A Court of Chaos and Confusion - An ACOTAR Rewrite

Chapter 9

I knew almost immediately it wasn't actually my father. 

My father had urged me to take Tamlin's offer, had told me not to come back, no matter what, they would all be okay. He'd told me he was proud of me and I was meant for more, and this was more.

No, my crippled, broken father wouldn't have come for me. Nobody would have, nor would I have wanted them too.

I threw on a cloak and my boots, preparing to leave my bedroom, to flee into the darkened hallway and try to figure out where Lucien's room would be in this giant manse. I could feel the thing with my father's face staring at me from the garden below through the window, a chill running down my spine as I felt those silver eyes leave me and disappear. I panicked. My window had no locks, nothing to keep out the being if it decided to climb the Wisteria vines and enter my room.

I ran.

I bolted down the hallway, chest heaving, and built up the courage to scream, pushing down the primal fear coursing through my veins and the adrenaline overpowering me, making me shake. I never screamed, I had tried over the years and never could get myself to do it, my mother's lessons to never make a scene so ingrained it overpowered my fight or flight instincts. But if I didn't scream I was dead. I needed Lucien, someone, anyone that could possibly keep the thing that looked like my father at bay.

"Lucien!" I finally managed to get out, my voice not as loud as I would have wished. I heard a scratching down the hall, coming from my room - as if a claw was being dragged down the glass window. My head was swimming, it felt like I was being hunted.

I probably was.

But I didn't hear footsteps, didn't hear growls, that ancient voice in my head, or the shattering of glass on the floor. After several long moments of silence, standing completely frozen in the middle of the hallway by the grand sweeping staircase, listening. 

It couldn't follow me. 

If it could it would have been inside already. I didn't think it could enter the house. I let out a deep sigh of relief and felt the adrenaline start to leave my body, leaving in its wake a bout of nausea and weakness that sent my whole body shaking violently.

Lucien must have heard my call, because he appeared by my side a moment later, moving faster than I thought possible. I'd slid down to the floor, my knees up to my chest, trying to breathe through the shaking, the residual lingering feelings of primal fear that I wished to never feel again. Lucien took one look at me and asked, "What happened?"

I looked up and met his eyes, the whirring mechanical one and the russet one. He was wearing sleep clothes, no shirt, and I quickly looked away from his exposed chest, the muscles there. "Don't you dare make fun of me," I whispered, unable to get my voice to a normal volume. I risked a look and he simply knelt down, putting a hand on my shoulder hesitantly, before he nodded once.

"I was watching the garden, and my father was standing below my window, beckoning me to come down. I knew it wasn't him, but it climbed up to the window, was trying to enter... I don't want to be eaten." I admitted, willing the tears that I could feel in my eyes to recede. I already felt ridiculous, I refused to cry over it. I steeled myself and felt the tears dissipate.

Lucien seemed to understand and nodded. "Sounds like a puca. They use your own desires to lure you to some remote place. Then they eat you. Slowly. It probably smelled your human scent in the woods and followed it to the house." I shivered and didn't bother trying to hide it. "It shouldn't have been so bold as to come this close to the house though. Tam is going to be furious."

"Why am I going to be furious?" Tamlin asked, startling us both. He was standing at the top of the stairs, taking in the scene before him. Damnit, the last thing I needed was to look even more weak in front of Tamlin.