Bloodlust

Chapter 7

Nicolas rolled around the bed until the alarm went off. A simulating of a siren's call echoed around the room, blazing into Nicolas' ears until he turned it off with a groan. He hated that sound. Why would the council choose that? He had to admit they had gotten his taste right in the decoration, but that sound—

Maybe my father told them to put it there knowing I hate it. I wouldn't put it passed him.

He swung his feet to the side, tossing his blue wool-sheets. The moment he touched the cold marble floor, he winced. His muscle felt wobbly and he had an intolerable migraine that made his head throb.

Nicolas had been brisk to jump to an excuse last night when Serephina had asked him why he wasn't sleeping. The truth was that he couldn't sleep not because of her anxiety running through his veins, but for his need to touch her. He had pretended as long as he could—that the blood-bond hadn't affected him yet.

But it had.

Nicolas couldn't go into his room; he knew that once he entered he wouldn't see her until tomorrow and the thought didn't sit well with him. But then he had acted like a douche and had driven her away. Nicolas wanted to choke himself for that. He had to make this work cause if he didn't then the rest of their lives would be very complicated.

Nicolas soon left the parlor to find that Serephina had already left her room and was waiting in the dining hall for him. He hurried off trying his best not to sprint down the halls. He felt every nerve in his body tighten; he needed to be close to her.

"Took you long enough," Serephina said, looking Nicolas over as he entered. The dining hall was a moderate large room, capable of being filled with twenty tables, but they had narrowed it down to just one table. A dark oak, rectangular table right in the center of the room, in front of a blazing gray-brick fireplace. Above it rested a portrait of the very first two Rumions. Or what had been saved from the incident. Nicolas didn't bother on looking at it. He'd seen it enough times.

"I would have thought that the sleeping beauty in this manor was me...not you," Serephina joked, yet her tone was hard and dry.

Nicolas took the plate filled with food that was offered to him by a maid. He thanked her for the food. "Yeah, well we can't always decide who's the princess and who's the prince, can we now?" She cracked a smile that she immediately hid as she faked a cough. She gestured for him to sit on the chair in front of her. He obeyed.

They sat in silence until he couldn't he handle it anymore. He lasted a mere two minutes. 

"Look, Serephina, about last night—"

"Forget it. It never happened," she cut him off, taking a sip of her mug.

She likes coffee, he noted.

"But that's the thing-- it did happen," he continued refusing to let it go. "And I feel terrible for it."

She scoffed, raising a brow. "You feel terrible or the blood-bond feels terrible?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

She sighed, shaking her head swiftly. "It means that maybe the only reason you feel terrible is because of the blood-bond makes you feel terrible."

He blinked at her. "You know that that makes absolutely no sense."

She only shrugged her shoulders and continued with her breakfast: french toast, fried eggs, and blueberries. "We're expected at the study hall after breakfast." Nicolas gazed down at his own breakfast, suddenly not hungry. He knew that the blood-bond had nothing to do with it. He often lost his appetite during breakfast after speaking with his father. Especially if the subject surrounded his mother. Now he was used to his sudden lost of appetite.

"For what?" Nicolas asked, his voice sounding lower than he expected. If Serephina noticed, she didn't show.

Instead she gave him an annoyed look. "How should I know?" Nicolas wanted to remind her that it had her  who had been told these orders so she must know why those instructions had been given to her. But he decided to keep his mouth shut.

Make it work.

So he just nodded and began eating despite knowing he was no longer hungry.