Thank you so much to all who are reading, following and reviewing this story! I hope you like this chapter. :)
More notes at the end...
Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.
Chapter 12 - Lycan, Hybrid, and The Death of Selene
The Present
Half a fortnight has passed since Michael arrived at the Eastern Coven. There were so many adjustments made in that span of time. He was reintroduced to everyone in the castle as Eve's father and Selene's…Well, there would be no need of any explanation on that matter. The other Sundal soldiers who were with Michael were given rooms of their own, accommodations they were loathed to take and which the vampires were just as loathed to provide. There was more outward respect all around but there was simmering tension underneath as well. It has long been established – by Selene, with grudging approval by the Council – that there will be no need of bloodshed against the Sundal soldiers – human and Lycan – when it can be avoided at all costs. But it would be the very first occurrence that the two, no, three, species were going to live under one roof.
Only Varga found this highly amusing. He tells this to a very stressed out sovereign.
"Varga. Just…no. Not today, please."
She was currently sat at the center of a long table that was on a raised platform at the far end of the room. It was used for the Elders and Council members when dining. From this view, she can see the entire hall. Round, glass tables were all around the place which was glittered with glamour only a vampire-hosted party can afford to showcase. Blood was poured in wine glasses, and raw meat – from fresh hunts earlier in the twilight – was being served all around.
On her left, sat Varga, who was dutifully filling her glass with red wine – not blood. She was the only one who can drink alcohol for as much as she likes and she'd be foolish not to relish this one sweet pleasure.
On her right sat David, his plate nor glass untouched.
She recalls their recent encounter – much more civil and friendly – and how she had apologized. She had been confused and angry and feeling so much–
"I understand." David had cut off her onslaught of confessions he knew she hated to disclose.
You always understand, Selene had wished to say back. Never once did he go against anything she chose to do or not do.
Except for the one time you did, the one time it mattered so much, and I ignored you.
She turned to him beside her now. "Eat, David."
He looks at her, surprised she was talking to him again. "Speak for yourself," he says a while later, mouth trying to quirk into a small and awkward smile.
He's even worse at this than me.
Selene smiles back awkwardly, then turns her gaze toward the table where Michael and Eve were sat, in the company of Michael's Sundal…friends.
Eve was chatting animatedly with the only woman in the group and Michael was staring at them with a smile on his face. If the woman (Katie. This is Katie, Selene. Michael says, smiling fondly at the female soldier,) didn't have striking red hair, all three of them together would look so much more like a family than she was with Michael and Eve.
Selene takes a long sip of her wine and looks down on her plate. She wasn't jealous, or so she denies. She was…tired.
She has just about had enough of the drama of Michael's return. She had missed him of course, and watching him with Eve – finally, finally – was nothing short of wonderful. Her daughter more than deserves to have the family she had longed to have all her young life. And Michael coming back to her, to them, completed that dream at last.
But it had also started a nightmare.
Selene stands up and although everyone was preoccupied with eating, drinking, and having a good time, they still took notice of their stunning queen, clad in a black, high slit dress, which hugged her figure and showed off her pale, smooth legs when she walked. She was a vision of incomparable beauty and elegance and she doesn't even know it.
The most beautiful being in the room wordlessly leaves the dining hall.
Varga follows her but only to say: "You know it's rude not to say goodbye."
Selene sighs as she turns back to him and to the whole room at large. They were quiet now, awaiting her speak.
"I hope you're all having a lovely evening. I regret to leave this early, but I…" She trails off for a second as she locks eyes with Michael. "I'm not feeling well."
And I wouldn't mind you making me feel better.
"Goodnight. I'll see you all tomorrow," she says to everyone, ending her short speech, and leaves with haste. Varga doesn't follow after her this time.
But Michael does.
He catches up with her in the middle of the dark corridor just outside the dining hall.
He grabs one uncovered arm gently. "Hey."
She turns to face him but doesn't smile nor do anything with her face for that matter. "Hey."
