Disclaimer: I disclaim.
There's something truly magical about the southern sky before a storm. The clouds move across the sky so quickly, undulating and morphing, in patches of greenish grays and bluish grays. Dark thunderheads, bearing their weight beneath lighter layers. Some patches are wispy streaks, some looking softer than the softest down, some simply a thick haze of gray. The patterns of color and shapes that play across the horizon for moments, and then never the same way again.
I watched the scene and composed myself. I balled up all the little uncertainties about the monster whose presence I felt pressing from behind and I breathed them out into the storm.
I calmed the one in my mind.
When it was too dark to see, and the automatic, motion detecting porch lights came on I finally turned to look at Marcus. He wore such a gentle expression that I was a little baffled. He'd never seemed so calm and unworried before. I ignored the affection bubbling up in my belly.
"What?" I asked him, trying to decipher his mood.
"You are relaxed here," he said back and I was rattled to hear my thoughts for him echoed, "Calmer. Perhaps even gentle?" He smiled then, a blindingly beautiful smile that sent my brain into twitters.
"Perhaps I'm not so horrible a person as I lead on," I managed to say back. I was relatively certain I was getting used to the wattage on that smile, until he dialed it up a notch, showing a row of perfect, likely razor sharp teeth. The lines on his face multiplied, crows feet, laugh lines, gentle indentations in his perfect white skin. They could have been sculpted on the finest granite, but somehow the more human expression detracted from the underlying wariness his teeth inspired.
I turned away, needing a moment to compose myself again from the added weight of that bubbly feeling in my stomach. Unfortunately, it wasn't the alcohol.
Dipping my finger into the last drops of lemonade in my glass, I rubbed along the rim for the ringing sound it made. The other vampire's figure flinched ever so slightly at the noise, and I controlled my own reaction to his movements. There was no expression that he could possibly make that would lull me into a false sense of security.
The air cooled suddenly around us, and I felt the pressure that had been building up around my skull ease. Lightening flashed and I counted the seconds... one...tw-The thunder cracked loudly, then rumbled deeply and faded into the distance.
"Since I'm assuming that Rick's busy and it's about to start raining cats and dogs out here, would you mind hauling my ass inside?" I asked Marcus, looking up at him again. His otherworldly beauty jolted me only for a moment this time, "I don't know how thunderstorms work in the Mediterranean, but in Georgia, rain falls downways, sideways, and back upways from the ground. Covered porches aren't worth shit in a storm."
He frowned gently, granite skin forming different lines on his perfect face now.
"Luce, you should not foul your tongue with such language. It is unbecoming."
At that I laughed out loud, ignoring the pain in my ribs.
"Marcus," I couldn't help adding, "I think you'll find my tongue's been fouled by worse words," he seemed disapproving, so I added with no small amount of glee, "And there are other ways to foul ones tongue that you didn't even bring up."
I would have teased him more, and successfully, by the reckoning of the shocked look on his face, but I was interrupted by a large, fat raindrop plopping down on my nose. Marcus acted swiftly, gathering my legs up into one cold, hard arm with ease, and snaking the other behind my back to lift me up and away, through the door that his companion had opened silently.
Inside my home I must admit, is some of the most expensive decorating I could achieve. Italian marble floors, covered in the finest, plushest rugs. What can I say, soft things are better if I trip, but what ridiculously rich woman wouldn't want Italian Marble in her house?
Whoops. Forgive the pun. I swear I didn't mean it!
To the left at the entrance was a powder room, and to the right a coat closet. Beautiful crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the grand, wide, oak staircase (complete with stair-lift for the impaired, namely me) was the dominating focal point of the foyer. Behind the staircase was a hidden nook library; small but cozy.
Open archways to either side of the giant foyer led to the kitchen, formal dining room, parlor, study, ballroom, and den. And that was just downstairs. Upstairs were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, another office space, and the most glorious Master Bedroom and Suite I could think to create. The capital letters are on purpose.
