Nicholas stared at the wall as he breathed out the smoke from his lips. The smoke let out a forest like scent unlike the pungent that the usual cigars left. He had bought them during an auction out of interest. Though being a smoker, he wasn’t exactly fond of the smell the normal cigar buds emitted. He sat against the bed’s headboard, his feet crossed which was covered with a part of black blanket to cover his lower part of his body while the rest was shared with Heidi who slept next to him.
His face was marred with a grave expression as he took another puff from the cigar before extinguishing it in the ashtray at the bedside. With the number of decades that had passed by, he had never thought to find himself in a day like this. Not in this state at least.
Looking at his side at the woman who now was fast asleep, sleeping with her front pressed to the soft mattress, he pushed her hair back which was hindering from him seeing her face. In the past, once he was awake he would never let any women share his bed. He would either wake them up to have sex again or leave the room so that the butler could take care of the rest by putting the women in the guest rooms as he found it to be a hassle. But with Heidi, all he wanted to do now was to wake her up so that they could resume what they were doing last night. But her blissful expression withheld from doing so. Right after they had finished the second round she had closed her eyes tired to only fall asleep. His eyes caught the slave’s mark on her back and when he went to touch it, she shivered in cold to only snuggle closer to the pillow.
Since he had met her for the second, Nicholas knew there was something about Heidi. The more time he spent with her, the more intrigued he found her. He knew she had been hiding something, something she wasn’t able to express as her manners were always cautious. The way she moved, the way she talked, she was always careful. Even with her blunt answers with him, she was heedful. Out of all the things, he would have never guessed that she could be a slave.
Heidi’s background didn’t matter to him. He was no one to question her past when his was tainted with blood.
It was a procedure of the slave establishment that once a slave would be sold out, the master would either give him or her a temporary mark or collar them to identify who they belonged to. Of course, Heidi didn’t have neither of them as she was brought up in the Curtis’ household but he didn’t know when the Curtis’ had taken her in.
It would be a lie that the family wasn’t aware of where she had come from because with the information he received from the shovel boy, Heidi had lived with the family since forever. The only reason he had asked his butler to go fetch the boy was because he knew he would get the information he was looking for. It didn’t take him much time to understand what the situation was. There was also something else he had found out.When the truce had been laid out, it was proposed that a lady from Woville would be married to Warren. Instead of the woman in the picture who was actually Nora Curtis, Heidi had arrived in her place. The Curtis’ family must have not been ready to send their own daughter to a land which was dominated by the vampires and had therefore sent Heidi, thought Nicholas. The first time she had visited Woville after coming to Bonelake, her eyes held a painful expression. At that time he had ignored it as it wasn’t his problem but Heidi’s problem had become his problem now.
He sighed at the thought. He should have known things would turn difficult once he would bond his soul with hers. He should have waited until the issue in Mythweald was solved but he had run out of patience. He didn’t want anyone stealing her and there was no telling when Heidi would give him a slip. Yesterday was an entirely different matter. He had made it clear to her yet she had skillfully escaped from the maid to find the boy if he had chained the human in the dungeon. Like he heard the humans say, precaution was better than cure. He didn’t regret his decision. He never did. It was very rare for him to regret anything in life as he did what pleased him without taking into account of others feelings.
Even though Nicholas and Heidi were bonded now, it didn’t mean it didn’t worry him. One thing he had learnt was nothing was forever. Things changed and so did people.
With time, he had noticed something about this beautiful woman who had managed to seize his dark heart. Heidi was one of them who had a strong will. It might have been due to the time she spent in the slave establishment as it held the same for his butler, and also because it was influenced by their personality.
Bending down, he placed a tender kiss to the side of her temple.
When Heidi woke up the next morning, her body felt like it had been well spent last night. She winced in pain as she sat up. The sky was bright and clear after the rain from the previous day. The room had no clock to find what time it could be and she wondered if it was because time didn’t matter to a pure blooded vampire. Nicholas was nowhere to be found in the room but hearing closer, she heard the water run in the bath.
Pulling the black covers up to cover her front, she could still feel her body humm with what she and Nicholas did the previous night. Feeling embarrassed, she closed her eyes at what happened.
“You didn’t think that was enough to satisfy me now, did you?” he asked her.
Heidi who had finally got the opportunity to breath after her vision returned to her, felt her eyes widen. At first she had thought he was joking and she had voiced out her mind.
*”You’re joking,” but that didn’t seem the case as he picked one of her leg, caressing her calf with his sinful lips, he asked her with a lustful gaze, “Have I ever joked with you?” *
Like he said, he hadn’t been joking.