Trash Panda

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

As he approached the kitchen, Cas could smell the mouthwatering aroma of omelets being prepared by the royal chefs. After a long night with only a few hours of sleep to restore his spent energy, a hot breakfast and mug of coffee was just what he needed. He stretched languidly and hopped up on one of the barstools to wait while the cooks worked on his food. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he scrolled through the media, curious to see what Miles had been talking about when he had said that the terrorist attack was already all over the news.

It had only been about fifteen hours since the rebels had first been arrested, so he was surprised that word had leaked to the reporters already. However, as he read the articles that had come out so far, he saw that there had been a whistleblower who had mentioned something about the attack to the press. The detail made him wince. From what he read, it seemed like the only information that had come out was that there had been rebels in the mansion and that the increased security throughout the capital was somehow related to them. The security team knew much more than that, so he felt certain that it had been a staff member who had wagged their tongue. His father was probably going to have the servants thoroughly investigated to find out who had spread the word before they could come up with a sculpted story to satiate the reporters without losing control of the situation.

“How the hell are the rebels still loose in the city?”

The sudden, booming voice of his father made Cas flinch and turn around in his seat. The king had been ill the day before, but it sounded like his strength had returned today. Atlas marched into the kitchen—as well as he could while leaning on his cane—with a flustered security guard hurrying along at his side. “The soldiers are turning over every stone to find them,” the guard assured his ruler quickly. “There are only two left who are still unaccounted for, and I expect that we will have them both back in custody by the end of the day.”

“Not good enough,” Atlas barked. “I want the bastards behind bars or in the crematory by noon. Give me the name of the man in charge of the hunt. If he doesn’t deliver, I will have him removed from his office.”

“Yes sir,” the guard bowed and jogged off to fulfill the request.

The king watched him go and then turned to his son with furrowed brows, “We’ll be standing before the nation today to address this issue, Caspian, and that is what you chose to wear?”

The prince stared at his father incredulously. He had spent almost ten straight hours handling the situation with the terrorists last night, sacrificing food and sleep to get things under control, and all he got in return was a critique of his clothes. The blatant disregard for his efforts stung, and he averted his gaze to hide his hurt from the king’s eyes. “I just woke up,” he muttered, busying himself by cutting into his omelet with a fork and knife. “I’ll change into something else before we leave.”

“Good,” Atlas grumbled, limping further into the room. “That girl you brought back, is she still here? I’m going to have her sent in for questioning.”

“What? Why?” Cas looked up from his plate with widened eyes.

“Because I’m sure she’s involved with the Scourge,” the king said firmly. “Those fools have never gotten inside the palace until she showed up. The timing is too convenient to ignore.”

“She had nothing to do with it,” Cas asserted. “I’ve been with her almost constantly since the day I found her, so she couldn’t have been conspiring with anyone. There wasn’t time. And Dr. Emett diagnosed her with amnesia, so she doesn’t have the capacity to plot against us.”

“Then she’ll have nothing to hide,” Atlas said simply, turning to walk down the hall that led to Iris’s room.

The prince muttered a curse under his breath and slid down from his barstool to chase after him, hoping to change his father’s mind before he hassled the amnesiac with misplaced questions.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Okay! I ended up making great headway on my post actually, so I should have it done soon xD

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Me too! Also, my weekend is turning out way more social than I was expecting, so I may have to devote more free time to getting homework done in between meeting up with friends ^^; I'll do my best to get a reply up for you today, but I'll see what happens!

~Bonsoir~

As Victoria’s lips met his, Vail closed his eyes and sank into the kiss. He didn’t care what his parents thought. She may have been human, but she was the most special woman he’d met in all his long life, and he had fallen for her head over heels. He hoped that one day Peter and Katherine would realize that what they had wasn’t any different than what he would have if he had chosen a vampire as his lover, but regardless of their opinion, he knew with growing certainty that he wouldn’t take back his actions even if he could. She gave him a reason to exist, and that was a priceless enough gift to endure all the pushback from his family for however long they could be together.

When she pulled back, he could see the shine of tears in the corners of her eyes. “I do,” he confirmed, leaning in to touch a short but tender kiss to her soft lips. “I’ve loved you for a long time now. You’re more than just prey to me, and you’re even more than just a woman. You’re the one I want to be with, Victoria.” As he spoke, a hint of a blush crossed his features. He still wasn’t used to opening up to anyone about his innermost feelings, so telling her now made him squirm a bit, even though everything he said to her was the truth.

As she brought up his father, Vail held her gaze without wavering. In the beginning, he had been extremely concerned about losing Peter’s favor, even to the point of fighting back against his budding affection for the Crest heiress. However, his priorities had shifted. While he still desired his father’s approval, he wasn’t going to let the clan leader force him into submission any longer. He respected Peter’s station as the patriarch of the Hygraces, but he wanted the freedom to start making some more personal decisions without pandering for permission. As long as he wasn’t doing anything to jeopardize the safety of his family, he saw no reason for his father to continue controlling his life.

“He did threaten to disown me,” the vampire heir admitted impassively. “But he and I both know that he can’t follow through with it. I’m his only son, and my uncle’s oldest doesn’t have the fortitude to lead the clan. If he tries passing the inheritance off to any of my other cousins, it could cause them to feud over who deserves it the most, because there’s no clear prerequisite outside of the birth order.” Peter could spit daggers all he wanted, but since he had no other children, he was stuck with his ‘rebellious’ son whether he liked it or not.

“I know,” Vail murmured when Victoria brought up the turning ritual. He still wished they could have used it to make her immortal, because the thought of parting on her deathbed tormented his heart. If only half of the humans who attempted it survived, though, he preferred to hold onto the few decades they had for the remainder of her human life. He didn’t think he could forgive himself if he was the one to cause her frail heart to stop beating prematurely, and the thought of losing her now rather than in two or three decades was even more painful than waiting for old age to claim her.

