"Hey, arsehole," I pouted. "Are you calling me short?"
He didn't deny it, he simply have me a crooked grin, "I mean, if the traps serves you right," he rolled his wide broad shoulders. "And tattoos are also welcome. Being smart and with a good sense of fashion too. Oh, and they have to like reading books," he tilted his head, "and alcohol. Not being alcoholic, of course, but just like to drink alcohol is a plus."
Uh… did he just… describe Abellona or am I crazy? "You know, I know someone who fits all that!" I grinned at him and he gave me a look that screamed I-do-not-trust-and-you-scares-me.
"Who?" He asked, pretending not to be so interested.
"Do you prefer big breasts or mid?"
Gasping, he turned even redder, "What kind of question is that?"
"Oh, come on. She has less than me, but hers are awesome!"
That made him laugh, "Look, I don't hang on that, but mid are good for me," oh? "And stop staring me like that, it's embarrassing. So, who is it? She's not a child, right?"
Let's keep this a secret for now. He said he never touched her. Who knows? They might be mates. How awesome would that be? Having a demi-god vampire as my foster mom? And she was mom's best friend at that. "I'll tell you later. Let me check on her first. But no, she's not a child at all, now I know you like them a bit older than you, she falls on that. Not a dragon, though, but you said you don't care about the race," I tilted my head. "She's very powerful, and hot, and smart too. Tattoos, check. I met her these days. And I mean, when I saw her she was reading a book, so that also counts."
"I'm curious."
I grinned, "Good. Stay like this."
Rolling his eyes, he clicked his tongue, "And your training?"
"About that, my team and Oliver's are training together," I dropped.
He narrowed his eyes, "What? Why?"
"Mia suggested it. She said that as I never played and never saw a game, training like this would be good for me. Plus, it would be fair for both teams, since by training together, they would also train under my time magic dome. Outside it would be seven days of training, while inside it would be more than a month," I crossed my arms. "She's quite the sly one using fairness to get me to agree to this and the no-time-no-disintegration rule she came up with, just because she knows I loathe unfair fights given how mom died to an unfair one."
Gulping, he clenched his fists and looked away, "Mia is a fox."
More like a Deity, but sly fox serves. "I know. But that's what we ended up with. I mean, at least I can analyze all the players, even if I had already began cataloguing them while in class. Since we are in the same classes."
"Advanced students all are put together, it was like that when I was in here too, we all studied together and with some extra perks to it, as well," the sides of his lips curled up softly. "How long it took for fangs to realize what you were?"
"My second day here, surprisingly enough. Though he only told me about ten days later than that, after he made me stop avoiding him. Was also the day we got together," I played with my hands. "I said I wasn't really hiding, but they had no idea about my kind. Oliver just needed to get a good look on my necklace and ring," I showed it to him, "to notice it was actually a winged-serpent and not a snake. He connected the dots after my outburst in Paolucci's class, and that was it. Plus, he was even more sure when he saw the tattoo on my back."
A nod, "Good. He should have been the first one to realize, Mia and Ivy aside. He's your mate after all, and he's a clever kid. And did your mom made these? They are identical to your current form. Did she saw it on a vision?" Of course, he knows about moms foresight abilities.
"She did."
Petting my hair, he smiled softly, "I missed you a lot. I got too used to seeing your annoying face all the time."
"Me too," I pressed my lips together. "I missed you a lot too."
Throwing his hair off his shoulder like a drama Queen, a smug took over his handsome face, "Of course, you did. It's me after all! Now, which of the Circle kids are the most annoying to you?" He stared at them, all seated with Oliver on the frozen space. "Baldy?" His slander finger pointed to Dimitry.
That made me laugh, "I also call him that. Cotton candy baby blue hair it is for me. He's just the personification of the word annoying. He piss me off so much. But he's a good kid, though I'll never tell him that!"
"Blue fangs, then. I agree, he is an annoying one. He's the closest to your little boyfriend after cute-but-bites. That must be why he's always on your toes, messing with you. Rio is his nickname, right? Eleutherios Konstantopoulos. Grand Duchess Rea and Duke Stathis Konstantopoulos are his parents, richest family in Greece, he's an only child. 667 years in stasis, was mistreated by his parents a lot, physically mistreated in fact. Kid may look all cool and annoying, but he came from a home without love, and I have a feeling your fanged boyfriend and the Circle fanged kids are more his family than the two vampires." What?
