Chapter 25 #2
While I was positive anyone else would have reacted the same, I was still struggling with the lingering feelings of anger and embarrassment. Thankfully, everyone had been freaking out... so maybe they didn’t remember?
I wasn’t going to serve a refresher.
Selena was seated beside Elijah sipping a glass of wine that I had no idea how she got in her hands. Juliet was still by the computer but now she was straightening the papers and books into neat stacks.
More stiffly than I’d intended, I sat down beside Lukas. His hand smoothed down my thigh, and I could feel him staring at me. Elijah watched me closely and curiously, and I swiveled my head.
Lukas peered down at me, a question in his gaze as he squeezed me lightly.
There was something else too, beside his plea.
I could see he wanted me to let him know everything was okay, and I was beginning to understand the ways of these vampires, but for me, this was a line that couldn’t be crossed.
Even if it was only temporary affliction.
“You want some wine?” Selena asked me.
Gripping the cushion, I moved to push myself up. Lukas stopped me. “Yes, please,” I told Selena, making sure I looked Lukas in the eye as I said his favorite word.
His gaze darkened, and the tip of his tongue slid along his lip as he glanced down and then back up at me.
My pulse quickened, and he gave me a nearly imperceptible, single nod.
He knew exactly what I was doing. At two thousand years old, he probably should.
But it still had the desired effect of sending the message I wanted to send.
He bent his head, curtaining my face with his shiny hair. “You’re angry with me,” he stated; his voice was low and rough. “Be as angry as you’d like. I will do whatever I have to.”
With that, his hand came up and gripped my neck, his thumb pressing into the hollow at the base of my throat. Then he kissed me, much more tender than the hold he had on me would suggest.
“You will do this for me,” Lukas said to Elijah, shifting his position to face the man.
Elijah set his crystal tumbler on a coaster on the end table.
“I will, should it come to that.” He threaded his fingers together and set his arms on his lap.
“Interesting how you are now in the very same position you punished me for, wouldn’t you say?
You disgraced me, and now here you are, one of the Ancients—perhaps the only one, to ever be disgraced in the same manner. ”
I could practically feel him bristling beside me. “I require you to have some grace on the subject.”
The other vampire pressed his hand to his cheek. “I swear before you left, you said you wanted to see what was out there, did you not?”
Elijah had my full attention. It sounded like he was saying Lukas planned to find a human from the start. “You enjoyed all those blonds me and Kiam gave you so much that you wanted more.”
Before I could help it, I found myself combing my fingers through my not-blond hair. Elijah caught the motion and gave me a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, that’s all I had left for him, I killed all the brunettes.”
Selena met my gaze and shrugged. “Long story.”
Lukas sat frozen, possibly not even breathing. His eyes flickered from green to black, and back to green again. I heard Selena suck in a harsh breath.
He turned that gaze on me and then drifted his eyes over my form. He was completely closed off; I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But I wanted to know—had he gone searching for a human woman to take home? If he did, it changed everything.
It didn’t change how I felt about him, but it definitely made a difference in the dynamic at play here in this house.
“Are you questioning my love for Cassia? Attempting to make her question my motivation?”
My heart probably came to a complete stop, listening to Lukas’s words. My head buzzed as that four-letter word repeated in my head.
My head swiveled to look at him. His lips were partly separated, and he licked one of his fangs as he set his glass down on the table in front of us.
Elijah’s hands flexed and he placed one on his knee and the other on the arm rest again. “I’m not sure what you’re playing at, but this is now my domain. You gave it to me. You may be stripped of your title, for all any of us know, but you did this.”
Selena sneered, “He’s losing his grip.”
“Little girl, would you like to meet a new ceiling?” Lukas’s voice was sickly sweet.
Elijah’s nailed chimed together, having grown to impossible lengths. “Lay one hand on her and I will shred you to pieces,” he warned, with a smile.
“Didn’t you already agree to work together? Who cares how I’m here, there’s other—” The room suddenly went dark, stopping my words and sending my fingers to grip Lukas’s arm. “What was that?”
Juliet waved her hands in front of her face. “I want to say it's all the dick measuring but that was just sunset. It does that here.” The lit candles weren’t nearly enough light.
