At the last moment, before she entered the castle, Elyssa turned back toward me.
"You hate me, don't you?" she asked suddenly. Startled, I stared at her. She shrugged one shoulder at me. "The way you look at me says it all, you know. I understand why you feel that way, and I have no place to ask you to try to change your mind. It just kind of upsets me that my first true friend here hates my guts now." The sad smile that adorned her face at that statement tugged at my heartstrings, but I remained silent. "Anyway, see you around."
With that, she was gone, inside the castle once more. I stared at the spot where she stood, and wondered how such an intuitive and smart woman could possibly think that I hated her when it was quite the opposite.
Maybe it has more to do with my hiding abilities, than her ability to read you, I thought, chewing thoughtfully on my bottom lip.
I needed to get my mind off of Elyssa before I drove myself insane. Heading inside, I decided to try to find my Mate.
When I was unable to find her, even in our room or in the room she’d begun to hide in to paint, I headed back outside in defeat, only to find her in the gardens, gently playing with a rose bud.
When she saw me, she stood up straighter and headed inside without a backward glance.
Should I chase her? I thought, staring after her. Or should I just let her go, since I doubt she wants anything to do with me...
“Ollie, wait,” I called, running inside after her.
When she turned around, I ran up to her, colliding with her as I held her face in my hands and kissed her hard.
She pushed me off immediately, hissing at me as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What was that for?!" she demanded, taking a few steps back from me. Talk about an ego killer.
"I'm sorry," I muttered drily. "Isn't that what you've been craving all this time, dear? Don't you want me to love you in all the right ways?" I asked, stepping up to her and trailing my fingertips along her neck and shoulders. The flush that crept up her neck and into her face told me I was spot-on.
"Not after you've all but abandoned me for spending time with that woman," she replied, licking her lips. Ollie pouted and I chuckled.
"If I abandoned you as you think I have, I wouldn't be here right now, trying to make love to my wife," I whispered, wrapping my arms around her waist and leaning in to caress my lips across hers.
She furrowed her eyebrows and frowned as though she was going to push me away again, but sighed against my mouth and returned the kiss, sliding her hands up my chest. As she would her arms around my neck, I carefully walked her backward until she was between me and a wall.
“What would you know?” she asked huskily, meeting my gaze with half-lidded eyes. “Trapped between a rock and a hard place…”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Must you make jokes now?” I teased, nuzzling my face into the crook of her neck. She sighed again and let her head roll to the other side to allow me access. “Much better, love,” I whispered against her skin, trailing my hands down to her hips.
“Wait,” she stammered. “Not out here…”
Pulling back, I laughed lightly. “Miss Ollie, normally so bold, needs to take this someplace private? I learn new things about you all the time…”
She blushed again, and I smiled. “I’m sorry, love, I’m only teasing. Come on.” I held out my hand for hers and she took it, allowing me to lead her back to our room.
Elyssa
As I moved hurriedly through the castle, on my way to my room so I could change my clothes and catch a nice hot shower, Zeke's voice stopped me.
"Elyssa!" he called out to me. I growled under my breath and turned around to face him as he ran up to me.
"Yes, Zeke?" I asked, fisting my hands and placing them on my hips to show that I didn't feel like dealing with him right then. “I was on my way to my room. If you don't mind, can you walk with me? I’m dying for a shower; my back hurts like hell."
At the mention of a shower, Zeke's eyes had the telltale sign of mischief in them for half a second before they returned to normal, and I held back a sigh. The new Zeke wasn't as fun to be around as the old one. Not that I much appreciated the sexual remarks or the beating, of course, but this new Zeke was just odd. I was certain that anyone who knew him better than me would also agree.
Zeke nodded once and motioned for me to walk ahead of him. I did so, trying to stop my hips from swaying as much as they normally did; I didn't want Zeke to think that I was trying to seduce him just because my body was changing with the damn baby inside me.
I began to walk toward our section of the castle, and he started to speak. "So we realized that Tywin’s spell means that he is still alive somewhere, right?" he asked me slowly.
I frowned, nodding. I didn't need a reminder. Not being able to leave the castle – even though I didn't want to leave permanently yet – was a pain in the ass.
Zeke hummed a note of solemn acceptance at my nod before sighing. Then he continued, “Well I think that he might be in Annibel’s body now."
I froze in my tracks, and Zeke ran right into me, cussing softly under his breath. His momentum sent me reeling forward, but he grabbed me by my hips and held me against him gently for support.
"Are you alright?" he asked in my ear.
Damn the chills that ran up my spine as his breath ran along my flesh. I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m fine, I suppose. I just can hardly believe that he really didn't die. We killed Reid for no reason," I whispered, trying to conceal my tears from him. I resumed walking. It wasn't until we rounded the next corner that he grabbed me gently and pressed me against the wall, keeping himself arm's length away from me.
"Reid died so we could set him free from my old man," Zeke insisted, cupping one of his hands against the side of my face tenderly. "Don't ever think that he died for no reason, okay?" I nodded, sniffling. I tried to hold the tears in, but they escaped, and Zeke smiled as he brushed a few away.
