I was walking along the castle corridor following Mr. Gotha. We were clearly going towards the north wing. I only went there once while taking a tour around the castle with Martha, and even there I wasn't allowed to enter any of those rooms, since they were off-limits as the Duke's private chambers. While walking I kept clenching my fists, encouraging myself to keep my emotions at a minimum level and focus solely on business. I knew that I could be confident and strict as long as I keep it all around my area of expertise.
I assumed that we were going to the Duke's study room which I was told was combined with a grand library. I was sincerely looking forward to seeing it since until now I could only look at its door…
We were getting closer, and I even became a little excited about entering that grand library, but Mr. Gotha passed Duke's study room and kept walking.
"Um… Am I not supposed to meet the Duke in here?" I pointed at the door we passed.
"Mast
I walked inside slowly, not because I wasn't confident, but more because I still didn't feel comfortable in the high heels that Martha forced me to wear. She was fanatically excited about choosing my outfit for my first day at work. She picked a simple black, fitted dress with short sleeves and a pair of bloody-red heels. She told me that I had to be dressed to kill on my first day. Well, judging by the curious glances of the people standing in the entrance hall, she was right. I could smell their hostility from the moment I crossed the threshold. I walked to the reception desk and realized that for the first time I would probably have to use the name that I had hated all my life to introduce myself. I clenched my teeth and looked at the lady receptionist. "Good morning, my name is Lilith…" "Ms. Lilith! I'm so glad that I can finally meet you!" I heard a man's voice coming from behind me. Reacting to the sound of that man's voice, the eyes of the lady
My office was spacious and kind of luxurious. I hadn't been to many offices before, but I had seen some in movies and TV series. Each time I saw an elegant wooden desk, a comfortable office chair, carefully designed cabinets, or an exquisite coffee table with sofa and armchairs, it was a place that belonged to someone from the higher-ups. It could be the general manager's office or the department director's office. The place where I was standing, a place that was supposed to be my office, looked exactly like the ones I saw on the TV screen. I felt strange. I walked around delicately stroking the desktop and my new, top-class laptop. I even had my very own coffee machine. It was all so different from how I used to work, although it was hard to compare my current situation with sitting on the bed or floor with a laptop on my knees while drinking the remains of cold coffee that I made myself several hours earlier. I knew that my abilities should have given me a five-digit month
It was understandable that no one was going to help the most hated human working at the Argent Investment Bank carry heavy boxes of documents. I had to do it all by myself. Certainly, Sariel didn't even think about assigning someone to assist me. I bet that in normal circumstances there would be at least five people working at the external audit, but since I was the one who suggested this I had to accept the fact that I had become a one-person department. Working alone wasn't a problem. I used to handle assignments that involved hundreds of documents without any help. At that moment, it was all about those damn boxes from the archives. I carried three boxes at once. The boxes weighed around thirty pounds each. These were merely documents from the first quarter of the year 2011. I walked through the corridor while people were passing me by, wickedly chuckling or smirking. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them decided to trip me. "Lilith, calm down and think of it as
My body started to shiver when I began to process Gabriel's words. "H-how?" I mumbled, my gaze pleading him to say more. He smirked, then continued, "Twenty years ago, when the old Duke of Calvet was still alive, Sariel enjoyed his life as a young master. Many women craved him, and many women belonged to him. He could almost bathe in the blood of his marked ones. Everything changed when he fell in love with one and started dismissing others." "It sounds like a romantic story." I smiled sourly while feeling a dull pain in my heart as if I were actually jealous of the one he once loved. "It was, and it was a big scandal," Gabriel sighed. "He rejected the daughter of the Marquess of Balliol, and openly claimed that he would turn his loved one and marry her." I envied that human girl more and more, even knowing that their story didn't end well. "He must have been committed, so what went wrong?" I waited impatiently for the rest of the stor
I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned in bed, hearing the overwhelming beating of my own heart. I kept thinking about why my words made Sariel so angry, and more importantly, was he still angry at me for asking that stupid question? I hoped not. The relationship between him and me was fragile even without any additional conflicts. Thankfully, Gabriel seemed to be less prejudiced against me. It would only make my job much harder… I got up as if I hadn't slept at all. I splashed cold water on my face over a hundred times before I started to resemble a human being, and not that I resembled any attractive inhuman before doing it. I was only a beginner when it came to cosmetics and make-up. In my twenty-five years of living, I didn't really have time to care about my looks. I was a fast learner. I had the full theory, but experience and skills were completely different stories. I stood in front of the mirror trying to fix my lashes so they wouldn't resemble insect feet. Fortunate
I wondered how much time I had until the news that my report was the reason people got fired would spread throughout the entire company. I started thinking that perhaps it would be wiser to hire bodyguards. I could easily handle a few humans by myself, but fighting against an enraged crowd could be troublesome. Certainly, the rational and, this time, optimistic part of my brain told me that I was overreacting and that nothing bad would happen. In normal circumstances, I would expect people to fear me more than openly declare war against me, but my situation was far from normal. I sighed heavily, then got up, getting ready to leave the CFO's office. "Goodbye, Mr. Foubert." I smiled faintly, walking towards the door. "See you tomorrow, Ms. Leber." He winked at me teasingly. I opened the door and bumped into someone. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you.." I muttered, straightening my nose after it hit that person's hard male chest. I looked up and saw a
We entered a hall that resembled a stage of a round parliament. There were audience seats rising high all around us, with a special lodge right in the middle. There were about a hundred seats and no empty ones. Those in the audience wore black togas, with the exception of those in the lodge, who wore togas in a bloody-red color. There were five dressed in red, and they seemed to be some kind of special group of judges, while the rest must have been the court representatives. No one in the audience was staring at me as intently as the one judge seated in the lodge's main seat. It was a woman, a beautiful woman with blonde, almost white hair and crystal cold eyes. She seemed extremely fierce. Her intimidating gaze made me flinch the second our eyes met. Strangely, at the same time, I didn't feel hostility coming from her. What I saw in her eyes could be described as a peculiar kind of curiosity. At one moment, she smirked at me. I gasped, feeling slightly awkward, then I looke
Sariel snapped his fingers and, in a split of a second, two servants brought in a massive wooden seat and put it in the middle of the courtroom. Then he reached out his hand towards me with a courteous smile beaming on his face. I gulped, but put my hand on his and let him lead me to the witness seat. Once I sat down, I immediately felt as if I was a dwarf sitting in a giant's seat. The back of the seat ended almost two feet higher than my head. I couldn't touch the chair back even when most of my legs were on the seat. I ended up straightening up without leaning, with my feet swinging in the air. I must have looked ridiculous, yet I did what I could to present myself elegantly. I sat on the edge of the seat with my back straight and my head raised, eyes holding a confident gaze. Sariel smiled briefly at me as if he wanted to give me a little courage. I took a deep breath, trying to concentrate. "Ms. Lilith Leber is the only survivor from the night of the auction, "S