My Most Precious Human novel Chapter 76

I woke up with my face on Sariel's chest. Although his chest was a little too firm for me to use as a pillow, his cool skin had been extremely soothing for my tingling in excitement flesh. I only hoped that I didn't drool overnight…

I felt strangely comfortable, as if our relationship was completely natural. I felt happy… absolutely exhausted but happy. I smiled, looking at Sariel's face. His eyes were closed, and he looked like a sleeping angel, an amazing sculpture carved in alabaster and decorated with silver.

"Are you done staring?" he muttered, suddenly opening his eyes.

I gasped, surprised, then snorted. "No. I could stare at you all day, every day. I love looking at you…" I paused.

The word "love" slipped out of my lips so easily, like I had said it a million times. It was strange that it didn't bother me that much. I thought I could learn to use it.

Sariel smirked and tightened his embrace around me. "Just remember, you may keep your eyes only on me," he chuckled.

"Who else should I look at? I belong to you…" I said, embarrassingly hiding my face in his chest.

He stroked my hair while laughing, then sighed. "I have to go now, Lilith, but you should stay in bed longer."

He gently lifted my head from his chest and got up from bed. I felt too weak to move by myself. I struggled to sit on the bed while every part of my body was shaking as if my muscles were made of jelly. He watched me fight my infirmity while getting dressed.

"Don't get up too fast. I know I exhausted you quite a bit," he grinned wickedly.

I frowned at the roguery in his expression, which made him grin even wider. It was unfair that he teased me solely because his stamina as a vampire was something incomparable to any human body performance. But thinking about everything he had done to me last night painted a flush on my face as I recalled how out of this world it had been…

"I… I should finally get to work as well," I muttered.

"Tomorrow. I will tell Gabriel that you need to rest one more day." He winked at me and walked out of the room.

I didn't argue with him. I was well aware that I was unable to stand, not to mention walk around the office wearing heels. Lazing around for one more day was something I couldn't refuse.

Fifteen minutes after Sariel left, Martha knocked on the door. She came with my breakfast. She hurriedly put it on the table and locked her eyes on me, anticipating hearing about the gathering.

"Well?" She sent me a meaningful stare.

I was still sitting on the bed, preparing my legs to stand and walk a few steps towards the table.

"Give me a glass of water and I'll tell you," I smirked.

She abruptly poured me a glass and handed it to me. I took a few sips and then told her everything about the Princess, Duke Orseolo, and Aryan Desai. She listened to my words with her mouth wide open, gasping every couple of seconds.

"Princess Elora is a real bitch!" she hissed as soon as I finished the story.

"You shouldn't say that. Walls have ears, you know?" I chuckled.

"I don't care! She is a bitch!" Martha stated furiously.

"Well… She is the king's daughter, so she must have grown up thinking she could have anything and anyone she wanted." I shrugged.

"Are you trying to justify her actions?" Martha frowned.

"No. I just think that if she has been convinced of her superiority all her life, it is hard to expect her to have an ounce of respect for those who she calls inferior. Her beliefs are deep within her blood; it is quite impossible to change them, and to her, I am a bug that needs to be squashed," I smiled bitterly.

"Oh, I would love to punch her," Martha hissed.

I snorted, "You are not the only one."

I took another sip from the glass. Martha looked at me, sealing her lips as if she hesitated whether to tell me something or not.

"What's wrong?" I asked worryingly.

"I heard that the Duke went for an audience at King Mael today…" she said nervously.

"And?"

"Someone said that it was about the Duke's engagement with the Princess." She made a reluctant grimace, lowering her eyes.

Something within me started to boil. An impulse traveled from my clenched teeth to the muscles of my forearm, making me squeeze the glass of water until it broke in my hand. I gasped, shocked by what I had done. I spilled water on the floor while some of the glass pieces were still in my palm.

"Was the glass I gave you broken or something?! Are you hurt?! Lilith, don't move your hand! I will get a first aid kit…" Martha jumped up, hectically.

"I don't think there was anything wrong with the glass…" I mumbled, trying to process what had happened.