I know what you're thinking. Isn't that a little overindulgent? Who needs that much space? Isn't it just Lucy and Rickie there? Why would she have so much room she'll never use?
Why not?
I pay somebody else to clean it anyway.
The feeling of Marcus pressing a smile into my hair jolted me out of my musings.
"What do you find so funny?" I asked him.
"The inside does not quite match the outside," He grinned a catlike grin down at me, and I wondered if I was the canary.
"Like I give a flying fu-ow! Don't poke me monster!"
"Don't speak like a sailor."
I snorted.
"I didn't. A sailor would say-Hey Rickie! You done upstairs?"
Marcus chuckled from behind me and I focused pointedly on Rick instead. He was giving Marcus a bit of a stink-eye. Instead of answering me about the guest rooms, he walked up to us and held out his arms to take me from Marcus. I felt the vampire in question hesitate ever so slightly before gently passing my body over.
"Raggedy Lu is tired if this role, " I huffed, "where did we leave the damn chair?"
Rickie's warm arms were quite the change from the very cold, very hard arm carriage that Marcus made, and I snuggled a bit into the chest I'd always thought was hard with muscle. In comparison, Rickie was soft. Instead of taking me to my motorized wheelchair like I'd asked, Rick started ascending the stairs, and I felt a bit like a child whose Daddy carried them to bed.
I considered protesting, but changed my mind. I looked over Rickie's shoulder at Marcus, and the most curious expression was carved into his face. I only caught it for a second before we were too high on the stairs and I couldn't see over Rick's shoulder, but that little glimpse was funny. It was like a mixture of amusement and panic, and had I more energy, I would have laughed at him. As it was, the meds and alcohol made for a very drowsy Lucy.
It was only when I was in the middle of a yawn that I realized Rickie had been chiding me the whole time.
"-and one of these days you're gonna have to quit drinkin with your pills, cause, you know, I-"
"might get tired of taking care of you and throw you in the river." I finished, imitating his deeper voice.
"-might get tired of taking care of you and throw you in the river." He finished, as if I hadn't rudely interrupted. Then I head butted his jaw so he would stop ranting the usual rant. Of course, he was done, but you never know. If he'd found out I hadn't been listening, he might have started over from the top, for spite. I would.
On the upper level now, Rickie walked us down the hall to the right, soft footsteps on thick carpet. The way was wide enough for two wheelchairs to pass through, with no furniture to clutter it. If it weren't for the paintings on the walls, it would have been eerily naked. I'd painted the walls several times in years past before I found a combination of colors and carpet that didn't remind me of the hallway in a hospital.
My room was the door at the very end, and when we finally reached it, I had a brief, horrid fear that it would open up into that same room in Italy with the thrones, the drain, and a room full of monsters and corpses.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Rickie's foot kicked it gently open to reveal my room. My room.
After that, my mind went a little foggy. I vaguely remember being stood up so my bedsheets could be pulled back and then hitting the soft mattress face first, awkwardly rolling onto my back, and then I was out.
I woke in pain, which was not terribly unusual for me, but nonetheless, I was grateful to see a bottle of pills and a glass of water on my bedside table. The clock told me it was morning, and I was a little surprised that I had slept through the night. Well, it shouldn't have been that surprising, considering all that had happened in the last, what, two days? Oh, hell.
I briefly considered having a tiny breakdown and hyperventilating, but got it under control. Breathing hard hurt. Grabbing a pillow, I pulled it over my face to muffle a frustrated shriek, then winced, because that hurt too.
So, I had totally gotten myself into trouble. And I had no clue how to get out of it, especially with the way I was starting to feel about...about Marcus. I should at least be able to say it in my head. Man up Lu, nobody can fix you but yourself.
I frowned up at the ceiling fan. I had never felt about anyone the exact way Marcus made me feel, and couldn't really fathom that occurring naturally. Could that be some sort of vampire super power? But the way he looked at me in return? It made me wish the occasional predatory gaze reminded me of his species more than it did his gender.
