BRAN"Strap her to the chairs! Hold her hands down!"A man held Maria's hand down on the wooden table and another forced her on the chair in front of it, bending to strap her legs to it while the other forced her hands to the table top. Cold fear gripped her unlike anything she had ever felt before and it paralyzed her, making her limbs weak and useless and unable to fight off the men. They were no doubt wondering why she was not fighting back, but in all honesty, she didn't care about that. She was asking herself two questions right now and why she wasn't fighting back wasn't one of them. Why were they strapping her to the table? What did they plan on doing to her? There should have probably been a third—why was her own father asking his men to handle her like that?But she knew the answer and that was precisely why she wasn't bothering to ask herself that question. Her father was cruel, hands down the cruelest man she had ever met, and he did not care whether she was his blood o
MARIA She'd barely seen him yesterday. After he'd woken up from a dream of her memories and after she'd coaxed him back to sleep, she had woken up to an empty bed. She had not even been surprised because it wasn't the first time she was waking up to find him gone already, but it stung nonetheless. Why was he so hellbent on not spending time with her? It had been over a week already and she knew that he was trying to adjust, to fit into the man he now was when he was with her. She, too, was adjusting because, hell, this man had once been her captor. He'd locked her up in a cell for ages, restricted her from having baths—which should be considered an evil on its own—attempted to cut off her hand—she still bore the mark—spoke to her in a degrading manner and to top it all off, he'd taken her from her home. Sure, here was a million times better than her home and she'd rather be here than be with Ariti, but she was only making that decision now. He'd taken her from her home without h
MARIA "Stop staring at me like that."A perfectly curved brow lifted. "Like what?"After they had finally managed to drag themselves out of the shower—turned out Maria had not needed to seduce him much after all—he'd dried her up before drying himself. She'd wanted to do it herself but apparently, Bran was in a peculiar mood and he'd insisted on doing it. He had wanted to dress her too, but Maria had smacked his hand away, telling him that she wasn't disabled. She had no idea why he would want to willingly dress her when he would not be getting anything out of it, so she tried to imagine herself clothing him. Picking out his outfit and helping him wear them one by one. The amount of pleasure she got just from imagining it alone, had her wondering how much more she would get from the actual act.She'd settled for him picking her outfit instead and Bran had walked into their shared closet—yes, they now shared a closet—with an excited glint in his eyes. She'd laughed when he'd come out
BRAN The silence in the room was deafening. Bran sat with his men in his courtroom and for all the five minutes they had been in here, no man had opened his mouth to speak. Of course no one had said anything. They were waiting for him to address them. To kick off the meeting before they would each pipe in with their various suggestions because, even though the activities of the past week threatened to contradict it, he was still their king and they would always wait for his orders before putting anything into motion.But honestly, he didn't know how he was going to kick this meeting off. He didn't know what he was going to tell them.Sure, he knew what the aim of this meeting was. The people weren't happy with the attacks and they were starting to become increasingly agressive, banging on the castle's gates and demanding that he did something about the lives that had been lost and the injured people that were still healing. He felt guilty as all fucks because everything that was ha
BRAN She saw him the moment he arrived and her posture relaxed, a smile creeping to her face. "Your Majesty, please ask your men to stop harassing me." Her eyes flicked towards said men and she threw them a glare. "I have no idea why they're treating me like a common thief."None other than the fact that she showed up at his castle unannounced.The guard restraining her from going forward quickly spoke up, defending himself. "We were merely telling her to stay put while we informed you of her presence but she insisted on entering the house anyway, and that was why we had to take matters into our own hands." The man explained with hard eyes. "We weren't harassing her, Your Majesty. We were just stopping her from going in." He glared at Elizabeth. "Physically."Bran realized two things then. One—For his men to disrespect Elizabeth so openly in front of him, then there was obviously no love lost between them. And that was surprising because even if they didn't respect her, they should
MARIA How did one react to their lover telling them that their ex-lover—who never completely turned into an ex in the first place—was going to be staying with them for the next week?Simple; They go out for long walks to clear their head. And if the first walk still doesn't do the magic, then they keep going until their heads are successfully cleared. Walking out one's frustration. Was that even a thing? It didn't matter whether it was a thing or not. What mattered was that Maria was doing it and it was going to work for her—hopefully. She wouldn't lie and say that the thought of Elizabeth living under the same roof as her didn't freak her the fuck out. She'd seen the woman—she looked like some ethereal being, tall, lithe, beautiful and oozed sexual appeal—and there was no way a man wouldn't see her and not think about sex. Bran was well on his way to developing feelings for Maria, she was sure of it, but at the end of the day, feelings were one thing and lust was another. She was
MARIA Bran caught Elizabeth around the waist and Maria's eyes zoned in on that point of contact, wanting to see if the touch was romantic at all, but he simply extricated her from his body and placed her on the ground next to him. Immediately he dropped her, his eyes shot to Maria's and she was sure she saw guilt in them, although she wasn't standing close enough to him to be able to tell properly. Her insides felt hot and alien, like her body didn't belong to her anymore. Knowing that the jealously she couldn't hide even if she tried to was showing on her face, she wove on a glamour of utter calmness. When both Bran and his ex saw her, they would think she had no reaction to them touching.Her powers came in handy sometimes. "What are you doing here?" Elizabeth asked him, obviously unhappy that Bran was putting her at arms length.Maria didn't know whether he had done that simply because she was there and it pissed her off. She hated this, hated not knowing what was going on his h
BRANMaria gave me an incredulous look. "You don't like animals?""I didn't say that." Bran shoved his hands into the sleeves of his shirt, rolling the material down. "They don't like me."As he left the closet, he caught his reflection in the mirror and couldn't help but be amazed at how different he looked. He didn't look different in the sense that his physical appearance had changed—that wasn't possible since he had frozen into his immortality ages ago. It was his eyes, his expression, the lines of his mouth. Even though he had a lot going on and he was more stressed than he would be normally, he still looked more relaxed. Younger. His eyes brighter and less shadowed. And it was all due to Maria's effect."But do you like them at least?" The woman responsible for the lightness with which he now carried himself, asked. "I feel nothing towards them."He heard a gasp, and her voice was curious when she spoke again. "What if I decide to get some as pets?"Not one but some? Bran wal