As the Demon Demands ✔️

Chapter Fourteen

It had been four days since Evangeline had picked out her wedding dress and had been "punished." She still had some light abrasions on her wrists from the rope, and the hickeys on her neck were becoming less prominent. She still had to cover them up with makeup and wore long sleeves to hide the injuries.

She was also thankful that her ladies-in-waiting didn't ask about them either. Priscilla had only made a comment the first day telling her to "be more mindful" of her appearance. She had been embarrassed, but she made sure to hide the marks more carefully.

Marak seemed proud of them though. It was his way of letting everyone else know that she belonged to him, that no matter what they would say, he had no intentions of letting her go. Though she had begged him not to leave anymore where they could be easily seen. A request he complied with, but that just meant he left hickeys and bite marks everywhere else.

Still, despite her body being riddled with love bites underneath her dresses, she found herself enjoying spending time with Marak. They were now having supper together every night before heading to bed. Sometimes he would even pop in during her lessons to check in on her. Apparently he would have before, but he was busy dealing with angry nobles, wedding details, and paperwork.

Though she was still embarrassed and overwhelmed by his feelings for her, she was more comfortable around him. She could say his name easier, she didn't mind it when he would hug or kiss her, and she admittedly liked spending nights with him.

It was also getting a little easier with her lessons as well. Priscilla's lessons in particular she was starting to do better in. She still had a long way to go, but her table manners were much better than before, and she was getting better at sitting and walking "like a true empress would." Perhaps her training as a maid was finally coming in handy; even if she didn't have to follow the same etiquette as a noblewoman, she had always been expected to look respectable.

Of course, there were still some drawbacks. Her lessons with Lehiri were intimidating. Since she was more knowledgeable about finances, it wasn't too hard to understand the numbers, but she was admittedly overwhelmed with the large budgets she had to deal with. On top of that, Lehiri was giving her lessons in business and how to do it effectively but also ethically. On paper it seemed straight forward, but in practice – especially with nobility – it was a lot more complicated.

Then her history and political lessons with Zevine still dragged on, and half the time, she grew confused on all the political factions that had been around over the years. . On top of that, she had remembered all the houses and some of their more in depth histories, which seemed equally as confusing as everything else.

Fortunately, there was one thing that she did understand:  there were currently two main political groups at the moment – the traditionalists and the innovationists, and the traditionalists were not her friends. They were the ones who would be the most against her and the marriage in general, and she would need to be extremely careful if she ever had to deal with them. There were also those within that group that did not even approve of Marak being the emperor, but kept their mouths shut out of fear.

That made her anxious. If they didn't even approve of Marak, who had been emperor for four years now, then she highly doubted she would ever sway them to approve of her.

And then there was Skylar, who was essentially her anchor in the sea of lessons. She would always step in whenever Evangeline felt like her head would explode. It was admittedly nice to be looked after, especially when her other ladies-in-waiting seemed much more focused on forcing as much knowledge into her head as possible before the wedding. Which was now only thirteen days away.

She was stressed just thinking about it. Fortunately, Skylar had seemed to sense she was off. Shortly after lunch, she had told the other ladies-in-waiting she had her own lesson she wanted to give her, but just the two of them. The others, especially Priscilla, had been hesitant, but Skylar was able to convince them by telling them that she knew they still needed help with the wedding preparations.