Ruvick…
Selene didn’t seem all that eager to listen to what he had to say, even with the offer of information regarding a better sealing technique or about her mother.
In fact, she was far less trusting of him compared to Marcus but he figured that it was because Marcus was used to dealing with morally shady individuals. He understood doing business with people and turning them into allies over making them into his enemies.
Though, as he had listened to Selene’s attitude and her facial expressions, he couldn’t help but feel that Marcus’s personality was rubbing off on her.
Selene didn’t immediately agree to listen to what Ruvick was offering her but said that she would find him again if she ever felt that she wanted to discuss things further.
He reappeared in his home in Forrosa and right as he was about to head to his bedroom to take a nap, his maid, Gomori, stood in the room waiting for him.
Although...calling Gomori a maid was underselling who she really was.
In reality, Gomori was one of the three demon princes that would one day serve the three unnamed succeeding gods of Erebus.
Gomori was created as a demon prince that once served the fallen archangel Lucifer. Despite her modest maid uniform, she was originally made to grant wishes of lust and love to humans with the goal of recruiting them as demons into Hell’s armies after they died.
Raum, the Demon Prince of Murder and Azazel, the Demon Prince of Strength and War, were also created to grant wishes and recruit humans into Hell after death.
Once the three of them were transported to this world, they went their separate ways. They chose to follow their own paths and even serve other gods of their choosing.
Raum wandered for many thousands of years before meeting Moyako and aided her in forming the Blades of Nøkkra. Azazel saw into Dagon’s power as well as the red lightning and understood that something greater was at play, and founded the kingdom of Forrosa alongside the first king, Isaiah Riddick.
That just left Gomori, the Demon Prince of Lust and Love to find her own path as well, and she chose to follow and serve himself.
“May I take your jacket?” she asked with a welcoming tone and he nodded.
As she was putting it away, she then said, “My brothers Raum and Azazel are converging. I too, will be joining them. I’m sure you understand what this means.”
“I don’t want to think about it at the moment. I’ve been working nonstop lately and I just want some time to rest,” he said and she nodded.
“Is there anything you need from me at the moment?” she asked.
“No, thank you. That’ll be all. I’m just going to clean myself and sleep for a while.”
After finishing up in the shower, Ruvick stripped down to his shorts and lay in his bed.
He stared up at the ceiling and wondered how things would move from this point on.
Marcus was on his way to mastering the powers of manifestation magic, and on top of that, he has the support of the Forrosan kingdom at his back.
Selene, although hard for her to believe, now knows that her mother is alive and will go to Artemis for answers. On top of that, she will be training alongside him soon to learn how to further master her power.
Those two will come to better understand themselves and their own power soon enough.
All he had to do was wait…
It had been quite some time since he had allowed himself to sleep but now that he had the moment to, he wasn't sure what kind of dream would present itself to him.
His dream showed an eight-year-old Marcus squatting in an abandoned apartment with his baby sister and the bag of cash he had stolen from Stefan Romano not too long ago. In his hand he held a small card with Romano’s number on it.
He had told Marcus that whenever he felt he needed help with something or if he simply wanted an easier way to live his life with his sister at his side, all he needed to do was call that number.
He looked over at Thalia in the baby carrier he had bought her from the store. She was barely a few months old at this point and just starting to open her eyes to the limited world around her. If he kept her in the horrible conditions that they were currently in for much longer, then either one of them could get very sick. He didn't want to make the kind of risk and knew that he had to find a better way to take care of her, however depending on a stranger that he had just stolen from didn't strike him as a good alternative. He didn’t really trust anyone else to help him at the moment, but he didn’t have much of a choice either.
After gathering his courage, he went over to a pay phone and dialed the number.
Not too long after, while holding his baby sister in his arms, Marcus found himself in a large mansion like estate that belonged to the Romano family. Escorted by the same driver who had pulled the gun on him before, he was led through several halls and took the time to memorize every inch of the place just in case.
Eventually they came across a larger room where a large man in a white suit and a boy who only seemed to be a few years older than he was stood inside. The man in the white suit was fitting the boy with a smaller suit of his own. The closer Marcus looked at him, the more it seemed that the boy was his son as they looked so much alike.