“Who’s measuring dicks?” A man strolled into the room, eyeing us all with suspicion before kissing Juliet’s forehead.
She introduced us all to her husband and then flicked a light switch, illuminating the overhead chandelier.
“Did you know about that?” Lukas sighed and shook his head, his shoulders slumping a fraction as he rubbed his fingers against my knuckles.
Elijah stood. “I imagine you’ll expect accommodations tonight?”
“Yes, please. We would appreciate that,” Lukas replied diplomatically.
“All right,” he agreed. He turned to Juliet and drew her into a hug before kissing the top of her head. “Thank you, I’ll talk to you later.”
She gave Lukas a cursory glance. “You do that.”
I glanced at Lukas and he lightly lifted his hand. He didn’t understand Juliet and Elijah, either. I wasn’t about to ask but it seemed normal for Selena, who went and crushed her arms around the woman as soon as Elijah let go.
Elijah looked at the two of us and then down at Selena. He took her hands and they disappeared.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Lukas said to Juliet with a slight dip of his head.
She glanced at him incredulously and said, “Please leave.”
Before she turned around, I tried to give her a hug, but she was wiping the back of her hand across her forehead and staring at the floor.
* * *
Lukas transitioned us to the foyer of the castle we visited earlier. A uniformed woman strolled up to us before I could get my bearings. “My name is Amanda, I’m your maid. I will show you to your rooms. Please, follow me.”
I glanced at Lukas, and we followed her up a staircase, down a corridor, and then up three more staircases.
My legs felt like they were about to fall off after all the walking we’d done recently.
Lukas motioned to me like he’d pick me up.
I shook my head and trudged along, muscles screaming at me.
Maybe if there weren’t so many people around, I would have insisted he carried me.
Already, this castle was vastly different from the one I’d grown used to.
There was life here, laughter, and I even heard a violin playing somewhere in the distance.
Various scents drifted past us. Roasted meats, fresh flowers, and the crisp scent of freshly cut grass.
My spirits lifted a bit, injecting me with a vibrant infusion I hadn’t felt for a while outside of Lukas’s arms.
Sneaking a peek at him, he was rubbing his chin again, watching everything we passed contemplatively. He wasn’t anymore unaffected than I. What he thought about all of this, I wasn’t sure, but it was making some sort of impression.
At long last, Amanda opened a door. “Here we are,” she announced. She went across the room to a window and unlatched it, pushing the panel open.
“The room has been closed up for a while, but there’s fresh linens and toiletries. Just let me know if you need anything.”
Lukas turned around in a circle. “Thank you, this will do for now.”
The woman bobbed a curtsey and smiled at us before she left.
The moment she was gone, I toed off my boots and flopped face down on the bed.
The mattress dipped beside me, and I felt Lukas’s hip pressing against me.
The bed moved again, and his hand came down on my back before he began massaging the muscles.
I think I groaned. Maybe even fell asleep, if only for a few minutes.
When I came to, he was gently removing the strands of my hair that caught in my eyelashes and laid against my cheek. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you, right?” He asked softly.
I reached for him and missed, my arm flopping back down on the bed. “I know.”
His hand traveled down my back and followed the curve of my ass before he began kneading my thighs. “Everything I do is for a reason.”
I may have groaned. Loudly, as my thigh muscles sighed with relief. “I like what you’re doing right now. Other things, not so much. But this, yes, please do this.”
A noise that sounded like a brief laugh whispered from his lips. “Oww. Maybe not that hard,” I whined.
When I woke up, what felt like hours later, my head was on his lap, and he was sitting up against the headboard.
I would have been annoyed, but then I remembered he didn’t really need to sleep.
My best guess was that his brain had kept him up, trying to deal with his position of hypocrisy when it came to me.
I didn’t really have any sympathy, but I could understand his pain.
It had to have been miserable to be caught in the same situation that he ruined someone else’s life over.
That being said, Elijah and Selena appeared happy.
“Are you hungry?” He asked. I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
Everything was bright and airy, displaying the large room in a way that last night’s candlelight couldn’t. The window was still open, and I could feel a pleasant, light breeze.
My stomach growled loudly, making me press my palm on my abdomen. “I guess I am.”