Chapter 7 WELL WELL WELL

Seraphina's Pov

Oh great, I had actually gone ahead and fucking died. I’m hearing voices. I rolled my eyes which was harder to do in between tears.

“Seraphine!”

Not hearing voices. That strong voice that echoed my name was real and it was the Emperor Alexander.

“Seraphine, for God’s sake, are you still in there?

I shot up, rushing to my feet so quickly my dress nearly tripped me as a small dot of candlelight began to hover above me. He made a sound of dissatisfaction, staring down his nose at me. I wiped my face and stared at him back, the hope blooming in my chest stretching my lips into a smile.

And then the silhouette of him disappeared, taking his candle with him and plunging me into darkness again.

And then I was alone again.

“No, no, no.” I repeated over and over in my head. I still couldn’t make a sound but I tried. Oh God, I tried. I opened my mouth and screamed from the bottom of my heart and yet the night was silent. I clawed at my throat, at the useless thing that wouldn’t just work!

He couldn’t! He couldn’t leave me here! I didn’t want to be in the dark again.

Please.

I started crying again, the tears falling from my eyes so my vision was immediately blurry. I sank down to the ground, the hoe souring on my dead tongue.

Why had he come if not to get me out of here? Had he just come to look down into the well and gloat? Or maybe it was all a trick of the mind, maybe I was actually just hallucinating.

I stared at the hole, unblinkingly until my eyes watered. That must be it. My mind was giving up on me.

But I didn’t care.

It wasn’t like it didn’t have a reason to. It wasn’t like I had a host of reasons to remain sane.

I’m done.

My life had technically ended anyway. I’d thought this was a gift, getting a second chance at life but it wasn’t. It was just bad luck; smelly, muddy, painful bad luck. I was tired.

I sighed, feeling all the weight drop from my limbs as I let go of the will to live. It was kinda nice, to not worry about this body that wasn’t even really mine. I dropped to the floor carelessly.

I lay down in the fetal position, hands underneath my head, sick of it all. I wanted to sleep. And I hoped that I either woke up back in my real life or not at all.

Truly, I hoped I died in my sleep if this was all I had left. It would be better than this servitude and that was putting it very mildly. It was more like slavery.

No really, what type of life was this? Even I hadn’t treated my employees like this and they had me killed. It was worse than my childhood and I didn’t think that was possible.

Something dropped on my head. I didn’t have the energy to swat it away so it just sat heavy on my head.

“Seraphine!”

He could shove my name right up his ass, I didn’t want to do life anymore.

“Seraphine! Grab my hand.”

“No.”

I didn’t move. A second later, something else fell on me, hitting one of my bent knees. “Seraphine! Wake up!”

“Father?”

“Lily! What are you doing out of bed? I told you to wait in your room.”

Oh. The child.

“I was. But you said you were going to get Seraphine and I didn’t know where you were. Don’t worry, I brought my guards like you made me promise to!”

“The brat,” I thought. “She should be in bed.”

“Okay. Go back to your room. I’ll get Seraphine and we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yes daddy.”

Then the light was back over my hole. “Finally, you’re awake.”

It was only then I realised I’d unconsciously turned to the sound of the child’s voice and was now laying on my back. Whatever.

He dropped the candle and I could see the faintest light reflecting on his face. “Grab my hand.”

He had seen me now so I count ignore him. Besides, him standing there yelling my name was interfering with my plans to lay still until I hopefully perished. Not to mention that it was annoying.

So I sat up, my body as heavy as my dumbbell after a full Pilates class and reached for his hand.

I clasped it, and with a little grunt under his breath, he pulled me up and out of that damn hold. As he lifted me back into the world, I stretched out my leg, trying to place it at the edge of the well to have my foot on the ground.

It soon became clear that was not happening.

Maybe it was because of the dim light, as the sky was empty, but I missed, my feet finding nothing but air as soon as the Emperor let go off me. And I was falling again.

Holy shit!

And yet I still felt nothing. I was surprised yes, but all that was in my mind was the hope that this second fall would do the job the first one hadn’t and fucking kill me.

I saw his eyes go wide and he lunged. His hands grabbed the front of my dress just in time and tugged me forward.

“Wow. Yay,” I deadpanned.

I could feel the breeze on my back as I was pulled, my unlaced dress opening up easily to the cold nip of the night air

.

And with a soundless grunt, I fell, right on top of the Emperor… whose hands found my bare back.