Chapter 74-Temporary alliance

Chapter 74: 74-Temporary alliance

"I’ll throw the empty bag away later."

"That’s fine," Lumi replied.

Lumi released her magic, the air shifted around Maisa, and suddenly, Maisa was visible again. She looked toward the road ahead. No one seemed to have noticed anything.

"Thank you," she said. "I don’t think I’ll ever say it enough. You all come to my rescue all the time. It warms my heart."

Lumi gave her a small nod. "You’re welcome."

They continued walking, and for a while, they were all silent. Just taking in the area around them, the beautiful architecture and scemery.

Luan remained quiet, too, but then his curiosity finally got the better of him. "Lulu," he called her with her nickname.

"Hm?"

"What’s your deal with Maisa?" He asked innocently, acting as though he wasn’t in on the knowledge about the bond.

Maisa glanced between them, and then her eyes rested on Lumi. She wanted to hear how the girl would answer that question as it would also tell her where she stood with Lumi.

Lumi continued walking as though the question had been expected. "What do you mean?" She acted ignorant.

"You know exactly what I mean," Luan looked at his sister. "You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. You help her out when she’s in trouble and act as though you’ve both known each other for a long time.

Lumi closed her book. "We have an alliance of trust," she answered.

"An alliance?" He asked, wondering why she had to make it complicated by labelling it.

"A temporary one," Lumi added, being honest about how she felt.

Luan’s eyebrows rose."And?"

"And it’s open to any kind of development in the future," she went. "We can be friends or enemies or otherwise. Time will tell."

He stared at her. "That’s vague."

"It’s supposed to be," Lumi’s gaze shifted toward Maisa. "If anything changes, I’ll let you know."

She was practica vampire, and she understood that a bond didn’t mean they would automatically grow fond of each other. Her place in Maisa’s life and how Maisa fit in hers was still unknown.

They needed time to get to know each other better and discover where their bond would lead them. Until then, she wouldn’t rush to label anything between them. That wasn’t how she did things.

Luan studied his sister for several seconds before sighing. "Fine. I’ll be waiting... and if you ever think of keeping secrets from me, then I swear on our late father... i will set you on fire," he added.

Lumi shivered, and Maisa helped her, feeling a chill run down her spine. The man was Lumi’s twin, and yet he didn’t hesitate to threaten her at all.

Luan didn’t push farther, but as they walked, his thoughts wandered. The whole situation was strange. He had never heard of anything quite like it.

Maisa and Varitreya had the makings of some ancient fairy tale; a forgotten girl somehow finding herself beneath the protection of the future queen like a cinderella story.

Maisa and Addessa were something else entirely. Their relationship seemed to swing between hostility and a tension neither of them understood, like the beginning of one of those stories where enemies eventually became something much more complicated. An enemies to lovers trope.

Then there was Lumi, who spoke of a temporary alliance with the redblood. But Luan knew his sister well enough to recognize when she was leaving a door deliberately unlocked. They were allied temporarily, and there was room to become something more with time.

And Zolani? That one was almost painfully obvious. They had striked it out as friends. Zolani was protective of Maisa, constantly checking on her, constantly making excuses to be around her. The two seemed to be checking the troupe for friends to lovers kind of story.

Luan almost laughed to himself. "Four mates," he murmured, "four different love stories with one main denominator."

Maisa glanced at him. She saw his mouth moving but didn’t hear what he said. "What?" She asked to straighten the situation out.

"Nothing," He shook his head. "This whole thing is strange. I just can’t believe that it’s happening right before my eyes."

Lumi’s eyes narrowed. "You’ve been saying that since the beginning."

A terrible feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Somehow, she couldn’t shake the suspicion that her diabolical twin brother had caught a glimpse of the truth she had been desperately trying to keep hidden.

The thought sent a chill through her because if he had discovered even a fragment of her secret, she knew it wouldn’t remain hers for long.

"Because it is," Luan played it down, not giving himself away.

Maisa looked ahead at the ancient town. She couldn’t disagree. Everything about her life had become strange.

Yet somehow, walking beside Lumi and Luan through the old streets felt almost normal. The further they travelled, the more breathtaking Scaris became.

The original walls of the town rose around them in enormous arcs of dark stone, covered in centuries-old carvings, and ancient vampire symbols were engraved into the pillars and doorways. Some had been worn nearly smooth by time, while others still looked as sharp as if they had been carved yesterday.

Students stopped repeatedly to admire the architecture. Most took pictures to save the moments for future reminiscent, and Maisa did the same, too.

Professor Primrose allowed them a few moments to look around. She remembered what it was like to be a youth and so she couldn’t rush them.

"This is incredible," Sapphire exclaimed from farther ahead.

Maisa smiled and looked towards her. In the chaos of her strange afflictions, being wrapped in Varitreya’s arms, the mess with Addessa and having a walk with Lumi, she had nearly forgotten that her world expanded beyond her mates and she had a friend that was Sapphire.

She couldn’t deny what Sapphire said either. There was something hauntingly beautiful about Old Scaris that left her breathless.

The town felt alive despite its age. Every stone seemed to hold a story of those that came through before them and hope for those who will come in the future.

Every narrow alley looked as though it had witnessed something important that happened to vampires in the past.

Somewhere beyond those ancient streets was the cemetery where they would soon light candles for vampires who had died centuries before Maisa had ever been born or during her life as a human.

She looked at the little white candles tucked safely inside her bag. For the first time since becoming a vampire, she wasn’t thinking about hunters or about her family or about the bond.

She wasn’t even thinking about the strange secrets hidden inside her own body. For a few precious moments, she simply walked through an ancient town beside people who were beginning to feel like family, and that was enough for her.

"One night, I’ll carve my name in these streets too," she swore, and when she would leave the world forever, her descendants would also light a candle for her and honour her. "One night..."