CHAPTER TEN: Coming to Terms
She had watched the infuriating man walk out of the room; glad she hadn't given away her emotions. So, he claimed to be the great and long dead Lucian, huh? That was interesting.
She needed some time to regroup and get herself together, mentally as well as physically. And that man tended to mess with her mind and hormones whenever he was in the room. Now that he had closed the door and put some distance between them, she could think a little more clearly.
"Why hadn't she called out", she asked herself, as she tried yet again to break the chains that now held her prisoner. Because she knew that as soon as he had bitten her, she was no longer one of them: no longer human. She would be dead to her team, figuratively if not literally. If they had found her in Lucian's grasp, she would've had to watch Malcolm or Sterling put her down. She didn't want it to end that way.
Yes, she knew what she was now, or at least what she would become once the full moon was upon her. But no worries, she wouldn't allow herself to become one of the monsters. Her life's work had been eliminating their kind. She wouldn't succumb to the madness; she had a plan. She would take out as many of them as possible before the full moon, and then end her own life. She new that Malcolm and the others would be worried when they couldn't find her, but she couldn't let them see nor find her. She would die, but it would be on her terms, not the Councils'.
Feeling slightly better, she turned her attention to the enigmatic man in the other room. She couldn't deny she was drawn to him, even though she was extremely pissed at the man. Uttering the first words she had spoken since Malcolm had left her with the lycan alone, she yelled out, "Really, just who in the hell do you think you are anyway!?" She hoped he had heard her, even though she didn't expect an answer. But soon, the sound of his laughter could be heard coming from the other room.
The warm sounds did nothing to cool her anger, in fact in sent her blood boiling. Blood, wait a minute....she glanced over at the cooling bag of blood waiting for her on the table. Did he really expect her to drink the blood he had so thoughtfully prepared for her? Well, he had another thing coming if he thought she would throw back a bag of O positive just because he had turned her into one of the monsters. Thinking about it made her stomach roll.
Wait a minute, lycans didn't need to drink blood to survive, that was vampires. Sure, she lost quite a bit of blood when Lucian bit her, but that could be replaced with a simple transfusion, it didn't require she drink the stuff. Oh man, her head hurt.
"Relax Alex, take deep breaths", she told herself. "You can get through this: your tough... a warrior, just remember that", she said, giving herself a small pep talk. Taking several calming breaths, she focused again on Lucian. Well, at least that's whom he claimed to be. Honestly, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The lycan had to have extreme power if he was able to fight off that much silver.
She pictured him in her mind. Her first assessment of his height had been right, he wasn't tall, right around 5'9", but he had this regal bearing. He carried himself well, so he actually appeared taller than he really was. His slightly wavy hair hung just past his shoulders, and he kept it pulled back from his face. He wasn't classically handsome, but his face held great character and his beautiful eyes haunted her. They seemed so wise and yet so sad. He had given her that lopsided grin several times while in the room, but the smile never quite reached those hazel/brown eyes.
She tried to recall what little bit of information had been available about the lycan. She seemed to remember he had once belonged to an era where the lycans were the daytime servants to the vampires; protecting them during the day when they were at their most vulnerable. Then without reason, the records showed that Lucian became a leader to the Lycans pitting his race against those he had once served. He was considered a tremendous threat and a strong leader. They had succeeded in taking down a significant number of vampires when Kraven supposedly brought his life to an end. Hard as she tried, she couldn't remember much else.
The Council had never considered his existence an actual possibility. They had never found any concrete evidence of it, whereas there was supposedly proof of his demise. Therefore, they had never bothered doing much research on the man...well, lycan.
Gasping, she was hit with another round of flashbacks. These visuals concentrated more on a female vampire chained to a wooden pole in the middle of a large chamber. It was as if she looking at the woman through the eyes of someone else in the room. She looked around and realized she was back in the room she had visited earlier, while watching the man being beaten with chains. Suddenly she realized she was the man she had glimpsed earlier, and he was being forced to watch the female vampire burn to death. He called out her name, "Sonja". Suddenly the vision seemed to move, and she was now a spectator in the macabre show. Viktor, the oldest of the vampires walked into the room and over to the burned shell of the woman. He grabbed hold of the pendant she wore on a chain and jerked it off her neck. Then all of a sudden, the tortured man on the floor looked up and howled. She watched Lucian, for that is who the man was, change form and rip the chains binding him. He leapt at Viktor and grabbed the necklace from him then climbed the wall out the opening in the ceiling.
