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𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓭𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓸'𝓼 𝓷𝓪𝓶𝓮 𝓱𝓪𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓮𝓷 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓕𝓮𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓸

Crumbled specks of moonlight shone through the arched windows, unveiling the dusty particles floating around the dark cobblestoned chambers in which Eldric rested in. He sat forth in his red leather chair, endlessly rubbing his temples as he sank deep into thought.

Candlelight dissolved the wax encasing it, oozing out its illumination to cast flickering shadows across the parchments and vintage wine bottles, emerging from the parched mahogany wooden shelves and table desk sitting in front of Eldric.

Alcohol and dusty books saturated his room as he took another countless sip of dark liquor, burning his throat as it slid down. Intoxication began to brew in his bloodstream, numbing his fragile fingers to form in a hard clasp as he exhaled. It didn't have the effect of withering his senses, he was used to its poison.

Drunkenness was no longer a foreigner to his brain, the alcohol no longer worked against him, it was embedded into his very D.N.A. It was the only trait he shared with his mother, it gave her strength throughout her heavy days or rather just numbed them.

The liquor sprawled throughout his body, morphing from his mind all the way down to his feet, dampening the embodied carpet beneath him with his emotions of misery.

Even the very thoughts of seeing a woman naked no longer aroused Eldric, he had no interest in their bodies. To him, they were nothing more than just prancing wombs covered in slabs of curvy fatty flesh.

It didn't matter whether they were a Queen or a harlot or both. Once they had finished bearing forth children they held no further value.

They choked on their own arrogant words which glazed their plump lips, while pride penetrated their soft speech. Yet, at the end of the day no matter what they did, they would always be under the rule of a man.

If only his mother was made aware of this sooner, perhaps then she wouldn't have suffered the fate that she did.

However, patience began to slip through his finger-tips as he crumbled his feathered ink pen in his palm. He not only felt his body ignite with heat, but it coursed throughout his veins causing them to pulsate out of anger at his temples.

An owl soared through the air, pecking on the exterior of the arched window, begging to come in.

Finally, it had arrived.

He seethed, gathering himself up to open it. Once he retrieved the letter from its beak its wings dissolved in the crevices of the atmosphere.

As of now, the expectant female is in good health, her body is responding well to the elixirs, but if you fail to provide me with the D.N.A sample I will terminate your transaction and her life and furthermore her offspring. Provide me with the desired DNA before midnight and we can commence with your plans.

-         The Tigress

"Foolish woman!"

How dare she even attempt to write something like this to him, he felt his face flush with heat and his fingers clasp into fists hardening with the emotions of anger.

She reminded him of his mother and he despised women like that, women like Sakura, women like Aya, all sorts of women who thought they had some sort of dominance or power over men.

He seethed.

She was a filthy being, an untamed mule that desperately needed to be whipped into obedience.

To him, the tigress was no different than a common harlot, a pitiful prostitute masking herself under a hidden identity to protect herself or rather to mask away her shame.

He scoffed, she was afraid.

If he were that shameful he would mask himself up too.

But what was she frightened of? Was it her own treacherous deeds or the power that came with it?

He nodded as he stroked his chin, absorbing his own theories. Any form of power tainted a woman, they were unable to grasp it, it was too slippery for their fragile touch.

She deserved to be concealed, in fact he began to view it as a blessing, to him all women should take note of this and do the same, all women deserved to cower away whether it was in their looks, identity, or personality, women were subjected to be under the authority of a man and any woman who defiled that was a common harlot, they were no different from his mother.

It's no wonder why she ended up the way she did.

She deserved her fate.

He exhaled and shut his eyes. Giving himself away to sinful desires that crept along his thoughts as he pictured the tigress submitting to him.

Suddenly, he felt his heart pounding at the very idea of his hands around her neck. His mind tunnelled into darkness, imagining his nails digging deep inside her flesh, feeling her pulse throb speedily.

A smirk carved unto his mouth, he felt joy feeling her nerves twitch underneath her skin which was quickly burning up. Her muscles would soon begin to scorch with intense heat and tense rapidly for breaths of air evaporating from her throat.

It made him laugh, a deep dark laughter that rumbled from the pits of his lungs, tickling his spine until it slithered out from his lips to form a dark chuckle, watching her body flounder about like a fish out of water, her feet dangling high in the air.

All he desired was to hear her voice falter. Her mouth agape as she gulped for oxygen, her voice brewing to a dry croak, uttering for help but finding none. He desired to see that. He desired to feel it.

To feel her neck grow mushy as if it were a mouldy piece of fruit and her skin alter to a pale blue, ready to explode as her eyes bulged from her skull but instead fall limp to the side like a pathetic rag doll.