Feelings are gross, and I had no intentions of dealing with them that morning. Done.
Crap. That left problem solving the other side of the issue. A year. I had a year to figure out how to get Rick away from monsters who could probably smell him from miles out. Who would be on the lookout for escape-related behaviors. I kind of didn't think that there was any way out for myself. So I also had to think about what that was going to be like. Not the sex part. Sex. Unfortunately that thought was going a little too close to the aforementioned feelings thing I was avoiding thinking about. (That certainly wasn't a comfortable realization either. I had a tendency towards keeping those two things on rather opposite sides.)
But really. Actually carrying and birthing what, a half vampire? What do the novels call that again, something that starts with a 'D'... Sorry. Not a fantasy sort of person. I'd watched the film version of 'Salem's Lot' once.
Back to the subject. I'd never wanted to be a mother. Rickie was the closest thing I ever wanted to progeny, and our relationship was definitely of the sibling variety. And I was fairly certain that regardless of Marcus and anything he might want, Kingpin Aro would see me dead as soon as he was done with me. Which didn't necessarily mean in the time it took me to pop out his experimental whatever. I might live through whatever gestation and birth process this was going to be. I might not. But if I did, who's to say it would end there? He might decide he wanted to have a second go at it. Hell, Marcus would encourage it probably. To keep me alive at least, unless he's stupider than he looks. And I'd do it again if it meant more time to find a way to get Rickie out.
Even not knowing what this would take, I would do it a thousand times to protect him. I can't think of limits to the lengths I would go. I don't get attached to people easily, but when I do?
Yeah.
A year.
"Fuck me."
Marcus spent the night not in the room he had been lead to by the boy, but in the hallway outside her room. Lucy's room. Demetri had left early on in the evening to survey the area. It had been the first night in hundreds of years he had spent outside the grasp of his brother or the guard. It had been...liberating.
With just the sounds of the house and the breathing of his human and her pet boy, he had felt himself relax into a sort of meditative calm. He stayed outside her door throughout the night, partially to be near her; to feel the lights and colors of her only two bonds of any particular strength hang heavy in the humid air as she slept.
Partially, he stood guard. He did not trust Demetri. Though he could not identify why. It was an instinct that he wasn't sure had ever been awakened in him before Lucy. He did not feel for her the joyful rapture of love and hope and happiness that he had felt for his Didyme. He was not sure if that was ever the way he would feel for Lucy. But she made him alive in ways he couldn't recall ever being. Not even with Didyme. He wondered if she had a gift. Perhaps he could contact Eleazar? He didn't know how though. Aro was the one who took care of those sorts of concerns. Just as Caius took care of anything concerning violence. Marcus generally didn't have concerns.
Perhaps he should ask Aro. No. He should definitely ask Aro. If there was any chance that he could convince his brother to to accept a wife in lieu of a child from this arrangement, a gift of even the slightest use would be excellent leverage. But not yet. He didn't want to speak to Aro yet. Perhaps in a few weeks? No reason not to enjoy a bit of freedom as he courted her. Enjoyment. Another thing Marcus didn't generally have.
He took a deep breath, ignoring the faint burn that made the beat of two human pulses loud in his already advanced hearing. Their bond smelled even more like him than it had before she slept, he thought, as he heard her begin to stir and wake. The sound of a pill bottle shaking out medication. A swallow in a throat that he could practically see in his minds eye. The glass tapping against the table as she set it down. A careworn sigh.
He was distracted from what he was hearing by a small puff of her scent coming through under the door, when the sound of her screaming into cloth made him freeze. He almost burst into the room without even bothering with the door, but stopped himself just in time. He could smell no fear, no panic, just frustration. And Demetri had not yet returned. He wasn't there. Though why Marcus thought he would be there hurting his Luce, Marcus did not want to examine too closely.
There were no other sounds but those of bedding shifting and her shallow, pained breathing. As she had slept that night, her breaths had been deep and sounded healthy. But he supposed consciousness of her pain kept her from taking bigger breaths now. He wondered idly of she would allow him to hold her against himself again. To ease the swelling of her injuries, of course. He felt his lips drawn into a smile. Alive, yes. She made him alive.
