Heart of darkness, p.18
Heart of Darkness, page 18
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
My face tightened with rage. “And to think, everyone once thought you were so kind.”
She didn’t say anything as I walked away, and I refused to let it get to me. I’d speak to Beth if I damn-well wanted to, and nothing Lily said would stop me.
* * *
For breakfast the next morning, I actually put some effort into my appearance, knowing Elias would be down there. I sat at the table, eating fruit, but the only other person in here was Nate. He picked up his plate and walked the length of the table, coming to sit across from me where Elias had been yesterday.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, checking my watch. I wasn’t early.
“The summit. Meetings began today.”
A rolling wave of disappointment pushed over me. “Oh.”
“Hoping to catch Elias, huh?” He winked at me.
“He’s… kind of growing on me.”
Nate’s easy smile beamed. “I’m attending the weapons lecture this afternoon. I could slip him a message if you want.”
“Nah.” I grabbed my coffee and leaned back comfortably in my chair. “It’s not like that. I kinda just wanted to chat casually with him over toast. I don’t really wanna sneak around or whisper in corners just yet.”
“Got it.” Nate laughed. As he sipped his coffee and his eyes flicked absently across the room, they suddenly burst wide and he coughed the brown liquid out into his cup.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He nodded to the giant entry doors, and my gaze followed. I could smell his cologne then as he entered the room—all fresh and showered, looking like a million dollars—a newspaper tucked under his arm.
“I thought you said he was at the meetings,” I whispered through my teeth, shrinking down in my chair.
“He was. Maybe he got hungry, I dunno.”
“Vampires don’t get hungry,” I pointed out.
Nate shushed me and smiled at Elias as he approached.
“Morning,” Elias said.
“Morning.” I glanced up at him, hoping he didn’t sit beside me. He did.
I stared forward, catching Nate’s gaze with a tiny hint of horror in mine, wondering if I had morning breath.
“Catch you later for a game of chess?” Nate said, standing up.
I tried to signal him not to leave, but I felt like Elias would see. “Um. Sure,” I said instead. “Later.”
Beside me, Elias opened his paper and shielded me comfortably from view. He leaned back and propped his long, outstretched legs on the support bar beneath the table, making no effort to talk. I felt like I couldn’t even chew my food because it’d force an awkward bend into the silence between us.
We were the only two people left in the room, and I could suddenly hear my own heart beating, hear my stomach protesting everything I just ate, so it was a safe bet he could hear it too. And the nerves mixed with the undigested food in my gut, making me want to fart.
Slinking down further in my seat, I brought my feet onto the chair and tucked my knees up, resting my coffee on them. In the time that ticked on around us, I looked to my right and studied Elias’s hand. His nails were clean, trimmed, and his fingers thick but also long and almost graceful, like he could swing a sword and, in the same moment, play piano. He had no wedding ring, thankfully, but did wear one on his pinkie and his index finger. I wondered what they meant to him.
He folded one corner of his paper down then and smiled at me over it. I looked away quickly, having been caught checking him out, and curled my shoulders around. When I sipped my coffee, it made a horrendous gulping sound as it went down my throat, and Elias laughed.
“Aubrey.” He laid the paper aside then and sat forward to look right into my face. “Would you care to take a walk?”
“Don’t you have meetings to go to?”
With a bit of hesitation, he nodded. “And still…”
I smiled. “Why though?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, I mean, you know I’m younger than you. What could we possibly have in common?”
“At my age, what could I possibly have in common with anyone, save for maybe… Arthur Knight?”
I nodded with consideration. “I guess.”
“That’s the point of conversation, I would say,” he added. “We talk, we walk, we see if we get along.”
My coffee steamed in my face as I lifted it up to my lips to hide my smile in. Elias stood then, offering his hand. “Shall we?”
I obliged, but didn’t take his hand. That was just too weird. He drew it away, seemingly not offended, and as he took in my cute baggy white sweater and the black leggings, tucked into adorable gray boots, one corner of his lip pulled upward.
“So,” he started, walking with his hands behind his back as we headed for the large glass doors that led to the gardens, “you live in Australia.”
“Usually,” I offered, “when I’m not being sent to ugly castles against my will.”
Elias laughed, casting his eyes forward. “What are your plans… for when you’re old enough to escape your parents’ control?”
“I had planned to go to college and become a dance instructor.”
“Dance?” He pushed his brows up, turning slightly to look at me.
“Yes.”
We passed under the stone wall and into the clear cool air outside. Apples and cinnamon wafted on the breeze and brought me home to the days I’d spent at Loslilian as a kid. The same trees grew around the border of this castle and it made me miss that place and look forward to going there when I became a vampire.
“What kind of dancer are you?”
“Alternative, mostly.”
He nodded, casting his gaze forward again. “I’d love to see you dance sometime.”
“Not sure I ever will now. I mean, my plans have changed since coming here.”
“And what do you plan to do now?”
“Drink blood, become a Lilithian, and move out to Loslilian.”
