Chapter Five: Contemplation and decisions.

Quietness. Absolute quietness. Silence washed over the living room as he sat on a couch, knees slightly apart with his elbows resting on them and his chin rested on the harness he had created with his interlaced finger.

Giselle stared at him, at a lose for words at his confession earlier. He hasn't said a word after that, just marched into the house, plopped himself down onto the couch, preferring to reverie in his troubles alone than to speak. She was drifting in silence, still unsure if she had heard right.

Lucien hated humans and he avoided them as much as he avoided his fellow Vampires. Though the hate was a thousand times more on the side of the humans. So why on earth would he speak of the old code of Vampires? Why would he ask if she knew how to break it?

She stared at him, her expression a mixture of everything shocked and utterly confused. She opened her mouth to let her curious questions fly out like fierce bullets but couldn't muster the will to. Her eyes flickered around to observe him and finally, they fluttered shut as she heaved a deep sigh.

He drifted his eyes to a tired looking Giselle, noticing her tensed state. She was anxious. He shifted his eyes, pushing his gaze to linger at the ceiling. He pushed himself off his knees and threw his head back on the couch.

"I really didn't mean for it to happen Giselle. It wasn't supposed to happen. I don't even know how it all happened. It was all a blur, the next thing I knew, I was saving her. It was too late to undo it. I couldn't let her drown, it just didn't feel right." Silky and soft at the moment. That was what his voice was. He appeared tired and withdrawn, distraught and confused. His voice though low, nearly a whisper, held some deep timbre, making its smoky nature more pronounced.

She could tell from he's dull eyes that he was fighting with himself. Though he's expression was blank, masking the true emotions he felt. Still, she could tell he was confused, angry, uncertain, frustrated and lastly, afraid? She shook her head. Perhaps she wasn't reading the right emotions. "I still don't understand anything Lucien. Your words are still hazy to me." She carefully admitted.

Lucien burrowed his gaze into the ceiling and after a moment of silently staring into the white space, he narrowed his gaze at Giselle with a slight tilt of his head. His steel grey eyes were now a litter shade with red flakes nearly invisible, still held a dull glow. His face perhaps could mask his true emotions, but not his eyes. The colour appeared to either darken ever so visibly or go diluted or glow, according to his emotions at the moment. Right then, a soothsayer wasn't needed to tell the conflicting and sour feelings floating in his mind.

"You saved a human Lucien?" Giselle quitely spoke, her voice a low whisper of disbelief still. She rose her eyes to meet Lucien's, which was turning a darker grey, with the red becoming more prominent in a darker shade as well. She quickly lowered her eyes, bringing them back up after a minute with a now replaced expression, "I'm sorry, it's just too shocking to believe."

Although she was bestowed importance by Lucien, enabling her to be able to talk to him and handle him on a more intimate level, she couldn't deny slightly trembling as tingles of fear and unease travel down her spine anytime he was unstable. He was highly unpredictable, with a mood that flips more than an acrobat throwing backflips to impress a judge at a competition. His graceful and calculated self made his calm and collected nature, hide his true feelings within. And that scared her even more. She could never really tell what he was thinking most times, which was odd because Vampires were supposed to be good with reading emotions, countenance and body language. Or maybe Lucien was just too hard to read.

"She was about jumping off a bridge... better and more accurately put, she jumped off a bridge and into the dark waters. I do not know why but it just didn't feel right letting her be selfish enough to steal away her own life. So I jumped after her before I could double check my thoughts. She was so pale and limp in my arms, and her breathing was severely faint. I feared she might actually die on me if I wasted anymore time. I whisked her to the community hospital even though I was really out of energy, my lifeforce, growing weaker by the second..." He eyed the thin air, inhaling deeply. His eyes closed, leaving him in a state awkwardly casual, "I should have sensed it, I should have known but it just didn't appear to cross my mind back then. I just thought I was weak and delirious with hunger. I just don't understand how the bind would have been possible when the full moon was hidden behind the stormy clouds." He blew out a silent puff of air, the black in his pupils constricting when he finally closed his eyes.

