Chapter 57

ELEANOR

“Eleanor.” His soft voice woke me up gently. I felt his kisses trailing down my neck, his fingers brushing over my naked breast. “Good morning,” he murmured, nuzzling my throat.

“Morning,” I breathed, cracking my eyes open. Aric’s smiling face gazed down at me. He kissed my nose. I cuddled closer to him, breathing in heavily.

“Morning?” I gasped, sitting up and glancing at the windows. The room was dark. Aric rolled off me.

“I closed the blinds,” he murmured. “It’ll be fine. If not, I’ll burn to a crisp.” He chuckled.

I stared at him, alarmed. “Can you really burn to a crisp?” I asked.

He chuckled, running his fingers through his sandy blond hair.

“Only if the sun hits me. I can stay in here with the blinds drawn all day. It’ll just be uncomfortable. Like spending the whole day in a sauna.”

“So, great skin?”

He chuckled and ran his fingers up my naked body. I shivered, remembering the amazing orgasms he gave me last night. I hugged him, burying my face into my chest.

I felt his heartbeat. It made my own heart race. He made me so happy. He made me feel so safe in his arms, so alive.

“Can you stay with me here all day?” he asked, stretching out on the bed and gazing at me. I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

“Of course.” I grinned at him. “It’s Sunday!”

I picked up his shirt from the bedroom floor and slipped it on, buttoning it up but leaving the top buttons undone. I gave him a little twirl and beamed at the twinkle in his sapphire eyes.

“I’m going to make myself some breakfast,” I informed him. “Do you want anything?” He rolled off the bed and came up to me.

My eyes trailed over his naked body, his muscles moving under taut smooth skin. His eyes never left mine. His hand slipped around my waist and pulled me against him.

“Hmm, I like you wearing my clothes,” he breathed in my ear. I shivered with delight. “But I think I like it better when you don’t wear any clothes.”

I bit down on my bottom lip as he pulled back, his fingers tracing up to my throat. He softly caressed my cheek. “I’m good, Eleanor. I don’t need to feed.”

I nodded, breathless, and slipped out of my room giddily, making my way back into my kitchen. I noticed the two wine glasses on the coffee table, completely untouched.

I flipped my coffee machine on then darted into the bathroom while it rumbled to life.

I pushed my hair out of my eyes and gazed at my reflection. My makeup was smeared around my eyes and my dark curls were a frizzy mess.

“Argh, I look terrible,” I whispered, quickly grabbing a washcloth and cleaning my face.

“You look beautiful!” I heard Aric cry from the other room. Damn his super hearing!

After I washed my face, I pulled my brush through my hair until it was shiny and somewhat tamer, then I brushed my teeth and sprayed on some deodorant.

Feeling somewhat better, I moved back into the kitchen, where I found Aric rifling through my cookbooks.

He wore only his pants, and my eyes glided from his bare feet to his chiseled chest and gorgeous face. He winked at me, and I blushed.

“I need coffee,” I murmured, grabbing my now-ready coffee and pouring it into a mug.

“What can I make you for breakfast? Something sweet, something savory?” Aric asked, snapping the book closed.

I slid up onto my bar chair, crossing my legs. His shirt rid up my thighs, and I watched his eyes on me.

“Always savory for breakfast, Aric,” I purred. “But do you know how to cook?” I arched one brow, watching him fishing out a pan from my dry dishes.

He cast me a shocked look. “Don’t you remember me cooking for you? Mother was helpless. I was the one who made your dinners in Poitiers,” he scoffed, looking offended.

I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded in agreement.

“Ah yes, I remember now. I remember you and James racing me home just before the sun rose and making me the fastest dinner before Mother could catch us,” I said with a giggle.

Aric grinned at me. “You do realize now that she always knew and was two steps away the whole time?”

I nodded slowly. “I do now.”

He chuckled and opened my fridge.

“Do you need help?” I asked him, sipping from my coffee.

“No, I’m thinking frittata, does that work for you?”

“Perfect!” I cried giddily. He pulled out red bell peppers and butter.

I watched him frothing the eggs in a bowl. “So, do we have all day together? Will you need to sleep? Or can we spend all day in bed listening to opera?”

