Six months earlier

The bright light of early morning fell through the windows in Titania’s bedroom, casting everything in a soft, golden glow. Titania herself stirred from her sleep, rubbing heavy eyelids and groaning when she looked at the clock on her nightstand and realized it was only six o’clock in the morning.

Ugh, I hate waking up this early. Another five minutes, that’s all I need… just another… five…. 

"Aaaaaahhhh!", someone screamed loudly. 

Immediately wide awake, she scrambled to her knees in her bed. She held a cushion in hand ready to defend herself if Cedric, her little brother, had snuck in for a preemptive strike to launch a cushion war, which happened fairly often. Turning a slow circle on her bed, she eyed her bedroom suspiciously, looking for any signs of a waiting ambush.  

Nothing. 

Titania climbed out of bed carefully to do a more thorough search. Her younger brother Cedric could move through shadows, so she meticulously checked every shadow cast by the early morning light. She even tried to see on top of the support beams above her head, since her room was on the third floor. Bracing for an ambush, she quickly laid down on her belly and looked underneath her king size bed.

Still nothing.

Then where did that scream – ugh, Chrysanthe must be at it again. These walls need better soundproofing. 

For better or worse, the third floor belonged to the daughters of the family, or rather sixteen rooms belonged to Titania’s older sister Chrysanthe and one room belonged to her. 

She was satisfied with this arrangement, her room had its own bathroom and was large enough for all her personal belongings. She didn't really need more, but Chrysanthe needed all the extra space she could get. 

Normally her dear sister made it a point to draw the line at three o'clock with her… nightly activities, which mainly consisted of playing with the many men she called her little birds. It was a chaotic ecosystem of its own, Titania wasn’t entirely sure how to define it most of the time. Near the top of the food chain was Chrysanthe’s most beloved Emery, who was the only one who left the rooms aside from Chrysanthe herself. 

Emery had been there by far the longest of any of her sister’s men – it must have been three or four years at this point. He also worked as the head of their cleanup team. All the others gained and lost favor more often than anyone could keep track of. Titania couldn't remember anyone who kept Chrysanthe’s interest longer than a week or two except Emery. She did not exactly support her sister's private life, but Titania had decided years ago not to interfere in her sister’s private life. She knew the men Chrysanthe called hers might live in a cage, but it was a cage made of gold. 

In most cases they also lived more comfortable lives than they did before Chrysanthe picked them up. Her sister was very selective about who she chose as playthings, only choosing those who wouldn’t be missed by society.

Titania groaned as she flopped backwards onto her bed, wishing she could just fall asleep right there. Unfortunately, she was good and awake now, nothing would let her fall asleep until it was nighttime. She took the communicator from her nightstand and decided to call Crysanthe to ask if she could tone it down. No matter what her sister was doing when Titania called, she always managed to pick up.

"Titania, what is it?" she asked. Unlike what she expected, her sister was not the slightest bit out of breath. She clearly hadn’t been playing around.

Okay, then whom did I hear scream? 

"Sis, if you’re playing right now, could you try to keep it down? Someone screamed and it woke me up, I was trying to sleep," she asked. Chrysanthe said something to someone else in the room, then something went bang as it impacted the wall separating Chrysanthe’s room and Titania’s. She looked at the wall with a sinking feeling in her gut. 

"Chry, I don’t want mother to have to arrange for someone to clean up your messes. Just give them a nice drink, clean them up, and send them back where they came from.  Please,"  

"But that is actual work," her sister whined, and Titania barely held in another groan, this time out of exasperation.

She’s starting to take more after mom. 

"Punishing them and cleaning up afterwards is far more work," she said in the same tone one would use to teach a toddler.

Chrysanthe had the nasty habit of punishing her little birds in rather gruesome ways, leading her mother to organize a deep cleaning of Chrysanthe’s room afterwards. Her morals were absent like the rest of the Tarajan family, so Titania made a more logical argument. Her sister hated anything that she viewed as troublesome – which was nearly all people and things. Anyone who wasn’t Drake, Emery, very useful to her, or related to her by blood became troublesome once they lost Chrysanthe’s interest.

