~ 32: Behind The Menancing Veil - Part 3 ~

I calmly looked into his eyes and bit softly on my lips. It was an awkward position for me and I didn't even know where he had decided to take his blood meal from.

The first thing he did was put the chain around my neck and kiss it when he was done. Then he pulled me closer, inhaled my scent deeply and sighed.

"I should be ashamed to have even asked this of the Descendant, but I can't find it in me to do so," he said, inclining more on my shoulder. "I hope you'll forgive me, Celestine."

"Why should you be ashamed?" I questioned, cocking my head. "You don't seem to have eaten at all the past two days, and you haven't even visited the hospital, as per my assumptions. Is your wound really cured or are you still healing?"

I touched his wound to check it myself before he could respond. He didn't flinch at all. Maybe it had cured faster than I had expected, although it was a fracture.

"I couldn't eat much as I didn't have an appetite. That is, until now. Your scent is strong enough to attract any manhunter to get their meal, especially without the chain. Do you now understand how vital it is?"

"Yes, I do. Speaking of the chain, were you the one who brought it to me?"

"Sort of. I had put a spell on the bottle the day I received a premonition and put it out in the sea. It should have found you and come at your call. Why do you ask?"

"Because if it wasn't for that, my mother would be on her deathbed."

At the mention of home, a few tears trickled down my cheeks. Lucas wiped them away with his kisses cautiously, ensuring that not one of his fangs touched my face.

"I'm sorry," I said and wiped the rest of them away. "You should continue before your meal becomes cold."

"It hasn't even been heated yet," he replied in an unsatisfactory tone. "Now, what will give you a small scare..."

He pulled me even closer so that my legs hugged him tightly instinctively. Then he suddenly pushed me down on the bed and hovered over me, causing my heart to race. I wasn't expecting him to cross that border. But my mouth couldn't move to contradict him.

'Why does it always have to be like this?' I asked my brain. 'Is there seriously no other alternative.'

'Fret not,' his voice came through my head, making me jump as I had forgotten his trick. 'It's not what you think it is.'

He made me sit up and then put his fingers on my nape. It was comforting and yet, not so much as my heart rate spiked at the sensitive region. He brought his head below my jaw and dug his fangs in the region between my neck and shoulder.

The sharp prick prompted the blood to pour out profusely on his tongue as he sucked it. I sat still, piercing my nails into my palm, and tried to concentrate anywhere else but on what would happen after he was done.

'What are you?' I asked him telepathically. 'A vampire or a breed of one?'

'A mix of many breeds, including vampires and seers,' he answered.

'Why were you and Aidan aggressive back there?'

'A long, boring story that wouldn't help you in any way.'

It was barely half a minute before he retracted his fangs. He licked away all the pints of blood on his teeth, not wasting a drop of it.

"Every student in that arena said you were a bad boy, bullying if you could," I said, rubbing the soreness from the prick. "Why would you do that to them?"

"You have too many questions," he huffed out, pulling his fangs back into his jaw. "People bully or pity me for my 'one eye' when I don't need it. I can see through them without even wearing the eye patch. There's nothing more that you need to know about that, although I trusted you with my actual form."

"You are hiding something," I said in a hushed tone. "Why would you even care to strike a deal with me in the first place? Is there something I have that everyone would seek for and you want to be the first one to get it?"

"You'll know when the time comes," he said mysteriously. "Now get going and don't even show me your face or hit me with another question until that night."

I sulked that I had to lock up the many questions in my chest until the time came.

"I will find a solution for that eye," I promised as I stared back into his eyes with great determination.

"Even if you did, it's already too late," he said, getting out of the bed. "Hurry along. I don't want you getting into trouble."

"It doesn't matter. Besides, you never know when the tides will change."

I stepped close to the door and checked the time on my scratched watch. It was quickly closing into two in the morning. There was no way I would make it safely through all the alleys after facing such incidents.

I heard a rustle behind me. I turned around and saw Lucas adjusting his short black leather jacket. I looked at him with surprise written all over my face. His amusement was conveyed through the one side of the lips he had pulled up.

"Did you really think I will let you go alone?" he asked and bent down so that I wouldn't have to crane my neck to have a look at him.

"How are we going to go?" I murmured when he had come too close.

"In a pleasant way, better than public transport services. They are pretty much dead after midnight in this area anyways. Just hold my hands and close your eyes."

I obeyed without questioning his wisdom. In a moment, there was a whish and a small flare that hit on my closed eyelids. When he let go of my hands, I opened my eyes to find myself in the corridor of my shared room.

I looked at him with curious eyes while my mind raced with questions.

The half-smirking man saluted with two fingers to say to me, 'I will be finer than ever.'

And he disappeared without a sound.