12. to be a horrifying romantic

12

to be a horrifying romantic

Lucynda

Rivian leads the way up the long driveway I've admired from afar for so long; turning back to see that I'm on the other side of the gate is a surreal feeling and one that I will forever hold on to. Especially since I now know that it really does exist.

As we get closer to the castle, nervousness eats at me and chills swarm my skin.

"Here." Rivian removes his jacket and helps it around my shoulders. It's a chivalrous act, but he claims to be a life-sucking being. Those two things should not be mixed together. Unless he's lying to me about what he really is. Or unless the lore of vampires I've read of isn't true at all.

But I push the thoughts aside as he leads us up to the black double doors of his mansion and pushes them open.

Entering Hollows Trace is like stepping into an ominous scene of your favorite dark academia book and I don't know where to look first. Everything is over the top extravagant. Gold and dark marble layers surfaces that I had no idea could be gold or marbled. There are vintage paintings of major landmarks and naked men and women placed calculatedly along the walls in gold filigree frames. Beautiful chandeliers hang from the ceiling with crystal embellishments and moonlight shifts its way into the high-wall windows that must provide excellent natural light during the day. But the darkness that's still present in the early morning hours gives an ethereal effect to the grandness of this fortress. I've envied it from the outside of its barriers and now . . . well, now the outside world seems so small compared to the way standing inside of Rivian's home makes me feel.

"How did you…" I think over how to word my question. I start to develop this need to not make myself sound too dumb or incompetent enough to learn more about this life . . . his life. "Noone seemed to believe me when I asked about this place. And just now, I thought I was crazy because it wasn’t there. Yet, you somehow make it reappear." He holds his eyes steady over my face as I continue to look around at the wonder of my surroundings. "How?" I finally ask.

"It's magic, of sorts. A cloaking spell really. It's cast over the Hollows Trace compound so as not to attract the curious minds of those who do not belong inside of the gates. So in short, not a soul in Shadow Creek or anywhere else in the world for that matter—other than other Nocturnes and anyone else we allow to be privy to the knowledge of—knows of its existence. It's meant to keep the Society safe from outside harm." Rivian doesn't hesitate to give me an answer, feeding me information that I feel I have no right to know. But I'm grateful for his straightforward honesty as it clears a few things up as far as the illusion of his home is concerned.

Which has me asking my next question.

"Why did you bring me here, Rivian?" I turn to see him rub his finger against his bottom lip.

I shrink into myself, getting the feeling I did or asked something wrong, maybe something against his mind compulsion. But he debunks my thoughts when he turns back to me to speak.

"When you say my name…" He appears to be a little flustered as he talks to me. His eyes seem to hold some kind of admiration in them. Hunger.

I start to back away a few steps, nervous that he might try to eat my neck the way he did to that girl in the dark room. But I won't deny that I like the way he's looking at me right now, the way his eyes are burning a hole into my memory, begging to never be forgotten. He's handsome. So entirely, dangerously handsome.

"I won't hurt you, but I won't hide the fact that I do crave the way you say my name, Lucynda." I feel heat brush against my cheeks and spread down my neck and toward my belly, lower and lower. I've never been in such close proximity with someone who intimidates me and makes me feel special all in the same moment. This was the exact feeling I’d gotten from him the night in my bookstore.

"Despite what I am, you have to know that your trust is important to me. I also need you to know that I don't want to have to compel that sweet mind of yours again. So any question you might ask, if you receive an answer that makes you defiant, I will corrupt your thoughts." He talks to me in a phlegmatic tone, though still displaying his power through the demanding way he looms over me. Despite having the most mesmerizing green coloring his irises, his other features only feed the darkness he weeps.

I simply nod my head at his request and hope to God that I don't piss him off. I feel tranquility overcome me in short waves which is what I cling to as I wait for him to answer the question I had asked him before he made me blush.

"This is the Hollows Trace compound." He waves his hand around the large foyer of the castle. "It's also my kingdom and home to the Hollows Trace Society, which is made up of Hollow vampires, or otherwise known as Nocturnes." He stops his explanation and allows me a moment to take in the words he spoke, and I have a feeling that more pressing and unbelievable words are about to leave his mouth.

"Shadow Creek is our home, but there are other societies of Nocturnes occupying towns like this one all over the world. Think of it as a book club held by a library. There’s lots of libraries all over the states and each one likely has its own book club." His analogy is very understandable, but it’s silly to hear him speak so . . . childish .

I start to walk toward the hallway of paintings, needing to have something to distract my mind from overthinking as he talks to me.

He follows behind me.

"In short, you are here to be the queen of this kingdom and I am in line to be king. In order to do that, we need to marry."

That gets my attention.

"Marry? As in bride and groom walking down the aisle?" My head snaps in his direction, tranquility out the door.

I can see the look of worry cross his face, but not out of pity or concern for me. Out of warning to get my shit together or I will be forced to lose control over my conscience by the likes of him. Despite the slight comfort I feel in being in Rivian's presence, I know he can change all of that if I don't behave on my own accord. I know I am truly in danger if I allow myself to react.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady the race for knowledge gnawing at me. I need to take his information slowly if I dare to have a chance of understanding any of this at all.

