Chapter 63: Chapter 63: TEMPTED TO KILL

VALORIA WILDEROSE

I take a bath and dress up in the new dress with Marcella waiting and hovering around me like a warden.

It’s as if she knows that the second she leaves, I might find a way to run off and hide in a place she’ll never find me for as long as possible.

She continues her fake get-up, acting like doting sisters the second we’re out of the room for anyone to see, as if any of the servants watching would care if she bitch-slapped me across the face.

All of it is suspicious, but I don’t question it, playing along like an obedient pup.

She practically drags me to the garden, far away from the dining hall where I’m expecting this breakfast to be, until we’re drawing close to an outdoor setting with all my sisters waiting for us, sitting around a table.

As if my heart can’t drop any lower than it has.

It’s an outdoor breakfast, but with all seven of us alone… together. Literal hell. At least with other people present, I could make excuses to leave.

They didn’t even want me there, but with just my sisters, they won’t let go no matter how much I beg or plead… even if I’m on the brink of death.

“Wow, Valoria, you’re actually kind of pretty,” Willow gushes before we can reach the table, her dirty blonde hair braided in two pigtails, tilting her head to the side with childish innocence.

Willow is the scatterbrained one among my sisters — stunning, all curves and confidence, but with a talent for missing the obvious in ways that almost feel impressive.

“A well-fed dog is still a dog, Will,” Ana responds; her older fraternal twin by five minutes.

Unlike Willow, she has more brains, fewer curves, and a tomboyish personality.

I don’t respond to their taunts, having nothing to say. Instead, I sit in the chair laid out for me as instructed.

The seats are arranged around the circular table according to our ages: Lyra, Nova, Isa, Ana, Willow, me, and finally Marcella.

The second I rest my full weight, the chair collapses, falling apart while I crash onto the hard floor, rough pieces of wood digging into me.

They don’t break my skin, but they leave bruises. A series of muffled snickering follows.

“My bad,” Isa speaks up. “I picked some random chair out of the trash ’cause I thought it would suit you best. Here, try this one instead.” She pulls out an old stool, shorter than the rest, so when I sit on it, I look like I’m practically squatting at the table beside them.

“Remember when you used to spy on our hangouts, desperate to have a seat at the table?” Nova says next, chuckling at how pathetic I look perched on the uneven stool. “How does it feel knowing you finally have what you’ve always wanted? I guess whoring yourself out pays sometimes.”

Another round of chuckles spreads, this time less muffled.

I swallow hard, wondering if any eating will be done today. I’m not too saddened by it. I’m used to starving—and to the ridicule, both from before and from the castle.

Their tactics have always been the same, so all I need to do is endure.

I’ve endured 21 years of it, including an agonizing millennium of hell. I’ve endured Azrael’s torment, so an hour of this is doable.

Last night was different because I was just spooked, returning here and facing them again.

That’s right. I just needed time to adjust, and now that I have, I can endure. None of it is different from what I’m used to.

“Hey!” A full breakfast sandwich is suddenly thrown at me, smacking into my left side and splattering across my hair and face before plopping onto my lap. “Are you ignoring us?” Isa grunts, annoyed that they’ve been berating me and I haven’t said anything.

I flinch when her fist slams into the table, reacting just enough so she doesn’t get violent.

“What’s the King like anyway? Is he any good? I’m asking for a friend,” Willow asks, leaning on her chin and looking at me with interest.

I can tell by the glint in her eyes that this “friend” is actually her.

My lips open to say something until I realize I don’t know what to say. We never did it.

I have no idea what it’s supposed to be like except a vague idea based on what he was doing before I walked in—fucking Alice with so much passion.

All we’ve done is kiss… and other things too dangerous to think about, things I can’t even find words to describe.

“Oh my gosh, you don’t know, do you?” Isa interrupts my thoughts, catching my hesitation, and erupts into loud mocking laughter.

I’m suddenly red with embarrassment.

