Chapter 34: Awakening Affection
Night,
Keres got home around 9:00 PM, the sound of her expensive leather heels clicking against the polished marble floors echoing through the foyer. The mansion was always too quiet when she returned, the silence amplifying her exhaustion as she stepped inside.
She sighed, the sound was heavy with the weight of another day spent maintaining the Eisenthurn empire, another day of ruthless decisions and calculated moves that left her hollow inside.
The maids approached immediately, their footsteps barely audible on the plush runner that led to the grand staircase. They moved with practiced efficiency, ready to take her coat, retrieve her briefcase, and guide her through the evening routine they always do ever since she was a child.
But tonight was different. Keres waved them away with a sharp flick of her wrist, not even looking at them as she continued toward the stairs. "No," she said, her voice flat and devoid of its usual commanding edge.
"I’ll manage tonight." The maids froze, exchanging uncertain glances. This was unprecedented—Keres Eisenthurn never dismissed their services, or never rejected their carefully routine.
"Where’s Asteria?" she asked, her eyes scanning the upper landing as if searching for something she couldn’t quite name. Dina stepped forward with a pair of comfortable flip-flop slippers, the soft material was a contrast to Keres’s imposing demeanor.
"She’s upstairs, young master. We think madam is already asleep." Dina kept her eyes lowered, respectful yet attentive as she presented the slippers.
Keres slid her feet into them without comment, the simple act somehow more intimate than any gesture she had shared with her staff in years.
"Okay, thank you." The words slipped out before she could stop them, and the maids collectively inhaled, their eyes widening in disbelief. Keres Eisenthurn never said thank you or goodbye—she treated everyone as insignificant beings lucky enough to breathe her air.
The words hung in the air between them, truly unexpected as Keres turned and ascended the stairs without another glance.
She climbed slowly, each step feeling heavier than the last. The grand staircase spiraled upward through the center of the mansion, its polished mahogany railing was cool beneath her fingers.
A wedding portrait of Asteria alone during their wedding where Keres didn’t attend hung in the wall as the biggest picture in the whole house.
When she reached the upper landing, she paused outside their bedroom door, her hand hovering over the ornate brass handle. Something felt different tonight—a subtle shift in the atmosphere that she couldn’t quite identify.
She turned the handle slowly, careful not to make a sound, and pushed the heavy oak door inward just enough to slip through without disturbing the silence within.
The room was bathed in the soft glow of a single desk lamp, its warm light creating pools of shadow across the expensive furnishings and paintings that decorated the space.
Asteria was at Keres’s desk, slumped forward in the leather chair, her head resting on folded arms amidst a scattered collection of sketches. The scene was so unexpected, so intimate, that Keres found herself frozen in the doorway, and her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and throat.
Asteria looked smaller like this, more vulnerable than when she was awake and putting on the brave face she wore so well. Her dark hair spilled across the papers and desk surface, like ink spilled on parchment.
The simple cotton nightgown she wore had ridden up slightly, revealing the delicate curve of her lower back and the faint indentation of her spine. She was breathing deeply, each exhale accompanied by a soft sigh that seemed to carry all the day’s tensions away into sleep.
Keres approached quietly, her steps muffled by the plush carpet that covered most of the bedroom floor. She intended to wake Asteria, to guide her to their bed and ensure she rested properly—a practical consideration that barely masked the deeper impulse she felt to care for her in this moment.
But she stopped when she noticed the sketches scattered across the desk. They were drawings of her—of Keres—rendered in charcoal and pencil on various bond papers, each capturing a different aspect of her character that she rarely showed anyone.
There were dozens of them, each more revealing than the last. Some showed her profile in sharp, angular lines that emphasized the stubborn set of her jaw. Others captured her from behind, highlighting the rigid posture she maintained even when she thought no one was watching.
But it was the portraits of her face that made Keres’s breath catch in her throat. Asteria had drawn her with an attention to detail that suggested hours of careful observation, her pencil strokes capturing the subtle changes in expression that crossed Keres’s face throughout the day.
What stunned Keres most were the sketches of her smiling—something she rarely did, and never with genuine warmth. Yet Asteria had imagined it, drawn it with such conviction that Keres almost recognized herself in these imagined moments of joy.
The artist had rendered her eyes with particular care, capturing the light in them that even Keres didn’t know existed, making them appear soft and approachable rather than cold and calculating as they often were in reality.
In some drawings, Asteria had made her look carefree, kind—qualities Keres knew she possessed but had buried so deeply beneath layers of responsibility and defense mechanisms that she sometimes wondered if they existed at all anymore.
