A Muse of Night

SIXTEEN

     He strung me up like a puppet, with invisible strings and without any care in the world. Today flew by as I tried to ignore the vices Alex put before me. A political party to announce our engagement to every party of Vampires. From the American Legion to the Chinese Imperials. He put me in a pretty dress just how he likes me and started showing me off.

When the night was over, he called me into his office. The night air still damp from the storms we had been having, causing my shoulders to drag close to my body. My hands behind my back as I watched him move around his desk. I could tell Alex was slowly slipping closer and closer to the edge of his sanity. However, there was nothing I could do or say to stop it. So I watched and instead he spoke. "Thank you for being so sweet today." He didn't attempt to say my name, leaning back in his chair as Holstein glanced at me with worry. "You'll grow to love me again, you once did." Alexandur said with confidence in his tone.

Never faltering from his true motive.

"We both know that I'm different now." I said in attempt to convince him otherwise. I had things I wanted to say to him, things I wanted to yell at him for. I wanted to tell him that he destroyed the rest of me that loved him. I needed him to know that even thought he was my first love I don't think I would ever love him like I did. Hatred was stronger than love, I think that would be inevitable.

Alex looked down at the wood of his desk, then when his scarlet color eyes gazed back up at me. My breathing stepped away, that was my Alex. The one who I saw now. Not the King but the Prince, my heart stilled for a moment too long. "When did you stop loving me?" He asked me, his voice unsteady as it broke.

Honesty, that's all we needed. "The day I came back after my year away, that's when I realized how much we both changed." He blinked at me, Holstein seemingly was astonished that I broke away from my molding. Not putting the front up to act like I was his bride.

"Cordelia I love you." He told me.

I wished I could say the same, but then I didn't. He wasn't my Alexandur anymore, he was to begin with. My teeth rolled over my lips as I fought the urge to cry, "I don't need to love you to marry you." I said, breaking his heart and scattering the pieces in front of him. "I don't need to love you to be your wife, or to spend eternity with you." Eternity. Day would numbingly pass until it all blended together into nothingness. Until I didn't even realize an eternity had past, leaving me alone.

Alex didn't argue with me, he sighed and nodded. Leaning back into his chair as the tension in his shoulders returned. His eyes moving away from my figure, he put his hands before his face. "Continue to wear that ring on your finger for me." He told me as I nodded, being dismissed when the click of my heel left me exiting.

Down the stairwell and outside into the garden, making distance between Alex and I. I couldn't hear him and Holstein anymore so I stood on the cobblestones and sat myself down on a bench. In the dusk of night, a man moved between the rose bushes and the shadows. My lashes curled as my mind fixated on a familiar face. "Kazimir." I whispered but he didn't look happy to see me. He heard it, he must have. All of it, "You didn't deserve to hear that." I shook my head, too exhausted to care if anyone over heard or witnessed our conversation.

"It doesn't matter, there isn't a single thing I can do anyway." He snickered, scorning my body with anger as I moved my fingers over the lace of my skirt.

Alex and now Kazimir. I needed a break and as much damned distance from him as possible. "Please. Please just leave me alone." I didn't want to have to explain myself anymore tonight.

His hands tightened into fists, releasing his fingers as he tried to cool himself down. Kazimir was a reflection of me, he didn't like to lose control over himself. In some twisted way I caused all this turmoil in him. Leaving him nearly speechless or so I thought, "What would you have me do? Ignore it?" He asked, taking a few steps to me. My shadow crawled alive, letting me know no one was near. We were completely alone. I wouldn't look up at Kazimir, so he knelt down on his knees in front of me. His hands on my legs as butterflies swarmed in my stomach, "You know nothing about what I want to do to that fucking boy. You don't know the horrors I imagine doing to him for touching you. It makes me skin crawl when he even looks your way." It was all the things I didn't want to hear and needed to hear.