Hellfire

Interval Eleven

Lucius stood in a hauntingly familiar alley in Newport, waiting with icy patience and flexing tension. What bats he hadn't sent home stayed close to him. They were few in number, enough to make him a little less threatening so Whelan wouldn't assumed Lucius wanted a fight, but retaining his intimidating stance.

He twisted the ring about his finger as he breathed out his temper, gazing sternly at the nonchalant wall a handful of steps away. No matter how much of the city he breathed, listening to it beat and roar, he couldn't calm. His body was knotted, his skin tight from the sheen of hoarfrost, and the urge to go back to Susan was powerful in him. He needed to have her close, knowing she wasn't going to be hunted again nor risk being exposed within his embrace. She'd been bloodied, her back torn open and needing care, her temper irate and her hellfire needing cooling. But he couldn't. He'd set her off. He'd made her explode.

Because she feared him. His witch feared him.

Lucius shut down the thoughts quickly before he started thinking about her roaring at him that he wasn't Lucius, but a thing wanting to devour her or bring her harm. He'd danced about her mind. He saw what he was to her now, a malicious creature full of the intent to kill. She couldn't so much as look at him or be in his presence for long without sputtering into flames now. It angered him, reminding what he'd done. What he'd wanted to do in the heat of the moment. He hated how right she was to want to burn him and see him as a threat. How could he deny it when just days ago he'd ripped out her throat and filled with such hunger for her all he wanted was to rip her apart? He was a monster to her now and that was his own doing.

And I claim to love her.

Lucius bared his teeth, pacing slightly and tearing his hand through his hair to dislodge the ice, trying to calm, trying not to think of her when he just wanted to soothe her. To touch her and just be in her presence again. She didn't know how he struggled, not with his addiction, she had fed him enough to keep him sated for a while, but as a man. All he wanted was to hear her voice, to watch her rage or burn the puzzles she struggled with, her wanted her scent, her heartbeat close, his bed full of her and his tongue tasting her again. And after days of seeing her poisoned, her mind empty of everything and believing someone had harmed her, and then finally having her, tasting her in that way he'd been desperate for, his control was wearing thin. She haunted him, making his teeth and sex ache with heat as his mind constantly reminded him she was precisely what he wanted, how much pleasure he found in her, her desire as hungry as his. He had to catch himself from drifting to her room or using a bat to speak to her. He'd find himself looking at her empty chair and growing irritated she wasn't there. But, as per his rehabilitation and per Susan's needs, he had to control himself and not feed into it. So, he'd forced himself to be distant, even when instinct roared at him he had to care for her as she recovered, he should be cooling her and soothing her hellfire and nightmares. No one else.

But seeing how terrified she was of him just made him realise the damage he'd done...

Lucius paused when heard the small distant bell chiming; the signal he'd been allowed entry into Whelan's woods. So, he pushed Susan away and focused instead on Whelan and that Susan had been hunted when the truce dictated that his youngsters could enter Newport only for the Belly. That she'd been hunted when she'd given no reason to be.

That she'd been hunted.

He breathed out a wreath of frosted mist, his teeth aching with fury, his bats betraying the outrage flexing through his body and clinging to his tight frame rippling with feline tension. He tongued his teeth, willing them to retract. He had to be calm when facing Whelan. He had to be Lord Vortigern, not the possessive beast that would rip apart anything that posed a threat to Susan.