Planet Eden: The Garden

Chapter 25. Half Full

Chapter 25.

A woman came into the room, her body round and plump. She was gripping her stomach, her face full with a smile. She straightened out her maid uniform, wiping down the nonexistent dust on it. Her hair was pulled into a bun, a few strands falling in her face to indicate it had been a long day for her.

"Something you need m'lady?"

"Run a bath for me," I told her, rather than asking, and moved over to the room divider to change behind.

I watched as she moved over to the room in the corner across from where I stood. She disappeared into it before she reappeared rolling a tub over to where I was getting undressed. I unlatched the belt that held my clothes up, and soon the entire thing came rolling down in one swift motion. I was naked before a stranger, but I was too tired to mind. All I wanted to do was relax in a bucket of water and never leave.

She clicked a button on it, and water began to pool from almost thin air. It was almost as if the tub was collected water particles in the air and making it into a liquid form of water. I grabbed a robe, noticing she was moving over to me. Wrapping it completely so it covered as much as it possibly could, I turned away from her to grab the wooden hairbrush on top of a small cabinet of different products.

The woman went to the cabinet and grabbed some elixirs before tossing small bits of the liquids inside them into the water. I watched as the water turned a dark pink color, flower pedals suddenly forming almost from nowhere. She tossed in what looked to be sand, and I noticed the bubbles forming as the water continued to rise.

"Would you like me to wash your hair?" the woman asked.

"No, I can do it myself," I moved over to the water, raising my hand the slightest bit to warm up my bathwater. She let out a squeak, "Go."

For a moment, I wondered why Prince Angel hadn't summoned the Exterminators to inject me with the serum that turned my curse off. Perhaps the man was extremely trusting of me. He most likely believed that if Camille could trust me out in the wilderness of Phantom, I could be trusted anywhere. I just hoped that child-like belief wouldn't get him killed. I found him extremely intriguing, and I wanted to know more about it.

"Actually, could you go get Viper for me?" I questioned the woman, and she nodded before leaving the room.

I dunked my body in the water after shedding the robe completely, dipping one toe after the other into it. A deep-hearted sigh escaped my lips, savoring the feeling of the different oils and girlish scents enveloping my senses. I wished I could lay in the bath forever. I closed my eyes, allowing my hair to fall freely into the bathwater, my hands casually gliding through it.

The door opened, and I opened one eye, not surprised to find the girl I had asked for entered. She couldn't be more than eighteen, making me fully aware that her mother had come to the palace only a year or two before the ambush happened. She knew nothing about the true dangers and sneaky minds of Cursed born in Phantom. All she had was a taste of it from the people who were refugees from my home country.

Her violet eyes narrowed on me when she saw me in the bath, and she strode towards me in grace only a reptile would have. Viper had on what appeared to be sleeping clothes or at least comfortable clothes at that. A long nightgown rested just above her ankles, and her shoulders were covered with an almost sheer cream-colored material.

"What do you want?" Viper asked, clearly not amused with seeing my naked form casually in the bath.

"I have a proposition for you," I said, a smirk forming on my face. "Do you ever take this thing off?"