Charlotte After Dark

Chapter 38: Miss Valentina's Finishing School

After finishing my last book of the evening, and feeling like my brain was so saturated with information even for me, I let my body fall back into the bed. My legs hanging off the edge of the bed, I let the rest of the bed envelop me like I was laying on a cloud.  

"This bed is surprisingly comfortable for a prison," I told myself. 

I hated that it was so comfortable. I let out a sigh, my gaze stuck on the egg shell white color of the blank ceiling above me. I wanted my mind to go as blank as the ceiling, but my mind was not so easily quelled. I swam around in my thoughts from vampire wars, families, and customs until I settled on Cormac. Oh, how I wished I would have settled on something less nerve-wracking and anger inducing. 

I hadn't thought much about him since coming here. Maybe I refused to let myself try to solve the puzzle of Cormac Crowley. What could Gwendolen have offered him that would have made him so willing to look after me for her? Was it all just a game? Was anything between us even real? 

I felt a coldness come over me and a nervous sensation in the pit of my stomach like. My feelings for him seemed so real, so undeniable, but I felt an unfamiliar feeling of regret that perhaps Cormac Crowley never felt the same way. Vampires are self-interested, after all, according to both Cormac and Audra. 

Audra... oh, what I wouldn't give for her to be here right now, making fun of the fashion faux pas of the Luca Acerbi household, if there were any, or fussing over the color of the curtains. Anything to drag me away from the cold, unfamiliar territory I was now in. I was desperate for something familiar now. 

I got up momentarily to turn off the lights, feeling the exhaustion of the day overcome me before climbing back into the large four poster bed. I could hear the sound of Eadric's snoring in the sitting room just outside my door, but even the cacophony of his loud snores couldn't dissipate my exhaustion. I could even hear Joaquin's bored pacing, trying to find something to entertain himself now that I wasn't around for his torture. I let the comforter fall over me gently as I drifted off to sleep quicker than I ever had before, banishing the thoughts of the events that might transpire the next day. 

"We have to do something, Stellan," my mother's voice rang out in the kitchen. There was an unfamiliar tone in her voice now, one I had never heard before. It was shaky, upsetting, and most definitely fearful. It was early morning now, and I was not supposed to be awake yet, but something drew me to the kitchen. I stopped by the kitchen door, unaware if I should interrupt my parents or not. 

 

My parents sat at the kitchen table, their faces solemn and with a hint of fear etched on their faces. My mother held onto her mug of coffee for dear life, her grasp so tight I was sure it would shatter the mug soon. My father munched on a piece of burnt toast with an absent-mind, clearly going through his mind to find something to ease my mother's fears, but coming up empty-handed.  

 

"He's gone too far now," was all my father said, like he was trying to convince himself of something. He couldn't bring himself to look at my mother now, instead he chose to look down at his burnt toast before pushing the plate away like he had suddenly lost his appetite. 

 

"Padraig and Rowenna have left the Gravenor Homestead," my mother noted. "Perhaps we should follow suit."