CREATURE

・chapter 35・

Asya rolled over and nuzzled her face against the softness of her pillow. She was nestled deep beneath warm sheets, a duvet and a heavy wool blanket to ward off the chilly morning air, lazily soaking up the comforts of her bed. Owing to her usually busy schedule, she didn't sleep in often, but this bed and its assortment of pillows and bedding that cushioned in all the right places, this bed was worth making an exception for.

She started dozing off again, dismissing the gentle poking on her shoulder as the start of some vivid dream. But then she heard her name being whispered, foggy and faraway. She lugged open one eye, blinking away sleep to bring her surroundings into focus.

There was a face at the side of her bed. A face, and two big round eyes staring back at her over the edge of the mattress.

'I think she's awake.' Tanya whispered to something on the floor beside her, getting a feline chirp in response. The little girl held a finger up to her lips, silencing the cat, before looking back to her. 'It's snowing, Asya.'

The young ballerina's features relaxed into a sleepy smile as she sat herself up onto her elbows. She glanced over her shoulder to the tall windows whose curtains she'd intentionally left open the night before. It was because there had been stars in the sky, no city smog or orange hues, but stars. If she hadn't been so thoroughly exhausted she'd probably have stayed awake to admire them longer, but between her offensively comfortable bed and the prickly countryside quiet, she'd fallen asleep within minutes.

Come morning, the view from the second floor of the manor was still absolutely mesmerising. The sky was a dreamy shade of candyfloss pink and the rolling lawns beneath the window were flecked with powder white snow, a lower one of which walked onto a glassy lake. Its banks were shrouded by birch trees, the surface of the water drenched in a milky morning fog.

She glanced back at Tanya, still standing at the side of her bed in a matching Grinch-themed pyjama set. The fat tabby cat she'd seen the day before was sitting patiently at her side, also looking up at her as if it were awaiting instructions. It hadn't taken her long the night before to figure out that Tanya was following her around like a lost puppy, slipping her shy little smiles whenever they made eye-contact. She didn't know much about kids, but this one was well on her way to stealing her heart.

'Alright, up you get.' she grinned, patting the duvet beside her. 'It's freezing in here.'

Tanya broke into a grin and clambered onto the bed, crawling underneath the warm covers. The cat hopped on as well, letting out a purry grunt before it curled up at their feet.

'Everyone's asleep.' Tanya explained from beside her. 'Puts and I came to sit with you.'

'That's Puts?' she asked, gesturing to the cat. The same tabby, one that had a split personality by the looks of things, that nearly went feral with Roman the day before.

Tanya nodded, and went silent for a moment before she looked up at her with those striking blue eyes of hers. Icy and vibrant, framed by long dark lashes. The resemblance she had to her brother was honestly a little uncanny.

'Asya,' the little girl asked, 'Are you really a ballerina?'

She smiled. 'Yep. When I was a little older than you, my mother sent me to England so I could train professionally.'

'Does it hurt?'

'Well, sometimes.' she answered reluctantly, unsure how to work around a question like that. She didn't want to ruin the beauty of ballet for an optimistic seven-year-old, not even when she was sat there with a dwindling body weight and two hopelessly impinged hips.

'Does Romy get hurt?' Tanya asked softly.

Asya hadn't even let the adorably innocent nickname his little sister had for him sink in before her heart coiled into a knot inside her chest. And for the second time since arriving there, she was reminded that while she and the rest of the world knew him as a scandal-tainted prodigy, he had a sister who had no idea that he'd been taking drugs for most of his career, or had been rumoured to work inhumanly hard behind the scenes to keep up with his reputation.