Conquering His Cold Heart

Sweat beads began to form along her hairline when she thought the worse. “What if they kill them?” She was so terrified at the thought of something so worse that she immediately felt her stomach hurling. She clasped her mouth with her palm and flung the door open because she felt like she was going to puke.

Tilla grabbed the railing of the corridor in front of her door and gagged. Since she had had her dinner very recently, she emptied everything right there.

She then wiped her eyes and swallowed painfully. She kept on crouching for a while and thinking about what she was going to do. But she was unable to think of anything properly.

‘Should I go?’ she wondered. However, if she went there without coming up with a proper plan, she was sure that she would be the one to face the consequences. ‘What if they called me there to kill me?’

A chilling shiver ran down her spine and all the way down to her toes when she recalled that the King wasn’t here in the castle today.

She nervously pushed her sweaty hair away from her face and thought, ‘When they said they would harm people I care about, they don’t mean the Queen, right?’

Tilla’s heart started to beat so faster at this thought that she felt like it would jump out of her mouth at any moment now.

She held her head with both of her hands and began screaming in her head. ‘No, no, no! There’s no telling what they will do. In the morning, they were talking badly about Anna as well! And she doesn’t have any personal bodyguards! Even I am not with her right now!’

.....

Fearing that some madly jealous maids might end up doing something to hurt the Queen if she didn’t follow their instructions, Tilla looked at the end of the corridor and began running towards it.

And before her legs could tremble and give up, Tilla was already standing in front of the well.

Tilla was huffing and puffing when she reached there. Her throat felt extremely dry and her chest felt as if it would burst open because she had run way too faster than what she could handle.

She dryly swallowed and looked around to see who was behind all this. She saw two dark figures standing behind the well, hiding in the dark. When they saw Tilla, they finally came forward in the moonlight, revealing their identity.

As Tilla had suspected, it looked like the ‘invitation’ was from Marcella and Beatrice. Those two were the only ones who were there.

“Oh, look who finally decided to show up!” Marcella said in a condescending voice. She folded her arms and glared down at Tilla as if she was trying to show her superiority. And she sneered, “I thought you would come running the moment you got our invitation. But you took your sweet time, didn’t you?”

Tilla gulped again and then said pleadingly, “I ran as fast as I could.”

“You should have run faster then.” Marcella swooshed in and stood right in front of Tilla.

Tilla almost stumbled backward because of the suddenness. However, she managed to hold her footing in time.

Marcella looked at Tilla’s face. A sudden feeling of disgust as well as jealousy rose in her chest when she looked at that face that wasn’t too bad to look at. She clenched her teeth and on a whim, she grabbed a handful of Tilla’s hair.

She jerked Tilla’s head back to make her look into her red eyes and grumbled in anger, “We almost thought that you weren’t coming tonight, Ms. Tilla. A lot of people would have been hurt in your stead.”

Tilla began to breathe very shakily. Marcella was clutching her hair with a force and was hurting her. She looked at her crazed expression and tried to feign ignorance about what was going on. “I don’t understand… Why are you doing this to me?”

Marcella pulled Tilla’s hair with even more force and snarled at the poor woman, “Oh, don’t act dumb, you bitch! You know very well why this is happening to you. You know what you did. And now, you are going to pay the price for your crime.”

“What crime?” Tilla asked at the top of her voice, hoping that someone would hear her and come to rescue her. Not all vampires were bad.

Beatrice instantly came into Tilla’s view and slapped Tilla across the face with the back of her palm. And she warned Tilla, “Don’t try to get smart with us. Or else…” She looked at the well beside them, suggesting to Tilla that they would throw her inside the deep well.

Tilla was now sure that these two wouldn’t leave her unless they completed their goal for the night, whatever it was.

Marcella jerked Tilla’s head again and mumbled very close to her ear, “You know what crime! You have been seducing Lord Vincent, haven’t you? What did you do to wrap him around your little fingers?”

“I haven’t done anything…” Tilla replied in a trembling whisper.

Marcella looked at Tilla’s scared expression with great satisfaction. A corner of her lips curved up to form an evil smirk when she whispered back, “Oh, come on now. Don’t be shy. Share your secrets with us. I would also love to get some attention from the Lord.”

“Believe me…” Tilla gulped and tried to make Marcella understand that she didn’t have any trick up her sleeve. “How could I possibly do something to seduce him? I am just a normal maid like you.”

“That’s right.” Marcella gritted her teeth when she heard Tilla saying that. “You are also a maid like me. But somehow, our Lord is showing interest in someone like you. Now, if you don’t give up your secret then tomorrow I will make sure that you break your knees after falling down the staircase. You won’t get away with just some bruise.”

Marcella was so hellbent on finding out what Tilla did to rope Vincent to her that she wasn’t even trying to hide how she was the one to push Tilla down in the morning.

“I have been telling you–”

“Don’t you dare say you didn’t do anything!” Marcella snapped when Tilla tried to say the same thing again. “Or I will drain your blood right here and dump you into the well!”

Tilla could only tremble in fear when she witnessed Marcella elongating her fangs.

She wanted to break free from that maid’s clutch and run back to her room. But she already knew that it would be futile. She didn’t stand a chance against two vampires.