Bella clenched her jaw, pushing herself to her feet. Her legs felt unsteady as she moved toward the door, stepping out into the hallway.

The manor was quiet, still waking up. She moved through the corridor, her bare feet making soft sounds against the stone floor.

Then she reached the hall room and froze.

Her eyes widened.

The young nobleman was lying on top of a woman—red-haired, half-scarred, pinned beneath him on a broken sofa. His body was pressed against hers, his face close enough that their breaths mingled.

Bella's stomach twisted.

She'd seen this before. Too many times.

In the noble families she'd served as a slave, she'd witnessed scenes like this. Masters taking servants, mates, slaves—treating them like objects, like things to be used and discarded.

The women's faces always looked the same: defeated, hollow, resigned.

Her jaw clenched, her hands curling into fists.

'So he's just like the others.'

The belief that had started to sprout yesterday—that maybe, just maybe, this nobleman was different—it flickered and flinched, threatening to die.

But then she looked closer.

He was sleeping.

His breathing was slow and even, his face relaxed. And his back... the bandages were visible beneath his shirt, stained with blood. Fresh wounds. The same ones she had inflicted on him.

The woman beneath him—Kaida, she remembered—didn't look defeated. She looked annoyed, flustered, her face red with embarrassment rather than fear or those women.

Bella's hands unclenched slightly.

'That isn't...'

She turned away, her mind a mess of conflicting thoughts. She couldn't process this right now.

Instead, she moved toward the garden area, following the faint sound of something mechanical—a rhythmic creaking and clicking.

The sound grew louder as she approached, and when she stepped through the doorway, she saw 'her'.

The one Bella still thought of as Helena.

Mira was sitting at a crude loom, her hands moving quickly as she worked the threads.

'!'

But what caught Bella's attention was the expression on her face—a wide, perverted grin that made her look like she was plotting something wickedly delightful.

Her tongue was practically hanging out as she held up a piece of fabric, examining it with the kind of obsessive focus that made Bella's eye twitch.

That grin. That 'expression'.

It was the look of someone imagining something absolutely filthy.

Bella's eye twitched harder.

'What's with that expression?'

She took a step forward, clearing her throat. "E-Excuse me."

Mira flinched violently, her hands jerking as she spun around.

Her eyes went wide with visible shock, and in one swift motion, she yanked the fabric she'd been working on and 'shoved it behind her back', hiding it from view with the desperation of someone caught doing something unspeakable.

"H-Hello! What's the matter?" Mira's voice was too high, too flustered, her face turning bright red as she tried to compose herself.

She was sweating now, her breathing quick and shallow, her eyes darting around like a cornered animal.

Bella blinked.

Mira was... hiding something?

Her movements were frantic, her eyes darting between Bella and the cloth she'd concealed. She looked genuinely panicked, like she'd been caught red-handed doing something mortifying.

Bella's chest tightened.

'She's afraid of me.'

Of course she was. Bella had tried to kill her yesterday. She'd attacked her, hurled at her, nearly succeeded in ending her life.

And now here she was, standing in front of the woman who had every right to hate her, to fear her.

Guilt twisted in Bella's gut as she thought about her orders and the sudden jolt the nobleman's word had sent through her, knowing he was important for her to discover the location of her sister.

Especially how they did not kill or punish her and even gave her a room to sleep; becoming guilty was normal.

She looked down, unable to meet Mira's gaze. Her hands clasped together in front of her, her shoulders hunching slightly as shame washed over her.

"I wanted to know where to take a bath," Bella said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

She kept her eyes on the ground, not daring to look up. She didn't want to see the fear in Mira's eyes. Didn't want to be reminded of what she'd done.

'I need to kill her but...' she recalled her orders; somehow, it was just for her to kill Helena, not when and how—so she was not bound to urgently kill her. Still, she tried just to leave this place and fulfill her master's orders.

However, now, standing here, she somehow felt overwhelmed by her usual dream, the nobleman's revelation, and this woman's fear of her.

What Bella didn't know—what she 'couldn't' know—was that Mira wasn't afraid at all.

Mira was clutching the fabric behind her back with white-knuckled desperation, her face flushed not with fear, but with 'embarrassment'.

Because the "clothes" she'd been making weren't normal clothes.

They were made for sex. Intimate garments designed with one purpose in mind: to drive Viktor absolutely insane.

The fabric had strategic openings—holes precisely positioned where her nipples would press through, a cutout that left her pussy completely exposed while the rest of the fabric hugged her hips and ass.

They were designed to cover just enough to be technically "clothing" while leaving the most sensitive, intimate parts bare and accessible.

The kind of thing that would make a man lose his damn mind.

Portable way to cover dignity while enjoying their time anywhere at any time without removing whole clothes.

Perverted didn't even begin to cover it.

And she'd been caught red-handed by the assassin slave who'd tried to kill her yesterday, grinning like an absolute deviant while making them.

The worst part?

She'd been holding them up to the light, imagining Viktor's reaction, practically drooling over the thought of his hands on her body, his eyes darkening with hunger as he realized what she was—or wasn't—wearing underneath.

'Oh gods, what if she considers me as degenerate...'

Mira's mind raced, her face burning hotter. What would she even say? She'd die. She'd actually die of embarrassment.

But Bella just stood there, head down, looking like a guilty child waiting for punishment.

The girl's shoulders were hunched, her hands clasped in front of her, her entire posture screaming self-loathing and shame.

The contrast was almost funny.

Almost.

"The... the bath," Mira stammered, trying to regain her composure while still keeping the perverted underwear hidden behind her back.

Her hands were cramping from how hard she was gripping it. "There's a pond. Just within that side of the garden."

Bella nodded slowly, still not looking up. "Thank you."

She turned to leave, her shoulders still hunched with guilt.

Mira watched her go, clutching the fabric tighter, her heart still racing. But then she noticed something that made her maternal instincts flare to life, cutting through the embarrassment like a knife.

Bella's feet were bare. Completely bare. And they were filthy—caked with dirt, cuts, bruises.

Her clothes were worse than tattered—they were rags, torn and stained, barely holding together. Her hair, visible from the tattered cloth or cloak, whatever one might call it, was matted, and her skin was smudged with grime and dried blood at places it seemed visible.

The girl looked like she'd been dragged through hell.

And she was going to bathe in the pond. Alone. In that state.

Mira's expression shifted. The perverted grin was gone, replaced by something softer, something 'motherly'.

She glanced down at the fabric in her hands—the dress she'd made for Helena.

Simple, clean, made from the softer fibers she'd processed.

It wasn't fancy, but it was serviceable with only one hole. Mira kind of cheated to not give Helena an advantage.

But atleast, it was definitely better than what Bella was wearing.

Mira clenched the cloth, her jaw tightening with resolve.

"Stop," she called out, her voice firm.

Bella froze mid-step, her shoulders stiffening. She didn't turn around.

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