Chapter 19: Haunted (R18+)
Night
The bedroom was submerged in shadows. The only light they have was the dim light of the moon outside the glass window of this expensive suite. Keres and an unknown woman rumpled and damp with sweat.
The air hung heavy with the scent of expensive perfume turned cloying, mingling with the sharper, saltier smell of exertion and something else, something metallic that reminded Keres of copper pennies held too long in a closed fist.
"A-Argh! Agh! Ugh! Hnnng!"
The woman beneath her cried out with each brutal thrust, her voice cracking against the canopy above them like a fragile thing being slowly broken. The leather harness was secured tight around Keres’ hips, black and unforgiving, and she wielded it with a precision that spoke less of passion and more of a desperate need to annihilate thought itself.
She needed to feel something other than the gnawing emptiness that had taken up permanent fill in her chest, and if she had to pound her way through another human being to achieve that numbness, so be it.
"Fuck, you’re tight," Keres muttered, her voice carrying a razor’s edge of irritation that made the woman flinch beneath her. "Relax, or this is going to take all night. I don’t have all night."
But the woman couldn’t relax. Keres could feel the tension coiling in every muscle beneath her palms, the way her paid companion’s breath hitched with something closer to animal panic than pleasure.
Her fingers dug into Keres’ shoulders, not with passion but with the desperate grip of someone drowning, trying to find something solid to ground themselves.
Normally, Keres might have cared. She might have slowed down, changed angles, done something to ease the obvious discomfort she was causing.
Tonight, she didn’t have it in her. Tonight, she needed the violence of the act, the raw, unfiltered power of pinning someone beneath her and making them take whatever she decided to give.
She closed her eyes, letting the pace take over. The slap of skin against skin filled the room, steady and merciless, a percussive soundtrack to her own gradual unraveling.
And slowly, like smoke creeping under a locked door, the memory came to her unbidden, seductive and devastating in equal measure.
Asteria.
The name alone sent a shiver down Keres’ spine that had nothing to do with the woman currently gasping beneath her. She remembered that night with vivid image—the night she had taken Asteria, claimed her, dominated her until the girl could do nothing but submit completely to the force of Keres’ desire.
She remembered the weight of Asteria’s body yielding under hers, not with the rigid resistance of this stranger, but with a fluid grace that had felt like surrender and victory simultaneously.
She remembered the way those delicate hands had trembled before finally, beautifully, resting against Keres’ shoulders with a trust that had been devastating in its completeness.
She remembered the sounds Asteria had made, not the practiced moans of a professional or the desperate, pained cries of a stranger trying to endure. But something raw and honest, something that had cracked Keres open in ways she still didn’t understand and didn’t want to examine too closely.
The way Asteria had moaned against her ear, breath hot and shivering and impossibly sweet, sending electricity sparking down Keres’ spine to pool in her gut.
And the scent—God, that scent. Something floral but not sweet, something wild and natural that lingered in the back of Keres’ throat and made her want to consume, to possess, to keep forever in a locked room where no one else could ever experience it.
Asteria’s skin had carried the faintest trace of powder, something Keres had tasted when she’d dragged her tongue along that perfect collarbone, and the memory of it was enough to make her head spin now.
Asteria was different. Asteria was something. Something Keres couldn’t name and couldn’t forget, no matter how many bodies she used to try to scrub the memory away.
Asteria had ruined her for this, for the empty mechanical coupling that had once been enough.
Keres opened her eyes, and for a moment, the illusion was perfect. The harsh lighting softened at the edges, the room blurred into watercolor abstraction, and the woman beneath her wasn’t a stranger with fear in her eyes anymore.
She was Asteria, looking up at Keres with that devastating mixture of vulnerability and want, lips parted, skin flushed the most perfect shade of pink, begging for more with eyes that saw Keres and didn’t flinch away.
"Hnnng~ Keres~ Please more~"
The voice reached her ears, and Keres’ heart stuttered in her chest, a painful arrhythmia of hope and desperate need. Her eyes widened, adrenaline flooding her system like a narcotic, sudden and overwhelming and absolutely intoxicating.
She moved faster, harder, chasing that sound, that name, determined to prove herself worthy of it.
