Story-line: In a supernatural world, where vampires and werewolves roam free, Serena finds herself in the position of being wanted by two very powerful, very different men. Will she follow her heart and make the right choice in the matter of love?
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DECEIT
Chapter 2
Rosegalaxia
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So much for subtlety and tact. I was busted. Any second now, Darien was going to jump up and his eyes would flash as he let loose his temper... I waited with bated breath and felt a little foolish when Darien didn't do anything but stay sitting and stare at me. Calmly. Not angrily. Disappointed? Who me?
" Well?"
" Normally, I would congratulate you Serena. But I think we both agree that these aren't normal circumstances."
I braced my hands on the back of the chair in front of me. " I haven't come to be congratulated. I wanted to tell you that I will be having some time off."
He bared his teeth in a smile. " How considerate of you. But perhaps you have forgotten the contract you signed at the beginning of your employment here. It stated that you can only have three weeks off in six months. You have had your three weeks off for the current six months."
I sighed. It wasn't going to be easy- it never was with him. " I realise that but as you said, these aren't normal circumstances. I'm getting married and I need at least two weeks off for the honeymoon. Couldn't I take the weeks off from my next six months?"
" I'm sorry." He shook his head and managed to look remorseful, the smug bastard. " But the terms of a signed contract are unbreakable."
I ignored what he had just said. After all, the contract didn't really matter. I mean, which was more important, my happiness or upholding the law? Me. Yeah, exactly.
I leaned forward and smirked. " You know what your problem is?"
He threw a bored look my way. " Enlighten me."
" You're jealous." I smiled.
He raised his brow as if that couldn't possibly be. As if I had nothing about me to make others jealous.
" I, jealous of you? I assure you Serena, you are mistaken."
See? Told you. I repeat, the smug bastard.
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to leap over the desk separating us and show him just how worthy I was to be envied. The... the... uhhh, (why wasn't the portion of my brain dedicated to the task of coming up with sly remarks working?)... man- oh, excuse me- vampire wouldn't know what hit him. I'd just like to show him how much damage I could do. I just wanted to hurt him sooo much.
Okay. So I think by now you've realised what work the vamp did on me. One year and I still wasn't ready to let go of my hurt. Yeah, yeah, snort all you like, my feelings get hurt too. After all, I was a human, unlike the monster who was in front of me.
Also I really couldn't bodily harm him. (Forget the fact that he outweighed me by, most probably, over a hundred pounds, of which ninety-nine percent was pure muscle). Anyway, violence wasn't the way to go. Attacking your boss did not grant you favours, which is just so unfair! Yeah yeah, so life is unfair. Spare me.
So I'd just have to go the normal way. Be polite. Be reeaally polite. Be so sweetly polite that by the time I was done, all his beautifully white teeth would have rotted and fallen out. It made me so angry the way he kept flashing those pearly whites of his at me. As if I was nothing but an amusement to him.
Back to business. Baiting the boss. Hey! B.t.b. B.t.b. You know, the previous two sentences? No? Well, okay. Forget it.
" You- are- jealous. You're jealous because I got over you. You're jealous because I've found some-one. You're jealous because I'm getting married to that some-one. You're jealous because I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with that some-one. You- are- jealous." Okay. So, maybe I was rubbing it in a little. But geez you know, it had really dented my pride when he said I had nothing about me to make people jealous. Not that I want people to be jealous of me. I mean, come on, that was just petty, yes it was.... but still.
He leaned back in his chair and brought his hands together. " How wrong you are. I have to say, I'm glad that you've found some-one else. I was actually worried about it but it's good to know that you didn't let my rejection turn you into a man-hater."
God! Some-one was filled to the brim with his own sense of self-importance.
I smiled at him, a smile as fake as... as... hmmm, let me think here... oh yeah, a smile as fake as the concept that the earth was the centre of the universe. Great simile huh? " How could I have turned into a man-hater when you're not a man? You're a vampire." I spat the last word out as if it was as poisonous as venom. Wooh, another simile. I've really got it going haven't I?
