Lauren's jaw clenched when she felt Alec's warm breathing travel down her bare neck. The room's temperature dropped drastically and she wasn't sure if it was naturally cold in that room or if she felt that way because she was anxious.
"Your heart is beating fast. Scared that I would gobble you up, hmm?" His nose touched her skin gently as he sniffed a spot on her neck.
She gritted her teeth. "I don't have time to play with you. Stop fooling around and just do it."
Alec met Lauren's gaze in the mirror, his lips almost touching her skin. The sight sent shivers down her spine, but what left her colder was how she witnessed his eyes turn blood red. His irises were darker than how she saw them earlier, which meant he was really thirsty.
A small teasing smirk formed on his lips. "So impatient, are we?"
His hand crawled to her waist and held her like she was his possession living at his mercy. "Don't worry, princess. I'm not a bad wolf who will gobble you up. I'm just a vampire who's a little bit thirsty. Let's just say you were a sympathetic princess who offered this poor vampire some help."
Poor vampire? Seriously?
"But I must admit, you smell quite delectable."
Lauren's eyes narrowed at the lord. She didn't like how he described her as if she was a meal meant for him to devour. It made her feel inferior.
"I must have known better than to choose a vampire husband," she muttered under her breath which he heard clearly.
"Regretting now?"
Before she could answer, she felt his fangs dig into her neck without a warning, making her gasp.
Lauren stared at their reflection as the pain from the bite terrified her. She felt how her skin was torn under his fangs. How his grip on her small waist tightened when he did his first sip. How his warm lips touched her cold skin. How he sucked her with his eyes closed. And how she felt her own heart go frantic with his labored breathing.
She felt and saw how it all happened.
The pain wasn't a big deal. Lauren wasn't someone too sheltered to not experience different kinds of pain. It only scared her for a moment, but after his sharp fangs pierced into her, the pain vanished. It was replaced by this strange uneasiness. A fiery chill that made her mind go haywire. Perhaps it was the effect of a vampire's bite on his victim, or perhaps it was the warmth from his lips and body all over her.
Lauren closed her eyes for a moment when she felt a little dizzy.
But what she saw when she looked at the mirror again made her heart jolt. Her eyes fell wide.
Alec caught the sudden change in her heart's rhythm and decided to stop. He licked the trace of blood on her neck before he lazily raised his head to look at her.
But Lauren's attention was on something else. She stared at the other person in the mirror, without blinking and was utterly dumbfounded.
She didn't know what bizarre was happening but for some strange reason, she was seeing her late mother, Lady Mildred, and she looked so real.
The lady stood at a corner in that room in a dress Lauren remembered to be her mother's favorite. Lauren blinked, thinking that it must have been just an illusion. But after blinking, she still could see Lady Mildred.
"Lauren," Alec called but she ignored him.
She turned to see if whatever she was seeing in the mirror was really there, but to her disappointment, there was no one else in that room except her and Alec.
"What is it?" Alec searched the room with his eyes, wondering what had Lauren so bewildered. It was the first time he saw her so disturbed.
"Were you so scared that I would leave you like a dry corpse?" His brow twitched. But at the back of his mind, he knew it would take more than a bite to get this kind of reaction from the brazen princess.
Lauren brought her gaze to Alec, getting back to her senses. Her hand flew to her neck. She didn't know when he had stopped sucking her blood.
"You took so much blood from me that I felt dizzy," she complained.
"Oh that. I'm sorry. You taste quite good. I almost couldn't stop myself." The way Alec's eyes narrowed wickedly let her know that his sorry was an empty word. It only meant to mock her.
What could she expect from him anyway? He was a cold-blooded man who only cared about himself.
"I'm wondering though. What did you see in the mirror that got you so surprised?"
Lauren didn't answer and faced the mirror again to look at the bite mark on her neck. She placed her palm on it and uttered a little healing spell. It was a spell used by ordinary mages to heal small wounds. She learned it from her mother when she was a child.
"The mirror seems to still hold a bit of power. It showed me an illusion. Don't ask me more about it. It's none of your concern," she said before leaving the room first.
While Lauren and Alec stood beside the King as His Majesty formally announced their betrothal, Lauren couldn't help but think about what she witnessed in the room of mirrors.
Of all those dreams and illusions she had, it appeared to be the most realistic. She almost blindly believed it. After all, she had been wishing her mother was still alive all these years.
Was it the power that particular mirror held?
She wasn't fond of mage relics but now it intrigued her. The mirror had a wooden frame with gold vines around it. She also recalled the two small words carved at the bottom frame.
Vivi Mortui.
Those were the exact words, which meant… the living dead.