“That sounds like the best day of my life.” His eyes were twinkling. The sincerity in his voice was clear. I flushed, excited to make him happy.

“When do you need to return?” I asked.

“In the next couple of days.” He glanced up at me. “I want to stay longer. Now that you’re mine. I never want to leave your side.”

I blushed at his words.

He gave me a breathtaking smile. “However, James is getting married in two weeks,” he added.

“Ah yes,” I arched my brows. “How old is he now?”

Aric snickered. “Four hundred and ninety-five.”

I let out a low wolf whistle. “And what about her?”

Aric leaned against the counter, gazing at me with a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Grace Chen. She’s Henry’s sister, the Henry you met at UCLA.”

“I remember.” I nodded slowly. “And Henry, you said, is dating Venus?”

“Courting, not really dating. Vampires don’t date,” he said, snickering. “They’re traveling through Europe these days. They’ll be arriving at the castle in a couple of days.”

“Do you like Henry for her? He really freaked me out.”

“That’s because he’s a pureblood vampire who is over four hundred and thirty years old, and you were a puny nineteen-year-old human,” he chuckled.

“Puny?” I gasped in fake horror. He chuckled, waving his spoon at me.

“Puny,” he said with a grin. “But he’s a good guy. He didn’t kill you, and he could have. And he came straight to Grace who told me.

“He’s also kept the secret of your aliveness. So, I’d say I like him a lot for my sister. But don’t tell him that.”

I giggled. “I guess I really owe him, huh? For not killing me or ratting me out to the king.”

“I owe him. Don’t you worry about it.”

“You owe him?” I cocked my head to one side.

“As your protector, yeah”—he winked at me—“as your guardian angel.”

“Sexy angel,” I said, grinning.

“You think I’m sexy?” he asked, his voice dropping, low and seductive. I trembled, my heart skipping a beat.

“You are”—I shook my head slowly—“a ~god~.” He chuckled.

“We were actual gods. Didn’t I tell you about the Greeks?” My eyes widened.

“You’re kidding, right?” I gasped in delight. “I remember you telling me about Helen of Troy.” He nodded, remembering.

“Well, it was about that time. I’ll introduce you to Artemis one day.”

“Artemis? The Goddess of hunting?”

“Exactly,” he said with a smile. “She’s my great-grandmother on my mother’s side. Her name is Diana. She insisted on it for the Romans.” He snickered.

“You are blowing my mind,” I said breathlessly. “She’s still alive?”

“Of course! But we don’t see her often. I haven’t seen her in a hundred years. She lives in Russia.”

“What about Aphrodite, Apollo, Poseidon?” I started listing all the Greek gods I could remember.

“Well, most of them were based on purebloods. The humans kind of ran with the idea and made them into something they weren’t.

“Ares, for example, was King Lucius’s father. He died centuries ago. So, my great-grandfather.”

“Wow, Aric. Just wow.”

“I’ll take you to Athens, and we can check out the statues. You can try to figure out which ones are related to me.” He winked.

I bit down on my bottom lip in amazement. “I had forgotten how amazing you guys all are,” I breathed, my heart swelling.

Aric gave me a small smile. “I wish I could have been with you, Eleanor, every step of your life. I’m sorry I wasn’t.” He pursed his lips. “But, if you’ll have me now, I will never leave your side again.”

My heart skipped a beat. “I don’t think I could live without you again, Aric,” I told him. “I really don’t want to.”

He moved quickly to my side, cupping my cheek in his hand, lifting my face to his. He pressed his lips gently against mine.

“You never will, baby. I promise, I will never leave you,” he whispered. I blinked at him, my heart sputtering in my chest. I took a deep breath and nodded.

He kissed the top of my head then moved back to his frittata.

“So, about this wedding. Grace, you said? She is marrying James. She must be beautiful. He was…wow.” I arched my brows. Aric gave me a little scowl.

“Hmm, I don’t like hearing you appreciating other guys.”

I laughed, sticking my tongue out at him. My whole body was tingling with joy.

Chuckling, he went back to his frittata, cutting up the red bell pepper.

“Henry is younger than me, but Grace went to school with James and me. He’s been infatuated with her for about two hundred years.”

“Why didn’t they get married before?”

“Probably because of me,” he answered nonchalantly.

