Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 257: Chapter 257: Naomi Holloway

Chapter 257 – Naomi Holloway

"Be my maid."

Naomi looked at Cassius with dismay dripping from every inch of her face. Her brain was completely frozen, unable to properly process the words despite how painfully clear they were.

"What...what did you just say?" She croaked out, her voice hoarse, her face slowly shifting from sensual to seething anger, "You want me to be your maid? Me? Naomi Holloway? A fucking maid?"

"You’re not becoming just any maid, I’ll remind you." Cassius replied with all the calm in the world, "You’re becoming my maid. And did you forget how I treat my maids?"

He tilted his head, holding her mismatched eyes steadily.

"I’ll take your protection more seriously than that, and I’ll do everything I can to save you from your Palatine."

"I don’t think you understand what I’m saying, Angel." Naomi said through gritted teeth, her eyes growing colder, "I am never going to be a maid. Not in my entire life. Don’t get ahead of yourself, just because I’m offering myself to you doesn’t give you the right to say things like that to me."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. There are far better ways to protect me than treating me like some goddamn maid."

"Like what?"

"Like what?" She echoed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "I’m telling you to make me your girlfriend, your mistress, I don’t care what you call it. Just your woman."

"You—!"

"Don’t bullshit me about having a wife, Angel." She cut in without ceremony, pressing her body shamelessly against his, their eyes locked, "If you were a loyal man, you wouldn’t be here, in my room, at this hour. Why don’t you stop pretending."

She lifted her hand and began stroking his cheek, continuing,

"No one will know about us. I’ll keep my mouth shut. And I know you will too. You get what you want, and I get what I want."

"You know, Naomi, you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not actually arguing or negotiating with you on this." Cassius said, pushing her off him.

Her face darkened, her lips pressing into a tight, bloodless line, "What?"

"You’ll either accept to be my maid, or I’m going home." He said, then raised a finger to silence her before she could speak, "And before you think about blackmailing me for being here at this hour, as a married man, let me tell you, I’ve been recording everything since the start."

Cassius slowly took out his phone, and Naomi’s eyes widened, realizing it had been recording the entire time.

He smiled, "Do you know what that means? If you refuse and I walk out of here, my wife Isolde will become your enemy. And let me tell you a secret. Please don’t tell anyone, will you?"

Naomi was dazed. And she grew even more dazed when he leaned in, whispering directly into her ear:

"You’ll die faster than you think, the moment I show her a woman trying to seduce her husband."

"You think you’ll get away with it? Rumors will spread!" Naomi bellowed, her fear returning to her face now, mixed with anger and indignation.

"So what?" Cassius shrugged, "Rumors never killed anyone. Not someone like me, anyway. But you..." he laughed dryly, "Isolde will kill you before she even asks a question. Either way, you’ll die. So here’s the deal..."

He paused for effect, letting the dread twist tighter inside Naomi, then finished,

"You either accept to be my maid, here and now, or you get ready to face Copycat, Isolde, and me." He smiled widely, "I wonder how long you’d last against two Palatines and a third-ranker of the fourth year."

Naomi was shaking now, her hope of surviving this by using Cassius blown to smoke.

"Why?" Naomi muttered, her eyes pulsing with anguish, "Why are you saying no? Why are you making this so hard for me? I’ll give you my body! I’ll keep your secret, and you can do whatever you want with me! I’m offering myself, Angel! Myself! Why isn’t that enough! Why do you want me to be some lowly maid? Do you know how maids are treated in this Academy? They fucking die like they’re nothing but air! They’re worthless! Worthless garbage that gets used and thrown away without a second thought."

Her face was flushed red, her eyes welling with tears, her lips trembling. She grabbed Cassius’s collar with both her shaking hands:

"And you want me to be like them? You must have lost your goddamn mind."

Cassius looked at her in silence, and Naomi kept going...

"You got named Angel because of that stupid stunt you pulled saving your maid. You think everyone here looks at you kindly? Most nobles look at you with disdain, because you’re tarnishing everything we’ve been taught and known for generations! And because of you, these fucking servants are getting ideas above their station! Believing they have the right to speak for themselves!"

"The way you talk about them," Cassius replied, his voice dropping a notch, "makes it sound like you’re not talking about humans at all. It’s genuinely strange, how people like you think. Just because someone was born a servant...they deserve to be treated like this? That their lives don’t matter? That they can be trampled on simply because they’re...servants?"

Cassius’s eyes turned dead cold, muscles rippling dangerously beneath his clothes.

"How would you feel, Naomi — I genuinely wonder — if I, a noble of a Tier One family, decided to treat you the way you treat your servants. Because trust me, the difference between you and a servant is the same as the difference between you and me."

He paused, then shook his head, "No, it’s even worse with you. Servants are useful. What can you do, besides sell your body for protection?"

"You—!"

"Shut the fuck up, Naomi."

Cassius cut in coldly, ripping her hands off his collar with all his strength.

Her eyes widened as her frail bones cracked, mouth opening to cry out in pain, but Cassius was faster.

He clamped his right hand over her mouth, forcing her to swallow the scream.

Naomi’s eyes, in pure survival instinct, flared with essence. Her telekinesis activated, sending a nearby vase flying toward Cassius.

At the same time, she clenched her fist tight, using her power to try to strangle him.

But she seemed to have forgotten she was up against a Palatine.

Cassius caught her clenched fist and snapped her wrist, twisting it until it hung limp. Without pause, he ducked, catching the vase with Naomi’s body instead.

It crashed into the side of her face, shattering into splinters that dug deep into her flesh, blood dripping down.

She tried to scream again, but Cassius’s hand was still clamped over her mouth, crushing it until her jaw snapped.

Then, mercilessly, he threw her across the room, slamming her back into the wall.

Naomi let out a choked cry.

Cassius rose from the bed, cracked his neck, rolled his shoulders, and took out a small artifact shaped like a black box, etched with runic patterns.

He activated it and set it on the bed behind him.

Turning his attention back to Naomi, he saw the woman struggling to move her jaw and her broken wrist. Her eyes swam with tears, yet remained hardened despite the fear and pain.

"I’m done entertaining you." Cassius said, looking down at her coldly, "You either accept to be my maid, or I’ll break every bone in your body and send you to the House of Sanctions."

"House...of Sanctions?" Naomi whispered.

"I don’t need to tell you my aunt runs that House. And trust me, it would be extremely easy to get you sent there." He crouched down in front of her, "All I’d need to do is tell them how I discovered your maid’s dead body, abandoned outside. A maid who was murdered. And we both know who did it."

Naomi’s eyes went wide with shock, trembling from the inside out, "How...how do you..."

"I’m not here to satisfy your curiosity." He took a Death Contract out of his space ring, "Will you do it, or should I make you?"

Naomi Holloway looked at the Death Contract the way a mortal looks at death itself knocking on the door: with wide, unbridled fear, desperate to flee from it as far as possible.

She lifted her eyes to Cassius, saw the deceptively beautiful face of this man who was nothing like an angel:

"I’ll scream." She tried to threaten, lips shaking, "I’ll fucking scream loud enough for everyone to hear!"

Cassius smiled. He raised a finger and pointed toward the artifact on the bed. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper.

"It’s soundproof, sweetheart."

—End of Chapter 257—