Chapter 378: Learning more about each other_Part_2
Evenly noticed a faint color rise to his pale cheek at the mention of him sleeping on the bed, and she almost chuckled at the sight of it, finding it unexpectedly alluring. She had never seen a man blush before, and her former husband, who was the only man she had ever been around for long, wasn’t the blushing type, but rather the dominating kind, who believed such a thing was feminine.
"Don’t ever mention it, my lady. I will pretend we never slept on the same bed, so as not to soil your reputation," Rav remarked, trying to control his own reaction to the reminder of last night, when he had laid beside her on the bed.
"What reputation? I don’t have one to maintain, so don’t bother yourself trying to preserve it. Next time when it rains and you are close by, I will still ask you to sleep with me." She flashed him a smile that made the color on his cheeks deepen.
Not wanting to embarrass him by pointing out that the blush on his cheeks made him look more alive and even ten times younger and somewhat adorable, Evenly cleared her throat and turned away, going to sit on the couch and patting the space beside her.
"Let’s eat." She began to open the lid of the food, which was luckily still warm.
Rav walked to the couch almost as though he were in a trance, unable to voice that he would have preferred to eat on the floor rather than beside her. He sat down next to her and took the plate of food she handed him.
"It’s starting to become a habit, eating in this room instead of the hall, and I quite like it more than sitting with the Dawsons," Evenly said as she placed a spoon in his hand. "What about you?" she asked conversationally.
Rav didn’t care where he ate as long as there was food to fill his stomach, but for the first time, he quietly agreed that sitting in the Dawsons’ dining hall was like sitting on the edge of a knife. "I like it in the room better." He took a mouthful of soup, chewing the meat in it carefully.
When he finished the food on his plate and was about to keep it back on the table, even though his eyes lingered on the steak that was still on the tray, Evenly silently reached out, took his plate, and added more for him. She even picked out a portion of steak from her own plate and placed it on his before handing it back to him.
"You should eat more. As a man, you need it. When I first saw you in Bimmerville, my first thought was that you were a starved man from how lean you looked, as though you barely ate well enough, and I was right. Just because one plate is given to you doesn’t mean you can’t have more. Get used to taking more when you need it," she said to him, her lips curving into a faint smile, though her eyes were serious so he would take her words seriously.
Rav looked down at his now-filled plate. He had never in his life had a second plate of food. It was a habit that would not leave him, even when there had been food available in his master’s castle. When he had still been with his family, he ate only one plate because they were managing with what little they had. When he started to serve his master, he barely had food, as the royals treated him just the way they treated their son. And in the asylum, even if food was given to him a second time, he would rather starve than force down the salty meals and bland soups.
"Thank you," he muttered softly to her as he began to eat the food carefully, all the while somewhat aware that she was watching him from the side.
"Why did you change your name to Raven?" Evenly asked after a pause, her curiosity getting the better of her as she studied the man who acted reserved and a little timidly. She recalled he had told her that his late son was named after him, Chris, which meant his given name wasn’t Raven.
Rav chewed the steak in his mouth before answering. He did not lift his eyes from his plate, and his tone was as blank as his face. "The name Christian reminds me of... my family. I didn’t want to be called by it, so I changed it to the first name that came to my mind when I was asked."
Evenly nodded in understanding before saying, "No wonder I thought the name Raven was strange."
After that, she fell silent and went back to eating, deciding not to pry further into his personal life. Yet despite her effort, she found herself suddenly curious about certain things that, if looked at closely, she had no reason to be curious about, and that were none of her business. Things like... did he still love his late wife? Did he think about her even now?
She was chiding herself for getting curious when she knew she shouldn’t concern herself too much, when she suddenly heard the man speak to her.
"Why... why are you afraid of the thunder?" Rav asked, breaking the silence between them as they ate, his own curiosity slipping out before he could stop it.
He had wondered about it last night when she had called him to lie next to her. It was difficult for him to believe that someone who had grown up in Nightbrook could truly be afraid of something so ordinary. And yet, he wanted to know.
He told himself it was only because he wished to avoid another situation where she might ask him to share her bed again. But deep inside, beneath the layers of excuses, perhaps it wasn’t only curiosity about the thunder, but about her. A pull he dared not name.
Evenly paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she set it down and used a napkin to dab at her lips before turning her eyes away, fixing them on the lamp on the table where their food rested, silent for a long moment.
