Drinks and table arrangements, that was what was being taken care of today. Luciano and you had decided that you would take care of drinks first to get it out of the way. The two of you were already seated in the dining hall since you insisted upon eating in there rather than your shared bedroom. All you two had to do was wait for the contender to show up. You were practically almost asleep again with your face resting on your arms, which you had crossed on the table to make a pillow of sorts. That was when a man burst into the room. Maybe "burst" is a very large overstatement in this case. It was rather that he opened the one door lazily and closed it behind him with a soft thud. You wouldn't have even known that the man had entered if it had not been for Luciano tapping you on your shoulder. You sat up slowly, a small strand of drool beginning to drip down the corner of your mouth. Luciano grabbed your napkin and wiped it away swiftly.
"Thanks," you muttered sleepily.
"No problem," he whispered in your ear before placing a soft kiss to your temple.
Your gaze adverted itself for the table to the new addition to the room. The man seemed older than most vampires you had seen so far. He looked to be about twenty-five or so in human years. His hair was a platinum blondish color and was around shoulder length. His expression showed boredom and indifference. His attire consisted of a purple button down shirt, tan dress pants, and brown loafers. The shirt and pants looked to be nicely pressed, but he didn't seem like the kind of man to waste his time on ironing his clothing. Perhaps a maid or his wife did it for him. He looked oddly familiar to you though. He kind of resembled Matt in a way, or Matt resembled him since, like mentioned before, he seemed to be older than most vampires. He walked up to the two of you, Luciano standing immediately to greet him with you following suit shortly after.
"It is great to see you again François," Luciano said while shaking the other man's hand.
"Likewise. This is your fiancée, oui?"
Ah, so he was French. His name rung a bell in your head. Matt said he was French-Canadian, and you knew that his mother was not in any way French. You remembered her mentioning Matt's father once, but couldn't remember his name. Well, there was only one way to find out. You had to ask him.
"Yes, this is (y/n)."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," you said.
He took your hand in his and brought it up to his lips, only to leave a kiss on your knuckles. You blushed and cleared your throat a bit.
"I don't mean to be rude or offend you when asking this, but are you by any chance Matt's father?"
"Oui, vous connaissez mon Matthieu?"
"Pardon me?"
"I said yes. You know my Matthieu?"
"Yes, him and I have been best friends since we were young."
"Hm, I recall him talking about you when he first arrived here. He said he was attempting to teach you French before he left. C'est vrai?"
"Oui, c'est vrai mais je ne sais pas la parler bien."
"You sound like you can speak it fairly well. It's good enough to get you by in France if you would ever decide to go I suppose."
"Thank you."
"Alright, I think we should get down to business François. We have a very busy day ahead of us," Luciano butted in.
"Ouais, ouais. I'll go get the stuff."
François walked off to the kitchen in silence. Luciano snatched you out of your chair and plopped you onto his lap, his arms wrapping protectively around your waist. You squeaked in surprise from his action and tried to pry his arms off of you. He growled into your ear as he buried his head into your neck.
"What are you doing?" you asked slightly panicked.
"Marking my territory better. Just hold still."
"Not if you're going to bite me!" you whispered, your tone showing your uneasiness.
Luciano grabbed your face and turning it so your eyes met his.
"I promise I won't bite you. Just let me do what I need to, okay?" he asked aggressively.
"Fine," you pouted. "Someone's jealous," you muttered.
Luciano heard you and growled again as he pushed his fangs against your neck. You stiffed, unsure of what he was doing. He rubbed his elongated canines along the sensitive flesh of your neck. You shivered at the feeling of his cold breath blowing against your neck. He moved his mouth away from your neck and turned your face back to his again. He claimed you lips with his own. You kissed back very reluctantly since he was being considerably rough with his kiss. They were normally soft and gentle, but this time around it was possessive. He finally spoke when he parted from you.
"I am not jealous," he said bitterly.
"Really? I may not be a vampire, but I know when someone is jealous. You can't fool me Luci."
His eyes snapped wide open.
