by Serena Rose
He was silent for a moment. Yes, she was right. Why was he torturing himself to go through this again? She was just another human he was going to leave after a while. “That’s true.”
“I can’t do that. It’d be like imprisoning myself,” she told him. “You’re better off with someone you can bully.”
“I’m not trying to bully you,” he said with a frown.
“Oh, what? I can’t be your girlfriend if I don’t adhere to your rules and regulations?” she said, her eyes narrowing.
“There are certain things I can’t explain just yet.” He didn’t want to come to that point, either. He was just going to enjoy her company, however short it was going to be. “But, if you’re willing to compromise.”
“You sound like a politician now,” she said, rolling her eyes at him.
“That’s just way too much sass. You haven’t even said yes, yet. Why? Are you afraid?”
“Afraid of what, exactly? Enlighten me.”
“Afraid of being in a relationship.”
“I’m wary of the things that come with it.”
“It’s just dating. I take you out, we have dinner, we I don’t know, and we read books together…”
“That sounds nice, but I don’t want to feel like a side-chick.”
“What part of exclusivity don’t you get?”
“I’m exclusive but you’re hiding me?” she said, glancing at him sideways. “Besides, I barely know you, why would I agree on dating you?”
“Isn’t that why people date? So, we get to know each other? See if we’re compatible?”
“You have to tell me about yourself. I mean, is Ashborne even your family name at all?”
He sighed. “It’s really complicated. Look, forget it. Forget I asked that stupid question.” William stood up and put on his pants quickly. He had to get out of here, before the whole thing blew out of proportion-
“What happened to your back?” she asked him.
“What?” he said, distracted. Then he realized he had his back turned to her, a careless moment, something that shouldn’t have happened. He faced her and quickly put on his shirt.
“Your back…” her voice faltered. “It looks… what happened to you?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, fixing his shirt properly.
“Who did that to you?” she pressed on. Kelsey hadn’t seen anything like it. His back was heavily scarred, and it could have looked different during the day. Tonight, they were shiny, long scars, as if someone had lashed out at his back. It crisscrossed in strange patterns, and she wondered what had caused it.
Was it his father that had caused this? Was he afraid of someone? Was that why he didn’t want to go public with their exclusivity? William didn’t look like the type of person who ended up being afraid, but maybe, just maybe, he had certain threats in his life…
He gave no answer to her query. “I best get going now.”
“Who did that to you?” she asked again.
“Let’s discuss this some other time, apart from our social status,” he told her, clearly uncomfortable with her question.
“Is someone hurting you?” she asked, her voice trembling a little, just a little. It was how she was, easily anxious at the sight of people needing help, at the sight of people in some subtle kind of pain.
“Don’t make it sound like you’re empathizing for me, please,” he said with a frown.
“I’m not doing this on purpose,” she said, quickly putting on her clothes. “Is someone hurting you?”
“I had an accident as a kid,” he replied harshly. “End of story. I will see you some other time.”
She stood in her tiny bedroom, watched as he walked away, closing the door shut, like how he had shut her out. Be his girlfriend? She didn’t think so. Not when he was like that. But when he had asked her to be his girlfriend, his voice sounded genuine, meek, even.
She didn’t want to say yes, of course, not when she didn’t know anything about him. She didn’t bother looking out the window, and she heard his car drive away moments later, leaving her to her thoughts, leaving her to the sudden silence.
Could she do research on Ashborne Manor? On the Ashborne family? She found herself defeated in her moment of curiosity, and she grabbed her old laptop, and began to type away, wanting to know more about his family, and in effect, know more about him.
There were a few articles about Ashborne Manor, all connected to old American homes across the country.
“Built in 1846 by a certain Englishman named William Anthony IV, it was said to be the grandest of all houses in the West Coast, with its twelve bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, 2 libraries and four dining areas complete with a grand ballroom that could accommodate at least three hundred guests [see inset photo circa 1848].
Kelsey saw the grand ballroom photo, complete with the magnificent chandeliers, and she imagined what it would have been like to have been born in that era, with a silver spoon in her mouth. The photo was yellowish, but the image was still something she could vividly imagine herself in. She hadn’t seen the grand ballroom, and she wondered why William didn’t take her on a tour of the house, yet.
Well, that was our first date, after all, she added as an afterthought.
These are the last known photographs before Ashborne Manor was razed to the ground by a fire that supposedly started from one of the many fireplaces in the house. There were a few reported casualties, including William Anthony IV, who died trying to save his son, William Anthony V. The manor was supposedly abandoned for a few years before another Englishman bought the property, refurbishing it from nail to door.
There are no current images, as the property is considered private.
And that was it. No current images, but the entire house was vivid in her mind, well at least the places she had seen with her own two eyes. Was that how old his family was? William Anthony didn’t even seem like a full name. They were proud to carry William Anthony, however. She wondered if William was also a William Anthony. Which number did he carry? 10th? 12th?
