The Demon’s Bride

After their first lovemaking, Ian didn't stopped there and they had enjoyed a few more rounds. Elise felt her head fuzzy until she felt her senses becoming clearer by the time her body had soaked on the warm water on the bathtub. Ian sat behind her. His large arms occupied the sides around her shoulders. At time like this when it was quiet without anyone else to bother them was a time both of them shared happily. 

Ian brushed his fingers through her hair, letting the red strands to curl and hover over the water while Elise felt how warm her stomach was, causing herself to receive the embarrassment after her own thoughts. "Hm, babies are more than welcomed," Ian whispered as there was only the two of them, the two didn't have to raise their voice high for the other to hear. 

Elise stared at his eyes, "Did you receive a new ability after your resurrection?"

Ian tilted his head, appearing as if he doesn't understand the language she was speaking of, "What kind of ability?"

"Reading minds," Elise responded, "I sometimes, maybe oftentimes wonder how you are able to correctly guess the thoughts in my heads. Such as now."

"My eyes are clearer than water, Elise," a grin broke on his handsome face. His hair had been swept back and appeared darker in color as it turned wet from the water. "It's the experience I have accumulated since the idle nine hundred years of my life. You could say that I am an expert in reading people's emotions before I soon begin to enter their thoughts and guessed their next moves. But as for you, it's just a habit of mine to continue and stare at you, admiring you who is now mine that your expression had became an open book to me."

Elise smiled at his words where she couldn't stop her raising cheeks. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Go on," Ian offered, waiting for her questions. 

"During Lady Lucy's death, did you noticed anything?" Elise didn't know how much of the past she had changed but that night she and Camael had quite a rowdy fight that should have attracted a few attention. 

"Other than how angered I was and how at the time there was only murder in my mind to the people who had wronged my mother, I sensed nothing. I was still a human back then Elise; a human and a boy. What's the matter?"

"To look back on that night, I had touched your wings," a little hesitation appeared on Elise's words. No matter how transparent a couple were to each other, she knew there was some lines most couple would want their partner to respect and she wasn't sure if she had crossed the line. Ian didn't answer, therefore she continued, "At that time, I talked with lady Lucy. We didn't talked much and I offered to untie her hands but Camael had tired her wrists using a rope from heaven, the rope that I cannot tear."

On her confession, she saw his eyes growing wide, "You… talked to my mother?"

"Briefly but then I had to chase after Camael. I'm sorry I couldn't help her—" Elise was interrupted as Ian shook his head toward her.

"No. You didn't do a wrong thing. My mother made up her choice and I respect her. The manner of how she had died was unfair, it wasn't just, and I couldn't accept nor forgive what those people had done but Elise, if there was an option for me to redo my entire life to never meet you, I won't ever take that offer," Ian showed her an extremely gentle look on his face, "The past is what makes me today and it is what made me to meet you. I don't regret what I have done as doing so means I have rejected my own life."

Elise appreciated every thoughts Ian had that had never been selfish. To others he isn't appears as an egoistical person but now it had been proofed how in that time when he had turned into a demon, he hadn't killed anyone but the people who had deserved the death. That would also mean Mila had killed the wrong person or perhaps, she had been used by the true killer.

"My wings," she heard Ian spoke, "Thank you for bringing them back to me. It must have been difficult to get them to your hands considering how Lady Caroline would never allow anyone to take what was inside her beloved underground. What did you do to change her mind?"

Elise smiled, "I exchanged to her the pendant which my mother gave me, the pendant from my maternal grandfather. It was precious but mother had given it to me for it to be a help to me when the time needed and I think it was the time for me to use it. About Lady Caroline, people seemed to see her as a cold hearted person but she had helped me to mend the rift between my father and grandfather, I think it wasn't her who was evil and she wouldn't killed anyone unless they broke the rules set in stone."

"True," Ian hummed, "Her husband was at the fault for not respecting her rules and stole the things on her underground. The Hell condemned and mocked her for killing her husband even though they also killed their siblings or parents to survive and even though the true culprit in the story was her husband."

"It's saddening," whispered Elise. She had been in the underground no matter how Lady Caroline loved her underground, she wondered if the woman truly doesn't feel lonely being there alone for years and decades? When time comes where they could relax, Elise thought to visit the woman more often. 

"Ian," she called her husband who keenly listen and stared at her.

"Hm?"' 

"My grandfather and father had wings, my mother might also has one like my maternal grandfather, do you think I would have wings as well?" She thought about having wings after learning her own bloodline. Seeing Ian's wings and how useful it was at most of the time where she hoped she could fly, she was curious why despite her bloodline, she had no signs of growing wings. 

"Maybe you don't have them seeing how your angelic and demonic power are on the par perhaps one might cancel the other's like how you have no horns. Or perhaps it is taking its time regardless if you ever want to fly all you need is to ask me and I will bring you everywhere you need forever," Ian offered her and the subtle promise he said when uttering forever had Elise to smile.

They won't be separated again, never, thought Elise to herself.

"The water has turned cold. Let's get you out of the bath," Ian said pushing himself from the bath before taking her hands. What do you want to do next?" His question came while helped wrapping the towel around her body attentively.

"I want to visit the church. To study about the Lone's cases. I feel something is still off about Ernest and the person who he truly is."