What? Oh. A little bird's just whispered in my ear that you people are accusing me of something. Of being a speciesist. You know, racist, sexist, speciesist? It's my own word. I made it up and I'm just so proud of it! But anyway, I'm not a speciesist. I mean come on. I'm engaged to a werewolf aren't I? And I was involved with the vampire wasn't I? So no. That stigma doesn't apply to me though people do try to do the very thing. I think it bothers them that I appear to be so perfect. They want to label me with a bad title so as to lessen my appeal to the general public. Hmmm. Well, let them try in vain! I am as perfect as can be... you do know I'm joking don't you?
" Me being a vampire didn't stop you from fucking me."
Oh-hoh-oh. Getting crude are we?
" You being worried about the long-term affects on my psyche didn't stop you from dumping me." I came back at him. Let no-one say that Serena Darth couldn't hold her own.
He tsked. " Are you suggesting that I should have stayed with you even though I didn't want to? Are you saying you would have found it okay to be with me when you knew that I was doing it out of pity?"
My face whitened and my heart gave a sad little thump. He still had the power to hurt me, even after all these years. (Okay, so it was only one year. But it sounds more dramatic if I say 'after all these years' doesn't it?)
I shook my head and decided to do something I very rarely did. Be serious. Be wise. " It would have been okay if you seriously didn't want to be with me. But I have that much self-confidence in myself, that much self-esteem that I know when a man-" He gave me a look. "- a vampire-" I corrected, "- is happy. The sad thing is that you broke up with me, not because you got tired of me-" As if such a thing was possible. "- but because I didn't meet with your family's approval. They didn't think I was 'worthy' enough to be your mate." I looked up at him. " Gotta say Darien, I didn't think you were the kind of vampire who did exactly what his father told him to do. But then, my judgment isn't very stable is it? I misjudged you and I misjudged our relationship."
He was silent as he stared at me out of those dark, stormy blue eyes of his. I gazed at him for a moment before looking away. His eyes. I could never resist them; they had been what first attracted me to him. Not his thick, black, silky, wavy hair. Not his broad, muscled shoulders which seemed capable of shouldering the worries of the world. Not his personality, though to be honest, I haven't really seen much of it as of yet. All we'd done a year ago was fall in bed, against the wall, on the table, in the shower, in the bath, in the swimming pool, in the car, up a tree, in a cave; you name a place, we'd done it there. It had all been based on sex, mind-blowing, amazing, out-of-this world sex.
I breathed in deeply to try and get rid of the ball lodged in my throat. Wouldn't be good if I cried. Wouldn't be good. It'd make me look like a girl and even though I'm proud of my gender, I have no intention of being classified as the weaker sex. No way.
Darien tapped his fingers on the desk. " Today's culture is very different than what it was like six hundred years ago, Serena. Children showed respect to their elders and obeyed their parents. Nowadays..."
He trailed off but I understood. Nowadays, there was no respect left in children. Calling their parents by their first names. Talking back to them. Deliberately disobeying then. Shaming them in front of the world by extreme forms of rebellion. I understood. But...
" You're six hundred years old. Your father would be about twenty years older than you. I don't think it really matters now does it? Besides, choosing a mate is a serious deal for vampires. The bond is for life. I don't really think you're the kind of person who would stay with a woman for eternity, a woman who was chosen by some-one else."
Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up Serena. What was I doing? Why was I digging up the past? Why couldn't I let bygones be bygones? A lot of questions, but I needed to understand. I needed to figure out what had happened. You have no idea- absolutely no idea how crazy I had been about Darien. I didn't think of any-one but him in those days. He had always been there, when not in the flesh, in my mind. I needed to know where everything had gone wrong. I needed answers.
" I realise you need answers Serena."
One of Darien's attributes had to be mind reading. To cheer him or to not to cheer him, that is the question, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, humans and non-humans.
" But..." He paused and leaned forward in his chair. " Why do you want to know now? You have obviously, as you said, got over me and are know engaged. Why would you want to dwell on your time with another man?"
I stayed silent; I didn't like the answer which had popped into my head.
" Could it be that you are wondering whether you have misjudged your love for this Andrew Marcane character?"
Yep. Mind reader.
He carried on. " May I further suggest that the reason you are asking these questions is because you are not sure whether you want to marry him?"
I huffed a breath out incredibly. " Well, of all the..."
God! Could it be true? Was I absolutely sure that I wanted to marry Andrew? I thought about it. There were two things which made me feel as if what Darien had said was what I had been considering.
