1. The masked stranger
Boring.
That’s all my creative mind could come up with to describe the party. Oops! Did I just say party? Sorry. Allow me to rectify. It’s the ‘masquerade gala ball blah blah blah for blah blah blah blah.’ Don’t ask! You will only get more blah blah blahs.
That’s what happens when you are force fed to learn a gazillion sophisticated names at once.
“Lilith!” a high pitched voice interrupted my thoughts.
“That would be me.” I raised my hand and waved towards my mother.
Her eyes widened and she rushed to my side. Then, she swiftly grabbed my arms and pinned them down to my lap, all the while keeping an eye around, making sure that no one saw her doing this ‘heinous’ deed.
“I told you to behave.” She chided me while maintaining the perfectly practiced fake smile on her face.
I gave her an innocent look. “This is me behaving.” I pointed out.
Her gaze fell on the table in front of me which was loaded with all the delicacies this boring ass ball had to offer.
She gave me a horror stricken look, “Are you trying to make us look like fools?” yeah, because, eating is such a weird thing to do, right?
I rolled my eyes and picked up a cinnamon roll. “No, mother. I am trying to eat. That’s something normal human beings do,” I glanced around at the humans present. They were being pathetic. The girls were fussing over whether their dresses, accessories and makeup were enough to impress the members of the SNR while the guys were busy flirting with the SNR females.
The SNR was our acronym for the Super Natural Realm. But, I had made my own full form of SNR: Super Nincompoop’s Realm. It was fitting if you ask me. I was not being judgmental or anything but those creatures were creepy, and stupid. They always used to mask their truth with the help of their voodoo shit. And, I was naturally wary of things that I couldn’t fully comprehend.
My mom was looking at me in disbelief as if I just told her that I had stolen her kidney. Oops, did I say everything out loud?
“I can’t believe you right now, Lilith. We had this talk earlier. This gala is a big deal for us. your dad is the governor! It’s important to…"
I kind of blocked her after that, because I already knew what she was going to say. We indeed had talked about this earlier. Million times. But, to be honest, I always zoned out after a couple of sentences. Though, I do have an idea of what she talks about: something to do with the rich of the human realm and the royalty of the SNR and keeping up pretences. I was brought out of my cinnamon roll induced reverie, when I heard my mother sigh loudly.
“I don’t have time to deal with you right now.” She said.
“You never do.” I muttered. Thank god, she didn’t hear me.
“I have to go with your father to meet the other ministers and the important lords of the SNR. Meanwhile, you, young lady,” she said pointedly, “get up your butt from this chair and mingle with the prominent people present here tonight. I want you to learn how these diplomatic things work.”
“Of course, mother.” I lied, nodding my head enthusiastically. There was no way; I was leaving this comfy chair and my precious food behind. She should have known better when she made me wear three inch high death traps, also known as heels and this irritating shimmery sparkly dress which I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.
But, guess, mothers know everything. She narrowed her eyes at me, “I don’t trust you. Oh, wait, I will set you up with someone for the night.”
Before I could open my mouth to protest, she had already latched on a randomly passing guy’s arm. “Excuse me, young man,” she called out.
The said young man turned around and my breath hitched in my throat. My mother was saying something but I couldn’t anything because all my senses were working to focus on the best specimen of man standing in front of me.
Tall, dark and handsome didn’t even begin to describe him. Dark eyes which were complimented by an elegant silver mask, chiseled jaw, prominent straight cut nose, sexily messy hair, and those immensely kissable lips... Aiden Sinclair looked every bit as handsome as I remembered him to be. And boy was his gorgeousness messing with my mind. I needed to focus on remembering one more thing apart from his looks. His personality. Which I recalled, used to be completely shitty.
His eyes raked over my body shamelessly. I did my best to not squirm.
“Well, well, will you look at this? If it isn’t Lilith Emerson.” His voice came out mockingly, “you have grown hot in one year. I could totally bang you.”
And, there he goes with his shittiness. I glanced around. Of course, my mother had ditched me.
“You are stuck with me, for this night, Emerson” He smirked.
I scoffed, “You wish, Sinclair.”
“Feisty! As always. I really missed this.” He grinned.
“Of course, you did. I am totally worth missing. Can’t say the same for you, though.” I said, morphing my features into that of disinterest.
“Aww, now don’t you lie, Emerson. You totally missed me.”
“Did not.”
“You did.”
“Did not.”
“Did”
“Did not.”
“Did not.”
“Did.”
He gave me a triumphant grin. I blinked. I couldn’t believe I walked right into that one. He always employed this trick in high school to win any argument from me.
“Why am I even talking to you?” I muttered.
“Because I am your babysitter tonight.”
“Shut up.”
He just chuckled at that. I folded my arms across my chest and scowled at him.
“Now, come on, Emerson. We have a lot of catching up to do. We can do that while mingling with people.”
“I am not going anywhere till I finish these.” I pointed at the food. His gaze fell over it and his mouth fell open slightly but he recovered quickly.
He turned to me with his trademark smirk. “Damn, you haven’t changed at all. You still eat like a pig.”
