The following day, I found time to inform Gerta of our plan in the chapel where I was sure nobody would be listening in on us.

Gerta was very happy to be able to help me, and she agreed to the plan wholeheartedly. “I can’t believe it! You might really be able to do this!”

I nodded cheerfully. “I’m so excited! But I’m also worried that it could all easily go wrong.”

“It has to go right! We have to have faith!” Gerta exclaimed.

After a moment she reminded me, “don’t forget to tell Paris about my eggs.”

Inwardly, I didn’t want to tell him just yet. I didn’t want to make him stressed out or mistrustful of me in any way before I brought up the idea of the ball, but I had to do this for Gerta’s children.

__

Paris had a lot of free time that day, and he spent it almost entirely on spoiling me. After I spoke with Gerta, he found me having a lesson with the physician about more salves, and he embraced me from behind and nearly scared me to death. My scream turned into a squeal of delight when I realized it was just him.

“You scared me to death!” I told him with a giggle.

“Come here!” He said to me boldly and pulled me close while repeatedly kissing my face.

Lara couldn’t hide her disgust at a human kissing a moth, and I pushed him away gently after a moment. “Just what are you doing here! Don’t you have a kingdom to run?”

Paris shook his head. “I have a wife to please, instead! Which is a much more pleasurable activity!”

Lara smiled a little and told me, “we can continue later, My Lady. You go have fun.”

And we did have fun. We had lunch in the garden, and afterwards, I lay on my back and looked up at the sky. Paris, who had deep circles under his eyes lately, rested his head on my chest and accidentally fell asleep.

“That cloud looks like a kitten, don’t you think?” I asked Paris while pointing. But his snores filled my ears and I chuckled and decided it would be kind to him not to move. Frankly, I was exhausted as well, and I fell asleep for a few minutes, too.

He was so happy and confident that day! I thought he had come to terms with himself; I thought he had finally found a love for himself, but it turned out not to be the case.

__

“Paris!” I said while we were getting ready for bed later and he eagerly undid the corset under my clothes. “I have an idea! You were so happy in my company today that I came up with something to make you all the happier!”

He didn’t hear me. “Why do women have to wear so many damned things under their clothes?”

I snorted a little with a smile. “To make you wait, of course! Now, about this idea…”

He looked up as he got to the last lace on my corset and asked, “what about an idea?”

“Focus, Paris, focus.” I teasingly pushed him away. “I said, you were so happy today, I want to have a day like this for everyone! Including you! You won’t have to worry a thing about it, of course, because I’ll be the one doing all the work! I can do it under whatever budget you want, too! But I was thinking it’d be wonderful to invite everyone, peasants and nobles alike, to a ball!”

“A ball?” Paris replied, making a face. “Why would I want dirty peasants in my castle?”

I frowned and wished he didn’t have such a closed mind when it came to slaves and peasants. “Well, they work very hard, and it could only make relations between the nobility and peasants all-the-better!”

Paris looked at me a little suspiciously, and then he asked, “and what of the slaves of nobility and peasants? What will they do for the night?”

“That’s another nice thing! The slaves can have the day off! There are guards to watch them to make sure they can’t escape, so they can just stay at their human’s house and relax for the night!” I replied jovially.

Paris looked very reticent and paranoid at the suggestion, but he was so in love with me, that he said, “would it make you very happy to be able to organize this?”

I nodded vigorously. “Of course!”

He had that familiar lovesick gaze whenever he made me happy--eyes that were glazed over and driven mad by love. “Then of course you may.”

I lovingly put a hand on his cheek and said quietly and sincerely, “thank you.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into my palm before kissing it. His hands found the last lace on my corset again, but I realized I had to bring up Gerta’s eggs. I stopped his hands and he looked very frustrated which made me laugh.

“Paris, there’s something else, too. Please be understanding.” I began slowly again.

“What is it?” He asked, making himself step away from me.

“It’s my sister. She’s pregnant—she’s to have an egg soon. But… But if she does, she says your advisors will kill her eggs before they hatch. Can you please let her keep them? For me?” I begged him as sweetly as I could.

Paris’ mouth moved, but it made no sound. He had a dark look on his face as he turned away from me. “Why the hell would you tell me this now?”

