Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 448: Chapter 448: Lucian’s Smile

Chapter 448 – Lucian’s Smile

Klaus let out a small chuckle at her answer, then immediately added, "Though you must admit that it’s a bit whorish."

Love’s smile died instantly. She snapped her head back, her body following, then drove her knee straight into his stomach.

Klaus doubled over in pain, gasping, groaning. Love then took a few steps away from him, scowling as she watched him cough in pain.

"Vorn take you, you just had to ruin everything?" she said. "You were cute for once! For once in your whole goddamned life!"

Klaus gathered himself, lifted his head, and replied, "I think the women on the Net would quite disagree with you on that point."

"Ah." Love’s lips twitched. "Is this how you want to play it? You seem to forget I am a Model. I have more than enough fans who are ready to do anything for... let’s say, a feet picture?"

"This is exactly the whorish attitude I was just talking about," Klaus said, shrugging. "You are proving me right once again."

"Your soul to Vorn, bastard."

"Thanks, but not so soon, or maybe never." He smirked, then sat down on the floor. He took his phone and lifted his eyes to her. "Are you watching or not?"

"If I sit down, you will see," she said, holding the edge of her skirt to keep it down. "It’s just THAT fucking short."

"I am a gentleman, Love. I won’t look."

"Swear it."

"On my handsome face, I swear it."

"Who cares about your handsome face? Swear it on Vorn!"

"On his balls?"

"You... you know what? I won’t partake in any long conversation about this with you." Love glared at him. "I will kill you if you dare look."

Klaus didn’t reply to those words, but he knew Love was not joking. And truth be told, he truly wasn’t going to look anyway.

Finally, Love sat down beside him on the floor, cross-legged, and placed her hands on the skirt to keep it pressed down.

Once she was settled, she leaned closer to his face, breathing in his scent and feeling the warmth of his body, her pink eyes focused on the screen of his phone.

"You’re already at season 2?" Love said, noticing the episode. "Can we start again? I won’t understand anything if I watch from this point."

"You don’t need to understand. You just need to watch it," Klaus said. "And there is no way in hell I will start again. You think I have time to waste or what?"

"What’s the point of watching if I don’t understand, idiot?"

"Then don’t watch. Go away."

"You can be sure that if I don’t understand it, I will bother you with all kinds of questions until you are sick of me," Love said, looking at him. "So choose. Do you start again from season 1 or not?"

"Is this blackmail I am receiving?"

"Yes. And let me add on top of it: I will take off this damn Maid Dress if you refuse me."

"I wanted to rewatch season 1 anyway," Klaus said with a shameless grin. "Vorn’s bones, perfect time to do it now that we have some free time."

"Heh." Love chuckled, then, in a softer tone, "Yes. We have free time for now. But once we go back to the Academy in four or five days, we must get ready to go to the Wastelands."

"Vorn’s breath, I had forgotten about that. You were chosen too?"

"Of course I was. Not that I particularly like it," Love said. "It’s a damn Tier Four Fractured Land, and we are only Second Rank beings. This is truly not a great idea."

Klaus stayed silent at these words, knowing very well it was true. The difference between Second Rank and Fourth Rank was immense. Especially when it came to the monsters, as they went through a profound qualitative change.

"Are you afraid of dying now?" Klaus said in a mocking tone, a way to dismiss his own wariness and apprehension.

"I am afraid of dying without attaining my goals."

"What are your goals?"

"None of your damn business."

"Alright, how about fuck you?"

"Unfortunately for you, you won’t do it."

Klaus closed his mouth at those words, his eyes slightly wide. He snapped his head towards Love and saw her smirking at him.

"What?" she said. "Do you want to, coward?"

The Prince of Wind only held her gaze for a moment, then turned back to his phone and started watching his series.

"I truly don’t have time for this bullshit."

"Fucking coward."

...

And yet, dear reader, it was not quite the end.

On that busy morning, just after such a wedding, there was another duo who hadn’t slept a single second since the Wedding ended.

Not for any particularly degenerate reason, but simply because Lucian was unable to leave Natalia in such a state.

"You understand me, don’t you?" Natalia said, her voice slurred and heavy with drunkenness, her eyes hazy with dried tears. "Tell me that you understand me, Lucian! Tell me that!"

Lucian chuckled, though there was hardly any amusement beneath it. He honestly couldn’t remember how many times Natalia had asked him this question.

The two of them were outside, in the streets of Vorn City, hidden in a very narrow alley where few people passed by.

It was so narrow that the space between the walls barely fit one person. And even then, that person couldn’t be voluptuous.

Lucian was sitting on the rather squalid ground, his back against the wall, still wearing his suit. Natalia, for her part, was sitting in front of him in the same position.

Because the alley was so narrow, their legs were touching, and they were as close as they could be.

"I understand you, Natalia," he said, for what felt like the 99th time. "But don’t you think it’s time you let go of the youngest? He is married now. Official Wedding, no less."

"I have no choice?"