She picked up one of the sketches, her fingers tracing the outline of her own smiling face as rendered by Asteria’s hand. The paper was warm from the desk lamp, slightly worn from where Asteria had erased and redrawn certain lines repeatedly.
Keres noticed how Asteria had captured the slight asymmetry of her smile, the way one corner of her mouth lifted higher than the other when she was genuinely amused—a detail so subtle that Keres herself had never paid attention to it.
This time, Keres’s heart didn’t thump wildly like it usually did when she found herself thinking too much about Asteria. It beat normally, steadily, yet it felt so full and content that she didn’t even notice or feel her lips curving into a smile, unlike the ones Asteria had imagined in her drawings.
The expression felt foreign on her face, unused muscles moving in ways they hadn’t in years.
Keres admired the sketches for several more minutes, carefully examining each one with a mixture of awe and confusion. She realized with a start that Asteria had an extraordinary talent—not just for technical accuracy but for seeing beyond the surface, for capturing the essence of her subject in ways that revealed truths the subject themselves might not recognize.
Asteria hadn’t just drawn Keres’s face; she had drawn the person Keres might have been under different circumstances, the person she sometimes caught glimpses of in rare unguarded moments.
But she didn’t wake Asteria to compliment her on her talent. Instead, she found herself leaning down, carefully gathering the sketches and stacking them neatly beside the desk lamp.
Then, with a gentleness that surprised even herself, she slipped one arm beneath Asteria’s knees and another around her shoulders, lifting her from the chair as if she weighed nothing at all.
"She’s still light... She should probably eat more." The thought ran through Keres’s mind unbidden, accompanied by a concern that felt both familiar and completely alien.
It wasn’t the usual possessive Keres who saw Asteria as another beautiful possession to be enjoyed, but the kind and softhearted Keres who emerged only in these moments when Asteria was vulnerable and unaware.
Asteria stirred slightly in her arms, her head lolling against Keres’s shoulder. She smelled of jasmine—the same delicate fragrance she always wore—but tonight there was something else too, a faint scent of velvet powder that clung to her hair and skin. Keres found the combination strangely irritating because of the velvet powder, but the soft floral notes of jasmine mingling with the deeper, more complex aroma of the powder to create something uniquely Asteria.
She carried Asteria across the room to their bed, a massive piece of furniture with black satin sheets that gleamed in the lamplight. The mattress sank slightly under their combined weight as Keres lowered Asteria onto it, taking care to support her head and neck until it rested securely on one of the plush pillows.
She paused for a moment, just looking at Asteria’s face in the soft light.
Then Keres began arranging her more carefully on the bed, adjusting her position until she lay comfortably on her side. She pulled the duvet up to cover Asteria’s shoulders, tucking it gently around her body to create a feeling of warmth and security.
As she smoothed the fabric over Asteria’s arms, her fingers brushed against something rough and uneven beneath the sleeve of her nightgown.
Keres froze, her hand hovering above Asteria’s arm. She carefully pushed the sleeve up slightly, revealing a series of bruises in various stages of healing—some was faint yellow and green, others were fresh and purple against Asteria’s pale skin.
They formed patterns that suggested they hadn’t been accidental, but rather deliberate, inflicted with enough force to leave marks that would take weeks to fade completely.
Keres’s jaw tightened, a cold anger rising in her chest so swiftly that it nearly took her breath away. She had noticed Asteria flinching sometimes when she moved too quickly, had seen her rub her arms absently as if trying to soothe aches, but she had never connected these behaviors to something so concrete or violent.
The bruises told a story she hadn’t been paying attention to, a narrative of pain and fear that Asteria had hidden beneath her polite smile and compliance.
"Hnnng" Asteria’s brows furrowed as she whimpered in her sleep, her body tensing beneath the duvet as if she were experiencing some distressing dream.
The sound pulled Keres from her dark thoughts, redirecting her attention to Asteria’s troubled expression. She saw how Asteria’s eyelids fluttered, how her fingers clenched and unclenched in the satin sheets, clearly caught in the throes of a nightmare.
Keres immediately sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping with her weight as she reached out to soothe Asteria. "Shhh~ it’s okay, I’m here" she murmured, her voice was soft and gentle, completely unlike her usual sharp tones.
She gently tucked a strand of Asteria’s dark hair behind her ear, and her fingers linger for a moment against the soft skin of her cheek. In this moment, she wasn’t the ruthless Keres Eisenthurn who had just killed men or ordered Sandro to eliminate others.
In this room, with Asteria, she was simply a wife concerned for her partner.