Shaking her head to clear the vision, she gasped. The man on the floor had been Lucian, and obviously he had cared greatly for the female vampire he had been forced to watch die. These little insights she kept having were obviously a side effect from Lucian's bite. Which meant they were his memories. So, it appeared that Lucian held a big grudge against the vampires, Viktor in particular. Was he responsible for Viktor's death, she wondered?
Her headache was worse, if that was possible. She was also lightheaded. Lucian must have taken a considerable amount of blood before he decided to let her live. Why had he stopped? What purpose was she to serve? More questions for which she didn't have any answers. Knowing she was going to have to give up some information, before she got any in return; she mentally prepared herself for a round of verbal sparring with a man she was strangely attracted to.
In the other room, Lucian moved to the only chair to be found. He settled in and tried to make himself comfortable, determined to take a short nap.
In the silence, he could hear her as she moved in the chair; pulling against the restraints, her breathing slightly labored. Then silence reigned for a few precious moments, like a calm before the storm.
Soon, it was broken when she had yelled at him through the closed door. He had laughed; surprised at the foreign sound coming from his mouth. It had been a long time since he had last laughed.
The woman was definitely not what he had expected. In his experience, most females would have been crying hysterically and screaming at the circumstances she had found herself in. But this one had kept her cool in his presence and even had the audacity to yell at him. It was a refreshing change of pace.
He had always made it a point to avoid turning women; and, if the current circumstances weren't so unusual, he wouldn't have turned this one either. But, he needed to learn all he could about the new species he had helped create. And without Michael on hand, a new acolyte was his best chance to achieve this.
Truly, he had to give the recalcitrant female credit, she was obviously intelligent, in excellent physical condition, and courageous. She really was an excellent specimen for this research. But, it had been a long time since he consciously chosen to be around a member of the opposite sex. Of course, there were the times he had found a willing female with which to slake his hunger for sex. Emotions naturally ran high among the lycans, especially anger and lust. But those times were strictly a means to an end. There had never been a long-term relationship involved. And now, he found himself at a distinct disadvantage. He wasn't sure how to handle the female he found himself strapped with.
He had to admit, he wasn't sure he cared for the way women had evolved. They had turned into creatures that were far too independent and aggressive for his liking. Females could be as controlling, ruthless and manipulative as males. The woman he now held captive was a no exception. She was obviously leading the expedition that had come into his tunnels, uninvited. She had been in charge. Was that any place for a woman to have been? Her men left her alone in that chamber, because she had instructed them to do so. It had nearly gotten her killed.
Actually, it wasn't just the women of this century he had a problem with; it was the general populace of the planet. He had lived such a long life; he missed the simpler times. He missed Sonja.
There had never been another woman that made him feel, as she had. She had been his everything, his reason for living. When Viktor had killed both her and their child, he had lost a piece of his humanity. He had become something his people had tried so hard to control; he became his beast. He had embraced this monster and let it control him for so many centuries. Once the blood lust had cleared, and he was able to think intelligently again, he found another way to strike at the vampires. He would make happen the one thing the vampires feared most, a cross breed of both species.
From that point on, he kept a tight rein on his lycans and himself. He never allowed women or children to be harmed or turned, this was why there were few if any females found amongst his followers. There had been times that innocents got caught up in the battles that raged between his species and the vampires. But for the most part, he made sure it didn't happen. When it did, he himself punished the lycan responsible. He was more than capable of becoming a lethal monster again, and he brooked no disrespect from those he led. He orders and command were to be obeyed at all costs.
Now, he had achieved success, only to have it slip through his fingers. He had to find out if Michael had survived, and if so, locate him. He also needed to gather up the remaining lycans, if any had lived through the horrible battle. "Raze...did he make it out?" Lucian again wondered. He sincerely hoped so. Raze had been, his right hand man and he could help assure the old breed accepted and worked with the new breed. These were things that he could be doing right now. Not babysitting the woman in the other room.
No sooner was the thought out of his mind, than he heard her calling his name. Knowing he wouldn't be getting sleep anytime soon, he mentally braced himself for another meeting with the stubborn woman in the next room. He sighed, as he went to see what it was she needed.