He wanted to see her failed attempts for help, it was pleasing unto him, to see her eyes blink swiftly, darting all around her, to watch her life slowly rinse away from her sight as her eyeballs would roll to the back of her head, leaving behind a ghastly pale hue.

It gave him goosebumps which vibrated along his skin, sparking out emotions of contentment to see her coil away into death.

She would be as dead as the skull of the animal that she wore to conceal her identity.

But he needed this woman in order for his plan to succeed. She was necessary to sustain Dhuna until she was ready to give birth.

Using the candle he let the paper be consumed by its flames until it disintegrated to ashes. The gulpy wax pooled towards the old letters which he had been re-reading until he blew out its spark.

His room soon curdled in smoke vapour, it whirled through the air, staining the place in burnt chalky fumes.

Clarence smiled, a warm feeling igniting and sprawling across his chest as he stared, mouth wide open at his masterpiece.

Dawn was awakening and its sparkling tones of amber shone upon the array of objects he had collected from the rebel leader.

"A-Aya Kamishiro" he murmured, his ears melting at the sound of her name.

A soft pang cascaded over his heart and he couldn't help but giggle, plastering both his palms to his face in attempts to conceal his excitement. He stretched forth his hand to pick up the strand of her black hair.

Taking in a deep breath he prepared himself for what he was about to do next. Tilting his head to the side, he dangled her hair and let it skim down his cheek, giving him shivers with every touch.

Goosebumps soon spilt across the side of his face as the thread of her hair trailed along it, which in turn peeled back another toothy grin from him.

He gazed over the other objects in his mini shrine of her. He leaned in close to the only piece of clothing he had managed to salvage from her and inhaled the scents of a metallic vanilla smell, which prompted memories of her from the night she had punched him in the face.

He remembered the way the blood would drip down his mouth. But blood was bad.

Very bad.

So it didn't last very long and soon enough his father saved his life by stopping it, yet ever since that day he couldn't stop touching his nose.

It was like an automatic reaction for him to touch his nose, he wasn't able to bring himself to stop doing it, he gently petted it recalling the pain from her attack but it only brought a delicate chuckle to his lips.

Every time he felt it the scenery of the memories of that night would play on repeat over in his mind. He could never forget her cold hand crashing against the bone of his nose, almost breaking it and then everything went black.

He hated that.

He longed to remember the intense moments after that and he'd like to imagine it in different ways every time. Sometimes he would imagine the scene with her standing over him, sweat soiling her brow as she would sigh heavily just staring at him, her glare fully digesting his body, it made him melt.

Other times he would imagine her quickly regretting her actions to bend down and attend to his needs like a mother would to a new-born child and he would just lay in her arms, being cradled like a baby.

He never had that growing up.

She reminded him of a black raven, a bird flying so free and whenever it wanted to be without the confines of a cage. She reminded him so much of a bird that he even killed one for her and had wrapped it in a blue ribbon. Her favourite colour.

He planned to give it to her as a present or even an apology gift for dressing up in her clothes so it would be a good conversation starter. He hid the animal under the bed, its heavy fumes of decay were starting to sting his nose but he ignored it.

He had to endure it for his saviour. In his eyes, she was able to conquer anything so he believed that he'd have to conquer this smell for her.

Thumping creaked along the wooden floorboards.

Clarence felt his heart drop.

He got up and quickly ran to hide away his shrine.

"Clarence!"

"Yes, father" he gulped and sat down on a wooden chair.

Eldric crept through the doors.

His black cloak drifting above the ground like smoke, devouring the ground with every step whilst the wrinkles in his face shrivelled like the glare in his eyes as he squinted at his own son.

He gripped tightly to his walking stick, clasping the marble ball in his hand and stepping over towards his son with a narrowed expression suffocating his facial features.

He coughed deeply, picking up Clarence's arm. He kept his eyes narrowed on his body, hovering over it with a sharpened expression to the point he took out his glasses and lifted his vision over the rim to examine his son's body even further.

Clarence gulped and couldn't help but hold his breath as his father inched in closer to his comfort zone. He lifted his arm up and pushed down his sleeve, scoffing as he did so and looked all over it.

Eldric could see the purple bruises and marks scaring his son's pale skin, so he rested the back of his hand over his head whilst rubbing his chin as he sunk into his thought.

"You have a temperature"

"No I-I don't"

"Lying will get you nowhere but 6 feet in the grave, stay here he should be here any minute"

"B-But father...I don't want to do this again"

"Behave or there won't be a next time for you"

Eldric threaded his fingers through Clarence's bristly hair, feeling the surface of his skull warming the palm of his hand.

