Chapter 56: A Deal with the Ice Devil

Parc had found a new worry as he watched Kurome and the Jaeger's hunts around the capital, how they challenged strange new Danger Beasts. His thoughts only falling to Night Raid, worrying how the girls were dealing with these beasts—if they were dealing with them at all.

As far as he could tell from what he saw, while they didn't seem particularly powerful on their own, they showed their strengths in voraciousness and numbers, often razing villages in swarms.

"God I wish I could hear what they are saying," Parc sighed as he watched her watching Wave, Run and Seryu chatting about whatever had just happened. Though his eye might travel, his ears did not. To him viewing the world through his third eye was like watching a controllable black and white soundless movie only replace the black and white with various shades of purple.

Letting his eyes open, Parc stared tiredly at the same pale stone ceiling he had become so accustomed to over what he guessed was a month by this point. "Should have asked Kurome…" he talked to himself, a habit he had built up in this time to at least not feel entirely alone.

Scratching at his chin, Parc could feel the slowly forming beard pushing through his skin, "who knew, solitary confinement grows beards," he snorted. Of all the times he could reach beard puberty, nineteen, nearing twenty years of age and in solitary confinement was the last place he ever expected I to grow.

Running his hand along his face he soon came to his cheek, pausing when he felt exactly zero strands of hair. "I'm not a neckbeard… am I?" Just that thought was enough to send terror down his spine. Of all the beard types he wanted, one exclusively located on his neck, was not one of them.

As Parc chattered to himself about his slowly forming facial hair, a click came from the doorway into his room. His expression immediately growing serious. Pushing himself up until he was seated with his feet on the floor, hunched over with his arms resting over his knees.

Squinting his eyes as light poured in around the only silhouette he knew it could be.

"Hello darling. It has been a while."

"Esdeath…" he muttered, blinking to clear his vision and see her shaded visage in the doorframe. Snorting when he saw how the light seemed to frame her body, turning her into a makeshift, utterly psychotic angel. "Finally decide to let me roam free?" it was a rhetorical question that still earned an answer.

"Not in the slightest. I have told you already. I will never. Let you leave me again." She stepped inside, shutting the door behind her bringing the room to a nice, dull orange shimmer of his candle flame that was just barely enough to let Parc see her walking closer to him.

Stopping just before him with her head held high but her sharp eyes staring down at him.

"Aww, and here I was hoping to go dancing with the deers." He joked keeping his eyes locked on Esdeath's with a slight angling of his lips.

"That is still very much a possibility." Parc frowned, he could see how her smile seemed more… 'excitable' than usual. As if she had gotten good news. "You see, I did not want to treat you like a prisoner. I would much rather have you standing by my side as we tear through hordes of dangerous species and enemies. But I could not risk having you escape me again."

"Even after forcing yourself to get pregnant. You think I'd try to escape?"

"Yes." She nodded, her smile growing toothy, "Pregnancies are not assured. I had intended on waiting a few months awaiting a sign it had been successful. If not, I would try again."

"You didn't think the gem was a sign?" he recalled the accursed heart shaped gemstone she held on her lower belly just above her womb.

"Hmm, I still do find such a development unusual." Her hands fell to her stomach, forming a slight heart shape around where the hollowed out heart was on her body. "I have gone through numerous sources about my teigu and found nothing mentioning the creation of a true crystal. Nor can I make them myself without constantly expending my energy to ensure they don't melt."

"And yet. After breeding you, I now have this. I can only surmise this has to do with you, does it not?" she already knew the answer, Parc answering was pointless. "But…" she continued before he could even respond if he even wanted to, "I have not come to talk about this little trinket," she rubbed a finger over the groove of the heart, feeling the protrusion pushing through her blouse.

"I have come to bring you out of this-" she looked around the cell with a disgusted expression, "-hovel."

Now that got Parc's attention. She had kept him in here for a month without even showing him her face once and now she comes to bring him away. Just what had changed.

"Now? You were more than happy to keep me locked up till now."

"Of course. This was only a temporary measure to keep you in line." She hummed enthusiastically, until I truly learnt I had become pregnant," she held a hand on her hip, the other hanging by her side.

Parc felt his stomach drop. He slumped a little lower, his eyes breaking from Esdeath's to lower his head and rub them with his palms. Letting out an audible groan. "It actually happened…" He already knew, especially with the gem in the state it was. But hearing it in person was so much more spine chilling than he had first imagined.