The man who escorting him inside cleared his throat to get Stefan’s attention and said, “The kid’s here. Just thought you’d want to know.”
“Alright, you’re good to go now.”
The man nodded and headed off.
Stefan then walked towards Marcus, leaving his son to follow after him and look at him with a curious expression on his face.
“It was smart of you to take my advice kid. Let me ask you, how does life here as a part of the Romano family look to you?”
Marcus looked around the room and saw how clean it was and how well taken care of the estate seemed compared to where he was before and said, “It smells better. Its clean and warm.”
Stefan smiled and nodded as if that response was to be expected.
“Why don’t you come over and meet my son Julian?”
Hearing his name, Julian walked out from behind Stefan and held out his hand for a handshake. Marcus looked at it before staring him in the eyes as if waiting for his common sense to kick in and understand that he had a baby in his arms.
Julian awkwardly pulled his hand back but tried to smile as he said, “Uh...well I hope you and I can be friends.”
Marcus, who was still unsure of everything around him regarded Julian with distrust and harsh coldness. His eyes narrowed at him as he said, “I doubt it.”
Julian’s smile faded and his expression made it look like he had seen his pet get killed in front of him.
Stefan laughed and patted Marcus on the back as he said, "Oh come on. Don't be so harsh. You should try to get to know him and the staff that live here too. It would be good for you."
Marcus looked up at him and gave Stefan the same distant and cold expression, and although he didn't smile with his mouth, his eyes looked amused. It was as if he could understand Marcus's distrust of him and everyone associated with him. There was a very clear unspoken message that passed between the two of them that put Marcus on edge.
This was not a man to be underestimated or on the wrong side of a gun.
As young as he was, Marcus understood very clearly to be careful around Stefan.
A few hours had passed as he had settled into his room and gotten Thalia put to sleep in a new crib that they had bought for her when he heard someone knocking at his door.
Marcus turned around to kiss his baby sister on the forehead and said, “I’ll be right back.”
He then walked up to the door and opened it.
There, standing in the door way was a seventeen year old girl. Her name was Maria Romano, Julian's older sister.
Maria looked down at him and said, "Oh hey...I heard that someone new was going to be living here but I didn't think it was going to be a cutie like you."
Hearing that, he might have initially blushed, or smiled, or awkwardly said thanks, however...there was something wrong with the way she had said it. There was something...wrong with her. The tone of her voice, the way her eyes narrowed as she looked down her nose at him. The way she seemed to breathe in through her mouth as she stared at him.
There was something...off about it.
Maria's nose twitched as she smelled the air and she said, "Oh, when was the last time you had a bath?"
"Probably not for a few weeks. I was only able to wash myself by pouring water on myself using a bucket and a cup," he said honestly and she shook her head.
"No no. You need to get yourself washed up and in some clean clothes. Come on, I'll draw a bath for you," she said and even though there was a small part of himself that was nagging at him not to trust her, he couldn't resist the idea of a warm bath again and being clean for the first time in a while.
Maria held out her hand and gave it a small wave for him to follow and he reluctantly took it as she led him to the bathroom.
A few minutes later and the nice hot water was filling up the tub. Maria started adding soap to the water and mixing it with her hand to make thick bubbles.
She then turned around and said to him with what seemed like a warm smile as she said, "Alright. Now hop in."
"What? But, you're still here," he said uncomfortably.
"Oh come on. How old are you?"
"I'm eight...," he said, not understanding what she was getting at.
"Yep, you're eight years old. You're still a kid, which means your still young enough to have someone else wash you up right? What about your mother? Did she ever give you baths?" she asked.
Thinking about his dead mother caused his mind to go back to seeing her pale and bleeding body in the back of that ambulance. Thinking about seeing her dying again caused him to shake. He didn't want to let himself cry over it as he knew crying wouldn't bring her back but he couldn't help it.
After all, he was still just a kid.
Even though he tried to hold it back, his tears started coming out and he tried to quickly wipe them away but Maria noticed.
"Oh, no! No, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry. Come here," she said as she reached out to him to hug him and he let it happen. He wasn't sure what else to do as he let her wrap her arms around him and stroke his hair as he cried.
