Chapter 24
The fact that Lawrence was a changeling was shocking. He looked so much like his royal parents that it wasn't hard to imagine why they were switched. Which is exactly why I was staring at him all throughout supper and I was still staring at him as we made our way to his room.
"Would you stop it already? You're making me nervous!" He finally burst out and I blinked.
"You're a Selenium," I repeated for what appeared to be the thousandth time.
"Yes I am," he replied exasperated and his tattoos swirled slowly. They had been out ever since he had fought with the Sea King and I couldn't imagine why he hadn't let them out sooner.
"You're a scandalous Selenium that goes to bed with anything with two legs and a round bust," I said even more directly and he grinned at me.
"Are you jealous?" he waggled his eyebrows and I snorted.
"Who would be jealous of you?" I laughed and he mumbled something under his breath.
We were in our adjoining rooms and he appeared to be agitated at Aquean, the Sea King, for some unknown reason.
"He attacked me!" He muttered sensing my thoughts and I shrugged.
"I don't see why that should matter. Linessa attacked me and we're good friends now," I pointed out and he sat down on the water bed. His hands started playing with his tattoo and I watched his face calm down.
"You trusted Linessa from the first moment you saw her. Plus, you knew she couldn't beat you," he murmured and I shrugged.
"Still no reason to be mad at someone," I retorted and he looked up at me. His eyes were saying something that I didn't understand and he stood up slowly.
"No reason to be angry? I could've gotten killed out there and you're just going to blow it off?" He muttered reaching a hand up and grabbing my face. He pulled me towards him roughly and I tried to get away but even my tattoos were abandoning me. They reached out to his and they danced together across our skins.
"He thought you were human," I said glowering at him and he chuckled.
"You'd let another Selenium die on a miscommunication?" He whispered in my ear and I blew cold air on his neck. He didn't draw back, instead he started planting small gossamer kisses there and I shivered.
"Don't," I pleaded and he drew back for single second to look at me.
"Alright but only after this," he agreed pulling my shirt sleeve to the side and bit my shoulder hard.
"Ow! What did you do that for?" I shoved him away and he grinned at me.
"You might want to look up Selenium rituals and see where you get with this," He shrugged and retreated to his own room. Getting a mirror, I examined the bite mark he gave me and started. It wasn't a bitten piece of skin anymore but rather a small tattoo that was under my original markings.
"What the hell did he do to me?" I poked at the newly formed symbol and made my tattoos move so I could see it better. It was a small circle that was going slowly around and around with a single thing in the middle, a flower. It was a Carnation to be exact and I put the mirror down disgusted.
I started the day with completely and totally ignoring Law's every movement and every word that he put towards me. I refused to be a meal to this cannibal. I started flirting with the Sea King to see what he would do and all he did was excuse himself from the breakfast table to start his daily dance. Aquean offered to let him use the ballroom where he would have more room but he declined saying that it wasn't the space that he was looking for. Keresha ended up showing up after he left and took me to the King's library.
"Why are we here?" I questioned looking at her confused and she smiled.
"Prince Lawrence asked me to take you here so that you could look up the rituals of your race," she said taking three huge books off the selves. "I told my king and he said to let you use these here. He informed me that you can use whatever you like in here and if you need anything to give me a ring with this bell. I'll hear your from anywhere in the castle so don't worry about that." She placed the books on one of the tables with a small bell that looked like it might belong to a silversmith with too much time on his hands. It was intricately carved with names of people and dates all mixed in together to create a picture of harmony. Small flowers much like the one I had on my shoulder were carved on the silver handle. It didn't look like it had been used much.
"Oh well thanks for the attention," I smiled and she nodded and let the room.
The books on the table ended up being by an observer from the Sea kingdom who was let in under the pretenses that he would gather their rituals and put them together. I couldn't read his name so I decided to call the author Mr. C for curiosity. Mr. C wrote the three books around the time of the Great Wars which Aiden had studied for four years including the languages involved, the battle tactics, and the people behind the war itself. I didn't care much for it myself and didn't really pay much attention to what his tutors had been teaching him.
The books started out with the birth rites of a Selenium when there were thousands to actually educate on the matter. It appears that we have to be bathed in the molten metal of a certain volcano for them to be a true part of society and so that the baby would be able to get their tattoos later on. It then went on to the death rites and we have to be burned within twenty hours of the death or our souls will never rest in peace and may even one day come back from the dead to haunt the burial leaders. I found this tidbit of information extremely amusing and was wondering how I could do all the steps correctly because it wasn't just those two things that you had to do but a full list of pages and pages to learn for the funeral and birth rites. After reading an entire book and a half of those two, I went on to the marking ceremony. I found out that I was still unusual within the Selenium race for a normal person but I was right on par with those of the older linage of the race. The knowledge was getting stuck in my brain at so many points that I had a feeling that I would never forget it.
The third volume at first was about marriage rituals within the newer linage and I didn't find anything of value to be had within that since I was considered an older Selenium. Luckily I found that too in there and it read like this:
"...and if the female Selenium doesn't have a mate or a fiancée then they would often have someone close to them offer and if she refuses them more than two times than he has the choice of taking her as his mate if he is able to put his mark on her at midnight on the fourth day of autumn with a full moon in place..." I stared at the page for an extremely long moment before saying, "Damn."
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