Then he heard her quietly whisper some rather suggestive words into the empty room and blinked. He couldn't help but be disappointed. He was almost completely certain that had not been an invitation. It was his turn then to give a careworn sigh. Alive was right.
Suddenly he heard the boy begin to stir as well, so he reluctantly returned to the guest-room before he was discovered where he had spent the night. Marcus did nor think his Lucy would look too kindly on him for listening to her all the night from outside her door. It was the sort of social etiquette that he had little experience in, but could hopefully become competent in shortly.
He's did not hold out much hope that she would have an abundance if patience with him. Ah, there. Another smile. He thought that her temper was one if the things he very much enjoyed about her. He settled down on the edge of the bed and listened, ready to bide his time until the humans were more alert and felt slightly less vulnerable before leaving his room again.
Rickie came to my room shortly after I simply decided that life sucks ass (and I should get on into the shit storm), to help me shower and dress as best I could in casts. It was never particularly easy with a break, but legs were the worst. He was gentle and respectful and patient, as he always was, and I was resentful and humiliated and hurting, like I always was. It was a ritual we were both familiar with.
When I was finally dressed and Rickie picked me up to tote me downstairs like an invalid, I checked the clock and wondered what our foreign monster guests were doing. I hadn't heard a peep from either of them yet. It was a little after ten in the morning, and I had no idea about the sleeping habits of vampires. Supposedly they slept during the day, but we had been with them all day, and no coffins were visible at any point. I did notice them avoiding sunlight though. Maybe I would try pushing Demetri into it? That guy was not on my side, of this I was positive.
Of course, if that ended poorly, which I was likewise as sure it would, pushing me out of a window was not the worst consequence I could imagine. And I thought perhaps vampires would be more imaginative than me. Hell, just pushing me into the sunlight in retaliation would lead to discomfort, though not burning death.
I sighed my frustration as Rickie carried me away from the guest-rooms upstairs and down to the kitchen, where we generally ate together, rather than the formal dining room. Usually I could be counted on to pour cereal into bowls at least, but today was not one of those days of dependability.
Rickie set me into a chair with the same gentle care he put into everything, then puttered about with the microwave until he'd made enough Jimmie-Dean-wiches to feed us both. One for me and three for the growing boy.
"Damn kid," I said with a false cheer. Who could have any real cheer in the morning before coffee? Freaks, that's who. I'd take a mass murdering, psychopathic, blood sucking vampire over a morning person any day, "You still growing like that beanstalk you are? Should have kept the cow and fed you milk instead of magic beans."
He gave an actually cheerful smile and response, because he's one of those freaks I told you about, but I gave him a free pass because I love him. See? I can be generous. In small doses.
"Pretty sure it was the milk that did it."
"You think? I'm thinking you're just doing it to get back at me for calling you shortie for so long."
"That's it," he said with another sweet, boyish grin, reaching across the table to ruffle my hair a bit, "Oh, how the tables have turned Lulu!"
I snorted, then we slipped into a comfortable, but unusual for his part, silence. Generally he was a chatterbox at breakfast. Going on about what lessons he was going to work on for the day and what the Falcons were doing, or the Bulldogs. Sports. I'm risking my southern card saying this, but I don't care for football.
But no chatter occurred about lessons. He was ahead in his studies, in anticipation of a long trip. And I guess he wasn't in the mood to talk football or basketball. I considered saying 'who's on first' to snag another grin from him, but I was a little worn to begin with, and I'd still not gotten any coffee going in the percolator. It was too far for me without the wheelchair, and too high for me with. Looks like coffee was going to be Rickie's chore today too.
I wished I could at least cheer him up, but that had never actually been my strong point.
