Angel Monarch

The sun was already approaching the western horizon by the time Bea woke up. Her head was bursting with pain, and she felt sick to her stomach.

Never before had she felt so hungover. The last dawn was a blur. She remembered feeling extremely sad, then she began drinking, and after that… Nothing.

Her last memory was approaching the dance floor with Otto. She groaned as she tried to sit up on the bed, but it caused the headache to increase tenfold.

Finally, she decided to remain in bed, pulling the covers over her head to avoid the sunlight.

Sadly, a nagging thought prevented her from sleeping. Out of curiosity, she tried opening her eyes. At first, everything was blurry and her vision split into four separate pictures, but after a minute or two, it kind of stabilized.

Her body was mostly numb and tingly from being hungover, so she didn't notice her lack of clothes at first.

This wasn't too surprising, since she only wore clothes made with her powers. It wasn't the first time she fell asleep, and let the clothes disappear.

Something was physically wrong with her, though. She saw and felt both of her arms, but there was a third more muscular and manly arm wrapped around her midsection, precariously close to her breasts.

Realization that the extra arm wasn't hers dawned on her embarrassingly late. As this recognition set in, a content sigh sounded from behind her.

With a curious but fearful eye, Bea looked behind her. Her view offered little detail. She saw a muscular naked chest pressing close to her back.

She also felt something hard near her backside, which instantly sent an uncomfortable shiver down her spine. Suddenly, she felt even more nauseous.

Impulsively, Bea leaped from bed, exiting through the nearest door. Later, she regretted her decision to not survey the room before rushing off. Since then, she would've seen the open door to the bathroom behind her.

Instead of the bathroom, she opened the door to the house's living room, and since it was late in the afternoon, most people were already awake.

Even then, she was quite lucky, since only a handful of people sat inside. Most of them were the responsible ones, like David and Damien, plus their respectable partners, Cass and Agnes.

Lucy, Will, and a few others were also sitting and chatting. They were having a great time. Nobody drank too much during the morning, other than Bea, of course.

As she stepped out of the room, all eyes went straight to her. For a few seconds, everyone stared at her, then they all quickly turned away upon seeing her naked body.

Bea's emotions became turbulent. Her face burned with shame, while the horrid feeling in her stomach turned unbearable. She took another awkward step, before bending over and vomiting her guts onto the carpet.

As she puked, someone from the crowd approached her. Bea couldn't see who it was, but the person placed a blanket over her, and led her to the nearest bathroom.

The same person held her hair while she continued to vomit. Somewhere far away, she heard people talking close-by. They all sounded feminine and she made out four distinct voices.

One of them chuckled a lot as she spoke, and she sounded awfully similar to Lucy. Another tried to hold her laughter, but she wasn't managing the best. Her voice was like Cassandra's.

The third stayed mostly silent, but every time she spoke, she sounded angry. It was very strange since the voice's owner was Sarah, who always stayed level-headed.

The fourth person held her hair and kept the blanket on her. She was the oldest out of the four by far. She sounded similar to Agnes, and after she shouted at Cassandra for laughing, Bea was sure of her identity.

After the initial few minutes, they stopped conversing, not like Bea cared. She just wanted to vomit all her guts out, then hopefully she would pass out, so she could forget this ever happened.

Bea also heard one of the woman stomp off. From another room, the sounds of angry screaming echoed, which made Bea worried.

Amidst coughs and spits, a question from Bea reached Agnes. "W-what… What's going on?"

She took deep breaths, waiting for the motherly woman's answer. It took her a few seconds to get the words out, but eventually the answer found Bea's ears.

"It's nothing serious… Sarah just seems furious that her brother used your moment of weakness to get in bed with you…"

Bea's eyes widened as the meaning behind her words set in. Her face went extremely pale, and the nausea took hold of her again.

She continued to puke for the next half an hour, but it felt like an eternity. Her mind was racing throughout her suffering. The only reason she stayed calm was because of Agnes.

The older woman continued to hold her all the way through. At some point, she even began humming some melody, which further calmed her emotions.

Eventually, the vomiting stopped, and Agnes led her into an empty bedroom. Like a spoiled child, Bea let the kind woman dress her up. In reality, she could just grow her own dress, but it felt good to be pampered.

Afterward, Agnes left the room, leaving her sitting on the couch. She stared at the turned off holo-screen. Her reflection stared back at her. She felt disgust looking at herself.

There were a lot of emotions passing through her at once: shame, anger, sadness, fear, curiosity, but the most prominent was disgust.

The whole situation she created was simply awful, and she had no way of knowing how it would affect all her relationships. The worst part by far was not remembering the dawn celebrations.

She had no clue if she only had sex with Otto, or if she even had intimacy with him or not. By Agnes's account, Sarah screamed at her brother, because she believed he used Bea's moment of weakness to get between her legs.

Bea wasn't so sure that's what happened. Before going dancing, she already played with the idea of having fun with someone. It was only a drunken thought, and now even thinking about it made her wince, but it was still there.

Slowly, her thoughts devolved into chaos, but soon the bedroom door opened. Agnes came inside carrying a large tray full of food.

She placed it on the coffee table, and before she could've said anything, Bea began devouring everything. Agnes watched as the food that should've filled at least a small family disappeared within five minutes.

"Huh… Even your eating habits are like hers… Figures…" Said Agnes to herself in a whisper, but because of the proximity, Bea clearly heard her words.

She needed no other context to know who she referred to. There weren't many people who could consume food as fast as she did. In fact, there was only one other person Bea known off… Sera…

As she remembered her, a sudden wave of sadness and despair washed over her. In the past hour since she woke up, Bea purposefully ignored any thought about Sera.

But now, she couldn't escape her feelings. She placed her head in her hands and began sobbing. The weight of her stupid decision finally began crushing her.

Previously, she didn't know if Sera would want a relationship with her or not, but now that ship has sailed. There was no going back.

She let herself be with someone else, burning the last bridge connecting their hearts. Even though the technically weren't together, they hadn't broken up either.

Their relationship hung only by a thread, and with her last action Bea cut that thread, letting everything that mattered to her fall into the abyss.@@novelbin@@

The couch groaned next to her as Agnes sat beside her. She put an arm across her shoulder, pulling her head onto her lap. Bea continued to cry, while Agnes just hummed.

Her hands stroked Bea's long brown hair, which felt comforting. The overwhelming emotions became more manageable with each passing moment.

After she calmed down sufficiently, the other three women entered the room as well. Bit embarrassed, Bea asked the question she should've started with.

"Where is Vicky?"

The women looked at each other and began giggling, or at least most of them. Sarah continued to stay pissed off, but she seemed calmer than half an hour ago.

"Oh, don't worry about her. She danced throughout the morning, and by midday, she couldn't even walk properly. Faith, Lilith, and Adam stayed with her throughout, and now they are sleeping in one of the rooms."

Bea breathed a sigh of relief, then she smiled at the image of her daughter having fun. This brought another sound of shame, but she quickly pushed the emotions away.

She turned towards Sarah to apologize for her actions, but before she could, a fifth voice spoke from behind the doorway.

"Can I come in now, so we can talk like adults?"

The voice belonged to a man, and not just any. With a sigh, Sarah walked to the door and opened it, letting the tall, muscular, black-haired, gray-eyed man inside.

He looked around the room for a moment, then his eyes landed on Bea's stunned face. His mouth twisted into its usual annoying smirk.

"Did you enjoy our dance?" he asked with a chuckle.

Next to him, her sister moved quickly. Even as a Stellar, somehow he couldn't react to the angry woman's slap.