“Your change will occur naturally, though—”
“Yes, but I want it now. Once a person becomes immortal, they’re no longer bound by the human conventions. I’d be declared an adult.”
“Are your parents really so terrible?”
“It’s not that,” I said, squinting in the sun as it blast its bright morning light down on the autumn leaves around the garden. “It’s that… I’m tired of being treated like a child. I tried to tell my mom that I needed to work on these abilities, and she wouldn’t listen. Now, someone is dead, and I’m living out here away from my friends.”
“That does seem incredibly unfair, to first create the monster and then punish it.”
“Exactly!” I skipped for a step, glad someone got it.
Elias laughed once to himself, and held my gaze with a very warm one of his own as we stepped down onto the grass beyond the stone path. “You could light up an entire room when you smile that way, Aubrey.”
And he could light up my entire soul when he said my name in that sexy posh accent. “So how did you end up on the council?” I asked, trying to take the focus off me, and also to learn a bit more about him. “You’re a World Council Leader, right? That’s pretty profound.”
“Yes, I am. Since the earliest days of the Sets.”
“Really? How did you end up a vampire?”
“I was sent by the king of my lands, at the time, to hunt down and kill a godless creature, who sought to suck the life from innocent people by drinking their blood.”
“A vampire?”
“Yes. And, in fact, it was King Drake himself who was my target, to be precise. As it stands, we instead became friends, and the rest is history. I was given a castle and asked to maintain order among vampires.”
“Wow. That’s pretty cool.”
He laughed again, lowering his head as he did, as though he was shy about it. But he had nice straight teeth and cute indents beside his lips when he smiled, so I wasn’t sure why he tried to hide it.
“Why do you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“When you laugh, you, like…” I did it to show him.
His hand came up to his jaw, and he meshed his words around inside his mouth for a moment, lips moving in response. “I suppose… it’s because I find you endearing. Perhaps, I hang my head so as not to admit that too openly and offend you.”
“Oh.” I looked forward and my mouth hung open a bit, until I realized and snapped it shut. Really tense, deeply-concerning silence hovered around us then. I was worried he’d realize we had nothing in common and then walk away, so I had to say something. “It’s tricky for me,” I confessed.
“What is?”
“I don’t know what to talk to you about, because I’m so used to boys that talk about the latest Riverdale episode or which video game they’re playing this afternoon. But I want to talk to you—”
“We don’t need to have anything in common in order to get along,” he stated. “And we needn’t find words to fill the silence either.”
“Sure you won’t get uncomfortable and run away if I don’t say anything?”
“I do not find silence to be uncomfortable,” he said, his footfalls crunching over the dead leaves in the short silence he let hang. “It is merely a brief period of time where one reflects on thoughts and analyses the many possible angles of conversation before speaking.”
“Not for me!” I said boldly. “I find it awful, awkward, and altogether a little bit damning.”
Elias laughed loudly, bowing his head.
“And not once had I been analyzing possible angles of conversation,” I added. “I was too busy grasping for anything intelligent to say.”
“I love your honesty,” he said, his laughter simmering. “It is endearingly refreshing.”
Kind of like I found his old-guy mannerisms. I’d never been a fan of films like The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers, but my mom loved them. Loved the charm. And I was starting to think I might check out Drake’s DVD library and grab a copy of Kate & Leopold tomorrow.
“Perhaps we should discuss our values, core beliefs. And if they align, then there will be plenty to talk about,” he said, his warm eyes shrinking with fondness.
“Okay, so how do we figure out if they align?”
Elias scratched the back of his neck, wincing. “I suppose we could speak in hypotheticals.”
“Oh, like a ‘what would you do if’ game?”
“Precisely.”
“Okay.” I moved over to a bench beneath a big leafy tree and swiped the wet leaves aside before sitting down. Elias sat beside me, keeping a respectable distance. “I know a few. Should I start?”
“Be my guest.”
“Um… so… there are two doors, one leading to heaven and one to hell. And of the two birds guarding each door, one bird lies and the other tells the truth,” I said. “How do you know which door to take?”
Elias sat back, turning his head to look out over the grassy gardens in front of us. “Can I simply open each door and check before entering?”
“No, that would be too easy.”
“Of course it would.” He sniffed up a breath of humor, closing his big hands together with a pop. “So… one bird lies and the other tells the truth?” he said to himself. “Ah, I… would ask both birds what color my eyes are. One would say blue. The other would lie. Then, I would ask where the door led. And I would have my answer.”
I burst out laughing, folding over a little. “Wow. That question took me a few days to answer!”
“And what had your answer been then?”
“That it wouldn’t matter which door I took. If I was evil, I couldn't enter Heaven and if I was good, I couldn't enter Hell. I’d always end up exactly where I belonged, where I deserved to be.”
One corner of his mouth quirked, revealing a thin dimple. “That’s a rather enlightening response, Aubrey.”
“What can I say?” I shrugged, hands out. “I’m full of surprises.”
Elias’s face lit up with a huge grin. “That you are.”
