Rendezvous in the Romanowskian Empire

51. Hypnotiser

Althea

Body temperature of Coretta Hayes has fallen below average temperature sustained by the human body. Due to automatic electric compulsion in near-death situations, we expect her arrival soon.

Heart in throat, I closed the AI book slowly after reading the message that had popped a week ago.

Damnit was I so close to going back?

I shook my head. No. I wasn't going anytime soon. There's so much left to write. More importantly, to know how Julian disappeared.

There wasn't a doubt that those four days in the hut were hell. And I was going to write every detail of this torture that ancient women had to endure.

It was Dimitra who saved my life.

That night, she had heard mistress Ionna's lethal screams at me in the hallway. Amid the darkness of the chilly dawn, she was the one to bring me a warm cloth to cover myself and food. I dared not eat anything that was practically thrown at my feet by the mistress' followers. I feared if they poisoned it.

Every dawn, she would come to take the woollen cloth back for the mistress' suspicion at who helped me. Although what other things I had to do as an impure woman was something, I would never like to recall, I was forever grateful to Dimitra.

But Julian was the one to end my pain.

I leaned against the headboard to stare at the ceiling, hands wrapped around my knees.

The chains I used to keep my heart at bay, to be as humanoid as possible, were broken the second he...

Did that.

A shuddering warmth enveloped me when I thought back to it. I closed my eyes in an unknown feeling, reluctantly trying to recreate the feel, and then, a wave of embarrassment hit me.

Kissing wasn't an easy thing to do.

All this time my imagination of a kiss by kissing my pillow was in vain. Now I realised how difficult it was. For a loon like me, it wasn't a melt-me-till-my-toes experience; it was more like I-hate-you-my-dead-lips.

But he'd had no difficulty in going along. It wasn't a peck or a little kiss of assurance. It was...

I breathed out. It was something spectacular.

Damn spectacular than a Hershey's kiss we singletons cherished.

I buried my head in a sigh. This had to happen. No matter how much I tried to be the same end of the magnet that was Julian, I was the opposite one.

And it was becoming harder to escape his magnetic field.

Calls started to buzz in my head and I let out a little groan of protest, before picking each one of them.

"You damn traitor, Coretta Hayes!" Cheryl screamed.

"Cors, babe, what torturous way of freezing yourself to death were you using to return, huh?" Lorenzo asked, worried, almost spooked.

They all had received the message in their AI books.

"Thatsitimnotgonnabequiet you said you wouldn't die alone, what the hell Cors thatsnotfrickinfair!" Dunkin bawled out whatever he could get out through his panicked state.

Guys, give me a moment to speak...

"Look, no one's gonna leave before informing each one of us. That's a strict order from me," Aarmen butted in.

From the time mistress Ionna had pushed me in the hut, I had disconnected myself, just so they didn't do anything stupid to come rescue me. The nearest one was Cheryl. I could already imagine her come barrelling for mistress Ionna to knock her teeth out.