Silence

Chapter 11

Ever since Sebastian had come to the realization that he truly desired Adalina, he began to look at her with new eyes. He still didn't understand how such a thing had happened. Demons did not love. It was a plain and simple fact. So how in the world had he developed feelings for Adalina, someone who never even said anything, and why had they hit him so suddenly? He had worked with Adalina for a little over two and a half years, and never once had he had any romantic attraction towards her. What was so different about now?

She wasn't his demon soulmate. Such a thing was said to be a myth seeing as he had never heard of any of the demons he knew having a demon soulmate, especially not a human soulmate. And even if she was, he surely would've known by now. He would've been pulled to her from the moment he met her. He had never been pulled to her and definitely not in the romantic sense. He also would've seen a mark on her by now as proof that she was his soulmate. She was definitely not a demon soulmate.

He had never had feelings for a woman before, so a part of him questioned if what he kept feeling was truly attraction for her. But the other part of him knew that he desired Adalina much more now in a way that he had never desired anyone, not even any of his previous mistresses. He had only desired those women for their delicious souls.

The feeling was quite thrilling. After living for thousands of years, to experience completely foreign feelings was rather exciting and he decided to let himself enjoy it.

When it came to Adalina, he wished to have her near him every moment of the day. He knew that if he wanted, he could easily have her all to himself and do whatever he wanted with her. But it wasn't enough for him to want her. He also wanted her to want him. He wanted her to desire him in the same way he desired her. His normal methods for seducing women would not work on her. He would have to try something else.

But could someone like her ever want him? She had been terrified of him just a short time ago and part of that was his own fault. While she had certainly warmed up to him, he wasn't so sure she was comfortable around him yet and she certainly didn't have feelings for him. At least not the same kind of feelings he had for her. Could she learn to love him someday?

Adalina noticed a small change in Sebastian. She couldn't exactly say what it was, and it was so barely noticeable that she didn't know if the other servants could see it, but there was just something...different.

The morning after the party, her back and ribs ached terribly from being unused to wearing such a restricting piece of clothing as a corset. She had been all too thankful when Mey-Rin had finally been able to take it off her body so she could inhale properly (it had taken her forever since Mey-Rin didn't know how to operate a corset very well). How women wore those things all the time, she didn't know. It was at moments like that that she was rather grateful she was a servant and was not required to wear a corset every day.

However, at the current time, her primary concern was for her master. He looked even worse than he had last night, and it was clear that he was feeling sick but was trying to hide it. He always hid everything. Adalina could never guess what he was thinking even if she tried.

He let out small coughs all throughout breakfast that grew deeper and louder as the day went on. When she tried to give him medicine, he had shortly declined. But he continued to get worse, and she knew that Sebastian noticed as well, but he never did anything about it. For some reason, his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

Things took a horrible turn when Sebastian and Adalina were following Ciel towards his study with some tea and cakes so he could get some work done.

However, before he could even make it to the stairs, Ciel began coughing once again even harder than before. His breathing became extremely labored and his face went very pale. It was clear something was very wrong. It became even clearer when Ciel fell to the floor and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the red carpet.