Upon imagining their pitiful future, his possessive streak flared, and he held onto her more tightly. In such close proximity, he was also tempted to sink his fangs into her neck again, and he took a slow breath to control the urge, not wanting to catch her by surprise when it hadn’t been that long since she began to recover from what Lord Spencer had done. He wanted to be even closer to her, but it seemed like she wasn’t going to be getting out of her bathtub anytime soon. His hazel eyes drifted down to her sultry body beneath the water, her bare skin stirring a different kind of primal hunger inside of him.

He cleared his throat, “Do you have a spare towel?” Since he had lied to Peter about hunting in the city, he couldn’t return to the Hygrace manor soaking wet, but he was growing irritated with the icy porcelain bathtub that prevented him from closing the gap between them as much as he would have liked. If he dried himself off before he left, it was less likely for his father to realize where he had been though.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

And Rayner spoke for the first time since he was introduced xD

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“You’d better,” Crow grinned at Penelope playfully as she took him by the hand. “We’ve known each other long enough now that it would be disappointing if you didn’t.” He fell in step beside her on their way to the inn, while Naida did the same on the knight’s other side and Rayner followed along behind them, silent as always. As they stepped inside, he lifted his gaze to look over the space, which was becoming more familiar to him as they traveled through the kingdom. It was the same place they had stopped by on their first trip to Younis, and it was where they had rested going to and from the outer villages a month ago. Like everything else in his new life as a nobleman, he wasn’t sure how he felt about becoming used to such luxurious accommodations.

The only thing that hadn’t changed was the lingering stares of the other people at the inn. As they stepped into the restaurant, he noticed heads turn in their direction right away. The feeling of so many eyes on him made the viceroy’s skin prickle, but he wore a mask of nonchalance on his way to an empty table with the others. He would have preferred to dress down for the trip through Brerra, so they could travel without drawing so much attention to themselves, but unfortunately, as long as he and the knights were wearing such eye-catching uniforms for the parley, he had a feeling they were going to be gawked at no matter where they were. Nobles loved to stick their noses where they didn’t belong in order to feel important, after all.

Trying to ignore the intruding stares, Crow sat down next to Penelope at the long table, and Naida and Rayner took seats on the opposite side. “I’ll say,” the princess sighed in agreement, shifting her weight back and forth on the wooden bench as if it was the most comfortable chair she’d ever reclined on. “If we have to ride for that long every day until we get to Younis, we’re going to be walking funny when we show up.”

“At least we’re not on our way to Gorm,” Crow pointed out, leaning forward to rest his arms on the tabletop. “That trip would have been even longer.”

Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, another voice spoke up from behind him. “Good evening,” a bar wench bowed to the group with far more respect than the viceroy was used to receiving from the general public. “It is my honor to serve you all today. What would you like to eat?”

Crow eyed her with veiled amusement. He wondered if she would have treated them the same way if she hadn’t thought they were a group of important dignitaries. “I’ll have veal and a pint of mead,” he answered.

“Stew and cider for me,” Naida grinned.

“I’ll have the same but with ale instead of cider,” Rayner said. Crow glanced at him. Given how quiet the knight had been until now, he hadn’t expected him to have such a rich voice when he spoke.

The wench nodded and turned to Penelope, studying her with subtle intrigue, “And for you?”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I liked it! I think I'll include Atlas's reaction to everything in my next post when I start on it ^^

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Yep, haha. And I can’t wait to read it ^^

I might be doing more homework later, so it could take me until tomorrow to reply. Not sure yet

~Bonsoir~

Sensitive to Victoria’s responses, Vail smiled against her cheek as he noticed the tremor in her movements and the spike in her pheromones. It was the same reaction he coaxed out of all his prey, but he took special pleasure in knowing that he could so easily commandeer the state of mind of the woman he loved. Unlike any other humans, he treated her affectionately and had become fond of far more than just the taste of her blood. Whether he would always be able to feed from her or not was of little concern to him, as was evidenced by his willingness to turn her into one of his own kind. Right now, however, with his primal instincts behind the wheel, he was drawn to indulge himself while the opportunity was still there.

“Good,” he mused, rocking back on his heels to undress the top half of his body. His father believed he had gone hunting in the city, so he didn’t want to return to the manor with water stains on his sleeves. To do so would have been to invite unwanted questions from the paranoid head of the Hygraces, since there were no rainclouds in the sky that eve. So, to avoid that confrontation, he hung his coat over the back of the chair and slipped out of his shirt and vest, placing the rest of the discarded articles in the same spot until he was left in nothing more than the trousers on his lower half.

No longer at risk of soaking his clothes, he leaned forward again to resume what he had been doing. His hands slipped into the warm water on either side of Victoria to stroke the soft skin of her chest and midriff, and he pressed his lips to her neck, inhaling her familiar scent. He had been honest when he’d said that he had missed her. After spending nearly a week apart, the anticipation of seeing her again had built up quite a bit, and even kneeling beside her now felt like a reprieve from withdrawal. He was glad that he had found her in the bath, because while discovering her naked had been a treat, the fragrant water would also mask her scent from Peter when he returned to the Hygrace manor.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” he breathed, wrapping his arms around her in an embrace from behind. As strong as his cravings for her blood had become, there was one other reason why he had been so eager to seek her out that night, and he wanted to address it before he lost himself in the feed. Holding her as close to himself as he could with the edge of the tub in between, Vail touched another kiss to her neck and then whispered in her ear, “I love you, Victoria.”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

I think everyone was xD