~Hello everyone, I am back.
Thank you for your continued support! Life got a little hectic for me, but all for good reasons! While the dust has settled, I can't guarantee that I'll be posting on a regular basis again, but I will try my best.

Hope everyone out there has an amazing day, and stay safe and stay healthy!
KeshaRocks~

Bela never came to check on me, nor did I go looking for her. Even when lunch had come around, there was no sign of her. Bianca had left to go and fetch some food and water – Helga having stopped by in her absence to deliver Lady Dimitrescu's apparent approval to letting the two take care of me – and when Bianca came back, she said she saw no sign of the eldest daughter.

A part of me is hurt, but on the other hand, I don't think I have the mental capacity to face her right now.

Despite the comfort and company of my friends, I still wonder about my morality. And how I've been blinded by Bela into ignoring it. After becoming so infatuated with her, I'd completely forgotten the things she'd done – the things she still does.

Sitting at one end of the couch, the fire still roaring and crackling, my body shivers despite the sherpa blanket draped over my legs. Shivers at the thought of the many women that are scared and hungry a few yards beneath me in the castle dungeons. Many more who have perished in unspeakable, terrifying ways.

Rachel Matthew's body flashes before me, and I cough as my throat tightens.

Bianca, who's sitting at the other end of the couch, having picked up one of my books, looks up and lifts her brows. I wave her off, turning on my side to face the crackling fire.

I don't know if it was intentional on Bela's part, but I feel fooled at how quickly I'd forgotten about the many bodies slaughtered within this castle. The families they'll never come home to; the children they'll never see grow up.

We'd just made some progress, but am I really willing to overlook such a thing to be with her?

Can I even be with her?

Lady Dimitrescu aside, Bela has been like . . . this, for years now, perhaps even before I was born. I saw the dates in Lady Dimitrescu's diary – the timespan is gut wrenching. Perhaps she's even near immortal now thanks to Mother Miranda's magic. She can't remember her life before the experiments – would she even remember me once I'm withered and hunched with age?

Gretta had taken to napping on the bed, and I didn't mind. At this point, Bela won't be back anytime soon, and who am I to say no to her after everything she's done for me? The poor girl hasn't stirred once, indicating just how bone-tired she was.

How long had she been hiding it? Fighting it off?

Bianca's toe nudges my shin, and I angle my head to find her staring at me. Her onyx eyes winking with golden bits from the light of the fire, her golden-brown features turning velvet soft, the corners of her full lips perked in a kind, yet impish smile. Her obsidian hair having relaxed into waves after she released it from her braid.

I'd love to see her in one of the many dresses I'd seen at Bela's birthday ball. Just a touch of makeup to highlight her features, her eyes swiped with kohl. Her lips a sinful red . . . She could bring a king to his knees with her beauty.

"Yes?" I whisper, cognizant of Gretta still sleeping.

"Are you okay?" she mouths, folding the book closed. She's already more than halfway through it.

I shrug, turning my attention to the fire. "I guess."

Her foot nudges me again, with enough force to make my nose wrinkle in pain. I look to her with a scolding expression, biting back my laugh as I try not to make too much noise.

She sets the book onto the coffee table, adjusting her half of the sherpa blanket. Her voice is bedroom soft as she says, "You know you can talk to me. Talk to us." She waves a hand over the room to include Gretta.

Of which the redhead heaves a loud snore. We both snort.

I match her tone. "What can I even say? Apart from you not believing me, I can't risk bringing you guys into . . . whatever the hell it is I'm in."

"Erika –"

"I know too much," – I interject – "about the Lords, about this village, about Mother Miranda . . ."

Bianca pales at the priestess's name.

"I want to talk to someone about it, but I cannot – and will not – bring either of you into this." I shake my head with a sigh. "But I appreciate the gesture. I really do."

There's rustling, and Bianca's arms are around my shoulders, her head resting in the crook.

For a moment, my mind wanders:

Bianca looks to me with those stunning onyx eyes and bites the corner of her lovely mouth, as if to hold back the minxy smile. I pause, blinking in surprise before she takes my mouth with hers, her tongue easily slipping past my lips.

I moan into her mouth, and she mirrors the sound. Even in my mind it sounds so luxurious – the want and need enough to make my underwear moist.

She easily climbs into my lap and begins moving her hips on mine, brushing our bundle of nerves together so that the friction makes us both twitch with pleasure.

I bite my own lip to keep from making too much noise. Bianca sees this, and looks over her shoulder to the sleeping Gretta. Only to look back at me with a devil in her golden-starred eyes.

