Vampiric Interdiction

[6] The Dreaded Question

Villahr brushed his hand against Karolinna’s pallid hair a few more times, and the fervour of her cheek spread out a more against his bare chest.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered, so low it would haven been inaudible to any mere human.

“Don’t worry?? Why wouldn’t I worry?”

Villahr adjusted his position, pulling his back straight against the headboard. Spreading his legs wider, he allowed Karolinna more room to lay between them. “I’ve rarely ever seen you this way, and I know you don't just burst into tears for frivolous reasons. Clearly that makes it something that should concern me, sisienta.”

Karolinna remained silent and simply hugged her companion closer in response. She didn’t want to give an answer, but knew Villahr would manage to get it out of her eventually. It didn’t take much for him to melt her ice-bound exterior. Although Karolinna wished sometimes she could be strong around him, Villahr continued to prove the impossibility of such a feat, being the only one, besides her mother, capable of seeing right through her. Such skills Karolinna had been born with and had to work tirelessly for years to control, Villahr had been blessed with intuitively.

The supportive Vici reached around his back and took a hold of the blonde’s forearm, pulling it back around before helping her twist her body to a seated position in front of him. Villahr looked deeply into her purple eyes which were still somewhat hazy and glossed over as if searching for something behind them. Scouring her mind for the memory jabbing into her skull like a cattle prod, he put his hand on Karolinna’s tear-soaked cheek. He prayed that through touch, as she often used to divulge him of his darkest thoughts, he could find the source of her pain and pull it out. He fell up short, and so, dejected, he opted for a a more recurrent tactic.

“Is it something I did?” he offered, trying to think back to the night’s previous events, in amongst his foolery, to a moment when he might of said something out of line.

Karolinna shook her head.

“No, of course not.” She blinked away the few tears that clung to her lashes and they trickled downward, hitting Villahr’s hand on their way. He didn’t flinch and kept his alluring, blue eyes on the faelna’s dispirited face.

“It’s the pants isn’t it. You’ve got some sort of emotional attachment to them don’t you,” Villahr said sarcastically, his voice on the cusp of laughter but not quite toppling over. “I should take them off then. I’ll take them off.” Perhaps now wasn’t the right moment for jokes, so Villahr hoped this stab at provoking her mood to change wasn’t too intrepid, unsure of which uncharted place Karolinna’s emotions might take her to next in retort.

To Villahr’s delight her lips curled into a smile as he dropped his hands to the waistband of the trousers and began to pull at a slow pace, revealing the defined V shape at his lower abdomen.

“No no no!” she was quick to respond, then chuckled lightly, both cursing and praising herself for stopping Villahr from going any further. “It’s not the pants.” Villahr smirked and tugged the material back up on his hips.

“Well… What is it? I’m starting to worry,”

Karolinna sighed and broke their locked gaze.

“That’s just it,” she said, circling her finger in an invisible motif below the skin of Villahr’s collar-bone.

Villahr looked confused. “What’s it?” he asked.

“Worry,” Karolinna repeated. “I’m worried.”

Karolinna wasn’t a total heartless bitch like others assumed. Yes she fought with the help affront the estate constantly, and screamed at the clerks working in just about every store she went into if they didn’t have what she was looking for, but she really wasn’t that bad. Just really particular. She actually cared about others a great deal; however, her way of showing it had never been very conventional.