The Concubine

2: The Angel

Angel woke up sore and aching, which wasn't a surprise. What was an actual surprise was to wake up at all. He could clearly recall the swamp swallowing him into the darkness...

But... what was he doing at a swamp? Wasn't a Blood Moon yesterday? What the hell was he doing out there during a Blood Moon?

Probably it was all a nightmare. As everything in his life since he could recall, if he could recall anything before living in the Mansion.

He found himself at the Marquis' bedroom, among the red silk sheets of his bed, which probably explained the shitty way he was feeling, beaten, naked, scratched to bleeding and sore between his legs. His clothes, if any, were gone. Angel looked at the mirrored ceiling over the bed to examine his wounds.

An injured and thin-to-the-bone boy looked him back with tired blue eyes. Delicate features almost resembling a woman. Pink soft lips ripped by teeth. Old and new scars all over his skin traced the map of his story, being the Marquis the author of most of them. His blonde hair already covered his shoulders and neck, where a V shaped burnt could show whom he belonged to.

Suddenly, a piece of his nightmare came back in a flash. A pair of big red eyes, looking down at him through muddy waters...

He wanted to take a bath and see Cherry as soon as possible. She was also in his dream, or at least he heard her talking... or screaming? What was it? The only clear memory of it all were those weird eyes and the drowning. Angel got up trembling, having to lean on the walls to keep standing, and reached the bathroom were the tub was already prepared with warm water and red rose petals, and over a chair there was a towel and clean clothes waiting for him –if anyone could call a translucent chiffon robe clothing. One of the few advantages of being the Marquis' favourite was that he could dispose of almost everything in his bedroom, whenever he spent the night with him.

But was it worth it?

He became the favourite once he turned fifteen, and before that he remembered at least three or four before him, among boys and girls, all of them the most beautiful of their respective generation, but none of them lasting more than a few years. Except for his predecessor, all of them were sold at really high prices out of the kingdom of Laveau when they turned 21 –IF they were lucky, or disappeared if not, Angel being the only one who lasted the most time since he would be turning 23 in a few months.

The one before him jumped of the roof. 

Angel saw the moment when her body slammed in the garden, the crack of her neck filling the air for more than a few seconds. The mere memory still made him shiver.

But it seemed that everyone else forgot her after that. Her portraits were taken off the walls and no one else mentioned her ever again, as she didn't even exist. He didn't remember her name, but that didn't mean he didn't remember her. Or at the very least, her gruesome end.

Right now, while bathing in the rose scented waters in silence, he asked himself again if it was actually worthy to be the Marquis' pet. To be compliant and seducing, to always look as luring as possible, to accomplish almost every order, only to wake up now and then with bruises and scars, to be taken to parties only to be shared with high class assholes who used him like a toy –sometimes more than one at a time-, to sometimes not even remember a single thing...

Angel was suspicious about that last part. Deep inside, he knew at least some of those were the times he tried to escape, but why he kept forgetting all of them? Why he couldn't remember at least how he got there?

And why it only seemed to bother him and Cherry, among all the other concubines at the Mansion?

For that time, he had to leave it aside. He got out of the bath tub slowly, dried himself enjoying the softness of the towel and dressed up.