Hellbound With You

This chapter is dedicated to @offthemenu! Thank you so much for the supergift!

Zeres looked at her in disbelief, obviously never expecting this petite, gentle and caring creature to say something so vindictive like that, that he had ended up standing stock still, staring unbelievably at her, completely shocked.

She propped herself up once again and when Zeres attempted to stop her, Iryz quickly protested. "No, please let me sit. I need to get up. I'm tired of just lying down the whole time."

"But –" Zeres was worried that if she sat up, she might pull on her wounds and reopen some of them.

"I don't feel any pain." She reassured him but the way his face was looking seemed as though he was having a hard time believing her. "It's true. I don't know why, but maybe the doctors gave me a lot of pain killers for me not to feel the pain?" she said and shrugged her shoulders lightly.

"Are you… telling me the truth?" Zeres was quite sceptical at her claims. The girl was only recently out of the emergency room not too long ago.

Iryz did not respond and just meet his gaze seriously, making him understand that she was not lying.

He seemed to get it and somewhat reluctantly let go of her shoulders.

The next thing he did was to grab his phone and dialled a number. Iryz cocked her head as she wondered who he was calling at this point.

"She said she's not feeling any pain right now. Is that normal?" Zeres asked over the phone as Iryz surveyed herself. Her ears were focused on Zeres' call though. Was he speaking to a doctor? He even had a doctor on call?! How resourceful was this guy?! She really had to hand it to him.

After a long while of listening to the person on the other side of the line talking, she heard him sigh out before saying, "I see. I understand. That must be it." before ending the call.

"What did the doctor say? I am assuming it was a doctor you were talking to? Did they give me painkillers?" Iryz questioned him. She was trying her best not to pity herself after seeing all her awful wounds that will definitely leave scars. She was also trying her hardest not to think about how she looked like right now, knowing that that monster did not spare her face when he had whipped her. This realization made her not to look at him anymore and just let her hair fall to the sides of her face. She did not want him to keep seeing how horrible she must look right now.

"No. The doctor said it must be the spell on you."

"Hmm… I see. Wait… what?!" she whipped her head towards him, momentarily forgetting about her face. But she held onto her long hair and covered her lower face with it.

Her action made Zeres' brows crease a little, but he did not comment anything about it.

"There's a powerful spell that was casted on you by a powerful witch. I believe it must be Calliste or Diana's magic. The magic has protected you and now it's even helping to cure your wounds much faster than a normal human's would." He explained and despite Iryz being already quite familiar with witches' abilities, she still felt so amazed and surprised. She could hardly believe it. She had a protective spell on her?!

"R-really? Oh my, that's… crazy amazing!" she could not even stop herself from exclaiming these words. "Will it also help make the scars disappear –"

She suddenly stopped and she looked away from him, a bit ashamed at the last part that she had inadvertently blurted out.

"I'm not certain, but I have asked Lilith for a special ointment that will surely keep the wounds from scarring."

"Li… Lilith?"

"She's the current queen of the witches." Zeres answered and Iryz's eyes widened again.

"Is she… going to come here?!"

"Do you want to see her? I can ask her to come over." Zeres said simply.

"Oh no. It's fine." She smiled at him, shaking her head. "She doesn't need to come here at all."

Silence took over after that for a while until the two of them asked each other simultaneously.

"Where are we now?"

"Are you hungry yet?"

Iryz grinned behind her hair. "Okay, you answer me first."

"My place." he answered her question. Iryz nodded, looking around.

"I see… okay, my turn. Yes, I think I'm hungry. Do you have… umh… instant noodles?"

Zeres blinked. Then suddenly he brought his phone out and made another call. Thinking that he would probably ask his men to go buy some, she did not bother to stop him anymore.

"Is it okay for her to eat instant noodles?" he asked and Iryz whipped over to look at him. What? Was he asking the doctor again? What time was it now?

He moved the phone away without ending the call.

"Sorry, the doctor said it's not advisable for a patient to consume junk foods. Do you have other kind of food that you fancy right now?" he told her and Iryz could only look at him, speechless.

Returning the phone to his ear again, Zeres spoke. "What are the foods that are good for her?... Okay, I understand."

Right after that call ended, Zeres made another call to someone else before he finally shoved his phone back into his pocket. Somehow, Iryz could not help but feel amazed at how different this man seemed to be right now compared to how he was before. And she could not deny that she preferred how he was behaving now. It made him seem more approachable and more… normal. She continued staring at this new and improved version of her silver angel, still in disbelief that he was behaving so much warmer to her.

"Give me a moment. I will bring in the food as soon as possible." He said and before Iryz could respond, he had already turned around and left the room. She could only blink at how fast he was.