“And, I always will,” I shrugged, “Though, I hope for the sake of my sanity, that you have changed your habits.”
He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow, “My habits being?” his tone was laced with amusement.
Oh, he knew very well what I was talking about. It was the reason for the bad blood between us. He was a well known womanizer. Something that I downright detested. And, Aiden Sinclair always had a knack for taking my hatred to an entirely different level. It was like he did it on purpose, to rub me off the wrong way.
“Aww, Emerson. You still love me.”
“And you are still delusional.”
“You are jealous.”
“And, you are insane.”
“That’s enough, kids.” A voice cut us off.
We both turned our heads to see Aiden’s dad shaking his head at us. I stiffened involuntarily when I saw him. He was one of the best hunters in the human realm, and had the credits for killing over ten thousand dangerous supernaturals during the war.He had passed down his talent to Aiden who was an efficient hunter too. But, Aiden didn’t scare me, this man did.
“You two should stop bickering now,” Mr. Sinclair said, “the SNR royal family is going to enter those gates in exactly five minutes and I want the two of you to welcome them.”
“Are you kidding me?!” I exclaimed in horror.
Mr. Sinclair gave me a stern look, which clearly stated that he was not in the mood for any kind of nonsense. But, hey, I was perfectly making sense. Why me? He should go himself with his son!
“Lilith,” Aiden grabbed my hand, “now is not the time,” he said seriously, “come on.”
I glanced back longingly at my food as Aiden dragged me away from the table. Ugh, ugh, ugh!
“So, like weren’t they supposed to enter five minutes ago?” I asked Aiden impatiently, “It feels like I have been standing here for five hours.”
Aiden chuckled, “No, it’s been only fifteen minutes. You need to chill.”
“Easy for you to say that when you are wearing those comfortable shoes,” I retorted, “my feet are dying in these death traps.”
“You are such a drama queen,” he rolled his eyes, “you know-” suddenly, he paused and became alert, “Lilith, they have arrived,” he whispered, “make sure you follow the instructions.”
I nodded and turned towards the entrance, where the guards were standing up straight and unmoving like a statue. The atmosphere suddenly started to turn chilly, and I shivered slightly. God knows, what those super nincompoop royals were doing to make it so cold.
And, in the blink of an eye, three people in mask appeared in front of me. I stumbled when my eyes fell upon the man in the middle. I had had my fair share of encounters with the supernaturals and yes, they were all beautiful. It was a given. But, this man took the cake…or should I say, the crown, seeing as he was the crown prince of the SNRs.
I couldn’t even focus on anything else but his face. His eyes were veiled by a simple violet colored mask, but, I could clearly make out the storm roiling beneath that mask. If I am being honest here, his eyes were complimenting the beauty of the plain mask. I wanted to avert my gaze and come to my senses, but, he wouldn’t let me. His stormy eyes were holding me captive with some indescribable power. Was he doing this on purpose? Didn’t feel like it, though. It felt like there was an invisible pull that wanted me to move forward and be closer to him. I hated this. What was controlling me?
The trance was broken when Aiden began shaking my shoulders, “Lilith! Are you okay?”
I blinked after what felt like an eternity, and turned to face Aiden.
“You okay?” he asked me in concern, “you kind of zoned out there.”
I nodded, composing myself. Aiden took my hand in his to make sure that I was steady before apologizing to the royal family, “I am sorry about the trouble. I hope you can forgive us and join us for the celebration.”
My glance went to the stormy eyed man, of its own accord. Why did I have this strong urge to just keep looking at him and relishing in his beauty? Goosebumps rose on my skin when I saw that he was still staring at me. Did he know that what he was doing was considered rude?
‘Well, you are doing the same thing’, a voice suddenly said in my head.
My eyes widened. Was I imagining things or was it just my inner voice?
“Lilith, what’s wrong?” Aiden turned to me.
‘Get away from the hunter’, the same voice said in my head again.
“What the hell?!” I shrieked, jumping back in shock. Everyone gave me shocked looks while my eyes traveled to the stormy eyed man, instinctively.
His face was straight, expressionless, but, boy, I could swear that his eyes were amused and smiling. Oh my God, could it be- no, no, no!
‘Could it be what, sweetheart?’ The voice was in my head again.
I- I needed to know if what I was thinking was true. That’s why I decided to do something. I focused on my thoughts and concentrated on recalling the sappy rom-com movie that my sister had made me watch last night. All the while I kept my eyes on the awfully gorgeous, stormy eyed man in front of me.
He visibly cringed. Ha! I was right. He was in my head. I bet the sappiness I was thinking of was making him uncomfortable.
‘No, the fact that you keep on calling me stormy eyed man, is what makes me uncomfortable,’ the voice resonated in my head.
I screamed and marched towards him, ignoring everyone’s gaping faces.
“Get out of my head, you stormy eyed bastard!” I yelled at him, and ran away from there clutching my head, before he could do any more damage.
I was hoping that he wouldn’t follow, but of course, nothing ever goes as per my wish. I wasn’t just going to get away by insulting a SNR royal, who I was supposed to ‘welcome’.