Elys waited for Aleksander to get up before she spoke.
"What the hell were you doing, husband?" she asked him.
Aleksander was completely mortified that even at the moment his mind was still in shambles. Elys was right – what exactly was he doing? The vampire’s hands curled into fists.
"It was nothing," he responded after a while. "Apologies for waking you up, it wasn’t my intention."
Elys tilted her head as her eyes followed Aleksander’s attempt to correct himself.
He stood straight, and then turned his back to Elys.
She didn’t even realize until Aleksander had moved around. To her surprise, his upper body had been totally exposed to her!
She had seen a lot of half-naked bodies before, but what took Elys by surprise was the fact that Aleksander’s back had been littered with too many scars she couldn’t count them.
Several of them were huge and deep, while others overlapped and were equally horrendous despite the difference in size.
"What happened to your back?" Elys unknowingly asked Aleksander.
The vampire froze in place, his right sleeve covering his arm halfway. Aleksander decided to disregard the question for the meantime and he pulled his sleeves back in place and tightened the ribbons of his robes.
Aleksander exhaled, and then turned to face Elys. Her eyes were obviously curious, and Aleksander bit the inside of his cheeks in uneasiness.
"You weren’t meant to see that," he said as he turned his eyes away from Elys.
The sun was peeking from the horizon, and Elys could notice the shadows began to lighten inside their room. One lamp was still left lit, but the candle inside it was obviously running out as the fire flickered.
"You say I wasn’t meant to see them, but I firmly believe that things happen for a reason," Elys chose her words carefully, "What do you say, your majesty? Do you think the same?"
Aleksander glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, and Elys saw the hesitation in them. There was a certain kind of hurt that clouded his aura, and somehow, she thought his scars weren’t those of battle scars.
"Don’t you want to speak, husband?" Elys prompted Aleksander. "Your face was practically an inch away from mine while I was asleep, perhaps you have something in mind you want to say to me?"
Aleksander saw Elys walk towards him, her strides graceful and lithe, light and not a single sound was made as her bare foot crossed the distance between them.
He turned to her as she was an arms length away from him. His heart was reluctant, but somehow, he felt as if pulled by the curious look in his wife’s eyes.
"Do you really want to know?" Aleksander asked Elys.
She reached out a hand, and touched Aleksander’s arm as she said, "I already asked you, husband. Isn’t it clear that I want to know?"
"Alright then," Aleksander heaved an unenthusiastic sigh, "If you wish so."
The vampire king reached out to Elys’ face, his cold hands touching her cheeks. Elys was confused for a second why he was touching her face, but then his eyes locked with hers and suddenly, she wasn’t inside their shared bedchamber anymore.
Elys blinked her eyes several times before she was convinced that she really wasn’t seeing the vampire palace’s bedchamber walls. She was inside what looked like a dungeon.
It was dark and damp, and Elys could actually feel the coldness of the place. She shivered involuntarily. She rubbed her arms to warm herself, finding it surreal how Aleksander could make her ’feel’ real things through his magic.
Out of the blue, Elys felt fabric slip around her, and she noted the familiar scent of Aleksander’s clothes. She turned her head and saw her husband was standing beside her.
The dungeon was pretty dark, but she swore his face was actually darker in comparison.
"Welcome to my past, wife," Aleksander’s voice echoed beside her.
"Where are we?" she asked him, her eyes trying to take in everything around her. "Is this somewhere in the palace?"
The vampire king didn’t speak. Elys was about to ask some more when all of a sudden, she heard a crackling sound whistle in the air.
"Come," Aleksander said.
The two of them walked towards the whipping sound, and each step Elys took reminded her of the way the overseer punished the slaves. She wasn’t wrong when she assumed the crackling sounds were that of whips.
As they turned around a corner, Elys saw what looked like a young boy with matted black hair. He was thin and scrawny, his body shivering in the cold and dampness of the dungeon he was in.
"Is this a prison cell? Why...?" Elys trailed off.
From the corner of her eyes, she saw a man walking towards the boy’s cell, whip in hand. The little boy raised his head, golden eyes staring back at the man who was trying to intimidate him with his whip.
The man opened up the cell, and immediately whipped the boy on his back.
"Don’t you dare glare at me like that!" he yelled.
A trail of blood trickled from the boy’s back, but he didn’t even make a sound despite the abuse.
"Hah! The Queen Zephyrine had said you were one tough boy to crack," the man sneered.
His whips echoed as he continued to lash out at Aleksander’s younger self.
"That trophy wife convinced my father I was bad for the kingdom," Aleksander suddenly spoke beside Elys, "I was too devastated to be shunned away that I shut down myself and convinced I had no feelings."
"How did you come to the manor?" Elys asked.
"Somehow, they couldn’t kill me no matter the torture they did, and eventually banished me away from the palace. Sometimes I wonder why I even survived at all," Aleksander responded.
Elys couldn’t believe Aleksander willingly showed her the vulnerable side of him.
Aleksander released Elys from the vision, and somehow, she found Aleksander in another light afterwards.
No wonder he was so cynical and violent back when they first met.