“I would’ve long asked Lord Maganti for you had I known he kept such a gem to himself for so long,” Count Darl grinned, his eyes crinkling around the corners.
“You flatter me, milord,” Rowan hoisted herself onto his laps, a finger toying with the ribbon around his short ponytail to distract herself from the thought of the damned son of Maganti. Just the mere thought of the smirk on his face was enough to make her insides churn in a nauseating way. “I am but a humble servant.”
The Count laughed, a deep rumble that reached his thick belly. “I’d give anything for a servant like you.” His rough hands slipped to her thighs, slowly grazing up the softness of her skin as he kissed the mark of rose burnt onto her shoulder. “It’s a pity that such a scar marred your skin. Whatever might have caused it?”
A pair of ghostly pale eyes surfaced in her mind. Her face stiffened for the briefest moments but the saccharine-laced smile never left her lips. She reached for the bottle of wine served, took a gulp and passed it straight to his lips from hers.
She could feel his life magick flowing steadily through their touching skin but the old fiend was too intoxicated to notice. Hunger filled his eyes as they travelled the length of her body, her golden skin and silvery white hair.
She was ravishing, no doubt. Never had the Count encountered a lower Fulgel with skin as peerless and features as delicate. Each bat of her thick lashes that fanned out above her cheeks sent a wave of dizzying spell he could not counter.
She was almost...a Fallen.
Rowan licked what remained of the wine from her lips and leaned into the Count with a sigh. Men, no matter their age, had always been weak against damsels in distress. It was something she had learnt over her countless hunts over the century. Purring in a low voice and feathery touches had never failed her.
“That is but an old tale that would most certainly bore you, milord," she continued, trying not to gag at the man's foul odour. “But, milord...are you certain when you said you’d give anything for a servant like me?” she purred, nuzzling closer against him and made his eyes roll over in his head.
The Count chuckled heartily, unaware of the strange glint in her downcasted eyes.
“Of course, my temptress! Anything for—”
He stopped. A sharp jolt of pain in his chest caused his beady eyes of dark purple to widen. His gaze fell onto Rowan's smiling face, noticing for the first time how her eyes were not the purples of a Fulgel but instead dark red with a core of ink black. He pulled back from her but found that he could no longer move.
“You…!” he hissed as the Nyphillie withdrew her hand, a mess of gold spurted from the hollow where his heart once was.
She rose from the bed, kicking the lump of flesh to the ground in the process. A lazy smile broke across her face as she inspected each claw plunged into his still-beating heart. Red. It never failed to amaze her how a Fulgel that bled gold could have a heart the colour of her blood.
"I did ask you if you really meant it," Rowan sighed. “A Count would never go against his own word now, won’t he?”
With her other hand, she pulled off the layer of satin that barely covered her body and wiped the gold off each of her fingers. The layer of honey coloured powder she had caked on were wiped off together to reveal the snow white skin underneath.
She sighed. It was a pain to make sure her disguise stay on all day, more so since it takes hours to cover every inch of her skin but seconds for it to be wiped off. At least this time she could spare the trouble for her face and limbs. It was an improvement if she were to judge.
Without much of a glance, she tossed the fabric into the fireplace, filling the room with the chocking smell of burnt animal fur. She was doing the dead a favour. After all, the smoke would aid in covering the smell of swine the man reeked of.
Her scalp itched at the thought of the foul man’s energy coursing through her system. But beggars can’t be chooser, much less a Nyphillie held hostage. At least the fiend’s life magick could sustain her for the rest of the week.
The King had never spared her anything more than a bottle of animal’s blood per day, knowing well the life magick that scarcely remained in it was not enough sustain a grown Nyphillie. He probably thought she would fade out eventually that way, leaving his hands unstained.
That old fox.
She slipped into her cloak, a heap of ink in one corner of the room and straddled her pair of fallen daggers to her thighs once again. The coldness of the metal was a small comfort on the nakedness of her skin as she flung open the windows and leapt into the starless night.
Blades of freshly cut grass prickled against her bare feet, rocks cut through her skin but the wounds closed up on itself almost immediately. Her skin glistened dully in the shadows of the foliage. Newly acquired power pulsed through her veins, pumping renewed energy into her limbs.
Cold night air reached into her cloak and kissed every inches of her skin while her blood kept her warm from inside out. Her senses sharpened, the smell of after shower strong as she passed under a low hanging branch. Pearls of night dew dripped onto her neck and tricked down her spine. Rowan shivered with pleasure.
It was only under the cover of the night that she could be free.
She raced against the hares darting through the woods, each hurrying home against the rising sun, leaving a trail of crushed leaves behind their soft paws. Rowan’s tracks however were non-existence as she leapt and swung from tree branches every few steps. Only a pale brown swallow and a few ravens remained her witnesses.
Moments before the sun rose, she had landed on Lockhart Castle’s walls, slipping into her bedchamber unnoticed. Rowan had always wondered why sentries would be needed at all none of them had ever discovered her during her nightly ventures, their yawns louder than the owls’ in the forest. By the time any of them realized the Count dead, she would long be done breaking fast.
Her handmaiden was more alert. Rowan was barely done with the laces on her nightgown when Marie stepped into the room, her Fulgel’s golden skin as pale as Rowan’s hidden under carefully reapplied honey powder.
“My lady," Marie's breath came in short whizzes, as if the girl had been hunting through the night as Rowan had. "The King wishes to see you.”
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