The ladies didn't stay long but stepped back inside the mansion leaving the butler and the dead maid who was yet to be moved. Falcon crunched his eyebrows together at a doubt that rose in his mind. Didn't master Damien go out to the council early in the morning in the carriage? How did he arrive without it? Had his master taken a long walk? 

The maid who had been killed had her body sprawled on the ground. Lifeless with blood that had come to settle around her face, drenching the side of her face which touched the ground. 

Back inside in the mansion, in the quiet room which belonged to Damien, Penny stood with her hands that wrapped around her body. She looked at him as he walked to the bathroom. Pulling up the plug of cold water before plugging it back where he turned the faucet of the tap to allow the hot water to start filling up the bathtub. 

Feeling Penny's gaze on him, Damien placed his hand on the edge of the tub before whipping his head to look at her. She looked shocked and pale. The color of her cheeks lost with the water she fell into and the cold that had enveloped her before they reached the mansion. 

Pus.h.i.+ng himself up, he faced her properly, "Are you scared?" he asked her. 

Penny was not sure of what fear he was asking for. Was it because her life was put into danger where someone wanted to kill her off by calling it an accident? Or was it that he had killed a maid in the blink of an eye? 

"I was serious when I said it. You are mine right now and my responsibility. If there is something I don't like is when someone tries to damage something which is mine. Don't be afraid of me," Penny felt her heart sink and this time it wasn't the bad kind of heart sinking. It was as if the last few words he had uttered had tugged her heart. The way he told, brought down s.h.i.+vers down her spine. 

Was she afraid of him though? Penny wasn't sure about it. He had killed the girl for her sake...

"I survived," said Penny at the thought of the dead person at the front of the mansion. 

"You could have died if I didn't come on time," he contradicted. 

"People can be reprimanded and changed."

"If you can do a mistake once, there's a possibility that you will do it again. A mistake should be rectified right away else it turns to a malicious act. Better to prevent than wait. Did you want to let her live?" he asked her, his eyes turning narrow at her. The water continued to flow before Damien leaned back to turn off the faucet which led to the room to go back to being silent again. 

"Killing her like that-"

Damien interrupted her, "You didn't answer my question. Did you want the person to live after she tried to kill? Do you want me to remind you of how it feels to drown down there? No air to breathe as you struggle to flap your hands. The panic of no one to help as you try to hold on to your life to only have it slip through right in front of your consciousness..."

She didn't forget that feeling. Looking at the water itself brought back the fresh memory of what took less than forty minutes ago. 

He walked to where she was, his footsteps padding across the floor with his muddy shoes as he had stepped into the water to get back out where the mud had been slippery. 

Penny looked at him walking towards her and she held her breath, "Penelope, you need to understand that vampires feel emotions double or triple than what humans feel. As cold as we come off to be, where things matter, we lose our mind and patience. The bond I have placed on you allows me to feel what you feel. Every pa.s.sing emotion."

Penny didn't go to argue with him. In his place he was right and in her place, she wasn't sure what was right. Men or women were often sentenced to trails but it seemed that in the vampire world there was direct judgment. 

"I haven't seen anyone being killed like that..." she spoke the truth to him. It wasn't an instant death but one out of torture which wasn't restricted only to the person who was going through but also to people who were witnessing it. Penny was aware that if it weren't for Damien she would have been stuck to the bottom of the sea and she was grateful to him. Right now no matter what the situation, she owed her life to him. 

"You will get used to it like many others."

"I do not belong in this world, Master Damien. I am someone who is not supposed to be here."

"Where else do you want to be if not here?"

"..." Damien didn't bat away his eyes from her. 

"You might not agree right now but you know it well that this is the only place one day you will feel like you belong," he pulled the towel which was wrapped around her shoulders, "Take off your clothes and get into the tub," his words didn't leave a room for argument. While Damien gave her the bathroom by moving away from it, Penny who was wrapped in her own thoughts didn't realize what was waiting ahead of her. 

Taking off her wet clothes before pulling the white curtain of the bathroom which had no door, she stepped into the warm water that soothed and her cold skin. Though she had taken a seat in the bathtub, she hadn't moved an inch as she stared at the water she was surrounded in. Damien then stepped into the bathroom where he had pulled away from the wet s.h.i.+rt he had been wearing.