𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞

ELEVEN: Blood and Bone

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Blood and Bone

In flesh the Sinclairs were too much blood and bone without enough halo to be gods amongst mere men. This fact was  crystal clear to Harold, who was in his new room on the third day after his awakening. Sat on an old cream coloured love-seat gifted to him in sworn secrecy by an old beloved he only loved in secret.

He ran his hand across the hard leather of the seat and knew that his family must have tried to, but in the end had failed to know who he had been seeing in secret. Otherwise they wouldn't have kept the piece of furniture for him in any lifetime.

He wished he could rid the room off the dreadful piece of furniture that only reminded him of the leading events to the time he got bitten by a Helga. However, he thought of all the efforts done for Casper to gift him this luxurious piece of furniture.

The boy he loved didn't come from money, he didn't possess any special skills that gave him a future paved with gold to look forward to. All he had to give Harold was his love, affection and loyalty. Harold was content with that, but that didn't stop the boy from slaving away for multiple moons just so he could afford the Prince- a rich Prince at that. Something beautiful and something eternal.

"This is so you'll never forget me my love. For all the centuries you will have to live without me." The words his beloved had kissed him with echoed in his mind.

Harold hadn't ever liked thinking of life after his beloved. He had loved Casper far too much to let him go in that regard. In the end it was both why and how he'd been bit by the Helga. In the end it was his family that had broken the final law of nature for him. And he appreciated their efforts and loved them all so dearly for it and more. The least he could do was make things easier for his parents.

So the awakened Sinclair boy went back to his study area, sat down and flipped a page to his fiftieth history book of the hour, but his mind was not on the inked pages. Instead it was scattered all over the shadows of his family's sins and blessings. He couldn't make sense of what it is they had sacrificed exactly to have him live after a bite from a Helga. And of the Crowlers he heard from within the frozen coffin? He couldn't explain it and all his questions had been met with feigned confusion.

Nothing much had changed as it should've.

He and Ernest still spoke the same language of all things fun and forbidden. This had been made clear by his brother who would sneak him fine wine. That was both refined sharper and delightfully sweeter. Ernest would also sneak him books with forbidden illustrations. Depicting unimaginable people's private intimate times and fine wine.

Antony was still the same frigid and ambition driven brother. Harold scoffed at his thoughts as he flipped through yet another educational book left for him on an assignment from his private tutor. A millennia old vampire who was professing in accordance to his brother's instructions, who would be travelling out of the country for work later that night. Thank God.

Harriet was still the most fashionable, affectionate and most reasoning sibling of them all. His sister would stop by at interval times to offer him relief from studies by sharing all the town gossip, she thought would make him navigate this new world better. She'd also claimed stake on his new haircut and sense of dress to fit the new era.

Then there were his Parents, Harold froze over a page as he looked up at an oil painting that had been done of his family.

The images of his royal parents were glaring sharply at him, ever since he'd been back. The two of them hadn't wasted any time in neglecting to promise him their affections and favours. Home they all tried to make him feel, but there was just something intangibly gooey clinging to the air whenever he entered a room they were debating in. It wasn't just their hushed discussions it was also the family's odd friendship with the witches, that struck him as out of place.