"He's strong. All kids in the Circle are. You may not notice because you are abnormally strong, darling, but they are stronger than all the other young vampires, and stronger than many older ones. Walking-pain-in-the-arse and cute-but-bites are the strongest in the bunch, blue fangs is the third, red fangs comes next," Irene, "then baldy fangs, pretty fangs," Dimitry and Igor, "and fanged bangs," Nevena. "But aside from the Strauss-Khan's kids, the others are in a similar level of power. All coming from problematic families, that are ready to use them to climb the leather further. All puppets of Violet and Darius."
"I had no idea," I gulped, looking at them, looking at Rio's grin. Now I get why they were so adamant in being part of this. They want to be able to fight their families too. "This is all so fucked up. We all are."
Sigh, "In fact, I think, out of your two teams, the only one who has a better family is my nephew. My sister and my brother-in-law are good to him, the problem is the Queen who manipulated them to get him to do the stasis in her way, and to be trained by her. Though we both know that her training isn't training at all."
Scowling, I bit my bottom lip, "Literal torture. I know that better than anyone," he held my hand and squeezed softly. "Ah," I turned to him, "Abellona told me I have a channeling ability, and she made two tattoos around my collarbones to help with that."
A nod, "I know. I always knew. But I managed to hide it from the Queen. In my research of your kind, I learned it was an innate ability of them, and that you were also going to have purple flame and some other stuff. Did it happen already?"
I gasped, "You knew?"
"Of course," he said matter-of-factly.
"She even called you stupid for not noticing this," I chuckled. "She was so wrong," ah, they will look so good together.
He growled, "Crimson fangs and her way of offending me, ugh. She is infuriating and unbearable. I have no idea how Naël was able to deal with her, seriously. Ugh. That one is a wild animal."
Wait what? He knew Naël? I'm lost. "Naël?" I feigned ignorance.
"Naël-Gaspard Maurice. An outstanding pirate-ish vampire of my age. I don't know what happened to him, he disappeared one day, but back when I was still some centuries old, I met him while traveling, we spend some years around the seas together, and he was one of the only friends I've ever had. In one of my visits to your mom, he got together with crimson fangs. They dated for a long time, it was quite the sight, I have no idea how he handled her, neither how it ended, but it was overwhelming."
What the fuck? "Uh," I gulped. "I can control spiritual energy."
He blinked confused, "Oh? I know."
What the hell? "What do you mean, you know?"
"Some times you acted weird, as if you were hearing and seeing ghosts, and as the crypt must be full of spirits of those who unjustly died by the Queen's hands, I figured you could do that. See, hear, and all that. You didn't tell me, so, I thought you wanted to keep it a secret," he giggled.
I'm so confused. Was I so obvious? "I met Naël there."
Slowly, his face turned ashen pale, "It can't be."
I gulped, feeling sick. To think he was Abellona's boyfriend and I just told her he was dead like that. She must have hold herself still not to break in front of me. All at once I told her that her boyfriend and best friend were both dead. Ugh.
"It was a thousand years before we met. Me and you. I was there for a thousand years already, and he came to talk to me. We talked for about a year. He told me Meredith did that to him because she got word that he had a vision of her downfall," he eyes widened. "She tortured and killed him before I was even there. He told me that I would leave one day, that I should give my all to my training that would come in the future," I pointed at him, "then go to mom's lair and take everything she made for me, head down to Abellona, and come to Belladonna."
When his lips trembled, I thought he was going to break in tears, but he bit down his bottom lip and swallowed hard, holding it together. "He was… killed by her?"
A nod, "Yes. He gave me hope, father. It was thanks to him that I kept holding my shite together. Then you came to train me and I felt like it would actually happen, that I would be able to leave one day. If it wasn't for what he told me all those centuries ago, I would have lost it a long time ago," gulping, I looked down at my hands. "I had no idea he and Abellona were together, or that you two were friends. I'm sorry."
He didn't say anything, and when I turned to him, he had his eyes closed, his head down, pain all over his beautiful features. "It means he died before you mom did," he whispered. "She killed him, than killed her, and did all this to you. All while I was being manipulated to be her good dog."
"Please, don't blame yourself. It's not your fault. It's hers. It's all her fault. Meredith did all this. She took them from us. She tortured us. And what she does to you and everyone else is psychological torture. She's a monster, and we can't blame ourselves for that," I should listen to myself.
"Give me five minutes, then you unfreeze this. I just… I just need five minutes to get my shite together and look intimidating and scary."