Chapter 324: Why Varek?

"Varek was an experiment."

Lucian spoke as he stared at the woman standing in front of him.

Aurelia.

Yes, after he collected his thoughts, he decided to come to her suite. Unlike how Aurelia always mysteriously appeared every time he needed to talk to her, this time she wasn’t here, she was out. The attendant told Lucian to wait for her inside while she called her, so Lucian did.

He sat inside and after about fifteen minutes, Aurelia walked in and the instant she did—

Lucian spoke up.

Aurelia paused at those words, then she nodded.

"Hello to you too."

"There’s no need for formalities between us, especially considering there’s only been a few hours since we last met."

Lucian shrugged.

Then, he looked at her and a playful smile appeared on his face.

"Not to mention I believe we have reached a stage where showing formality can only be seen as disrespectful.

Don’t you think the same?"

Aurelia stared at him, then she smiled.

"Indeed."

She then walked towards him and sat right beside him with this playful, seductive grace. Lucian kept his eyes on her the entire time. She sat unreasonably close, he did not mind nor did he make space.

He did not find the lack of space uncomfortable, not one bit. The way their thighs touched each other as they sat kind of felt... good.

The two stared at each other with smiles on their faces, wanting to see who would crack first, neither of them had any intention of losing.

"So, what’s this about again?"

Aurelia asked again, coming back to the topic at hand.

"Varek was an experiment? What sort of experiment?"

She asked.

Lucian shook his head.

"I don’t know.

What I do know is that House Arcelis was behind everything. They did keep Neroth’s Heart like you suspected and they used it to experiment on Varek."

That made Aurelia narrow her eyes.

For the next few seconds, she did not say anything. Lucian did not interrupt her thoughts either, he gave her time to think. A few more seconds passed, then, Aurelia asked the most logical question.

"How do you know?"

"I can’t tell you."

Lucian instantly shook his head.

Aurelia raised an eyebrow at that, Lucian shrugged.

"What? There are things you hide from me too. And I still haven’t forgotten how you didn’t let me join in the fun."

"So is this revenge?"

Aurelia smiled provocatively.

"Hmm? Of course not."

Lucian shook his head.

"If I wanted revenge, I wouldn’t have said anything in the first place. Think of it as... me doing another favour for you without expecting anything."

"Another favour, huh? You’re being generous."

"I took your words seriously."

Lucian smiled.

"I want to do more favours, so that when I get something back, I can get even more of that."

He spoke as he stared at her face with a strong glow in his eyes.

"That’s not doing favours without expecting anything."

Aurelia pointed out.

"You get what I am saying."

Lucian shrugged.

The Vampire laughed.

"Anyways, the point is, I cannot tell you the source of my information."

In the end, Aurelia accepted that answer.

Then, she asked another question.

"Are you certain?"

"I am... not."

Lucian shook his head again.

Honestly, his source was a voice he was hearing in his dreams. He obviously wasn’t certain, his instincts told him there was something to this voice, but he couldn’t possibly take responsibility for passing his gut feeling off as a potential fact.

"So you are not certain?"

Aurelia raised an eyebrow.

"I am not. I don’t have proof or any documents, nor have I seen anything myself but... I have a very strong feeling that what I just told you is true."

Aurelia stared at him for a long time.

Honestly, Lucian knew how weak his case was. Most people probably wouldn’t take him seriously, heck, he wouldn’t take himself seriously if he were in Aurelia’s position.

But...

"For a moment... let us assume I believe you. Let’s say House Arcelis did preserve Neroth’s Heart and experimented on Varek."

Aurelia spoke.

Lucian nodded, wanting to see where she was going.

"Then why Varek?"

The Vampire asked as she leaned back on the sofa.

"House Arcelis has possessed Neroth’s Heart for nearly a thousand years, Varek is young."

Lucian raised an eyebrow at how this woman was calling a being nearing one hundred and fifty ’young’. Of course, that wasn’t the crux of the issue right now.

"If they intended to experiment using Neroth’s Heart, why wait more than seven centuries before doing anything?"

Aurelia asked a question and honestly...

Lucian didn’t know.

And Aurelia could see that on his face.

"You don’t know."

"I don’t."

Lucian didn’t lie either. There was no point. He did, however, think about it a little and...

"What if they did not wait at all?"

He raised a question.

Aurelia looked at him, Lucian looked at her and started building on it.

"What if Varek wasn’t the first? Honestly, we only know about it through sheer luck. What if there were more? What if House Arcelis did more experiments before him? People we do not know about?"

That made Aurelia pause.

This... wasn’t impossible.

Actually, it was very much possible.

"That would make sense."

She nodded.

"Experimenting with an Archdemon’s Heart would be extraordinarily dangerous. It is very much possible that the early experiments failed and the subjects before Varek died or were killed. That would also explain why we can’t find any other survivor of the said experiment, if it is all real in the first place."

"Exactly."

Lucian nodded.

"If they were trying something no one had done before, it is very much possible that their first attempt would fail.

Heck, Varek might even be their first successful subject.

But then why would they exile him? Wouldn’t you want to study the result of your experiment?"

Lucian started thinking on his own.

Aurelia followed his line of thought and—

"Maybe... exiling him was part of the experiment? Maybe they exiled him because they wanted to study him when he returned to them."

Lucian’s eyes changed at that.

"I remember my teacher telling me that House Arcelis was exceptionally generous when they bought Varek. I initially thought it was something related to pride, maybe they did not want their blood to be another force’s captive but...

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe it was... much bigger than I thought."