For Better, For Worse: The Serpent's Contract Wife

We locked gazes, and a chill seized up my spine. Clara didn’t look away from me as life drained from her eyes and she went utterly still.

"Oh god..." Catherine murmured, turning away.

I covered my mouth with my hand, and a strong wave of nausea gripped me so tightly that I rushed to a corner to hurl.

I was interrupted when I heard the door get kicked down and Zade stormed in with a few men.

I recognized some of them, who belonged to Catherine.

Zade’s eyes were fierce as he took in the scene, and when he settled them on me, I saw relief wash over his features.

He came toward me in a heartbeat and crouched, brushing my hair away from my face.

He used his thumb to wipe the vomit from the corner of my lips, eyes tracing my face intensely as though making note of the bruises on my face.

"I’m fine..." I said before he had the chance to ask the obvious question.

"No, you’re not."

His voice edged with anger. Without another word, he shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders, helping me up on my feet.

I was wobbling, but with his support I didn’t fall. He wouldn’t let me.

"You good?" he asked Luca.

"I’ll live," Luca replied, using a piece of cloth to wipe the blood off of his face.

"Any survivors?"

"Nope."

"Good."

I saw Catherine coming close, and I quickly pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you," I said.

If it weren’t for her intervention, I didn’t know what could have happened.

She held me tightly before she pulled back so that she could see me. "You’re welcome."

"It’s unfortunate you had to go through this trouble, Mrs. King," Zade said. "You have nothing to worry about, I’ll take care of everything."

"It’s no biggie, though. Troubles are everywhere. I’m just grateful I needed the restroom that badly." She cast a glance at Clara’s body before looking back at me, her expression gentle. "None of this is on you."

I wish I could believe her words.

~☆~

The Gala ended before it even had the chance to conclude. The place was evacuated due to a technical failure that could be life-threatening.

At least that was what was announced; no one knew what happened.

Zade was in the middle of handling everything. On the other hand, I wanted to be alone, no thanks to the men guarding every entrance.

I wondered what would happen now and how exactly Zade intended to handle this.

The sharp click of heels drew my attention to Catherine.

"I thought you left," I said, surprised to see her.

She smiled. "Still here."

She sat down on the chair and crossed her legs, dropping a bottle of champagne on the table.

"Care for a drink?"

"I-I don’t think now’s a good time for that."

She shrugged. "Why not? Trust me, you need this as much as I do. Though I must warn you, my alcohol levels are off the charts. So just a sip would do."

She shivered as though recalling something, a flash of disgust covering her face briefly.

Something told me I shouldn’t ask what that was about.

"What about Esme?" I asked instead.

"She’s with Scott."

I nodded, observing as she peeled the foil from the bottle, loosened the wire cage, and with one hand on the cork, eased it free.

"How can you be so calm about this?" I questioned.

I was still shaken, and I was shivering beneath Zade’s jacket around me. Somehow, my nerves were still jerky, and I couldn’t take the image of Clara’s lifeless eyes off my mind.

"Experience..." she replied as the cork slipped out with a soft hiss followed by a gentle pop.

"As a Don’s wife?"

I shouldn’t have said that.

"I-I mean...!"

She spared me a look. "I suppose there’s no point explaining myself, then. I guess you already knew who I was before we met."

"N-No I didn’t. Really."

"But your husband did." She drank a little from the bottle.

I half expected her to reach for the glass, but I guess not.

Sighing, she shifted the bottle toward my direction. "That’s about enough for me for one night. Any more and the feisty side of me is gonna come out."

I smiled faintly as I took the bottle and drank.

"I’m sorry you had to go through that," she said softly.

"You don’t have to be sorry," I murmured. "I pulled you into my mess."

Luca too.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

I shook my head, but I found myself speaking instead.

"Clara and I were once friends," I began. "We have had a fall out over the last two years. At first it was all our petty rivalries, and tossing insults at each other, but it grew deeper than that."

"How so?"

I flicked my eyes to Catherine. "She got engaged to a man who used her to get to me. She waltzed her way into my head too, and I let her. There was so much pain, and I just wanted it to stop, so she took advantage of that."

"Then why was she so eager to kill you? The point of taking advantage was to use you, right?" Catherine uttered in worry.

I lingered for a while before I replied. "Because I bit her back in the ass, I guess." I drank from the bottle, my cheeks puffing a bit before I swallowed down.

"I see."

"She told me something."

"What?"

"I don’t know if it’s the truth or a lie."

Catherine blinked, and although she didn’t understand the full picture of everything, she placed her hand on mine and took hold of it tightly.

I grew teary-eyed, and sobbed.

"It’s okay."

I shook my head, my throat tightening as my voice cracked beneath the weight of everything. "N-No, it’s not."

"Anastasia..." Catherine murmured.

"Does it ever end? Just when you convince yourself that you could be happy, something just comes along to rip the wounds wide open."