affectionate - Chapter 21: Chapter 21

FALLON
In the bath, I floated in and out of consciousness. Notes of Lavender tickled my nose and soothed my aches and pains. The rare moments where I actually was aware of what was going on, all I could feel was Lucius gently scrubbing my body down and lathering me in some type of oil that smelled so good I tried to force myself to stay awake to get the name of it. Unfortunately exhaustion was stronger than my need for the oil and I was sleep again in a matter of minutes.
The next time I woke up, I was under soft sheets and my head was on cushioned fluffy pillows. The entire bed smelled like Lucius and I took my sweet time in waking up just so I could breathe in his scent for a little longer. Eventually I pulled myself out of bed in search of the real thing. Slipping out of bed I noticed I was dressed in his clothes and my heart sped up at the realization. I tugged the neckline of his shirt up and over my nose and closed my eyes while tiptoeing my way to the kitchen. This was the only thing I wanted to smell for the rest of my life. The earthy aroma of the woods around him and whatever it was that he used to wash himself.
Rounding the corner into the kitchen, I spotted Lucius sitting at the table with a mug in front of him, steam spiraling out the top of it and dispersing into the air along with the smell of honey and lemon. He looked at me, cornflower blues raking up my figure and the hint of a smile on his lips. I took the last few steps towards him and as soon as I was close enough he was pulling me onto his lap, my legs on either side of his own so that I was straddling him. I brought my arms around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder; my mouth right next to his pulse point so I kissed it. His hands ran up and down my thighs before finally deciding to rest on my lower back and massage it.
"How'd you sleep?" I sighed and snuggled closer to him, I wanted there to be no space in between us; for our bodies to be one, melded together by not only our souls but the real feelings that we shared for each other.
"Fine. I still have a headache though," Lucius pressed a kiss into the side of my head and continued his ministrations on my back. His hands on me always felt wonderful, but now that I was properly marked and we were completely and utterly bonded, his touch sent me to cloud nine and I hummed in content. I wanted to kiss him, my lips missed his and other than the feeling of his skin on mine, kissing him was everything to me and more.
I brought my head from his shoulder, eyes glancing down at his lips then back up to his own eyes. His eyebrows were furrowed and my stomach twisted in fear. His fingers traced the side of my face and stopped right at the side of my left eye. I closed my eyes all together because with the look he had on his face and the way he was touching me, he was definitely about to ask a question that I didn't have the answer to right now and maybe if my eyes were closed he'd get the hint and just let me kiss him.
"Fallon," I groaned and opened my eyes.
"Just ask it, Lucius." His thumb ghosted over my lips and it took every bone in my body to not lean forward and take it into my mouth.
"C'mere," He guided me off his lap until both of my feet were on the floor and my back was to his chest. His hands were still on my waist as he walked me out of the kitchen and back down the hall to his room. He nudged the bathroom door open with his foot and stood us in front of the mirror. He didn't have to say anything in order for me to know what he was talking about.
My tawny irises were gone, and in their place, eyes the color of dying dandelions. My fingers tugged at the corners of my eyes before covering them and forcing them closed. When I opened them again, they were back to being bright brown, not a hint of yellow in sight.
"I thought you said you were human." Behind me, Lucius removed his hands from my waist and settled for leaning his body against the threshold of the door with his arms crossed lazily over his chest. His eyebrows were raised in question, piercing catching the light from above and looking more like specks of glitter.
"I did. I am. I don't know why this is happening." I needed to go home. Confusion churned in my stomach the more I stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes had been the same color my mother's were last night. A cool sense of dread washed over me. Powers—my powers, my witch powers were manifesting.
"You need to go home. I don't have the answers you're looking for." Lucius mumbled. Somewhere, deep in the back of my mind behind my own chaotic feelings, I could feel Lucius's. They were weak but I knew disappointment better than anyone else and I knew when it was mine; a feeling I harbored towards whatever entity in the skies made my body fill with contempt for anyone who wasn't Lucius. An angry disappointment that I hadn't felt in a while. This disappointment was heartbreaking, created out of fear that I would leave and not come back, thickened by years of solitude and only recently put to rest. But now here it was again, muted, in the back of my mind but no doubt loud enough in Lucius's that he couldn't contain it and unconsciously let it flow into me.
I turned from the mirror, tired of looking at myself and instead took in Lucius. My hand found his cheek and he pushed his face into it as much as he could. His lips grazed my palm, tickling the skin there before kissing it lightly.
"I'll come back, Lucius. You don't have to worry." He closed his eyes and grabbed my wrist, bringing it up to his mouth and kissing it over and over again.
"I know you will. It is not you I doubt."
—
I knocked on the door of my childhood home. The wood stung my knuckles as they rapped against it one more time. It was a cold morning, one that had me second guessing the early spring we were promised. Fresh dew frosted the grass on the front lawn, it looked like a thin blanket of sugar in the light of the youthful sun. I brought my hand up to knock again when the door suddenly swung open.
My mother's hand curled around my bicep to pull me in the house. I expected unimaginable pain brought on by vicious, sweltering heat but it never came. Her touch felt normal, felt like how a mother's touch should feel. Comforting and gentle, but strong so that if I ever tripped I'd never fall. My heart clenched at the realization. This was all I wanted for fourteen years. To feel my mother, to feel her warmth on me again. I wanted her to smother me in it, to be wrapped in a hug by her so tight that I couldn't breathe. Tears welled in my eyes, I looked at her fully expecting the same flurry of emotions of her face but instead anger warped her face into one that I refused to recognize. She let go of me roughly and I stumbled back, steadying myself against the door.
