The Devil's Possession のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

ElenaShock, fear, surprise and every emotion in this world went through my body.I stood in the doorway and stared at him. Alessandro De Vercelli, the most powerful man in Northern Italy, the Devil of Vercelli, was standing in front of my room at nearly midnight, drunk and disheveled and barely able to stand. His robe was crooked and his chest was bare and his hair was wild around his face and his grey eyes were unfocused and red-rimmed. He looked nothing like the cold, controlled Don who sat at the head of the meeting table every morning. He looked like a man who had fallen apart and forgotten how to put himself back together.Has he come to continue from where he stopped? The thought made my stomach clench with fear. I remembered his hands on my throat, his hands tearing my clothes, his hands reaching for his belt. I remembered the cold rage in his eyes and the way he had not looked at my face, the way he had pushed me down on the bed like I was nothing, like my screams meant nothi

ElenaI was still trying to wrap my mind around what happened last night when I heard a knock on the door.I could not sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face, the way his grey eyes had cleared and looked at me with something raw and unguarded, something that looked almost like fear. He was scared. Why was he scared? And what kind of nightmare would get the Devil of Vercelli sweating and begging in his sleep, his nails digging into my skin, his voice cracking as he whispered please don't go?I got up and answered the door.A guard was standing outside. His face was blank, the way all their faces were blank when they were delivering orders they did not want to deliver. "Miss Rossi," he said. "You will be escorted to a new place."My heart lifted slightly. A new place. Maybe Alessandro had changed his mind. Maybe he was moving me back to the east wing, or somewhere closer to him, somewhere I could see him and ask him what had happened between us in the dark.I followed the gua

ElenaThe water was cold and gray and it smelled like bleach. I scrubbed clothes until my hands were raw, until the skin on my knuckles cracked and began to bleed. The other women watched me with hard eyes, their arms crossed. When I finished the laundry, they gave me the floors. I got down on my hands and knees with a brush and a bucket and I scrubbed the concrete until my knees ached and my back screamed and my fingers went numb from the cold. The brush was old and the bristles were worn down and every stroke took three times as long as it should have.When I finished the floors, they gave me the toilets.There were twelve of them in the women's quarters, old and stained and foul. I held my breath and I scrubbed and I did not cry because crying would not make them let me stop.The other women did not do their own work. They made me do it. They stood around and watched and laughed and gave me more tasks before I had finished the ones they had already given me. They dumped their dirt

ElenaWhen I opened my eyes, everything hurt.My head pounded with a deep, throbbing ache that seemed to come from inside my skull. My eyes burned, heavy and dry, like I had been crying for hours. My legs felt like lead, my hands felt like they had been dipped in fire, and every muscle in my body screamed with the memory of a day spent scrubbing and cleaning and working without rest."You are awake?"The voice was familiar. Soft and warm and concerned. I had heard that voice in the garden, on the bench, in the afternoons when the world had felt almost bearable."Lucas?" I whispered."Yes. It is me."I sat up immediately. The world spun around me, the ceiling tilting and the walls swaying, and I had to grab the edge of the bed to keep from falling. My stomach lurched and I tasted bile at the back of my throat. But I forced myself to stay upright, forced my eyes to focus, forced my body to obey.Lucas reached out and held my hands gently. "Be careful. You collapsed. You need to rest."I

ElenaSurprisingly, Alessandro's voice was soft when he said my name at the door. And his eyes were worried as he looked at me, his grey eyes scanning my face like he was looking for something, checking for damage, making sure I was still in one piece.But I knew better than to celebrate. The devil going soft? That would only happen on a cold day in hell. This was Alessandro De Vercelli, the man who had called me a property in front of everyone. The man who had banished me to the slave quarters. The man who had made it very clear that I was nothing to him.Just as I predicted, his expression changed. The softness vanished and was replaced by something dark and cold. He walked into Lucas's room and stood before Lucas, who was already standing, his back straight, his chin raised, his green eyes steady.My heart could not help but beat for Lucas. He was stoic and unfazed, even as Alessandro towered over him, even as Alessandro's voice rose and his fists clenched. Lucas did not cower.