"Are you okay?" He says with a worried expression and doesn't even seem fazed by the fact that he was the only one allowed to gaze at her exposed cleavage – and at such close distance – without enduring a backhand slap on the face. He doesn't even look at anywhere below her head. He was genuinely concerned about her and she found that weirdly even sexier than the prospect of his wandering eyes caressing her body.
"Yeah. Just a bit…fuzzy." She looks down and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "Must be the wine."
"Oh. Right. Do you want me to…Uhm," Michael splutters, scratching the back of his short hair but still doesn't stare down at her barely clothed chest. "I could...keep you...company, you know, when you're…resting."
Wow. He's even worse than David.
Instead of doing an eye roll, Selene closes her eyes and says coolly. "I'm sure you'd be good company but...I'm not sure I will be, since, you know…" She feels her cheeks burning a little – it's the alcohol – and she realizes she was sounding just as stupid as he was right now. "I'd be in bed," Such profound and astute knowledge, Selene. "…resting."
They looked at each other with dazed expressions.
Finally, Michael looks down abruptly, the briefest of stolen glances, but she caught the movement of his eyes anyway. Selene mentally bites down the sudden double urge to shake him by the shoulders and scream, this is all yours! I have never been anything but yours, and also desiring nothing more than for the ground to open up, and consume her as well as her ludicrous thoughts just about this instant.
Michael visibly swallows before turning away from her and puts his hands inside the pocket of his formal trousers. "Alright. I'll just…"
Then, he turns back, leans forward, and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek.
She was taken aback with this and grabs the front of his dress shirt when he pulls away after the kiss – trying to balance herself.
Now really embarrassed for prolonging his intended short invasion of her personal space, Selene kisses one of his cheeks too and lets him go just as quickly as well.
She then clears her throat as she looks down determinedly at the floor. "Goodnight, Michael," she mumbles and leaves him in the dark corridor.
"Feel better soon," he hurriedly adds.
Well, good luck about that.
"Thank you," Selene shouts back, not even glancing over her shoulder.
Selene moves to lie on her back on her bed, now fully naked but alone. She was finally alone again. And she was good with it. The quiet made her think.
He came out of nowhere.
And just now... Why just now? After all these years, he was alive and yet…
Who are you, Michael? What have they done to you?
Why did they let you go?
She forces her eyes shut, willing to suppress the inevitable pain of a memory.
"What if they have Michael?"
They both stop and gaze at each other meaningfully. David's eyes were challenging. Hers felt so heavy from the pool of tears that threatened to fall. She stops them from doing so. She will not break down. She was tired of breaking down.
"Michael is dead."
She hears her own words but does not listen. Not with her heart, she doesn't. It was as stubborn as it was unfeeling. It cannot and will not take the truth, will never take any reality without Michael in it. But David doesn't need to know that.
And so she tells him what he needs to know.
The present Selene opens her eyes, then lies on her left side and lets the tears go this time. She cries silently, gripping the pillow on her head.
David was right.
I should have come after you, Michael. I'm so sorry.
She buries her face in the same pillow that welcomed her tears. One of her hands gently touches the empty space beside her. The space where Michael should be.
Her body welcomed the cold that accompanied her in sleep.
Earlier, before the feast
"I'll have Varga prepare you a chamber of your own later," Selene says while she pulls her hair up into a ponytail, its white ends shining in the light, a stark contrast to the low cut dress she was wearing.
Michael stood near the doorway, watching her prepare for dinner.
She doesn't need to look at him to gauge how he had taken that statement from her. It came out exactly as she had hoped it would. She needed time away. Away from him…from everything. At least for now.
"Oh. Well…Okay." He responds a little longer and his voice sounded hurt and...
She tries to explain but then –
Michael laughs.
She turns to him quickly, surprised.
"What did he tell you?"
Confused, Selene could only frown at him.
"David." Michael didn't hide the spite from the way he says his name. "You trust him more than me." He says it like an accusation.
Well, that's just not fair.
"I don't know you!" Selene lets out in desperation. She sees him taking a step back. Hastily rectifying the implication of her outburst, she continues more calmly, "And you don't know me, Michael."
She puts down the comb on the dress table and walks over to where he was.