And anyone that she viewed as troublesome…didn’t last long around her. 

"Alright, fine, I’ll let them go," Chrysanthe relented.

"Thanks," she cut the connection and raised her fist in victory.

Another life spared from hell. 

Resigning herself to being awake for the rest of the day, Titania slipped into her house shoes and put her communicator into her pajama pocket before walking out her door into the hallway. She nodded at the family butler Drake, who stood next to her door straight as a rod before he bowed elegantly. His suit today was dark gray instead of black like the usual.

"Morning. Nice suit," she said, and walked down the polished black stairway to her left and into the hallway of the second floor.

Suddenly Titania paused in the middle of the hall, sniffing the air and frowning. "Drake, did Raon work last night?" she asked. Though the smell of blood wasn’t unusual, Chrysanthe hadn’t been playing around so there shouldn’t have been any blood at all. The only reason why the scent would be there was if her oldest brother Raon hadn't gotten a chance to bathe after work. He didn’t come home often, normally he stayed at one of his dozens of safe houses across the city. His extreme paranoia, coupled with his skill with a blade, made him one of the best assassins in the city.  

"He did, Miss Titania," 

"Ah, that explains it. Are you aware if he kept his promise to me?" 

"You know he would never break his word, especially to you, Miss,"  

"Yes, I just ..," , she stopped herself. She was just worried for Raon since he didn’t have quite the same thought process that most would consider ‘normal’, or even ‘acceptable’. She knew Raon wasn’t unique in her family, all of them had issues. She had been trying to slowly work on her family for years, to no avail. She could only work slowly, patiently, and maybe one day her family would be able to lead a semi-normal life in society.

That was the dream, anyway.

"I am going to check on him and make sure everything’s alright", she decided. She strode towards Raon’s door, but the moment she got close she recognized that the blood was fresh, meaning her brother had been injured. Instead of barging in and being caught in a rather awkward situation, she knocked on the door and waited. 

"Who is it?" a hoarse voice called from the other side of the door, and she immediately knew Raon had been rather heavily injured this time. She sighed and mentally cursed her brother for not telling someone sooner.

"It's me, Titania," she responded, then made a rubbing motion in the air to Drake and pointed above them to Chrysanthe’s rooms. Drake nodded and immediately went to fetch the potions. 

"Ah, wait a moment," Raon said. There was some banging in his room, and Titania frowned. 

"I am coming in," she opened the door to a stuttering protest and found her older brother sheepishly grinning, half of his torso sloppily bandaged all over. Raon inherited the looks of their mother’s first husband, with curly black hair sticking in all directions and a tall, lanky frame that held far more power than it appeared to. His most defining feature, though, were his blank, empty dark green eyes. No matter what was happening, those eyes never changed their expression. They might as well have belonged to one of the many corpses Raon had made over the years. 

Most found it creepy, he was just a bit wrong in the head, she knew he was a good cookie at heart.  

"How did you know?" he asked, but as he walked to his bed he stumbled from his injuries. 

"Careful," Titania jumped forward and steadied her brother before he fell to the ground. "I do not want you getting injured more than you already are. Drake is getting healing potions from Chry, he’ll be here soon." Helping him sit down, she inspected the bandages. As expected, the rushed patch job was terrible. She got to work unraveling the bloodstained bandages so she could see his injuries.

He made an indescribable face while he sat on his bed.  Even as messy as it was, the bed was the cleanest part of his room, and just about the only place you could sit without accidentally cutting or stabbing yourself. Every other surface was littered with clothes, books, old toys, and Raon’s weapons: various types of swords, daggers, long knives, and other weapons Titania could’t name filled every square centimeter of space in the room. The maids had long since stopped coming in here after one of them had nearly lost their entire hand after they grabbed a shirt, only for one of Raon’s impossibly sharp knives to be beneath it. 