"Do you know how old I am?" I turn to ask Rivian, remembering the way his eyes traveled up my body the night at the bookstore and how absolutely captured I was by him. Now, I slowly roam the halls of his castle while he explains to me that he wants to marry me so I can be his queen. Forget the existence of vampires, the idea of marriage at the age of eighteen is illogical.

"I do, Lucynda. I know a lot more about you than you might think," he admits, his fingers graze the side of his jaw as he looks up at one of the paintings instead of watching for my reaction. "Do you know how old I am?"

I shake my head.

"Technically, I'm eighteen, like you." His answer shakes me. Technically? Eighteen? How does that make much sense?

"What do you mean?" I keep my back to him as I prod for an explanation.

"I died on my eighteenth birthday. Thirteen years ago."

I gasp, turning my head in shock. If I do the math, that would make him…

“You’re thirty-one?” My question leaves on a husky tone, knowing that his answer would mean that there is a thirteen year age-gap between him and I.

“Technically, I haven’t reached my thirty-first birthday just yet. That’s in a few months.” His answer seems so normal. But I don’t think about it too much because a more morbid question comes to mind.

“How did you die?”

Rivian looks down at me, his green eyes boring into mine.

“That’s a story for another day.”

I feel sad knowing that he had to die to become who he is, knowing that death is probably not a pleasurable experience.

"Well, then how long exactly have you been following me?" Part of me fears the answer, the other part of me craves the way he touches his fingers to his skin, remembering how they felt on my own; his thumb caressing my scar just hours ago. No one has ever found beauty in the reminder of the pain I'd suffered, but he didn't look at me like I was damaged or dimmed. He looked at me like he admired me all the more because of it.

"The day your dad forced himself on you." My heart drops. My breathing becomes shallow, hyperventilation on the rise as his words ring through my ears.

He's looking straight at me, into my eyes and into my soul.

"Wait, how do you know about that?" I ask, not believing a word he says at this point until he can prove that his statement is true. But I refuse to believe that anyone from this town or any other town has any knowledge of my past life.

I feel my breathing kick into a hyperventilation fit. I start to feel like the walls are closing in on me and everything becomes blurry as heat covers me.

"Lucynda, you need to breathe." Rivian reaches out to me, his hand gently coming down on my shoulder, and I want to hate him for telling me what to do, but I can tell he's not using whatever mind games he possesses to do so.

I release the fist I created and allow my skin to breathe from the moon-shapes my nails had surely begun to imprint into my palms. I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, exhale through my mouth.

"You're lying," I say as calmly as my worked-up mind allows me and as my eyes start to clear from the blur I'd been seeing, Rivian moves his hand up from my shoulder to my neck, holding me there as his thumb grazes the side of my chin.

"I may be a lot of things, Lucynda. But I wouldn't lie to you about something like that," he says to me and though his touch—desirable and so warm—soothes me to my core, I can't help but feel upset that he knows about one of the darkest parts of my life. It’s a day I never want to go back to. A day that carved my life and kickstarted my obsessive thoughts with wanting to punish everyone who belittled me, and abused me.

"How?" My breathing comes short.

"I heard your cries for help. I was in the area and I heard you. I trespassed your home and saw him on top of you." It just gets worse, doesn't it? Not only does he know about it, but he witnessed it.

Rivian's eyes search mine and I'm sure he can see the tears that I'm trying to hold back. I cried one too many nights over what that bastard did to me, I refuse to let it affect me now.

"Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you stop it?" I hate that I need space from him now when a moment ago I felt secure by him. I yank his hand away from me and take a few steps back.

"I did. I am the reason he backed off you." His voice is sterner now, eager to tell me the truth. "And I'm also the reason your father is dead." The moment I feel as though I've got a hold on my hammering heart and my lack of air, everything falters again and I'm back to a confused state of panic.

"You…" I stammer, looking down at the ground and trying to fit the pieces together. "You what ?"

"I compelled him to walk away, made him abandon his ridiculous ideas of wanting to bring you harm and after I saved you from him that night, I had to go back to finish what I started." Rivian speaks composedly, as if murder is as casual a hobby as reading books or listening to music.

My fight or flight senses spike up and I know I'm on the verge of yet another panic attack, which will lead to the consequences of being mind-controlled by the man who claims to have killed my father.

I should be thanking him, and I want to. But I can't help the logical part in me that says that this is not normal, and despite having my own thoughts of destruction, murder is wrong.

But for vampires, it's nature and I might have to learn to accept that.

Something nags at me, the intrigue of needing to hear how he did it even though danger stealthily looms in the air. I have to understand why he would do that.

"You can ask me, little one." Rivian seems to have closed the distance between us as I let my mind wander but I don't back up as I look up into the souls of his eyes, the way they gleam with all the mystery and sin they did when I first saw him.

"Why did you kill him, Rivian?" My heart drowns out the sound of my breathing, I think Rivian can hear it too, if that's the sort of skill vampires might have.

But he takes one final step closer to me and cages me against the wall. My head makes contact with the bottom frame of one of the paintings, but my surroundings are of no concern. I wait for Rivian's answer. I wait for his hand to slowly work its way up from my wrist to the curve of my neck. He pushes my hair behind my shoulder as he leans in and places his lips to my earlobe, his whisper giving me chills.

"I did it for you."