'You're just a slave princess. He'll ditch you the second he realizes just how useless you are,' Rey's voice haunted Tesse's mind like an unrelenting specter, gnawing at her consciousness as she slept.

'You're weak. I have no use for broken toys,' echoed Gray's voice this time. Tears rolled down Tesse's sweat-covered face as she tossed and turned in her sheets, her hair sprawled all over her pillow.

"P-please," cried Tesse, her arms outstretched as if trying to cling onto something.

As Gray's figure walked away, a horde of goblins appeared in front of her. Their eyes gleaming with lust.

"N-no, don't leave me," shouted Tesse, her body jerking as the goblins defiled her, she felt broken, lost once again.

"Huh?" she gasped seemingly out of breath, something wet had moved across her face, waking her up from her nightmare.

Two blue eyes stared at her with concern, the darkness of the room barely allowing her to make out the cub's silhoutte.

*Nii* Meowed the cub, tilting its head to the side as if asking what was wrong.

"It was just a dream. It was just a dream," she repeated, as if trying to convince herself that she wasn't really abandoned.

"This is why I hate sleep," murmured Tesse before getting out of bed.

She stalked her way towards Gray's room, and slowly opened the door making sure not to make a sound.

'The master's still here,' she thought happily, before the cub poked its head through the door, causing it to creak.

"Shhh," she picked up the cub, quickly closing its mouth. However, Gray was already holding a crimson pistol in his hand, pointing it at the door.

"Oh, it's you," murmured Gray still half asleep as he recognized Tesse's figure.

"Close the door," he said finally after looking at the time.

'Why is she awake at 2 O'clock in the morning,' he though as he dozed back to sleep.

Tesse slowly closed the door and tip-toed towards the kitchen, as far away from Gray's room as possible.

"You can't be waking the master up. If you anger him he won't hesitat-" as Tesse was scolding the beast it looked at her in confusion, unable to comprehend what she was so worked up about.

"Nevermind," she sighed, realizing that scolding a baby was useless.

After setting the cub down she went outside to train. This wasn't the first time she would wake up to train before daylight. Everytime she had that dream, she'd train. She'd do anything to keep her mind of it.

With a butcher knife in her right hand, she slit her left wrist, healing it right before the line of blood appeared.

This sort of training seemed barbaric at first, however Tesse had a reason for this self inflicting harm.

She had discovered that the speed, and efficiency of her healing increased the more she used it. After a while she also realized that her side effects were less pronounced than they were when she first got her ability.

For the past week she had been doing this in order to become more useful for Gray, the memory of him leaving her in her dream still a fresh wound pushing her to try harder.

The cub sat on the grass in front of the front porch, watching her as it licked its scales.

After doing this for hours on end, the sun began to rise. Her face was covered in sweat, and her cheeks were tinged red,

"Morning already? I'll have to go prepare something for the master," whispered Tesse to herself before placing the blood-stained butcher knife in her pocket.

***

'Souls, souls, souls' screamed the specters in Gray's mind. Gnawing at his very being as they demanded for the souls owed to them.

'Shut the fuck up,' Gray replied, his voice barely a whisper in the pool of lost specters.

"Ugh," he murmured, holding his throbbing head as he woke up.

The marks on his right arm were glowing, a certain warmth radiated from it as if something deep within were welling up.

'Do these things never shut up?' asked Gray, his voice being drowned out by the specters that screamed in his mind.

'I can barely hear you,' replied the demon, it seemed to be having a hard time as well.

"Morning master," greeted Tesse once Gray stepped out of his room. Hot steam radiated from the plates of breakfast placed on the table.

*Hixx* Hissed the cub beside Tesse, its fangs bared at Gray.

"What? You want to be my first sacrifice," taunted Gray, staring at the cub with his gleaming red eyes.

The cub tucked its tail in between its legs, hiding behind Tesse for protection.

'One soul won't appease them anyway. And this is an investment, I can't kill it now,' thought Gray, as if trying to talk himself out of slaughtering it.

"Let's hurry up and eat. I want to complete a few dungeon raids before the end of the day," said Gray before munching down on the toast that Tesse had prepared.

"Are you not going to eat?" asked Gray after realizing that Tesse had been staring at him for the past few minutes, her plate remaining untouched.

"Oh, yes. Sor-" before Tesse could pick up the meat on her plate the cub jumped up and began devouring her breakfast.

It had been siting on the floor waiting patiently for its share, however after Tesse failed to feed it for the past few minutes it decided to take matters into its own hands.

"It seems that it was hungry as well," said Gray with an intrigued look on his face as the cub scoffed down all the food on Tesse's plate.

"Okay enough of that. Let's go have some fun," laughed Gray as he stood up, a faraway look in his eyes as he thought of all the blood he would spill today.

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