*Seraphine*
At first, I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly because I was still so stunned, still so half-dead… and still so lost; But I could make out the words that'd been said.
And hell, I was sure that I had heard him say the word: 'murderer.'
Heavens, I was not a murderer! If anything, I had just escaped getting murdered. Or had I?
Where the fuck is this?
Is this the afterlife?
However, before I could point that out, two pairs of hands seized me from both sides and I was roughly dragged to my feet like you would to a thief.
My breath hitched in my chest when just as I stood up, I came face to face with the bluest iciest eyes to ever exist. The owner, who was an ethereally handsome man looked me up and down then he hissed; "Hey, whore! Cat got your tongue?"
But I didn't answer right away. I couldn't. Not when all I felt at the moment was anger— intense anger.
I mean, why would he even call me a whore?!
Who the fuck is he?
Before I could even make sense of what I was doing, I drew myself to my full height and smacked the handsome daredevil across his face, and with a voice so cold, I was shocked it came from me, I snarled;
"Who the fuck did you just call a whore? Why would you even do that?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, not missing the way the crowd circled around us gasped.
Well, they could get used to it.
—
Ladies and gentlemen, let me take you back a few seconds. I never slapped him.
It was all in my head. And while I would've loved to do that, I couldn't bring myself to do it due to how scared I was of him.
I mean, was there ever any way I could bring myself to touch a man this massive and this intimidating without literally asking for my death?
I don't know, but if you have ideas, you can give me.
So snapping out of my fantasy and blinking rapidly like a deer caught under a headlight, I took a step forward, looked him dead in the eye— even though I was visibly shaking— and hissed under my breath; "Who are you?"
I do not understand why but as soon as I asked that, his face froze in confusion. His eyes, deep and piercing raked the entire length of my body like I was nothing but the filth on the bottom of his shoes.
It wasn't until this moment that my eyes caught on his hands which I was just seeing for the first time, and holy heavens, they were unusually long with extremely long as fuck nails.
But there was something else.
Blood.
A lot of it. So much that it dripped down his fingers onto the floor.
For the first couple of minutes after I saw that, my ears simply rang, dulling out all the chaos happening around me. A chill like no other spread across my body, chilling me even down to my veins.
My eyes widened slowly when calloused bloody hands cupped my face, and while the owner of the hand was probably the most beautiful entity I have ever seen in my entire life, he was also the coldest, the most rigid and scariest person to ever exist.
Sparks flew where his skin met mine but ignoring it, I rasped; "Hi… hi, my name is Seraphine."
And as soon as I said that, the man stopped to look at me like I had just lost my mind, his eyes raking from the roots of my hair to my… bloody hell, what kind of ugly shoes are these on my feet?
Where are my fucking Louboutins?
And why am I dressed in this ugly drab?
I was however roughly pulled out of these thoughts when a voice, deep and chill, spoke up from behind the beautiful stranger. It drawled; "Speak Omega, what did you do to Eloise?"
Eloise?
My ears rang. My mother?
As soon as I heard her name, I immediately felt a strange surge of overwhelming anger rush through my veins. So I drew myself to my full height, met his eyes one more time and hissed; "Huh?"
"I said, what did you do to my Eloise?"
Hearing him say the words: 'my Eloise,' twisted at something buried deep within my guts.
"That bitch?!" I snarled, feeling my anger rise within me, "I haven't done anything to her yet, but I swear to the God who made me, when I do lay my hands on her, I will uproot the hairs from her head one after the fucking other and feed them to her!"
However, as soon as I said that, the crowd behind me erupted into loud murmurs. They were aggressive, loud and threw objects at me. And it wasn't until I looked at them… like really took a look at them that I realized that something was very wrong.
They were all unfamiliar, all violent… and all demanding for my blood.
I put up my hands when one bloody nincompoop tried to strike my face and when I did that, I stumbled, losing balance momentarily.
A shout tore out from my throat as I stumbled to the floor but before I could fall and further embarrass myself, large arms clasped around my torso, saving me; and again, I found myself staring into beautiful eyes… ones that were a little different from the ones I'd seen earlier.
I couldn't help it, I whispered; "God, you're beautiful!"
Maybe this one hates compliments because as soon as those words escaped my mouth, his face hardened. His jaw was set in a straight line and his eyes peered so murderously at me, I felt like I would die from its intensity.
He suddenly grabbed my upper arm so much that it hurt and shoving me forward unceremoniously, he seethed; "You killed Eloise!"
Huh? Wait? What?!
"I didn't kill Eloise," I clapped back, causing the already enraged crowd to grow more aggravated.
Someone even had the effrontery to throw their dirty flip flops at me and when the filthy object struck me, I winced.
"I really didn't kill Eloise!" I cried loudly, "…she tried to kill me!"
My words made the enraged people angrier, but do you know what it did to the men standing before me? The men who looked as though they had stepped straight out of a dark romance book?
It made them furious!
The one with bloody hands suddenly grabbed my chin with so much force, I could swear that I had heard a bone-breaking sound down there, and then he hissed into my face;
"You killed her. You killed our sister!"
But as soon as I heard those meaningless words, I threw my head back and laughed so hard my ribs began to hurt.
Why?
Because it was obvious now that these people were all crazy.
They were mad.
And how do I know this? I know because I knew for a fact that my mom was the only child her parents ever had. And that there was no way I would've killed her when she practically poisoned me.
However, I was soon snapped out of these thoughts when someone suddenly spoke from the back of the crowd and as soon as he did, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to him like nails to a magnet.
His voice was so cold and so intense, it nearly brought me to my knees. But since the voice didn't wreck me, the words he said next did.
He seethed; "Take her away. Lock her up and have her severely tortured until she is ready to tell the truth. She is not to be saved by anyone or rendered any form of help as she has committed treason against the throne and against the moon goddess."
I froze.