Her Maiden

Chapter Eleven: Questions

You find falling asleep comes all too easily to you when you make it back to the bed chamber. You are absolutely spent after the intense sex with Alcina, never mind the fact you are still battered and bruised from the encounter with the lycan.

You slip beneath soft sheets and let your eyes close, breaths slowing as you drift away.

You must have been dead to the world, because it felt like only seconds later when you wake up to the sound of knocking on the bedroom door. You see now that the sun is down, however, and the room is instead illuminated in ghostly bright moonlight and a starry sky glistens from beyond the window.

"Y/n, it's just me."

You can't figure out who "me" is, as the voice is muffled from behind the sturdy wooden doorway.

Before you can respond, the door is already opening, revealing Sorina, carrying what looks to be some kind of black material folded in her arms. She grins at you and throws herself up onto the foot of the bed, where she sits casually as you prop yourself up, still feeling a little tired and wishing you could have slept just a little bit longer.

"I've brought you the dress she wants you to wear at dinner tonight. Looks fancy," she comments, before dumping the dress on the bed beside her and fully lounging out, propping her head against her hands as she looks at you with a keen curiosity.

"So, what happened this morning? She's been shouting on the phone all day ever since you both came back."

You can't say you really care for Sorina's overly familiar tone, especially not when you still felt pained by her speaking badly of you with another maid behind your back. Her friendliness was most definitely a guise to pry information out of you that she could whisper to the rest of the staff for some social clout.

"Honestly, it was nothing. I don't know anything about those phone calls anyway," you smile sheepishly, "I'm never really told much about anything, to be honest."

You see a hint of disappointment behind her eyes, but her smile remains.

"How are you liking your new role?" you ask, politely.

"It's pretty sweet, if I'm honest. Changing bedsheets and setting tables, all that boring stuff - but it beats being stuck in laundry," she remarks dryly, "plus it's just nice seeing Andrea having to do menial work. You know what she's like - always looking down her nose at the rest of us. Not anymore, I guess, since Lady D has a new favourite."

You feel a cold pang in your chest and struggle to maintain a placid expression.

"Andrea was her last maiden?" you ask carefully.

"Oh, god no. Imagine! The last maiden was well before our time, according to Jenica."

"But, you said she was her favourite?" you pry, again, trying to keep your voice even.

"What, are you jealous?" she scoffs, an eyebrow raised.

You feel you cheeks start to burn and shake your head, but it's too late - like a shark smelling the tiniest drop of blood, Sorina has latched onto the trail of this morsel gossip.

"Oh my god, you are! Don't tell me you actually like... this," she gestures around Alcina's chambers, then fixes you with a quizzical gaze.

You realise then that most people probably wouldn't take to being kept as a pet as well as you have - that to them this kind of existence would be so far removed from a life they would ever want to experience. To be kept, possessed, used. You feel an uneasy wave of shame as you wonder if it's wrong that you like Alcina, that you want to be hers and please her, when most people would rather die than submit to the person keeping them held under their control like this.