"Yes! Yes! I’ll give you more!" Keres didn’t even realize she was speaking aloud, didn’t register that she was answering to a hallucination, giving herself over completely to the fantasy that would have terrified her if she’d been capable of rational thought.
The woman beneath her was Asteria, had to be Asteria, and Keres would prove she was worthy of those moans, that submission, that impossible trust. "I’ll give you everything!"
She leaned down, needing to feel that breath against her ear, needing to confirm that this was real, that she had somehow, miraculously, gotten Asteria back in her arms again.
Her lips found the warm column of a neck, traced downward with desperate, worshipful hunger down Asteria’s collarbone, the hollow of a throat, and then lower, finding the peak of a breast and swirling her tongue there with a possessiveness mixed with devotion.
"Haah~ hnnng~ you’re so good~ hnnng~"
The praise washed over her like baptismal water, and Keres smirked against heated skin, her confidence returning, her power absolute and unquestioned.
"Yes, I am," she breathed, the words hot against a nipple, her voice dropping to almost tender. "Tell me you like it. Tell me you want me. Tell me I’m the only one who can make you feel this way."
"I... I’m near~~~" The voice was breathless, broken, perfect. "So close, Keres, please don’t stop, please—"
"Yes, that’s it! Come for me, Asteria. Come apart for me, only for me, always for—"
Crack.
The sound was sharp as a gunshot, jarring, completely out of place in the symphony of Keres’ fantasy. Her head snapped to the side with violent force, the sting exploding across her cheek with a white-hot intensity that rattled her teeth and brought tears to her eyes.
For a moment, suspended in the shock of impact, she couldn’t process what had happened. The room stilled and the fantasy shattered like fine crystal dropped on marble, and when she turned back, breathing hard and wild-eyed, pupils blown wide with confusion and rage, the person beneath her wasn’t Asteria.
It was just a woman. A stranger. Someone whose name Keres hadn’t even bothered to learn when she’d paid for her service tonight, whose face was now contorted in horror and desperation.
The woman’s hand was still raised, frozen in the aftermath of the slap, her eyes wide with a terror that spoke of imminent death.
She was trembling violently, her entire body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, tears already streaming down her face in silver tracks, and for a long moment, neither of them moved.
Neither of them breathed. The silence was absolute, broken only by the ragged sound of their breathing.
"I... I’m... I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Ms. Keres!" The words tumbled out in a hysterical rush, her voice breaking into ugly sobs.
"I... I didn’t mean to slap you! Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, please don’t kill me, I didn’t mean to, I just—"
Keres’ hand shot out with the speed of a striking viper, fingers wrapping around the woman’s chin with a grip that was almost violent, forcing her to meet Keres’ gaze.
"Do you fucking know how much I paid just to fuck you tonight?" Keres snarled, her voice dangerously low, vibrating with a rage that was as much embarrassment as anger.
"You ungrateful shit! Do you have any idea what happens to people who disappoint me? Do you have any idea who I am?"
The woman nodded frantically, her whole body shaking with terror so profound Keres could almost taste it.
"I... I... I’m so sorry~ but... But it hurts so much, and... And you couldn’t hear me. I was screaming, Ms. Keres, I was telling you to stop, I was saying it hurts, please stop, you’re hurting me, but you wouldn’t listen, you just kept calling me that name, that other woman’s name, and you were going harder and harder and I thought you were going to break me, I thought you were going to—"
She dissolved into incoherent sobs, and Keres stared at her, really looked at her, for the first time since they’d entered the room. She saw the tears, the genuine, gut-wrenching fear, the way the woman’s body was curled in on itself protectively like a wounded animal.
She saw the red marks on her pale skin, the bruises already forming like dark flowers blooming where Keres’ fingers had gripped too hard.
She saw the way the woman’s thighs were shaking, the way she was trying to make herself smaller, invisible, hoping Keres would just forget she existed.
The anger didn’t dissipate so much as transform, curdling into something heavy and sick in Keres’ stomach. She loosened her grip slowly, her fingers leaving white impressions that slowly pinked and then back to red, marked her like evidence of a crime.
