He does not reach his arms around her to hold her. He offers no words of comfort or calm. He simply stands, solid and still as she clings to him.
Why had he come here? This question tumbles round his head for several seconds and he has no answer to give. Something has led him to this door, a compulsion so strong that he had unwittingly followed it. A realisation struck: he would have always have ended up here. If it had taken a week, a month or a year his path would have always eventually have led him to this woman. He had chosen her. At lease Raze would be happy now. His most trusted deputy had grown weary of Lucian's temper at the slow progression of tracking down the descendants of Corvinus. He had advised him, many, many years ago, to find a distraction; a female distraction. For years Lucien had scorned the suggestion- the very thought of it was an abomination to the memory of Sonja- and yet now, subconsciously, he found himself distracted.
Mortal lives are so fleeting and fragile. He had spent over 700 years watching them breath, worry and die as he had worked tirelessly on his mission. Revenge was what he wanted, and he would get it…one day he would get revenge. He was tired of waiting, tired of hiding, tired of being hunted. He was becoming reckless with his actions and endangering his company by exposing them to the Death Dealers by night- but why should he wait for the sun to rise? He wanted answers now! Creating the hybrid was the only thing he was fixated on, the only thing that mattered. He would not wait for daylight for his investigations to continue, they must always be ongoing, always searching, always testing because otherwise what would have been the point of his hibernation? What would have been the point in waiting and hiding to take his revenge? What would have been the point in Sonja's death?
Sonja. She felt like nothing but a dream now. He found it difficult to recall her face. He remembered his feelings well, but now instead of love and desire and happiness he could only recall his hurt and anger at her execution. He had forgotten what it felt like to have loved her and to be loved by her. All that was left was sadness and hurt at the hole she had left in his world. He hated himself for this omission. He could no longer recall the happiness she had created in his life.
How had he come to this point now? How had he walked into this woman's life? He had crossed the threshold into a new chapter, one in which he had reached out to grasp something, anything that would break the monotony of the darkness and found this frail mortal, whose heart beat so rapidly against his chest that it felt like he had a new pulse.
His own existence was devoid of any warmth and yet here she was warm and soft, warming him like a ray of sunlight. For a brief second he felt joy. Here was someone who needed his strength and rejoiced at the sight of him- he had not felt so desired for many hundreds of years. He revelled in that sensation as it broke around him and then the flicker was gone as quickly as it has come. It was replaced with an image of Sonja and with it a deep sense of guilt and shame. His loss seemed to consume him now; it was a pain that would have broken the heart of any mortal. But as he stood conflicted; feeling pleasure of the sensation of Catherine's heartbeat and shame at the knowledge of having taken pleasure in it, he realised that he could recall Sonja's face once again. He could see her clearly in his mind's eye because he could look at Catherine and see how much she differed from his first love. Sonja's image was created through Catherine as he could see how much the two were opposite from each other. This realisation caused euphoria and for the first time there was warmth and happiness cutting through the darkness again.
His arms found her waist as he drew her closer to him. He snaked a hand through her hair and held her close. She smelt like dawn and he breathed her deep into his lungs. She was not Sonja, she did not feel nor look like Sonja and yet he felt closer to Sonja than he had in over 400 years.
A distraction she may be, the mission would continue though and with a leader with renewed purpose. This woman would be useful to him and since she was only a mortal she could not pose a threat to the company.
Lucian's mind was made up. She wanted him and he would let her have him.