10_A drunk Charming
Kamilla was snuggled up in bed. Oh, how nice. Sleep. The best place to be. She burrowed deeper into the warm
covers.
Her contentment didn’t last. Wispy as smoke, Kamilla felt her sleep begin to elude her. Oh, no, she didn’t want to
wake up!
She tried with all her will to hold on to the sweet sleep, but it seeped out like water through her fingers.
Kamilla’s lids blinked open and she stared in annoyance at the drapes around her bed. Damn it, she just wanted to
sleep.
With a sigh, she turned onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Wait. Something had woken her up.
Kamilla strained her ears in the dark as she blinked her itchy eyes. She heard it. Kamilla froze as the sound became clearer. Slowly, she sat up in bed. It was coming from outside her bedroom door.
Her heart quickly started racing in her chest and she put a hand over it.
What the hell was that scratching noise? Was there someone trying to get into her room? Was it Viktor?
Kamilla bit her lip in worry.
Please, anybody but Viktor. Her mind filled with thoughts of him. After feeding her, he’d sent her off to sleep like a little kid, but Kamilla refused. Who did he think he was?! Of course, he’d then proceeded to grab her hand and
teleport her to her chambers.
Kamilla’s breath caught as she lowered a foot from the bed. Only after Viktor had her standing against the foot of her bed, his body tight against hers, had Kamilla realized that she’d put herself in a very dangerous situation.
She struggled to forget her embarrassment when, an inch away from his seductive mouth, Viktor had suddenly pushed her away, a smirk curving his mouth. Kamilla groaned. Jerk.
She pushed aside the drape and glared at the closed doors all the way across the room. She put on the lamps and gold light flooded her room. Was that him? Had he come to brag about his outstanding seduction skills?
Kamilla clenched her jaw. As if embarrassing her wasn’t enough. This time, she’d break his batwings for sure!
She stomped towards the doors, fingers ready to do damage. Kamilla brought herself to a stop in front of the doors. The scratching sound had stopped. She frowned, listening closely.
Wait.
What if it wasn’t Viktor? She bit her lip, feeling uncertainty creep in and fear replace the anger. Viktor would certainly think himself too royal to leave his bed at this hour just to do something as measly as annoy Kamilla, wouldn’t he? Much less would he waste his vampire king energy to check up on her.
Kamilla stared at the doors. What was making that sound?
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10 A drunk Charming
She swallowed and placed her hands on the handles. Before she could change her mind, she pulled on the doors, throwing them wide open.
Kamilla screamed as something big and heavy fell on her, throwing them both to the ground. It was too heavy to push off.
“Please don’t hurt me!” she squealed, struggling under the grunting mass.
“Hello there,” said a cheerfully slurred voice.
Kamilla stopped struggling and slowly opened her eyes.
She gasped. “Vik-”
He slapped a hand over her mouth, his body pressing harder on her. Kamilla’s eyes widened. She looked at the smile curving his lips, she looked at the bright blue twinkle of his eyes and without a doubt, she knew.
“Kamilla, isn’t it? It’s me,” he whispered. “Remember me?”
Kamilla gulped. Charming. Her nose smelled whiskey and twitched. A drunk Charming.
Watching him, she nodded and he slowly lifted his hand from her mouth. Kamilla was gobsmacked. How the hell had it happened this time? She hadn’t hit his head.
Charming leaned on an elbow and smiled down at her, unfazed by their current position on the floor.
“Have you been well?” he asked politely. Kamilla nodded. “Hm. I’m aware it’s rather unbecoming of a gentleman to be sprawled on the floor with a lady like this, and I will get up, I’m just rather tired right now,” he informed her, blinking in a slow, drunken manner.
“Uhm…” Kamilla didn’t know what to say. “Charming?”
He smiled, delighted to hear her say his name. “Yes, my fair lady?”
“Would you mind getting up now?”
He sighed. “Well, if I must.”
She watched as he heaved to his feet and reached a hand down to help her. Kamilla put her hand in his and let him help her up. A gentleman even when drunk, wasn’t he?