Another moment of silence moved between us, but this time, it wasn’t awkward. I found myself listening to the birds as they built their nests to prepare for the coming winter, and enjoying the icy breeze that moved my hair in soft tickles over my cheeks.
“I think I have one.” Elias curled his fingers around his chin in thought. “Would…” he started, still thinking it over. “Would you rather forget who you are, or who everyone else is?”
“Easy. I’d rather forget who I am. Because I can learn that all over again, but learning who to trust, who to love, that’s not easy.”
Elias nodded. “I like that response.”
“Why?”
“I think I feel the same. In my world, it has taken centuries for me to learn who can be trusted, and who cannot. To give that up would be… possibly very damaging,” he finished with a laugh. I smiled at him.
“Okay, my turn to ask one,” I said, really enjoying this, enough that I found myself looking over at the castle, half expecting someone to come and say he had to go to his meeting now, and I really didn’t want that.
“The floor is yours,” he said.
“Okay, let’s see…” I cast my eyes around the yard, looking for inspiration. “Ooh, this is really relevant to you, I guess. Um… would you rather spend fifty years in total happiness or live out eternity being unhappy?”
“I suppose I’ve already answered that by being alive as long as I have,” he stated. “No matter what has befallen me: happiness, grief, sadness, anger, I have never once wanted to end my existence here on this earth.”
“So you don’t really concern yourself too much with emotions then?” He did seem like the kind of guy who maybe found happiness within himself, not others.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that. But I suppose the underlying question really asks: is happiness more important to you, or time?”
“Wow, it’s more profound when you put it that way,” I said.
“I think so too.”
“So… which is more important to you?” I asked. “Because, for me, it’s happiness. But I have all the time in the world right now.”
“For me, it is time. Because I’ve never been discontent living without the societal view of happiness.”
“What about love then? What if you could have fifty years of love, or never have it?”
“Had you asked me that two days ago, I would have said I could live without it. I’ve never let my heart, the want of a woman, consume me.” He scoffed then, wiping a hand across his jaw. “Until you entered the room.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was ashamed,” he confessed, hanging his head. “I couldn’t, for all the acceptable social accords in the world, force myself to look away. I got this sense that I knew you somehow, or that I’d seen you before. And nothing rational went through my mind.”
I felt kind of sorry for him then, instead of feeling awkward, like I might otherwise. He was, like, genuinely ashamed of himself.
“Would you rather get uglier or dumber?” I asked, moving on.
“Uh… well, I believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so… uglier. Because every man and woman should have their wits about them.”
“Good answer.”
“What about you?”
“Um… yeah, I’d rather get uglier, because I’d hate to be dumb. But,” I said, raising a finger. “What if you were married? Would you rather your spouse got uglier or dumber?”
Elias looked me over, as if he were picturing me in that position. “Uglier. We all change so much over the years, even immortals change their appearance. Their views, opinions, moral core, that’s where true beauty lies. But good conversation never makes one unattractive. What about you?”
“I’m with you on this one. You can’t hold a conversation with Pretty.”
Elias laughed, lifting his head back as he did. And I thought about his fangs. I knew that one day I’d be Lilithian, and I’d have a set of fangs in me from time to time, but it made me want them right now. And he felt the change in my energy. He didn’t make it obvious, but it was there, like a lingering truth, between us.
“If a genie offered you three wishes, what would they be?” he asked, deflecting.
“Um…” I really had to think about that. “I’d wish…” I was a year older. Wow, really? I’d really wish that just because I liked this guy? What had gotten in to me? “I think I’d wish for… I don’t know. I don’t think I want anything badly enough that I couldn’t go out and attain it for myself.”
Elias’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I have everything I desire, I believe. However, I did once wish for a family.”
“How come you never had one?”
“I’ve been busy as a Set Leader. I enjoy my job, my people. I’ve never had time for love.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“I’ve had several close relationships over the years. Some have died, others moved on, but never anything that lasted longer than a decade.”
“Why?”
“I really can’t say.” He folded his arms, narrowing one eye in thought. “If I knew why it hadn’t worked out, I might have done something to fix it. But… it just didn’t.”
“But, come on… everyone knows, right? In retrospect. Everyone can say where they went wrong.”
Elias nodded, his jaw jutting out slightly. “Then, I suppose, there wasn’t enough love, enough interest there to keep me. I would say I am to blame for each of my failed relationships, save for those that died, and I would have to mark that down as a lack of interest.”
“Do you lose interest easily?”
“Not often.” He unfolded his arms. “I think maybe I am not modern enough for most of the women I’ve dated, and that becomes tiresome for them. To which I respond with the same sentiment, and things slowly unravel.”
“I’m modern,” I pointed out. “If you want to ‘court’ me in a year, what then?”
“You mock me,” he said playfully, aiming a finger at my raised brow. “I’m sorry if I do not adhere to the modern tongue, Aubrey, but it changes so often one cannot possibly keep up. I do not know a word other than ‘courting’ to explain the custom of getting to know a person with the intention of something deeper than friendship.”