"Titania, ehrm...there is...well...yeah... I, uh, brought something back with me," he said, and she blinked in surprise at his words. 

"Raon, what did you bring with you?", she asked, and he smiled at her. 

"A pet. It’s for you, Cedric... and once it gets old enough, maybe even Chrysanthe," he said. "It chased me as I was leaving, and since I promised you I wouldn’t kill unnecessarily I couldn’t kill it. I tried throwing it into the trash, but it followed me anyway… and since it wasn't dangerous I just… brought it back here,"  He said, shrugging his shoulders.

Titania needed a moment to process what he’d just said. Her brother didn’t see humans – or any living being, actually – worthy of his attention. As he was the oldest he was also technically supposed to be the future head of the family, but everyone agreed that was a terrible idea. Their mother's first husband had a clear idea as to what he wanted his eldest son to be when he grew up – and achieved quite a few of them before their mother slowly and painfully poisoned him to death. 

He wanted his son to be hard, merciless and cruel. To live on top of others, crushing them underfoot. He wanted Raon to be able to endure any sort of pain – whether physical or emotional – and to be able to bring down anyone who crossed him, leading the Tarajan family with an iron fist and frozen heart.

He also was of the opinion that Raon, as the son of a prostitute and with a high talent for magic, needed all the extra ‘care’ with a belt he could get. Titania only knew bits and pieces of their mother’s first husband, he was rarely spoken about in the house. However, his influence had left Raon with an extremely warped sense of danger and reality. She wasn’t sure what he had brought home, but when he said it was ‘harmless’ it had sounded the alarm bells in her head. She sincerely hoped he had brought home a cat or dog. Just something that wasn’t apt to eat the entire household for lunch. 

"I brought the healing potion, Miss," Drake finally returned and placed the potion next to her on the bed as she finished removing the bandages from her brother’s back. Raon didn’t move as she carefully inspected the scrapes and cuts on his back. It looked like he had been shot twice, then fallen and landed on his back on something rough. She remembered him stumbling and she shot a glance at his legs. 

"Did you get hurt anywhere else?" she firmly asked him, and he shrugged. 

"No, just the back," he answered after a moment. Titania picked up a healing potion and rubbed the translucent liquid on his heavily scarred back. Chrysanthe was a very skilled crafter, meaning she could create nearly anything so long as she had the materials to make it. She preferred to make charms and various types of potions, and her hours of work in her personal lab had yielded incredible results; her homemade creations easily outstripped normal healing potions by several orders of magnitude. 

The injuries knit together at lightning speed, the flesh stitching itself back together and growing a new layer of soft skin overtop the scrapes cuts. Raon didn’t react even though he had to have felt it; Titania knew he didn't feel things the way others did. 

"There we are,"  she said, then took a clean cloth from the first aid kit and wiped off the remaining blood while smiling to herself. After she finished cleaning off his back, he smiled and stood up, shuffling to his curtains and leaning down as if to grab something. A deep, scared growl sounded from behind the thick curtains, and Raon frowned. 

"You can stay there for now, but you’ll have to come out sooner or later."  Another growl, This time more defiant than afraid. It didn’t sound like an animal she’d seen before, but knowing her brother she reigned in her curiosity.

For all she knew it could be a baby dragon her brother had found and brought home. 

No need to take the risk of looking at the creature herself. Her brother would show her either whenever the thing managed to calm down and acclimate to its new surroundings, or he lost patience and dragged it out himself. 

Raon gave her an apologetic look. 

"I guess it’s still a little reluctant, maybe it needs some time. I'll show you later, okay?" 

She nodded at her brother with a smile. "Alright, just let me know whenever it decides to come out."  

"You totally need to introduce it to me as well! I’ve always wanted a pet," a different voice said from behind them, and Titania turned to see her grinning younger brother Cedric.

