Author's Note: Here you go! Let me know what you think in the comments. Also, I'm looking for some new stories to read, so please comment/message me with any stories you are currently reading (or have read) that you really enjoyed. I'm looking for vampire stories, but I'll read werewolf stories too (as long as they don't revolve around mates).
A few days later, I caught the sight of Cormac as he passed by the door and paused in the doorway.
"What are you doing?" Cormac asked, leaning against the door frame with his sleeves rolled up and a diverted look on his face.
I was laying in the couch, enthralled in another book. This time it was a convoluted guide to the language of the Atallordi, some old, extinct tribe of trolls. The language was so foreign but so interesting that I couldn't help but immerse myself in it. The harsh-sounding rolls rolled off my lips clumsily, but I somehow suspected that was how they were supposed to sound.
"I'm teaching myself Atallordi," I said, not looking up from the pages of my book.
"I hate to break it to you, but that's widely considered a dead language," Cormac said to me as he entered the room.
"So is Latin, but many people seem to find it useful," I retorted, finally looking up from my book.
"One of them being my mother," he told me as he approached me on the couch. "Her Latin lessons were excruciating."
"Udinhappe," I replied. It basically meant "your misfortune," or my definition of "sucks to be you" in the old language.
"You-din-a-pe," he corrected, enunciating each syllable to me.
"You speak Atallordi," I observed, albeit skeptical.
"I've dabbled in a whole lot of languages," he told me, taking the book from my hands as he lifted my legs and sat down before laying them back down. "My father used to specialize in magical antiquities from some obscure Atallordi dynasty. I've also read almost every book in here, but it took me much longer than you. I guess I lack your dedication," he told me.
"Well, to be fair, I'm playing much more catch-up than you," I responded.
"Books can teach you all about something, but they can't teach you to do it," Cormac said, laying one hand on my legs as he paged through the crumbling book. "Now here is a good one, bregdafella."
"Bregdafella," I repeated after him. "What does that mean?"
"Loosely translated, it means 'to move the mountain,' for someone. It is the only way to say you love someone in Atallordi," he explained.
"Bregdafella," I repeated.
"In old Atallordi wedding ceremonies they would say 'udine sidan jege bregdafella, udine sidan jege drekaegir, udine sidan jege megalifa,'" he continued.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"For you I will move the mountains, for you I will empty the seas, for you I am forever," he relayed. "Atallardi weren't known for their exploits in grammar," he added.
"Still, it's beautiful," I said.
"Probably the only beautiful thing about them. They were absolutely terrible people," Cormac commented returning his attention to the book as he paged through it.
"I guess in everything terrible there is something beautiful," I replied.
Cormac drew his attention away from the book and looked at m. His gaze always sent shocks through me so powerful they seemed like they might restart my heart.
YOU ARE READING
Charlotte After Dark
Vampiros{Part of the Bloodlines Histories} Waking up in the morgue is not how 18-year-old Charlotte Alders expected to end her first Halloween in college. While enjoying a night out with friends, she realizes too late that she has fallen into the hands of...
