~I Refuse To Accept You As My Consort

Kieran’s POV.

A male.

My vampire is a male.

My limbs tremble as I stare at him.

He takes a step forward, gracefully. He has long fingers that are perfectly slender. His colour matches the flakes of snow.

I lick my dry lips and hope he doesn't smell the fear through my veins.

He lifts his hands to take off the rest of the hood on his head and slowly it falls away revealing his menacing angled face.

My breathing changes because his beauty is earth shattering.

He glances over at me, his glowing eyes studying me from head to toe. It's just a look and yet it leaves me breathless. He takes a step closer to me, so close that I can smell his cologne wafting through my nose in every sense.

I watch as his nostrils flare, getting an idea of how my blood will taste before it even touches his lips.

“I'm s.. sorry, I was expecting to be assigned to a female vampire” I say to him so he would overlook how antsy I was.

He merely tsked arrogantly.

This should be repulsive to me or maybe make me angry. Yet all I can do is study this man before me, eyeing the perfection of his features with unwanted desire.

I know that part of what's embedded in the vampire's DNA is their beauty in order to seduce we humans—their prey. But with every piece of me, I believe this man was too gorgeous even when immortality didn't freeze him into ice for eternity.

We stay like this for seconds or maybe minutes. I don't know. Time seems to stand still as his gaze washes over me like rain after a long drought.

I raise my wrist, wondering if I'm the one who needs to offer myself to him first.

His eyes flicked to it. His beautiful irises become black and my fear rises again as I wait for the unknown. He lowers his head to my wrist and inhales deeply.

My heart pounds in my chest, as I wait for his fangs to elongate and pierce my skin.

But he doesn't.

He backs away from me and raises his hood back over his head.

“Wh… what's wrong? What did I do?” I asked hastily. It was hard to hold back from taking hold of his hand.

“I refuse to take you as my consort.” He says then he opens the door to the woodshed and disappears into the silent night as quickly as he appeared.

I blink.

What the hell just happened?

I walk out of the woodshed as my eyes burn with indignation—a mixture of frustration and anger coursing through my veins because even though I didn't want a male vampire, getting rejected so bluntly still sucks. It makes me feel as if I'm completely undesirable.

And again, do I smell bad?

Does my blood not entice him?

Does he have another consort?

But if he does have another consort, why would he approach me? Could it be that he’s not my vampire?

But… he’s Caius, right?

Wait… he did not even introduce himself.

Now, that’s a relief. He’s most probably not my vampire.

Those were the possibilities running through my head as I walked back towards the hostel.

I saw some students watching me as I sniffled as if they had known what happened.

Suddenly, rain starts to fall in heavy droplets even without a change of weather.

“Really. Does the universe also hate me?” I scream to the sky as heavy downpour falls on me, soaking me from head to toe.

I run down the lane to my hostel. But Rebecca is the one who opens the door for me, not Beau.

Even now, she is here.

“The universe does really hate me.” I say as I storm past her.

She rushes after me. “Hey. What's wrong?”

“Please, I'm not in the mood for this. I'm soaking wet and I need to get changed before I catch a cold of death.”

She mutters, “Why is he acting strange?”

I didn't look back till I got to my room, took off my clothes and gave myself a hot bath.

When I came back downstairs for a cup of coffee, both Beau and Rebecca were waiting for me.

“What's wrong, Kieran?” He asks slowly as he looks me up and down to see if I was hurt anywhere.

“I found him,” I said quietly.

“You found who?” Beau asks impatiently.

“I found my vampire.”

Their gazes lit up.

“Congratulations.” Rebecca says, a smile on her face.

“What… did you just say ‘him’?” Beau picks on that.

“It’s what it is.” I say sourly.

Everywhere goes silent after that.

“Well… that's something.” Beau says, looking at me with glazing eyes. “Something nice.”

“That would have been something nice for you, not for Kieran.” Rebecca says with a serious tone.

“He rejected me after he took one sniff of my wrists and backed away from me like I smelled bad.”

“Oh… that’s new.” Beau gasps.

Rebecca circles around me like a vulture. She lifts my arms, flipping it around to examine my wrists. Her eyes go over the smooth fang free scar and her blonde hair catches the light and falls over her shoulders.

“He just left?” Beau asks again.

“Yeah,” I reply, my voice calm. “He didn't feed and he didn't ask me to drop off any bag of blood later. Nothing.”

Beau looks at me and smiles wickedly. “It's not like you don't have good veins. You're juicy.”

I groan into the chair. “You're so annoying. This isn't funny.”

Rebecca nudges me with a smile. “He'll come around, Kieran. Don't be sad.”

“Does it look like I’m sad?” I groan, pressing my teeth against each other.

Beau rolls his eyes at me.

“Yes, Kieran, don't be a baby because of a vampire.” Rebecca says with a monotone voice.

“It really does show you’re sad about the rejection though.” Beau adds, laughing.

“I'm not acting like a baby. This is not a joke. At least you have a vampire who didn't reject you. My first attempt at doing what I always wanted to do was with a male vampire and then he just rejected me.” I let out all at once, breathing heavily. “Do you expect me to just stay silent?”

Beau and Rebecca share a look as I stand up aggressively from the chair.

“Then go rant to your vampire. We were just being caring.” Beau replies, his voice getting stronger than before.

“Y'all don't know what it feels like so don't mock me.” I say sharply and I storm off to my room, ending the conversation with a loud bang of my door.

Childish I know. But I don't care.

The buzzing on my phone catches my attention and I pull it out of my pocket.

It's an email from Caius.

Now, what does he have to say?

I tap on it anyway.

###

From: Caius Thorne.

To: Kieran Noctis.

Subject: I reject you as my consort.

###

I didn’t know when I let out a laugh. His absurd email subjects show how emotionally detached and arrogant he is.

Then I proceed to read the next line.

###

I will be requesting for a new consort which means your services as my consort are no longer needed.

Note: I have enough blood stored from my last consort. So, don’t bother to come looking for me.

Caius.

###

My phone feels heavy in my hand as I read through his text again. Is he even allowed to ask the intermediaries for a new consort when his current consort is still alive?

What did I really do wrong during our meeting?

His actions are unacceptable.

I typed back swiftly.

###

From: Kieran Noctis.

To: Caius Thorne.

Re: I reject you as my consort.

I despise you. And the thought of imagining I could ever give you my blood repulses me. Go f**k yourself. And get out of my life, miserable soul.

###

My finger doesn’t even hover the send button for a split second because I hit send.

Son of a bitch.