"It's no wonder you have a temperature, there's still a vermin in our midst."

"Do you mean the rebel leader Father?"

"Besides that harlot in power, yes"

A snarl carved across Eldric's face as he carefully nipped out a strand of hair, placing it inside his cloak.

"You still haven't informed me of what happened the other night with that human"

"I-It was just an accident father...I'm ok now"

"Don't feed me excuses boy, explain yourself now."

Clarence felt the surge of his heartbeat pang loudly against his chest. If he told his father the truth it would do more harm than good. Instead, he gulped and allowed his lips to move on their own accord.

"I-I just wanted to clean her clothes to make sure to that she wouldn't be able to infect us with anything she had, but I think she might have thought that I was stealing her clothes, she isn't fond of her personal items being touched"

"She's a barbaric peasant, only animals act on instinct and attack like that, my patience is running thin with that incompetent Queen, if she allows that mutt to stay any longer there will be consequences."

"You don't agree with the alliance?"

"An alliance with a human? Are they even able to comprehend what that is, their mindset is too minuscule for that, it would be a foolish move to pair up with the likes of scum. That harlot isn't aware of how to truly rule, she doesn't command power as her father did and neither does that vile mortal."

"Then how does Aya rule the peasants?"

"She doesn't, she feeds them a false hope. Humans are livestock...they aren't meant to be free, they are meant to be controlled. They are genetically inferior to us. The sooner they understand that the sooner they stop being slaughtered, once they accept their fate peace will be restored into these lands."

Eldric scoffed.

"They brought this violence upon themselves, if they would just simply obey those in authority there wouldn't be this much death, it's truly for their own benefit too."

Clarence let his sight simmer to his fingers as he fiddled with them.

"S-She's a human yet her body isn't as weak as mine"

"You have that woman to blame for that"

"Your body may be weak but that doesn't mean you must remain weak, a young man like you should be ruling not serving, I didn't desire for you to stay in this position forever, I want to see you on the throne where you are meant to be"

Ever since Eldric was a young boy he had plans of ruling. He had these ideas were ingrained in him from such a young age to the point that he strategically planned out everything from beginning to end.

So it came as no shock as to how Clarence was able to easily fool King Lucario into thinking his drink was poisoned in order to gain his trust into becoming the royal cupbearer. He was willing to risk his own son being poisoned by alcohol to gain access into the inner workings of the palace.

"Was that woman like Aya?"

A cold silence coiled around the room.

Clarence gulped.

"How many times must I repeat myself?!"

"I-I'm sorry father-"

"You were born a special child, you don't have a mother, you were too powerful for one, you didn't need a woman to bring you into this world"

Federico knocked gently upon the door to which Eldric commanded him to enter.

His shoulders were slumped along with his droopy eyes, laying low with dark bags surfacing underneath them. He yawned and scratched one of his eyes before stretching out his arms with a slight strained exhale.

"Cease wasting my time and commence your job"

Federico sighed and pulled up his sleeve to reveal to his pale arm. Eldric hummed to himself, pricking the needle into Federico's skin.

Eldric dipped his fingers inside his cloak to retrieve a metal syringe and he pricked it into Federico's skin. Soon enough the red currants began to surge through the pipe as his precious blood was being sapped from his veins.

Federico squirmed but hastily cleansed his face from all forms of pain as Aldric yanked the device out of him.

He always knew there was something very strange about Clarence. It made his skin crawl.

His disease was so rare that the only way to receive it would be by keeping the familial bloodline pure.

He was, in fact, a rather special child.

However, once Aldric had injected the metal syringe into his son's skin he let out a sharp exhale noticing that there were no changes taking place on his child.

"Why is the process taking so long?"

"It would have been better if we had done this during a full moon" Federico bandaged his arm.

"You act as if you're a real werewolf, you're only an imposter boy"

Silence fell upon Federico for a moment before he slowly opened his mouth.

"Of course, but aren't you the cause of that..."

"Pardon me?!"

He gulped and took a step back.

"My apologies darling, I'm quite tired"

"Know your place boy, if it wasn't for me you'd still be a ravenous beast out living in the wild, if you refrained from being such a savage then maybe you wouldn't have been cursed by one of the celestial horoscopes, yet you choose to be charmed like a snake and look where it got you Ophiuchus"

Federico remained silent, he had to be. His life was in the palms of Eldric and it was a blessing and a curse all in one.

"I feel dizzy father"

"Keep quiet boy, the blood will take some time to work"

Eldric spoke over his shoulder to Federico. "You may leave now, go make yourself useful and entertain that Queen of yours"

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