Chapter 96 The Cost of a Possession
\[Lilia\]
“Kael,” I whispered, pushing the blondie off me and standing up. Good thing that I tightened the robe lace around my waist, and it miraculously held on through the haywire.
He’s back. I felt every relief that he was here. I don’t know, but it feels as though the hole that never existed inside me had been filled again with his presence. I smiled, but then it turned out to be a wince as the corner of my lips suddenly stung.
Kael’s gaze sharpened as he looked down at the cut on my lips and stepped closer to where I stood. He lifted his hand, lightly caressing my face, and his thumb ran over my bruised lips. His eyes were blazing with rage, and his jaw clenching in contempt.
“Master Kael, we are sorry, but she started it. She threw a glass of juice on me,” the blondie spoke right on my side, stepping close and pointing at her drenched uniform.
This giant bitch!
“What?” I gaped at her. Does she really think she could get away from it? “No! You were picking on Aya, and you attacked us,” I sneered, and I was about to charge at her and pull her hair out when Kael grabbed both of my arms and and nailed me to my place.
“Both of you, shut up!” He roared menacingly, startling me against him, and his eyes turned red with rage. However, what I did not expect him to do next, was when he lifted his arm and slapped the blondie backhandedly.
The blonde let out a gasp of pain, which caused her to fall to the ground. I was never the kind of person who would resort to violence, but the longer I stayed in this place, the more I realized that I had to toughen up and that I could not show weakness. I needed to learn how to fight for myself and stand up for what I believed was right. I looked down at her, eyes wide in terror, while cupping the side of her face where Kael struck her. The other two were trembling on their spot, and it seemed as though they were going to piss themselves with fear.
The look on their faces couldn’t be more satisfying, but I was yanked back from celebrating my inner victory when Kael held my arms too tight that I feared it would leave an imprint, but he didn’t seem to care. I winced, looking at him, but he was still seething.
“Don’t you know how much she cost?” He growled, gripping me tightly, and my heart immediately dropped to my feet soon as those words left his mouth. I gaped at him, and my eyes began to water, not because he clutched my arm painfully, but because what he said pierced right through my chest.
What does he mean by that? How much I cost? Did he mean how much he spent on me at the auction? I thought he was no longer treating me as if I were his possession and object, but it seemed that I was just assuming and believing all his lies.
That night we spent in Italy, about not hurting me, was it all a lie?
“Master Kael, none of this was Lilia’s fault. It’s me. I’ll take responsibility,” Aya’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I shifted my attention to her. She lowered herself to the ground on her knees, her head was bowed, and she was crying.
I wanted to get to her and told her to stand up, but a strange woman suddenly appeared in the kitchen entryway. Her eyes scanning us and landed her gaze on me.
“Kael? What happened? Oh my God, is she okay?” She asked, walking closer to me and holding my face, taking a good look over my lips. Her accent is thick with Italian.
She was beautiful. Taller than me, almost the same height as the blondie, except that she was auburn and her nose littered with tiny freckles with her dashing blue eyes. Though, one thing I noticed, she wasn’t scared of Kael.
“Not now, Sabina,” he groused in a low voice and dragged me out of the kitchen, heedless that my steps were much shorter than him.
I turn around and look at the woman’s perplexed face. Sabina, who is she?
Did Kael bring another girl home? Was she like me? But she was talking to Kael casually and wasn’t addressing him as Master like everyone else.
“Keep walking,” he growled lowly, tugging me harshly as we veered through the grand staircase, into the hallway, and to my room. He forcibly kicked open the door. He dragged me inside and then slammed it shut behind me.
He let go of my arm, and I almost lost my balance. I hissed, rubbing the spot where he held me too tight, seeing that his handprints were starting to get visible.
However, I haven’t even recovered yet. Kael closes the gap between us and grabs my shoulders, pulling me tighter as my toes tip on the floor.
“What the hell were you thinking? Getting yourself into a fight?” He roared in my face, his eyes wide with rage and rimmed with red. Large veins on his forehead protruded as he sternly glared down at me.
I couldn’t believe what was happening, why he was so mad at me when it wasn’t entirely my fault. This is completely unjust. I squared my stance on him and met his burning gaze, countering what he just said.
“Kael, they were bullying Aya. I couldn't just watch and do nothing as my friend was being harmed by those bitches!”
I was also screaming, and my chest contracted painfully as I watched his face burn with rage.
“And you think you made everything better? Look at your face!” He hollered, letting me go, and he immediately took a step back as though he was holding himself not to lash out at me.
My face. Is he serious? Of all the things that happened, he was thinking about my face?
This man…
“Is this what worries you more?” I laughed indignantly as the tears welled up in my eyes, but I managed to hold them back. “That I’ll get scarred, and I will be no longer your pretty doll you get to parade in every ball?” “I thought you’ve changed, but I guess not,” I added, shaking my head with disbelief while my heart crushed into pieces.
“Nobody changes for someone, Lilia.”
I was a fool to believe that for one time, the beast he was gone.
But I should have known better than to just presume. I have started to get my feelings for him. To care for him, to have me in his arms when he returned from Italy. He was gone for a month after that incident. That I was nearly killed. I thought he had changed.
“Sabina? Who is she exactly? Your new doll?” I took a deep breath in and forced myself to swallow the lump that had formed in the back of my throat as the woman’s face appeared inside my head.
“She’s my fiancé, and you will treat her with respect,” he coldly said, and if I thought that was the worst thing that could happen, I was horribly mistaken.
“F...fiancé?” I croaked, stuttering as my feet lost their strength and staggered backward. My rear collided with my vanity table. I had to grab onto it in order to stay upright.
“Do I have to explain everything to you? I already let you go out of your room and do whatever you please. Should you be grateful for that?” he went on, staring at me blankly as though I was nothing, completely neglecting my feelings.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
As soon as I finished saying it, I dashed out of the room. I ran and ran, without paying attention to the direction in which my feet were taking me, but I didn’t care.
Kael, he’s still a beast.
A monster.