Once he’d ensured that she was standing firmly on her own two feet, he turned away to explore her room.
“Are these your chambers then? Hm. I thought they were mine.”
Kamilla gasped and followed after him as he touched this and that.
“Charming, it’s quite late, you really should go to sleep.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder with a sad little smile. “My darling, all I do is sleep. Let me see, feel and touch
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10__A drunk Charming
as much as I can while I’m awake.”
Kamilla’s hands automatically shot over her chest at his words, but she quickly scolded them. That’s not what he meant when he said see, feel and touch. He was currently doing all three to her glossy dresser.
Kamilla inched toward him. “What do you mean when you say you’re always asleep?”
Charming’s hand stilled and he looked at her. Kamilla felt her heart tug when she recognized the emotion in his eyes as nothing short of misery. He was sad.
“Why, what else could I mean, my lady?” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I only appear when he needs me. When Viktor wants a rest from what’s in his mind. I’m sometimes asleep for what feels like years.”
Her mouth fell open. “You… you know about Viktor?”
Charming decided that he’d had enough of the earth’s tilting and sank down onto Kamilla’s bed. He sighed and leaned forward on his knees. “Hm. I do. Viktor is… the reason for my existence. You see?”
Kamilla stared at him. She couldn’t wrap her head around this, it was far too strange. Everything about him was unlike Viktor. It was like two different men in one body.
“H–how…” She dragged in a breath to calm herself. “How did this happen?”
Charming lifted his gaze to her, his mouth curving in a slow, sexy smile. “I want to tell you. Not because you ask, but because I know you can help him.”
Kamilla swallowed. Her? How could she possibly help Viktor when he didn’t even know he had a double personality himself?
“I don’t think I could help him,” she whispered.
Charming nodded. “You definitely can. But I won’t tell you why I exist because you might use it to hurt Viktor and my purpose… has always been to protect him.”
“Why would you think I want to hurt him?” Kamilla asked, feeling inexplicably offended at his words.
Charming yawned and Kamilla blushed at the sudden wave of affection she felt for him. It wasn’t her fault, he was adorable when he yawned.
“You,” said Charming sleepily. “You want to leave Viktor, don’t you?”
Kamilla said nothing, turning her eyes away.
“You want to leave him and I cannot trust that you will not use cunning methods to do so. You could hurt him.”
She couldn’t help but find it strangely amazing that Charming was this protective of Viktor. It made Kamilla want to find out exactly why he was protecting him. What caused this split in personality?
She opened her mouth to ask him, but stopped when she heard a noise.
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10 A drunk Charming
Kamilla looked out her open bedroom doors. There was someone coming down the hallway. A servant?
Kamilla looked back at Charming who was currently easing himself into her bed. She couldn’t let them see him. One look at his sweet smile would tell anyone that he wasn’t Viktor.
She rushed over to close the doors, but stopped. The person probably heard her talking. If she pretended to be asleep, it would look suspicious, wouldn’t it? Like she were hiding another man in her room, which in a way, she
was.
She bit her lip. Okay, she’d pretend to go for a glass of water.
Kamilla stepped out, closed her chamber doors behind her and turned around.
“Holy hell!” she shrieked when a person appeared before her.
Not a servant.
“Damon,” Kamilla panted, holding a hand to her racing heart.
“Kamilla,” he greeted. “You’re still awake?”
She looked at him to nod, but stopped when she spotted something. His mouth had something weird at the corners. It colored his lip corners darker. Red.
Kamilla’s eyes widened. Blood.
“What’s wrong?”
She managed to not jump in fright. Her mind scrambled for anything to say. “Uhm, nothing. Uh… and Viktor? Have you seen-”
“Yes,” Damon said tightly, cutting her off. Kamilla blinked at him. He knew Charming woke up? Was that why he was there?” “He’s asleep. In his chambers.”
Kamilla blinked at him. With a murmured excuse, she hurried back to her room and shut the door.
She went over to the bed.
There Charming was, wrapped up warmly, fast asleep in her bed. Kamilla frowned.
Damon had lied to her.
But why?
