Chapter 22

Chapter 22
"Seraphina!"

The sound of the name made bells ring in my head. I couldn't have been mistaken. It was the same name I had heard in my dreams, the same name Lucien had called me in the dream. And as soon he pushed the word out, my heart started to race. There was a distant familiarity to the name, as if it belonged to someone I knew, some old friend or colleague. But over the course of my life, I had had very little friends and none of them bore the name Seraphina.

I decided to do a little probing.

"Who was she?" I asked, managing to keep my voice from sounding tremulous.

Lucien was quiet for a while, as if in meditation. His gaze remained in the distant, and his hand still firmly held mine. At the mention of the name, the atmosphere around us had tensed and I wanted very much to leave the garden and return to the solitude of my room.

"She was a friend, like I said," he said finally, looking at me. "Just a really good friend. And do you know what — you remind me of her."

"Me?" I said, brows raised in surprise. "Really? Is that even possible?"

"Why wouldn't it be possible?" He said, chuckling, as if I had said the most naive thing ever. "We're all connected as creatures that live on this Earth, so one person could remind you of another. That's possible, Amara."

"But she was a vampire, I'm sure," I countered. "And also, she was royalty. This means we're very different, doesn't it?"

"No, it means nothing," he said sternly. "Besides, you're royalty now, aren't you?"

I said nothing else. He let go of my hand and clapped his hands in the air, and in an instant, a servant came rushing to us. Lucien instructed that glasses of cold drinks be served to us and the servant hurried away.

"Even with this ring," Lucien said, holding up his ring for me to see, "it still gets really hot outside."

The servant returned with the drinks on a tray, one for me and one for Lucien. We sat in silence, sipping from the glasses. My mind was somewhere far away, thinking about this Seraphina, who she was and what kind of relationship she had had with Lucien. Soon, it was time to go. We had spent most of the afternoon in the garden.

He took my hand again and led me out of the court into the inner palace. When we got to his room, he held on to me for a while and looked at me. I felt shy, not just because it felt like his eyes were boring into my soul, but also because people frequently passed by the corridor.

"I want to spend the night with you," he said in a low voice. "You go to your room now and rest. But when it begins to be nightfall, come to my room. We'll spend the night together. Do you understand?"

I nodded. He squeezed my hand before freeing me, and I felt my heart swell at that gesture of affection.

Back in my room, I lay on the bed, thinking about all that had happened that day. Lucien had been unusually nice to me, had chided the nobles in front of me and demanded that they also respect and acknowledge me. I knew it would make them detest me, but I couldn't help but feel the warmth of his affection.

Bianca came in later and brought some food.

"I'm sure you had a nice time with Master Lucien," she said as she watched me eat.

"Yeah, I did," I said. "It wasn't anything, really. We just sat in the garden and talked a little."

"Yeah, but still," she said. "It's Master Lucien, and it's a privilege. You're lucky!"

I could hear the longing in her voice, a sort of sadness, as if she wished she should be in my position. But I didn't want to chalk it up to envy so I discarded it from my mind.

"I'd really just like a simple life," I went on. "I don't need any of this."

"Well, we don't all get what we want, do we?" Bianca said coldly, and with that she left the room.

I finished up with my food without paying her actions any mind, and then had my bath. When I had done so, I dressed up, perfumed my body and made my way to Lucien's room. On the way there, I passed by Elias. Even though my heart leaped, he did not look at me. He looked completely healed. When I got to Lucien's room, I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. The door opened and I walked in.

Lucien was naked to the waist. He turned and looked at me, a sensuous smile on his face.

"It's going to be a long night, isn't it?" He said and I responded by trying to smile.

"You look really good, by the way," he added. "But we're not going to be needed all that clothing, are we?"

He came at me with his vampire speed and slowly took my dress off. He ran his finger from my neck to between my breasts, and then he stuck it into my vagina. This time, he didn't push it in and I felt very little pain. I let out a moan.

"Ahh, you like that," he said in a drawl. He dug even deeper and I moaned louder. Slowly, he withdrew his fingers and stuck them into his mouth and licked them.

"You're delicious," he said.

He pulled me closer to himself and began to kiss me on the mouth, slowly, sensuously, and for the first time, I kissed back, I let myself go. He trailed his lips from my chin to my neck and then to my clavicle, and then he suddenly stopped. He was looking at my shoulder.

"What?" I asked him, but he said nothing and kept his eyes on my shoulder, looking bewildered.