Author's Note:
Hello again, everyone! As you can see, I update very fast. Sometimes. The truth is, I already had the first ten or so chapters typed up before I decided to post this story. So I will probably update quite a few chapters in the next few hours. Please enjoy and do not forget to review for me. Please and thank you! As always, I do not own the Lords of the Underworld series, or any of it characters. I only own my dear, sassy and sarcastic OC, Isolde.
Chapter 2 Goodbye Pan, Hello Fire
SHE PROBABLY SHOULD have been more freaked out by this whole situation but Isolde couldn't bring herself to really freak out about how she came to be in her favorite book. Part of it was because she didn't want to scrape up the energy to do so and part of it was because she was actually enjoying this.
No instead she was freaking out because she actually got her wish. Though now that she thought about it, there were a lot of down sides to this. For one, she would now find herself in the middle of a war with the Hunters, in which she could and would get hurt. For two she had to arrive before Ashlyn which put her in the presence of a constantly cranky Maddox. And for three, she knew she couldn't share with them what she knew. That would change the whole line of the book series.
Isolde would rather keep her information to herself and follow the series, which meant she would know what was going to happen and when, rather then deviate from the set course into unknown territory where she could possibly be killed.
But she knew that freaking out about the whole thing would do her no good. So she started by exploring the room she had been left in. It was a simple room with bare wall painted an off-white, beige carpeted floors, a simple four poster, queen size bed, a vanity, a table with two chairs, an attached bathroom, and an empty closet. The only part of the room she liked was the window seat in front of a bay window.
When Paris brought her a couple of his romance novels and food, Isolde ignored the food and sat in the window seat to read. She was still there, reading through her third book when Lucien stepped into the room with another tray of food and a bag in his hand, seven hours later.
The scarred man looked at the untouched food on the table before focusing his attention on the young woman in the window seat, flipping a page in her book.
"You did not eat." he stated.
"Not hungry." was her simple reply. "Did you know that these books of your friend's are extremely detailed? I should have suspected so, giving his demon."
Lucien didn't look convinced, but Isolde didn't insist. She simply flipped another page in the book and continued reading. Lucien sat the new tray of food on the table. For all he knew, her stomach could be lagging behind and she honestly wasn't hungry. Her appetite would catch up with her sooner or later. Instead of pressing the issue, he walked over to the bed, sitting the bag on the mattress, finally catching Isolde's attention and drawing it away from the book in her hand.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Clothes for you. You cannot live in our clothes. They are too big. Torin picked them out and Paris picked them up." Lucien told her.
"Wouldn't have it if you'd let me leave." she muttered.
Lucien shot her a look that said, plain and clear, that he wasn't going to have this conversation with her...again.
Marking her place in the book, she sat it aside and climbed out of the window seat. Without any fear of the scarred warrior, she approached the bed and opened the bag. She pulled out each piece of clothing.
An emerald green halter style top with a black, silk ribbon empire waist paired with a black school girl type skirt that would just hit her thighs. Stockings that matched the top in color had ribbon bows of black silk at the top from which hung more ribbons and butterfly charms. Paired with it all were a pair of knee high boots that laced up the sides with more of those black silk ribbons. Isolde pulled out a pair of a pale vermilion red, lace underwear with a matching, strapless bra and several hair ribbons and other things to be used for pulling her hair back or decorating it. There was another three more pairs of biker mitts, these in green, blue, and red, and even a few bracelets and sets of earrings.
Isolde looked it all over before carefully packing it all back into the bag. She didn't say a word until she had it all back in the bag.
"I can't accept this."
Lucien raised an eyebrow at her as she set the bag at the foot of the bed, in front of him.
"It was bought for you." he told her.
"Exactly. Don't waste your money on me. I'm not a charity case." Isolde told him before retreating back to her seat at the window. "I know you and your friends put money into the community here, but I don't want anyone wasting a single bit of their money on me."
Isolde sat down on the window seat and swung her legs back up, reaching for the book she had sat down.
"Is there something wrong with the clothes?" Lucien asked, watching her with those mismatched eyes.
Isolde shook her head, but didn't look up at him.
"There's nothing wrong with them. I just won't accept them. I take care of myself. I have to."
That was twice she had said that and Lucien didn't fail to notice neither. Isolde stubbornly refused to discuss it or say anymore. She thanked him for the thought, but returned to the book in her hands. Lucien stared at her for a moment before nodding. He wouldn't take the clothes back. She would need to change soon enough. So he left the clothes sitting on the bed.
"Eat." he told her as he left the room.
Isolde looked up as the door closed and the lock tumbled into place. Her eyes focused in on the bag. She couldn't and wouldn't accept it. Lucien and his friends were too giving and kind, no matter how they acted, but Isolde couldn't accept there kindness. She didn't know how. She had had to take care of herself for far too long. Accepting someone else help was out of the question. She would never again be someone's else burden.
Never again.
-0-0-0-0-
LUCIEN WAS RUBBING his temples when he entered the entertainment room where the others were gathered. Aeron and Maddox were playing pool, Paris was watching another of his flesh movies, Reyes was working over a punching bag, and Torin was messing with a computer monitor in the corner. Paris looked up when Lucien sank into one of the armchairs.
