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Chapter 38
Zero and Seiren watched the pureblood couple walk out the door. After they left, the room filled with noise once more. Seiren closed her eyes against the noise. While she wanted to know what the nobles' reactions to all the information they had just received, she knew that she would not be able to handle the cacophony that was surrounding her. She closed her eyes against the almost claustrophobic feeling she was having and flinched as she felt a hand on her shoulder.
Once Yuuki had left the room, Zero turned to survey the crowd, slightly curious what they were thinking. But his curiosity gave way to concern as he noticed the tension in Seiren. He wondered what had upset her and scanned the crowd paying more attention to detail attempting to see who or what had triggered her reaction. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary—other than a room that was generally filled with humans being filled with vampires—he turned to ask her what she saw and was surprised to see that she had her eyes closed and seemed to be curling in on herself.
Slowly, so as not to startle her, he moved his hand across the space and put it on her shoulder. She inhaled sharply and turned to face him, panic flaring in her eyes. Now he was more confused than he had been. "You ok?" he asked.
She replied with a curt shake of her head. "Too much noise," she explained. "I can't even hear myself think."
"Too bad Yuuki's not still around, eh?" Zero said, hoping to lighten her mood with a joke. The glare she leveled at him told him that he had failed. "Would you like to go somewhere quieter?" he suggested.
She nodded, giving up on her self-appointed spy mission. She watched as he shrugged away from the wall and turned to follow him when she was stopped by another hand on her shoulder. Why are so many people touching me today? she thought viscously. She turned, prepared to remove the offending hand at the shoulder. Her anger didn't even fade when she saw that the hand was attached to her mother.
"What do you want, Mother?" Seiren snapped; the noise surrounding her irritating her to the point that she didn't care that she was being rude to her mother. She saw her mother's eyes narrow in anger in response to her tone, but there was no other sign of her mother being upset—except for the icy tone she used as she spoke.
"Seiren," she said coldly, "we need to talk. Now."
"Go ahead," Seiren told Zero. "I'll meet you in the gym." He nodded and seemed like he was going to kiss her, but instead just looked at her in a way that made her blush more than if he had just done it. Finally, his gaze left her face and he turned to go. She wondered what her mother would have thought if Zero would have kissed her. Would it have ended with a chaste kiss? There had been something in his eyes that made her think not, but what else could have happened in a crowded room?
"Would you prefer to talk here, or elsewhere?" her mother asked, cutting into her thoughts of what Zero had been about to do.
"Anywhere but here," Seiren replied fervently. Her mother nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. With a sigh, Seiren set off down the hall for one of the smaller, unused class rooms. Once she found one that she liked, she turned to face her mother expectantly. She figured that it was going to be a lecture on showing proper respect for purebloods and she had settled in to listen to it. However her mother's words shocked her.
"What is there between you and that boy?" Her mother asked. "And don't insult my intelligence by saying 'nothing'. Anyone who paid any attention to the two of you would see it."
"I won't lie to you, Mother," Seiren replied. "I like him. I enjoy spending time with him, and intend to do it."
"Seiren," she sighed. "You can't spend time with him. Think of how it looks for the only daughter of high ranking nobles to be seen with a Level D."
At her mother's statement, Seiren felt her temper rise, and not just because her mother had called Zero a Level D. "I don't give a damn how it looks," Seiren said slowly, her anger undisguised in her words.
"Seiren! Language!" her mother snapped.
"I don't give a damn about that either," Seiren retorted. "Everything I have done in my entire life has been for the good of the family. For once, I'm doing something just because it makes me happy. And you couldn't care less that I am because it would look bad."
"Seiren, nobles of your station—"
She cut her mother off with a laugh that was edging towards hysterical. "My station? Mother, there are no other nobles of my station! Everyone is either above me or below me. I have no equals!"
"Exactly!" her mother said. "You and I are a class unto ourselves. There is no way that you can be seen associating with an ex-human, and a hunter at that!"
"Ex-hunter," Seiren said acidicly. "And one of the three who told Kaname-sama and Yuuki-sama about the declaration of war."
"He was involved in that?" her mother asked, her tone suggesting that she was plotting.
"Yes," Seiren replied bitterly. "And he really is a close personal friend of Yuuki-sama." She saw her mother's face light up at the fact that the boy who seconds ago was an inappropriate companion is actually a close friend of the future queen of the vampire. Seiren felt disgust well within her. "Does that change your opinion of him?" she asked sarcastically.
"Perhaps," her mother replied thoughtfully, "but even if that makes him an acceptable playmate, do not let it go farther than that. You still need to make a good marriage and he is not to be considered as a mate. No matter how close he is to Yuuki-sama."
Seiren felt her temper flare again, but this time she was unable to push it back down. "Mother," she said in a deathly quiet voice. "I am very fond of Zero and I will not allow your prejudices to dictate my life. If I decide that he is an acceptable mate, I will not be coming to you for permission to initiate relations."
She saw her mother's nostrils flare at her words. "If that's the way you wish to be," her mother breathed, "Then I can remove you from school and you can spend your days at home until a suitable match can be arranged for you. And if that still won't solve the matter, we are in a war and casualties do happen."
Seiren snorted in response at her mother's first words, though it turned into a gasp of disgust at the last suggestion. Once her mother's threats would have caused her to bend to her will, but not now. "I don't really see that working for you," she said smugly. Her mother had just given her all the ammunition she needed to settle this dispute.
"I fail to see why not," her mother replied.
