Page 85 of Emma & Edmund

Emma groaned aloud, folding her head in her pillow. She nearly blamed Margaret that her true feelings were finally acknowledged, mentioning the way he looked at her. But it would be a lie to say she hadn’t thought of those eyes, those lips, his hands, his laugh every day. Dreamed of them every night.

Why did the realization have to come at all? There was nothing she could do about it in London, rather than continue wallowing.

"How could you, Emma?"

Her name barely registered in her ears with how quickly she threw the blanket away from her. She knew that voice. Knew it as if it were etched into her very soul. It belonged to the exact being who had plagued her mind.

Despite that, it was not the endless onyx eyes and broad smile that met her. The eyes may have matched, but the sinister sulfuric smell that assaulted her nose and the hellish ruby skin that met her had her lip curling. She could have screamed, but disgust took her first.

"You-" she could only barely seethe before being cut off.

"Dearest Emma, do you know I love you?"

The words that came from Molek’s moving lips bore the exact cadence, tenor, and lilt as Edmund's. Both her deception and thething'spresence had bile rising in her throat.

That realization was quickly overshadowed by a much more obvious and pressing issue.

She still lay in bed, in naught but a nightgown and curlers. While that would be enough to be aghast at any man by her bedside, the demon floated, weightless, just next to her pillow, head resting in his palm, crooked elbow supported by nothing. The way his bare, blood-red ankles were crossed and the relaxed form throughout his lithe figure would have made one think he was laying right beside her on the mattress.

Springing from the covers, Emma clutched a sheet to her chest, her back colliding with the far wall hard enough that the paintings on it shook.

"What are you doing here?" She couldn't contain the sneer smeared across her lips. The stench of hell rolled off his inky decorated body. She didn't notice the twisted, curling black pattern in the dark of the woods, but in the bright light of mid-morning, the markings notably spanned from tip to toe.

"I thought I should check in on our little social pariah. Big party today, isn't there? And you're still in bed? I wonder why."

"You know perfectly well why. It was you, wasn't it? Molada? Molek? You're one and the same. It was you who cast a spell that night, and let Edmund show up as he did. You blinded everyone to who he is, put him in danger, and forced me to throw my inhibitions away, didn't you?"

She had spent a month thinking of that night, thoroughly dissecting each and every moment. It hadn’t been hard to piece together, not when Molek’s clues weren’t hidden, left in plain sight.

With a click of his tongue, Molek twisted in the air, mockingly sitting up on his elbows.

"You were correct - right up until the end. I gave my son what he wanted, threw the veil over those gossiping, tittering vultures, and allowed him to live the life he wanted if only for a night.

You, however, did everything on your own.Youdanced like a whore.Youfollowed him to the garden.Youdestroyed yourself. I wish I could claim credit for such a spectacular display of hedonism, but the honor goes entirely to you."

The retort was already on her tongue, held back only by quivering lips. Her eyes filled with tears without her permission, her palms sweating over the duvet clutched in her hands. It could have been just another trick of his, another illusion or half-truth, but she knew it wasn't. The actions she took that night were entirely fueled by excitement, born within her by her own soul.

Angrily wiping away the traitorous tears that managed to escape, Emma forced her quiver into an even deeper pout.

"Are you just here to rub salt in the wound then? Traveled all the way from hell to tell me how awful of a person I am?"

"Oh, I haven't even begun yet!" Twisting in air, Molek planted his feet on her Persian rug, crossing arms across a chiseled chest. Distantly Emma hoped the soles of his feet didn't burn the precious fabric. "Do you know what Edmund has been up to since you left?"

"Obviously not-"

"He is a broken man. No, not man.Monster."

"How dare you speak of him like that!"

"Why? I only use your words."

"I never would have said something so horrible if it weren't for you!"

"I didn't make you behave like the biggest rake in England. You did that all on your own."

Emma's lip quivered against her snarl; her stomach twisted as her soul brought his words on as truth. But she wouldn't let the thing before her make her feel even worse than she already did.

"I never would have said such a thing if you hadn't shown up. It was shock alone that made me say what I did."

---