"Hey there, tall drink of cocoa," I said anyway. (It wasn't like trying could hurt. Besides, he was used to my social ineptitude and generally saw through the bluster to my love.) "Why don't you go get my chair. It should be in the foyer closet. Then go make me some damn coffee."
I'm pretty sure I said it with a wan, slightly sardonic smile, but he smiled back with that wide, innocent grin I loved best. Mission accomplished.
"Why don't I get the chair and you make your own damn coffee, Lu?"
I made a face at him as he walked down the hall (we both knew he'd do it), then leaned back into the kitchen chair slowly. The drugs were mostly working, but moving was still a taxing business. I'd feel better in a week though. Not fixed-even I don't heal that fast-but better. As of now though, I didn't want to throw in Rick's face how not okay I was. He was under enough stress. Stress a kid his age shouldn't be forced to face.
Not that either of us were unaccustomed to things we shouldn't have to deal with. The world is not fair. But I had gotten some chance of normalcy when I was adopted, and always wanted to pass that comfort to him. And any other comfort I could think of. And why not? I inherited in place of any of her useless, idiotic relatives. I could pretend that adopting was continuing her legacy, or something.
I closed my eyes to rest them until he got back with a wheelchair so that I could at least pretend some self-sufficiency.
...For some reason, though he made no noise, my eyes were closed, and I couldn't feel any change in air currents against my skin, I knew Marcus had entered through the doorway a moment before I smelled the cold, sweet, intoxicating scent that I associated with him and the rest of his monster pals.
He didn't say anything, and I didn't feel the need to break the silence, but I did open my eyes to look at him.
Good God above, that man was so beautiful. I wondered if I would ever be able to look at him without it taking my breath away. He looked down at me from a meter away, but gave me a few moments to compose myself before kneeling beside my chair. I needed them.
Then, his face closer to my seated height, he reached white, hard, cold arms from beneath his ridiculous cape to firmly grasp my face in his hands, running long fingers down my crooked nose and my cheekbones, and a thumb over my lips. He leaned forward so quickly that I didn't see him. His face simply disappeared from view, but I felt the cold, granite nose and lips pressing against the side of my neck, breathing in a way that was obviously about scent rather than oxygen. It reminded me of the cell in Volterra, where he had done the same thing.
I sat very still and waited for him to finish with whatever ritual this was, when he did something I was not expecting, and opened his mouth just below my ear, sucking air from just against my skin in a way that made me really, really hot. I made a strangled sound in my throat, and reached the only hand that was fully functioning into the black hair at the nape of his stone neck. He froze, but didn't pull away, and I gripped his hair tightly, but didn't make any attempt to remove him.
One of his arms came around me between my back and the back of the chair, and he pressed himself flush against the front of me, drawing another deep, but unsteady breath against my throat before sighing and pulling away.
His eyes were both darker and brighter than I'd ever seen them, heavy lidded, and his lips pulled at the corners into a bit of a smirk, which would have irritated me had I not been imagining the kind of damage those lips could do if he opened his mouth against my skin in other places.
His grin widened to show teeth, and that was when I realized that I had been staring at said lips like a lovesick teenager. Crap. I felt a blush rush to my face as I lifted my eyes back to his. They dilated, but he showed no other reaction to the increased blood flow. I shivered where I sat.
"Uh. G-good morning," I stated. Gracefully. (read breathlessly)
His smile became more sincere, and he whispered something to himself in Italian, or some other European language that, honestly, no way I'd recognize. I'm American. From Georgia. I was mostly raised in an institute in south Atlanta. I may be balls to the walls rich, and I may have tastes in classical music, but I have never claimed to be cultured. There are places in Atlanta other than my childhood home for that sort of shit. I never went to see them. So I had no idea what he said first. Thankfully he followed up with a gentle good morning in words that I could understand.
"Did, uh...did you sleep well?" I asked, because I genuinely wanted to know.
He raised an eyebrow at me and continued to smile distractingly, so I didn't notice until a few moments later when he said, "We do not sleep. I spent the night keeping watch here, and Demetri has gone to secure our safety from any coven that might be nearby."
