For What It's Worth

Untitled Part 13

"How was my acting Ciel?" Elizabeth asked her true fiance as he stared at his nails, fighting the urge to fidget with them in irritation. She kept trying to sit in his lap but he managed to come up with an excuse not to entertain that behavior at present, mostly due to his attraction to living flesh.

Undertaker nudged him casually. He looked up, both his blue eyes flat but undamaged. "Explain to me again my brother's reaction." 

She pouted slightly. "I'm not sure why you are so fixated on him when I'm sitting in front of you. He should be dead anyway." 

This was the first Ciel had heard of anything negative happening to Astre as Elizabeth hadn't really explained what the fuss had been about earlier and a weak but painful pull somewhere out of reach afflicted him suddenly.

"What do you mean, should be dead?! Did something happen to Astre?"

He felt Undertaker tense at his abrasive tone that was usually so light and congenial with Lizzie.

She waved her hand, almost missing Undertaker's desperate look towards her which genuinely confused her. 'She was here, Ciel was fine, why did it matter what happened to her spare cousin?' She was smart enough to pull her words though.

"Uh, a lot has happened to your brother, my Ciel. But his reaction, well, I may have kissed him and surprised him a bit. However, I think both him and that creepy possessive butler think I still wish to marry him."

He felt his arm and leg twitch simultaneously. 'It was time for more blood but Lizzie's visits had become more frequent, meaning he hadn't imbibed as much flesh or gotten as frequent transfusions as he really required.'

He ignored the twitching with minimal effort, though Undertaker's second even more concerned look wasn't lost on him. "My brother was always introverted to the infinite degree." His gaze turned mildly fond for a split second. "Now back to what I asked before."

"He seems to be fine now, but he was drowned and revived recently. The creepy butler accompanying him saved him somehow but on to planning our wedding..."

"His butler is a demon." Undertaker said sucking all the air from the room. 

"I knew it!" Elizabeth gushed triumphantly, attention finally on something other than Ciel. "His eyes glowed red in the courtyard when he confronted me but I had almost decided it was my imagination."

"A demon? Really now. I see we are quite the menagerie." He smirked, his glowing green eyes slit while Elizabeth was none the wiser.

"What all has happened to Astre?" Ciel steepled his hands and turned his full attention towards his cousin, however, he nearly wished he hadn't. Though he still found her beautiful and endearing, his undead heart pounded erratically at the smell of the fresh blood flowing through her veins. His eyes were fixated on her neck at the jugular vein that beat just below the skin.

Fortunately before his all consuming hunger could make him behave too erratically, Undertaker handed him a glass of wine that was mixed 3/4 with pure human blood. "Your noontime drink, dear Earl." 

Lizzie eyed the drink a bit critically but followed his question anyway. "Well, I don't want to upset you but the cult, you remember being kidnapped by a cult."

Flashes of memories hit him with sharpening frequency but none really bothered him that were solely centered around himself or others. He had been raped a few times, watched others his age be taken advantage of, spit on, called vile names, even saw one man eviscerate a victim with a broken beer bottle right in front of his face, nothing phased him. However, the memory of his brother crying, blood dripping down his wrist at where he had been cut trying to fight back enraged him. He saw himself standing up and pushing his brother away to be the next victim.