No Love For The Villain - Chapter 9
“I don’t like it…”
Sierra, who had been perilously tilting, let her forehead fall against Eli’s arm. As his hand brushed through her hair, her vision cleared.
Eli examined Sierra’s dry eyes. His gaze, which seemed to dig into her wounds and interrogate her emotions, stared at the tearless Sierra. The hand pressing down on her wound only aggravated the pain.
‘Just cry, why don’t you?’
His merciless eyes seemed to say exactly that.
“Ugh… hng…”
A pained moan escaped Sierra as a sharp, stinging pain shot through her. Suddenly, the sound of a chair being violently pushed back cut through the air.
Daniel had risen from his seat, his face flushed red. The veins in his neck bulged as he struggled to swallow his rising anger. His trembling eyes were fixed on the exposed white thigh beneath the lifted dress.
As Daniel fled the table, he walked unsteadily, like someone with an impaired gait. One of his pant legs bulged oddly around the thigh.
When Sierra’s eyes followed Daniel’s retreating figure, Eli grabbed her chin.
“Finish eating,” he said.
With her cheek pressed by Eli’s hand, Sierra’s head was turned. Her gaze fell listlessly onto the food.
Trapped in an inescapable grip, Sierra stabbed the remaining meat with her fork.
Eli watched Sierra eat as he plucked grapes from the glass bowl. He watched until the bowl was empty.
His gaze was not that of a parent caring for a child, nor that of an older brother looking after a younger sister. To Sierra, his black eyes still seemed like those of a snake.
She couldn’t understand why this man was feeding her.
Was it like fattening her up before devouring her?
She couldn’t think of any other reason.
He rolled the last remaining grape with his fingertips, then placed it on the lips of Sierra, who had finished her meal. The tip of his thumb pressed down firmly on the grape caught between her lips.
The grape pushed its way past her parted lips, and Sierra, unable to resist, accepted it into her mouth. The round fruit rolled around in her mouth like a candy given to a crying child.
Eli picked up the damp tie that lay scattered on the table, wrapping it around his hand.
“I’ll come again tomorrow, so stay home. Don’t go anywhere.”
He left the command to wait behind as he departed from Sierra’s side.
Death felt more distant.
Sierra was left alone at the large table. Left behind in an extended life.
The sweetness Eli left behind felt like a soothing comfort, yet also like a cruel punishment. While his sweetness remained, her sorrow melted away. The illusion that her long-endured sorrow might disappear was itself a cruelty.
She crushed the grape with her teeth and swallowed it. She picked up the water glass and drank, washing away the lingering taste of the food he had fed her. She shook off the affection-starved part of her heart that threatened to devour his care before it could take root.
Yet, the aching sweetness did not fade easily.
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