My smile fell a bit.
"Is he back yet?" I asked quietly, in part out of the nervous instincts I had that told me not to trust Demetri, and in part because it would be weird if he was within hearing distance. Marcus shifted a bit where he was still kneeling, and he placed a hand on my right knee before answering.
"He is still out, and I do not know when to expect him back."
"Is he," and I paused to consider what I was about to ask, stomach churning for multiple reasons, "Eating out?" I settled on, and immediately regretted it. Marcus looked solemn again. He put his other hand to the seat of my chair and pulled me around to face him more fully, the hand on my knee sliding up to my waist in a move that churned my stomach another way. He ignored that rising blush completely, and leaned in closer. I should have been uncomfortable, but somehow I wasn't.
"We fed in Volterra," he said plainly, "and should not need to again for perhaps a fortnight." I was trying to remember how long that was (Wow. Speaking of long, I noticed that he had such long eyelashes.) when he began to speak again. His voice was harsher than I had ever heard it before, his eyes dark without the accompanying flash of brightness that I'd seen growing there.
"You would have been-" and he stopped. His face was suddenly again in my personal bubble, this time pressed just under my collarbone, nose digging lightly into my breast, over my heart. I should have been offended. I wasn't. I waited for him to decide whether he could collect himself enough to finish the sentence. I knew that feeling rather well, "You would have been devoured had Aro not insisted on this farce. Just another bloodless corpse on the floor. And I would not have known that I could feel."
I swallowed, reasonably terrified by that statement, and would have drawn back, but he wrapped both arms about my middle then, cold iron bars against my ribs. Thankfully I've never been the type to struggle in a panic. All the same, I had to hold back some mild hysteria, which I did in a typically socially inept way, by giggling a little madly.
He pulled his head back in another too fast to see movement to frown up at my face, so I dignified him with a response worthy of my great wealth of articulate words.
"Well, that would be damned inconvenient for the both of us."
Shut up. Words are hard.
His frown twisted into something more sinister, and I winced as his arms tightened painfully. He immediately let go and jumped back up to his feet.
"I do not find that at all funny, Lucy," he said, carefully pronouncing my name in his delicious accent. It was perhaps the first time I could recall him using my name as I'd given it, rather than calling me Luce.
I sobered up.
"Nor do I."
When Marcus could finally wait no longer, he left his room, watching the boy leave the room that he could see the bond with his Luce stretched into. He waited at the top of the stairway until the boy passed through and was looking into the other direction, then quickly jumped down and followed the bond into what he could see was a kitchen.
It was a beautiful space, as far as his extremely limited experience with such rooms could tell him. The floors were tiled in light, smooth stone, the cabinets dark, reddish wood with decorative glass panels. The counters too, were beautiful, and looked like granite. That he could recognize, at least. All the appliances were a muted steel finish, as well as the faucet, sink, and light fixtures. Over the sink, a stained glass window made to look like a still life painting of a basket of fruit filtered the sunlight it let into the room.
Luce sat at an obviously well-loved, carefully maintained, small, old table, and the red of her hair caught highlights from the stained glass. It was messy, and damp from her bath, the curling tips leaving wet spots on her pale gray blouse.
Her eyes were closed and face was scrunched in pain as she leaned back into her padded chair. He tugged on their bond a bit before he fully walked in so that she wouldn't be startled by him, and her eyes shot open, her face smoothing into a blank mask that he found more familiar than he would have liked.
He stared back, hoping against hope that she might relax in his presence. He did not wish to be the cause of fear or stress. There were other emotions that he would prefer to inspire. After a moment, the woman melted softly into the chair, and her eyes widened into a sort of awe that was better than he could have hoped for, but perhaps was caused more by the inherent charms of his species then by the ...person he was underneath the beast.