“Of course it makes perfect sense. Someone like His Majesty wouldn’t soil himself with filth. I bet you tried to seduce him with your bony ass and he rejected you.”

“If I knew that’s what the devil looked like, I wouldn’t have minded going off in Marcella’s place,” Willow continues, fawning with distant dreamy eyes.

“You’re always an idiot for looks, Willow. Remember Father says he’s horrible, and that face of his is just a distraction. Might I remind you how many girls he’s killed in the past year and how dangerous he is?” Marcella speaks up.

“He hasn’t killed Valoria yet,” Willow argues, almost with disappointment.

“That’s just ’cause you have to be worth killing in the first place. Doesn’t mean something or someone else isn’t going to kill her eventually. I’m tempted to do it myself every day.” She grins wickedly, staring at me with mysterious, knowing eyes.

I freeze, realizing she’s indirectly and outwardly confessed to being the killer from that night. I stare back at her in horror.

It was Marcella. I knew it.

From the moment I arrived, she’s hovered as if waiting for the perfect time to complete what she couldn’t before, while gauging if I knew it was her with her incessant taunts.

I shiver, suddenly nauseous, staring at the cause of my demise—the reason I had to go through hell with nothing else in my mind but why?

She had already taken everything from me… my life was already worthless and meaningless.

Why?

“Watch your words, Marcella.” Lyra finally speaks up, slamming her book shut, and the entire table falls silent.

All this while she’s been quietly eating and reading a book—typical to her personality: quiet and indifferent.

When the others bullied me, she always only watched from afar, acting as though she was too mature to stoop to their level, more focused on her calling to serve the goddess than anything else.

“His Majesty is present and already looking for every reason to think less of us. You don’t want your words to be misunderstood.” She chides her, passing her a cold look that shuts her up.

I look at Lyra gratefully for a second before she looks at me too. I avert my eyes almost instantly.

Despite never actively involving herself in the taunts, she’s always been the scariest—scarier even than Marcella—with the way everyone answers to her whenever she speaks.

“V-Valoria knows I’m joking,” Marcella scurries to defend herself as Lyra throws her another look.

It might seem like Lyra is on my side, but I’ve learned that it’s nowhere near the truth.

Lyra doesn’t care. She’s indifferent as long as whatever they’re doing isn’t a direct hateful taunt.

Meaning she did nothing when they pulled my hair and almost drowned me when I was six as a “joke,” or whatever else they do with playful, misguided words.

Marcella and the rest are allowed everything except directly showing hatred.

“Oops,” Willow gasps after purposefully tossing her bowl of chocolate ice cream toward me to dissolve the tension at the table.

Half of it spills onto my dress, staining the white fabric, while the rest splatters on the grass below. I flinch, offended by yet another stain on the dress I let myself like.

“I-It’s o-o-okay…”

“What’s the matter? Just because you’re living a new life of luxury doesn’t mean you can be wasteful, Valoria.”

“You used to love eating the scraps that fell off our table. You’ve changed. I’m disappointed,” Nova chimes in, shaking her head.

“I-I’m no-not… I’m n-n-not hu-h-hungry.”

“I’m not asking you. Eat.” Willow doubles down harshly.

I hesitate, staring at the floor for too long, contemplating how exactly I’m supposed to do that, before Ana leaps off her seat, losing her patience.

Suddenly her hand holds me down, forcing my head downward into the ice-cream-stained patch of earthy grass, but I resist, struggling until my neck hurts and biting back the tears.

Unexpectedly, footsteps draw closer.

The sound of feet treading across the grass grows louder until a set of shoe-clad feet enters my line of vision, and all the chuckling around me ceases.

Slowly, I look up at whoever it is.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Azrael towers over me, dressed casually corporate—like a rich, spoiled heir looking for trouble with his crisp white shirt untucked and his black tie hanging around his shoulders rather than tied at his neck, paired with black pants and effortlessly perfect, tousled black hair.

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