The Devil's Cursed Witch

Draven stared at his mate, his expression colder than usual, upon seeing her silly state.  She was squirming nervously under his gaze with a lowered head, but he could see the tip of her nose was a bit red due to her colliding against him head on, which was further reddened after she rubbed it with her hands.

He had long known that humans were delicate creatures, but what he could not understand was how often his mate injured herself or put herself in a situation where she’d be hurt. It was absurd. It seemed as if every time he saw her, she was in some sort of pain. Even now, though she was pretending to ignore the soreness of her nose in front of him, he could clearly see she wasn’t succeeding.

He stepped towards her and in reflex, she stepped back. It was an instinctual move for her now to step away from him whenever he would close the distance between them.

‘I’m yet to grow immune to his scent!’ she panicked, but then upon seeing the look in his eyes, her panic grew. ‘Why is he glaring? Did I upset him again?’

“Stay still!” he said in a calm but authoritative voice that left no space for others to disobey him. Thus, when he took a step towards her this time, she obediently stood in place as per his order.

Draven raised his hand towards her face, causing her to flinch and close her eyes instinctively in fear despite not knowing what he was up to.

The next moment, she felt something gently brushing the tip of her nose and when she opened her eyes, she saw that the tip of his finger was emitting a soft glow.

‘What did he do?’ she wondered and caught him muttering, as if he were talking to himself.

“You have already proven how clumsy you can be and how much you love to hurt yourself. Silly human, there is no need to hide your pain and pretend otherwise.”

The look in Ember’s eyes changed. This time, there was no fear in them, and they clearly showed how displeased she was with his words.

‘Is he for real? He thinks I love to hurt myself?’ she frowned inside.

Draven could clearly see the anger appearing in those beautiful eyes. ‘So she knows how to get angry.’

“We don’t punish anyone here for their clumsiness. Being clumsy is a shameful punishment in itself,” he continued, only to anger her more.

She took a step back while glaring at him, who still had his usual expressionless face. The more she stared at that annoyingly handsome face, the more she found it difficult to suppress her anger.

“Your Majesty,” she forced herself to say, “I am not clumsy.”

“We also don’t punish people here for telling a white lie.”

“It’s not a lie.”

“If you say so.”

However, his tone clearly indicated that he didn’t trust her words.

“I really am not clumsy,” she pressed as she felt offended by his patronizing tone. “Neither am I a liar.”

Being tagged as clumsy was annoying already,  but to be deemed a liar? She could not accept it.

Draven didn’t react to her growing anger as he even found himself curious about her reaction. It was a side of her he had never seen before. However, he decided to drop the matter for now. “I heard you say something about ‘we need to consummate the bond’ before you bumped into me. What is that about?”

The way he ignored her anger and tried to gloss over the matter caused her anger to flare even more.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied, trying her best to reply without showing how angry she was.

Draven found it amusing to see his little mate angered, and more so because the reason for her anger was so strange. It was a novel sensation. No one had ever quarrelled with him in such an adorable manner, and rather than get annoyed, he found himself entertained to see her stopping at nothing to openly show her emotions.

“You don’t want to?” he asked calmly.

With anger still visible in her eyes, Ember clenched her fists.

“I won’t consummate my bond with you. You can get another mate,” she responded dryly and walked past him without looking at him even once.

Draven turned around to watch the delicate figure walking away from him. Unknown to him, a light smile was painted on his lips.

‘Another mate?’ he smirked. ‘You are my one and only mate, and you are stuck with me for eternity.’

—

By the time Ember reached her chamber, her face was red. Though she had walked the entire way, even taking time to climb the staircase, the anger inside her didn’t subside. In fact, the more she recalled Draven’s manner of speaking, the more irritated she became.

She paced inside her chamber in a poor attempt of calming down.

‘Clumsy? Yes, it seems that way because I fell a few times, but how can he say I love to hurt myself? Does he think I could survive on that mountain if I were truly clumsy as he says? And a liar? Just because he doesn’t believe me doesn’t mean he gets to call me out for lying!’

Even after her two servants arrived and entered her chamber, Ember was still in the middle of calming herself.

“Miss, why do you look so angry?” Reya asked carefully.

Reya and Clio were following Ember the whole time, but they stopped at a distance when they saw the King talking to Ember. Being tactful people, the two elves gave the pair privacy and didn’t dare listen to what was going on between them.

Once they saw their master storming away, they walked through another hallway that led towards the main staircase as they dared not walk in front of the King.

Ember stopped pacing after taking a few deep breaths and looked at her two servants. “Do you two think I am clumsy?”

The question startled the servants.

“Why do you ask, Miss?”

“Did someone by chance say anything to you?”

“Answer me first,” Ember insisted.

“Well, not really?” Clio answered in a hesitant manner and Ember threw a bewildered look at her.

“W-What do you mean by that?”