searching for something in her gaze. Perhaps understanding, perhaps forgiveness.
"You're not him," Kapri spat bitterly, barely able to keep the disgust from her voice. "You don't get to treat me like that to get me to love you."
For a long moment, there was silence that were occasionally broken only by their ragged breathing. Jugo didn't reply. He couldn't. Instead, he slowly released her and rolled off her before he sat on the edge of the bed. His face twisted in pain.
Kapri sat up, wiping her bloodied knuckles on the sheets, breathing heavily. The room felt heavy, suffocating, as if the walls were closing in on her with the aftermath of what had just happened.
"You ever lay a hand on me like that again," she warned, her voice low and menacing, "and I won't hesitate to try to kill you."
Jugo didn't respond immediately. He just stared at the floor, with his jaw clenched, as the silence between them stretched long and thick.
Then, with a strained exhale, he finally spoke, his voice quieter, almost regretful. "I don't want to hurt you, Kapri. I never did. But you… you make me feel like I have to protect you from everything. Even yourself."
Kapri's eyes narrowed, the rage still simmering inside her. "That is not an excuse."
Without another word, she stood. Then he pushed herself off the bed and walking toward the door. As she opened the door, and slammed it behind her she clenched her jaw. Her nails dug into her fists.
"DAZRIEL!" she yelled, the servants all looked in her direction as her scream rattled through the manor as she head blood dripping from her fists. This was very much the doing of him, every bad thing, it was always him. "SOMEONE GET ME TO DAZRIEL'S CASTLE. NOW!""