The Deal With The. Devil

The Deal With The. Devil
Emilia's POV

The knock came, loud and heavy against the door, echoing in the room as it echoed in my ears.
I sat up on my chest, throwing my hands onto the desk before me in my room. Then I dragged in a hard, careful breath, soothing the burn in my lungs with it and the chaos in my chest. “Come in,” I said after.
And he strolled in like he had all the time in the world. Not the brother I had been with during my six-week stay in the real world. Not the one that had laughed and joked with me, put his arm over my shoulder, and teased me. But the perverted version of him—the one that I can't even trust.
He brandished a smile, and his almost boyish face lit up. He was the youngest of my brothers, so he still had his boyish charm stuck on his face, so he looked almost like a teenager, though he was 25. At least that's what the real one was. I couldn't say for this evil version.
He brushed his thumb on his lips, brightening his grin more, as he strolled into the room, his deep blue eyes like the color of the sky, bright. “Hello, sister.” He said.
“Hello Brian,” I replied, with a rather grim smile. “Why not have your seat?” I said, gesturing to the seat before my desk in the mini office I have carved for myself in my room.
His gaze went on a fast, careful sojourn on my face before bouncing back to me. “Perhaps I should really sit.” He pulled his chair back and dropped forward. He leaned against his chair, brushing his thumb on his lips again. “I don't think you called me here for a get-together, so what do you want from me, Emilia? I guess my help. Since Aaron is probably some hours away from bombarding your palace.”
I was already preparing to speak, my lips parting, but his stark, blatant guess and complete knowledge of my situation threw me off for a moment, and I lost my words. I shook my head, regaining my composure, and I sat up, meeting his teasing gaze. “I don't actually want your help, Brian. I am proposing a deal between us.”
“What deal?” he asked. I traced his face and expression for a moment, searching for a hint to whatever lay in his mind. If I can trust him or not. But the boyish innocent smile lingering on his face wasn't just a mask. It was a wall that blocked off my search for his intentions.
I stared speechless at him for another quiet moment, battling with my mind on whether to trust him or not, and then I damned everything, and I spoke. “I want us to work together to defeat Aaron and Harrietta, and if we did, you would get Aaron's role as the Lord of Lancaster, and I will be able to keep my husband's kingdom.” I said.
He brushed his thumb on his lips in a slow, long minute that had my nerves quite on fire. He nudged his eyes at me after. “What makes you think that I want Aaron's position? Being a lord does have its benefits, but it is nothing compared to being the duke.”
“But I thought you once said you didn't want to be a Duke, Brian.”
“Yeah.” He grinned, teasing me with his eyes, his lips widening his smile. “Neither did I say I want to be a lord either.”
I wanted to yell at him to stop playing with me. But I just folded my fingers tight beneath the table, steering all my anger and rage to it, and I forced it through clenched teeth. “Then what do you want, Brian?” I asked. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want nothing,” he answered, his tone rather firm and curt, even though it betrayed the twinkle still wandering in his eyes. “I just want to be left alone. Going against Aaron can cost me my life. I think you should find another person to partner with, perhaps Nathan.” He rose gently onto his feet.
I would have happily tried Nathan as well. But that version of my brother here was a dunce, a yes-man to Aaron, without a bloody mind of his own. I swallowed hard, pushing the weight in my throat down. “So what do you really want, Brain? Just talk. Stop playing me around. You know I am desperate already. You don't have to make me any more desperate.”
He turned back then, brushing his thumb on his lips, his smile slowly growing cynical now, and he slowly approached his seat again. “I want you to take me to where you really come from, Emilia.” He grinned, holding tight to the chair's backrest and looking right into my eyes.
I threw my arms more onto the desk, knocked forward by the hot searing tremors that rippled through my spine and surged fast to the rest of my body. How did he…
My lips parted, then they closed shut again. They parted again, and then I forced the words out of my lungs. “What are you talking about, Brian?” I demanded, looking sharply at him.
“Your question shouldn’t be, ‘What are you talking about, Brian?’” He mimicked me a bit for the last part. He dropped back carefully into his seat. “Your question, rather, should have been: How did you find out, Brian? And then I’ll tell you. I found out like this.” He slipped me a smile, throwing his hands over the desk now, looking all business, though he still wore his teasing grin.
I tried not to let him notice the crack in my composure. I tried to move my lips to speak, but only a hushed mumble could slip out.
He smiled at my confusion. His brightening eyes said he was enjoying my shock. “I have always known something was odd with you, Emilia. When you were born, you didn't cry. Everyone thought you were dead, even Mom. But the physicians were convinced you weren't. And Father decided to keep you. The physicians found a way to feed you with milk so you wouldn't die, and the maids dressed you while you were comatose. They kept feeding you milk until sometime you eventually woke up, but you were never fully a human being. You were always spacing out, never speaking, and always mute. But then suddenly you eventually showed improvement and became a fully functional person at a time that coincided with the time Duke Sebastian visited our estate. And surprisingly, you were speaking, talking, and behaving like a fully functional person for a whole week. I was watching, watching you, believing everything about you was mysterious, until you entered that barn that day with that book. I saw the flash of light happen in there, and then you dropped to the floor, unconscious again, until you eventually woke up, but you didn't wake up as a fully functional human being again but as the demented, lifeless soul you were before that week happened. You remained like that for years until the day of your marriage with Sebastian, and suddenly, you returned back from being a living corpse, and you became a fully functional being once again. Only to crash out a month and a half ago again and become comatose again after crashing down in the same barn and with the same flash of light. I didn't get to see it this time.” He grinned more to himself. “But Harrietta and the maids saw it, but they were all too stupid to put everything together. Only I could do that. Only I know you are not from this world, and from another world, you and you inhabit this body when you arrive here, and somehow it is tied to Sebastian, which means he is like an anchor for you as you are an anchor for his madness…”
“Stop!” I screamed. “Just stop!!” I screamed, getting him to stop speaking. I folded my hands tight, turning away to hide the dizziness in my eyes as it swirled fast in my head as the numbing coldness in me bit harder and harder at my core. He knows. He fucking knows.
My heart thrashed madly now against my chest, blocking off the air in my lungs. I had to breathe fast and raspily to breathe at all. I had been trying not to let him rattle me, make me scared, or shock me, but I just couldn't help it right now. I damn well couldn't.
I wanted for a while to quell the heat in my chest and get some semblance of composure, but even with that, I couldn't stop my racy breath, and I turned to him with my eyes closed.
It took another force of strength in me to get me to open my eyes to him again, watching his grinning face consume my sight again. He was grinning with the whole of his face now, a cynical, proud twist to his lips. I wanted to tell him he was mad, that he was just making this all up, and it wasn't true. But I could see in his eyes that he knows about everything already, and I couldn't fool him.
“But I can't go back to my world anytime soon. I am stuck here for ten years…” I breathed.
“I can wait that long, Emilia. You just have to promise me you will take me along then.”
“But…” I stammered, looking sharply at him. I had to swallow hard to get my voice out again. “I don't think I can take you to my world. And I don't think it is possible.”
He flashed me a grin again, brushing his thumb carefully on his lips. “You just have to make it possible, Emilia. If you want my help, you will have to make it possible.” He said.