7. Elowen

ELOWEN

N ightmares haunted my sleep—what little I managed to steal for myself. I’m stirred by a gentle caress to my cheek. “Good morning, darling…” My skin suddenly crawls at the recognition of Forsythe’s voice, now so sweet and opposite to the cruel monster he’d become last night. His moods have always been extreme, and last night was hardly out of form. Not to mention, this man has never called me darling. Before, I’d always turned the other cheek. What was the alternative? Risk his wrath and endure celibacy?

Still, I fail to conceal my repulsion. Forsythe must take offence to my grimace. Whatever mask of tenderness he managed to wear is instantly replaced with something cold.

“Your presence is required.”

Forsythe stands and moves towards my wardrobe to begin rummaging through my sparse clothing. My fingers seek out the comfort of the pendant at my throat to thumb it soothingly until the metal encasing the ruby goes warm.

“I need you to wear something… attractive.”

My brows pinch. I don’t exactly have a salary that can afford me a seamstress. All I have, with the exception of one dress, are the servant’s dresses he provided me over a decade ago when he first hired me. “What’s going on? What happened to the… the…”

“The daemon,” Forsythe finishes for me.

“He’s alive?”

Forsythe turns sharply away from my wardrobe, holding the singular nice item of clothing I own—a dark red dress with a V-shaped bodice that dips low to reveal my buxom décolleté and long, billowy sleeves that button at the wrists. I inherited from my mother—a gift from a male suitor , she’d explained to me with rosy cheeks.

“Yes, and the creature seems intent on killing Evandriel and me, but for some reason, Evandriel seems inclined to believe he won’t hurt you. Thus, I am tasking you with the daemon’s care and promoting you to…”

Forsythe hesitates for a moment, as if deliberating.

“… research assistant.”

My brows leap. Forsythe clears his throat at my obvious shock. “And so long as you are able to get him to cooperate, I will need you to collect specimen samples. Nothing unusual. Just blood, tissue, semen, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Semen?!”

My horror isn’t at all in response to the idea of collecting it. No, if anything, that excites me. It’s the fact that Forsythe wants it in the first place.

Forsythe narrows his eyes at me with impatience, his voice growing increasingly impassioned. “This creature is immortal. Do you have any idea how important this is to the world? How many lives we could save? I shot him in the head, and within an hour, his body had somehow purged the bullet and made a full recovery. Imagine what we could do for humanity!”

Forsythe and I give each other matching scowls as he takes a deep, steadying breath and yanks a handkerchief from his tweed waistcoat pocket to dab at his brow, where a vein throbs. “Christ. You never fail to provoke me, woman.”

A long beat of silence passes as he calms and seems to shrink subtly in size. “You will do this, Elowen. And you will do it well. If not for yourself or me, then for humanity. If I had had access to his healing capabilities and all the knowledge his biological processes hold, I could have been able to save your mother. This opportunity will give your life meaning and purpose. You should be grateful.”

Give my life meaning.

His tone suggests my life is otherwise meaningless, and I’m suddenly disgusted with myself that I spread my legs for this man. Perhaps he’s not wrong in regard to the lack of meaning I’ve had in my life over the last decade. Though I don’t linger on the statement.

Instead, my heart clenches painfully in my chest for an entirely different reason. Already ten years have passed, and still, the memory of her death is like a stab to the chest. She’d had a slow and torturous death where the body seemed intent on slowly killing itself, no matter how Forsythe tried to save her. Which is the one thing that endeared me to him. If this male has ever shown me tenderness, it was during that time. He had been my only source of emotional support—scarce as it was—but it was there nonetheless, in his own way.

My throat works around a lump of emotion. His speech was undeniably inspiring. I would never wish what my mother went through upon anyone. Perhaps I should help Forsythe in this. Even if I will be plotting against him the entire time. I dare not imagine what Forsythe will do to my daemon once he’s completed his research. Or to me.

My eyes shift to the portrait of my mother on my nightstand. I was there when the picture was taken. The photographer had suggested my mother turn to the side and use her hair to cover the port-wine birthmark on her neck and cheek. She had demurely replied, “No, thank you. I quite like it. Don’t you?” And then bared her teeth in a grin that seemed to make the male’s balls shrivel.

Simply glancing at her photo imbues me with courage.

Eventually, my eyes return to Forsythe’s. His lips are pursed as he studies me with that tense gaze as though trying to look at me through a microscope.

“Aren’t you horrified? Aren’t you going to scream and beg me not to take you anywhere near the beast?”

Frightened as I may be, it isn’t the idea of being near the male I’ve been dreaming of for three too-long years. My fear stems from Forsythe alone. I need to hide my connection to my daemon and all the affection I feel for him, lest he end up brutalized, and I end up in the psych ward of the very hospital Forsythe works in.

“I’m thoroughly terrified,” I admit, in ambiguous honesty.

Forsythe’s lips purse further as though he can sense all that I omit before finally relenting. “Good. You should be. He nearly tore Evandriel’s intestines from his body with nothing more than a sweep of his claws. Managed to rip two of the bars straight out of the stone holding him in his cell.”

My mouth drops open in horror that my beloved daemon is being held in a cell like a caged animal. It takes everything in me not to lunge forward and wring Forsythe’s neck until fucking eyes bleed.

“Fear not. He is now chained to the wall.” Forsythe strides out of the room before I can deliberate whether to claw his eyes out now or later, calling back to me from the hallway.

“You have fifteen minutes to make yourself presentable.”

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