Chapter 2
Hannah got to her knees and started scrubbing the floor of the master bedroom, trying to ignore the numbness spreading through her limbs.
After the revelation earlier, which had felt like a solid slap to the face, William ordered her to clean the bedroom while he and Emma made breakfast together in the kitchen. As the two of them left, Emma sent her a smirk over William’s shoulder, as though mocking her current situation.
The master bedroom was a mess, the two of them having clearly gone at it for hours. The sheets were stained, the floor was littered with empty beer bottles, and clothes and other things were strewn everywhere, as though they had left a tornado in their wake.
By the time Hannah finished cleaning, she could barely move. Her skin was still covered in frostbite, and the pain was becoming too much to bear. In the end, she had to lean against the wall and stumble back toward the living room, not wanting William to see her face and end up in a bad mood again.
Unbeknownst to her, William was watching her.
“Darling, where do you think we should go later?” Emma asked as they trudged up the stairs.
William turned back to her and smiled, pretending not to have seen anything. He acted as though he had been giving Emma his full attention this entire time.
Meanwhile, Hannah lay back down on the couch, wincing at the ache spreading throughout her body. Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand against her heart, feeling it beating slower than normal.
‘Yana, are you still there?’ she asked from within her.
There was no answer, but she could still sense Yana’s presence, though it was faint. So faint that it felt as though she were slowly fading away.
Hannah shouldn’t have been surprised, but she cried anyway.
After all, this was exactly what the healer had told her a couple of days ago.
“I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for you,” the healer, a kind old woman named Rose, told her after a thorough examination. “Unfortunately, when one’s mate causes them indescribable pain through betrayal, it eats away at their lifespan. I can only advise you to try to keep the peace between the two of you and avoid angering him too much. Otherwise, your health will continue to decline.”
“How long do I have left?” Hannah asked shakily, her eyes wide and bloodshot as she trembled all over.
Rose looked sympathetic. “If I may give an estimate… you will have, at most, a month left to live, dear.”
And that was it.
It seemed that after that incident three years ago, William’s trust in Hannah had been completely shattered, and he punished her constantly by sleeping with other women, either inside the master bedroom or right in front of her.
The constant betrayal and the pain that came with it had accelerated the decline of Hannah’s health, bringing her to this moment.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she thought bitterly. ‘Maybe if I just hadn’t opened the door for Lucas that day… things would have been different now.’
However, there was no use crying over it now. She had already cried enough for years.
She decided not to tell William about how much time she had left to live.
After all, what would be the point? He would probably just call her a liar and accuse her of faking it to gain his sympathy or trick him into trusting her again.
She would rather spend the last days of her life in as much peace as possible, even in this twisted situation.
As long as she didn’t anger William any further and somehow provoke him into punishing her more, she might be able to attain that slim chance of peace until her inevitable death.
***
Peace did not come for her the next day.
“Peel all of these walnuts immediately and finish them before Emma wakes up. These are her favorite, so don’t mess it up. Otherwise, I’ll have you sleep outside the entire night this time,” William told her coldly as he dragged her out of bed and into the kitchen. “Also, make sure to clean the fish and prepare it for grilling later this afternoon. Emma told me that she’s been craving fish lately.”
Hannah couldn’t do anything but nod, not wanting to cause any trouble.
Her body was still battered and numb from what had happened the previous night, so she struggled to crack the walnut shells. Even though she was using a nutcracker, she barely had any strength left.
However, she didn’t want to anger William, so she persevered until the end, even though one of her nails cracked in the process and her fingers began to bleed from the pressure.
Even as she washed and cleaned the fish, the blood continued to well up before being washed away by the running faucet.
When she was finally done, William only glanced at her bloody fingers in disgust before ordering her to do something else.
“I want you to wash this by hand. The stains won’t come off using only a washing machine, so get to it.”
He threw something at her, and when Hannah barely managed to catch it in her arms, she realized that they were the bedsheets from the master bedroom, covered in very obvious stains.
And once again, Hannah didn’t complain.
After thoroughly washing her hands to stop the bleeding, she proceeded to wash the sheets by hand, trying to ignore the way her body swayed from exhaustion.
‘I just need to finish this, and then I’ll — ah!’
Hannah let out a cry when something inside the folded sheets suddenly pricked her. A sharp burst of pain shot through her hand and up her arm.
Tears sprang automatically to her eyes as she snatched her hand back. Her eyes widened when she saw a white pincushion filled with sharp needles. Several had pierced her skin, causing it to bleed again, and the blood dripped onto the sheets, staining them dark red.
‘I… I can’t…’
She didn’t know if it was the sight of the blood or the shock of being unexpectedly pricked, but Hannah felt the world sway around her once more.
Then her body slumped over as it finally gave in to the darkness.
The last thing she remembered was the cold water seeping through her clothes and into her skin.
***
When Hannah woke up, she realized that she was in a hospital room.
She turned her head in a panic, only to freeze at what she saw next.
William was there, sitting by her bedside. When he saw that she was awake, he took the bowl of steaming soup from the nearby table and scooped up a spoonful. He blew on it gently before testing the temperature with his lips. Then, he nodded.
“Here,” he said softly, offering the spoonful of soup to her. “Eat up. The healer said that you need to eat food that’s easy to digest first.”
Hannah could only stare at him in surprise, disbelief and happiness mixing together.
Was this really happening?
Was William really offering to feed her himself?
This wasn’t some kind of trick?