BXBX NOVEL Chapter 671
All day and all night subjected to her soft, gentle, almost mesmerizing voice had lulled me to a false sense of security to the point of complacency.
Lucky for me I got the always nice, always helpful Amelia here to politely remind me that vampires were not all cuddly bunnies, her shrill snarlings rattling my skull around like a maraca just to make absolutely sure the disparity just hits all the more disorienting.
And let me tell you, it was working.
The evening draft billowing the curtains over my open bedroom window pretty much solved the mystery of how she snuck in here... and the loud music and discordant chatter churning out from the party explains why Adalia could not pick up on her sister’s presence all this while... combine that with the fact that, duh, she’s a fellow sneaky Matriarch too... means that unless a convenience of coincidental proportions happens, no one is gonna come drop in on us now to my rescue.
It was fortunate at least that I knew Amelia was all bark and no bite... for the most part, anyway. She can poke me, bleed me, growl at me until every last bit of vindication was drained from her psyche... but I know she can never hurt me.
Right?
.....
“Y’know, just a simple ‘Hello’ would have sufficed...” I squeaked, feeling my breath, my throat, grazing the tip of her pointed nail. “Haven’t seen you in weeks, this ain’t exactly the best impression.”
“And just who are you to lecture me on manners?” She demanded, her cold breath on me like a lashing whip. “You, seemingly the very vessel of iniquity and debauchery epitomized? You truly dare be so bold?!”
“Look, this is exactly why you’re finding out this way!” I said as fast as I could. “Adalia knew you’d freak the fuck out on me if you even get the slightest hint of me being-”
“And rightfully so! Why-do you not think so as well? Or do you pretend to be blind to not see it as so?!” Like a crash dummy in a runaway ferrari, she whirled and tossed me onto my bed. “Is meddling with your kind not enough for you? Discontent with the temptations of a Succubus? You could not even be satisfied with the depravity of an Elf? Now you decided to come lusting after my own sister too?!”
See, when you put anything under a meat grinder of assumptions like that, of course it’s gonna sound bad. Obviously, things were a whole lot more nuanced than that, but would she try and listen?
No, of course not? Why the hell should she? I’m just a lowly human mob with opinions and viewpoints worth less than a drop of salt in the sea. She’s soaring in the skies, and I’m down here shouting myself hoarse in vain trying to get her to look my way.
But shit, I better keep trying anyway... otherwise it wouldn’t just be words being put under a grinder.
“Amelia, look, listen, I know this might look pretty bad, alright?” I said, sitting upright on my mattress with arms up slightly in surrender. “But you gotta understand I didn’t outright seduce your sister – seriously, do I look like that kinda guy?! No, I’m not a leech, I’m not depraved. I’m just in love with her.”
“And just what is love to you, then? Tell me!” She fiercely inquired, sharply cocking her head sideways the same way her sister always does. “A trivial feeling so whimsical that you nonchalantly pass it about to others? Is that what it is? Is that what she is?! Nothing more than a mere outlet to satiate your unending gluttony? I won’t have it!”
Speaking of not having it...
“If she was anything like that to me, do you seriously think I would still be here insisting you open your damn eyes?!” I snapped back. “You’re shocked now, you’re upset-I get it! But what are you going to do after that? Force me to ditch her? Because if you think I’m going to do anything close to that, you got another thing coming, sister-in-law.”
“Are these words supposed to sway me? convince me?” Amelia stepped forward, always the more mulish of the two. “Empty air, empty words-that’s all they are! Why, just because you exhibit a little bravado that I am to somehow finally see your resolve? Make no mistake, you will never convince me that you are the one that is right for her.”
“Fine by me,” I said, rubbing the pricking at the side of my throat. “Because if this thing around my neck really means what it means, then I’ve already convinced the only person that really matters.”
The Matriarch narrowed her lips, her eyes staring in a dangerous glint of black. “She has made a mistake.”
Oh what, did she really just...?
I stood up, feeling my own anger rising now. “Mistake, you said?”
“Indeed, a mistake!” Amelia affirmed, brandishing her claws by reflex. “You! Solely because of your meddling! Your influence! Filling her head with these fanatical ideas of yours! And In her ignorance, in her incomprehension, deluding her into convincing, even believing that she truly is besotted with you!”
“Ignorance, huh?” I gritted my teeth. “You wanna step back and listen to yourself first? You don’t even know a single thing about me and her, and yet here you are in all your prejudice thinking you got the full picture understood. Do you, though?”
“And just how about you?” She said, her wide eyes and low voice permeating overwhelmingly with contempt and ridicule. “You, only a fair few months christened into a world you knew nothing about beforehand. Just how broad of an understanding have you attained of her in that period? Just how big of a picture do you see? More than I? Me? The sole person who has been by her side since birth? Watched her suffer, watched her turn, and watched her suffer some more. Do you truly mean to say that it is I that is more ignorant to what is right for her than you? Well, do you?”
To that, I... I just didn’t have a rebuttal to. Not a good one, anyway... so instead I stayed silent, as infuriating as it was to do... to affirm her on her own argument.
Y’know, I thought as soon as Amelia got wind of our affair, that I’d be prime and ready for getting the lambasting of a lifetime. That I’ll be able to keep my cool, keep things civil, and hopefully leave in hopefully cordial terms.
But I guess you’re never prepared for the moment until you get to that moment... and right now, this entire conversation was straying very far from how I envisioned it.
“How do you want me to prove it, then?” I asked her, taking my chance before she could start with her snark again. “You said it yourself-empty words. Then let me show it. What will it take to make you believe that I really am in love with Adalia?”
The glare in her stare never eased, and with every passing second, it only seemed to grow more severe... and as soon the question left my lips... it had reached a peak, practically piercing through me sharper than any of her claws or fangs.
“You’re inquiring me that...” She said slowly, the mockery in her tone deafening. “Isn’t the answer to that already apparent, or are you truly this daft, beyond any form of simple comprehension?”
“Yes, I’m a complete imbecile, moving on...” I repeated myself again. “...what do you want me to do to prove it to you?”
It stopped there, her glare. Her gaze somber but without scorn, her expression rigid, but not hateful... yet from her lips, pass her fangs... her words remained as searing as ever.
“If you claim to truly do love her as you do,” Amelia said slowly. “Then obviously, you must love only her, shouldn’t you?”
Then before I could interrupt, before I could say anything, part my lips, rouse my voice, she took another step forward. Her eyes unblinking, challenging, demanding.
“Rid yourself of all others, strip yourself of your mistaken and skewed belief of love, and fully devote yourself only to my sister. Only then...” She said, her lips finishing in a cold sneer. “...can you finally claim that you love her.”