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
I looked at Sariel, confused. Was it really possible to prove that the signature on the contract had been forged? I couldn't think of another way to win this battle. In a human court, there should have been an expert to decide whether my signature on the contract was forged or not, but here, it was a matter of whomthe members of the Great Council believed. I doubted that they would believe me, but what about the Duke? He surely had the authority, although I couldn't understand where he stood in the vampire hierarchy. Nonetheless, he still needed evidence that the Adragnas were lying. When mine and Sariel's eyes met, he smirked at me. He didn't lose an ounce of his confidence. It was obvious that he had something up his sleeve. He stood up, taking the pile of documents with him. Those were the exact documents he had previously gone through before the trial started. He searched for one document among that pile and gave it to me. "Do you recognize what it is?" he
"This is an act of unbelievable impudence, Duke Calvet!" Duke Orseolo yelled, "None of the nobles were sentenced to death in two hundred years! One noble life is worth more than a thousand mere human lives!" He definitely made my blood boil, but this time I did my best not to open my mouth. I learned that staying silent was crucial to my survival. "You have already taken our wealth and titles. Isn't that enough?! For what reason should we give you our lives as well?!" the former-now Marquess, Henri Adragna fumed, supported by frantic gasps of his sons. Sariel slowly walked to the middle of the courtroom stage again. His eyes showed a firing glow as the slick smile slowly formed on his face. It was the first time I noticed that this court wasn't only for my revenge. His attitude displayed disdain and hatred. For Sariel, this conflict must have been something private, something that had been built for a long time. He was enjoying every second of Adragnas' miser