"The audacity, you have coming back here after letting that thing mark you." My father stomped down the stairs, dismay written all over his face and in his demeanor.
"Daddy, I know you're upset and trust me I do not plan on staying," Both of them were standing in front of me, guarding the house it seemed, as if I was some force of evil sent here to destroy it from the inside out and not their only daughter.
"I woke up this morning and my eyes were—like this yellow color. I think—"
"Your powers manifested." For the first time in I don't even know how long, my mother's face softened. The ghost of a smile threatened her lips and her body relaxed.
"Yes, I don't know why. Or how." My mother held her hand out and I hesitantly took it not knowing if it was a trap and there was spell hiding underneath her finger tips that would harm me as soon as I touched her. Regardless of how I felt I took her hand in mine and let her pull me to the couch in the living room where we both sat down. My father refused to meet my eye as he sat in the recliner across from us.
"Heavenly restrictions are definitely rare, but not uncommon. It's like...a bargain almost, between you and the gods. You can't have one thing without having the other first. Or, you can't have it until you absolutely need it. In your case, your powers wouldn't manifest until you were marked by your soulmate. Usually there is meaning in these types of things, but I don't understand why you needed to be...marked by him to earn what is rightfully yours." I didn't understand either, but what's done is done and I have no intentions on changing my current situation. Rejecting Lucius is out of the question, it was entirely too late for that.
"Either way it doesn't matter. I can help you through this, Fallon. I can help you get stronger and perfect your new abilities. Just stay baby, stay with us and reject him. It'll hurt now because you two are completely bonded but your father and I—we'll be here to help you through it. Just stay, Fallon." I sighed and bit the inside of my cheek. It was a hard decision, to stay here with my parents and heal. Explore my new abilities together with my mother and maybe even patch up my busted relationship with my father. It was extremely tempting.
But what I had with Lucius was so raw and real. I didn't care if I was being swayed by the bond or manipulated by him. I didn't care if my judgment over the situation was blinded by my own selfishness and stupidity. Lucius had been all I ever wanted for so long, I wasn't going to give it up over some one sided beef between my parents and the entire race of vampires.
"Mom, I...I can't just leave him. He's not what you guys think he is. He's so gentle with me and caring, he never gets violent, he doesn't raise his fucking voice at me—" I cut a glance to my father whose jaw ticked in anger but kept his mouth shut.
"He doesn't withhold information from me. He's far from perfect, but I care for him deeply. It has nothing to do with bond, I've felt like this since before he marked me. I can't leave him—I won't leave him. It's not fair for you to make me choose between my literal soulmate and my parents. That's not fucking fair." My mother nodded her head and looked at my father before turning back to me.
"Fallon, do you know why we live in Melrose? That's a rhetorical question, I know you don't. You never needed to. You never needed to know that the reason we live in a small town, away from family and other people like us is because we're trying to protect ourselves, Fallon. We almost lost our lives to a deranged group of vampires a few years before you were born. They tried to kill me but luckily your father was able to fight them off. We escaped, barely, and swore to ourselves that we'd find somewhere safe and unassuming to raise you, to raise you away from all this—this madness. Even if that meant hiding away from our families. When you didn't turn out to be a witch or a werewolf I was relieved. It was odd but I was happy because it meant you were going to get to live a normal life here, where no one from our world could ever touch you. And now you want to—what? Run off with the exact thing we've tried protecting you from your entire life? You can't possibly be serious." It hurt to hear that my parents almost died and I almost wasn't born. I understood now why they were so upset about Lucius and I. But Lucius wasn't deranged and incapable of living a respectable life.
"I understand you have trauma mom, I do. I can't imagine going through what you and daddy did and I'm sorry that it happened in the first place. But mom you have to understand, Lucius isn't like that. He went through something similar and he would never harm me or put us in a situation like that. I appreciate you guys wanting to protect me from things but you have to let me live. I can't just stay here in Melrose with you two for the rest of my life. I want to see the world beyond Melrose, even if it's dangerous. I need to experience things for myself without you guys trembling in fear behind me. When was the last time either of you left Melrose?"
I couldn't tell if I was being insensitive or just brutally honest but I didn't care, they needed to hear the truth. One bad encounter with a group of vampires and now all of them were bad? I understood weariness and being cautious but living in seclusion away from their loved ones and the rest of the world was insane and I refused to live like that. They were living their lives off of one incident and convinced themselves it would happen again and again if they left Melrose. I felt bad more than anything and it was a shame they couldn't admit to being wrong.
"Just leave, Fallon. Don't come back here when all this wishful thinking blows up in your face." My father finally spoke but it wasn't what I wanted to hear from him.
I stood up from my spot on the couch and ran up the stairs with tears streaming down my cheeks. I grabbed the biggest suitcase I owned and shoved enough clothes in it to last me a few months. I grabbed other important things such as my phone, shoes, my laptop and a few books. Downstairs I grabbed my favorite puffer and my keys. I didn't look back as I pushed out the door and jumped into my car with all of my things. I put the key in the ignition but didn't move. I couldn't believe I was being kicked out for seeking something as simple as change. My father was willing to kill, to take a life, over something that happened more than twenty years ago. I was disappointed in both my parents and myself. My parents, for being stuck in their reclusive mindset and myself for actually choosing Lucius over them. I felt like a terrible daughter but at the same time, if I stayed, nothing would ever change for me. I'd still be working at the corner store, I'd still be going to the community college, and I'd still be trapped inside what my mother could only describe as protection.
If this is what protection was, if this is what it felt like, then I didn't want it. I wanted whatever it was that I felt when I was in Lucius's arms.