Another side of Lucius (1)

Their walk was a quite one as Leah was in no mood to chat with Lucius. Luckily, Lucius did not try to push her for a conversion till they got to a small open area where They spotted a woman sitting down on the grass with different dogs playing around her. Leah spotted max in the woman's arms, she seemed to be rubbing his belly as she played fetch with some of the other dogs. 

Sensing their presence, all the dogs left the woman ran towards Lucius and Leah, yapping and barking happily as the approached them. When the dogs got close to them, it was obvious that they coming for Lucius, some of the bigger dogs tried climbing on his body causing to fall to the ground and they all gathered around him, licking his face as he tried to sit up.

Lucius laughed as he rubbed the the dog's head sitting in front of him and trying to lick his face. Leah stared in awe at the rare sight, greatly surprised that Lucius loved dogs this much. The dogs were up to fifteen in number. Even her own dog —max, was yapping happily as Lucius rubbed his own head.

"They are very energetic today, Master Lucius," the woman who had been sitting with the dogs said as she them with a warm smile.

"They do love a sunny day," Lucius replied to woman as he tried to stop one of the dogs from climbing on his head. "Guinevere, this is Leah." He gestures towards Leah with his head. "And Leah meet Guinevere. She's my dogs caretaker." Lucius introduced the woman to Leah.

The woman extended her hand to Leah with a warm smile.

"It's good to finally meet you." Guinevere said.

Leah accepted her hand, retuning a smile back as the both of them shook hands. 

"Thank you for taking care of Max." Leah thanked her politely.

"Oh, your welcome. Your dog is absolutely adorable." Guinevere said and turned to Lucius. "I need to get something from inside, Master Lucius. I'll be right back." Lucius simply nodded as he was occupied with the dogs.

The woman glanced at Leah one more time before walking away.

Leah watched as Lucius asked all the dogs to sit down and they did immediately.

Lucius turned to Leah and gestured for her to come close.

Leah moved closer and sat down on the grass. Her dog immediately left Lucius arms and came to meet her. Leah ruffled his head as he wriggled his tail and yapped.

She raised up her head to find Lucius staring at her.

"I didn't know you loved dogs this much, Mr Valdez." Leah said.

"I am full of surprises," Lucius replied with a slight smile.

He then began introducing Leah to his dogs one by one. There were fifteen dogs in number and Leah was sure that she wouldn't be able to remember all their names that easily. Lucius also showed his favorite dog among the park — William. She was quite surprised that he had named his dog after his own brother, it was a a little strange to her.

They had a lighter conversion, Lucius would occasionally say something funny that would make Leah laugh. Guinevere returned and Lucius decided that it was time to leave. Leah left Max with the other dogs since he was obviously happy being with them.

As they walked back to the house, Leah would occasionally glance at Lucius and he seem to noticed her constant stares but he did not comment on it.

However, Leah's glances turned to stares as Lucius washed his hands in the kitchen sink. Non of the kitchen staff were there leaving just the both of them in kitchen.

"If you keep staring at me like that, I might start to think that your staring to like me," Lucius said as he wiped his hands with a towel.

Leah rolled her eyes at him. "I'm just wondering why you always try to annoy me and then the next minute your being nice and normal,"

She just couldn't fathom the man's behavior. He was just like the weather, sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, and then sometimes just never being constant. Today she was very sure he was only trying to rile her up for no reason at all. Maybe he was finding it entering but she certainly didn't.

"Normal," Lucius muttered flatly to himself, staring at Leah without offering a response. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke up. "It's because of the way you react, Leah," Lucius explained.

Leah furrowed her brows as she looked at him quizzically. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"When I tease other women, they usually try to act coy around me, which I find incredibly boring," Lucius leaned back, his eyes fixed on Leah. "But you, you always react differently. It's refreshing," he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

A small smile played at the corners of his lips as he continued, "Whenever I try to tease you, you get all fired up. The way your heart beats faster and your blood pumps harder is simply exhilarating. It's like playing with a wild cat."

Leah was speechless as she stared at him before she finally spoke. "Well... I want you to stop teasing me," Leah said in a very calm voice. "Please," she added.

"Okay," Lucius replied immediately. Leah gave him a pleading look to make sure he understood that she was being serious.

"I promise that I won't tease you again," he added, his words sounding sincere.

'unless necessary.' A small smirk played at the corners of his lips as he thought to himself.

Leah exhaled and nodded.

"I was wondering if I could use your phone to make a call," she asked.

"Sure, of course." Lucius dipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved his phone. After unlocking it, he handed it to Leah who happily collected it.

"Thanks," Leah said as she began tapping the phone screen with her left hand, while resting the other hand on the table she leaned on.

Leah was not left-handed but she was used to operating phones with her left hand. It was something she had just develop a few years ago.

While she was still typing the number on the phone, she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her right wrist. She hissed and brought up her hand to inspect her wrist, discovering a small cut.

"Are you okay?" Lucius moved closer to her to examine her wrist.

"I'm fine. I think something sharp from this table could have cut me," Leah said as she dropped the phone on the table and moved away from it to identify what cut her.

However, she found nothing, as the surface of the table was slick and clean.

"Must have been the edge of the table," Lucius said. "Let me see." He held her wrist and brought it closer to his face to examine the bleeding cut on her wrist.

Without warning, Lucius latched his mouth onto the wound, licking and sucking on the cut. Leah's eyes widened at what he was doing, and she attempted to pull her hand away from his grasp, but he adamantly refused to let go, his grip only tightening until he finished what he was doing.

"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, pulling her wrist to her chest protectively as soon as he released her hand.

"I was healing you," Lucius replied flatly. "My saliva possesses a few healing properties."

Leah glanced at her wrist and saw that the cut had already started healing.

"Um... Thank you," Leah was stunned, she knew a few things about Vampires but she never knew that their saliva could heal.

Although she had some prior knowledge about vampires, she had never heard of this before. Lucius was about to explain further, but then his expression abruptly changed, as if he were intently listening to something. Leah observed the shift in his demeanor and scanned the kitchen, wondering what had caught his attention.

"I need to attend to an urgent matter," Lucius said abruptly, as soon as he seemed to snap out of his trance. He turned to Lolly, who had just entered the kitchen less than a second ago, and instructed her to take Leah to her room before leaving immediately.

Although Leah was curious about what had caused Lucius's sudden change of plans, she didn't want to pry. She picked up the phone that she had dropped on the table before following Lolly to her room.