Fangs of a Butterfly

CHAPTER 17.5

The scare that day brought me into another uneasy sleep—and a similar dream lined with red butterflies.

There was the sound of sobbing.

The girl with a mole looked up, around twelve or so, and cried as a woman—Lorelei, tilted her chin up.

"Listen. If you want to be queen butterfly you learn from me."

"I don't want to—"

"Shut up! You think telling your mother will change anything? She'll tell you to watch. So watch." She let go of her face and the girl buried her face in her small hands.

"I don't want to watch!" It was mumbled with the sound of her crying.

"Now go to the corner, child. You'll have to look pretty when he comes." Lorelei softened her tone before standing up. "You'll learn anyway, sooner than you think."

There was a swirl, a dress I didn't recognize, much older, like Agnes or the elders', covering her body in black lace and criss-crossing corsets. By the time Lorelei was finished, so was the girl.

"You look nice in your new dress," Lorelei said. "Is it your coming-of-age dress?" She snickered, but the girl remained stone-faced.

Lorelei sensed her unhappiness and played around with a set of teacups already set up on the table. She was turned to the window and it's boring gray skies until there was a knock.

The girl went and opened it, and the man who came in was shy, and hesitated before stepping in. Then his eyes roamed over Lorelei greedily, and she, unlike what we were taught, only gave him a distasteful look.

Queen butterflies were supposed to smile.

But more lured in by the look that said she wasn't interested, the man stepped in. He was plain, brown haired with a goatee, but a nice frame and courage, I suppose.

He sat before Lorelei as the girl poured them drinks. Lorelei looked at him as the man sipped carefully.

"Come on, take off your jacket. Are you not too warm?" was the first thing Lorelei said. It threw the man in surprise.

He immediately smiled, glad she worried, but then replied cheekily, "Oh, no thank you. I've heard of the fate of men who come to your chamber."

"Oh, and so you came? Why, I'm pleased."

Lorelei held out a beautiful hand, so beautiful it looked almost like a sculpture, lean with nails long but groomed. The man picked it up and held it to his goatee.

"I'm glad. I've heard you were hard to please." He laughed. "Lorelei, one who has a voice like a mermaid and a viciousness like a siren."

"Lorelei isn't my real name anyways."

"Then what is?"

"I believe it polite to introduce yourself before asking for a lady's name." Lorelei pulled back her hand alluringly.

He laughed. "I'm Hanson, I came to Jardin just to see you."

"What a flirt." Now there was a sly smirk on her face. "If you're desperate, I suppose I can tell you my name for a trade."

"You'll kill me, won't you?"

"No, I only drink blood I like." She stood up and then sat on his lap. He looked up, lured in. She reached for his face, then only one finger on his cheekbone. She traced it down to his neck, inside of his collar, which was when he grabbed her hand.

"I'm only testing it," she said in his ear. He pulled back.

"No, Lorelei, your name is not worth my life."

"Then why are you so aroused?" She held his head to her neck, and that's when I realized she was sitting on him. The girl watching seemed out of it, looking on in fear and disgust of the two.

"It's a man's struggle." He clutched her hand stronger, nails digging into her. "Lorelei, let me kiss you. Just once."

"No." She had on an apathetic face, and was ready to draw away when his other arm looped around her waist. "Let go of me."

"Just one kiss."

She stopped, and then the images began to grow and warp. The girl was stepping back as she watched.

He planted a messy, childish kiss on Lorelei's lips, then as though overtaken by lust, he pulled her neckline down and kissed her collarbone and cleavage and more.

She sighed and straddled him as he pulled her skirts up.

No. No. No.

I saw the girl hold a hand over her mouth and I was the girl, I felt it and wanted to run away.

Lorelei was still breathing heavily, erotically, when she looked back at the girl and smiled. That smile might've been meant to comfort her, to tell her she was in charge, but it was also sad. Then in one moment, she was pushed down and he was the one using her.

No.

Her black hair merged with my dark ones. Her straight tresses suddenly my soft waves, that man's face and body merging with the with many I've met, and those eyes and that smile was all too familiar.

Leave! Push him away!

Don't do this.

Not to him, not to you.

Leave—

Then he fell. Almost as though she were mourning him, Lorelei threw herself over him as she heaved suddenly.

The blood spilled on the floor quickly from just that cut into the neck, and when it reached the chairs and tables I realized how many times the blood of different people had stained it.

"He's dead." Lorelei seemed to want to cry and laugh. She tossed back her head. "Did you see? Did you watch all of that?"

"I saw." The girl stepped forward and looked down at the duo with empty eyes. She looked at the man, whose face was still in pleasure, because it had been so unexpected and he hadn't truly comprehended the bite. It was pathetic and yet tragic.

"Do you see how happy I was to be queen butterfly?" Lorelei said, and then this time she was the one close to sobbing. "He was just a simple man. Foolish, but what did he do to deserve this?"

The girl bent down, but calmly, she knelt down into the blood, staining her brown skirt. She grabbed a jar from table and held it to the neck, and the blood that came out dripped slowly into the glass.

Lorelei stood up and then all I saw was the two cleaning up after themselves. Lorelei wetting her body in a basin of water, and the young girl cleaning after the blood that outlined the man who was simply in the wrong place in at the wrong time.