The Consort's Will 《COMPLETE》

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Nightmares seep into my mind. Each scene acts like its own hand of darkness, spindly fingers curling around my thoughts and pushing them to a pit of quicksand. Since the war began, they've become a constant companion, holding me in their clutches until I find the courage to fight myself awake.

My eyes pop open. My heart pounds against my chest, a wild bird against its metal cage. Every breath comes out in a puff of frozen air. It dances above my mouth and floats towards the ceiling of the tent. No hints of sunlight have broken through the darkness, and I force myself into a sitting position.

Bogdan's red gaze immediately meet mine from the other side of the tent. Instead of lying beside me while I sleep, he's taken it upon himself to keep watch over Leo. My history professor's light snores ricochet through the silence of the small tent. For some reason, the sound is soothing. Normal. My muscles relax enough for my shoulders to sag with relief.

"Another nightmare, human?" Bogdan whispers.

I nod. "Worst one I've had in a while."

The cadence of Leo's snores become interrupted at the sound of my voice. Bogdan's brow creases into a frown until their rhythm normalizes once again.

"Will you be needing more sleep?" Bogdan asks after stretch of silence.

I shake my head a single time. He silently gets to his feet and walks over to me. The blow-up mattress dips to his weight as he takes a seat beside me. His scent fills the air around me, and the remaining angst knotted up my stomach quickly unravels.

"Traveling at night is better anyway," Bogdan murmurs.

"I'm ready when you are."

His red eyes flicker over to Leo and his jaw visibly tightens. "I've been paying close attention to his emotions, human. He is holding in a lot of anger."

I shrug. "He came from a place with a lot of anger. Besides, swallowing his pride and having to take orders from the vampire of his ex-lover doesn't exactly help things."

Bogdan cocks a brow. "The vampire of his ex-lover? Have you claimed me as your vampire, human?"

Despite the lack of emotion in his voice, I can see just a hint of amusement sparking to life in his blood-red eyes. I swallow hard. Bogdan knows how I feel about him. I've told him as much twice before. He doesn't feel the way I do, though. He's can't feel the way I do; yet another difference between the humans and the vampire species.

My emotions used to confuse him. Sometimes I think they still do. Now, however, I feel like what was once confusion is now morphing into amused curiosity. I gesture around the nearly-empty tent and give him a deadpan stare.

"As of right now, yes" I say. "But you don't exactly have much competition standing in your way considering we're in the middle of nowhere."

The edge of Bogdan's mouth twitches up into the beginning stages of a grin. An exceptionally loud snore slices through our moment of flirtation, and any semblance of happiness vanishes. Bogdan narrows his eyes on Leo. I've said it before, but if looks could kill, Leo would be long gone by now.

"Even if he's been honest up until this point," Bogdan mutters. "He has too much anger and bitterness inside him to be trusted. I've studied humans for decades. Emotions that strong are dangerous. Volatile."

"What are you suggesting?"

Bogdan keeps his eyes on Leo, and ever so gently picks up the map still splayed out across the floor of the tent. He noiselessly brings it closer to his face and studies the notes made by Leo just hours ago. His eyes stop on the area where Leo wrote his secret note to me about Kelly. The red blaze of his focus seems to burn holes through the thin material of the map, and I expect him to bring up the smudge of eraser around the middle.