affectionate - Chapter 16: Chapter 16

FALLON
When I was done in the bath, I put my clothes back on but made a mental note to buy an entirely new outfit before going home because my clothes were dowsed in Lucius's scent. He offered to wash them but secretly I loved that they smelled like him and denied his offer. I'd leave them in my car so they wouldn't be found and feed my parents another lie about what happened to them. If they even asked, I doubted either of them cared enough about me to remember what I was wearing this morning when I left.
Lucius made sure not to leave any visible marks on my body. My hips were bruised and he apologized profusely for hurting me but I shut that down before it could spiral into something else. They didn't hurt and if I was being honest them being there only reminded me of how good my first time was. Other than a slight limp and feeling a little hungry, I was fine. Lucius didn't have any food in his house and I promised him I would eat before going home to replenish myself. My heart sang in joy hearing Lucius be so worried about my wellbeing, it could've been because of the bond but I chose to believe that it was because he really cared about me now, more than he had before.
Leaving Lucius, it seemed, became harder and harder to do the more I did it. This time in particular was the worst. Stepping off his porch, my body felt as if passing through the threshold had transformed it into a hollow shell of myself and the real Fallon was still laying in Lucius' warm bed with his head pinned into the curve of my neck where skin met ear and his lips met my freshly bathed skin. I didn't know if it was because we finally...physically bonded. Albeit not in the ways our souls wanted but enough that the bond between us would stop punishing me for something that wasn't my fault. Longing ebbed out of my body like the branches of a tree reaching out into the sky, it called for Lucius and in its wake left an empty feeling inside of me. It never lasted long, but the feeling had, without a doubt, grown stronger. It was definitely due to all the time I'd been spending with Lucius. All the touches, fleeting kisses, gentle nuzzles, and now the sweet aftertaste of sex, egged it on even more and the pit inside of me grew with each step I took towards town and eventually towards my house.
I was turning onto the street where my home sat, new clothes from department store sticking to my body like a second skin. A skin that smelled nothing like crisp, woodsy air, and clean linen. I looked at the clothes in the backseat, haphazardly stuffed in a plastic bag and shoved under the passenger seat. The urge to put them on was strong but I knew, deep down, that the fear I unknowingly harbored for my father was stronger.
I pulled into my driveway and hastily tumbled out of my car. My father wasn't home, his car wasn't in the driveway and I wasn't late but I was later than I should've been since I drove and I know my mother is loose lipped with him when it comes to my whereabouts. I took the steps onto my porch two at a time and plunged my keys into the lock. Nudging the door open, my nose was hit with the familiar scent of spaghetti and I frowned softly because that meant I'd be eating it for the next three days. I put my belongings in their usual places, bag on the hook and keys in the dish before padding into the kitchen.
My mother, who should've been hunched over the stove finishing up her homemade sauce, stood at the entrance of the kitchen, her body blocking my way to the bar stools. Just by looking at her I could tell she was upset. Her arms were plastered to her sides and her hands were balled into tight fists. Her jaw was set, meaning her teeth were clenched together, almost as if whatever nasty lecture I was about to get turned into bile and she was trying her hardest to keep it down.
"Sit down, Fallon." She titled her head toward the dining room table, a command, not a gesture. I took slow steps to my unofficial assigned seat and she took hers across from me.
"What's wrong? Where's dad?" She took a deep breath and closed her eyes all but for a second before her eyes, the ones I knew to be the color of honey and melted chocolate, turned into a biting yellow.
"Not here." My breathing picked up and I subconsciously angled my right foot towards the door in case things got out of control. I had never seen my mother like this, ever. Knowing that she had powers and I didn't made the fear in my chest spread even more.
"Mom you're scaring me, what happened?" She laughed, though nothing about this was funny.
"I'm scaring you? Not that vampire you keep seeing even though both me and your father have forbidden you from doing so?" My eyes widened and my eyebrows crept into the space between my eyes. I clutched the shirt I was wearing in my hands underneath the table and swallowed hard. There was no way. She couldn't have known. Lucius and I were careful. There wasn't a day in the past two weeks where I left his house with his scent on me, no marks were left on the visible parts of my body either. My father hadn't caught on yet, so how did she?
"Mom I—I told you and dad that I haven't seen him in months. I don't know what you're talking about." I hadn't meant to stutter, it weakened my argument and only made look more guilty than I already was. My mother was by no means stupid, she was a stay at home mom and did stay at home mom things but she was smart. I knew she'd see right through my lie before it even left my lips.