"Who told you about that nickname?"
"Oh, no one you need to concern yourself with."
"It was my poor excuse of an older brother wasn't it? That fucking fancy bastardo."
"Yes, it was, but he only told me because I asked him if you had any embarrassing nicknames growing up as a child."
"He's a dead man to me."
"Oh come on. I think it's rather cute."
"I am not cute!" Luciano exclaimed while puffing out his cheeks like a child. "I'm manly as hell..."
"What ever helps you sleep during the day," you said with a little bit of sass.
The vampire prince looked at you with a slight look of shock. My, weren't you just a sassy Sue the last few days? Luciano was keeping track of how many times you could possibly sass him, and this was the twenty-eighth time you had sassed him in the past three days. He didn't know what being tired had to do with being sassy, but boy were you sassy as hell when you were tired, you being the most sassy with him in particular.
François chose to walk back into the dining hall at this time. He had a platter in his hand with various liquids of red and white and a few wine glasses. He set it down in front of the two of you and walked to the other side of the table rather sluggishly. He poured each of you a different drink, a Chardonnay infused blood for Luciano and a regular Chardonnay for you to try. He continued with the wine tasting process, explaining each alcoholic drink to the two of you as you went along. The both of you tasted fine wines imported from France to Italy to New Zealand to America. They were all amazing, but you barely drank more than a sip from each glass in an effort to remain sober. Luciano did the same since you still had two more affairs to attend to that day.
The wine tasting was over after nearly two hours of tasting and debating on what to serve at the wedding. You both agreed on a French Chardonnay, a Tuscan Cabernet Sauvignon, and an Australian Sauvignon blanc. The two of you said your goodbyes to the bored looking Frenchman and headed off to see someone about centerpieces for the tables. Luciano had briefed you on the man you were about to meet as you walked through the hallways hand in hand.
"His name is Viktor Braginsky. He doesn't like speaking in English, so don't expect him to say much. If you does talk, it will most likely be in Russian, so I will translate for you. He's pretty tall, so if you find him intimidating that's okay. I won't blame you if you do. Don't mention Allen around him. They don't particularly like one another, and he is kind of the reason that Viktor doesn't like to speak English. It apparently enrages Al when he refuses to talk to him in English, even though he can speak quite a few languages extremely well, Russian being one of them. I talked to Viktor earlier about putting flowers as the centerpieces since you seem to love them so much. He put together a variety of bouquets and vases for us to look at. You brought the list of your bridesmaids, correct?"
"Yes, I have with me."
"Good, he needs a headcount for how many bouquets he needs to make."
The two of you eventually stumbled upon a large greenhouse. You could see a blurry figure through the distorted glass. Luciano opened the door for you and allowed you to walk in before him. He closed the door and escorted you to the back of the greenhouse where a table with various vases and bundles of flowers strewn about it. A figure suddenly straightened itself from bending over behind the table and looked at you both.
You presumed this was Viktor. He was indeed rather tall, taller than Matt by a few inches or so. His hair was short like Luciano's but was brown instead of a dark auburn. His eyes were red, just like Allen's. You remembered that red was a rare eye color for vampires. Then why did so many of the vampires you have met have red eyes? It was odd, very odd. You ignored that lingering question and continued to take in his appearance. His clothes were sort of plain to say the least. He wore a long and heavy looking black military coat with a red trimming. A red scarf was wrapped lazily around his neck. His pants were black and tucked into knee high, dark brown boots that folded over with a lighter brown at the top.
Viktor waved to you, and you waved back, unsure of what to say. He moved around the table and extended his hand to Luciano who in turn shook his hand. He did the same for you and led you back to the other side of the table. He said something in Russian to Luciano, to which he just nodded and began looking at the centerpieces the tall man had created. Viktor picked up a bouquet of flowers and twirled it around slowly for you. You smiled at him but politely shook your head to say that you didn't quite like that one.
"You know you can talk to me, right? I don't bite... much..."
"Luciano said you didn't like speaking in English, and I didn't want to force you to," you said nervously.
