TWELVE
Antonin had indeed made it back to his hiding place just before dawn.
Slamming closed the star-marked iron doors behind him, he stormed across the floor to his usual spot at the opposite side of the mausoleum. He turned, putting his back against the wall and sliding down to sit on the floor.
How quickly his mood had soured.
So strange. Other than their confrontations, he didn't know her from Eve. At first, he hadn't cared when he'd grasped that she did not recognize him. It had all worked out in his favor regardless, hadn't it? He'd gotten just enough blood to stave off the agony for a bit, and he'd gotten to do something he hadn't done in so long he hadn't realized how very much he'd missed it.
But as he left, perhaps as he put more distance between himself and that strange little witch, that feeling of contentment at simply being sated, that sense of self-congratulatory pride at how he'd made her writhe beneath his tongue like that faded. Slowly, with each step it seemed, that light, serene feeling was replaced with a bitterness that she hadn't known it was him.
What did it matter? Why did he care?
Angry at the questions, at himself for not understanding, at her for making this an issue at all despite that it wasn't her fault, Antonin folded his arms around himself and lay down.
Whatever she was doing here, he didn't know if he wanted her to stay so he might have the chance to figure this out, or wanted her gone so he could be left to wither away in peace.
His gaze on those hollow little stars as the sun began to rise, pouring tiny sparks of daylight against the ground, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
