Something sour

Meryl woke up with a severe headache, her eyes blood shut red, her face drowsy and her nose runny from all the tears she shared last night. She was not able to sleep a wink with all the thought going haywire in her little head. She was still coming to terms with everything and no matter how hard she tried to refute everything the vampire prince revealed to her, the harder she cried because she had somehow felt it coming- not her parents not being her parents, but Brandon.

Now when she thinks back on her life, everything started to fall into place. Brandon's distance and rough treatment towards her, all made sense now. What didn't make any sense to her though was the fact that he couldn't outright come clean to her that he had fallen out of love for her.

For the life of her, she still could not wrap her head around all the hate he and Hannah portrayed in front of her only to go down on each when they were alone?

She looked a messier than she had ever looked since she could remember. Her appearance in the mirror reflected exactly what was going on deep inside her. The image she saw in the mirror looked like a shadow of her previous self.

She tied her messy hair into a low bun and tried to straight her wrinkled face up with her palm.

Through all the tears and hard thinking she did the whole night, she came to a decision about everything. She was going to dance to the tune of whatever song was being played for her by these people until she figured things out.

So she got out of the dirty clothes from last night and took what will go down in host as her longest shower ever.

When she stepped out of the shower in her robe, Isla was in the room, setting the table with the help of another servant. She never understood why she bothered to serve her all those food even though she never touched any of it.

"My lady," she bowed when she passed by them to the closet. God, she hated those corset, she thought as she slumped the wardrobe shut shuttling the other two ladies before addressing Isla.

"Can I get different clothes, those things in the wardrobe don't work for me," she said flatly not pretending to be friendly. That was the last thing on her mind, making friends.

The other woman though, didn't seem to care much about how she behaved.

"Those are some of our finest gowns in the capital. It works for everybody,"she told her- Meryl didn't miss the note of disapproval the maid's words. She had already suspected the quality of the dresses the first time she saw them. One thing she also suspected was the other woman's hostility towards her since day one, even though faint but Meryl recognized it.

She didn't care to know what her problem was though since people hating on her wasn't the worse thing that could happen to her.

"I will ask for Rangard to get you what works for you. For the mean time, please enjoy your meal, she paused and looked at her before adding,"His highness's request" and made her way to the door, the other maid following in tow.

She didn't take her eyes of them until they closed the door behind them.

'His highness's request?' That vampire prince was getting on the last nerve of her self tolerance. She grimaced and walked to the side of the bed where her phone was and took her phone- which was now useless to her since it had no signal or network or anything. She checked the time and it was a quarter past six in the morning.

Who the hell eats breakfast so early in the morning?

Her mother did, she thought a small bitter smile tagging at her lips- she never thought she was ever going to miss her parents once she was away from them but she did, no matter how much she hated it. She missed them so much and all she wanted was to talk to them, to ask them all these questions weighing on her mind. She needed them to assure her she has not been living a lie the past twenty three years of her life.

It was not until she sat and ate the toasted bread and beat eggs and drunk the tea that came with it that she realized how hungry she was. It tasted good and surprisingly like any other normal breakfast she'd eaten, if not better.

She was expecting something sour- something that tasted like the way this place made her feel. Something that made her feel scared but also..... strangely safe....

Later in the morning when Isla came to clear the table of the left over food, she was dressed in one of the less sophisticated corsets and gowns in the wardrobe.

And she sat comfortably by the window overlooking the thick woods that surrounded the castle. She was fascinated by how wide it was. There were no houses near the castle, it was isolated and looked different from the other building she saw the first day

"Your foot took a beating from that slip yesterday. You might want to give it a rest before you start jumping and running around again," she remarked, noticing how she was so fixated on something outside the room or even beyond the castle. "The syrup did its magic just as I thought."

But she need not worry because running was close to the last thing on Meryl's mind at the moment. So she didn't address the other woman's broodiness.

She became alerted when all her words sunk in. Her foot, she didn't feel the pain and soreness she felt yesterday. Her eyes quickly flew to her feet- she looked at her foot, confusion flickering in her eyes. She had totally forgotten about the twist.

She had no traces of the nasty fracture on her foot.

"The syrup I gave you works like magic," she repeated what she said.

Meryl shook her head- no that was not it, that was impossible. She saw how it looked yesternight, she was sure it would take at least a week before she could start walking normally again, and a bruise like that was sure to leave a scar after everything is done healing but now,.. now there was nothing there, it was as if nothing happened to her foot at all.

"I…I just took a sip." It tasted thick like metal in her mouth so she ditched it after the first sip, which she barely swallowed.

Isla nodded before replying , "Yes a sip is all you needed," a satisfied look on her face.

Meryl was still so confused, she was lost for words. Wait, she run from the window to the mirror as if remembering something- her face, the dark lines and the slap marks were also gone.

"How's this possible?" she mumbled her question.

She was so consumed with her confusion and wonder she didn't notice Isla leave the room.