CHAPTER 17 AILEEN
CHAPTER 17
AILEEN
I couldn’t get Ragnor’s words out of my head. So much so that I could hardly speak for the rest of the date.
After our little altercation in the washroom, I left without another word, far too confused to form any coherent sentence. Ragnor followed me out, and we returned to our table silently.
To say the rest of the supposed double date was awkward would be an understatement. Since I was stuck in my own head, and it seemed that Ragnor was, too, Eliza had taken it upon herself to carry the conversation with Atalon, who seemed to be quite dissatisfied with the recent development. For some reason, Eliza seemed positively chirpy.
I was unable to follow the conversation for the life of me. All I could hear was Ragnor’s voice, practically begging me to give him a chance, and all I could think of was his torn, desperate face.
In a different life, when I was still human and Cassidy and Skye were my friends, I remembered that one incident in which Skye’s boyfriend, Tyler, was caught cheating. I remembered that Cassidy and I had taken Skye to the nearest bar and gotten her drunk to forget about the event, which she deemed to be relationship ending.
“I would never forgive that piece of shit!” Skye had said drunkenly, almost falling on her ass.
I’d caught her. “Then break up with him,” I said gently, keeping up the pretense I was actually her friend, just like she pretended to be mine.
She glared at me and pushed me off. “You don’t understand!” she yelled. “I can’t!”
Cassidy looked at Skye with disgust. “Of course you can, and you should, Skye. He obviously can’t give two shits about you—”
“But I love him.” She broke down, tears escaping her eyes. “I love him so much, and I know he loves me! It’s just ... It’s my fault ...”
I remembered thinking how pitiful yet stupid she was being. Because if Tyler had loved her, why did he cheat? That couldn’t possibly be love. Didn’t it mean she was utterly worthless to him?
Later that night, when we took Skye home, Tyler was waiting for her near the large gates to her parents’ mansion. Skye had launched herself at him and hugged him, and I’d seen him hugging her back and crying, telling her how sorry he was, how he’d made a mistake, and he promised he would never, ever do it again.
And Skye, so blind with love, believed him.
He did end up cheating on her again, of course. But Skye started to care less and less about that. Her reasoning had been, “He can visit as many beds as he wants, but what matters is that at the end of the day, it’s my bed he wants the most, and my finger he’ll eventually put a ring on.”
Cassidy had given up trying to shake some sense into her. I had never even tried. All I could do was judge her in the privacy of my mind, thinking how low one needed to stoop to cheat.
Now, I was horrified to find out I was actually relating to Skye.
Ragnor might not have cheated on me, but he’d betrayed me nonetheless.
While Tyler simply wanted to have other options while keeping Skye close, Ragnor had thrown me away, not giving us any sort of option at all.
In a way, it was worse than cheating. At least cheating meant that person still wanted to be with you, even if they were with other people—otherwise they could’ve just broken up with you.
Ragnor had acted as if I was worth absolutely nothing to him.
And now he wanted me back.
Was it a case of FOMO? Had his interest in me suddenly multiplied because I was no longer begging for his affection? Was that what it was? He liked them hard to get?
But even if that was the case, would Ragnor plead to be given another chance just to win someone, anyone, over?
“You’re quiet.”
I snapped out of my thoughts and turned to Atalon. We had left the restaurant a few minutes ago, bidding Ragnor and Eliza farewell, though I wasn’t fully there and managed to give the two of them only a nod before I followed Atalon out.
Now, we were on our way to finally meet Isora, the reason this whole fiasco happened to begin with.
“Yeah,” I murmured, giving him an apologetic smile I knew looked fake. “I’m sorry about that. Ra ... Lord Rayne and Eliza’s presence was kind of, you know ...”
He gave me a reassuring smile that seemed just as fake. “You and Rayne were gone for a while,” he said, basically telling me I couldn’t fool him.
I looked away and didn’t respond. He didn’t take the hint and pushed. “It seems like you two have some unfinished business. Did you agreeing to this date have to do with something other than bargaining to see your friend? Because I don’t like being played for a fool, Aileen.”
