The Devil

Sebastian’s POV

She started from me, dropping back until she hit the wall. Her pale green eyes were round and wide over her forehead, jittering as if with fear.

She backed up against the wall, quivering against the stonework like a cornered rat. Just like everyone, she looked at me as if I were the devil.

I stared down at myself, at my arms frozen midway on my reach for her. Was I mad? Yeah. That has been my cross ever since I was a boy. One minute I was the sanest man in the world, the next I was doing things even I couldn't understand.

But I would never hurt her. I looked at her again— staring straight into the fear that thrived in those alluring green pairs of her eyes. Why was she so scared of me? I was only mad, not dangerous.

A tingle crawled up my skin. I could feel it. I was being watched. As if the world had been muted around me before and was now unmuted, the collective hushed whispers hit my eardrums in a barrage. I winced softly as I turned around.

I grunted. People had gathered around us and were watching again, their heads slanted towards the ears of their neighbors, their lips moving slowly as they whispered.

After three decades of living with this ailment, I have learned the art of reading people's lips to find out what they were saying about me.

“The mad Duke is back at it again.” Lady Blackwater whispered to her friend, Lady Ophelia, who murmured a yeah. Not particularly chatty this evening.

“Oh! I pity Lady Emilia. She has no idea what her mother has gotten her into,” Lady Kane chimed into the ears of her husband. A ferret-faced man who wore freckles like a woman wears rouge.

I stared at their faces, reading their lips. All crying of the mad Duke being at his usual insanity again.

My fists heated beside me, pumping and pumping with so much blood, they began to ache. I shut my eyes, steeling back rage and anger flowing back into my heart. They weren't the enemy. The madness consuming me slowly from the inside was. The unrelenting disease that clung hard to my soul, refusing to let go.

I sighed, calm flushing down the heat in my veins. “Stop, let her go,” I yelled at the guards to release the maid.

They released the maid's arms, dropping back from her. The maid gripped the stainless tray in her hands tight and scampered into the crowd.

Emilia's eyes strayed to the running maid. I moved up to her then.

Her eyes snapped wider at me when they returned to find me before her.

“Let's go, Emilia. So you can tell me all you wanted to tell me.” I smiled at her again, trying to lighten the terror in her eyes.

“No!” She screamed. Her hands snatched up the corners of her dress. She heaved it up so her legs were free, and she spun fast for the hall.

I caught her arm before she went far. I spun her back to me and pulled her back into my arms. She struggled against me, her hands beating hard against my chest.

“Let me go,” she screamed. “Let me go.” She beat harder at my chest with her arms, while her words tore my heart apart from the inside. All I could feel was pain. Just like I have been feeling for years, since the illness started.

I leaned low to her ear. My voice was gentle and low. I slipped in that melodic thrill that always locks in a person's consciousness to my bidding. “Stay, Emilia. I want you to stay.”

Her arms dropped slowly to her side, and she went limp around me. I held her close to me. The natural jasmine scents from her wafted against my nostrils, filling me up with so much longing and desire for her.

I held down her waist with my arm, and I lifted her face up to me with a finger. I stared down into her green eyes, willing her to stay quiet in my arms. I wanted to feel the thrill that screamed through my veins with her this close to me. I wanted this to last for as long as her senses could fight against my hypnotism.

I was a bastard. Yeah. And I was selfish. I was bringing her to share in my personal hell when all she deserved was to be far away from a man like me.

I traced every inch of her face with my eyes. The smooth porcelain skin burnished gold by the bright yellowish glows of the candlelight, the dusting of freckles just over the round tip of her lean, straight nose, and the auburn curls braided over her head. She wasn't the prettiest woman in Duchester. Yet, she was the one I wanted, ever since the first time we’d met.

Her face was blank, her look placid as she gazed up at me. Her eyes were soulless, mindless, like a propped-up dummy before me.

I let go of my arm around her. I snapped back from her, still staring at her mindless form before me. This was wrong, very wrong.

I looked long and hard into her eyes to free her from her hypnotism. She started, jumping as if something just lifted in—her consciousness, freeing itself from the shackles of my hypnotism.

Her eyes flicked to my face, then to my fingers still clasped around her wrists. I felt her body tremble beneath mine.

“Let me go,” she screamed again.

I didn't let go of her wrist, but I relaxed my grip enough not to hurt her when she struggled. “Please wait, Emilia. Please wait…”

She snatched her wrist from me, dashing fast into the crowd. She glanced back at me as she ran, her eyes grown wider on her head. Her look could as well scream, The devil.

My hand shook as I raised it to wipe my face. Maybe I was really the devil? I had forced her into this, forced her into this hell with me. Maybe I was really evil.