"So what do you plan to do with her? You know how Ornatae is. The human being bound is now a slave to her saviour till she pays back the debt. And you know how it is for a Vampire, you'd feel yourself needing her to fulfill your needs, feeding especially. And like a chain snapping off one's wrist, the mark of the bind would break once she's paid her debt to you and it will be like you never crossed paths with her, it will be her price to pay. But for a Vampire, you will remember having the human as your slave, never ever forgetting. It is the punishment given to the vampire." Giselle was bringing to his knowledge, something he already knew. And that wasn't what he needed now.

"... Just how do you plan to make her debt to you be cleared? Remember, she has to willingly offer her life to you. It will be her honouring Ornatae as she should. You can't compel her into accepting it, nor can you fake a situation or put yourself in danger just so she can save you." He winced at her words, closing his eyes once again in displeasure.

"Remember, it has to be on a full moon since the binding happened on a..."

"Do not tell me something I already know Giselle. Solution. What I need is a solution." His voice hinted at growing impatience and anger. He was clearly over the edge, though his face said otherwise. The slow way which he let the words out gave it away.

He carefully detangled his hands from his hair and pushed himself off the couch effortlessly. He turned to Giselle who just stared at him quietly. He decided to spare her the suspense and say something to her, "I am going to have a steam shower. It appears I'm overworked right now and my mind is really not the sanest place to be in right now— not that it's ever been a sane place. Do help yourself with dinner. Do not bother leaving anything for me to eat, I'm not really with an appetite." He made his way away from the living room and up the stairs.

Gently, he made his way up the stairs, his mind clouded. He placed his hand on the doorknob and carefully twisted it, letting the darkness greet him. He never really was a man of colour, black and grey did it for him. His room held aesthetic designs, consisting of a black mahogany bed frame, grey sheets with little specks of red scattered around the room. His room was his personality colorized. He wasn't really interested in colours, especially bright ones. 

He sighed, gently raising his hands to his buttons to begin his undressing. He carefully undid each button and rid himself of his shirt. He folded it carefully and placed it on the edge of the bed, before the mirror caught his interest.

He trudged towards the mirror and stood before it. His skins colour was back to its usual porcelain colour rather than the pale it's been for weeks. The black symbols marked his skin— the vertical edge of his forearm, his nape, his left chest, his pelvin line too. They were the symbols of his existence, he never really knew why, but he was born with them.

Although Vampires were born with greek-latin marks that verified their existence, they usually just had it at a particular spot and they were named natively, after their markings. Lucien on the other hand, was born with a lot of the symbols. They were markings different from the  usual ones people were used to. His were of core Vampiric origin and no one knew why. Not that he was a regular Vampire to begin with, over the years, Lucien exhibited gifts that were more enhanced than the regular Vampires, even for purebloods. His healing for example. 

His White hair was nature's gift to him and so were his strange eyes. He wasn't sure but rumours over the seven hundred years that he has lived, had it that he took after Ezraey, the first Vampire to have ever existed, down to his looks.

His parents disregarded the rumours and after reading the marking on his body, and observing him for a year, decided to announce his name natively as Eldeari, meaning 'god of power'. But after the great black night, he discarded the name and bestowed upon himself, Edrei.

He lightly traced the symbol on his left breast, knowing that he was bound to take action about the girl sooner. She didn't deserve getting involved in the world of monsters, she deserved to live her life as other humans. 

He lightly opened his mouth, staring at the reflection of his pearly white dentition and with a little glint from the red in his eyes, his fangs stretched forward, the red dancing with a glow in his eyes. He scoffed and like that, the fangs had retracted and his eyes back to their regular shade.

With a deep sigh, he knew what he had to do. He was going to have to tell the young lady about the recent turn of events. It's not like a different choice was left for me. He hushed the voice inside and proceeded to rid himself of his pants, its button and zipper, long undone. I really need that steam shower, he thought.