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So it happened that on this fateful night, one of the gods found someone like them and beheld Elise. It wasn\'t often that this person moved, but when it happened that something caught his eye, he moved.

Elise\'s eyes widened and she stared at him. "You… you…"

The man couldn\'t help but smile slightly at her. There was something about this woman that was strangely comforting to him. "Yes, me?" 

"You burned everything," Elise spoke in a choked voice. She looked at the man in horror, trying to make sense of the situation.

The handsome man nodded and replied casually, "That\'s right. We can\'t have any evidence left for this situation. It would be tricky if this would appear in the news, you see? Humans tend to panic easily at the death of one. Especially death that they couldn\'t explain."

Elise didn\'t miss the way that he phrased his sentence, but instead of saying anything about that… she stared at him and asked. "Who are you? Why did you help me… what do you get out of this?"

"Woah, easy on the questions." The man laughed a bit. He scratched his head and asked himself the same question. Why did he help her? It felt wrong not to help when he saw the state of her.

It wasn\'t often that he cared, but now he did, and he didn\'t question it.

"I am Alexei." He raised a hand towards her and helped her up to her feet. 

Elise stared at him and found herself staring. There were still tears in her eyes and she rubbed them away. "I\'m Elise. What about the other questions, though?"

"As for the reasons why I helped you. I thought it was fair for me to help someone in need. You didn\'t seem to know your strength." Alexei explained with a shrug. "Besides, as I told you, it\'s troublesome if this comes on the news."

"I see… so you\'re just like me," Elise said, at first disbelieving, but now more accepting of the thought. "Sp… there are others like me. You have powers like me and all of you are also hiding?"

"Well, I guess you can say that." Alexei nodded. "More or less, retired. Relaxing? We don\'t have many reasons to move anymore now that the people are more or less self-sufficient."

"Self-sufficient?"

"You saw what I can do. Great fires, inhuman strength, there\'s not much use to it now. People have electricity, entertainment and other things to keep them preoccupied."

"I see," Elise nodded. Although she wasn\'t too sure. "I think I understand what you mean. Thank you for helping me, Alexei. I\'m not so sure how I can repay you."

"You don\'t have to worry about it." Alexei replied nonchalantly.

Elise hesitated and looked at the man. "But you cleaned up… my mess?"

That was one way to refer to the incident. Elise felt her insides burning at the shame that ate her up. She was abnormal. How could she imagine marrying Loriel when she was like this?

Alexei noticed her expression and spoke up to distract her.

"Actually, why don\'t I take you back to your home? I\'m not sure if there are more people like those who you encountered. So, let me make sure that you\'re safe. I\'ll do the others a favor too."

"Do the others a favor so I don\'t hurt them?" Elise asked bitterly.

"Let me stop them from becoming idiots." Alexei rolled his eyes. "It\'s not often that humans throw themselves at beings like us. They\'re asking for a death wish by trying to interrupt us."

Elise didn\'t know if she should accept this man\'s offer. 

He sounded like someone who didn\'t care about other people. However, Alexei did help her erase all of the traces and make sure that she wouldn\'t get in trouble… 

Still, could she trust him?

Taking her home meant leading him to where Loriel was.

"Don\'t worry too much, Elise. I don\'t have any terrible intentions with you or whoever you care about." Alexei tried to make her feel more at ease with him. "I have much greater things preoccupying me."

"...Okay, th-thank you." Elise decided at last to accept the man\'s kindness. She was still trembling from what happened earlier.

She just killed someone unintentionally… and this man didn\'t even bat an eye. Instead, he helped her clean up the mess.

Alexei brought Elise to her home and was surprised to find that she lived in the richer parts of NYC and a very expensive penthouse of all places. He gave the place an appreciative whistle. 

"You sure have a nice place, how much did you buy it for?"

"I… I wasn\'t the one who bought it," Elise explained sheepishly. "I just live there."

"Well, it\'s a lovely place to live in…" Alex tried to find more words, but realized he couldn\'t say anything now. "I guess this is where we part though. Please be more careful, Miss." 

Elise nodded firmly. "I will."

Alexei grinned. "Or if you can\'t be careful, you could try burning the corpses up and leave no traces. Learn from me."

Elise did not want to ask him how many times he had done something like this at all. Instead, she nodded and thanked him before the man took his leave.

Afterward, Elise sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead. She didn\'t know how to explain this to herself, much less, Loriel. Even if the man once joked about burying bodies with her, Elise knew the man was not serious. 

Now Elise actually experienced cremating someone. This was something that Loriel didn\'t need to know.

Elise was afraid of what this would lead to. She was afraid that Loriel would leave her if the man knew what Elise was capable of and it would mean that she would be all alone again.

It was a selfish thing.

But Elise was afraid that Loriel would no longer be able to accept or love her, and somehow, that was the scariest thing she ever felt.

Lies were terrible… but she only wanted to make sure that he wouldn\'t be frightened of her.

When Elise reached the penthouse, she was welcomed by Loriel.

"You\'re home, wifey!" Loriel quickly sat up from the sofa and looked at her face. Elise seemed very tired and he was worried. Loriel made his way to her and hugged her. "Are you alright, Elise?"

Elise kissed him on the lips. "Yes."

Everything was going to be alright. She kept telling herself that.

.

.

**********

PS: Thank you so, so much for your support to this book. I am sorry, I couldn\'t publish chapters in September because I was focusing on Loriel\'s story in "The Cursed Prince". I will resume new chapters on October 1.

I will give mass release on October 1 to compensate for the lack of chapters in September.. I hope you are okay with that. xx