As promised, I'm not late! Not sure how long I can keep that up, though ^^
Thanks for the reviews, everyone! It's always nice to know that you enjoy this story. They help me keep writing, too.
I also want to thank FateMagician, my Beta Reader. I know, I know, it's getting repetitive, but it's really the least I can do. I don't know what I'd do without you :)
Abraham returned to his estate just when dawn peeked over the treetops. Once he had taken care of Dare– no, Archon—damn woman—he made for his bedroom as quietly as possible so he wouldn't disturb Katrina's sleep. As he passed the doorway to the living room, the faint orange glow of dying embers caught his eye and he glanced into the room. The embers were giving off enough light that he could make out the white-clad woman lying on the left-hand sofa with her head to the hearth. He frowned in confusion. It couldn't possibly be Katrina, so... Enola? Did vampires even sleep? Driven by curiosity, he snuck into the room and came to a halt at the foot of the sofa. The young woman was indeed asleep... or at least, some kind of asleep. She lay on her side, one arm tucked underneath her head and the other folded against her chest, completely still—her eyes were immobile behind her eyelids and she wasn't breathing. If he didn't know better, he would have thought she was dead. Or, well, more dead than usual.
It was strange to see her looking so peaceful, for once. Gone were her frowns, her snarls, her smirks, her glares, or even the smiles and the liveliness she reserved for Katrina. For the first time since he had met her, her expression matched the softness of her features. It was a welcome change, he thought. Refreshing. He preferred seeing her like that—it meant that, in a rare exception to the rule, she was neither mocking nor trouncing him.
His fingers twitched as a dark temptation began to whisper in his mind. What are you waiting for? Take your axe and bring it down on that pretty exposed neck, see if she's still in fighting shape after that.
He frowned and tightened in lips in distaste. I will not be cowardly enough to kill her in her sleep.
You can't beat her in a fair fight. Who cares about honour, you have a chance to eliminate your most dangerous enemy—take it!
It's not about honour, but about pride. And I will find another way.
Oh, right, pride. It has served you so well, hasn't it?
Abraham gritted his teeth, shoved the voice to the back of his mind and locked it there before turning his attention back to the sleeping vampire. Seeing her lying there in the cold room, wearing only a nightgown, was upsetting the last shreds of gentlemanliness left in him. They were urging him to cover her with something, a blanket for instance, even though he knew that she most likely didn't feel the cold. He thought it was because of Katrina's gentle influence that he chose not to fight them, as his most callous side insisted he do, but instead fetched a blanket from his bedroom and laid it over her. Much to his relief, she didn't stir, and he retreated into his room before she had the chance to.
Enola was awoken by the additional warmth provided by the blanket. She glanced around as she sat up, the blanket slipping down into her lap… and froze when she suddenly realized that she wasn't in her bedroom. Oh, right, I'm at the estate, she suddenly remembered. The blanket was new, however. Perhaps Katrina had, for some reason, got up during the night and, seeing her asleep there, she had brought it to cover her. The vampire frowned in perplexity: this would have been a plausible explanation if the scent clinging to the wool had been Katrina's, and not Abraham's. Weird. I guess there are still some remnants of a gentleman in him, after all. Enola sighed, stretching. She'd have to thank him, even if she didn't need any protection against the cold. It wouldn't be said that she didn't encourage his better traits.
She glanced at the mantel clock: it was just after eight. Good, her French class wouldn't begin before ten. She swung her legs down and got up, hoping that the range of the spell on Katrina's necklace would be wide enough—if she was going to thank Abraham, she would prefer to do it face to face, rather than face to windpipe. Then again, she had been able to see his face while they were in the stable, so they would most likely be fine inside the house... Her mind made up, she strode to Abraham's bedroom and, ignoring the slight nervousness pinching her insides—what's that for, anyway?—she knocked at the door.
"Mr. Van Brunt? It's Enola. I'm bringing back the blanket you lent me."
There was no answer but a few seconds later, her ears caught a faint splash of water. If he's in his bathroom, he probably didn't hear me. She immediately quashed that thought before the baser parts of her mind could paint a picture and run away with it, and gingerly opened the door, one hand on the handle and the other flat against the wood, hoping its hinges wouldn't creak. She didn't feel very comfortable entering Abraham's bedroom—or anyone else's for that matter—without his permission. She felt that a bedroom was the most intimate part of a home, where you put the things you wanted kept private because they said too much about yourself.
Or it could merely be the place where you slept, but that was much less dramatic.
Enola slipped into the opening she had created and cast a cursory glance around the sparsely-furnished room lit by a few candelabras. Or rather, it would have been a cursory glance if her eye hadn't been caught by an empty easel and a mess of papers scattered across the surface of a desk and covered in drawings.
Drawings?
Her curiosity immediately sprung up and demanded she go and take a look but she hesitated, her lips pursed in reluctance. Snooping around would only further violate Abraham's privacy and... and why the fuck should she care? It wasn't as if she liked him, so really, sparing his feelings was the least of her concerns. Actually, it wasn't even a footnote written in tiny characters at the bottom of her list of concerns. Her jaw set in obstination, she marched to the desk, throwing the blanket on the bed as she passed it. She sidestepped the armchair that sat in front of the desk, took a good look at the drawings... and her lips parted in astonishment.
They were beautiful.
Most of them were portraits which, from the simple graphite sketches to the fully-detailed pieces drawn with charcoal or ink and pastel, looked so alive that each one could have contained a piece of its subject's soul. Enola couldn't point out exactly what created this effect—the dynamism of the movements, the expressiveness of the faces, the depth of the eyes? All of that, probably.
