A Shade Darker ✔️

{Chapter Fifteen}

A Dress The Color Of Blood

June 9th, 2017

Mike

My gut lurched forward, and if it weren't for my stomach being empty then I feared that I would have thrown up. My nerves were scattered everywhere under my pale skin, almost feeling like a powerful hose that someone left on but did not hold onto. Just let it flail freely throughout the open spaced yard.

My skin felt like it was crawling.

A few hours have passed, it is the later afternoon, and already I can hear members of the colony making their way towards the courtyard.

The maids downstairs were busy preparing food and cleaning up the dining room and ballroom of the castle. Another reason to make my heart pound with anxiety, the fear of my wife acting out and causing people to ask questions.

Would she not dance with me and embarrass me? Would she not even take my arm as in invitation? I have offended her, certainly she is not going to warm right up to me.

I sigh into my hands and rub my palms over my face. It's a few minutes of this routine before there's a knock on my door and the maid, Lucile, walks in.

I try to smile in her company, but it won't form on my lips. It feels wrong and fake. Lucile was splashed with water and I imagined my wife who had just been pampered to perfection by this woman.

Lucile was a maid working for me after my every need, and still she found it not as bad to live here as my wife did.

Lucile sighs in my presence, that rosy smile accompanying her aged features. She whistles and smoothes down the collar on my tuxedo.

She looks me over, acknowledging my appearance. With a nod, she smiles.

"You look very handsome, King. I'm sure many of the women tonight will be blushing at the sight of you" The comment did not make my face heat and a smile come to my lips like usual.

Judging by the hard grin on her face, she knew her comment did not work.

I sigh, walking away and to the other side of the room, something I had seen my wife do many times.

The thought of my wife being so angry at me made a deep sadness reign throughout me. I felt a cloud over my shoulders, one that rained and thundered and lightning. One that followed me around.

Lucile places her hand on my shoulder and sighs.

"Do not give up yet, my King. Your wife is still very young, just a child still. You must give her time to accept you, time to accept her surroundings. Though she may look the body of a woman, she is but yet an eighteen year old girl" I wanted to throw that excuse right out the window.

My wife may have been eighteen, but I was the same age when I was brought here and forced to live this way. If I could make it, so could she.

I push my anger down deep inside me and walk out the door without another word.

I don't make it far, only to the living space where I remembered shredding her wedding gown. Where I remembered dragging my claws down her back and inhaling the scent of her blood.

There, peering over the balcony is her, a thick knot tightening in my throat. Her dark hair was curled and falling down her back, over her shoulders. A red gown, the color of her blood flows over every curve of her body. Hugs tightly to her waist and makes my eyes travel over her body.

She senses me, I know she does, and turns around. She stands proudly, her chin up in the air without amusement this time. Only a hard look on her face and a strained look of composure.