Lucius

18

Lucius gets home in a foul mood. He's in such a foul mood that he doesn't notice the absence of Faline's heartbeat. He looks forward to the heartbeat to calm him down everyday.

It isn't until he comes out of the shower that he notices her faint scent in his room. Puzzled, she hasn't entered his room for more than a month, not since she went back to her old room. He goes to his dresser and that's where he sees it, the note she wrote.

As he reads her words his heart shatters. He pushed his mate away. She thinks that he doesn't want her because of his own actions. She wants to die.

He wants to be sick.

Lord Darin won't need to do anything, he did it all himself. He should have realized that he couldn't hide things from Faline like that. He should have known that pushing her away would be like rejecting her. He spent more than ten years working on gaining her trust and he destroyed it all because he didn't want her to be hurt by his enemy.

Instead he hurt her himself.

He feels the blood draining from his face. What the fuck has he done?

He gets dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Faline won't have left as a human, he knows her well enough to know that. Besides the security staff would have alerted him if she had left that way. No, she went wolf which means through the woods. The only thing he doesn't know, is where her end destination is.

All he knows is that he needs to find her before Lord Darin finds her unprotected.

He finds her scent in the kitchen and as he suspected it goes out through the pet door and to the woods.

He curses now that he ever taught Faline how to hide her trail like he had. Not even the wolves would be able to find it.

It takes him hours of combing and searching the forest for him to finally find where she leaves his land and her trail is much easier to follow then.

He hears a far off howl of pain and it almost makes him fall to his knees. That comes from Star, he knows it. She is howling her loss of her mate. She truly thinks, they both truly believe that he doesn't want them.

He holds back the tears. Now isn't the time for them. He redoubles his efforts on finding Faline/Star before it's too late for any of them. The hate he feels for Lord Darin grows stronger and hotter. He'd never have pushed Faline away if it hadn't of been for that bastard and the threat he poses them.

A hardness comes into him that he's never had before. It's a promise to himself and to Faline, that should anything happen to Faline that he'll destroy Darin, and then he'll look for death for himself.

It is long past the setting of the sun when Lucius finally makes it to the wolf sanctuary where Faline has taken shelter. She may be a werewolf, but she's a small one because of the starvation she went through for years. She could easily pass for a wolf if it weren't for her coloring.

Lucius has to use his other senses to find Faline now. His sight is actually better at night but even vampire sight has its limitations when the dense foliage blocks out almost all the starlight.

He follows the scent of his mate. Apparently she's given up on trying to hide from him. Perhaps it's because she doesn't believe that he'll come looking for her. That makes him whimper to himself. How could he ever let things get to this point?

He almost steps on her before he realizes that Starlight is before him, but she isn't standing. Tears run down his face as he realizes that she's fading.

"Star, I'm so sorry. I'm not rejecting you. Don't leave me and I swear I'll tell Faline everything. Just don't die on me, please?" Lucius whimpers himself even as he picks up the nearly comatose wolf. 

He gently holds her, like she's the most precious and fragile object in the world. He continuously whispers to her, urging her to stay with him. He promises that he'll tell her everything, she just has to come back to him. His tears fall unashamedly down his face as he races home with her. 

She went less than twenty miles from home.

She was gone for less than twelve hours and she was nearly dead.

Lucius couldn't and wouldn't leave her side. He calls his secretary once he gets home and has her clear his schedule for the next week. Lucius figures that Faline will either live and come back to him or die or otherwise leave him by that time.

The thought of Faline leaving him in any form is unacceptable. It had been unacceptable even before they marked each other as mates. Now it is even more so.

Lucius carries her to his bed and doesn't let her go. He doesn't care that she is still in her wolf form or that he's still fully dressed.

He holds her to him like a man holding onto the only lifeline there is. And for Lucius that is exactly what Faline is to him, a lifeline. A way to leave the anger and bitterness that marked his life before she came into it.

The wolves weren't the only ones that had expected him to hand her off when she first came to live with him. There were bets amongst the council members just how long Lucius will tolerate the young wolf.

Not one of the bets lasted for more than a year. The council member that was perhaps the most shocked and angered was Lord Darin. He it was that caused the rogues to attack Faline's pack and take her. It was him that wanted the pack to hurt and kill her.

He was beyond furious when she escaped and found Lucius to help her. That Lucius had taken out the whole pack only had him gnashing his teeth in anger.

That Lucius kept the girl and no doubt taught her made him even more furious.

Had he known that she left Lucius he would have celebrated and looked for her. He knew that she had her wolf form, after all that is the reason Lucius mated with her. But no one could get pictures of it or tell him what it looked like.

The wolf pack that knows isn't talking, they are terrified of Lucius and no little bit, Faline. Lord Darin dismisses the threat of the girl, she is after all only a female and they are always weaker than the males.

He wouldn't have been so complacent had he known of the depth of Lucius's teaching or that of the pack.

He even forgot that her alpha lineage would also increase her abilities and powers. She's small for a woman and so to him that makes her weak.

He plans for his next attack against both Lucius and his bitch of a mate. There is a malevolent glitter to his eyes and he barely restrains himself from rubbing his hands together in anticipation.