She let out a long, shaky breath and released the woman entirely, pulling the strap out with a quick motion that made the woman whimper and flinch away.
"Leave my room before I change my mind," Keres said, her voice flat and empty, stripped of all emotion. She walked to the nearby dresser on legs that felt unsteady, pulling open a drawer to retrieve a cigarette and a lighter with hands that only shook a little.
The flame was steady in her hand as she lit it, inhaling deeply before turning back. "You just fucking ruined my mood, bitch."
The words were cruel, designed to wound, but they lacked the heat of true conviction. Keres was still angry—at the woman, yes, for daring to strike her and for shattering the illusion.
The woman scrambled off the bed with desperate, scrambling motions, wrapping the discarded blanket around her naked body with fumbling hands that couldn’t seem to work properly.
She was crying openly now, great heaving sobs that shook her shoulders, but she didn’t dare linger. Everyone knew what happened to those who failed to satisfy Keres Eisenthurn.
The rumors were whispered in dark corners of the city like prayers to a vengeful god—ruined careers, destroyed reputations, bodies that sometimes washed up in the river with broken bones and frozen expressions of terror, though no one could ever prove Keres’ involvement.
The Eisenthurn family had lawyers for that. They had judges in their pockets. They had ways of making problems disappear.
But tonight, Keres just stood by the window, smoking, watching the woman flee through the reflection in the glass. She didn’t call security. She didn’t make any phone calls. She didn’t reach for the gun in the drawer or the phone to summon the kind of men who made people vanish.
She just stood there, the cigarette burning down between her fingers, and wondered why she felt so hollow, so empty, so alone.
"Why the fuck did I suddenly think of her?" she asked the empty room, her voice rough, scraped raw by unspoken things.
She took another drag, exhaling smoke in a sharp stream that curled against the windowpane and obscured her reflection. "Why now? After all this time?"
The question hung in the air unanswered, joining the ghosts that already lived in this room. Keres stubbed out the cigarette before it burned her fingers and reached for another immediately, chain-smoking to fill the silence.
It should have been a comfort. Instead, it felt like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
~~~•••~~~
Night | Eisenthurn Mansion
Faye walked carefully, balancing a silver tray laden with chicken soup and fresh bread still warm from the oven, the steam rising in gentle wisps that felt comfort and care.
Behind her, Alfonso carried a crystal pitcher of water and a fresh IV bag, his usually stern face softened with a concern that had become increasingly familiar even with just one day of having Asteria live in their mansion.
They had settled into a sudden routine, the three of them—Faye playing the role of mother with an ease that suggested it was less performance and finally becoming truth. Alfonso hovering protectively with gruff affection.
And Asteria slowly learning to accept their care without waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was fragile, this new family, held together by circumstance and growing affection, but it was real.
They reached the bedroom door, and Faye shifted the tray to one hand so she could knock softly with the other, three gentle raps that shouldn’t have startled a sleeping bird.
"Asteria? Dear, we’re coming in with dinner. The doctor said you need to eat something substantial to keep your strength up."
There was no answer. No rustle of sheets, no sleepy murmur of acknowledgment.
Faye frowned, a tiny line appearing between her brows. She balanced the tray carefully and pushed the door open with her shoulder, her smile already forming in anticipation of seeing her daughter.
"Asteria?"
The bed was empty.
The sheets were rumpled, the pillow still bearing the impression of a head that had rested there, the blanket thrown back carelessly, but the girl was gone.
The room felt suddenly empty. And then Faye’s eyes found the IV line, and her heart stopped, plummeting into her stomach like a stone dropped down a well.
The needle lay discarded on the mattress, the tube trailing empty across the white linens, and there—small but unmistakable, bright against the pristine fabric—were tiny drops of blood, dark and already browning at the edges.
"Asteria? Asteria! Dear! Where are you?!" Faye’s voice pitched higher, panic flooding her system like ice water in her veins. She set the tray down on the nearest table with a clatter that sent soup sloshing over the rim of the bowl, staining the wood.
"Asteria! Answer me!"
"Asteria?" Alfonso’s voice joined hers, deeper but no less worried, no less terrified. He set down the water and IV bag with more care than Faye had managed, but his hands were shaking, the plastic of the IV bag crackling in his grip.
