The Divorcee Is A Wicked Black Belly

"Why are you here?" Merius finally asked, looking at An Ning.

"Yu Yan is dead," An Ning answered. "The Amazons, as you know by now, are safe so we"re here to negotiate."

Merius stared at An Ning like she didn"t hear anything else except the first four words of her sentence.

"Yu Yan dead," she repeated like an automaton. "How did she die?"

"I killed her of course," An Ning said almost impatiently. "Is that important?"

"I don"t believe it," Merius scoffed. "Yu Yan can"t die."

"Really? Well, I hope it"s just a facsimile of her rotting in h.e.l.l right now because I sure sent someone who looked like her there. You surely don"t think I don"t know anything about her unique ability, do you?" An Ning mocked. "Two words: crystal pendant."

Merius paled, the beginnings of panic in her eyes.

"What do you want then?" she demanded angrily. "If Yu Yan is dead, that"s your problem. Why come to me?"

"There"s the matter of the men slaves you"re experimenting on, Merius. I want it stopped. Or else."

"I don"t know what the h.e.l.l you"re talking about," Merius said, shooting a dagger look at An Ning.

An Ning looked at her and her heart almost stopped.

"Yu Yan didn"t mind control you," she said, her voice expressing her shock. "She didn"t use a spell, a gadget or memory loss to manipulate you. You followed her of your own choosing. You wanted the Amazons to die, to disappear."

"What?" Nyra said, staring at An Ning as if she refused to believe what she was saying. "She followed Yu Yan of her own free will? She couldn"t have. Yu Yan was masquerading as Ceres. She was wearing Ceres" face. She was Ceres that"s why we had no choice but do as she says."

"She was grandmother"s second in command so she must have known about magic. She knew better than anyone about ploys and tactics. Grandfather designed a maze to hide Saravia from public eyes, remember? A ploy that worked until recently when I started inviting outsiders to the village. Grandfather also had a habit of writing down magic tricks on his diary which he would then leave around for people to read."

"Did he write any transformational magic in there, do you know?"

"I"m sure he did," An Ning said, eyeing Merius with a speculative eye. Merius returned her look with a tight lipped smile. "Yu Yan took those books with her, remember? And grandfather taught her. She was his disciple. Transformational magic is not that difficult to learn. With Yu Yan"s talent, it was easy for her."

"But why?" Enxuo"s voice was tortured. "Why would Merius lie? Did I do anything to make you hate me?" he asked Merius, his eyes beseeching her for answers. "Is that it? You hated me that"s why you followed Yu Yan?"

Merius looked glumly at him then unexpectedly laughed.

"Stop making it about you all the time," she reproved, calmly leaning back against her chair. "I didn"t hate you. I didn"t hate Ceres. I didn"t hate Saravia. I most certainly didn"t hate the Amazons."

"Then why?" Enxuo asked, looking at her as if she was a stranger.

"Because like Yu Yan I wanted a new life," Merius shrugged nonchalantly. "The world was bigger and I wanted to see some of it. I was getting tired being cooped up in Saravia. We used to roam the seas, you know. We started wars and toppled empires. Then suddenly, to spend years in Saravia in the middle of nowhere. You don"t know what it felt like. To lose that freedom."

"So, you hacked our son to death, speared him with an arrow to his neck because you were bored?" Enxuo"s voice was shaking with more than anger. Nyra and An Ning looked at him with stricken faces. It was the first time they were hearing any of this and it staggered them. Enxuo, kind-hearted Enxuo, to witness his son"s death by his mother"s own hands in such a brutal way.

"You think I didn"t know what you did? I saw him die. He died reaching out a hand to you but you didn"t even spare him a glance. You ignored him like he was some dog you casually killed on your way to work."

Merius met his accusing eyes with a somewhat conflicted look on her beautiful face.

"I didn"t mean for that to happen," she explained. "But it was something I felt I had to do so I could leave you and the tribe."

"You felt you had to kill Trei because you wanted to leave me?" Enxuo laughed hysterically. "You took my son. You killed him with your own hands and you blame me for it?"

"I don"t blame you for anything," Merius said angrily. "He was in the way of my leaving you so I killed him."

Enxuo staggered at her words and completely broke down in heart rending sobs. Nyra held him close in comfort as her eyes speared Merius with a baleful glance.

"You are sick, Merius," she said, "You"ve started to like killing too much. The blood of your sisters were not enough so you had to kill your own son?"

"Stop being so melodramatic," Merius scoffed. "I didn"t want to give birth to him anyway but Hippolyta insisted I mate with his father. Something about continuing the Amazon line. I would have been happier if he had been a girl anyway."

An Ning and Nyra stared at her with dilated eyes. They couldn"t believe the nihilistic words coming out of this woman"s own mouth. Merius was very beautiful but in fact her beauty was cursed. She had no moral compa.s.s, no conception of the value of life, no comprehension of the littlest bit of beauty found in a single cell that would later transform into life.

When did it began, An Ning wondered. And did Hippolyta knew? Her grandmother was ruthless. She killed people for profit and power and yet she had an affinity, along with her husband, for loving the unknown. She appreciated beauty, she could destroy kingdoms and build time machines at the same time. The littlest bit of shadow intrigued her. She was an immortal who refused to be cowered into a corner by time.