"I don't, but I will make an exception for you because I don't hate you."
"Well... Uh, thank you!"
"No problem..."
The same procedure for the wine tasting ensued for the flowers, except Luciano paid little attention and focused on the table arrangements. Viktor would pick up bouquets and hand them to you, letting you inspect them. He would explain what that certain bouquet's significance was, and you would sniff the flowers to take in their scent. He soon realized the he didn't really need to explain the flowers to you since you seemed to already know about almost all of them with you being a flower fanatic. The brunette man soon picked up a bouquet of (y/f/f) and various lily flowers. You fell in love with it the second you saw it and told him that this was the one. He nodded and gained Luciano's attention, who also loved it and gave his approval. You mentioned that you wanted the bridesmaids to have the same flowers but in a smaller bundle. Viktor nodded and took the list you had concerning your bridesmaids. The list was short, only having Lauran, Anna, and Julia's names written on it. You didn't really have many female friends in the castle, and they were the closest of your new friends, so you figured that they would be delighted to be a part of the wedding, which they were.
Viktor escorted you back to Luciano, who was still looking through all the centerpieces. The Italian showed you the ones he particularly liked a lot. You agreed with him on all of them, which made it hard for you to decide. The two of you ended up going with an arrangement of light pink roses and blue orchids with a ring of lily of the valley along the outskirts. You figured it would look beautiful in the reception hall and so did Luciano. Said male picked up the vase and handed it to Viktor for his to put with your bouquets selection. You both thanked Viktor before leaving. You even gave the intimidating man a hug since he reminded you of a huge teddy bear in a way. He offered a very small smile in return as you turned to leave with Luciano.
After exiting the greenhouse, the two of you walked back to the dining hall so you could eat lunch. Luciano honestly hadn't thought of what to do after the last parts of the wedding had been taken care of. The night was till young, but he had some paperwork to do. You wouldn't be interested in keeping him company in his study, but it was worth asking.
"Bella?"
"Yes?"
"I have some papers I need to take care of and since the last of the wedding planning is done, would you like to keep me company in my study?"
"Sure."
"It's okay, I underst-... Wait did you just say "sure"?"
"Yes, I did. Is that a problem?"
"No, not at all! I'm glad you want to spend time with me. I just figured that since we've been in each other's presence all night so far that you'd want some alone time."
"Actually, I don't mind spending time with you now. You've shown me so many awesome things that I can't wait for the next. I also need a new book, and I was wondering if I could borrow another from your personal collection..."
Luciano chuckled at you and kissed your cheek.
"Of course you may (y/n). Of course you may."
~Author's Note~
DreamsForDays here! Yay for more new characters! I'm going to say this now and hope that you guys read this. I had to rewrite this chapter, not because it was lost or didn't save the last time I worked on it. I rewrote it because I wasn't satisfied with how it originally turned out. I also have an announcement for you guys in case you didn't see that message I had put out yesterday, but first, it's time for translations!
Translations: French and Italian - Last two translations are Italian
Oui - Yes
Oui, vous connaissez mon Matthieu? - Yes, you know my Matthieu?
C'est vrai? - Is that true?
Oui, c'est vrai mais je ne sais pas la parler bien. - Yes, that is true, but I don't know how to speak it well.
Ouais, ouais. - Yeah, yeah.
Bastardo - Bastard
Bella - Beautiful
That should be all of the translations. Now, it's time for the announcement. I'm going to make some adjustments to my chapter uploading schedule for "For Eternity". Instead of attempting to post them when I original time I began posting them on Wednesdays (because we all know how well that is working out for me...), I am going to post them about an two hours later than that time. So now the chapters will be updated on Wednesdays at around 5 PM for Eastern US, 2 PM for Western US, and 10 PM for UK. Now, I'm not sure what time it will be depending on where some of you live but those are three of the times. I hope that you can figure out what it will be for you from that if you don't live in one of those areas (which I know a lot of you don't). That's all for this chapter! Thanks for reading! Feedback in the comments is always appreciated! Until next time!