Everything Restored

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Seojoon

The weight of the room fell on me once we stepped inside Orion's place. Eric avoided eye contact with me the entire way up, and that didn't seem to be changing anytime soon.

Orion would be up any second, and with the book in hand there wasn't any other time to discuss what happened regardless of Eric wanting to or not. It was now or a few hours later, and I wasn't sure my sanity could wait that long.

"Eric." I waited for him to focus on me, but when he didn't I continued impatiently. "What was that?"

His shoulders rose in a deep breath. "A distraction. What else?"

I tried not to feel hurt by it, but my chest still squeezed at the idea of it meaning nothing else to him. It had to, or maybe I was thinking too deep into it. Shit, he was so difficult to read.

"It would have made a good excuse to why we were in there, I'm not mad at you for it, I just..." All the words formed in my head weren't enough to describe how I felt. I just hoped it would mean more to you. I just thought maybe it wasn't entirely a ploy but maybe something intentional. I groaned in agitation and threw my blazer on the back of the couch.

"You kissed me." I exclaimed.

Eric faltered only for a second. "Don't worry, it won't happen again."

"That's not what I-"The elevator doors opened and I growled under my breath. We needed more time to talk.

I turned to Orion with the idea in mind, but I shut up instantly when I saw the look on his face. He was upset, and despite the protection he held over us I still didn't want to test his patience.

"Explain this before the Matriarch calls me down and rips my head off."

I stared at the book when he tossed it on the nearby coffee table, open to a page that held words in an unknown language. "Why would she be upset? Won't this help?"

Orion pressed both his palms on the table, leaning over the book while staring up at me beneath his white hair. A chill went down my spine at his stare, but I managed to hold my ground while he spoke. "It was right under our noses this entire time. Who knows how long it was sitting there."

I remembered the dust on the shelf, how it seemed to have been moved recently. I brought this up with Orion and it seemed to relax him a bit, but not by much. His body was tense, shoulders rigid and jaw defined as he clenched it. Despite not wanting to admit it, I was nervous to find out why people were so scared of the Queen of the vampires, she was intimidating by title, not entirely in appearance.

"That being said, Creowa won't be easy to find. I barely got a glimpse into this thing and I can already tell you it's not much."

"But it's something." I countered.

"It's something." Orion sighed.

Eric cleared his throat and when our eyes met, he quickly looked away. "What was inside the journal anyways?"

Contemplating if he should tell us or not, Orion flipped to another page and stood up to run a hand over his jaw. "Locations and dates. Would have been useful if it weren't for the fact that a lot of these are written in a way that's hard to decipher. The Matriarch should do so easily though."

I wondered how she could without sight but didn't push the question. "Will this lead us to him?"

"Doubtful. It'll lead us on a wild goose chase, but it's better than what we had before."