The Duke's Passion

"Ahh!"

The man grunted on the ground of the narrow alley, naked. I was correct when I thought he had an evil plan in mind. He posed as someone who would help me, only to lead me in this deserted alley, and attempted to take advantage of me. 

Sadly, he was more naive and weak than I thought. It only took me a few moves to incapacitate him, since I didn't have a rope to tie him.

"Don't worry. I will call for help." I glanced down at him and then continued to go through his wallet. "You have a lot of money."

Although the only thing I needed from him was his coat, I still ripped his clothes off of him. His wallet came bouncing to my feet, so I picked it up. I didn't know he was loaded, despite that the materials of his clothes already told me was an aristocrat.

"You... wench!" he cursed through his gritted teeth, but I ignored him. "Do you know who I am?"

"I don't." A sigh slipped past my lips as I squatted down. "Anyway, even if you are the king, you will still end up like that. How dare you trick young ladies who trusted you to help them?"

I held his wallet in between my thumb and my index, slapping it lightly against his cheek. "This will be the compensation for the emotional trauma you've inflicted upon my frail heart."

"You shameless thief...!" He seethed, revealing his fangs and his dark eyes changing into a deep red. I already knew he was a vampire, that was why I deepened the injuries I inflicted on him so it won't heal immediately.

"I guess calling for help is unnecessary," I muttered while I pushed myself up. "Stop doing this, You. You're lucky I'm not in the mood to skin someone alive."

I teased him as I walked away, waving. This reminded me of my vigilante days, but the only difference was I didn't kill him. Well, I wasn't that person anymore.

I slipped his wallet inside the coat's pocket before covering myself with it. With a smile, I exited the alley and went back to the heart of the city. The people flocking around the plaza were still there, so to feed my curiosity, I went to see what was going on. I could hear indistinct murmurings and someone yelling in the middle.

"Coming through," came out a weak announcement from me, squeezing myself through the crowd. Thankfully, I lost a lot of weight, so it was easy to reach the front.

My brows raised as I tilted my head to the side. I blinked twice at the man announcing the infidelity of his wife. My eyes fell on the woman on the ground. She was weeping and kneeling, not caring about her disheveled hair and dress. 

"I have given everything to my wife and yet, this is what she did to me!" the man, drowned with rage, exclaimed until his spit flew out of his mouth. His fury only increased by the second as he grabbed the woman's hair, causing her to shriek.

'Wow... was he trying to ask the people what he should do to his wife? This is embarrassing.' I thought, hearing the man preach how good of a husband he was while dragging his wife by the hair. I pity neither of them. I only sympathized with the child standing from across me, bawling her eyes out.

The woman who was being dragged kept looking in that child's direction, so it was obvious she was the mother. Can't they settle this inside their home? Why does this man have to cause a scene and make them the laughingstock?

'Ahh...' I nodded in understanding. 'He knew he will be a laughingstock since his wife cheated, so he'd rather drag her with him? How pathetic.'

I shook my head and glanced to my left and then to my right. The people were simply looking at him in pity, but no one tried to help. Not that I planned to, since this wasn't my problem to deal with. 

'What a waste of time,' I thought as I turned around to walk away. However, just as I did, a loud gasp resonated in my ear. Out of instinct, I looked back to see that the man had finally reached his limit and executed his wife publicly.

My eyes dilated as the woman's body collapsed to the ground with blood spurting out of her throat. The slit wasn't deep enough to kill her instantly as she pressed her palm on it but to no avail. The life in her eyes slowly slipped away and her hand on her throat fell. 

She died. 

"Cruel," I whispered thoughtlessly, staring into the woman's blank eyes. How could he claim he love her but then go and kill her?

"He is cruel." 

I turned to my right to see a lady looking back at me. She offered me a weak smile before gazing at the center.

"You're not from here, are you?" she inquired, and I only looked at her curiously. "This type of occurrence had been happening after the death of the Earl. People are taking advantage of the instability of the Earldom, so they just do what they want."

A deep sigh escaped her lips. I studied her from head to toe, figuring out she was a commoner. Well, what would a noble lady do in this place?

"Why would the Earldom reach this point? Was there no heir?" I asked casually without taking my eyes off of her. I noticed how her eyes softened with bitterness and glanced at me.

"There is a new lord, but he is just a young boy. What can a young boy do when all these responsibilities are put on his shoulders overnight?" 

"Is that so?" I nodded and peeled my eyes away from her. The man who publicly executed his wife in a moment of rage was now weeping while cradling her lifeless body. What a fool.

'Earldom…' I thought, wondering which side of the country we were in. 

"You seem you don't know a lot about this place and alone. Do you want me to accompany you for a while?" the woman suddenly proposed. I looked at her and assessed her. There wasn't any malice in her eyes, so I nodded. I also needed information.

"I would love to."