NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: What is Left When Love is Taken Away?
Demon POV
He slouches into the chair. At this point he’s been starved for so long he barely has the strength to walk. His wounds haven’t entirely healed either. So, instead, he just watches his contractor from across the room with tired blinks.
She has recently dyed her hair red with fire rose after he came back with half the jade crest, but there are still some streaks of silver left in her roots. Now with the body of a twenty-one-year-old as payment for her previous request. A beautiful young lady of blue ice and white snow and every bit as frigid. He thought of her a cold insufferable bitch at first. But after spending a bit of time observing her, his opinion gradually shifts. Now he thinks of her as pitiful.
Her senile fool of a husband, Marquess Horan, or something, some fat old ugly bastard, does not even notice that she’s aged, drunk as he is when he stumbles in. Neither does he ever bother to check the closet which she makes him hide in. But it’s still awful to hear her cry when Horan forces himself on her. It’s hard to stomach. Even for him. And he’s witnessed lots of awful things in Hell, although just on souls that deserve it.
No one else visits her on this dusty high tower except for the few servants that leave food at her door. Instead, she just spends most of her time wistfully gazing out of the window, otherwise, she sits on the uncomfortable plank bed opposite him and scry through a crystal ball. Some ancient artifacts left by the Old Gods after the Divine War. Never knew it ended up in Astoran. Like she’s doing now, her blanket pulled over her head as if it were a shroud. She looks so much like a witch like this. She is, technically. From what he’s heard thus far, it seems that they have always been summoning his kind into Astoran half millenium ago. Then she abruptly opens her eyes with a gasp, tears rolling down her cheeks,
“The new plan won’t work anymore. I’m too late. My brother has passed.” she says quietly. He reaffirms,
“Your brother is the silver hair dude I was fighting against the last time before you abruptly recalled me?”
“Yes.” she clears her eyes, shakingly asking after she’s calmed down,
“How many years of my life will you take if I want you to burn the whole of Estelis to the ground this very instance?” very weakly, he wheezes,
“I already told you. That can’t be done. You don’t have enough life to pay for my full power.”
“How many years do you need to just siege Estalis’s capital then?”
“The one by the sea with a population of two million? Sixty to solo it, given the sheer size and insane amount of firepower they have with their ships and barracks. But even if I sieged it, you have no men to secure it. It’s only a matter of time before all the Dukes attempt to reclaim it.” she ponders about it a little more,
“How many years will you take to kill Marquess Horan and everyone in his family?” he shrugs,
“A hundred guards, four hundred servants, one year is more than enough. They aren’t that strong.”
“How many years will you take to siege Genocia’s capital from the Estelians?”
“How many troops are there securing it?”
“About five thousand.”
He estimates, “Give me five or so for good measures.” She puts her crystal ball aside and wiggles her dress off, throwing it to the ground. Spreading her legs against the sheets, she says,
“We’ll stick with my initial plan then. Take six years of my life and clean this castle right up then take me to Hornhel Genocia. Spare the servants if they surrender.”
“Are you sure? If you do this, you can’t turn back anymore. You won’t even have a place to stay and food to eat. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds out the Marquess’s entire family has been slayed and you don’t have guarantees that the Genocians will rally and support you in your clause even if you free their capital. What if they don’t buy that you’re Princess Bathory Yggstel Weiss? You won’t be close to her age after this.”
“The Genocians can’t prove my age and they don’t know the Princess’s face. Genocia fell when she was still a child. I shouldn’t hesitate any longer. I need a base of operations and an army loyal to me if I want to declare war and start a rebellion against Estelis. The Genocians have unresolved anger and hatred for the Estelians as much as I do. I can’t call being kept in this prison as someone’s plaything a life. I’ll just have to hope for the best.” she beckons him over,
“So do it. Then afterwards, make sure you kill the Estelians in Hornhel with the flashiest ways possible to show the Genocians that there’s still hope. This seems like the only reasonable option I have left.”
“This isn’t the only reasonable option. Give up and let live. Your brother died pursuing vengeance even with an army and an Angel’s assistance. You shouldn’t follow in his footsteps. Pay one year and I’ll take you out of here, go somewhere far away, wherever you choose. That’s probably what he’d have hoped for.”
“No. Never. It’s precisely because my brother died that I must do this.” her voice swells with an icy rage,
“Estelis must burn for what they have done to me and my family. I have a Demon’s assistance. Mayhap you’d be more useful.”
He sighs. Dragging himself up from the chair. Heck he’s so lightheaded. Stumbling over to the bed, he undoes his pants, rubbing himself to erection, and slips his hand between her legs. Kneeling between them. He can’t help but feel sorry for her when she turns her face aside to glance longingly out of the window again. He offers,
“Want me to at least try and make this pleasurable for you? I promise I can be leagues better than your husba-.” he changes his wording, she got riled up the last time he called it what it was,
“Captor.” She’s unrelentingly cold as ever,
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not a you issue. I don’t think I can ever enjoy sex. Neither am I in the mood to give it a shot. Get it over with quick.” He snaps his fingers, forming a black chain between their hearts to formalize the transaction,
“As you wish, Contractor. But if you change your mind at any time. Tell me.”