She whispers at me to be quiet, her tongue trailing along my throat with each word until she reaches my breasts. Her tongue lapping and sucking through the fabric until there's a wet spot that constantly has my nipples pebbling.

Her hand digs under the skirt of my dress, easily finding the apex of my thighs, carefully but precisely circling along my clit. The pressure perfect until my eyes nearly roll in the back of my head.

My hips undulate, and Bianca lets her tongue hang from her mouth, as if she could taste my arousal in the air. She adjusts herself to straddle my hips until the only thing dividing us is our intimates, and they'd be just as wet as my own.

She grinds her hips along mine, pulling down the front of her dress to bare her perfect, lovely breasts. Both bouncing so cutely with each passing of her hips.

We'd do this for a few minutes, building each other while simultaneously checking to make sure Gretta isn't waking up.

Bianca's hips pick up their pace, riding a wave of ecstasy that will have her coming in my mouth in a few minutes, but then she stops.

Pieces of her hair already plaster to her forehead, and a devilish smile curves her lips as she lifts herself from me. I whimper in protest.

Until she moves to position herself at the head of the couch, half propped on the arm – and on my face, set in between the corner of the arm and back of the couch.

My core pulses as she licks her lips, her tongue lolling as she sits herself on my face, the skirt of her dress covering me from sight. But I saw it – the picture of looking up at her from the pane of skin between her breasts, seeing her lust-filled eyes sparkle with excitement and mischief as she places her moistened lips on my awaiting mouth.

She then grinds her hips again in small, quick movements, bracing herself on the edge of the couch as she uses me to reach her climax. My hand having slid between my legs to help me reach my own – my clit overly sensitive from the erotic situation.

Bianca's moans are hushed and clipped, holding back from crying out in pleasure and waking Gretta.

Beneath her thighs and her skirt, I can only see her shadow haloed by the orange light of the fire.

She sinks herself deeper onto my face, and I nearly cum when I feel her twitch – furthered when I bury my tongue as deep as I can, forcing her to clench her thighs around my head. The air quickly becomes moist under her skirt, trapped, but I don't mind.

She takes of honeysuckle and elderberry.

Her hips continue to move as she fucks herself with my tongue. I so badly want to stick my fingers in her wetness, but this is just fine.

Her pace increases a little more, and she yanks back the skirt of her dress, allowing me some fresh air, and a chance to see her unravel.

Her brows have tented from the pleasure, a few sections of hair falling over her face. I lift one hand and crack it across her ass before thinking better of it.

And the scream she'd emit would be enough to make me come.

Her hands are on my head and she's grinding faster and faster, her release a cresting wave towards the shore. My own eyes rolling back at the sheer pleasure of the erotic position.

She'd be breathing of how I'm hitting the right spot – Right there, right there.

And she'd close her eyes and let her body melt with the song and rhythm of the sex. Her hips following one tempo while she kneads her breasts in silent harmony. Just like she kneaded the dough in the kitchen.

Her voice would pitch higher and higher until she comes, plopping herself flat onto my mouth so that I taste and feel her come – her delicate inner muscles clenching and clenching, milking everything onto my tongue.

Then I'd be a devil.

I'd grab her soft, smooth thighs with my hands, and I'd keep tickling and taunting her until she's trembling and half-sobbing from the ecstasy. She'd beg me to stop, trying to lift herself, but I'd use my strength against her, flopping her onto the bed and uncoiling a climax from her clit until she's squirting all over herself.

And then I'd sit on her face to have her return the favor to me, and she'd be even more vigorous after my little stunt. I'd be holding back my own moans as my own hips increased their tempo, feeling Bianca's tongue lapping and licking, her body and moaning and writhing –

A finger taps at my temple, startling me. "Ah!"

Bianca harshly shushes me, but she smiles.

"What?"

"Where are you?" she asks.

I blink, realizing I must've been staring off into space to intensely that she thought I'd withdrawn. I stutter, "I – I'm here, being poked in the head."

Bianca giggles, peeling herself from me to recline on her side of the couch. "You had that far-off look in your eyes, I didn't know if I should snap you out of it."

"I appreciate the concern." I scoot myself a little further back, thankful for the low light to hide my flushed cheeks.

"Are you okay?" She asks again, picking the book back up.

I contemplate, actually put some thought into it. And I say, "It won't be easy, but I'll get through it."

"And you and Bela?"

My head snaps to her, my arousal vanishing like mist. "What do you mean?"

She shrugs, no judgement, just genuine curiosity. "You guys seem to have grown close, especially if you got invited to the ball. Which you looked lovely, by the way."

