The Demon’s Bride

Angelica finally took a better look at Ian's red eyes when her body was hoisted to the air. She didn't notice his red eyes before as she was stunned with Elise's appearance. What was this vampire doing with Elise? Going by what the vampire said, the young girl standing beside him was indeed her niece.

Angelica gritted her teeth, squeezing her voice she managed to turn her neck at Elise, "A-Are you going to watch your aunt strangled to death and do nothing?"

Ian clicked his tongue, "Don't use your chance patronize my bride, woman. Will you be getting us tea or will you die now?"

Angelica knew some spells to kill the vampire. But there were too many eyes watching her now, from her neighbors, the villagers, and the magistrate that failed to do his job to protect her like other villagers but to let her be strangled. All of the people was useless, and it was only up to herself if she want to come back alive, thought Angelica. 

The vampire seemed haughty and that should be the death of him. Angelica twisted an eerie smile inwardly, but her face looked in fear outside. "I-I will! P-Please let me go!"

Ian nodded before throwing the woman across the floor of the house, having Angelica to push cough for breaths while soothing her neck. She then pushed herself to stand up, her eyes glaring at Elise who idly stood next to Ian without a word said yet.

Meanwhile Ian turned to see Bauer in complete loss. Noticing Ian's gaze, Bauer said, "I-If you are in need for tea, milord. I know a few tea leaves-"

"Go away," Ian waved his hand and Bauer took no second to run away. When Elise and Ian entered, the door was closed, preventing the noisy crowds who was dying to know what happen crowd near the gate.

"It's her, isn't it?" said the wealthy woman, "The niece that had always spoke of odd things and found with dead animals! I thought she died after falling off cliff."

"But her body was never found, does that mean she had came back?" asked another lady with a plump figure.

"But why after almost ten years?" questioned the first woman to receive no answer as they were confused to see Elise who Angelica said to died ten years ago, coming back alive and well.

Elise looked around the house. She saw how the place was not different from what she remembered, but she noted of how things seemed to got better where the tables were clean and there were ornaments she never seen in the past. 

"You are living a good life, Miss Herney," said Ian. He had taken a seat on one chair he pulled to sit near the only door of the house. "How much did you sell Elise for? Three golds?"

Angelica sat on the door across Ian with an uncomfortable look, "I-I don't know what you are speaking of-"

"Why did you say I died?" Elise cut her aunt's words, she watch her with a distant expression. This was the woman who had sold her, she thought. She was living well, and didn't look like she aged much either.

The brunette woman watched her before she huffed. Dropping her oblivious act, Angelica said, "Going there is the same as dying. I just told the neighbors that you fell from the cliff."

"But no one searched for my body," whispered Elise. She knew this was coming. Since the beginning there was no one who cared for her, and she took the fact easier than she thought it would. Was it because she expected this to happen? "You know that if I was sold to the slave establishment, I would die. Yet you sold me."

Angelica rolled her eyes, "You should be grateful that you still serve as a purpose for me. You were thrown away, abandoned, and a cursed child who brought deaths and misfortunes to the places you go. Like last time. You don't remember but because of you, a girl died from this village. Because she friended you. I guess you wouldn't remember that poor girl's name. She was Elena, Karen's second daughter."

Elise shook her head. She refuse to let Angelica's words got the best out of her. "Just because she was a friend of mine, and died it doesn't me that I am cursed. She died in an accident and that would never be my fault." She didn't remember having a friend, but then she remembered that maybe she did. However, the girl died because she fell from a high place without her being there. 

She wondered what Elise was here for, and it appeared to Angelica that Elise had brought the vampire with her only to reprisal of what she did in the past. "No. It is the fact. You don't remember how many of your uncles and aunts who had threw you from one house to another? They were afraid to throw you in the forest— afraid that someone would take you in and instead kill them. But no one could handle you. But unlike them, I don't care about others. It was much better of you were gone early."

"I have seen many heartless people but by far you are the worse, auntie," Elise spoke out. She can't feel any remorse from Angelica's words and doubt there would be. "How could you sell your own niece? You may not be related close with my parents, but you are still their distant cousin. I am still a child at that time!"

Angelica had enough of Elise's crybaby-like words, "Well, if you are in my place would you bring in a cursed girl like you to your house and let not only you to be harm but your entire family? You can't call me evil when you don't remember who you have harmed. Look back to yourself, aren't there people who died recently around you?" 

Elise's hand flinch at it, her eyes looking at Angelica when the woman smiled as she noticed that her niece reacted to her words. "So there was. This is proof that you are indeed a cursed child! It was the right choice of mine to sell you-"

"Whether I am a cursed child or not, it is not up to you to decide what am I," Elise interrupted Angelica's words. She would not allow the woman to poison her mind with her destructive words. "You treated me like I was a lethal weapon and used me before eventually selling me for money. You called me a cursed girl, but I see more like a cursed person who could not differentiate the good and the wrong— how wrong it was for you to sell a child who could barely understand her surrounding."

Ian who had sat in silence clapped his hands after her words. He looked at Elise, a proud expression came across his face. "You said it, sweetheart. But you shouldn't waste any more breaths with this woman. Look at her, she is still thinking she is correct. This type of people wouldn't change until the taste the flames from Hell."

"You spoke like a demon," scoffed Angelica, her words were free from fear that Elise questioned how her aunt could be fearless when she just had her neck strangled a moment ago.