“What did you do?” I scoffed, sipping my coffee. He grinned at me.

“I was their third wheel.” My eyes widened.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I always had a thing for Grace as well. She’s, well, she’s pretty spectacular. And she had a thing for me.”

“And did you guys consummate this ~thing~?” I asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable at the idea of another woman with Aric.

He was adding the ingredients to his frittata, beating it constantly. “We did. But it never worked out. I didn’t care enough.”

“But she did?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“And you and James, no hard feelings?”

“Of course not. If we kept every grudge over two hundred years of stirring up trouble and sleeping around, vampires would never reproduce.”

I blinked at him. “Two hundred years of sleeping around?” My voice came out squeaky.

Aric glanced up at me. His expression was serious. He nodded. “Approximately.”

“With humans and vampires?”

“Yes, of course,” he watched my expression, his brows arching.

I swallowed. “Of course.” I was unable to look him in the eyes. “So, what do you prefer, sleeping with humans or vampires?”

He gave me a weird look, leaning against the counter.

“Well, it’s a lot rougher with vampires,” he started. “But humans smell better, and they’re soft and warm and squishy. And I enjoy drinking more from them.

“Drinking from a vampire, after a while, I have to stop. But they drink from me, which is always nice.” He shrugged.

“When you drink from humans, do you kill them?”

“Sometimes.” He glanced up at me and pursed his lips. “Eleanor, remember, I’m not human.” He paused. “Imagine it’s like a praying mantis. It’s just the way nature is.”

“Sure, sure,” I nodded slowly. “You didn’t kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Eleanor. I want to love you, cherish you, and drink from you. For the rest of my life.”

I blinked at him. “I see. Why didn’t you catch feelings with Grace? Would she make more sense for you than me?”

Aric arched his brows and breathed out heavily. “I suppose because I knew something wasn’t there,” he murmured.

Suddenly he was by my side, his palm cupping my face, lifting it for me to gaze up at him. I blushed.

“Because I knew someone else was out there, and if I waited long enough, I would find her.” His voice was soft, his sapphire eyes boring into mine.

“And have you?” My voice was barely a whisper. He brushed his lips against mine and kissed under my earlobe.

“I think so,” he breathed. I shuddered and let him press his lips gently against mine. He spun away from me, moving back into the kitchen.

“I wish I could bring you to the wedding,” he said, getting back to his frittata.

“It’ll be at the castle. Grace and Mother have been working on the decorations. I’ve been in charge of wine. Uncle Orion, you remember him? He’s taking care of the food with Father.”

“Food?”

“Yes. Willing donors.”

“Seriously? There are people who willingly get sucked on all night?”

Aric grinned at me. “I remember you liking it,” he teased.

I blushed bright red and almost threw my coffee at him. He chuckled at my expression.

“Do you kill them at the end of the night?”

“Not usually. We need them for parties,” he said, chuckling.

“Aric, how is this actually going to work?” I asked him. “I’m human, and you’re a vampire. Are we dating? Are you courting me? All I know is that I don’t want you to ever leave me again.”

He cocked his head to one side, then materialized behind me. He spun me around and pushed my hair out of my face. His eyes bored into mine.

“Big questions just starting your day.” He laughed, then shook his head slowly.

“Eleanor, I have been waiting for you for centuries. I have loved you since you were a girl. I am sure of my feelings.”

He kissed my forehead. “You are mine now, and I don’t intend to ever let you go.”

My breath hitched as he spoke. His tone was soft and soothing, but there was something feral about it, and something deep inside me was responding to that.

I found myself wrapping my arms tightly around his waist and burying my face in his chest.

“You overwhelm me, Aric,” I told him. “I can’t stop thinking about you all the time. Since I saw you in Boston, I kept imagining us together, somehow growing old.

“But that’s not going to happen, is it? My life has been human for so long now. My dreams and ambitions are human. You don’t have them. You’re a vampire. You live forever.”

“Nothing lives forever, Eleanor,” he said softly. I blinked at him.

“Aren’t you immortal?”

“No, I’m not. I just have a very long lifespan compared to yours. Even stars have their moment, then they die, Eleanor.”

I nodded, understanding. “Aric, since I saw you in Boston, there’s like this fire inside me, burning, and you started it, and I can’t seem to be able to stamp it out.”