Shit. He was spot on. But telling him that would make me feel like an even bigger asshole, so instead, I decided to redirect the questioning. “What about you, my Lord?” I asked, glancing at him to see his lips curl unhappily at the formal way I refused to stop addressing him. “Wasn’t there an ulterior motive to you asking me out to begin with?”
His jaw locked. “And if I say there wasn’t?”
I would definitely call bullshit. “Then I won’t probe,” I said quietly. “But I’ll let you in on a secret, my Lord; I know what romantic interest looks like. When you look at me, I can tell you’re attracted to me to some extent, but I also get the feeling there’s something more you want. Something that has little to do with me. Like maybe you want to stick it to Ragnor?”
He chuckled, but it was a twisted, nerve-jerking sound. “I didn’t know you think me to be such a cold, calculating person,” he said, getting the gist of my words without me needing to spell it out to him.
I turned to face him and gave him a serious look. “No matter how hard you try,” I said, “your eyes will always tell the actual truth. I prefer not to be a pawn in your vendetta against Ragnor, or whatever this is about.”
Those black eyes caught mine, and this time, when he smiled, it finally fit what I’d always seen in his eyes: cruelty and coldness. “You’re a dangerous woman, Aileen,” he said in a smooth voice that made the tiny hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end. “Thankfully, you’re in my League.”
He came to a stop, and I realized we’d arrived at the inner courtyard I’d seen before from the restaurant. “I told you I would take you to see your friend. But, before I take you to Isora, I would like to make something clear,” he said, motioning toward an empty bench.
I was extremely impatient to see Isora, but since I didn’t want to get on his bad side, I followed Atalon and sat down on the bench next to him.
“When I was a young Lord in the process of building this League,” he said without preamble, “I gave the Imprint to a beautiful, young, and talented opera singer, believing she would become the first Gifted member of my brand-new League. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a Common.”
I didn’t realize it was story time, but I kept silent and let him speak, knowing there must be a reason why he was telling me that.
His eyes glossed over as he seemed to sink into the memory. “One day, Rayne came for a visit.”
I tensed, realizing where it was going now.
“He wanted to make a trade deal with me, which was far more beneficial to me than to him,” Atalon continued. “I should have suspected, for nothing in life comes free, but I was young and ambitious and saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” He paused dramatically before he said, “He offered me one of his Gifted vampires in exchange for the Common opera singer.”
Atalon’s eyes were watching me closely, intently, as if he were waiting for some sort of a reaction. But all I could do was look at him and listen.
His shoulders sagged with his disappointment at my lack of response. He nonetheless resumed his story. “This trade happened before the Auction was established, you see. Back then, if a Lord wanted to acquire a vampire from a different League, he needed to make a fair offer in return. In this case, I was giving away a Common in exchange for a Gifted. A trade that didn’t seem beneficial for Rayne. But as long as both Lords agreed, that’s all that mattered.”
His hands clenched into fists. “Little did I know Rayne and the wench had plotted behind my back.”
For the first time, true anger flashed in his eyes. “A few months after the trade was made, it came to my attention Rayne had gotten a mysterious Gifted vampire whose Gift was her bewitching voice.” His eyes glowed with that shadowy sheen of theirs. “Imagine my surprise when I came to an event at the Rayne League and learned that that Gifted individual was none other than the supposedly Common vampire I had trustfully given away.”
He took a deep breath, and the shadowy glow in his eyes dimmed. “Rayne tried to save face by telling me she became Gifted only after the trade had happened. And while such cases can happen, it is rare. Extremely rare. I didn’t buy his lies.” His face contorted in fury. “So I investigated what really happened.”
Suddenly, his face cleared, and he shot me an almost eager look that gave me pause. “Rayne and the wench had been seeing each other since her days as a human,” he told me in a distasteful tone. “After I gave her the Imprint, she and Rayne exchanged secret love letters that also detailed their plan: she pretended to be a Common, and he promised her he would get her to his League by baiting me with a Gifted of his own in exchange. Thus, the two of them defrauded me.”
