By the time I’d woken up, the sun had disappeared from the sky. After gazing out into the darkness with swollen and heavy eyes from all the crying, I felt the need to go back to sleep. That was, until my stomach began to remind me that I hadn’t eaten in a while. The idea of dinner sounded quite pleasant to me, but I was certain that it was way past dinnertime. I hoped, however, that there’d still be some food left over in the fridge. But before I could even begin to follow my stomach’s instincts, I remembered that Kiyan was supposed to have given me a call as soon as he was safe. I checked my phone, well aware that I hadn’t switched the sound on and wouldn’t have heard him call if he had while I was asleep. He had. 1 missed call from Kiyan and a rather passive aggressive text to accompany it. I shook my head and breathed out a sigh of relief before trying to call him back. But he never picked up. Instead, I was directed to voicemail. And so I decided to return his passive aggressive t
We walked in comfortable silence through the first hallway with him occasionally glancing back at me to make sure I was still keeping pace with him. The kitchen was located right at the end of the hallway and was just as beautiful as the rest of the house with dark, granite tabletops, glass cabinets, a fancy stove and a wide variety of appliances ranging from an expensive digital microwave to a glass kettle and a state-of-the-art coffee machine.Standing in the corner of the room, busying himself with a sandwich, was Jasper who immediately straightened when he saw me.“Miss Raine,” he said politely before bowing his head slightly. Clearly Nicholas had finally revealed my identity to him as well, though he seemed to have a completely different way of treating that information than Dante did.I wanted to tell Jasper that there was no need to be so formal and polite with me. But before I could, he turned sharply towards Dante and frowned before saying, “How dare you bring her in here. Yo
I couldn’t sleep and spent most of the night crying. Then, just as the morning hours began to show against the horizon and I eventually found sleep, I was rudely awakened by the violent shaking of my body and whispered yells of “Ariya! Ariya wake up!”When I did finally manage to pry my swollen eyelids open, I was met with a concerned set of beautiful dark brown eyes and a deep-set frown. Melissa, I assumed. Her dark, curly hair was in a mess all over her head and there were dark circles underneath her eyes. She also smelled faintly of booze and tried to cover it up with a lot of sweet-scented perfume. Was she hungover?“Oh, thank goodness. You sleep like the dead Ariya!” After she’d said this, she placed a hand against her red stained lips and her eyes widened with fright.Slowly she removed her hand from her mouth before asking softly, “Dante wasn’t lying right… you do prefer us to use your name? That fucking asshole is always trying to play tricks on us. He’s really on the way to b
By the time we’d made it to the hangar of King Nicholas’ private plane, I still hadn’t made any progress on my manuscripts or my notes. And as we boarded and began our flight, I sat deep in thought, trying my best to write something, anything. But as I tried to put pen to paper, the sudden realisation hit me that I could no longer find the words to continue the story I’d spent most of my life so invested in. The girl I’d written about had come to the end of her story, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force her to continue. Or perhaps I was the problem. Perhaps things had changed so drastically that I couldn’t bring myself to continue writing about a world unknown and exciting because my very own was becoming unknown and horribly frightening. As I thought this, I almost instinctively pulled out one of my newer notebooks. It had been a gift from Ophelia earlier on in the year. One which I’d been subconsciously saving for something new and special. The moment the ink of my
The dining room was exactly the same as the rest of the house- uninteresting and uninviting. The only thing striking about it was the tall young man who sat at the table, occupying himself with the last bit of meat on a drumstick. Like Aura and Nicholas, he was stunning. His eyes were an intense and bright shade of ethereal silver. The colour of them were what I imagined glowing shards of souls would look like. They shone brightly against his flawless, smooth, dark brown skin and seemed to brighten the moment they landed on both Nicholas and me. His dark hair was cropped short which suited his beautiful appearance quite well. He also had a small golden piercing in one of his ears and creeping up his neck, tattoos which I couldn’t quite make out. However, unlike Aura and Nicholas, he seemed extremely cheerful and bright. In fact, the moment he saw us, he smiled brightly.“Brother! It’s been so long!” he yelled before getting up off of his chair and racing towards his brother. As soon a
Nicholas and I had spent most of the evening arguing over the bed, and although I was usually good at winning arguments, I somehow lost this one. But Nicholas was not joking when he informed me that it was colder in Lakspur at night time- with me basically shivering myself into agreement with him. And so, in the end, we lay in the same bed, facing away from each other, but it did nothing to prevent the burning awkwardness from consuming the both of us. It was all hidden in the inescapable heat radiating from his body and the sound of his heavy breathing filling the air. Eventually I became overwhelmed by the suffocating concept that was *him*, so much so that I knew sleep wouldn’t find me anytime soon. But it seemed that sleep would not be finding Nicholas soon either.“So, what did you think of my family?”I hesitated a moment, surprised by his question and then decided to answer him truthfully. “They were a bit… strange. But compared to you, not strange enough.”I heard him shuffle
