Her hand reached up to touch the skin on her face. The mirror threw her reflection back at her and she saw the way her dried-up face was bringing back the color as if blood was finally flowing in her veins and throughout her entire body. Like it was making her alive.
She wondered what she had seen and where she was. This, where she was right now was real but then what was that? Stepping out, she went to pull out the parchment and ink to sit at the table. She drew what she had seen. A rough diagram to depict the creature she had come to stand face to face. The dark hooded cloaked creature that spoke to her. About her soul and it made her worried.
Souls were important to a body and without the soul, the body was nothing but a hollow sh.e.l.l.
As the night pulled closer into the sky with people going to sleep in the mansion, Belle found it hard to sleep because she kept twisting and turning in the bed with the rain pitter-pattering on the windowpane and the ground loudly.
The untouched candles that had been burning brightly since she had got into bed had turned smaller and smaller such that it was going to extinguish at any moment now. When it finally did blow out with a light sizzle of smoke spreading in the room, Belle heard the loud thunderous clouds that were clas.h.i.+ng outside. The lightning pa.s.sed through the windows to fall on the objects to create large shadows that made the vampiress close her eyes hoping she could pa.s.s through this night without worrying about her soul being eaten or taken away.
The next second Belle had opened her eyes, she caught sight of a silhouette that stood in the corner of her room. Her eyes grew wide. At first, she told herself that it was just her imagination until she caught sight of the shadow on the wall moving and not waiting a second more in there, she threw the blanket away and ran out of the room.
Running through the corridor, she crashed against Lucas' chest.
"Are you alright?" he asked looking down at her.
Belle shook her head, "I think there is something in my room," her breathing came out labored because of the sudden rise of her heart beating in her chest.
He proposed, "It must be the flashes of lightning," Lucas knew the girl was scared of the flashes that came through the windows and the rumble of the clouds since she was a very young girl.
"No, I don't think it was the lightning. I saw it move," she looked up at him with her eyebrows knitted together.
"How about I check the room?" he offered her.
Lucas was already carrying a lantern in his hand and they went to her room. He didn't doubt the girl's words but it was highly doubtful that anything would have stepped in the room or in the mansion when he was around.
After walking around her room, Lucas didn't find anything but when his eyes fell on a drawing she had made, his eyes zeroed on it. The creature that she drew belonged to his world and it seemed that he had pieced it right earlier when her consciousness had returned.
Belle had stepped into the land of the dead. The land of the dead was no place for a living creature like her.
Something didn't quite add up and he decided to look into it.
Lucas turned to her to say, "There's nothing in there, milady. As I said, it must have been your imagination because of the lightning. It is quite late right now. Why don't you go to bed?" suggesting this he started to leave when Belle caught hold of his hand making him stop.
Belle looked at Lucas where one side of his face was visible with the lantern's light that fell on it and while the other was covered in shadow, "Please stay..." came the whisper from her lips.
Her eyes looked even brighter in the illuminated light right now. She was scared to sleep alone after what she had seen in her dream and the shadows in her room. She was anxious, "Don't leave me alone," she pleaded with a soft voice and he gave her a nod and she finally let go of his hand that she had been holding.
"I will be here in the room," Lucas said.
She sighed internally and got to her bed, climbing on it to see him take hold of a pillow to place it on one corner of the couch of the room that was located not too far from the bed. Seeing Lucas lay down on the couch, Belle finally got inside her blanket and settled her head on the pillow. But the vampiress didn't sleep as she had intended to, instead, after a minute, her eyes opened for her gaze to fall on Lucas.
The lantern was placed next to him which felt like a beacon of light that she could hold on it tonight to drive the uneasiness she felt. And yet, she couldn't sleep. Her eyes kept going back to look at him every now and then. His eyes were closed and she took her time to look at his features.
He had a sharp jaw, his neck following down with the visible Adam's apple. His eyebrows were dark and slightly brooding.
Belle wondered how she had missed noticing him all these years to only find him now in a different light. As worried as she was about the shadows earlier, her thoughts had started to slowly s.h.i.+ft to Lucas who slept on her couch and her chest warmed at the thought of how he agreed to stay back here so that she wouldn't be scared.
But then a thought appeared in her mind. Did he do it because he was her butler? She was Belle Adams and he was Lucas the butler, someone who served her and her family. And then she questioned herself on why she was feeling this way. He was her butler, that was right but her heart was beating loud as if dancing to the night on its own and she had to hush it.
It wasn't the first time for him to be here like this. When she was scared at night and had found him in the corridor, Lucas had accompanied her through the night like a light since she was a very young girl; and him being here tonight felt different.
Before he would question and notice her not sleeping, she closed her eyes hoping he wouldn't question about her beating heart, and to her relief, he didn't.
When Belle's breathing gradually settled in a rhythm, Lucas' eyes snapped open and he turned to look at the girl who was fast asleep. Getting up from the couch, he walked to where she was asleep. She had grown up, yet she was scared of ghosts. Making requests that she should know not to but Belle had always been like this.
The girl knew that a higher status lady mustn't invite a servant, especially a male inside her room at the time of night to stay but she did it anyway. His cold, black eyes questioned if it was because she put undoubted faith in him. What a naive child, thought Lucas to himself.
Keeping the lantern burning, he stepped outside to close the door, and just as he turned he found Mrs. Adams standing at the end of the corridor.
He bowed his head upon seeing her but the lady didn't react and just as he was walking past her where she hadn't moved from her place, he heard her say, "Get me a blood tea in the parlor room," her voice sounded serious with her lips set in a thin line and the lady walked away from there.
Lucas was well aware that the lady wasn't looking forward to drinking blood tea but she had something to say to him. Even though the Adams were not a family of pureblooded aristocrats, the Adams' had picked up a lot of elegance and style with their daughter being an exception. Preparing her tea, he went to the parlor room before offering the teacup along with the saucer in her hand.
Mrs. Adams said, "Lucas. You are the longest butler we have had with us until now and you have done an exceptional job when it has come to it. We wouldn't want to lose you as the house butler. Belle is young and doesn't understand the values of our society, but I believe you are smarter when it comes to it," he could tell the woman brought this topic up because of her older sister spoke about a girl running away with a man who belonged to a lower status.
"She is too fond of you. When our children are little we don't make a note of it but now that she's grown, I would like nothing happening between you and her. Even if she advances, I don't want you to take heed to it."
The Adams' came from an average bloodline, their own ancestors who were transformed from humans to vampires. Mrs. Adams wanted the best for her only child. She had seen her daughter who was too attached to the butler since she was young and she didn't want her daughter by chance marrying a mere butler and would rather have her daughter meet someone who was of their own or higher caliber than them.
The lady was worried about it. Creatures of the living sure had unimportant things to worry about, thought Lucas to himself.
"Of course, milady," Lucas bowed with an understanding look on his face.
Her main concern was to keep them away from each other so that her daughter would not grow any possible attraction to this one as Lucas was a handsome man. She stared at him, trying to detect any lie or deceit which she found none and she then said, "I have requested for a governess so that she could help Belle with her studies and other etiquettes while you can continue your job in the mansion duty while also helping Mr. Adams," seeing the butler bow his head again, she left the teacup on the table without taking a sip and stood up to leave the room.
Lucas who bowed when Mrs. Adams left, raised his head to catch sight of the woman's neck that had a wound, a wound he was very much familiar with.
Pulling out his watch from his trousers pocket, he looked at the dial that had the needle pointing at a marking on it.
