𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐃│✔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟑𝟐

Pandora

♡

No. Way.

I nudge his inner thigh when he opens his mouth that promises no good, in every sense of the word. I even cough as a warning, but the darkened gaze he held a second ago vanished for an all too amused one.

"It must be hard to have to miss your daughter for so long, I'll make sure to ask the King to let Pandora visit plenty of times in the future," he says to her.

"E-Excuse me, but I'm not - I mean," she stutters frightened. Mother looks confused over at her, and I turn at Father to see his dreadful face.

"I am the Lord's wife, Sir." Mother's voice softly says in chirping manner, covering her confusion in humour.

"Oh, I'm very sorry," he acts with a shake of his head, sounding everything but sorry, "It's just that she and the Lord here," he turns towards Father again, "have mixed scents so I assumed that..." His words die at the back of his throat, and anybody would think it to be out of shame. Utensils freeze, mouths remain agape and gasps fill the air. Everyone knew that Father had mistresses, almost every Council member has some. 

But it's a whole new level of profane for my mother closest friend, and wife of the Minister of Finance to be one of them. Mother could arrest her actually.

The woman begins to stutter excuses when mother's burning gaze finds her, but is stops when Esmée, bless her heart, ignorantly asks a question.

"Pandora, what does it mean for their scents to be mixed?"

Of course, she asks the question with no evil in mind, she's not on of our kind. Yet, I still wish she would've waited. I'm about to answer her as subtly as possible, to keep the steam that comes out of Mother's ears at bay, when the bluntest man alive interrupts me.

"It means that the Lord has been having very regular sexual interactions with her. The longer their affair lasted, the more his scent will be on her and vice versa," Sir Aries interrupts before taking a bite of his steak.

"Isn't that like, a crime?" Adonis asks with an amused expression. His gaze finding Sir Ciaran with something I cannot quite depict.

"It is,"the man himself answers nodding, "she could be decapitated for treason, and he could be taken down from his position as Lord." His chin rests on his hand, looking at mom in apprehension. It's then that I realise, as my eyes can't help but trail the streaks of his raven hair that curls at their tips. 

The swirls of black dance behind the unnatural white of his corneas, and the storms of silver push against the clear blue irises that he concealed his eyes with. All of this is a game to him. Minutes of entertainment at the cost of a crumbling system and a broken family. He doesn't care.

Not for Mother.

Not for Father.

Not for this Clan.

As long as the House of Tarak remains standing in all its glory, the world around it could burn down to ashes, then freeze to the coldest tears of crystal, and he would still not care.

For nobody.

Nobody.

A crisp, frigid breath fans against my chest, rendering it to a shivering coldness. I don't look up when the sound of a chair scraping against the floor announces Mother standing up, before she excuses herself and leaves.

 The shivers crawling down my leg wakes me up from whatever haze I was stuck in, and I pull my leg from in-between his with a bit too much force. The rest of the diner passes in an uncomfortable silence, the glares of the Council members' wives burning holes in the mistresses' forehead. He tries to catch my attention the whole time, nudging my feet after which I tuck them safely under my chair, or staring at me for a obviously long time. 

Esmée's questioning look confirms she noticed, and so did Sir Aries' glare. Although I'm starting to think that anything that has something to do with me will earn a glare form him.

I wonder what I did for him to hate me so.