One, it has been only a year since Darien. Only a year since I had felt his arms around me, since I had shared my warmth with him, since I had loved him and I had thought that I had been loved by him. Only a year. Wasn't it too soon to be thinking of getting married to another man? I hear some of you think, 'yeah, yeah, what's the big deal? She could always divorce him'. I agree but unfortunately or fortunately, however way you want to look at it, I take the thought of marriage seriously. Totally. (Sound familiar?)
I was in two minds. I wanted to and I didn't want to. Andrew made me feel happy. But he was also a monster. And maybe he didn't go round killing people but he was a werewolf. I don't think I could ever forget that.
" I love him."
" I am sure that you do but I can sense that your feelings are not true to the thought that you want to marry Andrew." His gorgeous blue eyes glinted at me. "You still want me."
Colour flooded my cheeks. Ohh God. The man could still make me flush with a look. Even after all I'd done with him. Want details? Tough. They're just too intimate to share. But let me tell you. If you haven't had sex with a vampire like Darien, you haven't had sex. (This doesn't apply to any male readers). " Wanting you has nothing to do with it. Lust is-"
" Lust is everything. That's nature's way of making sure that species survive. But I ask you one thing. How can you be in love with one person and want to make love with another?"
" I told you. Lust is nothing. It can't be helped-"
" That's nonsense. If you've read any romance novels, you'll see that when the heroine is in love with the hero, every other man, no matter how attractive, leaves her cold. That does not seem to be the case here."
Okay. I admit it. He's caught me out here. I'm stumped. Wait a minute. Did I hear right? Did Darien just say...? Yes. He did just say...
A grin slashed across my face. " You read romance novels?"
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Not much of a cliff-hanger and admittedly, not very long at all. However, this is a different type of fic from my usual ones and so I'm going to keep it short and see how the response goes.
Another thing. Do you like this type of fic? You know, kind of sarcastic? I was thinking maybe I should write more of these and the chapters would be a lot longer. However, my new fic Mysterious Waters hasn't got a lot of response and so I'm just going to carry on with this fic and leave that one, unless, miraculously I get more reviews. But either way, please review this chapter.
Rosegalaxia
rosegalaxia@yahoo.com
**********
DECEIT
Chapter 2
Rosegalaxia
**********
So much for subtlety and tact. I was busted. Any second now, Darien was going to jump up and his eyes would flash as he let loose his temper... I waited with bated breath and felt a little foolish when Darien didn't do anything but stay sitting and stare at me. Calmly. Not angrily. Disappointed? Who me?
" Well?"
" Normally, I would congratulate you Serena. But I think we both agree that these aren't normal circumstances."
I braced my hands on the back of the chair in front of me. " I haven't come to be congratulated. I wanted to tell you that I will be having some time off."
He bared his teeth in a smile. " How considerate of you. But perhaps you have forgotten the contract you signed at the beginning of your employment here. It stated that you can only have three weeks off in six months. You have had your three weeks off for the current six months."
I sighed. It wasn't going to be easy- it never was with him. " I realise that but as you said, these aren't normal circumstances. I'm getting married and I need at least two weeks off for the honeymoon. Couldn't I take the weeks off from my next six months?"
" I'm sorry." He shook his head and managed to look remorseful, the smug bastard. " But the terms of a signed contract are unbreakable."
I ignored what he had just said. After all, the contract didn't really matter. I mean, which was more important, my happiness or upholding the law? Me. Yeah, exactly.
I leaned forward and smirked. " You know what your problem is?"
He threw a bored look my way. " Enlighten me."
" You're jealous." I smiled.
He raised his brow as if that couldn't possibly be. As if I had nothing about me to make others jealous.
" I, jealous of you? I assure you Serena, you are mistaken."
See? Told you. I repeat, the smug bastard.
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to leap over the desk separating us and show him just how worthy I was to be envied. The... the... uhhh, (why wasn't the portion of my brain dedicated to the task of coming up with sly remarks working?)... man- oh, excuse me- vampire wouldn't know what hit him. I'd just like to show him how much damage I could do. I just wanted to hurt him sooo much.
Okay. So I think by now you've realised what work the vamp did on me. One year and I still wasn't ready to let go of my hurt. Yeah, yeah, snort all you like, my feelings get hurt too. After all, I was a human, unlike the monster who was in front of me.
