The full moon was tonight.
And it terrified me.
“Liza, my love,” he said. And I smiled. “When you find your anchor, would you like me to teach you a new dance?”
“A new dance?” I asked as I turned the page to continue writing. I was almost at the end of a notebook, I'd need a new one soon. I'd also need to type it up and edit it too. “What dance?”“I was thinking the tango, it’s a bit more technical but I’m sure you’ll do fine,” he said as he reached out for my hand. He had been doing that a lot over the last few days. But I took it, I had the feeling he was worried, and if I could tell the chemosignals apart, I could probably tell how he was feeling. “And I suppose it’s technically an International style tango.”
“That sounds fancy.”
“I suppose it can be,” he said with a slight shrug. “What do you think?”
“I'd like that.”Humming, I let go of his hand to put the lid on the pen. I shut the notebook and then turned and leaned back. I rested my head in his lap and looked up at him.
“I’m not going to kill myself, Deuc, I promised you that and I intend to keep that promise.” His hand moved from the arm of the sofa and his fingers ran through my hair. It was comforting and I closed my eyes.
“I know you promised,” he said. I could sense the unspoken ‘but’.
“I’m not like Gerard, I keep to my word,” I said. It still felt a little weird calling him by his name but I still couldn’t bring myself to call him Dad any longer.“Liza, your family have a history of committing ritual suicide when they’re bitten by a werewolf,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I whispered. “It’s a little cult-like actually and saying that makes it sort of scary but I’m not going to say the Argent code and then kill myself before I can turn into a werewolf. I promise. I’d promise you a thousand times because I’m not going to.”
“You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.”My uncle had done such a thing. He had shot himself at a motel after being bitten by…
“Deuc?”
“Yes?” I opened my eyes to look at him.
“My uncle, he shot himself in the head,” I started. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answer but he was more likely to tell the truth. And I had heard this from Gerard. “In a motel, I know that’s true, I found it in the newspapers. He was found with a strange animal bite on his side.”“What are you trying to ask me, Liza?”
I had to take another deep breath before asking. “Did you bite my uncle? I was… I was a child, like three years old and suddenly Uncle Alexander couldn’t visit any more. He had been sad and went away. He always said it was you.” His hand stopped but he hadn’t untangled it from my ginger locks.
“No, it wasn’t me,” he said after a moment. “I would have been young, and while likely not in control I would have been up against more than one hunter. I would have likely been killed by them.”“So he lied,” I said quietly. Sighing, I closed my eyes and he played with my hair, wrapping it and unwrapping it around his fingers. “I wish I was surprised by that.”
“He told you I did it?” he asked. I nodded, he could probably feel my head moving.
“Yes.” And yet, I hadn’t thought about that when I first came to the penthouse. Even before I knew he hadn’t done it, it didn’t seem to bother me. I wondered if it should have, I had never really known my uncle properly and I had thought it was Deucalion’s fault. But it never changed anything. “I’m glad it wasn’t you.”
“It might have been someone in my family,” he said. “But it wasn’t me who bit your uncle.”It was quiet for a moment. I was sort of relieved that he hadn’t been the one to bite my uncle. But thinking about it, it wouldn’t be the fault of whoever bit him, it would be the fault of the code. And whoever had made him kill himself. Unfortunately, it was likely Gerard had encouraged his brother to ‘do the right thing’. I didn’t know how doing the right thing included killing yourself.
“I wish I could have known him better, I barely remember him,” I said. “How many hunters lost their lives and how many lost the chance of knowing their family because of it?”
“Probably too many,” he said. “But if they didn’t enforce the suicides, why would they stay hunters?”
“To kill the cruel werewolves, the ones that kill for fun, the ones who enjoy ruining people’s lives,” I said. “But sometimes knowing is difficult. That’s probably why Gerard never follows the code properly. They’re only supposed to hunt the ones they know for definite have killed people.”“It’s a shame Gerard couldn’t follow that, we might have avoided all of this,” he said. I could hear the sadness in his voice. He never wanted this to happen, he had just wanted peace. And it hurt knowing it would now never be achieved. Because he would always be angry, even if sometimes I helped him forget about it.
I sat up and shuffled back so I was sitting in his lap. The hand that had been in my hair wrapped around me to stop me from falling onto the floor.
“Someday… someday he’ll die, I suppose. I wouldn’t be surprised if he died at your hands, I don’t think I could bring myself to be mad at you for that,” I told him as I traced his jawline. He stared ahead, he couldn’t see me. He would never be able to see me properly because of Gerard. “And when he dies, Chris and Victoria will be better. And so will their daughter when she’s older. Chris will be so much better.”“And what about you sister?” he asked.
“I think she’s too much like Gerard,” I said honestly. Maybe that was why we never could get along very well. “She prefers a looser interpretation of the code, I guess.”
“A shame, I thought it was supposed to get better with each generation, learn from the lasts’ failings,” he said.
“It only works if Kate sees what Gerard has done as a failure or something bad, if she even knows what truly happened,” I said. And then I realised. “She was supposed to be coming here to help find me, I don’t know if she’s here or not, or if she thinks I’m dead.”
“Don’t worry about her, I’m sure Chris will deal with it,” he said.His voice was so soothing, it was hard not to believe him. But I was still worried. The sun was starting to set. And the full moon was tonight.
“If I had to promise not to kill myself twice, will you promise not to let me hurt anyone or rip things to shreds?”
“I promise, my love.” Smiling, I pressed my lips against his. There were no butterflies but it was calming. His hand pulled me closer and I smiled as I pulled away to breathe. Our foreheads were touching and his breath was warm on my skin and while there weren't any magical sparks, it felt natural to just kiss him.So I did it again.
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An Eye For An Eye
FanfictionAfter finding out her father blinded the Alpha werewolf known as Deucalion, and murdered her best friend's father, Elizabeth Argent attempts to make peace with Deucalion. This is also on Archive of Our Own.