"Damn wench, making me go soft," he muttered under his breath as he turned away from me and resumed the trek down to our part of the castle.
I wondered what he meant by that, and thought about it silently as we walked. It hit me when we reached the main hall, though, and I scowled.
Roxann.
Of course he meant her. That was fine and all, because Zeke was really no fun soft, and even though I didn't have to deal with him on a regular basis – like lovers had to deal with one another – it was wrong that he had to change for her acceptance and I would hate to take the blame for that anyway.
I would have taken him, whips and all, I found myself thinking. A deep blush crawled up my body and settled on my face, and I began to fan my face in an attempt to cool off from the heat. Zeke noticed my motion from the corner of his eye and turned toward me.
"Are you alright? You’re red and fanning yourself. Are you having a hot flash? Do you need anything?"
I suppressed a giggle, knowing that this wasn't soft Zeke talking to me this way; Zeke would be attentive to a woman who was pregnant with a Lanistter child no matter if he was sadist Zeke, or pink fluffy Zeke.
Zeke noticed my change in attitude and narrowed his eyes at me. He knew me well enough – too well almost – to know that I was trying very hard to not laugh. "What is so funny, Elyssa?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
I shook my head, waving him off, and tried to step around him. "Nothing, nothing," I chuckled.
He blocked my way, however, and grinned at me, making butterflies assault my stomach. I tried to not think about the way his smile got to me, so I blamed it on the baby.
Stop giving me butterflies, please, baby Lanistter, I thought, settling one hand over my abdomen as I shook my head at Zeke. "Really, it's nothing," I murmured.
He noticed my hand's migration and moved to the side to let me through. He really seemed worried that there was something wrong with me, with the baby... An ache in my chest made me uncomfortable, and I sighed silently.
&
nbsp; Suddenly his words hit me. "Wait, Annibel? You think he's in her now?" I had a sinking feeling as I recalled the first official day of my training with Dmitri. Her odd behavior, the contradiction to what she'd told me directly before...
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “Based on a few encounters with Annibel, I think it’s safe to assume that Tywin now inhabits her body.” His expression was grim.
"I think you might be right," I whispered. I could feel the blood drain from my face, and I grew dizzy. Zeke caught me before I could hit the floor and began to alternate between patting my face gently and fanning me.
"Elyssa?" he asked. He sounded scared. "Are you okay? Is there something wrong?"
I shook my head no. Thinking about it for a second, though, I changed my mind and nodded instead.
We sank down to the floor and I began speaking.
“It’s like I said before,” I began quietly. “We killed Reid to get rid of Tywin. To have such strong hints toward him being alive still… Truly makes it feel as though we failed when we killed Reid.”
Zeke sighed. “Elyssa, we failed even if we’d gotten rid of my old man along with Reid. After all, we killed a member of our family…”
Sighing as well, I nodded. “That’s true. It’s just rather depressing, that’s all,” I admitted. Zeke chuckled.
“I know. It bothers me, too. But now we have no choice but to kill the bastard. To avenge Reid as well as to protect –” he paused.
Our eyes met and we both looked down to my stomach. He reached out to touch my barely-swollen belly.
“To protect this family,” he finished breathlessly.
Once again, our eyes met, and time stood still. Our faces drew closer together until we were separated by a mere breath.
We lingered there for a minute, just breathing each other in, until Zeke sighed, pulling away.
“Elyssa,” he whispered. “You should know something… I’m… Engaged to Roxann now.”
Something inside me began to ache, but I hoped that I hid it well. “I see,” I murmured. “So why were you about to kiss me?”
“Damnit, Elyssa!” Zeke exploded. “You know why!”
Frowning, I began to shake my head. He growled at me and grabbed me by the shoulders to stop that, though.
“No!” he hissed. “You know why! I’ve said it before!”
My breath hitched in my throat as Zeke pulled me in and crashed his lips against mine in a violent kiss.
He pressed me back against the wall as soon as I began to respond to his kisses. They weren’t lust-driven, but a mixture of hard and soft closed-mouth kisses. His hands moved up to cradle my neck.
After a few moments of that, Zeke began to whisper unintelligible things in between kisses. It wasn’t until the third time he spoke that I understood him.
“You know it,” he breathed against my mouth. “You know that I love you…”
Startled, I pulled away from him, eyes wide. He met my gaze with half-lidded eyes, his hands still at my throat.
“Don’t act so surprised,” he said, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “And don’t act like you don’t feel the same…”
As he leaned in to kiss me again, I turned my head. “Stop,” I said quietly. “You can’t do this. You have someone now.”
Zeke snorted softly. “What does she matter if I have you?”
I frowned, but he went on. “No, let’s be honest: you are my equal. You are one of my own, a vampire. You match my wit and intelligence…
“What is some human compared to–”
“Stop!” I cried out. “I was just a human! And you love her, or feel enough for her to be engaged to her. So stop…”
As he pulled away from me finally, I drew in a shaky breath. “Back to Annibel and Tywin,” I said weakly. Zeke nodded slowly, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Does she stand no chance at all of fighting him?” I asked. It was a morbid question, but one that needed to be asked.