"There are two reasons," Seiren explained. "The first: as you pointed out; we're at war. The second is related, but not completely. Kaname-sama and Yuuki-sama have given me a job to do. They want me here. Even if you were to force me to accompany you home I wouldn't stay there long. Even if you are above most vampires, two purebloods trump you.
"And I don't believe that either of them would appreciate the things you have said tonight. Yuuki-sama in particular. She is especially fond of Zero. Since they were raised together and he is basically her brother. I wonder how she would feel about some of the things you have insinuated about him. And even if you aren't worried about her, Kaname-sama tends to do rather drastic things when something hurts her in any way."
She felt satisfaction replace some of her anger as she watched her mother blanch as she realized that what Seiren had said was true. She couldn't seem to process the fact that she had just been checkmated by her daughter, but she did process that she was going to have to handle the situation differently if she wished to survive her meddling.
"I assume that your silence means that we are done here," Seiren said turning to go. "Good bye, Mother. I am sure that this is the last I will hear on this subject."
She didn't see the look on her mother's face, but if she had she would have seen a shocked and confused woman. "You've changed, Seiren," her mother finally said.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Seiren said, and then she was gone. Her mother stood there for a moment, attempting to wrap her head around what had just happened before she finally returned to the auditorium containing the rest of the nobles. By the time she did, her mask of control was firmly back in place and none that saw her would have ever guessed that she had just been in a fight with her daughter.
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"Well, that could have gone worse," Yuuki said brightly as the door closed behind them. "They actually took that better than I thought they would."
"You were expecting more of a reaction?" Kaname asked incredulously. "There was nearly a riot!"
"Yep," Yuuki agreed. "I was expecting a full blown riot . . . actually, I'm not sure if the way you confessed to 'dissolving' the senate helped prevent the riot or almost caused it."
Kaname shrugged in response. "It may have helped," he said. "Most people won't risk the anger of someone who has just admitted to mass murder."
"Really?" Yuuki asked rhetorically, a little disturbed by how calmly he used the word murder. "Because I was leaning more towards caused it. Think about it, Kaname. Some of the people in that room were the family of the people you killed. How would you feel if someone calmly and coldly told you that they had killed me, without any sign of remorse?"
Kaname though for a moment and felt anger rise in him at the very idea that someone would kill her, then rage and hurt at the idea that they would gloat about having done so. Upon realizing it, he was slightly ashamed at his behavior. True, he had been justified in killing them, both in the laws of vampires and in his own mind, but perhaps he should have been a little more delicate in divulging that particular bit of information. Though how it was still a secret that the senate was gone was beyond him.
Yuuki watched the emotions flicker across Kaname's face before they finally settled on something that almost resembled embarrassment. Was he embarrassed about what he had done? It confused her, she had expected him to brush it off, but he was seriously thinking about what she had said.
"You may be right," he finally said in a quiet voice. "I may have acted rashly." He paused and smiled at her. It was a full smile, the kind that he didn't often give to anyone, even her. "But you were there to take care of me," he finished. "That really was quick thinking."
Yuuki blushed at his praise. "I just did what I needed to do," she said allowing the conversation to shift. She knew that this was something that they were never going to agree on. And that he would use the same rationale that she had used to silence the nobles as his reason for killing them. She really wasn't in a position to criticize his behavior, because she felt that even though his behavior was wrong, so was hers. Was it really that hard to move from silencing them for the greater good to taking more of their rights, or even their lives? She was worried that over time she might become a callous to the idea of death as Kaname. No, she thought vehemently. I won't let that happen. And if I can, maybe I can make him appreciate the lives of others more . . . eventually.
She was broken out of her dark thoughts by Kaname's gentle voice. "What would you like to do while we give them their hour to mull it over?"
She thought a moment and realized that there was something that she wanted to do. "Can we just go somewhere quiet and sit there?" she asked. "Kinda like we did before I knew what was going on. Please?"
"Of course we can," Kaname said, surprised that she felt the need to beg. Perhaps she didn't realize that he would do anything she asked. "I know just the place. Follow me." He took her hand and led her outside and down a faint path into the woods.
She followed him, expecting to eventually see a clearing, but instead she saw a garden filled with carefully tended flowers. Flowers that were all open, despite the night surrounding them. She looked at him, a question obvious in her eyes. She hadn't known that this place was here and this was her home.
"This is my garden," he explained. "No one knows that this is here so when I wanted to be alone, I would come here. It is quiet and beautiful and I figured this was what you were looking for." She smiled at the thought that he would willingly share something so private and personal with her.
"This is exactly what I was looking for," she replied talking about more than just the garden. "Thank you."
He nodded and led her to a covered bench where they spent the next hour doing nothing more than enjoying the company of the other in a peaceful surrounding. It was nice enough that for that hour, they could almost pretend that there was no war going on and that they were free to do whatever they wanted, even if that meant doing nothing at all. For the first time, both of them were content, it was what they had always imagined being together would be like . . . even though they were both still aware that reality had different plans and they would soon have to return to it, they took what time they could and indulged in this guilty pleasure.
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Here ya'll are, a new update. This one is a little shorter . . . well a lot shorter. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :) Feel free to tell me what you thought about it, even if you hated it. As always thank you for reading it!
Yue Matsunoki: Thank you so much! You have no idea how much I love to hear that others love my work! Hopefully you enjoy the rest of the story as much as the beginning.
Avenging Neko: Can and avenging Neko be happy? And it was mostly legible. I'm glad you enjoyed that monster chapter. And that it does :) so here is another update :)
Wolfofyang: Thank you! I was rather proud of that chapter it is nice to hear that someone else liked it :)
As always, thank you for reading or reviewing,
Till next time,
Stickdonkeys