The next morning
Mild warm sunlight swirled between the curtains on the window; Reiha stirred softly in her sleep; beneath her fingers she felt something warm—at first she thought it was a pillow, or perhaps it could be the folds of the blanket tangled around them.
Absentmindly in her sleep, she rubbed it with her fingers gently; the surface beneath her palm suddenly hardened.
A faint crease appeared between her brows.
Slowly she murmured, half-awakened.
“What’s that?” Reiha opened her eyes.
Her head was resting against Arthav’s bare chest, and her hair was all over his face.
His arm loosely wrapped around her waist.
Then realization struck.
Her hand was resting far lower than it should have been, her finger wrapped around Arthav’s dick.
The sleep vanished from her eyes instantly.
Reiha froze.
She immediately pulled her hand away and sat up straight.
Her long, thick black hair fell across Arthav’s face as she moved.
Arthav turned his face toward her slowly and smirked lazily.
“Tsk. Why did you stop? I was enjoying that, Love.”
Reiha’s face burned instantly.
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my room too. Did you forget that?” Arthav said while rotating his hand slightly before sitting properly against the bedhead.
He rubbed his left arm with a faint grimace.
“Ahh… my hand got numb. You didn’t even change your position the whole night.”
Reiha stared at him in disbelief.
“You’re saying that we slept like this the whole night?”
He nodded casually, smirking.
“Then why didn’t you put a pillow between us when you came back? I thought you weren’t coming back after that.”
Arthav raised an eyebrow at her.
“What did you expect? That I sleep in the shed?”
He stretched his arms and yawned loudly.
Reiha’s face suddenly filled with unease.
She took a small breath.
“H-How… are you feeling now? I mean…” she hesitated nervously.
“After last night… are you okay? Does your arm still hurt?”
Arthav exhaled deeply.
“I’m fine. Can’t you see?” He stretched his arm slightly toward her.
“Look.”
Reiha stared at his arm, and it looked completely normal.
“I saw something,” she said quietly, lowering her gaze; thinking about it made her uneasy.
“I don’t know… maybe it was all in my head, but everyone saw it. your arm. The veins crawled over your skin and—”
“What did you see?” he asked.
He looked at her with strange empty eyes.
Reiha swallowed hard.
“Your pupils…” Her voice lowered.
“They split in half. Another pupil looked at me.”
For a second, silence filled the room.
He stared behind her into the wall.
Then Arthav suddenly laughed softly.
“It’s definitely in your head,” he said with a slow smile.
“How could something like that even be possible?”
He walked closer to the edge of the bed.
“You drank a lot at the party last night. And my arm… it was probably just some chemical reaction from the gasoline.”
“But your mom said—”
Arthav stood up before she could finish.
He picked up his coat from the floor and put it on his hand casually. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
“Don’t believe whatever she says,” he muttered while scratching his chin.
“Dad was obsessed with history.” He turned toward her with a faint scoff.
“And Mom was obsessed with Dad.”
Reiha sat quietly on the bed, lost in thought.
He walked toward the other side of the bed where Reiha was sitting and stopped in front of her.
Then gently, he held her face between both of his hands.
Reiha did not pull away.
There was a strange softness in his touch whenever his hands touched her, a gentleness that never matched the coldness he showed.
She simply looked up at him silently.
“Did I scare you last night?” he asked quietly.
Reiha lowered her gaze immediately.
After hesitating for a moment, she nodded once.
Something flickered in Arthav’s eyes.
“It won’t happen again,” he murmured softly.
“I promise.”
Ye kehte arthav bathroom ki taraf badh gaya, Reiha just stared at him in disbelief.
He made it look like nothing happened last night, like his veins did not twist beastly beneath his skin and his pupils did not split.
Saying that, Arthav turned and walked toward the bathroom.
Reiha simply stared at him in disbelief.
He was acting as if nothing had happened last night.
As if the veins beneath his skin had not twisted beastly, they tried to free themselves from his skin.
As if his pupils had not split right in front of her eyes.
As if the darkness crawling over his body had only been part of a nightmare.
Yet there he was—calm, composed, effortlessly normal.
He made it all look so easy.
So ordinary.
And somehow, that frightened Reiha even more.