He accepts both of her outstretched hands in his, squeezing them gently as he pulls her closer. He gazes into her eyes she guesses were now turning back into their brown orbs.
"We're acting out of…familiarity." She whispers to his face. "I'm clinging to a past that's long been gone, and you...I don't even know what you–"
"Home," Michael says simply.
"What?"
"Every time I look at you, I–When I first saw you…I felt like coming home."
Selene was quiet for a while. How could she respond to that? How does one answer to that?
She lowers her head and closes her eyes. A moment later she feels Michael's lips gently touch her forehead. He then lets go of her hands and circles his arms around her, enveloping her in a loose embrace.
Her arms crawl their way up to his back, tightening their hold on each other. She buries her face in between his neck and shoulder, once more forgetting that she was supposed to be cold, rational, and resisting the warmth of his Lycan blood.
Right then she knew what her answer should be.
She moves away from him, only so she could meet his eyes again. "Do you even have the faintest idea who I am?"
The Present
Michael watches Selene leave for the second time that night and he rubs his hands on his face then runs it through his hair.
Should I go after her?
He moves to do so then stops again.
Don't be stupid, Michael. She just downright let you down easy. Take the hint.
Michael sighs and sits down on the cold castle floor and thinks back to what had transpired between them earlier.
"I made you who you are. I had no choice, Michael. I–"
"Wait." He interrupts her, feeling more confused by the second. "What are you talking about?"
"You're not just a Lycan," Selene says, almost pleading, and grabs one of his hands and puts it on her thinly covered chest. Her heartbeat heats his palm. Michael reminds himself to breathe.
"Do you feel that?" She says softly, almost intimately.
"I–"
The hand not holding his reaches forward and rests on his own heart. "Our heartbeats are in sync. My blood is in yours just as much as yours is inside me." She was saying all of this to him as if she was stating a fact. "Do you understand, Michael?"
He just looked at her then, so caught up in her…nearness, her presence mere inches from him. Their heartbeats beating in…They weren't–
"No. I don't understand."
Her face falls but she recovers all too soon, and when she does, she moves away from him a little and closes her eyes. She was like this for a while, frowning one second then again in another, sorting out things behind the back of her eyelids…
Then, she opens them again. They were now white instead of brown or blue.
Michael takes a step back, surprised. She moves forward at the same time, never allowing him room to breathe air she wasn't taking in herself. He felt trapped and saved at the same time.
Without dropping her gaze on him, she raises an arm toward her face and…She bites on her wrist.
Michael smells it even before seeing it flow endlessly down her arm and into the floor. Nostrils flaring and jaw tightening, he gulps down the rush of lust he suddenly felt. And it wasn't because of Selene barely wearing anything in front of him.
He understands then what she was trying to do.
"No." He says firmly, trying to move away again from her.
She grabs him with one hand, extending the other – her wounded wrist – to him. "Drink, Michael." Her mouth was full of the red, wet sweetness of her.
"No, I won't." He says through gritted teeth this time. "I don't want to – to take from you."
Selene stops her assault then, softening. She reaches out to caress his cheek. "You won't hurt me. I promise." Her assuring words do not soothe him. He was very much aware of his savagery when he fed and he will not lose control, not with her. He…cared so much to hurt her that way.
And yet he can't help his mouth watering, his resolve weakening, as she was so much closer now.
No, his mind rebels still. If you submit to this, Michael, you will bleed her dry.
Michael closes his eyes, physically struggling not to grab her and devour her neck instead of only her wrist.
A moment later he feels the cool mouth of Selene on his, and the blood that tainted it.
His head throbbed from the sudden flash of memory from Selene's blood-soaked kiss.
He doesn't open his eyes but in front of him now, there was no Selene, nor was the dark, fire-lit chamber of hers where they stood together just seconds ago. No, in front of him was a…creature.
It was human in essence but its dark, rippling flesh glowed a metallic sheen, a look closely resembling a sculpted figure made by artists of the past. But this one was alive. And he was neither vampire nor lycan.
There were two thoughts ringing in his head, one of shock, and one of awe. Michael believes Selene thought the latter, as he was seeing all of this through her eyes.
