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"I killed him, Alois," you admitted, the shake still present in your hands and voice, y/e/c eyes wide and tear stained. You stood at your brother's door, the door to the Tracy household. Finally, you had been home, and yet, you came back with a terrible sin upon your heart. As you stood, your teeth chattered, y/e/c eyes unable to meet your brother's crystal blue eyes. Clothes ragged and torn, you still wore the glimmering wedding ring of your late husband, still stained with his own crimson.
"Y/N/N…" Alois breathed out, glancing over your disheveled form. Your brother had been significantly younger than you, the three of you just kids when you were sold off. Though he hadn't known what you had gone through, with his own experience, he had been sure it was far from pretty. In a sense, maybe it did surprise him that you hadn't brought a butler in tow.
Before you knew it, no matter how battered and shaking you were, tears still staining your cheeks, you were wrapped in your brother's lithe arms tightly. A sob ripped from the boy's throat as he held you for dear life. Slender hands grasped the back of your tattered dress as you stood in the doorway.
After a few moments, you finally moved your shaky arms to wrap around your brother's smaller frame. One hand rubbed shaky circles into his back as you held him, the two of you falling into silence. Your pounding heart began to slow as you held the brother you thought you would never see again.
"Master, who's your guest?" A timid, well endowed maid asked from behind the Alois. From her voice, she seemed kind, though she only possessed one good eye from the looks of it.
"Get Claude, Hannah," Alois demanded, though he had a hint of joy to his tone. "I would like him to see to it that my sister gets cleaned up, and a warm welcome."
"You have so much blood on you, and yet most of your wounds are bruises," the butler you learned to be Claude murmured as he washed you in the bath. His golden eyes trailed over your body, sending a shiver down your spine. Even so, his gaze had not reminded you of something truly perverse. "May I ask what happened, your highness?"
"I...," you murmured, a hint of malice to your tone as your y/e/c eyes refused to meet those golden eyes of his. Your lips pursed as you hadn't wished to relive the blood splatter. In actuality, you never knew how murderers did it, and yet, you had become one. "You don't need to call me that. I'm far from deserving after the blood on my hands."
"Surely you had a reason, with all these unsightly bruises," Claude murmured as he lifted one of your arms, scanning over it carefully, as if he were counting. "My master ordered me to accommodate you, so speak all you wish."
You swallowed hard as you stared into the slightly bubbled water. Surely, you were aware that your brother had an ear to the door, and that you would not need to tell the story twice. Even so, your words shook from your lips, the gravity of what you had done not even fully sunk in.
"My husband was a wretch of a man," you replied with a shaky breath. "And I watched the life drain from his eyes."
"So, you got your revenge?" He questioned curiously, somehow not wavering at the thought of murder, and instead his interest seemed to be peaked.
You shook your head quickly, your wet y/h/c locks spraying water the slightest bit. "I merely escaped," you replied in a sullen tone. "My revenge would be quite the list, starting with the man who stole me away from my little brothers and sold me to the highest bidder."
"Do you wish for revenge?" He pressed forwards, his hand stopping upon your shoulder as his golden eyes caught your own. For a moment, you were sure they had flickered a wicked crimson color. His lips were curled the slightest bit upwards, in what seemed to be the smallest smirk.
You inhaled sharply, your y/e/c gaze retreating from the man once more. "I suppose I do," you replied absently, "but for the time being, I'd like to spend one last day with my brother. That is why I sought him out."
You had been quick to learn that staying in the Trancy mansion had been spending your time encircled by demons rather quickly. Though you found your brother's butler questionable in the beginning, your brother hadn't been coy as he mentioned that everyone under his employ had been a demon. Every which way you strode through the mansion, you could feel demon eyes upon you.
"You must stay," echoed through your head as you walked through the lavish flower garden. Merely a week had passed, and you had given your brother what he desired, begrudging as you were to do so. Each fragrance mixed in your senses, quite the bountiful array of tantalizing flowers.
Your lips held a frown as you found a solitary table to sit at, though you were sure there had been eyes fixated upon you even there. A sigh escaped your lips as you sat upon one of four chairs, y/e/c eyes staring off into the flower display. Merely a week, and you could still hear the ungodly scream that ripped from the wretch's throat as you plunged the knife into his body.
Y/e/c eyes closed as your lips fell to a frown, though your body tensed. With footsteps in the distance, ever so delicate, you opened your eyes once more. Your eyes quickly met the singular eye of Hannah, and for a moment, your mouth dried completely.
"I hope it's not intrusive to ask why you seem unhappy?" She questioned, picking a flower from the arrangement around you and placing it in your y/h/c locks. The flower itself had been bluebell, in full bloom, something you could remember from the village you were taken from.
With a swift movement, you pulled the bluebell from your hair, tossing it off as your y/e/c eyes watched it drift to the ground. For a moment, you could swear the floating flower flashed of crimson, before reality came flooding back in. "All those remind me of are blood and screams," you spoke absently. "If we're up for questions, why does a demon only have one eye?"