"How did she like the clothes?" Paris asked.
"She would not accept them." Lucien replied.
All five of his friends looked up, Paris actually hitting pause on the movie so he could focus his attention on Lucien.
"Why?" Paris asked.
"She said she is not a charity case and cannot accept them. That she will take care of herself because she has to and we are not to waste our money on her." Lucien said, repeating the reasons the girl had given him.
"Charity case? She sees it as being treated like a charity case?" Torin asked.
"I believe it might be that she has had to take care of herself for so long that she does not know how to accept a gift when presented with one. She does not wish to be another's burden." Lucien replied. "She had also not touched a single bit of the food Paris took her hours ago."
"If she does not want the clothes or the food, that is her choice." Aeron said.
"If she dies of her own accord, it might be easier for us. We cannot let her go. She knows too much." Reyes said, landing a few more solid punches in the punching bag.
"Would your conscious be clean if she did, my friend?" Lucien asked.
Reyes paused in mid swing, thinking that over before gritting out a rough, "No" and landing another, harder punch to the bag.
"I couldn't find anything about her on the internet either. No matter where I looked, I couldn't find a thing." Torin added.
So far they new next to nothing about the girl. Either she had not given them her real name or she really wasn't human. In which case getting more information on her would be even harder. And she wasn't sharing.
" I am not too surprised. I do not know how it is for the rest of you, though, but my demon actually seem intrigued with her." Lucien said.
"Mine was banging at the back of my head the whole time, trying to get far away from her. Violence is not sure how to face her." Maddox replied.
"Pain is the same way. He keeps repeating "Too much pain", though I do not see how that is possible." Reyes said.
"Wrath, for once, was not showing me her sins. It was as if the girl has no sins. All he could say was, "She knows". Knows what?" Aeron asked.
"Mine said something along the same thing." Lucien told Aeron.
"Mine could not decide if it wanted to touch her or wanted as far away from her as it could get. It kept bouncing back and forth between the two." Torin pipped in.
"Sex is hesitant to touch her. Almost as if he can't decide on rather or not it would be a good idea. He, of course, still wants her." Paris added in.
"Our demons are reacting unusually to her, we have no idea how she knows what she knows, and she knows a fair amount about our past, our present, and, according to her, our futures. We cannot let her go and depending on what she does know, we cannot let her die." Lucien said, rubbing at his temples again.
"Are you suggesting we force feed her?" Aeron asked.
"If need be." Lucien agreed.
"That will go over wonderfully with her, I'm sure." Paris retorted, making Lucien throw him a look.
Lucien glanced up at the clock on the wall then.
"Maddox." he said gently.
"I know." Maddox replied, his teeth gritted together.
It was closing in on eleven and within the next half hour, he would start to feel the pains that led up to his death curse.
"She knows about Maddox's death curse, this Isolde, but I wonder how she will take hearing it for herself." Paris wondered.
All five of his friends tensed up. None of them had thought about that. Isolde would hear Maddox's screams even from her room. Isolde acted mature and beyond her age, but even she would not be able to hear the screams and be unfazed by it.
"I will check on her afterward." Lucien said.
His friends nodded. Isolde didn't seem like the type to need being babied, but it hurt even them to hear the screams. Then again Maddox was their friend. They would just have to wait to see how she reacted. They would find out in the next two hours.
-0-0-0-0-
THE LIGHTS WERE off when Lucien opened Isolde's door. Despite that, he could make out the form of Isolde on the bed. She was sitting up, so Lucien reached out and flipped on the lights. The girl was sitting on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her thighs, and her chin resting on her knees. She blinked a few times when the lights came on but didn't move from her position. Those oddly colored eyes came up to look at Lucien, who had stopped in the doorway, before going back to looking at her bare feet.
"You know, knowing about the curse and hearing it for myself are two completely different things. I think I finally understand how difficult it must be for you and Reyes to have to do that to Maddox." she said softly, her voice carrying a hint of true sympathy.
There were no hints of fear or anything besides the sympathy, really. It wasn't the reaction that Lucien had expected. His eyes though snagged on the table. The food was still untouched and the bag of clothes sat beside the trays of food, all untouched. Lucien closed the door before claiming one of the two chairs at the table to sit in.
"You still have not eaten." he pointed out.
"I'm still not hungry." she replied.
"Even if you are not hungry, you must eat."
Isolde shook her head before uncurling herself and easing herself off the bed. She walked over to the table, stopping on the opposite side of the table from him.
"Alright, let me put it this way. See this?" Isolde asked, pointing to the herbal bread that had been used on both of the sandwiches that had been brought to her.
"This is rosemary." she added.
"I see." Lucien said.
"I'm allergic to rosemary. Unless you want to try to handle my throat swelling close, I won't be eating it." she told him.
Well that explained that. It hadn't been that she didn't want to eat, she couldn't eat it. At least now he knew what they needed to change to get her to eat. With that explained, Isolde retreated to the bed once more, perching on the edge of the mattress.
"You and your friends should consider learning to make more then just sandwiches." she added.
