Lamech

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It had been four days since last I saw Crimson and I ached for her. I had managed to hold onto my decision of not watching her sleep anymore. But it got harder and harder. I wanted nothing else but find an excuse to go to her again. But there was none.

Throughout the past four days I had only found out about how she was doing from conversations I had with Aideen and Kyle.

Generally, she seemed to be doing alright. She had figured out that she could use her magic and did that to keep herself entertained. It didn't seem however like she had tried to teleport herself away from here yet. She wouldn't have been able to because of magical protection put over the house. It stopped anyone from finding the place magically as well as exiting and entering using magic. But neither Aideen or Kyle had said anything that made it seem like she had even tried.

That made me stupidly happy and I possibly read far too much into it. Because it made me think that she didn't really want to leave. That she wanted to stay close to me. Same with that she still hadn't exited the room. Truthfully, I didn't think I would have stopped her if she decided to leave, but I was overjoyed that she hadn't even tried.

I was in my office, going over some document for the meeting I would soon be having with the nearby wolf pack. We had had a peaceful agreement with them for a long time. They wouldn't bother us and we wouldn't bother them. But since they had asked for help, we were now getting ready to take it one step further and make it into a collaboration instead.

For me, that deal really was the result of hard work and a lot of time and patience. For just like Crimson held prejudices against vampires, so had the pack.

Their decision of wanting a collaboration had been hastened, I was sure, by that they had a lot of issues with rouges and that witches, they had previously received help from, had decided to turn their back on them. But none of their reasoning behind the decision mattered much to me, as long as we were given the chance to show that vampires weren't what they thought.

I was looking over the frequency and manner of attacks that the wolves had been suffering, when I heard fast steps moving towards the office and then without warning, Aideen came in.

"Will you talk to her!" Aideen exclaimed without any explanation.

"Talk to who?" I asked, though I knew perfect well that she meant Crimson and Aideen's eyeroll made it clear that she knew I knew.

"Crimson. Who else," she said and took a seat on the couch. "She's refusing to even be open to the possibility that you might not be as bad as she thinks and it's driving me crazy."

"It doesn't matter what she thinks of me. There's no need for you to bother with that." I averted my eyes.

"Yeah right, like that's what you actually think. It's so obvious that you care about her. So stop ignoring her and just talk to her, will you? I know she doesn't like you because you're a vampire. But you won't be able to change her mind by hiding from her. Honestly, your whole way of acting towards her is so freaking strange!"

"Aideen. I know you mean well, but it truly doesn't matter what she thinks of me. It's even better this way."

"Why? Why are you being so stupid?"

I was momentarily stunned. I tried to remember the last time anyone had insulted me so blatantly, especially another vampire. Crimson had, obviously, and there were other magical creatures that had on occasions. But another vampire? I wasn't sure there ever had been one except my father.

I wasn't angry with her for doing it though. I was self-aware enough to know that for her and for all of the clan members and staff that knew even slightly more about the nature of mine and Crimson's relationship, my actions were perceived as very odd. Even some that knew next to nothing thought so. Over the past few days, several, not only Alair, had started to hint that they thought I should let her go, that keeping her here was harming the work we had put in to change people's minds about us. I could feel the discontentment over my actions rolling of them, but they just didn't know.

I had tried to bring myself to tell her that she was free to go. I knew that I was reaching the limit for the time I could keep her here, rejection or no rejection. But I knew that if I did tell her that she could leave, it was likely that I wouldn't ever see her again. I couldn't bring myself to say good bye.

"It's just not that simple, Aideen," I said in an even tone.

"Then make it simpler!" she argued back. "Because right now she thinks you're only keeping her here for her blood."

I flinched but quickly composed myself again and hid the pain her words had caused me.

"That's fine. It's good that she thinks so," I answered.

"Why?!" Aideen practically screamed. "It's hurting both of you! Do you really want to be a monster in her eyes?"

Aideen was really surprising me. She was usually so cheery and gentle, quite the opposite of what she was displaying at that moment. She was being fierce and stubborn. I had always imagined that she would be extremely vary of conflict and either flee or concede, but instead she looked ready to fight me about this until she won. It wasn't a fight that she would ever win however.

"Please, Aideen. I have my reasons. Just trust me."

She glared at me and, for the first time ever, I saw her eyes flash red. It had surprised me that I hadn't seen that before. Most newly turned vampires would have their eyes go red as soon as they caught the scent of blood, but it would stop as they got more in control of themselves. But Aideen's eyes hadn't. It somehow made sense with her personality that they hadn't, that she was managing to keep that part of her new self so controlled.

But now she stood up to leave and her eyes kept on flashing between red and her brown eye color.

"My stepdad would tell me that," she said in a low tone that was a huge contrast to her yells from moments ago. But that low tone carried more anger than the yells. "He would beat me up and afterwards tell me that he had his reasons and that I should just trust him. The night I left, he even went so far as to tell me that it was all for my own good."

She turned around and hurried out, slamming the door with such force that a Fabergé egg that stood in the bookshelf fell from its place and broke against the cold stone floor.