Can I Keep You?

Chapter 7

"AGAIN!"

Tessa stood panting across the dark chamber from her master, his eyes narrowed on her like shining daggers in the low candle light. His features sinister as he glared.

She felt the creeping of blood and sweat down her body as she struggled to keep up with the power that her training counterpart exuded. She swallowed her ragged breath and dashed across the floor, diving to disappear into the pools of darkness she had created that covered the walls and floors. This was her dimension. The place that she controlled. She could move through this space undetected, she could transform this darkness into any weapon, she could infiltrate any living thing.

Even so... it was no match for the man she called her prince.

Without a moment's hesitation, Atlas reached into one of the pools and pulled her out by her hair, flinging her across the room to crash into the solid stone wall with a sickening crunch. She fell to her hands and knees, her vision obscured by bulbs of light and dark flashing in her eyes and lungs screaming for breath that would not fill her punctured lung. She shivered as she felt the flow of liquid down her scalp like molasses, the little drips falling to the stone floor echoing in the cavernous room.

"Pathetic. Do it AGAIN!" Her prince snarled, and her body did as he commanded. Standing even though she had no strength left.

There was a spark of something in her master's eyes, and before she had even moved, he was in front of her, his hand crashing her into the stone behind her once more as he held her by the throat. The force had cracked more than a couple bones.

Blood sprayed from her mouth as she gasped for air, the act only enraging her master more.

"You are weak, Tessa." He spat, and one glance down at his nearly healed scar told her that he was right. Had she been strong enough to hold off both Ban the undead and the dragon sin, her master would have never fallen to such a lowly state. He would not have had to go into hiding to heal. He would have already taken what he was due. She was weak. She had failed him.

And this was her punishment.

Her eyes came back up to meet his seething rage. She would take it. She would suffer any punishment for her crimes against this man. Should he choose that her life was no longer worth anything to him, she would gladly take her own life to keep him from sullying his hands.

"Your highness..."

The high-pitched sound of her sister's sing-song voice cut through the deathly silent room, but neither she or her prince looked away.

"What news do you bring me, Deidra? I'll warn you now; I'm not in a forgiving mood." Atlas' voice was even as he addressed her twin, while keeping narrowed eyes on Tessa. They were swimming with not only rage but a truly sinister delight in her predicament. She still couldn't breathe...

"I have accomplished my mission, your highness. I have found him." She beamed in her own triumph, as the 'him' she was referring to had been quite difficult to locate. But that wasn't even the best news she came baring today.

"And, yet you're still here to pester me. Spit it out."

Deidra cleared her throat, after flinching at his dark mood, "Y-Yes... I came across a quaint little town where I heard the most delicious bit of gossip."

Atlas was growing bored with her sister's banter; she could feel it in the way he itched to squeeze her throat tighter. Blood was flowing down her face from the impact earlier, trailing down her left temple down to her cheek, the prince followed the movement a moment before his eyes came back to hers.

Apparently, Deidra sensed his boredom too as she quickly continued, "There is talk of a group of rogues traveling to the south on a giant pig. The leader of which is said to be a young man with golden blonde hair, calling himself Meliodas."

The prince's eyes widened a fraction and slowly, a wickedly dark grin spread over his features. He allowed Tessa's feet to touch the ground and loosened his grip on her throat. Looking up, Tessa was greeted by a delight far greater than he had from punishing her. This was the news he had been waiting for.

"So... He did survive. Wouldn't expect anything less of the dragon sin..." Atlas's grin only grew as thoughts raced by his eyes, unreadable by his loyal servant still in his grasp.

His hand traced up her throat to her jaw, where he roughly turned her face to the side then leaned down to lick the blood that had flowed down her cheek, earning a shaky gasp from Tessa. Quickly, he jerked her head so that she was staring into his eyes again.

"Don't fail me again." He warned and allowed her to drop to the floor as he walked away from her.

Determined eyes met her master's retreating form as she felt her resolve and blood thicken, "I swear that I won't..." She whispered, as all of the shadows and pools of darkness crept along the walls and ground to reenter her broken body, healing and mending her bones and skin.

She would die before she allowed herself to fail him again.