"Fallon, do you think that just because I don't have an inhuman sense of smell that I can't notice things? I'm a witch for fucks sake. If I want to figure something out, I will figure it out one way or another. You don't think I have a spell to know where you are at all times, to know what you do when you're out, to know who you're with?" My entire body was frozen. How long had she known about Lucius and I? And how long had she been keeping her mouth shut? And why?
"Mom, it's not what—" She waved her hand dismissively and effectively shut me up.
"I don't care, Fallon. I've known since December. I didn't tell your father because I thought "well maybe she needs time to do it" "she'll reject him soon, she's always listened to us". And yet here you are, a month later, coming home in different clothes like I wouldn't notice because you let him get in your head. Let him feed you whatever lies he's told you, let him—let him defile you." I felt my cheeks heat up at the last part. She knew. How, I didn't know and I didn't care, I was too blindsided by this sudden onslaught of information to even start thinking about that right now.
"We're trying to protect you, Fallon. Why can't you see that?" A lump was stuck in my throat and my tongue sat heavy in my mouth, preventing me from speaking.
"It doesn't matter. I've already made up my mind. You'll reject him tomorrow, I'll take you to make sure you do it if that's what it takes but I hope you have enough sense to do it yourself. If you don't, I won't hesitate to tell your father. And if it gets to that, rejecting that boy will be the least of your worries." Distantly, in between the aisles at work, somewhere on the trail in the woods, tangled in Lucius's warm sheets, I knew that defying my parents was damn near impossible. Even before I was aware of the power imbalance between us, they used my lack of knowledge about myself against me in ways that I wouldn't realize until now. They must've known, sometime before me, who my soulmate was and what belonging to him came with. And for whatever reason, felt that keeping me in the dark and never letting me venture outside of Melrose was the only way to keep me "safe". My life was planned out for me before I even knew how to live.
But, as I gazed into my mother's burning, tuscany eyes, I understood that if I didn't do something now, my life would never change. I stood from the table, my chair making a scraping noise against the floor. My mother stood too, a look of knowing etched into her features.
"Don't you dare," I glanced at the front door behind me, waiting patiently for me to open it and run. I gave my mother one last look before turning and running out into the cold evening, the wind wrapped me in itself and carried me in its arms, whisking me off into the very woods that landed me in this situation in the first place.
To my surprise, Lucius was already waiting for me on the trail as soon as I arrived. I barreled into his arms his heart beat and my arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. His hands found themselves on my waist, mindful of my bruises and pulling me closer to him. I took big, greedy gulps of air in through my nose just to smell Lucius; to commit his smell to my memory, tattoo it to my mind so I would never forget it for as long as I lived.
"Fallon, why are you here?" I pushed off of him and looked at him through my lashes. He didn't look concerned, his lips were pulled into a straight line and his eyes traveled back and forth between mine. I could tell, just by his demeanor alone, that he already knew the answer to that question.
"She—my mom, she knows. About us, I mean. And she told me to reject you or she'd tell my father and I—Lucius I'm sorry, I thought we were being careful. I thought I was being careful, but now she knows and I'm—I don't know what to do I'm sor—" Every time Lucius kissed me, I got convinced more and more that his lips were made specifically for mine. Our lips fit together like puzzle pieces, my lips didn't belong anywhere else except on his. I breathed into his mouth and his tongue slotted between the gap my teeth made for him, happily tasting the remnants of earlier. He pulled away, my eyes that I had no idea closed, opened and searched Lucius's face for the reason behind his sudden affection.
"You need to stop talking, and listen." His hands, still stationed carefully on my waist, started rubbing up and down. The action alone was enough to force my eyes back close again and allow myself to bask in a warmth that rivaled the heat in his cottage.
"I don't care who knows, Fallon. I've made that very clear. It's you who cares." His hands were under my shirt now, dipping into my curves to grab at what I knew he wanted to be his. I knew he was right. It was me. It was me who pulled back, me who stood in the way of us completing our bond, me who, despite searching for it all her life, denied myself sultry touches, perfect kisses, and sapphire eyes. All for what? Parents who have cornered me into a spot of fear?
"Go home, Fallon. I'll see you tomorrow." His hands fell from my waist, and as always, emptiness followed.