After all, Reid was unable to fight Tywin off, and that weakness was paid for with his life.
The thought brought back my negative feelings from before, effectively driving out all that just occurred between Zeke and myself.
I finally understood what a pregnancy-amplified mood swing felt like.
It was thoroughly irritating to have so little control over what I was feeling. I realized that I’d experienced many mood swings in the past handful of weeks.
Between my transformation and Reid’s death, however, there were many factors that assisted in my jump from temperament to temperament at fast rates. Those things effectively hid my pregnancy, I was starting to believe.
“Too much has happened here… I wish I’d let you run me out of here in the beginning,” I whispered to Zeke before running off.
Zeke
We were in my study that day. I sat at my desk pretending to focus on research that I should have been doing, but I couldn’t really keep my mind on the subject at hand.
Hell, I didn’t even know what my topic was at that point.
All I knew was that I felt intensely guilty sitting with Roxann when I had just been with Elyssa hours earlier, telling her that I wanted her over Roxann. Over some human woman.
The looks she sent my way told me she couldn’t tell that my mind was miles away, which partly added to my uncomfortable feelings that day.
Wasn’t my fiancée supposed to be able to read me?
Elyssa knows how to read you. That damned voice. If I weren’t completely sure that it wasn’t Tywin, I might have been worried more. As it was, I could recognize my own voice perfectly.
It only served to bother me more.
“Is something wrong?” Roxann’s voice broke up my internal torture.
I realized that I’d been staring at her, a dark frown on my mouth. So it probably looked as though I was glaring at her. Fantastic.
“I… I’m not sure,” I murmured, settling for a half-truth. I knew something was wrong, but I also knew that I couldn’t tell Roxann everything. I couldn’t tell her about Tywin, or she would stand up on her own two feet to defend herself. On the other hand, how was I to protect her if she didn’t know the truth?
Roxann closed her book slowly, standing up to walk over to my desk. When she got to my side, she knelt down. “What is it?” she asked gently, touching my arm.
I flinched away from her, which placed a startled look on her face. I stood and she mimicked my action.
“You should leave the castle,” I said. “Go back to your insignificant little paper and tell the horror story of the Lanistter Castle.” I sneered down at her.
“Have I done something to upset you?” she asked. There was a very thin layer of tears lining her eyes, but the woman was too stubborn to let them fall.
“I’ve just been thinking a lot,” I replied with a shrug. “You’re a human. You have no intention of becoming one of us. What kind of future do we really have?”
She appeared startled at the sudden turn in my attitude toward her. As she frowned at me, I could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to figure out where this change of heart came from.
“You didn’t care about me being a human the other day,” she began slowly. “When you proposed.”
I sighed. “Roxann, I have always cared about your status as a human. I just thought for one moment that I might be able to get over it.”
I knew that I was probably hurting her more than necessary, but I also knew that she wouldn’t leave this place, leave to safety, if I didn’t hurt her enough to make her leave.
Suddenly, it clicked. There was one thing that would hurt her enough to make her leave. The problem was, it was true, and I was vehemently against telling her the entire truth… But this was a part of it.
“Roxann, I’m… Still in love with Elyssa.”
Her sharp gasp and slight stagger backward told me she was blindsided.
"You... I thought," Roxann stammered. I looked away guiltily. "I thought you figured out that y
ou and she don't mesh well together," she finished, barely audible.
I shrugged one shoulder. "I ran into her in the hallway the other day to talk about T- something that doesn't involve you, and we had a moment..." As I spoke, I made sure to look Roxann in the eyes so that she could see my careless features.
The sad thing was that for once, I did care. I didn't want to have to do this, but I knew that in the end she would be safer this way, and would be better off leaving this place.
Better to hurt her than to have her stick around to die, I thought.
The sounds of Roxann swallowing heavily every few seconds were deafening, and I wished that my hearing wasn't so adept at catching little annoying sounds like that. After a few moments where she was able to compose herself, she nodded.
"Sure. Fine, whatever," she breathed. Bringing her hands together, she pried my mother's ring off her finger and dropped it on my desk. "I'll just go get my things together and be on my way, then. Goodbye. I'm sorry to have intruded on your life for this long." By the end of her sentence, she was sniffling and turning away to leave my study.
There was an ugly ache in my chest at what I'd just done. How could anyone ever do something like this and ever feel alright again? Even if it was for the other person's benefit and well-being, how was that awful feeling ever going to go away?
A few moments later, someone walked into my study. I knew who it was before she announced herself, and I prayed that she wasn't here to torment me.
"Why did you just do that?" Elyssa breathed. When I looked up at her, her eyes were wide, confusion written all across that pretty face.
"I had to do something to make her leave," I rasped out, chuckling. "She isn't safe here anymore, you know that. Tywin will do anything to get back at the two of us, and well... Who better to target than the woman I'm involved with?"
Elyssa remained silent, for which I was grateful. I wouldn't have been able to handle her questioning every little thing I was doing. It was hard enough to deal with the things going on inside my own head, let alone if she were to begin talking about them as well.
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