Chapter 299: You are lazy.

"You are playing with fire, child."

Aurelia spoke and Lucian—

He looked back into her eyes and—

"I love fire."

He answered with a big grin on his face.

The two stared at each other for a good while, then suddenly, Aurelia shrugged.

"I still won’t tell you my age."

"I knew it."

Lucian sighed in defeat.

The Gala continued.

Once things finally settled down, people did actually begin approaching Aurelia, Lucian tried to distance himself multiple times, thinking she needed privacy, though every time he made an attempt, she would glare at him, then ask him a question, forcefully involving him in the conversation.

That made it very clear that she did not want him to leave.

"Why are you trying to leave?"

She asked.

"I thought you were talking with them."

"Did it look like I wanted to talk to them?"

"You were smiling."

She stared at him with a flat look on her face.

"You have a remarkable poker face. I guess you develop one once you’ve been on this Earth for thousands of years, no?"

"I am not telling you how old I am."

"Tch."

Lucian clicked his tongue.

"And don’t you dare leave, if you attempt it one more time, you may not learn of my age, but I’ll assure you, yours will never cross twenty."

She threatened directly and Lucian very quickly gave in.

"I’ll stick to you like a perverted old man would."

"..."

Aurelia didn’t even know how she was supposed to react to those words.

Just like that, for the next few hours, Lucian stayed with Aurelia as different Vampires approached her, some only came to greet her, others tried to start small talk, a few came to discuss a few confidential things, which Aurelia very quickly moved away from using Lucian as a polite excuse.

"You are lazy."

Lucian commented as he watched another Vampire walking away from them with this dispirited look on his face. ℴ

"What makes you say that?"

Aurelia smiled innocently.

Lucian looked at her with a flat look on his face, then he said it out loud.

"You talk back with men who have the personality of a stone, but the moment one brings up things that involve your House or deals they wish to talk to you about, you end the conversations."

"I do that because I do not have the Authority to make decisions on House Veyr’s behalf."

"Stop lying."

Lucian called out instantly.

"I am not lying."

"I can’t believe our conversation started with the words I have no reason to lie to you, at the very least, I expected you to follow through on that."

That made Aurelia stare at him for a few seconds.

"Whatever, fine."

Then she gave in.

"It’s bothersome to talk about these matters. They should visit through proper channels if they want to have such conversations."

"I can count at least five different groups having such conversations, two of them involve an Ancient House.

This Gala does seem like a proper channel."

"It usually is, just not when I am representing House Veyr."

She shrugged with an unbothered look on her face.

"If you aren’t interested in any of it, why did you even come to the Gala?"

Lucian asked curiously. Aurelia smiled at that, then, she kept looking at him and laughed.

"I have my reasons."

She did not explain any further.

Lucian frowned.

Though he could tell she wouldn’t answer, so he did not press further.

The good thing was, while Aurelia was very much disinterested in having conversations with most people here, Lucian was an exception.

She seemed very pleased to talk to him, so much so that more than a few Vampires were looking at him as if he was a bother.

Not that Lucian cared.

He, in fact, liked the attention.

Also, he was learning a lot since every time Aurelia had a conversation with another Vampire, she explained things Lucian did not understand.

Lucian learned more about Vampires by standing together with the woman than he had during all his time in the Enclave.

He learned about Vampire Houses, the strength they held and how they were different from each other.

He learned that a Vampire House was not just a Family, it was a mix of bloodline, political faction, feeding network, territory, wealth, servants, donor systems, inherited powers and reputation.

A Vampire’s House pretty much decided how protected and important they were.

There were four general types of Vampire Houses—

First was the Royal House.

This was the Ruling House of the Vampire King, it controlled vampire law, the royal court, major punishments, inter-House disputes, feeding limits and authority over Great Houses. Members of the Royal House were politically untouchable unless they committed something extreme.

After the Royal House were the Ancient Houses.

These were the oldest Houses that were direct descendants of the Originals. They obviously had high status, they were the only powers who could actually question the Royal House. Both House Veyr and Arcelis were Ancient Houses.

Then came the Great Houses.

They were powerful modern Vampire Houses, they controlled cities, blood banks, hospitals, banks, clubs, political networks, donor circles, and private armies. They may not have been as old as Ancient Houses, but they were very influential.

Then the Lesser Houses.

They were small Vampire Families, most of them survived by swearing allegiance to a Great House, or if fortunate, Ancient Houses.

Of course, there were also Independent Vampires, they did not belong to any House. Young Vampires abandoned by their makers, Vampires who left politics, criminals, exiles, wandering predators. Varek, after being exiled, was an Independent Vampire.

There could be any number of such Independent Vampires, all with different degrees of strength.

Independent Vampires, however, were politically very weak.

And finally, after the Independent Vampires, there were... Feral Vampires.

They were the Vampires who had lost themselves to hunger, they weren’t even considered proper Vampires.

They were similar to demonic beasts who no longer had control over their urges and were actively hunted down by all of the Supernatural World.

Of course, together with all this, Lucian also learned a few other things. Aurelia and his conversation was interesting, it wandered from Vampire history to Human technology, then somehow to music, food and dance.

Eventually, the Gala began winding down.

Some guests had already left, others moved towards smaller private gatherings throughout the estate.

The music softened, attendants started clearing sections of the hall.

Lucian stood together with Aurelia near one of the tall windows, finishing his sixth glass of wine and while he was still trying to get Aurelia to tell him her age—

Someone approached them.

It was Garrick.

And from his expression...

It seemed like it was time to leave.