For Eternity (Vampire! 2p! Italy x Reader)

Chapter Seventeen - Matt's Step-Father

        Since your three days of freedom from Luciano were up, you were forced to sleep in his room with him once more. To your delight, he hadn't tried to pull anything on you while you slept except the occasional kiss to the forehead or pulling you close to him in his sleep. Though you weren't too keen on all the unconscious physical contact, you were beginning to not mind them. The gestures showed that he cared deeply for you, sometimes seeming too deeply for your liking, but they were sweet nonetheless. You wouldn't tell Luciano this of course. You continued to make a big deal of how it was an invasion of your personal space and privacy, especially when he had walked in on you in the bath the early in the morning and kissed you on your head before going to bed.

        Today was no different than any other day with the vampire prince. You woke up almost completely laying on top of him and immediately scrambled out of the bed. He calmly turned onto his stomach in his sleep for once, the scars that Flavio had told you about on the night of Luciano's "proposal" to you showing as his back displayed itself to you. They were of a lighter tone than the rest of his tanned body. Some seemed to have been acquired from a whip while others were too jagged or misshapen to tell what caused them. The scars seemed to draw you to them. You made your way back to the king size bed and sat at the edge on Luciano's side. Your fingers traced along each and every scar, only stopping when the prince shivered from your light and gentle touches, only to have you continue. You had completely forgotten that you had once hated this man, the one who kept you locked in his castle and was forcing you into marriage. In all honestly, it felt like what you had been taught in your history class when you were younger.

         The lessons when you didn't have to learn about vampires were always treasurable ones. While you enjoyed learning about vampire history, cultural, and their nature in general unlike most kids in your class, you enjoyed learning about the rich history of the old world when vampires were just a legend more than anything. To you it was absolutely intriguing how the world used to function when most people had freedom and how the world evolved to accommodate the creatures living in it and vice versa. You loved how over the centuries countries would rise and fall in and out of power, how the politics invented by humanity changed depending on the geographic region of the world and time period you looked at, and how the features of people and their races were different than that of another's, giving the world a never ending surplus of varying looks and cultures to go with it. It truly was outstanding in every way.

        One thing that was almost constant in the olden days was arranged marriages between nobles and royalty. You could relate to this to a certain degree now that you were going to marry the prince, soon-to-be king of the vampires. You could sympathize with the noble and royal men and women of history. You could only imagine what it felt like back then to have been forced into a marriage with someone you barely knew but to have that done to you in modern times, well, you could bet it was even worse for you considering who you were to be wed to. It never seemed fair to you, but who ever said the world was fair? Sure there was always that cliché "All is fair in love and war," but this wasn't war, or at least it didn't seem to be.

        To your knowledge, there hadn't been any wars between the vampires and humans since the last one thousands of years ago, back when a vampire named Remus was still in power. If you could recall correctly, that was Luciano and Flavio's grandfather. From what you know from your history classes, he was ruthless, always trying to conquer something in the most barbaric manner possible and ruling with an iron fist. No one could say for sure what caused him to die, except for those of the royal family and those closest to him. Perhaps you could ask Flavio about it, or maybe even Luciano? No, it was best not to ask, at least not yet anyway.

        You suddenly felt the mattress shift below you, causing you to snap out of your deep thought. In your preoccupied state, Luciano had woken up from your delicate touches but stayed laying on his stomach, only shifting his arms so that he could place them under his pillow to give his head extra support. He would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying you tracing the shapes of his scars on the sensitive skin of his back. To him it tickled and was the most attention you had ever given him out of your own free will. He wasn't going to count the times you gave him attention at your engagement ball, the following night when you both had a hangover from said ball and spent the evening cuddling in bed, or when you came to him in his private study in search of some form of entertainment. You did those things either because you were told to do it, weren't feeling your best and didn't care what it took to make you feel better, or simply wanted to find something to do. Heck, he had you under his control for part of the last incident and you didn't even know it until the other night. Yes, this was indeed the first time you ever gave him a decent amount of attention because you wanted to. Sure, he may have been asleep when you initially started running your fingers lightly over his bare back, but it was that you continued to do it even after he gave you a small sign that he was no longer in a deep slumber.