My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

Chapter 138: A Dance with Airam [4]

"Why did you adopt us?"

Ulrich did not answer.

Airam kept her gaze fixed on him.

"You knew about our mother. Anna-Maria," she said, hardening her tone. "You took us in knowing who she was. Knowing we were her daughters."

Ulrich remained silent.

Airam’s grip tightened again, harder now. For the first time since the dance began, her control showed a visible crack. Her lips trembled once from anger forcing its way through restraint, dragging hurt behind it.

"Did you..." She swallowed once. "Did you want my mother dead—"

"No."

Ulrich cut her off immediately.

There was nothing hesitant in the answer.

He already understood where her thoughts had gone. If his intention had truly been to gain control of Anna-Maria’s daughters, to claim their talent and shape it for his own use, then yes, it would have been easier without Anna-Maria herself standing between him and them.

But that had never been his plan.

"I wanted to take all four of you," Ulrich said.

His gaze held her gaze as he spoke sincerely.

Airam searched his face as if she might find the lie somewhere in it, some hidden crack in the answer, some hint that he was merely saying the most convenient thing.

She found nothing.

"You could not," she said at last.

The words came out quieter than before.

Ulrich did not look away.

"I know."

Airam hated that answer most of all.

Hated that it did not sound false. Hated that he spoke of her mother without flinching. Hated that some part of her, however small, wanted to believe him.

Airam met his gaze again, and for a moment they slowed so much they nearly stopped dancing altogether.

"If you had taken her too," she said, "she would not have let you control us."

"I know," Ulrich replied.

Anna-Maria had lost her powers, but that had never made her blind. More than anything, she had wanted to keep her daughters away from witchcraft, away from magic, away from the kind of fate that devoured lives and left only fear behind. If Ulrich had approached her then, she would have seen through him sooner or later. And if she had, she might have fled with the girls before he could close his hand around any of them.

"Then why did you save us?" Airam asked. "Why did you try to save her? What do you want from us?"

The questions came one after another, each one sharpened by two years of silence.

She had carried them from the day he took them in. Through the safety of his estate. Through the lessons, the clothes, the gold spent on them, the protection, the adoption, the name he had given them as though such a thing could be handed over without cost. Even the moments that looked almost like care only made the questions worse.

"Do not touch them."

She could still hear those words clearly.

The sound of Albert being struck before his hand could reach her had never faded from memory.

Was it care? Real care? Or was it only possession, the reflex of a man refusing to let others handle what he considered his?

Ulrich stared at her as she waited.

Unfortunately, there was no simple answer he could give.

He could not fully explain why he had taken them in because even now, he did not entirely understand it himself. There were things in this life he still could not name properly.

What was he trying to accomplish here?

What exactly had he been building since recovering the memories of his past life?

What was he trying to accomplish in this life?

Even that remained unclear to him in some ways.

At first, it had been simple.

Survive.

That was all.

He had remembered the novel, remembered the path that ended in his death, and his first instinct had been exactly what one would expect of Ulrich Van Rubenhart. Cold self-preservation, pride and calculation. He had turned his attention toward the three girls who were meant to stand at the center of that ruin.

The daughters of Anna-Maria.

The three witch sisters.

But a great deal had changed since then.

Most of all, the way he saw them.

"I knew you were Anna-Maria’s daughters," Ulrich said at last.

That much, at least, was the truth.

It had not been difficult to find out, and he had not chosen three random witches out of some passing whim. He had known enough before acting. He had known who they were.

Airam’s expression hardened.

"So you saved us to use us."

Ulrich looked at her.

"Is that how you see it?"

The question was calm, but not empty.

Was that all he was doing?

Everything he had given them, everything he had spent, every decision he had made to shape their future, every effort to keep them safe and strong, was it only to earn their trust more efficiently so he could use them against the demons years from now?

Or had it stopped being that simple long ago?

He did not answer, perhaps because he could not, or perhaps because answering would have required acknowledging something he still refused to name.

Airam’s fingers tightened around his hand.

"Esther and Hermione may trust you," she said, "but I will not."

"You should not," Ulrich said.

Rather, he commended Airam for her never-ending wariness toward everything. Her love for her younger sisters was so deep that she refused to lower her guard entirely, even toward someone who had provided her and her sisters with everything for the past two years.

And she had a good reason for that.

Ulrich still kept the reasons for their adoption, and his real plans for them, hidden in the dark.

That was why his simple answer only made the strain in Airam’s face more visible. Tiny fractures spread across her usual stillness. Anger, confusion, frustration, and something more dangerous beneath them all.

Doubt.

Ulrich looked at her and, inwardly, almost smiled.

She truly was like him.

Just as he kept refusing to name his own feelings, covering instinct with reason and care with calculation, Airam was doing the same in reverse. She refused to admit that Ulrich might care for them at all, so she dressed every act in darker meaning and forced every answer into a shape she could still hate.