His eyes scanned the room with the practiced assessment of a man who had once ruled an empire and learned to notice everything—the open window, the discarded blanket, the bathroom door that was closed but showed light beneath.
They heard the bathroom door open, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing. A moment later, Asteria stepped out, adjusting the hem of her duster, her face breaking into a smile when she saw them, completely oblivious to the terror she had caused.
"Mama, what’s—"
Faye was across the room in seconds, moving faster than she had in years, her hands flying to Asteria’s face, her shoulders, checking her over with motherly efficiency that was half relief and half lingering terror.
"Are you hurt?! What happened?! Oh my God, there’s blood—where are you bleeding? Show me!"
Asteria blinked, caught completely off guard by the sudden surge of concern. It washed over her like warm water, unexpected and almost overwhelming.
No one had ever looked at her like this before, as if her safety was the only thing that mattered in the world, as if her wellbeing was worth panic and fear and love.
"I... I’m okay, mama," she said softly, her voice gentle, reaching up to touch Faye’s trembling hand.
"Really, I’m fine. I’m not bleeding anywhere, I promise."
"Then why is the needle of the IV drip there? And why is there blood?" Faye demanded, her voice trembling with barely suppressed fear, pointing at the bed with a shaking finger.
"Asteria, look at me. Look at my eyes. What happened? Tell me the truth."
"I... I pulled the needle out," Asteria admitted, looking down at her feet like a child confessing to breaking a vase, her voice small and uncertain.
"I don’t think I still need it. I feel much better, mama. I was just so tired of lying in bed, and the tube kept getting tangled when I tried to roll over, and my arm was sore from keeping it straight, so I just... Pulled it out. It seemed like the logical thing to do." Asteria added.
"HUH?!"
The sound came from both Faye and Alfonso in unison, their voices harmonizing in shock that bordered on disbelief.
"YOU DID WHAT?!" They chorused,
"Uhm... It’s—"
"Let me see!" Faye interrupted, already grabbing Asteria’s hand and rolling up the sleeve of her sleepwear duster with trembling fingers.
Alfonso crowded in close, his expression thunderous with worry, setting aside his usual dignity to hover like a worried father.
"Why would you do something like that?" Faye asked, her voice cracking. She examined the crook of Asteria’s elbow, where a small bruise was forming and the skin was slightly red, the tiny puncture wound still visible.
"The needle could have broken off inside your vein! You could have gotten an air embolism! You could have bled more than you realized, or gotten an infection, or—"
"—damaged the vein," Alfonso finished, his voice gentler than his words suggested, but no less urgent.
He took Asteria’s other hand, turning it over to check her palms as if she might have hidden injuries there, his touch careful and reverent.
"Asteria, this is dangerous. Nurses or doctors should be the ones removing IV lines. They know how to do it safely."
"It doesn’t hurt," Asteria insisted, though she winced slightly when Faye’s fingers brushed too close to the tender spot.
"It really doesn’t. I just thought I didn’t need it anymore, so I pulled it out. I’ve done it before, lots of times. It’s not a big deal."
Faye’s hands stilled. The room seemed to grow colder. She looked up at Asteria, her expression shifting from fear to something else—something darker and more painful, something that looked like heartbreak.
"You’ve done this before?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Asteria nodded, her confidence wavering under their intense stares, suddenly unsure if she had done something wrong, if this was another rule she didn’t know about, another way she was broken or ignorant or wrong.
"My mama... Mama Vilma... I had to go to the hospital a few times when I was little. I got sick a lot, from working too hard and not eating right, and sometimes I would collapse. The doctors would put IVs in me to give me fluids and medicine, but she never liked staying there." Asteria admitted,
"She said it cost too much money, and that I kept her from working, and the hospital was full of germs anyway."
Asteria’s voice grew smaller, more hesitant, retreating into memory.
"So when she thought I was feeling better—usually after just a few hours, sometimes less—she would just pull the IV in my hand. She taught me how to do it. She said you had to be quick, like pulling off a bandage, and then you press hard with cotton and tape it up. She said it was normal. She said that if you’re feeling better, you shouldn’t waste time lying in bed when there’s work to be done," Asteria even show them a demo, like she had the IV needle in her hand and just showing them how to do it.