When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to find that Nicholas was not in the same spot I’d left him the prior night and the little sleeping pile he’d made had been tidied up. Part of me was glad that his face would not be the first I’d have to wake up to, especially after everything that had happened last night. Just thinking about it had my cheeks blushing. I couldn’t believe just how far my body was willing to go to betray me. But more importantly, I couldn’t believe how drastically Nicholas’ behaviour had changed. It was as though he’d changed into someone completely different− familiar, but different. After a while I decided to finally get myself out of bed. If I’d recalled correctly, today we’d be having that anxiously awaited family meeting where Aura would most likely decide my fate going forward. I gave out a long, miserable sigh and then made my way to the stack of suitcases at the side of the room, eager to get myself warm in the shower. Unfortunately, my clothing b
Aura’s servants worked silently as they practically escorted everyone to their seats. They all looked dead inside and eager to get breakfast over and done with. I suppose I fit right in with them.Aura was seated at the head of the table and right next to her was a man whose appearance, although exceptionally beautiful like the rest of his siblings, reminded me of a sculpture with his perfect, high cheekbones, sharp nose and unnaturally smooth and blemishless olive skin. Like his siblings, his most striking feature was his eyes. They were a bright and almost glossy shade of intense green, reminding me of emeralds. I assumed he was Griffen, the Carden sibling I’d not yet been acquainted with. He seemed awkward and very reserved… and tired. He yawned a lot and seemed to want this to be over sooner than the rest of us.“Ariya. I heard that you’ve met everyone here except for Griffen. He’s the youngest,” said Aura with an attempt of what seemed to be a smile.Griffen gazed up at me and sm
“Dante… what have you done!” I yelled out as the flames began to engulf the outskirts of the house.He frowned and shook his head, “You don’t look nearly as impressed as I expected you to be. Did you want it grander?”“Grander… you’re a sick bastard!” I said before spitting on the floor next to him. Then, I attempted to near the house to head inside, grab Nicholas and drag him out. But just as I reached the door, Dante grabbed my arm and yanked me back. Immediately I retracted my free arm, ready to punch him in the face. But someone else beat me to it, smacking him in the side of the head and causing him to fall onto the ground.“K-Kiyan?” I gasped out.“No time for questions! Let’s get your fiancé out of there before the rest of them come!”The rest?But he dismissed my words and ran into the house immediately. I followed suit, rushing towards the bedroom.“Can you stand?” he asked Nicholas who seemed half asleep still.“Sort of… what the hell is going on… and what’s that smell?” he
I fell asleep in the warmth and comfort of Nicholas’ arms, but my sleep was a restless one. Something had begun to worry me. It rang over and over in my head, nudging me with extreme caution. It was the words that Daniel had said earlier on today, “You wouldn’t by any chance need a bandage, would you? I always keep some on me, in case anyone has bruised knuckles…” And along with these words came a memory of the first night a spent here. It was a memory of Dante who had bandaged up my bruised knuckles. And although some part of me wanted to pass it off as some kind of strange coincidence, my instincts were telling me differently. Although they were twins, Daniel was too much like Dante. And so, a glaringly obvious deduction began to swirl around in my mind. And as outrageous as it sounded, it was the only one clear thought I’d had these past few weeks.Suddenly I was awoken by the loud sound of tapping on the windowsill, coming from outside and the harsh whispers of “Ariya! Ariya!”I ga
I gasped, completely dumbstruck by what he’d said. I thought that I would be the only weakness that King Nicholas would have. I thought that they were all completely invincible. But I was wrong.“I thought that, perhaps she had made a mistake,” Nicholas continued to speak, “that she’d take it back and apologise. But when I turned around, all I saw in her eyes was pure hatred. It had poisoned her completely and she drew another blade and tried to stab me with it. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen. She was too corrupted… that was when Lorenzo entered the front door, a gun in each hand. I realised then, that the whole thing was orchestrated by him. He tried to shoot me with one of his silver bullets, but I was too quick and evaded his aim. But he was careless with his shots and at one point he almost shot Portia. That fucking careless bastard. Each time he pulled the trigger and each time Portia tried to lunge for me, my hatred for Lorenzo only grew. Until I couldn’t ta
