Oozing with pride, Damien sashayed the dining hall with his bleeding lips as his shiniest accessory.
"I heard you missed me?"
As if seared, three heads sprung aggravatedly and even with Akin's shielding frame or Damien's attention-seeking entrance, it was me they only looked at.
I might be looking like a corpse straight from a cabin as all my colors hid because of the vibrant dusk they are radiating. Cause it is going too strong and lethal that my chest forgot how to pump blood the way it should normally do.
And the only consolation I have for myself is that at least it is only me who is seeing it. My family doesn't get to experience the extreme trepidation this meeting is injecting into me right now.
One man in a fur coat, all white eyes and face defined by an exquisitely high bone structure and with a nose as pointed as mine. He looked especially distinct with the surrounding thin white veins in the whole of his neck. And among the three he has the most hush stare, something unexpected from someone who has the heaviest form in this very room.
The other man, in tucked-in formal black long sleeves folded till elbow and golden watch on his wrist, was earlier cooly regaled with the wine he is playing by his glass, but when his vision snagged me, he stopped and allowed the liquid circle on its own. His gaze is probing on me as if on some... thought.
A certain painful clench in my head started. I closed my eyes and painfully defied it away.
I opened my eyes and he is now amused in his seat.
Then there is a woman, as bright as the sun and the only one glistening in the hall of vampires, staring at me in what seems like awe, longing, and blazing eyes.
Sculpted with different twisted expressions, I almost fainted in place when someone's sharp nails almost dug into my neck!
Just not successful to do so for Akin in a different heat, busted out their confidence when he straighten up in his lazy slouch.
That hand is on wholesome aggression that it didn't occur to me that it could be stopped! I saw it micrometers away from my neck!
And she saw me terrified, in aghast. With lips parting and an unbelieving expression, she took her steps backward, eyes in immediate moist. She is fully turned back to the table reason why she failed to notice the seething unease in her acquaintances' eyes.
"You should not be scared..." she hoarsely pointed out.
Why would I not be terrified of her aiming for my throat?
Damien, unhappy of the attention he is not getting, teleported mischievously to his seat... and passionately, with all smiles... spilled the sticky wine on the long table. The fluid run its course, reaching the knife and fork of the farthest man seated across him.
As if a potion for ecstasy, the woman and the two men on the table hungrily stared... dreaming to catch the flowing beverage with their mouths, that their eyes balled out when Damien slopped another glass of transparent liquid in the same trajectory the red wine has been spilled.
My jaw dropped when the reddish taint vanished like it never existed.
Hostile, they wished Damien a death glare.
He sneered.
"Oh... The human blood just spilled."
He played the little amount of transparent liquid in his glass. As if aggrieved, he shook his head.
"I didn't also know that the Chaut Veix will turn this jealous. It wanted to slip out of my groping hand."
Staging a dramatic disappointment of himself, he placed the glass down. "Unfortunately... it already turned the delicious human blood to perish. How I wish I have at least had a salacious lick,"
He savored his lips as if his longed bloody liquid has been there. And we all stared like fools, except for Akin who remained taut beside a towering window, now very far from me.... watching the most terrible actor of all time.
I tried to search at his eyes but he is straight up gazing on the dining, blank and unreadable.
And then it all came along, the pressure of the heavy stares they are crowning each other and the blatant distinction that I am the only one in the room without fangs, the speed, and the strength of their kind.
"If missing you means getting extra enthusiastic of punching your face nonstop, then indeed. I have absolutely missed you. " the blonde man with the most heated expression slayed.
Damien intertwined his fingers as he let his chin have a pleasuring rest on it.
Hoping to be seen by Akin, I stepped one towards him. His eyes shifted in me with heavy restraint. I was about to stare longer at him, hoping to let him know I need to have him by my side but he tore his gaze away seamlessly.
My lips parted and I retracted back to facing Damien and the others.
What's wrong?
"I have abso-bloodly-lutely missed you too. " recited Damien.
"If missing you means getting extra enthusiastic to eradicate you on the world sight and giving you the best death you could have. It is so true I have missed you so..."
Pale lips, veined skin, and auburn orange long wavy hair— the only woman in their group is calm now to give her fair share of speech.
"Cier," she stopped the man of attacking by shortly touching his wrist.
Cier, who she called the man in long sleeves threw Damien one last angsty glare before settling himself down the chair beside the woman.
"We are here not to be disrespected by you, Damien" she said with a controlled voice.
Damien intently listened to her as if really listening. But if my eyes were right, I am certain his only desire is to watch her moving lips.
"Ciero and Tarnus have come here with me, even with their most disdain, irritation, and disfavor of you,"
He nodded like a child.
And even if I am only watching him, I also felt most annoyed with the way he is acting up.
"... to bend for a favor I requested. I wanted to lend a visit to my long-lost friend. Why do you have to pick where their scratch is? You remained stupid. I can't believe your people here could afford to take you seriously!"
"My beauty is exceptional," he smiled wide, disregarding the drama the woman is wanting him to face.
"And do we dig one's neck and term them as our friend? Were you also seriou-"
The woman cut off his ridicule.
"Because I thought she still knew how to counterattack our used-to-be pastime!"
Why the hell would she think that digging necks out is fun to do? Is she saying I see fun in slicing one's delicate life?
There is no second doubt. I am not her friend. I am not anyone's sister. And I wasn't supposed to be here!
In my horror, Damien made me his apple of eye. He motioned me the long table.
"Come here, Reishza. Sit with us. Be hospitable to our visitors. And stop pretending you are different from us. You are as evil, it is just boringly hiding on that soft facade of yours,"
His wide smile faded when I remained standing in place. There is no way I'm gonna be eating with them!
"Akin..." Damien authoratively calls but even before he complete his name, Akin is already here beside me... with another weird distancing.
Damien chuckled in his seat which we both ignored.
"Aren't you hungry?" Akin calmly asked.
"I am but-" I goggled the food in there and thought of ridiculous things. Consuming the space he left between us shamelessly, I held on the fabric of his suit by the fingers and spew what worries me the most, "I won't eat human meat,"
His eyes remained on my hold as if there was something impossible of it.
"Akin!" I annoyedly whispered because he so busy minding my touch.
He finally gave my annoyed face an eyeful. He narrowed his eyes a bit at my expression. He chuckled and laid off his eyes of me with lips in a playful twist. "Let's go?"
Like a child I tugged his coat again. Possesing more of its fabric.
His eyes shot at my fingers again and it seemed it hushed his orbs more.
"I won't eat human meat, I said..." I intently repeated.
Damien might force me to!
He picked up my fingers and entertwined his as he pull me on the watching vampires. "I don't eat human meat either, love"