"Absolutely none."

"I want to die, Lucian."

"That’s honestly a very viable choice," Lucian said with a smirk. "But what would you say to little Keisha then? You would break her poor heart."

"I... know. Kei is the only reason I am still holding on," Natalia whispered, wrapping her arms around her legs and pulling them to her chest. She looked like she wanted to swallow herself and disappear. "Kei gives me the strength to go on, but for how long?"

Her voice broke, and she lifted her head to look at Lucian, whose smile never left his face.

She didn’t know if it was because of what she had just gone through, but Natalia had the urge to let out everything inside her chest.

She needed to confess her pain, and she didn’t want to do it with Keisha, for that girl would always be on her side. Even Klaus would tread carefully on that subject with her, and she didn’t need that.

So she looked at this man, at the brother of the man she loved, and confessed, "I am tired, Lucian." The words, once out, felt as if they were ready to drag her heart out with them. "I am tired of nothing ever going my way. I am just... I am just so tired."

She bit her lip to control herself, but failed. So she cried, lifting her hands to hide her face before continuing, "I just watched the man I have loved since I was five or six marry another woman. You don’t understand, Lucian. You can’t understand that I loved him even before I understood what love meant, and when I did, I loved him even harder."

She paused, lowering her hands, her face a mess. "He is... he was my future, and I lost it. Today, just hours ago, I forced myself to smile for him. I forced myself to dance for him. I forced myself to look normal... for him."

Lucian only listened, a tranquil presence before her.

"And on top of that," Natalia continued after a moment, "my family keeps pestering me to marry my cousin, to keep our culture alive. I don’t want to, you know that, yet they keep forcing me. And if I continue to refuse, my parents are going to have problems with those shitty Elders."

"And you don’t want your parents to have problems, do you?"

"Of course not. But I cannot marry someone I do not love. I genuinely cannot," she wailed. "I don’t know what to do anymore. I am lost, Lucian. I... am really lost. There is nothing I want to do, and nothing that interests me. I feel like life is dragging me along by the neck, with not a single thing decided by me, only imposed upon me."

Natalia looked at him in great pain, her eyes brimming with tears. "I am tired," she repeated, and those words summed up her whole existence.

Lucian understood then that this was not the typical tiredness of the physical body, but that of the soul, when someone becomes so exhausted by life itself that everything seems heavy and insurmountable.

He didn’t know what to say in that situation. He didn’t even know why he was here in the first place, instead of rejoining his twin and going about their own business.

But maybe it was because he pitied this woman who hadn’t stopped crying since they had begun dancing back at the wedding.

Or maybe it was simply because it felt like his responsibility as a brother to help fix something his little brother had unwittingly caused.

So he smiled, as he always did, as he had always learned to do for his twin sister, and spoke in the same calming tone he used whenever Lilien was getting overwhelmed and ready to crash out.

"You will be alright," Lucian whispered.

He leaned forward and placed his hand on Natalia’s head. "Don’t marry if you do not want to. And if you are afraid for your parents, then just become strong enough to protect them. And if, at this moment in your life, you do not know what to pursue..."

His smile broadened.

"...then pursue yourself, little Natalia," he said, and Natalia’s eyes began to close as if she were suddenly sleepy. "Find what makes you feel alive, and do it, without caring what others think. Do that, and you will be alive again."

"Pursue... myself?" Natalia drawled.

"Yes. Aren’t you holding a Mirror Aspect?" Lucian said. "Look at yourself in the mirror, know who you are, then, well, smile and walk your path. Don’t forget to smile."

He smiled. "Always smile. It helps a lot, trust me."

Natalia looked at him in her sleepy state, his words echoing deeply inside her head. She parted her lips to speak, but closed them again as she fell asleep, her body falling into Lucian’s arms.

He caught her, then laughed. But soon after Natalia fell asleep, a presence appeared behind Lucian, dark, unwelcoming, and sinister.

He didn’t even need to turn his head to know who it was.

"Brother," Lilien said flatly, her body oozing shadows. She looked at Natalia, her eyes narrowing. "I have been waiting for you."

Lucian smiled. "I know. I know. I know," he said, then stood up with Natalia in his arms. He turned and looked at his twin. "Some damsel in distress needed a bit of assistance. It just fell to me to... deliver said assistance."

"Hm," Lilien hummed.

"It was quite the night, sister, don’t you think?"

"Yes. It was," Lilien said, then looked at Natalia again. "What will you do with her?"

"Bring her to her friend Keisha."

"Too much time wasted. We need to go."

"Bear with me," Lucian replied. "I will be quick."

Lilien looked at her twin brother again, then said bitterly, "I don’t like it when you are like this, brother."

He laughed. "Like what?"

"Sad."

Lucian’s smile froze for a heartbeat, but returned to normal the next second.

He shook his head, smiled once again, and disappeared into the shadows, his words trailing behind him.

"I am not sad, sister. Wait for me, will you?"

—End of Chapter 448—