He knelt at her feet, and very, very slowly brought his hands to her face, carefully relearning it's contours with the pads of his fingers. She was so very soft and malleable. The slightest change of pressure could crush her fragile bones, shred muscle and fat and skin into something unfix-able by her limited healing ability. And changeable. Every day she grew closer to death, death, even simply because her body could not handle the ravages of time. Every day she changed, every passing moment. Perhaps within a year, he could convince her to change even her mind. It was possible.
After all, had she not changed him?
He leaned forward to reacquaint himself with the scent of her blood from the side of her throat, where it was particularly strong. He did not find her particularly appetizing, as far as that went, and he had always had better control over his impulses than either of his brothers. Caius with his passion for violence, Aro with his passion for power.
Perhaps Marcus simply felt different sorts of passions was all. After all, neither Aro nor Caius had shown for their wives in any way that he could see such passions as he had felt for his Didyme. As he knew he would feel for Luce.
He opened his mouth to taste the air at her throat, testing himself, only to find that the one who lost control was Luce. He froze where he knelt as she let out a lovely, wanting sort of noise, and her scent changed to something decidedly pleasant from her head to her toes, thicker around where she sat, and up through their bond. Tiny fingers reached around to grasp his hair, gently tugging, teasing.
He put an arm around her and pulled her against him, careful to move slowly and use very little force. She was so soft against him, but definitely feminine. He held her for the shortest eternity, as her fingers loosened their grip at the base of his skull, their breathing both unsteady. He thought that perhaps he should stop doing that, but couldn't. With every breath their scents mixed and swirled and coalesced into something that made him hungry for her. He wondered how much more of this bond he could possibly take in before he forgot about their deal for a year, and his plans of extended courtship and simply seduced her until she was mad with lust. The thought was very appealing already, and they had only just met.
Again, with slow, purposeful movements, he pulled back to see her face. The heat of her gaze was greatly satisfying to his ego, which was something else he had given no thought to in hundreds of years. He waited for her to meet his eyes in the stubborn, self-reliance that he knew of her, but found to his delight that she seemed unable to look away from his mouth. Perhaps he would not need a year.
Suddenly her eyes snapped up to meet his and her blood rushed to heat her face in embarrassment. He felt only a small burn in his throat in response, his attentions were so focused on other possibilities. She looked very awkward and young and unsure for a moment, then stuttered a greeting to him as she collected herself.
"πόσο προσφιλής είστε λίγο γυναίκα," he murmured quietly, and she looked up at him with confusion. He had spoken not in Italian, the language of his seat of power, but in Greek. His first language, and the language of his true homeland.
"Good morning, my dear," he allowed. He waited another small eternity while she gathered her will to speak again, her breathing gradually slowing to what was likely less painful in her injured state. Then again, she had shown no signs of pain earlier. Perhaps the pills she had taken when she woke were finally fulfilling their task.
She asked then if he had slept well, and he realized how very little she knew about his kind. He wondered whether the education would hamper his courtship as he told her honestly about his nighttime activities, leaving out the fact that he had kept watch directly outside her chambers.
Unsurprisingly, she seemed a bit more worried about how his underling had spent the time, and whether or not he had returned. It was a nagging concern for Marcus as well, now that he had nagging concerns.
"He is still out, and I do not know when to expect him back," Marcus replied gravely to her question, uncomfortable for a number of reasons, foremost of which, that he did not know if he had any control of this member of the guard, or any, for that matter. Demetri had been sent by Aro, and Aro likely sent him more to keep Marcus in line than to keep him safe. This particular area was not held by any coven of power according to Aro's information. However, Marcus had shown himself willing to abandon everything they had built for the love of a woman before. Before...
"Is he...eating out?" she asked carefully, then screwed up her features into a sour face that he still found endearing, but he answered her with all seriousness regardless. It was an issue that they would have to discuss.
He and Demetri were predators who fed on human blood. She was a member of the species he preyed upon, and had Aro not been feeling the desire to play scientist that day... He found, to his surprise, that at some point he had placed his hand on the bared skin of her knee. Part of him was terrified at the lack of conscious control, but the majority of him was glad to know that he could be gentle with her even without constant attention to it. That didn't mean, of course, that he would not be taking great care to pay better attention to it from then on.