Also I really couldn't bodily harm him. (Forget the fact that he outweighed me by, most probably, over a hundred pounds, of which ninety-nine percent was pure muscle). Anyway, violence wasn't the way to go. Attacking your boss did not grant you favours, which is just so unfair! Yeah yeah, so life is unfair. Spare me.
So I'd just have to go the normal way. Be polite. Be reeaally polite. Be so sweetly polite that by the time I was done, all his beautifully white teeth would have rotted and fallen out. It made me so angry the way he kept flashing those pearly whites of his at me. As if I was nothing but an amusement to him.
Back to business. Baiting the boss. Hey! B.t.b. B.t.b. You know, the previous two sentences? No? Well, okay. Forget it.
" You- are- jealous. You're jealous because I got over you. You're jealous because I've found some-one. You're jealous because I'm getting married to that some-one. You're jealous because I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with that some-one. You- are- jealous." Okay. So, maybe I was rubbing it in a little. But geez you know, it had really dented my pride when he said I had nothing about me to make people jealous. Not that I want people to be jealous of me. I mean, come on, that was just petty, yes it was.... but still.
He leaned back in his chair and brought his hands together. " How wrong you are. I have to say, I'm glad that you've found some-one else. I was actually worried about it but it's good to know that you didn't let my rejection turn you into a man-hater."
God! Some-one was filled to the brim with his own sense of self-importance.
I smiled at him, a smile as fake as... as... hmmm, let me think here... oh yeah, a smile as fake as the concept that the earth was the centre of the universe. Great simile huh? " How could I have turned into a man-hater when you're not a man? You're a vampire." I spat the last word out as if it was as poisonous as venom. Wooh, another simile. I've really got it going haven't I?
What? Oh. A little bird's just whispered in my ear that you people are accusing me of something. Of being a speciesist. You know, racist, sexist, speciesist? It's my own word. I made it up and I'm just so proud of it! But anyway, I'm not a speciesist. I mean come on. I'm engaged to a werewolf aren't I? And I was involved with the vampire wasn't I? So no. That stigma doesn't apply to me though people do try to do the very thing. I think it bothers them that I appear to be so perfect. They want to label me with a bad title so as to lessen my appeal to the general public. Hmmm. Well, let them try in vain! I am as perfect as can be... you do know I'm joking don't you?
" Me being a vampire didn't stop you from fucking me."
Oh-hoh-oh. Getting crude are we?
" You being worried about the long-term affects on my psyche didn't stop you from dumping me." I came back at him. Let no-one say that Serena Darth couldn't hold her own.
He tsked. " Are you suggesting that I should have stayed with you even though I didn't want to? Are you saying you would have found it okay to be with me when you knew that I was doing it out of pity?"
My face whitened and my heart gave a sad little thump. He still had the power to hurt me, even after all these years. (Okay, so it was only one year. But it sounds more dramatic if I say 'after all these years' doesn't it?)
I shook my head and decided to do something I very rarely did. Be serious. Be wise. " It would have been okay if you seriously didn't want to be with me. But I have that much self-confidence in myself, that much self-esteem that I know when a man-" He gave me a look. "- a vampire-" I corrected, "- is happy. The sad thing is that you broke up with me, not because you got tired of me-" As if such a thing was possible. "- but because I didn't meet with your family's approval. They didn't think I was 'worthy' enough to be your mate." I looked up at him. " Gotta say Darien, I didn't think you were the kind of vampire who did exactly what his father told him to do. But then, my judgment isn't very stable is it? I misjudged you and I misjudged our relationship."
He was silent as he stared at me out of those dark, stormy blue eyes of his. I gazed at him for a moment before looking away. His eyes. I could never resist them; they had been what first attracted me to him. Not his thick, black, silky, wavy hair. Not his broad, muscled shoulders which seemed capable of shouldering the worries of the world. Not his personality, though to be honest, I haven't really seen much of it as of yet. All we'd done a year ago was fall in bed, against the wall, on the table, in the shower, in the bath, in the swimming pool, in the car, up a tree, in a cave; you name a place, we'd done it there. It had all been based on sex, mind-blowing, amazing, out-of-this world sex.
