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THE next day, Sara followed Richard’s orders and never left her room except to go to the bathroom.
Claire, who would usually pass the time idly chatting with her, was silent the entire day and had a vaguely grave look on her face.
It seemed that Richard had come back to the villa at dawn and slept until after noon again. Sara didn’t bring him his daily tea, of course. Daniel attended to Richard throughout the day. The prince and his wife didn’t speak to one another all day, persistently divided by the wall between them.
And then it was night…
“Claire,” Sara chided in a whisper, “I’m being invited to His Highness’s room to talk.”
Sara was wearing only a chemise.
But Claire was being uncharacteristically stubborn and handed her a thin negligee.
“His Highness is inviting you to his bedroom—you have to wear appropriate clothing.”
Claire said it so matter-of-factly that Sara just closed her mouth and went along with it as Claire dressed her and did her makeup. It was the first time Sara had ever gotten her makeup done before bed.
I bet Claire’s thinking, “I never thought she’d be invited to his bedroom like this.”
After Sara had finished getting ready, she waited in her room for a little while. She heard the sound of the white door being unlocked from the other side, and then the door opened.
Daniel stood in the doorway.
“This way, Your Highness,” he said rather stiffly.
Sara parted with Claire and entered the prince’s chambers alone.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that Sara had thought this door would never be opened.
She knew it was not the time to be thinking such things, but a sad smile slipped out, nevertheless. With sorrowful eyes, Daniel led her over to sit on Richard’s bed, bowed, and then silently took his leave.
When Daniel shut the white door behind him, Sara was left all alone in Richard’s bedroom.
What’s going to happen to me…?
Strangely, she didn’t feel nervous or frightened—only empty and sad.
Richard would probably never forgive her for alluding to his “truth.”
She was never the bride he wanted. And Ferrier had come out on top of the battle with Saleilles, so it would be easy enough for Ferrier to get rid of a troublesome hostage like her.
And she wasn’t even the real princess…
Even if she were executed in Ferrier, the king of Saleilles wouldn’t feel a thing—he would just start devising a plan for his next attack. Even Hermine might say a passing “Oh, poor thing…” before never thinking of Sara again.
As Sara pondered these inevitabilities with a hollow heart, the door leading to the foyer opened.
Richard stood with a soft light illuminating him from behind. He was dressed lightly. Even his nightclothes were dark—likely a personal preference on his part. Even so, the prince was still wearing a mask, and all Sara could see of his face were his unreadable thin lips.
After he shut the door, he strode across the room until he faced Sara. She looked up at him. His lips were a tight line—he was uncomfortable.
“Hermine Maria Saleilles…,” he said, using Hermine’s full maiden name.
“Yes?” she replied meekly.
Then, suddenly, he grabbed a hold of her right arm and her world turned upside down.
“Wha—?!” she yelped involuntarily as her body lurched backward, but she was softly caught by the bedsheets.
But Richard still had a hold on her, and before she knew what was happening, he had pinned her down and hitched his right leg up onto the bed, covering her with his body as if he were caging her there.
Richard leaned in. His white mask was just a foot away from her face. There was an unidentifiable flame in the green eyes that peered out from the eyeholes of the mask.
“Your Highness…”
“You won’t refuse me?”
Despite the situation they were in, his voice was unexpectedly tender. But there was also a sadness and a weariness he couldn’t conceal. Sara felt her eyes getting warmer and warmer.
“If that’s what you want, Your Highness.”
“…If you’re sad enough that you’re about to cry, shouldn’t you refuse? Shouldn’t you call me a monster? Shouldn’t you shout at me, tell me I’m hideous?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said, shaking her head.
Richard let out a hiss of disbelief.
It was so unlike him—he was usually so elegantly languid in both word and deed. But Sara’s eyes only widened in surprise for a fraction of a second—he suddenly grabbed the collar of her nightdress, and in the blink of an eye, he untied the dainty ribbon holding her negligee closed. Sara gasped.
The ribbon came undone, loosening the fabric and exposing her neck and collarbones.
Richard reached up and touched the exposed skin there. He traced her veins with the pad of his thumb.
Sara shivered at the strange sensation. She wasn’t sure how he interpreted that—he huffed, his lips twisting into a mocking smile.
“Your neck is so thin… If I had claws, I could probably cut it open in less than a second.”
That’s probably true, a voice agreed calmly in the back of Sara’s mind. Because Richard’s a—
Suddenly, the air around him shifted. The same invisible presence Sara had felt in the study the day before filled the bedroom. Richard’s grip on her throat tightened.
But there was more than that—she felt his nails growing. Sharp, pointed claws dug into her skin. It hurt, and she could hardly breathe—her face screwed up in pain.
“Your—Highness…”
Sara saw it then: as the prince looked down at her, his bright green eyes were gripped with so much pain and misery, they darted back and forth. In that moment, despite the fact that he had power over her life, his lips pressed together and trembled.
So she placed her free hand over the hand around her neck and shook her head as much as she was able.
“Don’t…do this…Your Highness.”
“…Begging for your life?”
“Yes, but…if you…do this…you will…just suffer.”
“……”
Sara didn’t want to die. There was no denying it.
But there was more to it than that. Richard was in so much pain… She couldn’t leave him all alone in this world. If he had gleefully tormented her or given in to his anger and struck her, she would have begged for her life and fought against him with everything she had.
But he was so wretched, she couldn’t raise her voice against him, even with his hand around her neck.
All she could feel was sadness. She wanted to cry. Her life was in his hands, but she couldn’t even hate him.
She had no idea if her words got through to him, but his grip loosened by a fraction. His other hand let go of her arm and instead grabbed at the bedsheets.
“Aren’t you…scared of me?”
“I am scared. But you’re not the only one I fear.”
“……”
“I’m not scared…because of you… I’m scared of everyone…who has a powerful ability…or a weapon… Not just you…in particular.”
She heard a quiet gasp.
He seemed to falter. His hand started to shake, and she briefly felt a claw graze the back of her neck.
Slowly, he let go of her.
Sara’s breath came out fast and shallow, now that she was finally able to breathe properly again. Richard let out a quiet tch again before lapsing into silence.
“…Your Highness?”
“You’ve already figured it out, haven’t you? My…ability.”
Sara hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.
She had overheard the rumors at the castle.
She knew that Richard went out every night.
She had identified the blood and animal smells wafting off him.
And…
She had seen him transforming back in the study.
“Your ability is the power to transform into a jet-black beast… And you use that power to fight against those who would harm your kingdom…right?”
“I’m not the knight in shining armor you’re describing. When I give in to my anger, I transform into a killing monster driven only by emotion.”
Based on Richard’s response, Sara’s conclusion had been right.
At the castle, she had heard the rumors about the Black Beast. That the creature had appeared out of nowhere during the battle against Saleilles, fought alongside the other mutants, and annihilated Saleilles’s forces. The other rumor was that the Black Beast attacked people who would do harm to the kingdom.
But that wasn’t all of it…
If those rumors are true, then when the prince was a child, he…
Sara quietly looked up at him. He made a startled noise in the back of his throat, which then transformed into stifled laughter.
“Yeah… That’s right. I’m a monster. I don’t just kill criminals and Saleilles troops. I’ve…I’ve even killed my own mother with this cursed power.”
So it was true, Sara thought, looking down.
Richard’s birth mother, the royal concubine, was not punished by the Black Beast for being too severe with her son’s confinement… She was killed by her son, who had transformed into the beast.
Which meant the previous king and the queen mother had probably muddled and covered up the murder case to conceal the fact that the prince had killed his own mother.