6. Leaving
1361 Words
Anastasia looked absolutely stunning, wearing a beautiful long sleeveless white floral dress. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she had applied a little bit of mascara and red lipstick.
To me, she looked edible.
As she looked at the mirror, however, she kept on puffing, probably thinking she didn’t look good enough.
“You look good,” I told her, startling her.
She hadn’t noticed me standing near her door. Sometimes I wished she wouldn’t awaken, so I could keep surprising her like this.
“You really think so, Ace?” She asked, seeming genuinely interested in knowing my answer.
Kind of ironic since she was going out on a date with someone else, don’t you think?
I simply nodded in response.
She twirled around once, twice, three times, admiring the way her dress flowed, before I caught her in my embrace. She received the hug without any protest leaving her beautiful plump lips.
I enjoyed the sparks that flew between us, and wondered if she too felt them. If she did, she sure as hell didn’t act like it.
“I love you,” I told her in a whisper as I freed her, before she got to leave for her date.
As always, she ignored my love confession, and just smiled at me.
Watching her leave with Shane and her bodyguards broke me on the inside.
“Are you okay?” Zina, the black panther that was my pet and my most loyal animal friend, asked from where she sat by my feet.
“No, I’m not.” I told her with a sad voice, I almost didn’t recognize as my own.
I have seen the way Anastasia looks at Shane, and not just Shane but most powerful, well-built guys, and it pains me that she too, much like her bodyguards, thinks I am unfit to be her mate.
Seeking comfort, I went to the cellar to grab a drink. Zina followed suit but I asked her to leave me alone. She respected my wish and left.
Blake caught me red-handed one hour later, completely sober, a few of his best bottles scattered on the floor.
“My daughter is giving you hell,” he started in what sounded like an apologetic tone, “I feel for you, Ace.”
“I think I don’t deserve to be her mate,” I told him on a sigh, not meeting his eyes.
“Don’t say that,” he shook his head.
“It’s true,” I shrugged my shoulders. “Everyone but you and Maria think so.”
“Who do you mean by everyone? Peter and Jeff are too stuck-up royal vampire guards. Don’t let what they say get to you.” Blake retorted in a placating tone.
“But Ana…” I started weakly.
“Ana is naught but a child.” He cut in, sounding convinced with what he was saying.
“Yeah, she is,” I breathed out on a resigned sigh. “And yet, she’s out on her first date… and it’s not with me.”
“I’ve seen the way you treat her,” Blake said as he sat next to me on the floor. “You treat her like a princess ought to be treated.”
I could only chuckle humorlessly at that. “Well, she is a true princess and I’m a commoner.”
“You’re a noble, not a commoner,” my maker told me encouragingly while bumping his right shoulder with my left one.
“Same difference,” I muttered while reaching out for yet another bottle of good wine.
Where was vodka when you needed it?
“You’ve showed her nothing but love since the first moment you laid eyes on her,” Blake started flatly, “you’ve put your whole life aside for her.”
“I’d even give my damned life for her,” I told him hotly before I chugged down some more wine.
“I appreciate the thought but I’d much rather see my daughter happily mated than mourning her mate,” he declared just as hotly.
“She wouldn’t,” I retorted in a sad tone, “mourn me, I mean.”
“Oh, she would,” Blake reassured me. “Although if you were to ask her now, she’d surely deny it as if her life depended on it.”
“She doesn’t love me,” I said weakly.
“She does,” he affirmed, “but she takes you for granted. You’ve always been there for her…”
“How can I not?” I cried out, pulling at my hair in an angry way. “I love her with every fiber of my being.”
“Do you want to have her in your arms by the end of the semester?” Blake asked out of the blue.
“As if!” I rolled my eyes, not believing a word. Nevertheless, I waited for my sire’s suggestion.
“Leave.” He ordered.
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“You heard me right the first time.” He told me, rolling his eyes.
I was about to protest when Blake said simply, “Work on an IT project. Hack into something big. Do whatever it was you excelled at before meeting my daughter.”
“But,” I tried to protest.
“One month,” he held up one finger in the air, “Give her one month of freedom.”
“What about Shane? I’m afraid she’ll…”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence for Blake reassured me with a strong, “I’m right here, kiddo. I’m right here.”
Not wanting to think about it longer, afraid as I was I’d lose the courage to follow up on my resolution, I went to my room to pack my things.
“Zina,” I called out.
The black panther showed up at my feet a few seconds later after a big run in the garden.
“We’re leaving,” I told her.
“About time,” she told me with what looked like an eye-roll. “I was starting to wonder if you were a fetishist.”
“A fetishist?” I repeated dumbly.
“You know,” she said as she walked by my side, “those sick persons who love pain.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed in realization. “A masochist, you mean?”
“Yeah, yeah… that.”
“They’re not sick, you know?” I told her with a smile. “It’s a lifestyle.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” she told me with a snort.
“Hey, kiddo,” Blake called out from the threshold of his house. I turned to face him, an eyebrow c****d in question. “Don’t let anyone catch you talking to your animals, they’d think you’re crazy.”
I chuckled good-humoredly and waved goodbye at him and Maria.
“What am I to do this month?” I wondered out loud as I took my car out of the big garage.
Many options came to mind.
“Travel?” Zina suggested from where she was seated in my beautiful Aston Martin.
“Nah,” I dismissed the thought immediately with a wave of my hand. “Why not hack into that new supposedly foolproof system I’ve heard so much about?” I then told myself after a minute or so of thinking.
“You’re such a geek,” Zina told me with what looked like a smile.
I gave her a smile of my own and kept on driving, back to my own place in NYC where all the necessary gear was.
- Writer