Kelsey thought that their sad family history must have acquainted William to a lifetime of concealment, which he was also hesitant to share to someone he had just met. Why would he want me to be his girlfriend, anyway? To get to know her better seemed like a lame excuse. Maybe it was his attempt at normalcy, getting back into public eye after such a prolonged hiatus with work and whatever else logical reasons there was.
It bothered Kelsey until she found it hard to stay awake any longer, and she fell into a restless sleep, one that involved a fire and some baby screaming.
*
“Your back…” her voice faltered. “It looks… what happened to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he answered.
“Who did that to you?”
My father did that to me, I did that to me, he thought savagely as he drove past the speed limit, heading home. Yes, it had been a careless moment, yes, he had been vulnerable enough to show him her back, when no one had seen it, not in a long time. And that’s why vanilla sex works on me, he thought sardonically.
His back had a multitude of scars, all from shifting, all from subduing his father. He had been doing it for years, it was why he disliked shifting as much as possible, it hurt like hell made a fence on his back, and it was no ordinary fence, it was a fence made out of flames, and sharp scales that pierced through human skin to turn him into the beast that had always lived in him.
The scars wouldn’t go away, despite the fact that he healed easily, it was the scars that gave him away. He looked like some tortured person. William knew he was tortured. Torture meant ‘the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain’.
William knew he was getting the best of both worlds when it came to torture. He inflicted it on himself, not because of want, but because of necessity. Their weal
th was a small price to pay for the hundreds of years of torture they had to go through, years of torture they had to live with. It seemed that Western folklore got some of it right…
He felt like he needed to let out some steam tonight, almost tempted to shift and just go ballistic underneath the manor- no, he told himself, I won’t be that kind of Drake. Heck, even their family name wasn’t just symbolic. It was who they were, and they (the men), would be that way until the end. Lucky for Emilia, he thought.
He told himself that the family curse would end with him, and no matter how much he wanted to live, he knew he had to die. That was the only way he could stop the next generation from suffering the way they had. It was not cowardice, but it was to spare the future Drakes from their plight. He seemed like a poor little rich boy, he knew, but to be in a hellish situation such as this- no one would even consider the rich part anymore. He arrived home and was surprised that most of the lights were turned on, at least from the outside, most of the lights were visible. They were home, then. Finally. His father would be glad Emilia was at home. The senior Drake just needed to calm down a notch before he’d get to see his only daughter.
Natalia was nowhere to be seen. William assumed she’d be in her bedroom, her gilded cage, as she had once told her stepson. Emilia was in her favorite library, coincidentally the library he first showed Kelsey. His sister was curled up on a chair, hot cocoa by the table next to her. She was a pretty thing, and it was going to be a challenge to keep the boys and the men away from her. Their father had put her in an all-girls school, but college was a different story, and he certainly couldn’t have her schooling at Huntley-Thwaite, for ‘security’ reasons.
The slim, blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman looked up to him and gave him a wistful smile. “Hello, William.”
“Hello, Emilia,” he greeted her. There were no embraces between them, no matter how much they cared for each other. Natalia had been adamant that he remain a good few inches away, despite their constant assurances that they were harmless to their own blood and relations by blood (until provoked, of course).
“How was your sojourn to the east coast?” he asked her, taking a seat across her.
He grabbed a book from a table, a book he had only begun to read. William barely needed much sleep. As long as he got three to four hours a day (sans the shifting), he was good. Perhaps, that was why the men enjoyed books so much. His father needed more sleep lately, which was a good thing, William thought.
“Mama seemed to enjoy it much,” she replied, rolling her eyes, “Shopping.”
William didn’t bother to ask how much that cost. Natalia had a maximum credit limit of $20,000 a month, a paltry sum, he knew, for keeping the family secret, a secret. That was his father’s payback for being a horny old goat, he knew, and the only good to come out of it all was Emilia, and Natalia’s silence. Natalia couldn’t divorce the senior Drake, lest she lose $25 million. It was a sum she believed in, and even she didn’t know Emilia stood to receive a cool $300 million should the senior Drake pass away.
“What about you?”
“I was with her for a while. Then I went back to the penthouse to read, focus on my studies.”
“You still want to be a doctor?”
She smiled at him shyly. “I think I’d like to take up International Law.”
“You have all the time in the world.”
“I hope so,” she replied with a frown.
“What’s with the frown?”
“I know you and papa have all the time in the world, so it’s a bit unfair for you to say that to me.”
“I meant that for you, you know he’ll always have your back, I’ll always have your back,” he told his younger sister.
“I think I’m getting wrinkles,” she motioned around her eyes.
It was clear the conversation was getting too ‘personal’. He gave a short laugh. “Are you kidding me? You don’t look a day over nineteen.”