Merius on the other hand allowed time to cower her into a corner until her world shrank and all she could do to escape was kill her feelings because it was stifling her ability to live a free life. What a poor, sick woman, An Ning thought.

"Why didn"t you just tell your husband and son that you were leaving them? For such an intelligent woman, you"re pretty dumb," An Ning mocked. "At least you have that much in common with Yu Yan. She blamed a man for ruining her life so she wanted to punish the world for ignoring her pain. It wasn"t the world"s fault she suffered but she was really too stupid to get that. She gave the guy who dumped her a pa.s.s for hurting her yet lay all the blame on people like my mother, my father, the Amazons and your husband and son for her so-called suffering. Really too stupid. You know what, I"m glad the b.i.t.c.h is dead. The world is so much better with her gone."

Merius listened to her words in gathering wrath as she jumped from her chair and flew towards An Ning with arms angrily raised. An Ning countered by whipping out her knife and cutting her outstretched hands with it. Merius twisted her body until she landed feet first on the floor beside her chair, blood seeping from her palms onto the carpet.

"Pretty good," she complimented An Ning, her eyes glazed with anger. "I see you"ve been practicing. Let"s see how far you"ve learned, shall we?"

She again lunged at An Ning but Nyra put her body between An Ning and her as she stretched her leg and brutally kicked Merius whose body flew and crashed against the wall. Merius was coughing blood as she staggered to her feet. An Ning and Nyra took defensive positions as they glared with hatred at the beautiful woman before them.

"Are you okay?" Nyra asked, turning to An Ning.

"She didn"t even scratch my hand," An Ning laughed. "I can"t say the same for her though."

"I"m going to kill you, you f.u.c.king c.u.n.t," Merius gritted, looking daggers at An Ning. "And I"m going to fry your b.a.l.l.s after I"m done with her, dear sister," she added, turning her baleful eyes at Nyra.

"See what I mean?" An Ning asked. "This lady carries a lot of hate in her. But notice that she"s redirecting her hatred towards us instead of towards the person she really wants to kill. Perhaps...my mother?"

"Shut up!" Merius was almost maddened with hatred as she again lunged towards An Ning, who met her attack head on. The two of them threw punches and kicks at each other. An Ning was as fired up with hatred as Merius by now so when she saw her chance she took it without another thought. The ball of her fist slammed against Merius" head with the impact of a fifty pound hammer hitting against concrete. Merius" eyes widened in surprise, her jaws slackened. She swayed where she stood until her body crumbled and she seemed to fold light as a feather on the ground.

Nyra looked at her then at An Ning who calmly returned her look with a nonchalant shrug.

"d.a.m.n," Nyra said. "You not only look like Hippolyta, you"re as strong as her. Are the twins okay?"

"They seem to relish this kind of drama," An Ning again gave a shrug. "I feel better after each fight actually. You should have seen me when I fought Yu Yan. I ate thirty eggs for breakfast. I was that hungry."

Nyra laughed then her gaze moved towards the KO"d Merius.

"What do we do with her?" she asked.

"Any ideas?" An Ning asked, turning to Enxuo, who watched the fight without uttering a peep or a squeak. He seemed to be lost in his own world. He didn"t even look at his wife when she crumbled to the ground defeated. He looked at An Ning.

"I don"t know," he said with that same lost look. "Frankly, I don"t even know what"s going to happen to us after this. Should I divorce her and let her go? Should I make her pay for Trei"s death? What do you think I should do, An Ning?" he asked, turning tortured eyes to An Ning.

"Hate her if you must. Kill her if you must but don"t let other people pay for her crimes. It isn"t their fault you married a psycho. Focus on your hatred...on her. I won"t stop you, whatever you want to do."

Enxuo was silent, staring at the battered yet beautiful figure of his wife. In the end, he remained the kind-hearted Enxuo that Hippolyta knew and loved. He uttered the word banishment and that"s exactly what An Ning did. As the presumptive heir of the Amazon tribe, she declared Merius"s banishment from Saravia for eternity. The announcement was witnessed by Saravia"s eight thousand plus inhabitants via live streaming on a private carrier.

An Ning left open any comments, suggestions, or protests by staying online for the next hour and a half. n.o.body said anything and that was that.

An Ning spent another week untangling the legal issue of Yu Yan"s majority stake in the company, which was enormous. As Yu Yan"s only remaining relative besides her father, An Ning found herself in the uncomfortable position of inheriting her stepmother"s company, the same stepmother whom she battered to death then her soul sealed inside a crystal pendant filled with other crazies.

Enxuo refused to be a.s.sociated with his psycho wife"s business concerns and declined An Ning"s request for him to takeover until she found a replacement. When Merius left, An Ning gave her a $100 million check, more as a bribe for her to leave quietly than to ensure she had enough money to live on for the rest of her life. But the truth was the company was too large for any of them to manage so An Ning convinced Nyra to stay on with the option that the job was hers if she wanted it after six months.

Without her noticing it, another week pa.s.sed by and An Ning realized she hadn"t seen or heard from Han since he visited the house and she turned him away. She had not called him either, or emailed him or used other social media platforms to get in touch.

At the end of the second week, she flew to Saravia alone. Enxuo had disappeared at about the same time that Merius left. She wondered if he followed his wife to wherever it is she was going because of love or hate.

It was after lunch when she landed in Saravia and saw the man waiting for her at the airport. Gara waved at her. An Ning looked at him and repressed a sigh.