"It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me. I was—"
"My mother died on a night of a thunderstorm," Evenly said quietly, turning her light red eyes toward Rav. "I was a little girl when it happened."
Rav averted his gaze, lowering his eyes back to his plate as he muttered, "I am sorry."
She continued speaking, as though she knew he was curious to hear how her mother had died. "She always put me to bed and sometimes slept beside me. My father used to always be at the border camp of Nightbrook, away from home, which left Mama and me..." A bitter smile curved her lips as her eyes grew distant.
"The night she lost her life, she slept in my room, but I woke up thirsty in the middle of the night. The jug where the maid usually kept water was empty, so I woke her up. It was raining so hard, with thunder shaking the skies."
That night Evenly recalled how her mother had rung for a maid, but because of the storm, no maid could have heard the bell ringing. In the end, her mother had gone herself to fetch the water, telling her to stay in the room.
"She left me there, but she was gone too long, and I became worried about why she was taking so long to bring back water. So I left my room. The thunder that night was so loud it made me flinch every time it roared. I didn’t see her at first when I walked into the hall... I stepped into her blood before I saw her body lying on the floor of the hall..." Evenly’s eyes pricked with tears, and they soon swelled as the memories played in her mind like they were happening all over again. She hugged herself as though to shield her heart from the memories that had changed her entire life that night.
Her mother had been everything to her.
"I tried to wake her, but no matter what I did, she wouldn’t wake. Her entire body was soaked in blood, and she... she had this big bite mark on her neck and cuts all over her body. It was...horrifying. I never got over that image for years. She was killed by vampires who came to steal from our house. If Mama hadn’t gone out just in time to catch them breaking into my father’s study, she would never have died."
Her voice cracked as more tears spilled from her lashes. "Sometimes I think that if I hadn’t woken up thirsty, she wouldn’t have died that night. We would have woken up to Father’s belongings missing, but her life would have been spared. My father hated the night creatures ever since then..."
A tear rolled down her cheek, which she hastily wiped away, but more followed, streaming down as she remembered the days she had spent with her beautiful mother. If her mother had still been alive, no one would have dared to cast her aside now that she was a vampire.
Her mother would never have turned her back on her, nor would she have let Josh hurt her the way he did. She would have long taken her back home when he first started mistreating her. She wouldn’t have cared about what society thought, the way her father did. She would have talked him into letting her return home with them the very first time Josh had dared to raise his hand against her.
Evenly reached her hand up to wipe her tears, but instead, a hand appeared before her, holding out a handkerchief. Startled, she turned to see that the man beside her had moved closer. She stared at him through blurred vision, and when she didn’t take it, he reached out himself and gently wiped her cheeks.
She felt the delicate way he dabbed the fabric below her eyes, then at the corners of her lips where the tears had trailed. His touch was unexpectedly tender, so tender that it caused a prick in her heart, for even the man she had married had never once wiped away her tears.
She remembered the day her husband had found her crying over her mother, when she had first realized she was pregnant and had wished desperately that her mother were there. He had walked in on her and dismissed her grief, telling her she was being dramatic about a death she should have long overcome.
"I lost my Ma too, but you don’t see me always crying about it whenever she is being mentioned, Evenly. You need to get over this and not harm our child with your tears." He had thrown his handkerchief onto her lap and walked out of the room.
Now, Evenly stared at Rav, who was tenderly wiping her cheeks, and as their eyes locked, his hand stilled on her face.
"Do you think me dramatic because I cry over my mother’s death?" she asked in a small voice, so very unlike her usual tone.
Rav didn’t blink, his gaze holding the luminous, big, watery eyes fixed on him as he shook his head slowly. "No," he said softly, his voice low and slightly deep. "It’s fine to cry over the people one cared about."
A faint smile slowly graced Evenly’s lips, and Rav’s eyes instinctively dropped to her pink lips that made his throat dry. Realization struck him almost instantly, and he quickly pulled his gaze away, as though caught in something forbidden.
"I am sorry," he said hastily, beginning to draw back from her face.
But she reached out and caught his hand, taking the handkerchief from him before he could retreat.
She blew her nose into the fabric, and Rav grimaced as he watched the first unladylike thing she had done since he had come to know her.
"You always apologize for doing nothing, Rav. Thank you for the handkerchief, I will replace it for you." She drew in a deep breath, trying to calm her emotions and quiet the tingling sensation that lingered where he had touched her with his handkerchief. Then she rose from the couch and went behind the wooden divider to wash her face, hoping to rid herself of the feeling.