I had to distract him to get him to agree with it. I linked my arms around him and kissed his shoulder. “She’s my sister. It would destroy her if you killed her babies.”

He looked at me sternly. “I can’t bend the rules. Not even for your sister. We can’t give any more food to slaves, we need it for ourselves. The reason why I gave the foreign king so many slaves is because we were already over the limit of the preferred amount. If I make an exception for your sister, I’ll have to do it for every moth and then we’ll be overrun with them and they’ll be eating all our food.”

I began to panic, but I took a deep breath and tried to stay confident. I held my head high and narrowed my eyes as I drew him back into a suffocating embrace again and kissed his chest. “Just this once… Can’t you do it for me?”

His expression was tense, and his eyes giving away his intense passion for me. But there was a sudden change in his demeanor. His eyes turned black and he shoved me away as hard as he could.

“You’re trying to fool me again, aren’t you? I know you’re no good for me—I know you have secret goals that don’t align with mine, and yet I let you string me along because you’ve gotten under my skin!” Paris yelled and I backed away from him with frayed nerves in terror.

“T-tell me what I’ve done that’s traitorous.” I asked him as he came closer to me. “Calm down, Paris.”

“What were you doing the other day with Terry and Paul? You left the city. The soldiers who guard the west entrance to the city confirmed they were knocked out by a moth who then ran out of the city with Terry. Care to explain, my dear? If you have nothing to hide, why haven’t you told me what happened?”

Once again, I was in the familiar situation of being backed up against a wall by someone I loved. “It was a wild mothman who knocked out those guards and tried to take Terry away! I... I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to worry! You have so much on your mind and it was only one of them. Paul made short work of the moth!”

But his black eyes did not go away as they lingered like they always did on the sapphire hanging from my neck. “I want you to love me as much as the man who gave you that sapphire. You expect me to believe that a poor peasant boy gave you that? Tell me who gave it to you!”

He slapped me across the face and it stung horribly. I turned away from him in fear. “This isn’t you… Why can’t I help you like I can Terry?”

“Ah, but don’t you understand?” Paris whispered in my ear menacingly. “This is Paris. This is what is left of a man who has tried to kill himself on several occasions. This is what is buried deep down in his soul. Self-hatred and isolation has simmered for far too long. You’ll never understand what makes a man like this who he is. You can’t help him.”

“You tried to kill yourself…?” I faced him and wiped my eyes. I frowned intensely and narrowed my eyes. “Get out of his head! Hasn’t he suffered enough!

I pushed him back and I saw his eyes flicker back to their normal blue color. He looked incredibly confused. “What happened?”

I stared at him in fear and was very tempted to run away from him. But I felt so sorry for him. How sick he must be, to have tried to kill himself. I couldn’t leave him alone when I loved him so much and I knew he could hurt himself. Instead, I begged of him. “Please don’t hurt me!” I cried in fear as he stepped toward me.

“What are you talking about? I was… I was frustrated about your sister’s eggs but I’d never hurt you…" He stepped ever closer and I grabbed his wrists with tears in my eyes and for the first time noticed faded scars on them. He was always wearing gloves—and the lights were always dimmed whenever he disrobed.

I kissed his wrist and murmured tearfully, “how dare you cut the wrists of the man I love…”

“Calm down…” Paris tried to console me while reaching out to me. “Look, if it’s about your sister, I’ll see what I can do to help her. I can make no promises, but I’ll do my utmost…”

I shook my head hysterically and crumbled under pressure. I made for the door of our bedroom feeling overwhelmed by everything and just wanting to return to a time before I had to live among humans--to a time when things were good and sweet and innocent and I didn’t have to worry about a man I was so obsessively in love with killing himself.

Paris seized my arm however with tears in his eyes before I could. “Please don’t leave me. I must have hurt you… You’re scared to death… Please, I promise I’ll never touch you again, just don’t leave me alone.”

“You’re so sick!” I cried as he fell to his knees and begged my forgiveness with tears stinging his own icy blue eyes.

“You don’t care about anyone but me! Least of all yourself!”

He made no sound or noise to disagree with that statement. He made me feel loved in that sick and intense way only he knew how. That obsessive, overly passionate, addicting and suffocating love that was the sweetest thing in the world for two people who felt very lonely and unloved much of the time.

I will write again later.