Chapter IX: The Angel of Morning
Høst Gård, Norway
Time: 6:04 am
Soft murmurs. Darkness…
...and faint warmth.
His head was pounding. Only a small light source, but it felt like someone was tearing flame across his eyelids. Throbbing. Something slowing his mind. Damn you, Magnus. Slowly...slowly, Lucian raised a faltering hand to his forehead and sat up as carefully as he could...wincing at the horrific pain spreading across his temples. He felt brittle. Hard to think…hard to see. Immediately, the pain intensified, his fist clenching across his face. He shouldn't have tried to look yet. The light blinding him, his nightvision struggling between shadows and flame, colours dissolving and reappearing. He twisted to face the darkness, his talons growing unconsciously, feeling the pull of awareness caught in his grip. Someone was…someone had woken him.
Painstakingly, he cracked his eyes open for a second time, growling softly…breathing heavily and trying not to shudder as his vision finally adjusted. The light came from a small oil lamp. The cold irises of Vienne glinting sharply in the darkness, her pupils dilated from the moon and her jaw tightened in pain. She was forced to kneel where her arm lay twisted behind her back. The empty bottle lying on the ground. A scrunched up blanket tossed aside. His blood still tinged with wine, he hadn't even realized he had caught someone's hand, let alone so hard that…fuck.
Swiftly, Lucian released his grip, stumbling to his feet. The tiny hostess rose from her crouch, her lips compressed into a thin line. The bruises would heal within minutes, but the bones…the woman's fingers were contorted.
"Your hand," he said slowly, still blinking against the light, his voice low and hoarse, a wave of nausea threatening to undo him. "Vienne, forgive me, I did not see you." Shifting his talons back to fingernails, he stepped forward, trying gently to take her hand. Her arm was probably bruised as well. Not dislocated, but he needed a closer look to efficiently examine the damage. If she would only let him. "If you would allow me to…"
She shook her head, drawing herself firmly back.
"Vienne, I only wish to…"
Immediately, a spark of irritation flamed in her eyes, cutting him off mid-sentence. She was a female carrying a child. Strength aside, she could do as she pleased, and there wasn't a single member of the pack that would knowingly hurt her. Even as alpha, he stepped back, wary of the volatile nature of lycan mothers. The spark died instantaneously and as if nothing had happened, the tiny woman nodded coolly towards the table. A pitcher of milk as well as the picked bones of poultry lay on a platter. A suitable breakfast for a…child.
"Blood will make the headache worse," she murmured. And then with a shrug, "Marrow helps." Already turning to wake Magnus across the room, Vienne stalked off, her expression clearly stating that the broken bones of her hand were a matter of course as she knelt beside the large snoring bulk of Magnus still lying fast asleep on the floor. With a guilty wince, he realized she was forced to put the lamp down in order to wake her husband. Thankfully, the man was too bleary to notice the broken fingers on her left hand which, judging by her strength, would not fully heal until the morrow.
Suddenly weary of this tender den, Lucian bit his teeth at the empty air.
Damnation…
A few more days and the running consensus would be "Lucian mistreats women, women, and more women. He breaks wrists, throws whores off balconies, and starves his ex-mistress. Perhaps next century he'll start killing your offspring…" They could write it on his bloody gravestone.
He stalked to the window, a brooding expression on his face, searching his things out and watching the back of Vienne. She retreated from the room, walking all the world as if her right arm wasn't incapacitated. Magnus was already in the shower. The dark curtains of the room had long since been opened, allowing the moonlight to wash over them both as they'd slept…and without the lamp, his eyes paled, glazing with silver. He quickly grabbed his clothes, ignoring the reflection in the window. He didn't have time for guilt. They would leave in a half hour. A quick stopover at the Northern den for a few more supplies, weaponry and ammunition. Move before dawn, reach Trondheim before dusk. Perhaps if he died this night, Vienne would receive some semblance of an apology.
And what of the rest?
The rest…
…feeling a strange hunger in his soul, Lucian stared at the room in which he had passed the night. A number of Heloise's toys left by the hearth. Images of family upon the mantelpiece. A stack of books on the floor…several of them for used for schooling by the covers. Geography. Bloody Pride and Prejudice. A wooden train peeking from beneath a side-table.
There is no rest…
Whoever he may be, whatever he may be, the blood of his adversary… this creature…would bring about a new age for the lycans. Miscegenation of the species. Power from the missing link of Corvinus' blood…his long awaited duty to the pack…
And he would live to see it. He must live to see it.
For the sake of his species, that day would come.
And there will be no more apologies for this life, he thought viciously, stalking towards the shower as the sound of water stopped running. Steeling his gaze and assuming the cold exterior of a killer, he ignored the feast laid aside for children.
…o…o…o…
The Outskirts of Mørkehule
Time: 9:12 am
A stream covered in ice, lined by tracks of iron and one who stood by the brush, darkness all around, waiting for the sound that would lead her to the man she must flee …soon, she thought… morning will come.
Did she fear it? Would she fear it?
"As I would fear the moon," she murmured softly to the dry earth.. Listening to the sounds from afar. Licking the last of the blood from her fingertips. The carcass lying on the tracks.
Hapless creature, she thought.
She could hear it.
The train…
With a torrent it was upon her, sweeping past her fingers as she leaped from the ground, the trenchcoat folded in pale arms. Monstrous wings billowed upon a rising current of glacial air and with a twist, the dark-haired woman dropped on all fours, talons hooking into metal as she clung to the mechanical beast. Still she could hear the voice of the Nightrunner in her dreams. And she would fear neither the sun nor the moon for she held sway over both. "Wake, for his name is Lucian. Run, for your name is…" the shuddering voice of the mariner had whispered.
Áris…
And though she could not hear the Nightrunner's answer, the monster Áris still spoke to the beast riding beneath her gentle form…
"Do not fear, Nightrunner," she whispered lightly, her gentle voice caught against the grating metal as she peered at the open world from the back of a demon, her dark hair billowing past her as surely as the wings that had withered into her back. "You will have what you seek." Innocently turning her face to the east, Áris stared at this new…dawn…tendrils of colour finding it way across the hills. The first hint of a sun that would soon warm pale skin that had not seen the light of day since her birth over a millennium ago.
"I will flee his presence…"
The first rays hit…
"…and he will follow me…"
A thousand traces of light darting from a single point.
"…and whatever path I choose…"
For the first time in the eternity of her solitude, a child...a monster…
"…you will have your retribution."
A daughter of Corvinus lay wrapped as an angel cloaked in morning, the innocent beauty of her face awash in the pale morning mist of gold that surrounded her form…the splendour marred only by blood as she began to eat the severed hand saved from her guide's carcass, her teeth wrapping hungrily around the youthful fingers she had so carefully wrapped in her trenchcoat for safe-keeping.
By nightfall, she would be in the city of the dead.
The city of blood…
Trondheim.
How it would be good to be home…
A/N: Finally got some writing done thanks to a bit of a snow day. Anyway, a very hearty thank you to Lauren for the recent reviews and a huge apology to any who've been waiting a long time for the next chapter. Please do read and review.