I spare a small smile, especially when there's no venom behind her words. "I'm just her lady-in-waiting."

Bianca scoffs. "No one reacts the way she did for just a lady-in-waiting."

I pause. "How was she?"

Bianca had opened the book once more, but slowly closes it – revealing an expression of that she'd revealed too much. She bites her lip again, but reads something on my face that has her sighing.

I forget how perceptive she is.

Thank the Black God she can't read minds.

"She was near wild, Erika. No one could console her other than her family. No one really to get near her. Some of the women say when they had to pass your old room, the screams she gave were sickening, in a heartbreaking kind of way." When I don't add anything, when I avert my gaze to the pattern on the rug, she adds, "She seems to really care about you, Erika."

Another pause, and I swallow. "I don't know what to do."

She folds her lips in. "I wish I could help." As I give a shallow nod and make to lay back down, she adds, "You may not be able to tell me everything, but whatever you want to tell me, you know I'll listen."

I look to her, and I let her see me – my vulnerability, and I say, "I know."

Never mind the fucked up daydream, of which I need to forget immediately. I never had a single though like that about Gretta, why Bianca?

They're my friends – why would I be thinking this? Unless Bela somehow drugged me into needing sex so badly.

I snort. Somehow – despite everything that's happened, of all the things she's capable of doing – that just sounds ridiculous.

I decide to change the subject. "How do you like the book?"

"Started out slow, but I can now see it was all proper buildup." Bianca obliges. "I can't stand the handmaiden though. Nosy little bitch."

I snort in agreement, glancing over at the shelf in contemplation. I read almost every book in Bela's collection; even adding a few of my own choices to her shelf – of which Bianca now has one. But then the grandfather clock tucked in the corner peals a note of reminder that it's almost five.

"Shit," Bianca says. "I almost forgot about dinner."

I narrow my brows, noting Gretta beginning to stir in the bedroom. "I thought you were excused from dinner tonight."

She shrugs. "I just assumed it was only lunch. Did the Mistress tell you otherwise?"

"Well, Helga did come to deliver her personal orders that you and Gretta are to 'monitor' me. But I understand if you want to leave. I assume Bela will be coming back soon."

Bianca's lips pout in consideration. "Well, we've come this far, and I wouldn't want to go against the Mistress's orders." She smiles. "Besides, without Kathryn there to flay us alive, there's less pressure and worry about missing a day."

"Be careful about that Bianca."

"What do you mean?"

I sigh, "She may have been a pain, but she's still human."

Bianca's face pinches into a combination of pity and surprise. "Out of everyone in the castle, I didn't think you'd ever feel sorry for her."

"She said those things out of fear. It's like you said, she knew her time was ending, and while that's not an excuse for her behavior, it's different if she went there deservingly."

Her expression softens. "You're a fascinating person, Erika."

I huff through my nose. "Thank you?"

"I mean, you're quite morally grey, but you're a good person."

"Thank you . . .?" I repeat.

Bianca waves me off and delves back into the book. We stay like this for another few hours, occasionally breaking the silence with Bianca commenting about the characters, and by four in the evening, Gretta wakes up with her hair disheveled and perfect white line going towards the back of her neck.

She has a brief panic about having fallen asleep for so long, but Bianca relates Lady Dimitrescu's orders, and mentions the lack of Bela's presence. Relief sagged her shoulders, and she plopped down next to me, snatching a piece of bread I'd just dipped in olive oil.

Conversations begin, and she chimes her own opinion on the characters of the book Bianca is reading. It shifts from that to Bianca's latest bug purchase for her collection – Gretta was quick to change the subject on that one; we talk about out latest routines for the castle, the two women losing themselves in a bit of gossip while I snack on some strawberries Bianca had brought along with the lunch tray. When it was Gretta's turn to fetch dinner, Bianca herself closed her eyes for a little bit while I stretched my legs by the window. Louise was kind enough to spare three bowls for us, even sneaking in some extra cookies.

The sky had turned dark, the clock on the mantel chiming six by the time we start feeling sleepy. All the while, Bela never once came to her room.

My heart sinks as I bend forward to touch my toes – trying to release some tension in my calves – but I try to reason with myself that she probably wants to be with her family after today's event. And to that, I can understand. And who am I to question what she does?

My fingers brush my lips, wincing at the stinging pain that still pinches there – the teeth marks given from Lord Moreau's sisters. Sandra – the castle healer – stopped by around two to give me a healing balm for my lips. Though I still can't really stretch my lips, the balm seems to be working wonders already.