It took Michael a moment to realize he was looking at his own self in the form of the hybrid.
He wills himself back to the present. Staggering down into the floor, he looks down at himself. Selene's blood dripped from his mouth down to his white shirt. "Shit."
Michael sees Selene bending down to him, touching him gently on one arm. The opened slit on her wrist has long been healed now but as his eyes look up to her face, he was horrified to see her neck full of blood.
He had bitten her.
"Selene. I'm so sorry–"
"Sshh. It's okay." She says with a weak smile, as she reaches out both hands to the buttons of his blood-splattered shirt. "You need to change. We're going to be late."
After undoing his upper garment, she stands up and walks over to her wardrobe. She shrugs off her dress and it pools easily down the floor.
Michael peels his eyes away from the sight and tries to calm himself down.
I'm a hybrid.
I'm a hybrid just like Eve.
The Present – At the Sundals' Headquarters
Fawkes has seriously fucked up.
No, wait.
Not yet.
But he will. Michael was there in the coven now, along with the others, he was sure of it.
If everything goes to plan, the lycan will return to them…changed.
Selene will indisputably feed him her own blood, sooner or later. She had a wise mind and a logical approach to things, but her heart…Oh her heart, it will give in.
She will turn him back into a hybrid, reconciling once again his lycan blood with that of her vampire's.
And then...
Fawkes frowns, as he thinks of another possible twist happening.
What if Selene loses control and just forgets everything about being a passive participant of the war, and barges into their camp and slaughters them all, for turning her beloved lover into what he was now?
No. That won't happen.
Their daughter will stop her from doing exactly that.
The commander smiles with his teeth bared widely. Now, if Smith does her part well…
He'd have both father and child here long before Selene could raise an abled army to save them.
The vampire Elder will die. All of them.
And human and lycan will conquer this world once again.
The Present
When Selene wakes up, she doesn't feel the cold anymore. Strong arms were wrapped around her blanket-covered body. Someone's heat from behind was warming her up into consciousness.
She smells him even before seeing his face.
She turns around the makeshift cocoon he has nestled her in overnight and finds herself – yet again – staring at a sleeping Michael.
They were both condensed on one side of the bed – Selene's preferred side – with the other wide open and very much unoccupied.
Oh, you idiot.
He was still in his formal wear, with only the first two of the top buttons of his dress shirt undone. Selene reaches out one hand to playfully stroke his chest hair that peeked through his clothing. She kisses the cleft of his stubbled chin.
You're going to be the death of me, Michael Corvin.
Spring and Guest: When I wrote that scene, I was thinking of Selene losing control because she has long suppressed any outburst she should have. For three years she was this restrained time bomb who operated on her responsibility as a sovereign and on her love for her daughter. It's been so long she had been this angered, and it was Michael who was hurt – there was no stopping her in this regard. I doubt even herself could stop her.
And she also knows no matter how much she hurts David, he won't die. Not by her hand – the hand that gave him his very own second life. That attack was less of a punishment and more of a threat.
My Selene is written (hopefully) as a combination of Kate Beckinsale's portrayal of the character on screen and the Selene in the novelizations.
In the novels, Selene was more…let's just say, vocal (in her head at least) about her affection and love for Michael, so I balanced it out, again, hopefully I have.
AkixYusei: Hello there! Aww, thank you so much! I am also dying whenever I write a scene of them together. They can be so intense and adorable at the same time, they shouldn't be allowed.
AmericanWildDog: Haha. Yes, Michael does tend to transform into a lovesick puppy who follows Selene around but I hope in this chapter I successfully showed that it was just his body's natural reaction to consuming her blood. He has her blood flowing inside him again and I always thought the turning – especially of Michael by Selene – was intimate both times, almost to the point of being sacred and I don't know. I hope it works. LOL
I don't know about Eve plotting traps to set them up. They're holding well on their own as far as I can tell. *wink wink*
Juliana: WOW. I'm happy you're very pleased with the previous chapter! Michael and Selene are such idiots I love writing them as such. Haha. Thank you so much for the read and awesome review!