"She said... She said only lazy people stay in hospitals when they can walk, and that weakness was a luxury I couldn’t afford."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bones, thick with grief and rage and a terrible, helpless love.
Faye closed her eyes, her grip on Asteria’s hand tightening almost to the point of pain. When she opened them again, they were bright with tears that she refused to let fall, shining like diamonds.
"She doesn’t deserve to be called a mother," Faye said quietly, her voice trembling with restrained emotion, with a fury that was more terrible for its softness.
"Don’t worry, I am here now. You listen to me, I am your mother now, okay? And what she taught you is not okay. None of it is okay. You are not lazy for being sick. You are not weak for needing rest."
"But mama—" Asteria started, the old conditioning running deep, the fear of being a burden, of using up resources she hadn’t earned, of being sent away for being too much trouble.
"No, Asteria." Faye’s voice was firm, cutting through years of neglect with the sharp edge of absolute certainty. She cupped Asteria’s face in her hands, forcing the girl to meet her eyes, to see the truth there.
"It’s not okay. You’re sick, you don’t work. And if you’re sick, you rest until the doctor says you’re better, understand? Not when you think you’re better. Not when you get bored or impatient or guilty. You rest until a medical professional tells you that your body has healed." Faye,
Asteria frowned, the words not fitting into the shape of her world. In her reality, stillness had always been a luxury she couldn’t afford, a sin she couldn’t commit.
Rest was for people who had someone else to pay the bills, to put food on the table, to keep the roof from being taken away. She had learned early that her value was in what she could produce, what she could endure, how much she could take before breaking.
"Asteria," Alfonso said, his voice cutting through her thoughts like a warm knife through butter, gentle but irresistible. "Listen to your mother. She’s right. And so you know, I agree with her completely. You scared ten years off my life just now, young lady."
Asteria looked at him. Standing in her bedroom wearing a soft cardigan with elbow patches and holding an IV bag,
"Y-Yes, mama and... Sir..." Asteria stammered, uncertain how to address him, falling back on the formality that felt safer than intimacy.
Alfonso’s eyebrow arched upward.
"Sir?" He repeated, his voice rising in mock offense that couldn’t hide the hurt underneath. He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, an expression so childish and unexpected on his distinguished face that Asteria almost laughed despite the tension.
"No way! Call me Papa."
He uncrossed his arms just long enough to gesture between himself and Faye with an exaggerated motion, his eyes twinkling with mischief and emotion.
"How come you call Faye your mama and not me your papa? I’ve been here just as long as her! I’ve worried just as much! I brought the water, didn’t I? I brought the new IV bag! I sat by your bed when your fever was high! I deserve a ’Papa’ at the very least! Don’t I get to be part of this family too?"
For the first time since she had arrived at the mansion—maybe for the first time in her entire life—Asteria felt something bubble up inside her chest.
It started small, a tickle at the back of her throat, and then grew until it burst out of her in a sound she barely recognized as her own.
She giggled.
It was soft at first, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to make such a sound, wasn’t sure if happiness was permitted for people like her.
"O-Okay, papa~~~" she managed, drawing out the word like a shy caress, testing it on her tongue and finding it sweet.
Alfonso’s face transformed, the pout melting into a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes and showed teeth that were slightly crooked in the most charming way.
"That’s more like it, kid," he said, his voice gruff with emotion.
"Hehe. Papa. I like the sound of that. Papa. Say it again?"
"Papa," Asteria repeated, stronger this time, and the word felt like coming home.
For the first time in Asteria’s life, she felt complete. Not because of any grand destiny or magical power or prophecy, but because of this—this simple, terrifying, beautiful thing called family.
She buried her face in Faye’s shoulder and let herself be held, breathing in the scent of home.
Outside, the night was dark and full of terrors, and somewhere in the city, Keres was smoking cigarette after cigarette, haunted by ghosts.
But here, in this room, with these people, Asteria finally understood what it meant to be safe, what it meant to be wanted, what it meant to be home.
And for now, that was enough.