He grabbed her chair and drug her out from under the table to face him more fully, moving the other hand up to her waist, and taking interest in the changes that brought.
The vague increase in his hunger he found easily put to the back of his mind and he leaned his face closer to hers. More and more he wanted to experience the feelings she brought forth from a part of him thought to be long dead.
Continuing the conversation as though there had been no lapse of attention was easy enough when his partner did everything so much more slowly.
"We fed in Volterra and should not need to again for perhaps a fortnight,"
Breathing deeply and focusing on the glowing strands of their connection, he considered briefly the thought of what it would be if he had not picked her from the crowd and simply allowed her death, or, even decided to kill her himself. It was more pain than he had known in a very long time, and he struggled to speak through it, looking at her, how fragile and temporary she was, tiny and broken.
"You would have been-" and he stopped short. He could not finish that statement, and he felt the itching heat of almost tears well in his eyes. He buried his face into her chest to hide it. She allowed him the comfort, and he suddenly recognized that he had just been on the outside of this watching her hold the boy but a day past.
He felt an arm come up over his shoulder again, fingers brushing through his hair even more gently than before, feather light against his scalp, and she hummed lightly in a way he thought must have been completely instinctive. He felt the vibrations of it against his skin. She was soft and warm in so many ways in that moment that he found the words he'd meant to say, though they were not good words, "you would have been devoured had Aro not insisted on this farce. Just another bloodless corpse in the floor," the imagery was vivid in his mind's eye, "And I would not have known that I could feel."
She tensed immediately, and he was certainly not surprised. He lifted his arms around her so that she would not pull away and felt the dismay as her heartbeat sped with nervous fear, but she remained still in his arms. Another small eternity passed, and her fear turned itself into giggles.
He leaned away to ask for an explanation.
"Well, that would be damned inconvenient for the both of us." Marcus thoughtlessly tightened his grip until she jerked a bit in pain before rising to his feet and stepping away from her entirely. Inconvenient? As if Marcus did not feel the way he felt. As if it was some kind of joke that he had picked her out of all of them women that Aro had been running through the chambers for months. As if the biggest change in his endless life had been something to laugh about.
"I do not find that at all funny, Lucy."
She turned sad, tired eyes up to his, and he realized it must have been some sort of hysterical moment due to stress. That happened often in humans, and had he not been so near-sighted he likely would have seen that.
"Nor do I."
Their eyes met again, and they gave similar sighs, and fell into silence that was neither comfortable or particularly uncomfortable.
So, remember that time when I promised readers that I would finish this story someday, no matter how long it took? I meant it. So, yeah, it's been a loooooooooooong while, but, eventually this story will have an end. Posted.
I'm going to be super honest with anybody who actually reads this (I was certainly gone long enough to lose readers) that I started writing this as a teenager, and I'm in my mid-twenties. The story never actually went away, but my understanding of the characters had changed and grown, because I have.
Dude. When they tell you that you're a teenager and it will be different when you grow up, they ain't kidding. So, let me know if there are any completely off the whack changes in personality or other inconsistencies, and I'll try to stay true to the original intent.
I Google translated for the Greek words, like I do anything, because I don't know Greek and can't conjugate verbs from a dictionary with any sort of accuracy. So while it might not make any sense to an actual Greek speaker, it's meant to say something along the lines of "how endearing you are, little woman". In fact, that's exactly what I typed in. Hopefully using very direct language made my results less...wonky.
Also, may I say, I didn't realize that I had 7 pages of written but not posted story from about the time of my last post. I added the pages I wrote recently, so this is a monster chapter, I think. My biggest, at least. ...I think...
So, if anybody can guess which half of this chapter I wrote with "Close" by Nick Jonas feat. Tove Lo stuck in my head, raise your hand! Then laugh at yourself because you just made yourself look really silly.
Kay. Review people! It lets me now that the promise I made was worth something to someone other than me.