He was the son of their mother's most recent husband, and he was a spitting image of the man save the Tarajan siblings’ signature dark green eyes. He was already as tall as her with pale skin and short light brown hair cut into a bob. He had a black leather jacket with silver highlights and the Tarajan symbol, a phoenix, was painted smack on his cheek with black ink since Mother forbade him tattoos before his eighteenth birthday. He was just beginning to enter puberty, and he fought every blemish on his flawless skin with everything he had. His long line of beauty products rivaled Chrysanthe’s.

"Hey Sis, Bro, did you need one of Chry’s pain-go-hush-hush thingies again?" he asked. 

"Yes I did, on your way to breakfast?" Raon responded and Cedric smiled. 

"Sure, I’ve been up a little bit and Mother apparently has something she wants to say,"  he giggled, turned around and skipped away humming his favorite song, Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant. 

Titania was still feeling like she missed something, but decided it was nothing. Sometimes it was better not to ask questions, especially in this house. She followed Cedric to the lower floor where they had the dining room, living room and the kitchen. 

One of the maids, Annie, hurried past them with a flushed face. Titania frowned as she followed Annie with her eyes as she ran. Like all of the long-time employees who worked with the Tarajans, she had nerves of steel and there were few things that could make her run like this. Maybe she had overslept and needed to get somewhere quic– 

Crash! 

The sound ripped through the stairway, and Titania realized what made Annie dash past them; their mother was having one of her fits. She occupied the first floor, which held some fairly valuable antiques. Titania would be sad if they were destroyed during a fit.

"Drake, please make certain Mom spares the Ming Vases," she told the butler, who promptly vanished. Titania had never asked what exactly Drake’s ability was, but she was fairly sure it was some varied form of invisibility.

Breakfast was already set out in the dining room despite the early hour. Somehow, Chrysanthe had beaten everyone downstairs and was already sitting at the table. Platinum blonde hair cascaded down her back in a luscious wave, matching perfectly with her green eyes. Dressed in a scarlet morning robe, Chrysanthe was the classic definition of beauty. Behind her was her favorite man, Emery. He, too, was dressed lavishly in the same scarlet colors as his mistress. His face was almost feminine, a curious mix between elegant Asian features and classical Irish coloring, with spotless pale skin, reddish blond hair and a pair of green-blue eyes that seemed so innocent they hid the razor-sharp mind Titania knew he possessed. 

She knew far too well never to underestimate the unassuming man that fulfilled her sister's every whim. Not only was he Chrysanthe’s favorite, but he was also one of the very few people who knew every corpse and bone hidden in the catacombs the family called their cellar. He was practically untouchable to every other person in her sister's chambers.

"My Mistress, a bite of fruit?", he asked with his soft, almost melodic voice, his face lit by a smile. Chrysanthe responded with an equally dazzling smile and gestured for Emery to sit on her lap, which he did before starting to feed her breakfast by hand, piece by piece while they stared into each other's eyes, lost in their own small world, the air between them prickling with tension. 

Next to her, Raon was doing tricks with the sharp tableware knives and a scalpel – Titania briefly wondered where he’d pulled that from – instead of eating. Cedric refused on principle to sit at the table for eating, instead making himself comfortable on top of the cabinet with the good china, munching away at his chocolate cornflakes. Right as Titania took a bite of her toast, their mother strode into the room, apparently recovered from her fit.

She set her toast down.

One look at Chrysanthe and Marcia Tarajan side-by-side and it was obvious they were mother and daughter. The eldest Tarajan daughter took after her mother’s light blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and dazzlingly beautiful face. Even their mannerisms were similar, which gave Titania no small amount of headaches.

"I just met a very attractive new father for you," she announced, sitting down with a dazzling smile. "I am sure this time I have found the right male."

Everyone at the table stilled at her words and stopped eating before Emery let out a sigh. 

Well, Titania couldn't blame him. Whenever their mother said those words it automatically meant a lot of work for him to do and less time to be spent with her sister.