𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃│✔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟐

Pandora 

♡

"I didn't know the Princess of Cat-Eye has the habits of a nudist." The 1st in command says darkly, the shadows at the far corner of my room making way for his unnaturally tall stance like a shedding skin.

"I didn't know the King's 1st in command has the habits of a voyeur." I glare back, arms hugging my chest securely, hiding the insecurities hanging behind them.

"Had I known, I would've pulled the curtains."

Observing the liberty at which we speak, an outsider could regard this as familiarity, or intimacy even. But, it takes a predator to know when one is preying. This is nothing but a scheme to approach me. He acts, I react. As long as I keep up with him, I'm safe from witnessing the crazed state his pupils contract to when he means business. In this dance of 'who will give in first', all I have to do is keep up with the rhythm of the waltz and not step on his shoes. Because the moment I do, I don't know what'll happen, but eyeing Adonis's volatile expression when I asked about the mysterious 1st in command, I predict flesh and chaos to plummet like meteor rain the night I'll meet that side of him.

"Who doesn't love a little audience?" he jests in false distain.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Precious, making fun of you would mean that I enjoy your torment."

"How else should I interpret your implications?" Flashbacks of Father parading my blemished body for all his close Council members to see ignite the faintest sparks of hurt in my eyes, shifting the chord of my gaze in a flicker.

This isn't me, I tell myself, not sure who I'm trying more desperately to convince. Not anymore.

Seeming unprepared for the sudden vulnerability lucid in my expression, his fingers twitch and these malicious eyes turn bewildered.

"You know I was just teasing you, Princess. I'm not that low to purposely walk in on you changing. You were already dressed by the time I sneaked in."

I pay no heed to his subtle display of humanity. My irises feeding off the burned photographs of my past to illuminate in passionate amber, hot for more loathing to feed on. Only when my wavering yearning for death is stilled into an azure ocean, can I sink deeper to the bottom of self-hatred. For self-hatred has always been the fuel driving me closer to the edge, and only when I'm the closest to the horizon I can reach, without falling into an everlasting void, am I able to evoke her without tipping over. My other half. My curse and blessing. The blue flame burning with the same fire as the one suffocating in this body. She sings to me, every minute of every passing day. Beseeching to be released. Imploring for me to break her free from the cocoon I've woven around her, and let her flapper her silver wings in the ichor of the mortals who've sinned her. She dreams of bathing in the fear of them. Feeling their pale skin against her flushed one. Tasting the sourness of their last breath against her hungry lips. Her sadistic laughs are swirling around the muscles of my mouth, taunting me to let go. No matter how hard I try to hold on to the last strain of humanity I've left, I know that with every minute passing on the clock, my time becomes scarcer. The day my body grows tired of swimming across the ocean of ache and melancholy, is the day let myself drown in her.

She'll live when I die. I'll die when she lives.

"Why are you here?"I ask after a moment of silence, my head turned away from him when I focus my attention to my reflection in the mirror of the vanity. I feel his gaze burn holes on the back of my head while I cautiously remove the golden pins garnishing my hair. A few stubborn strands remain stuck in the pins, pulling at my scalp.