He breathed heavily, looking at me expectantly.
Outwardly, I gave him a blank gaze, showing him I couldn’t care less about how Ragnor wronged him. To be fair, I didn’t even think it was that big of a deal to begin with—I mean, he still got a Gifted in the end, didn’t he?
But on the inside, I was seething. Anger and pain encompassed my mind, making it almost too hard to breathe.
Ragnor had been dating a human. Human. And he’d gone the extra fucking mile to get her back when she became a vampire.
He cared for a human far more than he ever did for me, a vampire of his own creation.
I couldn’t give Atalon the satisfaction of knowing that his words hit home. That it was like a kick to the fucking gut.
I knew Ragnor had dated women before, thanks to the dishwashing team in the Rayne League kitchens, who loved sharing such gossip. But they’d never told me about this. About him having a wild affair with a human and taking extreme measures to bring her to his League.
Was she even at his League still? What had happened between them?
And why did it hurt so much?
I looked at Atalon vacantly and cocked my head, feigning indifference as I asked, “What am I supposed to learn from this?”
Atalon seemed taken aback. “He’s a lying, conniving son of a bitch,” he said as his pale cheeks reddened in anger. “That’s just one example of his rotten character.” He paused and took a deep breath, and his flush disappeared as he gave me an almost pitying look. “You have experienced that yourself, too, haven’t you?”
It felt like he’d put a knife to my heart before, and now he was viciously twisting it. “I thought you were on good terms, you and Ragnor,” I said quietly, doing everything in my power to keep my voice even. I wasn’t going to break. Not here, not now.
His eyes gleamed ominously. “It’s a farce I’m willing to keep up,” he said darkly, “until I achieve what I want.”
“And what is it that you want?”
He gave me a smile that made chills run down my spine. “To make him feel what it’s like having something he wants taken away.”
And just like that, everything suddenly made sense.
Stunned, the pain coming to an abrupt halt, I stared at Atalon, taking in the vengeful glint in his gaze, the smug smirk on his face, and said, “So just because he bruised your pride hundreds of years ago, you want to date me to get back at him?”
His smirk disappeared, and he leaned forward. “You make it sound as if it’s about pride, but it’s not, Aileen,” he snarled, rage in his eyes. “He sold you out! He cast you aside in his typical, enraging fashion!” He huffed and puffed, so riled up his eyes were glowing in their shadowy way the strongest I’d seen them so far. His lips unfurled, and he held on to the bench’s back, knuckles white. “You should want to break him far more than I do!”
I never saw Atalon losing his calm like this, and the direction in which this conversation was going made my own anger rise.
Atalon’s interest in me was clear now. He was interested in using me as a pawn in some long, stupid feud he had with Ragnor. He wanted to get revenge on Ragnor like a petulant little boy whose toy had been taken away.
I rose to my feet. “I understand,” I said evenly, keeping my anger locked inside. “Are you done? I would like to go to Isora now.”
He stood up as well and grabbed my arm. “Think about this, Aileen,” he said quietly, searching my gaze. “Think about what I said. What I’m offering you here. It’s not just a chance at getting back at him for ruining both of us—if you choose me, I vow to give you everything he didn’t.”
Pursing my lips, I tugged at my arm, and he let go. “I need to think about it,” I said, though I didn’t really mean it. In all honesty, I just wanted this conversation to end. I didn’t know what to think or what I even wanted.
Because what Atalon had said wasn’t wrong. Ragnor had done me dirty, and sure, I had wanted to get revenge by showing him how great I was doing without him. But I wasn’t sure I wanted Atalon to be part of the equation.
“All right,” Atalon said with a rough sigh. “But do know this, Aileen.” He gave me a profound look. “I have never, and will never, treat you the same way he did. I will continue being fair and protect you from all dangers. I won’t toss you away. I will cherish you the way you’re meant to be cherished.”
His sincerity was clear, but it did the opposite from what he probably intended.
Sorrow filled the pit of my stomach like lead. Those were the words I wished I could have heard from Ragnor.