Soft footsteps pad across the room, and Gretta asks as she approaches, "What's this?"

Bianca – who is still on the couch, nearly finished with the book – looks up at the same time I do to see Gretta walking over with the music box I'd gotten Bela.

I immediately begin to stride over, "Don't touch that please. It's valuable."

I'm already at Gretta before she can even turn around. She carefully hands it over to me like it were a robin's egg, her peridot eyes widened, brows tented in fear. "I-I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, it's fine. It just cost me some money."

"What is it?" Bianca asks, holding out an inquiring finger for a glance.

I oblige and show it to her, Gretta slowly sinking onto the couch. Both of their eyes widen, Gretta's mouth comedically gaping.

"It's a gift I got for Bela's birthday."

"Does it have a ring in it?" Gretta asks with an impish grin.

I gently smack her upside her head. "No. It's a music box, engraved with a personal song of mine."

Gretta's head snaps up to me. "You wrote this song?"

"No, it's a lullaby I loved as a kid, and I used to sing it to my little sister a lot."

"And Bela kept it?" Gretta asks

"Yeah."

"Wow."

"Why?"

Gretta shrugs. "I just assumed she'd throw it away."

"You mean you were hoping she'd throw it away." Bianca chimes, earning a flick on the temple.

"You dig through their garbage?" I ask with a wrinkled nose.

Gretta sticks her tongue out at the both of us. "You'd be surprised the some of the things these women throw away. One man trash is another man's treasure."

"Who'd you sell it to?"

"Duke."

Bianca and I both look to her. "You, sell stuff to the Duke?"

"I've been selling stuff. You're not the only one who can strike a bargain." Bianca and I snort. "But that's beside the point –"

"Yeah," I interject, "how long have you been digging through their garbage?"

"No!" She snipes. "The point was, how did you convince Bela to keep the gift?"

"I didn't. She loved it."

Bianca places her hand over her heart as she awes in compassion.

"Bela likes music?" Gretta asks.

"Apparently."

"Does this mean you two are steady now?"

I violently shush her, looking towards the bedroom doors. Gretta giggles as she leans into Bianca for protection. "Does anybody else know?!" I seethe in a whisper.

"No," Bianca answers, "only us. And the only reason we know is because we've been trying to keep an eye on you. Everyone else is just trying to survive."

I cringe at the truthful words, but relax.

"Seriously though, answer the question." Gretta playfully demands.

"I . . . I don't know." I plop down between the two of them, laying the music box in my lap. "I don't know what we are. A part of me can't even believe that someone like her would even like someone like me."

"What's not to like?" Bianca giggles.

"But that is going to be complicated." Gretta adds.

"You guys won't tell anyone, will you?"

Gretta gives an exaggerated scoff, a hand on her chest. "I'm insulted you're even asking."

Bianca rubs my knee in verification. After a moment, she asks, "Can we listen to it?"

I look to her, and then to Gretta. I don't have the key, no doubt Bela keeping it on her person, so I improvise with my nail.

As the box opens, I place it on the coffee table and lean back, letting the music walk me down a multitude of memories that I carry and cherish.

Bianca and Gretta relax back into the couch, cozying up as the box tinkers its tune. After the two minutes, I could swear there's this, inner glow the two have – as if their own childhood memories have been awakened at the sound of the song.

"That's so lovely." Bianca smiles.

"Very nice." Gretta adds. "And you know, my birthday is coming up in a few months, and I have had my eye on a few things –"

"Gretta!" Bianca scolds, less effective with her laugh.

"Like," the maiden continues to drawl, "possibly lending me your copy of Treading Water, i.e. the second book in a series that I have been desperately following, that would be appreciated."

"You've read it too?" I ask, excitement bubbling in my chest.

"Have I read it?! Try three times so I can figure out how the hell the author managed to spring up that plot twist for me!"

Bianca and I laugh as I get up and aim for the bedroom where Bela keeps an extra shelf she had brought up when we both started talking about our preferred reads. The two follow me, Bianca having chimed in about a certain dislike for a male character. To which Gretta defended him as if it were her civic duty. Her betrayal at my reasoning with Bianca was award-winning.

Somehow, we all end up sprawling on the bed, discussing the book, as well as some other of the author's work for some time, laughing and arguing, all while smiling.

I remember handing Gretta the book, and the next thing I know, my head – to which I had propped against my hand as I laid on my side – had begun to lull to the side. And what I thought was just shutting my eyes for a few minutes, had pulled me into the Land of Dreams.