He reached down to lift my face and gazed down at me. “Then why are you trying to stamp it out if it’s meant to blaze?” He nuzzled my throat, running his nose up my face.

He kissed my temple gently. “You overwhelm me, Eleanor.” He was smiling. “We can have a life together. But it will not last, not unless...”

“Unless I was a vampire,” I finished for him. He nodded once.

“I will not deny that that is what I want as well. To have you, to hold you for the rest of my life. I understand that you might be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, Aric. I’m trying to wrap my head around it. I’m trying to imagine my life. I had a plan. To get my Ph.D., to work on planes, maybe rockets one day.” I shrugged.

“To open a gallery and sell my art. To retire in a foreign country. I never imagined you, I never imagined I would see you or Mother again.

“You have utterly confused me, changed all my life plans. Because Aric, I want you. I want to be with you. I have never felt happier. I never want to be away from you. And to see Mother.”

I breathed out a heavy sigh. “I miss her. And Venus and Phoenix, and Demetrius and James and Selene. I miss them all. I miss them being my family.”

“Eleanor, you can work on planes and rockets and open your own gallery and live in all the foreign countries with me.

“My grandfather, Damon, is CEO of over twenty different international companies. He’s constantly investing and creating new start-ups. My aunt Aleesha has her own fashion line.

“Eloise works as a model. Father and uncle Orion have recently started to make whiskey. Elizabeth, my grandmother, was a tutor and teacher for royal families for centuries.

“I’m a composer, pianist, bass player, and I currently have a contract with the Orchestre de Paris. Your life won’t stop just because you’re a vampire. And we can be together.”

I blinked at him, nodding as he spoke, letting his words slowly sink in. “I had not realized you all worked real jobs,” I admitted.

“When you were around, most of us weren’t working to be with you. We all knew you would only be around for two decades,” he answered, running his fingers through his hair.

“Aric, what about the violence, the bloodlust, the murdering humans?” I gazed up at him. He brushed his fingers through my hair lightly.

“Humans aren’t peaceful creatures, Eleanor. I can show you how we can be happy together, show you past the blood, the pain, and the death of life as a vampire. There is happiness.”

His eyes were wide. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, and my breath was ragged. He kissed the top of my head, his thumb making circular movements against the back of my neck.

I let my head fall against his chest, and I could just hear his heart beating, once, twice. I gazed up at him.

“I’ll need to think about it,” I told him. He nodded and moved back to the kitchen.

“I won’t push you, beautiful. I know what I’m asking you to do. But I will fight for you. Now, where do you keep your paprika?” he asked.

“In that cupboard.” I pointed to the one above his head. He opened the wrong door. “No, that one!” I insisted.

“Come over here and show me,” he said with a smirk. I made a face and slipped off the stool to show him the spice rack. As I reached up, I felt his hands moving under my shirt, lifting it above my hips.

I gasped in surprise. He pressed himself against me, his fingers playing gently between my legs. I let out a small moan and leaned back against him, letting my head drop to his chest.

He dipped his head and caught my lips in a soft kiss.

A second later, he spun me around, lifted me up, and placed me on the counter, one hand pulling my legs apart, his other hand cupping my face as we kissed.

“I love you, Eleanor,” he whispered. “I’ve waited for you for so long. I’m not going to let you go now that I’ve made you mine.”

He grabbed the shirt and pulled it off my body, dipping down to pull one of my nipples into his mouth. I gasped out in pleasure, arching my back and pushing myself closer toward him.

His hands gripped my ass as he slid into me in one thrust, groaning.

“Oh God, Aric,” I gasped, grinding against him, my head falling back, my chest heaving.

“I love you, Eleanor,” he repeated, slamming against mine. I felt his lips pressing against my throat, then suddenly his fangs penetrated my skin.

I let out a little whimper as he began sucking. My body was wracked with waves of pleasure. He growled against me, his grip tightening around me, squeezing my ass, gripping my back.

I felt my hot blood trickle down my chest. He caught up with it, licking up my breast, lapping at my wound, making me writhe with pleasure.

“Aric,” I gasped as he brought his lips up to mine again, smothering my words in a smoldering kiss. “I love you too,” I gasped.