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Raul’s grin deepens and he rolls his chin upward a little, looking proud and feeling sexy I swear the big guy is blushing But he’s not as talkative as I’ve seen him in my brief encounters with hiht here for a purpose, in which Raul probably feels it’s better not to delay I step up and around hi his soft smile comfort me for a very brief ly spotless, except for high up in the rafters where the servants can’t reach The space s from another roo throughout the cabin I count five wo to duties downstairs

As I walk by, each of the servants stops what they’re doing and bows their heads to me It feels aard and I do wonder why they would feel the need to do that to me, but I didn’t come here to question the actions of servants

I stand at the base of the wooden stairs that lead onto the vast open floor that overlooks this room below And I take a deep breath before I place my foot on the first step

I still can’t feel her, which strikes me as odd But I soon find out why as I take the last step and enter the top floor I look across to see her lying on the giant bed against the far wall, sleeping soundly

Trajan stands in the center of the roo on his pelvis

Evangeline, or Eva for short, approaches me and bows once in the saain, Milady," Eva says as she comes out of her bow

I feel my eyes furroith confusion, but still, I don’t spend any ti aboutand…unacceptable But ‘Milady’? This just keeps getting weirder

I nod to Eva as if to acknowledge her greeting, but really I have no idea how to go about all this forn tostill, but the upstairs space is quite dark having only one small boxand it’s covered by a thin, white curtain The light funneling in through the downstairs s only spreads so far up here where the balcony see the top floor bathed in sehout the roo completely uncomfortable, I take a seat on the chair next to the little round table near the balcony and fold my hands nervously in my lap To my utter shock, Trajan walks over and takes the emy shoulders to stiffen I feel his eyes onerous and everything about this entire series of events is uni suffered only two full moons Trajan is…I shouldn’t be here

A flash of the o sears through aze, who looks back atsilence that I want to drag my nails across the tabletop just to invoke some natural noise

But I sit as still as a statue, until finally Trajan breaks that silence

"You are right to thinkvoice

I don’t say anything

"I would never deny that," he goes on, "but our ways are different than yours They always have been Huifted with this poill always be human You will never understand our ways, nor will you ever know the true depth of our existence"

"Why don’t you enlighten me, then?" I say, and I don’t sweeten the poison in my voice Surely he knows that he’s seriously offendedwho he is, I can’t sit here and let him completely turn me into his submissive little tool

A sh

"It cannot be told," he says simply

I lick the dryness fro The quiet starts to fall across the rooently, "But what about Aramei?" And when I’m not thrown onto the floor with Trajan’s massive hand around my throat, I continue:

"She’s only human Do you think of her as weak?"

"Yes," he says and his frankness stuns ain "Aramei is weak because she is human, but that does notthat humans are weak I think Ihe had been trying to anger and offendwhen that wasn’t the case at all

I lower aze back at Aramei

"Humans are unnecessarily violent," he says, "and vile and treacherous and foolish"

"And olves aren’t violent?" I say "And I’ your kind, too"

Trajan crosses one leg over the other and rests his right arm on the table His eyes stray toward Arah we aren’tany effort to lower our voices

"Only small pockets of our kind are treacherous," he says, still looking out ahead "All races of life harbor treachery Violence? No, Adria, violence is hatred and callousness and folly We are none of those What you consider violence in our case is o on and on about this with his like that, but I think I’h of a thin line withdeep down tells me that he will easily have a worthy justification for anything I throw at him

I hope he’ll drop it, too

Trajan stands from the table and pushes the chair back underneath it

"But I did not bring you here for conversation," he says walking toward the bed where Ara "At least not with me"

"What am I supposed to…I mean how exactly a near the wall all this tiot she was even in the rooently in front of her she takes two steps forward and bows her head in Trajan’s view He simply nods and she leaves the upstairs floor, the sound of her soft bare feet shuffling quietly down the wooden steps behind me