the villainess gets revenge (alver x og cale)

Part 9

"I'm really wondering if I should call the guards."

He froze in place, the familiar voice that cut through the night air was startling but the tone was somehow even more unsettling.

Had he ever heard her sound so completely poised and eloquent? It was so much more likely to hear her voice slurred or infused with anger.

"It would be a pointless act." He replied, straightening up and deepening his voice so that she wouldn't recognize it.

"I realized that as well." She was leaning against a pillar, her nightgown standing out in the darkness of the night and her eyes lit by the moon. "You've been running across the palace grounds for at least a month now engaging in who-cares-what. At first I thought I should inform the guards about the suspicious bastard creeping around my garden. But then I thought about it and realized I don't really give a fuck."

Alberu could laugh in disbelief.

Cale Henituse looked like an entirely different woman.

She'd been his fiance for the better part of a year and had been moved into his palace in order to ensure her security. Throughout the entire year, she had consistently only shown hima facade of the trashy woman that all society thought her to be. Stubbornly hiding her true self to such a degree that sometimes even Alberu doubted his assessment of her character.

She was a committed actress.

It was so strange that the first time she revealed herself to him, she wouldn't be able to recognize him.

"You don't care for security in the crown prince's palace?" He asked, unable to help his curiosity.

She scoffed. "If that bastard can't fight off a meaningless gnat such as yourself then I've greatly overestimated him."

Such a queer way to recieve his first ever compliment from his fiance. "You have a lot of faith in him."

"He's not incapable." She said with a shrug. "Although I suppose the guards are pretty incapable to have missed you traipsing around the palace."

"You don't sound terribly concerned." Alberu couldn't help but feel drawn in. He had his own reasons for being out and about disguised as his true self but those reasons could wait until after he'd had the opportunity to talk to her. Just a bit longer.

She quirked a brow at him. "Well, since Alberu isn't a total moron." He didn't think he'd ever heard her say his name and the realization made him feel strange. "You're not actually a trespasser."

She'd seen him leave his bedroom. He wondered how long she'd been observing him. Considering he hadn't noticed her eyes on him for the past month it really did leave him to wonder how much about his fiance that he didn't know.

"But you're still considering calling the guards." He recalled.

Her smile was elegant and cruel. It suited her well.

"Wouldn't it be amusing? Alberu's little errand boy getting caught up in a shitstorm because his clueless drunk fiance was startled by a figure running about in the night?"

It was at that moment that he knew for absolute certainty that everything Cale had done for the past year had been done for the express purpose of causing Alberu grief. She truly was a demonic woman who really knew no limits.

"And what stopped you?"

That really was the question. Why had this menacing villainess decided to have mercy on him just this once and even reveal her true self in a way that she had never once exposed herself even to her own fiance.