Daniel had left soon after he’d confided in me regarding his mother. But the cruel experiences of Portia Knight stayed with me. Part of me could not believe what Daniel had said, and the other part felt bad for denying what had happened to his mother. I’d never known Nicholas to be cruel or vindictive. Then again, he’d lived for centuries, and I’d arrived here a few months ago. What I knew about him was only a drop in the ocean of who he was. And as I walked to his room, I’d resigned myself to approach this in a very logical and very open-minded way.“How dare you, you cruel bastard!”Or not.“Excuse me?” Nicholas muttered, his eyes were wide in shock, and I could see confusion slowly creeping into his grey irises.There was a moment of hesitation on my side. I was fuelled up on anger and I knew that everything I would say now would stem from that anger.“What have I done Ariya? Why do you look so disgusted?”But I couldn’t keep in the information I’d now learned.“Portia Knight… you
It had been more than a day after Nicholas had fallen ill, and although he was slowly starting to get better, his body was still extremely exhausted, and he found it difficult to use his abilities. He’d spent most of his time asleep, filling the hallway with the sound of his snores. I found it so strange for him to be this weak and powerless as opposed to the formidable man that he usually was. Nonetheless, I tried as best as I could to look after him, putting my relatively mediocre cooking skills to the test. In fact, I’d been in the kitchen, making a toasted cheese sandwich for him when I heard the sound of knocking at the front door.“I’ll get it!” I yelled. And as I tried to shift the pan on the plate of the stove, it slipped from my fingers, and I burnt my thumb. I hissed in pain and quickly tried to run it under some cool water before I rushed to meet whoever was at the door.One of the guards, Arthur, stood there with Daniel next to him. After the incident with Melissa, where t
And so, Kiyan explained the origin of his hatred. Kiyan had always hated being cooped in and so he always managed to find a way to get out during the day. Ophelia so happened to need eggs from the store that day, and so Kiyan was eager to venture out and buy some for her. Kiyan took his time wandering the aisles, until he stumbled across the eggs on the shelf. He reached up and retrieved a carton, and as he did, one of the staff members came crashing into him, knocking the eggs out of his hands and spilling their contents on the floor. That’s when the lycan owner appeared, completely set on beating both Kiyan and the employee who’d bumped into him. But, as Kiyan explained, he was left untouched once the owner recognised him as ‘Ophelia’s boy’. Kiyan recalled the shame he felt as he watched the human employee being hit by his lycan master. And that was how his hatred developed. He didn’t want to be some human favoured because a lycan had taken him in and he couldn’t take another day in
“You know what,” Daniel said, “now that I think about it, there was a man that used to come to visit Melissa. I saw him once or twice.” “What did he look like?” I asked curiously. Daniel fell silent for a moment as he sat and thought hard. Then his eyes brightened, and he nodded to himself before saying, “I didn’t get a good look at his face. He wore a shroud of dark cloth that covered most of it. The only feature of his that I could see was a pair of dark brown eyes… Oh! And on the clothing he wore was a purple flower.” My hands shook and my skin became covered in goosebumps. My mind was brought back to an interaction I’d had a while ago with a man who matched that exact description. It was Hawk, the leader of Wolfsbane. I wondered now if Wolfsbane really was responsible for this, but for a completely different reason. Perhaps Melissa had been a part of Wolfsbane after all. Perhaps something had transpired between her and Hawk, and he needed to get rid of her. Theo watched my cont
When my eyes opened, I was met with a pair of dark brown ones. A sense of confusion crept up on me and I whispered out a soft, "Dante..." His eyes furrowed and his lips parted as he took in a sharp breath and gazed down at me. Then, his brown eyes filled with a conflicted look, as though he were contemplating something very deeply. That was when realisation dawned on me, and I shook my head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Daniel. You just... still remind me of your brother," I said softly. Daniel smiled and gave a soft and awkward chuckle, "It's alright, I'm glad I remind you of him. You always seem to speak of him so fondly." His smile was genuine and bright and the previous feeling I'd had of discomfort when he'd brought me to my room almost completely vanished. But I couldn't help but wonder why he was currently in my room. And so I questioned him. Daniel's face turned a little more serious and he let out a deep sigh. "Melissa... was poisoned. She's unable to wake up.”Immediat
Silence ensued and the both of us just stared at each other cautiously. I didn’t know what to say or what to think. I was in a state of disbelief, unable to comprehend that he could have killed his friend whom he loved. Perhaps, I thought to myself, it had been an accident, just like with me. But that didn’t make it any less eery. At least with me, Nicholas hadn’t actually killed me. My body had been in a state of in-between, drawn to death, but able to come back to life. And so, I wondered if Theo could still bring someone back if they’d completely crossed over. If they’d already been kissed by death and embraced it openly. Was that what had happened to Portia Knight, or was it something else, something more sinister… “Say something, please…” Nicholas said softly, breaking the silence between us. There was a sense of desperation in his voice and his eyes were ashamed and seemed to be eagerly searching my face. But I couldn’t find my words. “I… I−” Suddenly, there was a loud, despe