Katrina was there, obviously, rendered in gentle strokes. She also found Parrish and his armour, Archon, Ichabod, Abbie, Brooks, and herself. She picked up a sheet that bore her head-and-shoulder profile, the harsh ink lines fleshed out with dark red pastel. It showed her shrieking at an unseen enemy, her head thrust forward, her blood-red eyes narrowed, her jaw distended, and her teeth turned into rows of fangs. Memories of that night flashed in her mind and a wry smile stretched her lips. it was little wonder Abraham remembered it as well as she did. She put the piece of paper back down before turning her attention to the unfinished work that lay on the leather blotter, a graphite pencil abandoned beside it. She immediately recognized a scene from the previous evening—herself, lying on Archon's back, her hands folded over her stomach and smirking at the observer. Her graphite self was almost finished, she could tell, but the horse was for now reduced to a rough outline. She let out a soft snort of amusement as her fingertips brushed the smooth paper... and then started violently when the door on her left swung open and banged against the wall. She whipped around and jumped back in the same movement, almost tripping on her own feet as she cursed her distraction. Her gaze fell on Abraham who was standing in the doorway... shirtless.
Enola's eyes widened as she slowly processed the sight in front of her, wondering fleetingly why it had never even occurred to her that his familiar red coat could hide... this.
And then her brain erupted into a very unequal war between the eighty percent of her neurons that insisted she keep looking—thoroughly, please—and the remaining twenty percent that reminded her that, damn it, she had seen well-built men before, and that, no, she absolutely could not go and touch.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The angry question snapped her right out of it and her eyes leapt up to meet Abraham's, in which the initial surprise caused by the unexpectedness of her presence had vanished in favour of rapidly building ire.
"How strange," he went on in a low growl, advancing on her until he was two feet away from her. "I don't recall giving you permission to pry into my possessions."
Enola crossed her arms, her muscles tense with unease. She knew she was at fault, knew she should apologize, and had it been anyone else, she would have done it. As it was, she hated the guilt that was mercilessly pinching her heart. Her unease turned into rising hackles as every reason she had to despise the Horseman came rushing back to the forefront of her mind, and her upper lip instinctively started to curl up.
"Then you shouldn't have left them lying around," she bit out.
Abraham folded his arms—don't you dare stare at them—and leaned over, encroaching on her personal space, but but she refused to budge and stubbornly held his furious gaze.
"And you shouldn't be here in the first place," he shot back, his tone rising steadily.
"Lock your door if you don't want anyone to go into your room."
"I thought you would be intelligent enough to understand that you are not welcome here!"
"Oh, I understand perfectly, I just don't give a damn about your sensibilities!"
"Is there a single shred of courtesy in you?"
Without warning, her fierce scowl turned to a caustic smirk. She shifted her weight onto her left leg, her hip popping out as she did. The change, as instantaneous as a switch being flipped, hit Abraham like a punch to the gut, because–
"Oh, there are lots of things in me, including a fair amount of courtesy—just not for you," the vampire taunted, oblivious to his painful realization.
Because he'd been wrong. He didn't prefer it when she looked peaceful. When the fire inside her spilt through her seams—when her eyes and her mouth threw sparks or spewed flames, when her gestures trailed heat—then she was truly beautiful, and it wasn't right. Katrina, with her soft voice, her gentle smiles, her rare laughter, and her near-unfaltering composure—she was the woman he thought beautiful, the woman he loved, and not Enola who, when it came to temper, was her polar opposite.
No, this wasn't right, not at all, what was wrong with him–
"You've stopped yelling at me. That's not normal."
Abraham's sudden change in mood was quite obvious, now: his face had gone slack and he was staring at Enola with a mixture of confusion and dismay as if the answers to all his questions were written on her face. The vampire returned a quizzical look, her head cocked questioningly.
"Get out," he ordered flatly, taking a step back.
… Okay, that's not normal at all, Enola mused as she frowned. Wonder what happened. Oh well, his problems weren't hers, and besides, she had to go home now. She needed to get changed before going to school.
"With pleasure," she replied with a shrug.
She turned on her heels, her nightgown fluttering around her ankles with the movement, and strode to the door while ignoring the hole that Abraham's stare was drilling in her back.
"I'd wish you a nice day, but I really don't care," she quipped with a wry glance at him right before disappearing into the dim corridor.
For a long minute, Abraham merely stood there, staring at the door without seeing it as his thoughts ran in frantic circles inside his skull, always coming back to 'that's not right' and 'what is wrong with me?'. Finally, he abruptly turned around and went to his wardrobe with a mechanical gait. It was only after opening it and as he reached for a shirt that the perfect explanation came to him like a fire springing to life in the darkness.
Enola was the first woman he knew who didn't behave like the eighteenth-century ladies he had been used to mingling with—well, except for Lieutenant Mills, but she didn't count since he hadn't seen much of her. She was also the only person who neither feared him nor had any qualms about trading blows and shouts with him. He was being attracted to the novelty, that was all! Soon, he'd get used to her and she would no longer affect him. All he had to do was to avoid being alone with her for too long, as he had been the previous evening, lest those pernicious thoughts awake again.
Relief washed over him at the idea that, before long, everything would go back to normal and he would only care about Katrina, as he was supposed to. As he finished getting dressed, he felt considerably lighter, as if the marrow in his bones had been replaced with air.
And that, my friends, is what's called 'denial'. I'm afraid it won't go away anytime soon...
Right, so I'll update in two weeks, unless I forget again ;) In the meantime, feel free to share your opinions on the story. I just need three more reviews to reach one hundred! Just… threeee...