I breathed in deeply to try and get rid of the ball lodged in my throat. Wouldn't be good if I cried. Wouldn't be good. It'd make me look like a girl and even though I'm proud of my gender, I have no intention of being classified as the weaker sex. No way.
Darien tapped his fingers on the desk. " Today's culture is very different than what it was like six hundred years ago, Serena. Children showed respect to their elders and obeyed their parents. Nowadays..."
He trailed off but I understood. Nowadays, there was no respect left in children. Calling their parents by their first names. Talking back to them. Deliberately disobeying then. Shaming them in front of the world by extreme forms of rebellion. I understood. But...
" You're six hundred years old. Your father would be about twenty years older than you. I don't think it really matters now does it? Besides, choosing a mate is a serious deal for vampires. The bond is for life. I don't really think you're the kind of person who would stay with a woman for eternity, a woman who was chosen by some-one else."
Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up Serena. What was I doing? Why was I digging up the past? Why couldn't I let bygones be bygones? A lot of questions, but I needed to understand. I needed to figure out what had happened. You have no idea- absolutely no idea how crazy I had been about Darien. I didn't think of any-one but him in those days. He had always been there, when not in the flesh, in my mind. I needed to know where everything had gone wrong. I needed answers.
" I realise you need answers Serena."
One of Darien's attributes had to be mind reading. To cheer him or to not to cheer him, that is the question, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, humans and non-humans.
" But..." He paused and leaned forward in his chair. " Why do you want to know now? You have obviously, as you said, got over me and are know engaged. Why would you want to dwell on your time with another man?"
I stayed silent; I didn't like the answer which had popped into my head.
" Could it be that you are wondering whether you have misjudged your love for this Andrew Marcane character?"
Yep. Mind reader.
He carried on. " May I further suggest that the reason you are asking these questions is because you are not sure whether you want to marry him?"
I huffed a breath out incredibly. " Well, of all the..."
God! Could it be true? Was I absolutely sure that I wanted to marry Andrew? I thought about it. There were two things which made me feel as if what Darien had said was what I had been considering.
One, it has been only a year since Darien. Only a year since I had felt his arms around me, since I had shared my warmth with him, since I had loved him and I had thought that I had been loved by him. Only a year. Wasn't it too soon to be thinking of getting married to another man? I hear some of you think, 'yeah, yeah, what's the big deal? She could always divorce him'. I agree but unfortunately or fortunately, however way you want to look at it, I take the thought of marriage seriously. Totally. (Sound familiar?)
I was in two minds. I wanted to and I didn't want to. Andrew made me feel happy. But he was also a monster. And maybe he didn't go round killing people but he was a werewolf. I don't think I could ever forget that.
" I love him."
" I am sure that you do but I can sense that your feelings are not true to the thought that you want to marry Andrew." His gorgeous blue eyes glinted at me. "You still want me."
Colour flooded my cheeks. Ohh God. The man could still make me flush with a look. Even after all I'd done with him. Want details? Tough. They're just too intimate to share. But let me tell you. If you haven't had sex with a vampire like Darien, you haven't had sex. (This doesn't apply to any male readers). " Wanting you has nothing to do with it. Lust is-"
" Lust is everything. That's nature's way of making sure that species survive. But I ask you one thing. How can you be in love with one person and want to make love with another?"
" I told you. Lust is nothing. It can't be helped-"
" That's nonsense. If you've read any romance novels, you'll see that when the heroine is in love with the hero, every other man, no matter how attractive, leaves her cold. That does not seem to be the case here."
Okay. I admit it. He's caught me out here. I'm stumped. Wait a minute. Did I hear right? Did Darien just say...? Yes. He did just say...
A grin slashed across my face. " You read romance novels?"
**********
Not much of a cliff-hanger and admittedly, not very long at all. However, this is a different type of fic from my usual ones and so I'm going to keep it short and see how the response goes.
Another thing. Do you like this type of fic? You know, kind of sarcastic? I was thinking maybe I should write more of these and the chapters would be a lot longer. However, my new fic Mysterious Waters hasn't got a lot of response and so I'm just going to carry on with this fic and leave that one, unless, miraculously I get more reviews. But either way, please review this chapter.
Rosegalaxia
rosegalaxia@yahoo.com