"Punishment," she replied simply, a perfectly manicured hand shifting to the bandage upon her eye. "Do you want love, like the Master desires?"
You could not help the chortle that escaped from your lips at the insinuation, though your lips had not curled upwards in the slightest. Once your laughter ceased, you caught your breath, replying in nearly a grave tone, "All the world wants to administer is sex and superiority. As a demon, you must understand that."
"But what if I could make you one with Luka?" She insisted, a little glimmer in her eye as she spoke.
"Waste of my talents," you replied with a shrug. "Claude's going to devour my brother soon enough, and by that point, I'll be long gone."
The triplets were the next to attempt to sway you into a contract, though supposedly only one would be able to make said contract. At the point that they attempted to sway you, the three had surrounded you in the courtyard, all holding roses the same color as their royal purple locks. Following their speech had been rather incoherent, as if you would need to spin to talk to them.
"We want to help you," Canterbury started, holding his purple rose out to you first.
"Though we suppose only one of us can," Thomson added in.
Timber was the last to speak, his speech coming up behind you as his breath practically radiated off of your earlobe. "It'd be a shame not to help such a pretty lady as yourself," he spoke.
"Does my soul appeal to you all or something?" You replied absently as you held the three roses with your dominant hand, y/e/c eyes fixated upon the abysmal purple shade.
"It's quite the appetizing soul," you could hear the cunning voice of Claude behind you. "Truly a rare specimen to behold. You three need to leave the lady alone. Surely the Master would be curious to know you've been sniffing around his sister."
Within moments, all three triplets had disappeared, and yet you were still left out in the courtyard with the golden eyed demon. Silence fell about the two of you, as if he had been waiting for some sort of response about your soul. You eventually turned to meet those golden eyes, your lips pursed.
"I suppose even you would relish in the idea of feeding upon my soul, would you not?" You questioned, your y/e/c eyes flickering to his stance, taking in everything from his posture to the perfect coiffed raven locks of his. Hannah had been a beauty to behold, and the triplets were all rather handsome themselves. Part of you wondered if it had merely been a demon's trick, that the aesthetically pleasing demons had been so for their own benefit.
His golden eyes shifted away, before shifting back to you. Silently, he strode closer to you as his index finger pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "If I were to speak plainly," he spoke, very little emotion to his tone, "I would pierce your skin with my needle, and slowly suck out your sensual soul."
"You nearly made that sound sexy," you replied with a chuckle, striding closer to the handsome demon. Once the two of you had merely been a few inches apart, your lips formed the slightest smirk. "My wretch of a husband was sixty years old, and personally, maybe I wouldn't mind a marginally attractive demon at my whim until my last moments."
"Is that so?" He questioned curiously. Within moments, you found yourself pinned against the far wall of the courtyard, Claude's slender, gloved hand moving to your cheek. "I would do whatever you so desire until the moment I devour you." After he spoke, he inhaled your sense, likely inhaling the scent of your soul itself.
"Unfortunately," you spoke, your smirk merely growing as you spoke, "you're in a contract with my brother. Maybe one of those triplets would like to kill a few humans and have a little fun." Your words clearly had some play to them. Taking a leap of faith, a thought as you presumed it had been a taste of a soul, you bit down upon your bottom lip hard, a trickle of blood slipping from the wound.
Claude inhaled deeply, though his lips curled downwards at your teasing. His tone was nearly a growl as he said, "You're not giving those damn triplets your delectable soul." His golden eyes shifted to the trickling blood, a blatant interest as he watched it trickle. Golden eyes flashed a wicked crimson as they focused upon the trickle.
"Taste if you wish," you tempted, clearly teasing the demon.
What you had not expected was the way that Claude dipped down, licking from your chin to your lips, before connecting his lips with your own. Hungrily he devoured your lips, moving in an absolutely breath-taking way. His tongue flickered over your cut in the kiss, before delving further into your mouth.
By the point that the two of you separated, Claude's eyes glowed a wicked red from underneath his glasses, a near euphoric look upon his face. Though it had been obvious the demon wanted you for your soul, the glazed over look in his eyes held you in strong temptation. "As I suspected, you taste divine," he spoke, near breathless.
You should have expected that Claude would break his contract early with your brother, that he would finally have enough of dealing with the twisted nature of Alois Trancy and end it himself. Even so, you met him in the courtyard the evening after he had done just that. The handsome, golden eyed butler strode to you with a wicked smirk against his lips, no true remorse in those golden eyes.
"What do you wish I call you, Master?" He questioned curiously, knowing you had been much unlike your brother. The two of you had agreed upon revenge as your contract stipulations, something that he was truly ravenous about getting. After so much as a taste of your blood, he knew that your soul was something to truly covet.
Your lips curled upwards into a smirk, the lack of remorse in your body something you would normally find troubling, if it hadn’t been a demon bowing before you. "My lady," you chose without a moment of hesitation. "Now, it's late. Let us prepare for slumber, and at first light, we shall start on our list."
"Yes, my lady," Claude spoke, a smirk upon his lips as he knelt before you respectably.