"You actually got…" He looked up to her hopefully, wishing this was just a poor dream and he was in some coma like state.

"Indeed. I have this irritable nausea assailing me at all moments today and have thrown up numerous times since my meeting with Emperor. Aren't you glad, my love?" Esdeath reached her hand's out to him, firmly gripping the sides of his face and feeling the scruffy beard rubbing against the bottoms of her hands, forcing him to look up to her. "With this child you become a father, and I a mother. Like a true family. One where neither parent will ever leave."

He flinched, regretting ever having told Esdeath his poor family history back when they had first met. Now it was being used as the crux of keeping him in control.

Esdeath pushed Parc back, bringing a leg onto the bed besides his hip while he held himself and her up with his hands on the bed. "I am so happy darling. So very happy. This child is a sign of our love for one another, of your loyalty."

'There's no loyalty in what you did Esdeath. Not a single bit.' He retorted in silence. "I'll never be loyal to this Empire, Esdeath. You know this. Not while Honest is Prime Minister and that child the Emperor."

Esdeath chuckled, "you don't need to be loyal to that pig or the incompetent brat. You need only be loyal to me and only me. To follow me like the good husband you are." Esdeath pulled herself further onto the bed and straddled Parc's waist.

"Husband is a big leap from lover Esdeath."

"Lover, Husband. It does not matter so long as you dedicate your very being to me, Parc. To never look another woman's way. To stay forever by my side," Esdeath's hands pressed against his chest, pushing his back onto the cushioning of his bed.

Leaning down to him, she placed her lips by his ear, "to pleasure me." Esdeath's hand snaked between their bodies, just about to burrow into Parc's pants when Parc's hands shot up and pushed her up.

"No. Not now. We have to talk about this Esdeath." He said with utmost seriousness in his voice to which Esdeath only frowned, anger forming on her face in the form of angled brows and a frown.

"There is nothing to talk about. I am with child and you will forever stay by my side. That is it."

Parc rolled his eyes and groaned, "It's… Esdeath we need to talk ABOUT the child. How are they going to be raised? How are we going to raise them?"

"Does it matter? It is just a child. It will live no matter what. That I will assure it until it can hunt for itself."

"It's not 'just' a child, Esdeath. Its your child as much as mine. That should hold some place in your heart."

Esdeath just confusedly tilted her head, "why would that be? It is just a tool to keep you in line. Once it is old enough I will simply make another. It is disposable. I do not hold the disposable in my heart."

Just how corrupt could she be? Parc could only think in horror. Her mind was so warped that not even a being of her own blood and flesh would draw her love.

"Do you really think that?"

"Of course I do. Such is the way of the world Parc. We are all disposable, the only ones not are those with strength. You and I," her smile grew insane and loving, "a child is weak. Ours may be different, having two powerful parents. I will not lie. I do anticipate seeing the strength of this child should it have it. Otherwise it is a replaceable shackle."

He couldn't stand for that. He would NEVER stand for that. Anger grew on his face, "I can't let you do that Esdeath. If you really, REALLY, want my devotion to you. You will treat this child like a real mother! Not like they're a fucking leaf in a forest!"

"But its is a leaf-"

"Stop calling them, it! They're a human being!"

"All it is, is a globule of flesh in my womb. It can barely be considered a 'being' let alone a human."

"That doesn't change anything! They are still a future human being! They deserve a mother! They deserve loving parents that treat them like they belong! Not like objects to be thrown away!"

"Some would argue it means a lot." Esdeath said a devious smile taking to her face, "fine." She pushed herself off him and stood back upon the floor with a hand over her hip. "Then let us make a deal."

Parc's mind came to a swift stop, Esdeath? Making a deal? That was just unheard of.

"You wish for me to treat this child like a mother would. Then make me. Make me bow to you. Defeat me. Turn me into a mother by force. Perhaps I may even allow you to be the one in control of our relationship."

All Parc could do was blink, he hadn't been expecting her to say something like that.

But even then…

"I can't I'm not going to fight you Esdeath. Not with you being pregnant," he shook his head. Only raising it when he heard light laughter coming from Esdeath. His eyes widening when he saw her unbuttoning her top, pulling it off to reveal her two ample breasts, holding the garment in one hand.

"You need only make me bow to you. By any means necessary."