Chapter 449: My creep
Leilani.
I didn’t cry for a long time. I couldn’t. Because come to think of it, why exactly was I crying instead of acting?
Why does my heart feel so raw and so sore when I have done nothing to deserve it?
I wiped the corners of my eyes with the back of my hand as these thoughts struck me and then I rose to my feet, my knees wobbly as I made my way towards the large wardrobe.
Pulling it open, I wasn’t so surprised to see that a lot of my things were neatly arranged inside the large wooden object. My clothes were heaped in clean piles, sorted in order of their colors and my toiletries occupied one one of the cabinets, arranged in order of their importance.
I sighed. "I hate that I have to ruin this but I think I have to return to New York City. I cannot keep running from there like this and hiding away in this beach house. Moreover, I have business to do at Frostclaw. Inc."
Those were the words I said and even though I knew they were the truth, they were also not the full truth.
I wasn’t leaving only because of business.
I was leaving because... because after careful thought about what Zevran had said to me earlier, I have now come to the conclusion that I needed to be an adult and leave. I needed to end this charade. To school my body until it doesn’t react to them the way it does now. And to take up the mantle that Jarek had bestowed upon me without allowing all of these side distractions to get in the way.
So with this thought, I began to pack.
I started with my clothes and then moved to my toiletries. However, I was about to pull out the large box, the one containing all my shoes when suddenly the box fell, clattering to the floor with a loud bang.
My shoes were strewn all over the place and so were my perfume bottles, some of which even shattered into tiny pieces in the process.
The sound echoed around the quiet house but before I could even recover from it, my door was suddenly pushed in and Caelum ran into the room looking like he was just in a marathon.
He was sweating profusely with his singlet sticking to his skin in weird spots. His hair was in a state of disarray and his face... goddess, his face was the worst. It carried a hint of worry with fear... and then there was something else. Something akin to apprehension as he slammed his way through the door and straight at me.
"Leilani!" He shrieked, his eyes widening when they landed on me. "What the hell happened?"
I had not been able to respond when suddenly, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders tightly, but not too tightly that it was uncomfortable.
He rested his chin on top of my head, his shoulders shaking slightly as he muttered under his breath; "You scared me... you scared me. What the hell happened?"
"Nothing, I didn’t..."
Kael and Zevran rushed into the room just then, their eyes widening as they took in the messy state of the floor. When they looked at me, I saw the horror in their eyes... the fear and the panic. Yet there was something more. Something like... care, worry and love all mixed together.
It made my breath hitch just thinking about it and I gulped as I tried to pull away from Caelum. "I am fine. My box fell down."
At my utterance, they all turned— as if controlled by some invisible force— towards the box, a flicker of an emotion I couldn’t quite name, passing through their eyes until the silence was suddenly disrupted when I suddenly squealed;
"Oh goddess, let me down!"
But Caleum wouldn’t listen. Heck, he didn’t even seem as though he had heard me speak as he carried me bridal style away from the wardrobe area and towards the door.
"Stop this, let me down!" I screamed at his face and to my utmost surprise, as soon as he arrived by the door, he let me down and took a step back, his voice as cold as ice as he said;
"There were pieces of broken glass where you were standing. You could have easily gotten hurt."
"Huh?"
"I said, there were pieces of broken glass where you were standing. You could have easily gotten hurt."
I gulped as a sudden heat crept up my face. But that wasn’t all, I was embarrassed as well. Embarrassed that he was only looking out for me while I acted like some banshee. And just as this thought crossed my mind, I looked down at my uninjured feet and sighed;
"Thank you."
My eyes, however, darted to his feet at that moment, and my breath hitched one more time in my chest when I noticed the streaks of blood on the floor around his feet. He was bleeding from the cuts on his feet but acted like he wasn’t.
I squealed; "doesn’t that hurt?"
But he didn’t respond right away. Instead, he asked; "What happened here?"
"Nothing." I said without looking at him.
"It’s not nothing. How did this happen?" He almost growled, but how do I tell him that I was trying to pack my things? That I wanted to flee this house and return to NYC?
That my big girl response to what Zevran had said to me earlier was running?
Deciding against telling him that, I shook my head. "I was just really just setting some things away. I didn’t mean for my box to fall."
None of the brothers looked like they believed me but thankfully, they quickly let it go.
Caelum cast me a glance, one that made hot tremors run down my spine in waves, and drawled; "You can’t stay here until this whole shit is cleaned up."
I nodded once. "Yes."
"So go to my room for now. You’ll rest there until your room is cleaned up and returned to its former state. Okay?" He said and once again, I found myself nodding like an agama lizard.
"Yes."
However, I had just said that when his words finally settled somewhere in my head. My mouth hung open in shock and I stuttered;
"W-wait..."
But he was already walking away, more like limping away. He shrugged. "You’ve agreed already, Lani. Don’t worry, I won’t be a creep and leave you alone."
But it wasn’t that that made me worried.
I hate to say this but it was his feet, and the way he left red footprints behind as he walked away from my room.
Comments