"I'm sorry...If I knew that talking about your mother would make you cry than I wouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry...," she said and even though her voice sounded muffled from being in her arms, she at least sounded genuine.
"Its...okay," he said as he tried to get himself under control. Being held like that made him feel soothed and calmed down for the moment.
Maybe...maybe trusting her wasn't such a bad idea...
"Alright now, come on. Lets get you cleaned up, yeah?" she said as she pulled away for a bit and tapped the tub.
He didn't really want to take a bath with someone else watching him but she was being nice to him. She just wanted to help clean him up and make him feel welcomed, right?
He decided to trust her and stripped himself down to nothing and hopped into the tub. Maria then started to wash his hair, his back, and his chest with a shower sponge and right as she was about to work on his lower body...she dropped the sponge into the soapy water. With the amount of foam in the bath water, it made it kind of hard to see anything in the water which made the sponge hard to find. He was going to wait until she found it again but she simply shrugged and started to scrub his feet with her bare hands.
This much wasn't that bad, though it did make him feel kind of ticklish to the point he giggled a bit. Hearing him laugh made Maria smile as she kept working on cleaning him.
She then moved her hands up as she started working on washing his calves and then when she reached his knees...she did something weird. She finished washing around the knees but started to fixate on them for longer than he thought she needed to. She even started to rub them more slowly, tracing her thumbs over the skin separating his thighs from the rest of his legs.
He looked up at her and asked, "Is something wrong?"
She seemed so focused on what she was doing that she didn't react to him immediately and shook herself out of her trance.
"Oh no, nothings wrong. I'm just...giving this area a bit more care," she said and although he thought it was weird, he didn't do anything.
She then started working on cleaning his outer thighs and for a moment he thought he had felt the shower sponge graze his leg until he felt her hand move in the water faster than normal, as if smacking it away.
Why would she...?
After being finished with washing the outside of his thighs, he figured he could do the rest on his own.
"Thank you but...I'll clean the rest of myself," he said but she ignored him. He looked her in the eyes and it was like she had tunnel vision.
Her index finger then started to trace the skin on his outer thigh before reaching above it and all of a sudden, he was hit with an intense feeling of fear. A chill ran down his spine and he looked into her eyes and he could see a disturbing look of hunger in them.
He forgot how to breathe for a moment as he looked up at her and figured that the best way to describe the facial expression of what she wore in that moment was that of a predator.
It wasn't until her hand grazed the inside of his thigh and was about to reach his private area that he reflexively smacked her hand away hard enough that it slammed into the shower facet and cut into the back of her hand.
Maria screamed out in pain before giving Marcus a glare. It looked like she was about to pounce on him right then and there when Stefan walked into the bathroom.
"What the hell's going...," he started but paused as he looked at Maria and instantly knew what was going on.
"Maria, get out. Now." he said and she stormed out of the bathroom while clutching her hand.
When she left, Stefan closed the door behind her and looked at Marcus for a moment.
"Whatever it was that she did to you, I apologize. I'll be sure to give her a talking to. I told her to leave you alone but apparently she's not a very good listener," he said before he grabbed a towel from the rack and said, "Here. Dry yourself off."
He took the towel from Stefan and wrapped himself up in it.
"She didn't...touch you anywhere, did she?" he asked.
"She tried to, but I...smacked her away," Marcus said meekly, not wanting to get on Stefan's bad side for hurting her daughter's hand.
Stefan simply scoffed and said, "Serves her right. No, honestly she deserves worse for disobeying me but I'll deal with that later. For now, just try to get some sleep. I'll have someone watch your door so no one gets in."
With that final word, he left and let Marcus finish up on his own.
After he had dried himself off and gotten into new clothes, for some reason, he felt worse off than he did before he had taken the bath. He felt gross.
The moment he got into his own bed and pulled the covers over himself, he started shaking. He wanted to cry again. He wanted to cry about losing his mother, losing his home, and losing the life he had before everything went wrong.
However, he knew that crying would make him vulnerable to people who would use his emotions to manipulate him into horrible situations.
And so he forced himself not to cry himself to sleep and his body shook in silence.
The shaking didn't stop until he finally fell asleep.