The Dragons' Bathhouse: A Reverse Harem Enemies-to-Lovers Soulmate Romance

43

Her stomach hurt her on the third day, so much so that her vision sharpened, and she could see a little better. Her eyes catching flecks of clarity in her world of blurriness. She decided then that she had to contact her crappy relatives, to call them to get her clearance from the station.

Finding out that calls weren't free wasn't part of the plan. Eden had sat at her corner staring at the rain for another hour as she wept in her heart and contemplated on her existence. She counted then on her fingers, the number of people who loved her, but started to cry when her mind danced towards the twins again and again. It was her growling stomach that pushed her to move.

She had approached a dingy looking loan shark in the market, intent on borrowing some money. The transaction was simple and should be a quick one. But when it came to money transference to her bank account, the seller had given her a befuddled look. His yellowed, rotting teeth clacking together in his confusion as he took a drag from the burning joint.

"Lass, you don't need money."

"What?"

The loan shark had turned his screen over, the flickering tablet, grimy and thick with a layer of oil displayed the money to her name. Eden couldn't tell how much money was in her bank account at first glance. Not because she couldn't see that clearly, but because of the sheer number of zeros lined up on the screen. It stretched endlessly, like a glitch in the system, like a stupid cheat in a game.

She counted the zeros later in a taxi that headed towards a motel at the rural outskirts of the city. Her fingers shaking as she traced the zeros on the device she had purchased. Nine zeroes, nine circles lined up side by side, at its head was the number 'one'. A billion dollars. Her breath caught in her throat as her body quivered. According to the banker, the money that had entered her account occurred minutes after she had left Ukiyo. A transfer from the Heavens, and a message from the people she loved more than she loved herself.

We love you.

And nothing else. No begging for her forgiveness, no excuses, no toxic words that would guilt her into returning to their arms. No plea for her to go back to the Spirit Realm. It was simple and sweet, and Eden did not know what to make out of it.

The three little words did nothing to quell her racing heart or the tears that dripped from her cheeks. She could find no fault in their message, nothing for her to lash out on, and nothing for her to fuel her decision to leave. It did not give her the completion she needed, nor did it give her the necessary push to return. Rather, she was left more distraught than before.

She didn't want to use their money, but she eventually chose to listen to her grumbling stomach, slipping into a dusty restaurant with dirt and grime staining the walls in thick chunks. As she sipped on bland chicken stew, a concoction with too much water and too little meat, she promised to herself that she would use as little of their money as possible. She promised that she would only take enough to keep her alive. And she would earn everything back when she could, when her eyes were fully healed and she could see clearly.

She tried to sleep that night on yellowed sheets that smelled of smoke, but despite her weakened, exhausted state she continued to toss and turn in bed. The fire in her chest was horribly low, and it hurt her in its depletion. It wanted her twins, it wanted their touch. It wanted their kisses. It wanted their love. She took a bath, boiling her skin to mimic its heat before retreating under the sheets once again.

She must have fallen asleep because the dreams started then.

They were chained to the walls, like prisoners in a jail cell, like Prometheus to his rock.

Her Kaizel was encircled by a fire that spilt from his chest and her Keegan was enclosed by ice that crackled over his skin. They were writhing on the ground, struggling and thrashing about. They tore against the chains that held them to the walls and whenever they pulled, the metal dug into their skin creating deep cuts that revealed raw flesh.

They were crying, sobbing so hard that tears pooled on the ground, their chest heaving as they wept. And blood dripped from their skin spilling down their faces and painting them blood red. They started to scream then, their lips parting to stretch wide open. She watched with rising horror as they began to wildly thrust their hips, pre-cum dripping from their cocks. Cocks that were red and bloodied with scratches and welts.

Eden, they screamed. Eden, they sobbed. They cried, collapsing onto the floor as their bodies contracted weakly from an orgasm that could not fulfil their need. Their bodies were exhausted from the pain and the torture, so exhausted that they slumped in a dead faint. For a moment she begged, she hoped that they would achieve peace in their moment of unconsciousness, but their frames jolted upwards again and the screams restarted.

Torture.

Eden.

She awoke, not even an hour had passed in her sleep. She had raced to the toilet to vomit through her dry sobs, her body rejecting the stew that she had consumed for dinner. She should have been disgusted by her dream, but the pain that wracked her body was far more than that from their betrayal. The memory of her dream had made her cry and pace in the room for hours.

Her chest hurt and she couldn't breathe. It was an ache in her soul that radiated from her heart to tighten over her throat. It bit and tore her flesh into shreds, so painful that she had doubled over from the cramping agony of their pain. She paced back and forth, sobbing into her hands. She cried her eyes raw until her frazzled mind reminded her that it was all just a dream. That they weren't hurt. That they should be alive and well. They were gods, after all, it was difficult for gods to die.

She couldn't sleep that night.

Eden chose to work at the motel she stayed in. Her attempt to distract herself from the dreams of them. She worked for a week as a dishwasher, but as she scrubbed the gunk from plates soaked in soapy water her mind continued to drift to her twins. Her nights were plagued with their torture, her days filled with the memory of their kisses, of their smiles. And Eden regretted having met them then. For despite everything they had done to her, her heart remained theirs and theirs only.

She quit that week, took nothing but the communication device she had purchased and a bouquet of flowers. She boarded a bus that would bring her further into the countryside, stepping into a graveyard. It wasn't hard for her to find her family despite her blurry sight, and she stumbled about on the pebbled path, counting the greyed tombstones as she went.

Eden knelt at the patch of grass where her family lay, brushing her fingers over the dusty tombstone to clean it the best she could in her lack of sight. She placed the flowers down then, sobbing as she laid into the grass with her cheek on the ground as if it would bring her closer to her deceased family.

She couldn't speak for the knife that twisted in her gut tortured her, and the coldness in her soul made her body shiver and quake. She didn't care when blades of ice hammered down from the sky, soaking her body until she was drenched from the rain. She lay, empty on the ground and begged for salvation, but when her eyes closed all she could see was their tortured bodies, their pain, their screams—

"What are you doing on the ground?" The voice spoke from above her, laced with the sound of chirping birds and rustling leaves. She glanced up blearily, noting the sudden lack of rain despite the sound of it by her ears. "The last time I checked you didn't obtain your nutrients from the soil like I do."

"Seri," Eden breathed, her voice a soft pitiful wail. The wood nymph was pulling her up with her branches, holding her carefully with a wooden hand and Eden stumbled to regain her footing. "W-what are you doing here?"

"I blame myself for a lot of things that I've done wrong for you...But this one probably topped the list," Seri murmured, brushing moss over Eden's cheeks. "You're weeping, you're sad. You're so sad, Eden...You're not okay."

"You've done nothing wrong, what are you saying Seri?" Eden faked a laugh, shivering a little in the cold. "I'm fine."