Lucien didn't bother pointing out that they were six men who pretty much did for themselves. Quick to make sandwiches and other things like that was about all they ate. Food was food.
"Was there something you wanted, Lucien?"
Lucien looked up at Isolde who was watching him with those knowing eyes. He was surprised to find that sky blue was bleeding into the vermilion, little bits of it snaking across the vermilion to the pupils. The knowledge in that gaze was enough to rock a man's soul. Just what the burden of that knowledge was, he didn't want to know.
"No." he told her.
He wouldn't tell her that he had come to check on her. To see how she had handled hearing the screams of Maddox's death curse. Aside from the sympathy towards him and his friends, he hadn't seen any other affects from it. As he looked at her concern bled into her eyes.
"Lucien, would it make you feel better if I told you that Maddox will not always suffer like this? That soon you and Reyes will be freed as well?" she asked.
Lucien shifted in his seat, sitting forward at this. He eyed her intently. She knew something. But from her words he couldn't tell if this meant that Maddox would be freed or that Maddox would die. For good.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
A sad look cross her face, her eyes apologizing before the words ever left her mouth.
"Sadly I can't tell you anymore then this. I'm sorry. If I were to tell you anymore it would change the line of events. Everything must stay as it is for the final outcome to come true. An outcome that needs to come true." she told him.
She wouldn't tell him more. No matter what he did, she wouldn't. She believed too heavily in the future she knew and would do nothing to change it. Whether that was a future in his and his friends' favor was yet to be seen.
"At least tell me, will Maddox live?" Lucien asked.
"Everything lives, even after death, Lucien. Nothing of the spirit truly dies." she replied.
That didn't tell him anything.
"Will he live here. With us?" he asked.
"He will live. But not without heartache first. You will see. Soon." she told him.
"What do you mean?" Lucien asked.
Isolde heaved a sigh, her eyes turning away from him to fix somewhere in the distance, her eyes turning distant in their sadness.
"Everything comes at a price, Lucien. Sacrifice in its greatest form. Nothing in this world if free. To get, you have to be willing to give a lot first. Its part of the reason I won't take. What I might have to give in return could be far greater then I could offer." she said softly.
The sadness in her...Lucien had seen few others with that kind of sadness. It suggested that at one time she had had all the world could offer her and she had had to give it up in favor of something else. What that was, was a mystery to him and he doubted she would be willing to tell him.
"For his freedom, Maddox will pay a price. He will lose what he loves the most. And you will play a part in it." she told him.
"Are you saying I will die?" he asked.
Isolde shook her head.
"Oh no. You will have a price to pay yourself, but that will be afterward. You will see." she told him.
Isolde eased herself further up on the bed, leaning back into the pillows. She crossed her arms over her middle, watching him.
"Accepting these clothes will not require a price in return. If anything it would be our price for keeping you here." Lucien told her.
Isolde shook her head, a grin on her face.
"Are you trying to turn my words against me?" she asked, humor lacing her words.
"If it will get you into proper clothes and out of Reyes' shirt, then I will." Lucien replied.
Isolde pulled at the front of the shirt, looking down at it.
"Even if I did, I wouldn't give this back. It makes a good night shirt." she told him.
Lucien shook his head. She wasn't going to give in easily. It looked like Reyes wasn't going to get his shirt back anytime soon. If ever.
"Look Lucien, I have a reason for the things I do. If I start accepting things from anyone, then I'm nothing more then a burden or a leech. I won't be that way. And I'm horribly stubborn. Save yourself the time." she told him.
Meaning she wouldn't accept anything from them. She would rather waste away into nothing, then accept anything and be a burden to others. Lucien heaved a sigh. She was going to go down swinging in this argument.
"You are going to force us to put you in those clothes forcibly, are you not?" he asked, rubbing at his temples.
"Only if you can catch me."
Lucien looked up at Isolde, who gave him a wide grin in reply.
"I can guarantee you, it would take more then two of you to do it too. And I would go down, kicking and clawing for all I'm worth. I might even throw in a few low blows." she added.
Another one of those wide grins spread across her face. He could see the promise in those two toned eyes that if they did, in fact, try to forcibly put her in the clothes, she was going to make sure their balls were relocated.
"I will keep that in mind." Lucien said as he got to his feet.
"Please do."
Lucien gathered up the food trays, leaving the bag of clothes behind, and moved to leave the room.
"Lucien."
Lucien turned to look at Isolde. The grin was gone from her face as she looked at him.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" Lucien asked.
"That you have to do what you have to do. No one should be forced to do something like that to one of their best friends. For that, I'm sorry."
Lucien stared at Isolde for a moment before nodding. There wasn't really anything he could say to her. The sympathy, concern, and kindness were genuine. He could see it in her eyes. But if she was right, then soon it would be all over and Maddox would be free.
"Good night, Lucien."
"Good night, Isolde. We will discuss the clothes again." he told her.
"I have no doubt."
With that, Lucien left Isolde to get some sleep, closing and locking the door behind him. He would have to share with the others what she had told him about Maddox's curse. He just hoped the price she said he would have to pay, wouldn't be so great of one.
END