She scoffed at him, fighting a smile. “Thank you for patronizing me.”
“You know I only want what you want, Emilia.”
Emilia nodded, putting down her book on her lap. Then she looked at her brother. “What about you? What do you want?”
The question took him aback. Emilia had never once asked him that in his entire life. What did he want? Didn’t he have it all? What else could he want?
“I already have a lot of things,” he began slowly.
“You know it’s not what I mean,” Emilia said.
“I know it isn’t. It’s just that, what more could I need in life?”
“A girlfriend, perhaps?”
“That’s not possible. No one would want someone like me…”
“Papa got my mother. He got your mother,” she reasoned.
“It’s a different thing,” he breathed out. “My lineage and yours. I mean, we both come from the same father, but-” he stopped himself, not wanting Emilia to worry. “Maybe someday. Not anytime soon.”
“I’d like for you to go on dates,” she told him. “Add some color to your life. Maybe get married so I can take care of a baby when I’m home from school.”
“You’ll be in Oxford soon, right?”
“If I get in. Mama thinks I’ll be too far away from her,” she sighed.
“She loves you too much. I think we’ve started plans to see you in Oxford though, papa and I. We have a lovely little apartment just a good walk away.”
Little was an understatement, the penthouse did have two bedrooms, two baths, and a two-car garage for their convenience. It was little in a sense that it was just under 250 square meters, unlike their palatial manse, and their properties across the United States. They did have another manor, changed into Ashborne Hall, but it was a good three-hour drive from Oxford. Emilia’s comfort was key, the senior Drake had said. William did agree. Natalia was just lucky that Emilia was doted on, she was basically collateral damage for all the comforts that came her way.
“You’re spoiling me,” Emilia said flatly.
“You’re my only sister. You’re his only daughter.”
“You’re his only son,” she retorted.
He smiled. “Look, call it chauvinistic, or you may call it familial love- I’d prefer that, but it is father’s orders.”
Emilia was silent for a while. “I want you happy,” she suddenly said.
“What do you mean? Of course, I’m happy.”
“You’ve never been happy, not for as long as I can remember….”
She was observant, not just he. His sister, while a distant figure physically, was a sweetheart in the truest sense. It was amazing to see how much she’d grown up, despite the years of therapy, and the coldness of her mother’s personality was, especially after she’d found out about her husband’s true nature. Natalia loved Emilia, at least that was a good thing about her. A mother’s fierce love moved mountains, sometimes it moved estates.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I know this family’s different,” she began, as if struggling to find the right words to say. “I know you won’t be as normal as you’d want to be, but I want you happy. I want you to find someone, not just something.”
“All in due time,” he replied. “You needn’t worry.”
“But I do worry. You’re my only brother.”
She didn’t even mention they were half-siblings. Apparently, she didn’t care about that part. He was her brother, and she would have no other older brother like him.
“I’d like you happy now. I wonder if you can do that, while I’m away. Find someone for yourself. I know that needn’t look for someone to love you, but what if she’s just right under your nose?”
He looked at the hearth in the fireplace, say that the fire was dying. She looked at it as well, and then she looked back at him.
“Are you cold?” he asked her.
She nodded, fully aware of what was about to happen. She straightened herself up in her seat.
William casually rub
bed his thumb and two of his fingers together, and they burst into a flame, a flame which he hurled directly to the hearth. The fireplace lit up, filling the room with heat.
“That never gets old,” she told him with a grin, staring at the lively fires for a moment.
At least that part of therapy worked for her, he thought. Well, the heat was getting on his nerves and he stood up. “I’ll leave you to your book.”
“Don’t forget what I said, Will,” she called out to him before he closed the door.
*
She saw him walk into the shop casually, as if he needed something, but he wasn’t quite sure what he needed yet. Kelsey had never felt so annoyed, yet so attached to someone. She kept telling herself that it was most probably because of the fact that he was her first sexually intimate partner. She huffed to herself. Did that even matter nowadays?
She ignored him as he walked around the store, almost aimless. But then moments later, he was surprisingly at the counter, a mere few seconds after Sally turned her back to go into the admin office.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kelsey found herself hissing at him.
“I’m a customer,” he said casually, placing a book in front of her.
“The hell like you need more books than what you already have. I bet it’s all there for a reason, to keep yourself from getting bored when you’re not torturing someone.”
“Touché,” he said, looking at her. “How did you guess? Been brushing up on psychiatric books lately?”
She frowned. He was making fun of her, wasn’t he? Before she could open her mouth, he said something.
“I’m not here to make fun of you.”
“Then why are you here? Apart from that fact that you’re buying a book you probably won’t even use.”
“I said we’d talk about this some other time. This is that some other time.”
“I’m at work,” she replied, “This isn’t the right time or place.”
“Later then. After your classes.”
She shook her head. “You’re not gonna stop, are you?”