Valentine

Chapter Fourteen - Elizabeth

It was all a bit much. Knowing that Orion was to be my handler after he showed interest and affection over a short period was hard in its own, let alone knowing that I would someday have to run a nation of vampires. It was odd but it was exciting. What more could anyone want out of life, I supposed.

There was something about it that brought me into a sense of deathly urgency and slight turmoil. Orion showed very little outward emotion and left much to be desired when it came to everything else. I found him attractive, dashing, daring and charming but that was all just a part of the facade was it not? He was a job recruiter, before anything else.

We talked as we rode back to the cave. Going in circles about what would happen next, the transformation, which I admit scared me due to the fact that I would have to die before awaking as queen and where I would end up. A queen, sure, but before all else I was a breeding puppet to further good relations between kingdoms.

This idea wasn’t one that sat well with me. I wanted to have freedom and choice. I wanted Orion to notice me and care for me, the way he showed in the beginning before I knew what it was all for. I wanted the situation to be everything that it was not and there was no way, I would be able to change it to fit my needs.

“I’m going to be with you, every step of the way.” Orion said, after a long pause between the last few miles of the journey up the mountain. The comment seemed out of place but in this situation, little actually was.

“That means a lot to me. I’d like to have you at my side.” I turned my head down so that our eyes could not meet and Orion wouldn’t be able to notice the weariness that I now felt.

I always had a vision of what would happen when I was someday swept off my feet. The dashing, handsome stranger would ride into town, out of the mix, he would choose me as his bride and we would run away. Most of it came true, apart from the fact that Orion and I would never have anything more than this.

“I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead?” Orion replied.

“If your mother didn’t fall ill, if you didn’t need to make your way into Meyerton, do you think we would have ever met?” Somewhere in the answer I would know what destiny held. I didn’t know why it was such a burning question. I think my infatuation with Orion and the situation arose from not having to be a part of anything like this in my past and now it weighed down and burned heavily on my chest. I was never one to find much love. Not that I wasn’t attractive. I was just shy, awkward and uncomfortable around people. There was something about them that made me uneasy, knowing that each one had their own hidden and peculiar agendas for what they did, be it a conversation with a girl to get another s****l exploit under the belt, or a bet that would end up with another heartbreak somewhere down the line. Too many romantic comedies will do that to a girl.

“I don’t think so. I seldom leave my mountain home and because of that, I don’t think I would have happened to enter Meyerton across your lifetime. I’m a busy man, handling the vast wealth of my mother’s empire. I don’t have much time to myself, not that this bothers me. Idle hands make the devils play thing and all. I’ve had a long life, to allow boredom and bad decisions to filter in now would only lead to danger for those around.” Orion replied.

I don’t know why I was surprised. Why the news that he wouldn’t have come to Meyerton had it not been to further the coven surprised me, but it did. My heart sunk and I felt an instant wave of calm depression flush over me. I would have been stuck there forever, had I not been needed for some higher purpose.

“But something drew me to you instantly, if that sets your mind at ease.” Orion said, as if reading my thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I went into Meyerton with one of the hardest tasks of my life. I met countless people that I didn’t care for. Many of them were boorish and self-absorbed. I wanted nothing to do with them. When I saw you in that car, well that’s when I knew that I found my queen. I was lucky, you see,” Orion said as we made our way to the entrance of the cave. He hitched his horse against a post and helped me down from mine, “Because the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew that I would be comfortable serving under you. I’m bound by my duty to the queen to find the perfect candidate but in doing so, I can be selfish. If I cannot find reason to serve under a queen, then no one else would either. So when I knew you were the one, and that I would ask you, and secretly prayed that you would say yes.”

The way Orion spoke here, was different. He dropped the pretences, he dropped his guard and he spoke like a person. Hoping this wasn’t some trick, he showed me something inside his mind. Something so small, but I knew that no one had seen him like this before.

Above being nature’s most ruthless predator, Orion Valentine was gentle. He was bathed and born in his duties and his traditions, but he had his own feelings and thoughts that were crushed beneath the weight of his coven. It was an interesting thing to see.

Looking into the mind of a predator.

This made the decision of marrying myself off to another coven for procreation, all the more difficult.