Chapter 153: 153-Crazy like me
"How come you didn’t tell me you were back?" Jarel asked.
He barely waited for an answer. Freya, the unconscious werewolf, was slung over his right shoulder, her body completely limp. With his left arm, he steadied Maisa, who was barely conscious herself, keeping her upright as they made their way forward.
Behind him came Vaki and unlike Jarel, he showed no urgency. He walked with lazy, unhurried strides, his hands hanging loosely at his sides as though they had all the time in the world.
Every now and then, the toe of his boot nudged a pebble, sending it skittering across the ground before he continued on without a word.
There was something strangely calm about him. Too calm for it to be normal.
Jarel eventually stopped and turned around. His gaze fell on Vaki, and for a moment, the two simply stared at each other and then Jarel’s eyes narrowed.
"I see you’ve added another braid," he said as his gaze shifted to Vaki’s hair. "Is it for her?"
Vaki’s fingers slowly rose to his hair. He found the newest braid and gently traced it from the top to the end.
It was a habit he had developed centuries ago. One braid for every century he spent without her. It was a physical reminder of every hundred years that passed while the person he had been waiting for remained out of his reach.
Half of his hair was braided now, a total of ten braids now. Ten centuries, a thousand years of waiting and longing. A thousand years of carrying a wound that time had never managed to close.
Vaki’s fingers lingered on the newest braid and then his gaze lifted toward the sky.
The blood moon hung above them, bathing everything beneath it in an eerie crimson glow.
"I met my mate the other night," he whispered.
His voice was so quiet that it almost disappeared beneath the night wind. His fingers slowly fell from his hair.
There was no point touching the braids anymore. Every time he did, they reopened wounds he had spent centuries learning to live with and there was no use crying over spilled blood.
Jarel froze. His expression changed instantly. "What did you say?"
Vaki didn’t look at him. "Kayden Krauss..." he paused, his crimson eyes remaining fixed on the blood moon. "He’s in the Night Castle."
Silence followed his confession. Jarel stared at him. Kayden Krauss? Vaki’s mate. After ten centuries of waiting, Vaki had finally found him.
Jarel couldn’t decide whether that was the best news he had heard tonight or the beginning of an entirely new disaster.
"How do you feel about Kayden?"
Vaki kicked another pebble. It bounced across the ground, struck a larger stone, and disappeared into the darkness.
He didn’t answer Jarel’s question. Instead, he simply kept walking. His steps remained lazy and unhurried, carrying him farther ahead of Jarel as though the question had never reached his ears.
The faint smile remained on his lips. It was gentle and almost playful but there was something behind his eyes that didn’t match it.
Something old and painfully lonely. A loneliness that had taken root a thousand years ago and had been watered by every passing century.
Jarel noticed it, he always did and yet he held his tongue. There was no point pressing Vaki when he had already chosen silence.
Vaki was frightening enough without being provoked. The ever-smiling machine, that was what Jarel sometimes thought of him.
Vaki smiled when he handed the world to someone and he smiled even more brightly when he took that same world away.
At first glance, one might have assumed something was wrong with his face; that perhaps the vampire had simply forgotten how to make any other expression but Jarel knew better.
Vaki could frown, glare, laugh, pout, sneer, scowl, and wear every expression expected of a normal vampire. He simply chose not to.
Those expressions were useful when he needed to play one of his countless roles. The charming fool, harmless eccentric, dangerous madman, gentle benefactor or the ruthless killer.
Vaki could slip into any of them effortlessly and none of them were ever completely sincere.
His feelings for the world was fake except with one person. The person he had spent a thousand years waiting for and the only person who had ever been given the real Vaki.
Jarel looked at the vampire’s back and silently wondered what Kayden’s presence would awaken in him and perhaps that was what frightened him most.
He wasn’t scared of Vaki’s madness but what happened when the man who had buried his feelings for a thousand years finally had someone worth feeling for again.
"How soon can the palace call off Taratoya from watching over my beauties?" Vaki suddenly asked.
His playful tone returned as though their previous conversation had never happened.
He continued strolling ahead, occasionally kicking pebbles out of his path.
"She’s crazy like me..." he glanced over his shoulder.
For the first time, his smile turned into an exaggerated pout. "That makes her troublesome..." he turned forward again. "Sane vampires are much easier to deal with."
Jarel almost laughed. He couldn’t disagree more with that logic. Sane people were certainly easier to deal with.
Unfortunately, sanity had never been Vaki’s greatest virtue and Jarel had somehow ended up stuck with the craziest whiteblood vampire in existence.
"I’ll handle it first thing at dusk tomorrow night."
Vaki’s smile widened. "Good."
He kicked another pebble. This one flew much farther into the darkness. "Then I’ll finally be able to see my beauties get together without someone breathing down their necks."
Jarel sighed. Some things, apparently, never changed. He studied Vaki’s back for a moment before finally asking, "What beauties are you talking about, and why do you want them to be together?"
Vaki’s steps didn’t slow. "The true heart has awakened," he said casually. "And now I want it to bloom."
His smile softened. "The sooner..." his fingers rose to his hair, finding the newest braid almost instinctively. "...the better."
Jarel stopped walking. "Wait...?" His eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
Vaki blinked. He didn’t turn around and simply continued walking in silence.
Jarel stared at him. "Vaki?" he called out and received no response.
Jarel’s expression twitched. ’Of course,’ he sighed internally.
Vaki had never been one to repeat himself. Not even when someone genuinely hadn’t heard him, especially not then.
"Vaki..." Jarel called again, speeding up to catch him. "I’m on your team. I’m loyal to you, and I would never betray you," he looked at the back of Vaki’s head. "You can trust me with your plans."
Vaki finally stopped walking. For several seconds, he said nothing and then he slowly turned his head.
"You sound just like Zazen."
Jarel’s brow furrowed.
Vaki’s smile remained perfectly intact. "What is it with you people and wanting to know everything in the name of trust and loyalty?"
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in exaggerated annoyance.
"At this point, one of you will surely ask for my heart in the name of me proving I value you," he scoffed yet somehow, even his scoff came with that same infuriating smile.
Jarel pressed her lips together, fighting back a laugh. "She hasn’t asked for it already?"
Vaki’s smile froze for half a second. Zazen had asked for it, and it took all the acting in the world to circle around the matter and avoid being tied down by her.
Jarel’s eyes gleamed with amusement. "With how clingy she is with you, I have to give her credit for holding out this long."
For the first time, Vaki looked genuinely offended. "Clingy?"
"Yes."
"She’s affectionate... to an unbearable level..." His face twisted, too much sweetness from her was bad for his health.
Jarel smiled innocently. Neither of them noticed how the newest braid resting against Vaki’s shoulder swayed gently in the night breeze.
Vaki glanced at Maisa, the redblood was the key to the doors leading to his dream life. His eyes drifted off to Freya, the werewolf was previously not part of the plans but after that bite and her turning with Maisa’s blood in her body, his plans changed.
’You sure are full of surprises, Maisa. You even gave me a useful beauty as a gift,’ he thought. ’Her blood will prove useful for my plans.’