Crimson {COMPLETED}

CHAPTER L

CHRISTOS' POV

NOVEMBER 25
7:49 a.m

YEARS AGO, Adalia and I made a pact that we would put our differences aside a couple days out of the year.

Easter, Christmas, the amare festival and our birthdays.

And today is her birthday.

I smile at her as we pass in the corridor.

"Morning Adalia. Happy birthday."

"Thanks." She offers a tight lip smile. "Alice not awake yet?"

"Ah, no. Fast asleep." I stick my hands in my pockets. "Lucifer?"

"Drooling in bed." She smiles.

"Good to hear he's sleeping in the bed now." I try my hardest to keep the conversation alive.

We both end up staring at the floor in silence.

"Why are we like this? It's like we can only properly talk to each other when we're at each others throats." She mutters.

I nod. "Guess we don't have much nice to say."

More silence.

"But why? We used to be so close." She looks up at me and for the first time in while I see the freckles that are speckled all over her face. I haven't seen them since we were children.

"We should hang out sometime. Like normal people do with their siblings." I shrug.

"Yeah. Maybe you, me, Alice and Lucifer could go out sometime. Those two haven't seen much of Giana still."

A door just down the hall swings open. Lucifer peers out and spots us, looking tired.

"Does he know it's your birthday?" I ask.

"No, but the bouquet of flowers and birthday card mother and father sent to our room might have given it away."

He slowly walks down the hall towards us, his back hunched over.

"Good morning Adalia." He smiles. "Happy birthday."

"How'd you know?" She looks down. She always tries to play down her birthday.

"Your parents told me last night." He tries to fix his bedhead.

"Wouldn't doubt it." She chuckles. "We've gotta get you ready for later today. Small little party."

She turns off with him, offering a smile as she walks away.

For the first time since that night, I feel kinda bad about kind of taking her spot as heir.
_________

4:32 p.m

Alice complains she's tired for most of the party. I can already see her fangs are almost grown in, strange being only about 3 days into her transformation. Usually vampires don't get their fangs that much grown in until the sixth or seven day.

Alice talks more so with Lucifer than with me and it makes me happy to see her branching out.

But then that leaves me with no choice but to talk with Adalia or Emily and Jackson.

Emily and Jackson it is.

They're hanging out with Jackson's brother and his wife, as they usually are during these events.

"Hey." I walk up to where they're standing.

"Your highness. Nice to see you." Xander smiles.

"Oh come on, no need to be so formal. We're all friends here. Family soon enough.

"Yeah, once my baby brother works up the nerve to propose." Xander teases. Emily and Jackson both roll their eyes, for different reasons I'm sure.

Jackson probably rolled his eyes for being called 'baby brother.'

Emily probably rolled hers at the mention of marriage.

When Emily and I were engaged, she made it very clear she was not looking to get married. She wanted our relationship to be strictly political since she knew I only needed a wife to become heir.

Even though she wanted nothing romantic from our relationship I tried my best to act like a fiancé, within reason of what she was comfortable with. I didn't want her to hate me or to be miserable in an almost forced relationship.

But none of that changed the fact that she just didn't want to get married.

I want to say I'm surprised she's refusing to marry Jackson right away, seeing as she was just willing to marry me. I want to say I'm surprised. But Jackson won't rush her and she's aware of that.

"So how's the honeymoon phase been?" Natalia smiles. A sweet girl that is a lot more extroverted here than she once was.

"Lovely." I grin, glancing across the room at Alice. "I remember I wasn't really that adamant about finding my mate."

"It seems like every vampire finds their mate when they stop looking." Jackson jokes.

"Except for Adalia." I stifle a laugh, feeling horrible for turning her situation into a joke.

Adalia and I might be on bad terms for a while but I still can't help but feel guilty.

"I'm gonna go get a drink." I turn off to get some bourbon. Adalia doesn't really like people drinking on her birthday.

She's says it makes her feel like people are turning her birthday into an excuse to get drunk.

Later into the night, Alice and I leave, heading back to our room.

"That was fun." She grins.

"Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news but tomorrow will not be fun. We've got a lot of work to do if we want to guarantee that we'll be crowned."

She slows her pace. "But...I don't want that."

"What? Alice you don't know what you're talking about. Of course you do."

"No. I don't. Do I look like a queen?"

"Yes." I smile, kissing her knuckles. "No offense love, but you didn't have your life figured out like two weeks ago and now you've suddenly decided what you do and do not want?"

"I can tell you right now that I sure as hell didn't sign up for being queen."

"No but you did vow to be my wife." I open the door to our room. "For all of eternity. No matter what."

"I did, didn't I?" She smiles teasingly. I can tell she's trying to disperse the tension that was building up.

"I believe you did." I cup her chin and kiss her softly.

After that she barely lets me come up for air. She pulls me further into the room, refusing to break a part for even a moment.

She ends up pulling me all the way to our bed.