Chapter 2 – Falling from the Edge

"Jocelyn" gasped Luke as he jolted out of sleep.

His breathing was racing out of control and he opened his eyes expecting to see darkness and oblivion. Instead the sight confronting him immediately stilled his breath and caused his heart to contract with excruciating pleasure.

Jocelyn's sleeping head was only inches away from his eyes and he couldn't help himself from gazing at her beautiful face. She looked younger in her sleep with the troubles and stress of real-life removed and softening her features so that Luke suddenly felt he was holding the teenage Jocelyn of his tormented dreams in his arms.

Holding Jocelyn. This thought suddenly tore Luke's eyes away from her exquisite slumbering face and he was able to see something even stranger. He was lying on his side facing Jocelyn and his arm was draped almost possessively around her chest and gently holding her against him. Luke's confused brain then clocked Jocelyn's hands on his arm gently clinging as if to keep him there and also noticed the way her left foot had casually twined itself in between his ankles.

Luke's sleep addled brain tried to cast itself back and try and figure what Jocelyn was even doing in his room let alone how they had ended up entangled in this intimate albeit delicious way on the bed. What happened? Oh yes….I told her I loved her. Luke remembered finally confessing to Jocelyn that he had always loved her and walked away when he saw how he had clearly wreaked everything. She didn't feel the same way, how could she? Now she was worried they could never go back to being just friends and she had run after him but right then for what must have been the one and only time in his life – he didn't want to see Jocelyn. He'd argued trying to get away from her and feigned exhaustion hoping that would get rid of her. He smiled as he remembered his stubborn Jocelyn had doggedly followed him all the way to Amatis' house and even up to his room refusing to leave until they had "talked this over". He'd told her he was going to sleep so good luck with that, collapsed on the bed…..and then he couldn't remember anything else.

Luke gazed once again at Jocelyn's face his eyes were always drawn back to it. It was a lethal addiction he had never been able to beat. He'd planned on pretending to sleep so as to annoy Jocelyn and force her to leave but he'd not counted on the battle and everything else actually hitting him like a brick wall as soon as his head hit the pillow. He'd clearly fallen asleep for real…and Jocelyn must have stayed too.

The woman was insufferably stubborn thought Luke. She always had been and once her mind was set on something nothing could force her off the tracks. It was one of the traits he loved must about her he thought as he very gently stroked her cheek.

He looked down at their entwined bodies and thought reluctantly that he should move away. His unconscious mind had latched onto her like a drowning man but now he was awake he couldn't take advantage of her. And yet.

And yet when am I ever going to be able to hold her like this again? Not in this lifetime that's for sure. He made the mistake of breathing in too sharply and he caught her scent. She smelled of jasmine, acrylic paint and sunshine (or at least what Luke imagined sunshine to smell like) and overall distinctly Jocelyn. Luke found himself burrowing into Jocelyn's neck to breath in more of her intoxicating scent. It wasn't until he felt Jocelyn shift ever so slightly into him and heard a contented sigh escape her lips that he was brought back to his senses. He snapped his head up and made to gently disentangle himself from Jocelyn but found that every time he tried to move away she seem to clutch him tighter. It was as if she needed to keep him close and this was when Luke noticed that she was no longer sleeping peacefully. The contented sighs had changed to desperate mewling and her head was thrashing from side to side. She was falling from a peaceful sleep to some restless abyss of her own making so Luke did what was only natural to him. He held her and tried to soothe her and take the pain away even though she was always so unreachable.

When had it all gone wrong? When did the poison start seeping into her love and twist it into something dark and horrifying. Jocelyn was drifting through her memories trying to pinpoint when she had first suspected Valentine's darker nature and why she hadn't acted sooner. Even in this dreamlike state she could feel herself bowing her head in shame because she already knew the answer…much much sooner than she had ever admitted even to herself.

Her beautiful angel, his eyes so earnest and entreating as he hands her another potion to help with the pregnancy. Even as she drinks the thick and revolting solution that makes her want to gag she stares into those eyes with love. She slips into a drug like sleep but still sees those gorgeous eyes staring at her and despite the pain and the fear the one remaining thought pulses through her being. I love him, I love him…I….oh merciful angel help me.

The blackout has lasted longer than usual. It is still dark outside but something inside her tells her that many hours have passed and loud voices arguing outside finally drag her into the here and now. She drags herself wearily up off the floor and walks to the back door of their little cottage in the forest surrounding Alicante and Valentine's impressive figure is framed in the doorway. He is blocking the outside world and Jocelyn cannot see past and even when she comes up behind him and places a gentle hand on his back in order that he might move aside he stands immovable.

"Stay inside Jocelyn, this does not concern you" he snarls in a voice she never thought to hear from him.

"What is it let me see?" she says still trying to look past.

"STAY INSIDE" He catches her off guard as he roughly pushes her away and she stumbles and falls heavily to the ground. She lands on her side and instinctively cradles her growing stomach praying the child is unharmed.

Valentine turns and looks momentarily alarmed. He had not meant to harm her or the child only to keep her from what was stalking their door.

"JOCELYN…Valentine what have you done!" cries a voice from outside. A voice laced with despair and fear. A voice that rips through her like a knife.

"Lucien?" she gasps in disbelief. She struggles to her feet and Valentine is beside her trying to help her.

"Jocelyn, my love, forgive me. I did not mean.."

"Get off me" she shrugs him away and makes for the door. "It's Lucien he sounds hurt why won't you let him in?"

"Jocelyn STOP – he's not our Lucien anymore" Valentine grabs her upper arms as she reaches the door.

"What do you mean?"

And then she sees him. Lucien, the one steady and fixed constant in her life. The man she could always turn to. Her best friend in all the world and he looked utterly lost. Her heart contracted in pain as she saw him standing there alone and terrified.

"Lucien, what's wrong?"

"He's been bitten by a werewolf" Valentine spat out.

"Oh my God" she breathes "Lucien…"

"Valentine, please you have to help me. I have nowhere else to go. My family has cast me out."

Valentine throws out a sliver dagger that skids across the ground and rests in front of the broken Lucien. As he stares down sneeringly at the sight he spits out

"You should do the decent thing….downworlder!"

With these words he turns and tries to push Jocelyn back into the house and block out the abominable sight. But Jocelyn saw. Jocelyn clawed at her husband to try and open the closing door but he is too strong. The door isn't shutting fast enough though as the receding image burns itself into Jocelyn's core. Those grey eyes that had always held such warmth and comfort for her had become bright beacons of pain and despair. The broken and crumpled form of her best friend in a moment of pure desolation was an image that she knew had penetrated her soul and would haunt her forever. She had to get to him.

"LET ME GO! LUCIEN! LUCIEN!"

Then the blackness returns with a jarring crack but not the blissful oblivion like blackness of sleep. This was a pulsing and suffocating blackness pressing down on her which she is all too aware of. Jocelyn was terrified and thought she would be lost in it forever if she didn't surface. She had to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up…WAKE UP JOCELYN!