Warm Blood

nine

9 

1347

I didn't understand Wymond's motivations, not at first.

It took time to see past his bloodlust and unnatural urges. I constantly wondered why I was chosen for this life, and what this life would imply about my own future. I knew I had to face his demons if I wanted a better life for my family, but what did that say about my own demons and morality? He never hurt me, not intentionally anyways. He always took what he needed and cared for my well-being throughout the way, but I couldn't rid the wariness from the fronts of my mind. A thing like him couldn't just exist to be kind, I was convinced.

Nobody else knew about our arrangement. My public duty was to be his wife, nothing more than a female companion to fuck or berate whenever my husband had too much to drink, whichever came first, but in private I was so much more. Wymond's desire for blood became a coveted secret between him and I, and it also became the start of my admiration for his character. Because in reality, Wymond was truly kind. He was patient and understanding. He was never irate, but always compassionate. He knew of my adoration for literature and knowledge and was sure to fill the shelves of my chambers with books written by his favorite philosophical teachers. He taught me about art and the world in a way that I would have never imagined in my small provincial life in France.

Unlike what everyone around us believed, Wymond didn't want my body—not in the traditional sense. He was uninterested in sex or pleasure, only the kind he received from drinking from me. I came to learn more about this sense of pleasure, something Wymond described as being in a state of nirvana and what he would have imagined Heaven would feel like, if it was real. He believed there were no monoliths or tokens of good and evil because both existed in everyone, which I had a hard time believing, because to me he was only good.

I spent too much of my life in England indoors, but that was to no one's fault but my own. Because as much as I tried to embrace the new life Wymond had bestowed upon me, there was always a part of me that worried about the unfamiliar commonplaces within it. I was not royalty or anything close to the sort. People like me didn't have the luxuries of parading around a palace or exploring what life had to offer, or even the luxury of being happy, because people like me had to work until we died in order to make other people happy

From what I had always known, France and England were at odds and had been this way for a while due to England's occupancy of France. Growing up, I was always taught to hate the English and what they stood for, and yet here I stood in the greatest English structure to exist.

Although I had Wymond's permission to roam freely around the castle grounds, I always found myself cruising through the grand hallways. The castle was quite large, and there was something unsettling about sleeping somewhere so foreign, so I took advantage of every waking moment to gain familiarity with the royal palace—from every chamber to every closet. One would say I knew the castle better than the servants did because there were sections of the castle that not even they knew of—one of which happened to be a common meeting place between Wymond and the King.

Wymond was second-hand to the king, often engaging him in conversations regarding financial deeds or matters of trade and war. I overheard many of their consultations on my nightly treks around the castle, many of which I didn't have the knowledge to discern the importance of, but there was one exchange in particular that assured me Wymond was good.

"Wymond, while I do always respect your council, I can't possibly make such a gesture in a time like this," the King said. His voice was always so gentle, it was hard to believe he'd be capable of being such an overbearing conqueror of lands. I never knew if he was aware of my French origins, but I also knew he would never hear me speak for I was not allowed to talk to the King.