Lilith's Lucifer

Chapter 56.

Nandini Murthy's POV—

Even though I had assured Manik of not being in haste of knowing the reason behind all the weird happenings in both of our lives, I couldn't help but to ponder about the entire scene that exploded in the kitchen today and to add to it, the flashbacks of the other night when Kaal was burnt to ashes, begun coming to my mind. What exactly happened that night? I was still missing the clarity of it. The snippets of that incident were with me but most of them seemed to have dissipated.

The biggest dynamic for me was that Manik became heroic in my eyes after Kaal's betrayal. Now there's no hiding in how much I have grown closer to the man I refused to acknowledge from the very beginning in my life. He brought the sense of security that I lacked when I was around the humans. He suddenly brought me to trust humanity which I never believed in. And all of this has happened overnight. My point here is, this isn't any smaller thing!

It takes years to build such a relationship between two people. It takes years to have that magnanimous impact on each other's hearts. And thinking about how quickly and swiftly the things moved between him & I, it made me worry about our tomorrow. It scared me because I was doubting the strength of the foundation of our bond right now. I feared losing him & his warmth. I feared losing my ability to feel alive in his presence. There was not a single day when I didn't think about the consequences of where we were getting ahead. There was not a single day when I didn't think about the odds amongst our lives.

Despite all these things, there was this one voice muffled somewhere inside me which kept calling to me. The voice that made me stir in my sleep for the past few weeks. It kept telling me to dissolve all my restless thoughts into nothingness. That voice always gave me the affirmations that after all these years I was finally there where I was supposed to be. The voice was the reason why I started adapting and accepting everything that came my way which includes the affection from Manik to the affection for Manik.

The honking of a passing bike broke my reverie and a nudge from Manik brought me out of my busy mind. "Time to get down." He said as he held his hand out for me. Silently, I clasped onto it, unaware to the fact that my palms were sweaty. He didn't complain about it and helped us both out of the bus at our halt station. Then at the bus stop he pulled out a handkerchief from his formals and passed it to me. I looked at him dumbfounded so he said, "your palm" he raised his brows at them and continued "it is slipping out of my hand due to sweat." He gave a funny smile whereas, I hung my head low in embarrassment.

Consumed with ludicrous shame, I softly snatched the cloth from his hand and wiped both my palms over it and still not daring to meet his eyes, I returned it to him. Manik being the tease that he is, playfully brought my chin up and commented with a coy smile, "someday I might end up gobbling you out of that cuteness."

I looked at him with horrid eyes which made him laugh at me deliriously. He attempted to pinch one of my cheeks but in time, I swatted his hand away and resumed walking forward, caring less about not knowing the directions of the address at all. Soon after, he joined me by casually draping his arm around my shoulder. I got tensed. Some people stared at us as they kept passing by. I ducked and his arm fell from behind but to my absolute annoyance, he put it back around my shoulder. I glared at him but like a gentleman he was, he ignored.

"Manik." I muttered in warning as I awkwardly met the eyes of one lady who glanced at our weird behaviour in public but this giant chose to ignore me again.

"Manik!" This time I said it a bit louder and he leaned into me attentively.

"Remove your arm." I tried keeping my voice as calm and composed as possible.