I looked at my hand calmly to examine it. There was a piece of glass stabbed in the middle of my inner palm. I pulled it out without knowing, letting the stream of blood flow from the wound.

"I told you not to move!" Martha scolded me, quickly wrapping a clean piece of cloth around my hand.

"It doesn't hurt…" I muttered in a sudden realization.

"What?" Martha frowned while preparing an antiseptic from a first aid kit.

Something forced me to look at my injury. I unwrapped the cloth, ignoring Martha's lecture. I wiped off the blood from my hand and gulped.

"It healed." The words slipped through my lips.

Martha dropped everything she had on the floor and frantically grabbed my hand to look at it from every side. The skin on my hand was perfectly untouched. Martha glanced at me in disbelief.

"How?" she mumbled, confused.

"I… I don't know," I laughed in panic, "Just… please… don't tell anyone about it... okay?"

She nodded and smiled awkwardly. I bet she had her suspicions, but fortunately, she decided to keep it to herself. I had no other choice but to trust that she wouldn't mention this to anyone. I was quite certain that Sariel's blood was still in my system, and that suddenly gave me the strength to crush the glass and then healed my wound, but I would rather not let anyone know about it. I wasn't sure how long those few drops of blood would affect me. Was it supposed to affect me this long? I always thought that vampire blood had more of a one-time-only healing effect. Besides, Sariel's blood had never made me stronger before.

"Relax, Lilith," I told myself, "This time you drank less than a little, so whatever effect it has on you, it won't last until tomorrow."

I tried to explain it all to myself, even though I almost didn't have any real knowledge, only assumptions. Then I remember Will saying that my body assimilated something from Sariel's blood before…

"I am not turning into a vampire, am I?" I asked my reflection in the bathroom mirror and immediately laughed after hearing the question out loud. "This is ridiculous…" I mocked myself, trying to turn my anxieties into a joke.

I wanted to talk about it with Sariel, but he didn't come back from King Mael's audience until late evening. My restlessness rose, and he was still away. I started to wonder whether Martha's words about the subject of Sariel's sudden meeting with the King were true. Could it be that Elora acted like a spoiled princess and complained about Sariel to her daddy, the king? Would he now be forced to marry her?

He didn't come back until 2 AM. I was lying in bed, wide awake with my heart pounding. My mind was occupied by insanely dark and depressing thoughts. An hour later, I gave up and sneaked out to the kitchen. I opened a bottle of wine, poured myself a full glass, and drank it all in a few big gulps. As soon as the alcohol settled in my system, my anxieties were temporarily silenced. I got back to my bed and finally closed my eyes.

The alarm clock woke me up three hours later. I was alone, which immediately made me even more depressed than I was in the evening. I somehow hoped that seeing Sariel would quickly resolve all of my problems. I got up from my bed and knocked on the passage door leading to Sariel's chamber. No one answered.

"Sariel? Are you there?" I called through the door.

I didn't hear his voice but still decided to go into his bedroom. I wanted to see him. I thought that if I did, it would work as a magical remedy for my state of depression. I walked through the passage and found his bed empty with the sheets untouched.

"He hasn't come back…" I muttered, disappointed.

I walked back to my room and sighed. I had to get ready for work. I went to the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water.

"You can do it, Lilith. Just focus on your work as you always do." I motivated myself.

I took a quick shower, put on some make-up, and ate the breakfast that Martha brought for me. I was almost ready to leave. I grabbed a pair of heels, sat on my bed, and sighed heavily while looking outside the window. I hoped to see Sariel's car arrive at the castle before I left for work, but the driveway was empty.

I put the heels on the floor, preparing to wear them when I noticed a piece of glass. Martha must have missed it while cleaning yesterday's broken pieces. I picked it up; it was sharp. A sudden thought came to my mind, an insane thought…

"What if?"

It had been more than twenty-four hours since I drank Sariel's blood. Those few drops shouldn't have any effect on me, and if anything out of the ordinary happened, for certain, Sariel's blood wouldn't be the cause of it. I took a deep breath, cut one of my fingers with the glass, and closed my eyes.

"Five, four, three, two… one," I counted and opened my eyes to look at the bleeding cut.

My finger was healed.