She didn’t understand these feelings that overwhelmed her whenever Asteria was vulnerable like this. She knew she was supposed to hate Asteria—their marriage was an arrangement, a business transaction designed to protect both of them.
Asteria was a means to an end, a beautiful ornament to display at social functions and a convenient excuse to avoid questions about her personal life.
But right now, all Keres wanted to do was erase whatever nightmare was causing Asteria such distress, to replace those painful dreams with something peaceful, something safe.
Keres leaned down, her dark hair falling forward to curtain both their faces as she gently planted a soft kiss on Asteria’s forehead. The gesture felt foreign even to her as her lips linger against Asteria’s warm skin for a moment longer than necessary.
Keres Eisenthurn was never this affectionate to anyone, not even to her former lovers. She had always used them for pleasure, control, manipulation, connections, or power—never for genuine comfort or tenderness like this.
"Don’t be scared I’m here" she whispered again, her breath warming Asteria’s forehead as she spoke.
Asteria slowly relaxed, the tension in her body gradually fading as the nightmare receded. Her breathing evened out, becoming deep and regular again, replaced by a peace that Asteria rarely experienced when Keres wasn’t with her, it was a strange irony considering that Keres was also the woman who professed to hate her, who treated her with cold indifference during their waking hours.
Keres smelled the faint jasmine scent again that always clung to Asteria, but the velvet powder that followed irritated her senses as always. She didn’t understand why Asteria insisted on wearing the powder when her natural jasmine fragrance was so appealing on its own.
The combination was cloying, almost too sweet, but Keres found herself leaning closer anyway, drawn by something she couldn’t name.
She leaned down with the intention of planting her kiss mark on Asteria’s neck, a possessive gesture that felt more like her usual behavior. But the thought didn’t settle gently in her mind, especially when she felt Asteria’s warm breath against her face as their faces were only mere inches apart.
The proximity was intoxicating, the space between them charged with an energy that made Keres’s heart beat faster despite her earlier sense of calm.
"You sleep so well, wife... Are you really sleeping?" Keres asked, her voice barely a whisper as she studied Asteria’s peaceful expression. A part of her hoped Asteria would wake up, push her away, even slap her—reactions that would make sense, that would restore the familiar distance between them.
But no, Asteria slept peacefully and heavily, completely unaware that Keres had been about to kiss her, completely vulnerable to whatever Keres might choose to do.
Asteria didn’t respond, and Keres smirked – a slow, predatory expression that was more characteristic of her usual self.
Then slowly, deliberately, she crushed her lips to Asteria’s. The kiss was firm but not harsh, an assertion of ownership that felt both thrilling and troubling. She took off her suit jacket, letting it fall to the floor beside the bed, and cupped Asteria’s face with both hands as she deepened the kiss, finally getting what she had been craving all day—the sweet taste of Asteria’s lips.
Asteria only whimpered, a soft sound of confusion or protest, but she didn’t fully wake up. Her body remained relaxed, pliant beneath Keres’s touch, even as her lips responded instinctively to the pressure of Keres’s mouth against hers.
Keres slowly withdrew, a strand of saliva connecting their lips for a moment before breaking. She smirked again as she saw how Asteria unconsciously blushed at the kiss, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink even in sleep.
"You’re always beautiful, and your lips are always soft like a flower. Like you’re made to be kissed." Keres continued to whisper as she ran her thumb across Asteria’s bottom lip, feeling its softness against her calloused skin.
The contrast between them—rough and gentle, hard and soft—excited her in ways she couldn’t fully articulate.
Then slowly, deliberately, she dominated Asteria’s lips with a passionate kiss. She parted Asteria’s lips with her own, sliding her tongue inside to taste and explore until Asteria was making broken whimpering sounds in her sleep.
Keres didn’t stop, their faces flushed with heat as her left hand moved to intertwine her fingers with Asteria’s, pinning it securely against the pillows beside Asteria’s head.
Whatever Keres was feeling now, she didn’t know whether it was love or just the desire to dominate and take whatever Asteria had left to give. The lines between protection and possession blurred in her mind, the gentleness of moments before giving way to something more demanding, more selfish.
She wanted Asteria—not just her body, but her thoughts, her dreams, her loyalty, her very soul. She wanted to mark her as hers in ways that went beyond the legal document that bound them together in this arranged marriage.
As Keres continued to kiss Asteria, her movements becoming more urgent, more possessive, she noticed Asteria stirring more noticeably now. Her eyes fluttered beneath her eyelids, and her breathing became shallower, less regular.
Keres knew she should stop—that what she was doing was wrong, taking advantage of Asteria’s vulnerability like this—but the hunger inside her was too strong, too compelling to resist.
