Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 432: Chapter 432: Prelude of the Wedding [1]

Chapter 432 – Prelude of the Wedding [1]

"She has the Cupid’s Curse," Dorian said, his voice echoing loudly through the dreadfully silent room.

A silence that didn’t last long.

"I have a name," the woman said, looking only at Dorian as though Esmeray were entirely inconsequential. "And it is Javiona. Call me by my name."

"This must be some kind of joke." Esmeray laughed angrily as she stepped closer to Dorian, her crimson eyes burning coldly. "Dorian, tell me this is a joke. Tell me this is you choosing some random whore off the street just to piss me off. Tell me that, Dorian."

"I am not a—!"

"SHUT UP!" Esmeray bellowed at Javiona, making the woman instinctively flinch at the anger boiling within the Princess’s eyes. "I am not talking to you, so you better shut your fucking mouth."

"Calm down, Esmeray."

"Don’t tell me to calm down. Answer my question."

She stepped so close to him that Dorian could clearly hear the violent pounding of her heart, each beat sounding like a hellish drum echoing through a silent night.

"You can feel it as much as I can," Dorian said as calmly as he could, and Esmeray knew he was telling the truth. "So you know very well that she has the Cupid’s Curse."

"So what?" Esmeray hissed, grinding her teeth together. "What exactly did you have in mind when you saved her? And I still can’t believe it was you who entered the Deathless Prison, Dorian. Was all of that for her?"

"I didn’t enter there for her. I entered because I needed to kill someone I had a problem with," Dorian lied, unwilling to reveal anything about his brother’s business. "Look at me, Esmeray. I am just as surprised by this situation as you are."

"There is no reason to be." She turned toward the chained woman sitting nearby. "Kill her. Or if you can’t, I’ll gladly do it myself."

"Kill me?" Javiona echoed, looking at Esmeray with mocking eyes. "Why? Are you really that threatened by my presence?"

"Are you actually provoking me in your current state?" Esmeray laughed nervously. "Do you truly believe I won’t kill you?"

"I know that’s exactly what you want to do. But Dorian won’t let you." Javiona turned toward Dorian himself and smiled. "I am a citizen of the Badur Kingdom, you know. I know the Royal Hood Family, and I know the Desdemona. I know how close your two families are, and I know those red eyes you both possess belong to no other family in this Kingdom. Which means the two of you are cousins...or perhaps aunt and nephew."

Her gaze moved slowly between Dorian and Esmeray as the tension continued to rise, thickening around the three of them.

"You already understand what your relationship means. And you know continuing it isn’t wise."

"Who the fuck are you to decide what is wise for us?" the Princess growled, looking dangerously close to striking her.

"Someone older and more experienced than you."

"Being old doesn’t make you wise, whore," Esmeray retorted. "And I certainly don’t need advice from someone who spent the last gods know how many years imprisoned."

"That’s why I’m not talking to you."

Javiona moved her hands, making the chains around them rattle as she turned back toward Dorian.

"You and I both know what we feel. And for that feeling to be possible, you must possess something belonging to Cupid, Dorian. Something that makes you need a person who carries the Cupid’s Curse." She smiled. "You saved me from an eternal prison, one where even death was impossible. I am willing to do anything for you in return, and I will share everything I have learned about the Cupid’s Curse."

Dorian said nothing. He merely stood there, lost as to what he should do.

No. That wasn’t quite true.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he wanted to do. It was that doing it was difficult.

Dorian had never wanted this kind of relationship with Esmeray in the first place. He didn’t like incest, regardless of how normal such relationships might be among the Hoods, but even that had never been the heaviest burden upon him.

The worst of it was the guilt.

The consuming guilt he had carried since the beginning from doing all of this behind his family’s back.

Ever since his relationship with Esmeray began, Dorian had struggled to act normally around Morgan. And Cassius? It was even worse with Cassius.

Hardly a day passed without Dorian wondering, sometimes with agonizing fear, what would happen if his siblings — if his entire family — discovered what he had been doing all this time.

His own mother had suffered because of what her mother had done.

How could he dare walk down a similar road?

His mind had been drowning beneath that guilt for far too long, and even if his grandmother Morenna might not care about the relationship, that said nothing about his siblings.

So when an opportunity suddenly appeared before him — an opportunity to finally let go of this relationship without condemning Esmeray to suffer beneath her Curse — the temptation was greater than he wanted to admit.

And Esmeray saw it.

"You can’t be serious, Dorian." The words left her almost immediately as she recognized something in his eyes, something she knew far too well, and her lips began to tremble. "Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about replacing me with this woman. A woman who was in a fucking prison? A woman you know absolutely nothing about! Have you lost your mind?"

Her voice was beginning to break, its volume rising with every word.

"I know that," Dorian replied. "And I don’t trust her in any way. But we can find a way to—!"

"This is not what we agreed to." Esmeray cut him off with a hiss, her hand lashing forward and closing around his neck.

Dorian stared at her, his eyes slowly growing colder.

When Esmeray spoke again, every word came out like the hiss of a poisonous snake.

"This. Is. Not. What. You. Told. Me."

"Don’t you see, Esmeray?" Dorian said, trying to make her see reason. "We might finally have another way. A way for you to be normal again without us needing to continue doing all of this."

He thrust a finger toward Javiona.

"Look at her! She has the Cupid’s Curse, yet she doesn’t look like she’s being consumed by lust after going so long without sex. And who knows how many years she has been imprisoned?"

"Exactly sixty-four years," Javiona chimed in.

"See?" Dorian continued. "She can help us—!"

"I don’t want her help." The Princess didn’t even let him finish. "And that is what you don’t seem capable of getting into your bloody head. I don’t care what she knows. I don’t care if she can help me, or help us, or somehow rid me of this fucking Curse altogether. Dorian, I don’t give a fuck about any of that."

Her grip around his neck tightened.

"There is only one thing I care about right now, and that is the answer to my question: are you going to abandon me for her, yes or no?"

Esmeray stared directly into his eyes.

"And think fucking carefully before you answer."

Her crimson eyes slowly became blank, cold and almost unfeeling, though something dangerously close to madness lurked beneath that emptiness.

"If you abandon me, Dorian...if you dare..." she whispered, pressing her lips together so tightly that they became pale and bloodless. "I swear on Vorn that you will regret it. I will kill this woman, no matter what I have to do to accomplish it. And after that, I will make sure your family, my family, and the whole fucking world know that you and I have been fucking all this time."

Dorian’s red eyes took on the same blankness as Esmeray’s, and when he finally spoke, his voice was almost inhuman.

"Are you really threatening me, Esmeray?"

"I am."

"And you think doing that will help you?"

"I don’t care," Esmeray replied. "I’ve told you what I needed to tell you. Now make your choice."

The Princess slowly turned her head toward Javiona, staring at the woman with such intense murderous intent that there was no longer any doubt about what would happen if Dorian gave the wrong answer.

"Me...or this bitch I am going to kill?"

—End of Chapter 432—