Chapter 78 - Such Barbaric Practices
"My parents were disappointed. They had high hopes and the signs I had showed, they had thought I had it in me. You know, a wolf." She paused slightly before she continued. "Every ounce of love they ever showed me disappeared. Despite the fact that I was their only child, they lead me to the boarder themselves and set me into the wild. I watch them turn their backs on me and not once did they look back."
Zezi's hand stilled around Delice's, tightening as it moved further up to her shoulder.
"I understand them, even right there I understood where they were coming from. My parents were mere omegas and anything more that would bring them below the Pack ranks would have been nothing more but painful shame to what they were already facing. I have forgiven them, I hold no grudges against them and I hope that they are doing fine in their graves." As lighthearted as those words had sounded, Zezi was more distracted by the whiff of madness that she had once sensed from Lady Delice's lingering aura, seeping into the air.
Her words were pure and had sounded like the most sincere words Zezi had ever heard. Her calmness and 'easily forgiving heart' ignited her feelings of mistrust. For no particular reason that she could pinpoint, Zezi felt torn between two options.
Options that she didn't even know what they were, or maybe she knew and was just trying to deny it by feigning ignorance of it's existence.
"They had said they hope I die, the Moon Goddess was listening and she was quick to response to their wishes. She had been deaf to mine though, I wonder why." They fell into a short silence, before her voice cracked through it like glass, smashing it away quietly. "I had been attacked by rogues, werewolves who had been banished from their packs for actual crimes they committed. I knew that they had wolves, unlike me. They turned into them. I have never seen something so made like that, back then, and when their claws slashed across my back--" She swallowed, shivering.
It had been more than two centuries ago, yet she could still feel the pain lingering in that small part of her memory that never healed, she could remember how her legs had slipped beneath her and how she had fallen to the floor in a pool of her own blood.
Just as her eyes had flashed with pain, her lips stretched into a thin smile and a glimmer of happiness glinted on her teary eyes.
"He saved me. The Sire. He bit life into me and for that I loved him." She paused, then added in a lower tome. "Love him."
The urge to look up at Lady Zezi was strong but Delice paid no heed to her instincts and kept her gaze fixed to the ground instead, her eyes skimming over the grave stone, as she read the words that had already been ingrained into her memory due to how often she had paid this place a visit.
"He was ten, twice my age. He shouldn't have sired me, but he did. He was too young and inexperienced to have stepped, yet he saved me in the only way he knew how to. I think I fell in love with him right there."
Zezi's lips turned downwards, a light frown on her face.
She wasn't angry.
It wouldn't make sense for her to be.
She didn't love the King, it was alright if someone else did. Besides, they were of the same kind, and if the child in the grave was theirs, if they had a child together, if they were both in love with one another a long time ago or even presently while they hid it, if was none of her business.
Also whatever thing that had her eyes glinting with pride had no place doing that.
"But he never did. He dissuaded me many times, kept his distance and claimed that I only felt that way because he was my Sire."
Zezi really wasn't interested in listening to all this. Why was she even telling her about this history that she had no interest in listening to?
"There were also other things that had happened."
After the pause, Zezi expected Lady Delice to continue just as she had some earlier but the silence lingered for long and Zezi was starting to fear that an answer would never come.
Curiousity got the best of her and she found herself asking before she could even stop herself.
"What happened?"
Delice didn't answer, instead she rested more heavily into Zezi's embrace, who flinched, not from the weight but the amount of emotional reliance that implied.
Zezi didn't want that. She didn't want any one of the monsters to see her in that kind of light.
White flag.
She reminded herself.
She would just have to ensure not to be raising this white flag again. All she had were three and two were already used. She had no intention to use the last one.
"Do you know that I am the only member of the WoodBurn House? I even came up with the name myself."
Delice's attempt to change the conversation was poor and Zezi saw right through it. But Lady Delice wasn't always so shaky, and her movement from one line of conversation to another was always smooth. It must be the state that she was in tonight that was making her extremely vulnerable.
"What had happened? Did it have to do with the King?" Zezi's words did not rush over one another like the emotions that slowly turned into a turnado in the pit of her stomach. They sounded calm and held no urgency, like if the question had gone unanswered, she wouldn't pursue it because it was simply not that important.
"Yes, Lady Zezi."
"And what was it?"
"You should ask the King. His Majesty will be in a better position to tell you."
Zezi nodded slowly.
If it had been before, she would have detested that answer but now, she appreciated it. She hoped it was something emotional, hopefully one that cracks his guarded surface. That would help her mission.
"The King is very good at ignoring people and things, but I'm sure he wouldn't ignore you, unlike me, he is in love with you."
Zezi cleared her throat awkwardly. It was quiet but Delice could hear it and with how close she was leaning against her, the sound must have rang in her ears.
"Life would have been hard if not for his seven year old sister that I had met. Laura was everything and together, we grew up as family. She encouraged my love for the King, giving her support to the budding feeling that I had for the boy that was always locked away."
Always locked away?
Unease settled in the bit of her stomach and she found her nails catching sand in-between it as she absentmindedly traced lines into the soil.
"Till his lack of response got tiring. Who pursues someone for 200 years?"
Zezi stiffled a laugh, not wanting to find humour at Lady Delice's expense but Delice found it funny herself, and she chuckled.
"It sounds ridiculous when I say that out loud."
The laughter slipped and Lady Delice looked up at her with a face devoid of her earlier smile before she shook her head, a smile snaking up her face again as she looked away.
"It's alright. You are permitted to laugh at my stupidity. It makes me feel better." Then she continued. "I left because the heartbreak from his constant rejection was just too much. Then, I met someone." Humour vanished from her voice. "Oliver. I loved him, at least I think so and for two years wee were together. Oliver was everything his Majesty wasn't. To receive the kind of affection I gave back was magical. He made me feel on top of the world and I was determined to keep him. No one dare come near Oliver anyways, Laura made sure of that."
It must be a different Oliver, certainly not the one with the tainted braided beard. This Oliver looked like a fashion chaos and Zezi was sure in no book was he termed attractive but different strokes for different folks.
"Laura was backing them all off. Sending all of them away to ensure that she would be the one to steal him herself. I found them together, in my own bed, on the useless birthday of mine that Oliver was always insisting I celebrate. That was one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever walked in on."
Zezi pressed her lips together as she tried to think of the most heartbreaking things she has ever walked in on.
None came to her memory.
Most of the heartbreaking things that had ever taken place in her life, mostly happened during her presence, like when her parents were killed, or even happened to her directly, like the night she had shared that stupid gaze with the Vampire King.
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