89
AURORA
Lucian is here?
How the hell is Lucian here?
Rain clings to the top of his curls and a dark pattern of dampness sprinkles across his shoulders. He couldn’t have been inside more than five minutes before finding his way here.
A numb silence falls and I find myself holding my breath, terrified for a moment that Lucian will follow through with his father’s request. The man is so manipulative, and I don’t know exactly what hold Vincent has over his son.
Orion’s muted grunts of pain break the silence every so often, and even though no one moves, Orion seeks out one of my hands. Warm blood makes contact slippery, but he grips me tightly as we all wait for Lucian’s move.
My chest tightens further. The guards shift their stances and move as if the entire room is locked in a loop of slow motion. Vincent stamps his cane on the ground.
“Lucian,” he barks out. “Now!”
As he stands there, rising footsteps fill the air, and several of Lucian’s guards file into the room behind him. The moment they see the weapon in Lucian's hand, all of them pull their guns and aim them at Vincent’s guards.
I still don’t breathe. I can’t. My chest constricts like I’m locked in a vise and when I blink, hot tears roll slowly down my cheeks.
There’s blood on the floor near me.
Orion’s blood.
“Get. Out.” Lucian’s voice is laced with rage so deep that it almost doesn’t sound like his.
Vincent scoffs. “I knew it. This is what leads the Bratva? How did I spawn someone so weak?—”
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Lucian’s shoulders rise with a deep breath that seems to inflate his entire body. “You are no longer welcome here. Not in any aspect. I don’t want to hear anything from you other than your death notice, do you understand me?”
In a flash, Lucian lifts the gun and fires two clean shots into the heads of Vincent’s guards. They both crumple without a sound and hit the floor with solid, wet thumps.
My world goes silent as the open, unseeing eyes of one of the guards lock onto me from where he lands.
His pupils are wide, and blood trickles down from the perfect red circle in the middle of his forehead. His mouth hangs open, jaw slack. I can’t look away.
He’s dead.
I’ve never seen a dead body before and now there’s one staring right at me.
“My men will escort you back to your villa,” Lucian snarls, tossing the weapon to one of his men. “Where I expect you to rot for the rest of your days, understand?”
His voice is distant. I can’t look away from those empty, dead eyes. Tears flood my eyes and spill down my face in a continuous stream. Lucian killed that man. He killed both of them.
To save us.
It’s a good thing, and yet a strange, sick sensation begins to build just beneath my ribs. A pressure that grows, inflating with each passing second. The iron taste in my mouth becomes overpowering.
“You’re weak,” Vincent spits, slamming his cane on the floor once more. “If you weren’t such a coward you would kill me with your own two hands! I won’t let you drag the family name into the dirt.”
“Because of you,” Lucian snarls. “I have to drag the family name out of the fucking sewer. Take him away.”
Footsteps shuffle around distantly and Orion’s grip on my hand becomes a distant thought while the pressure within me reaches an agonizing level.
Then, Lucian’s handsome face appears before me, blocking the view of the dead body.
“Aurora,” he says, his voice fading despite him being right in front of me. “Breathe.”
On command, I finally suck in a deep lungful of air and the painful pressure in my chest eases almost instantly. A sorrowful whimper rises as I breathe out, and then I’m being scooped up from the floor and into Lucian’s large, safe arms.
His voice buzzes around me but I don’t hear the words. I focus instead on the buzz of his voice as it bounces around his chest. Then, as we move, Orion’s voice rises from far away.
“Just a flesh wound,” he says. “I’m fine.”
Is he fine?
I blink. Suddenly, the oak walls of the bar are gone, and I’m faced with the soft colors of my own bedroom. How did we get here? I don’t remember being carried all the way up here yet I’m still in Lucian’s arms.
“Aurora?” Lucian sets me down on the bed and his face swims in and out of focus. Then, two warm hands cup my cheeks and tilt my head upward.
Lucian immediately sharpens before my eyes, and I blink hastily.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasp out, and the tears pour faster. Sobs bubble out of my chest, and I can barely snatch a breath in between the painful shudders that ripple through my chest. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I t-talked back to him. I shouldn’t have. I know that, I know that. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And now those people are d-dead and I-I?—”
Lucian surges forward and wraps his arms tightly around me, crushing me to his chest. The sense of security within his hold makes me cry harder.
“Hush,” Lucian says in a soft, low voice. “Don’t you dare apologize. This is not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for, do you hear me?”
I grip handfuls of his shirt and hang on as sobs tear out of me. Lucian slowly rocks me back and forth.
“This is not on you. Not for a second. I am so sorry you had to face him. I heard you defended me to him and that you stood up for Selene. I cannot thank you enough. But this? This is not on you.”
His soft, soothing words do nothing to stem the flow of grief that pours out of me. I had been so scared, and yet I’d just stayed on the floor with no idea what to do. It’s an aspect of this world, this life, that I’m utterly hopeless in.
What if Vincent had threatened Selene? Would I have been as useless?
No answer to that exists in my mind.
I cry. I cry until my face burns and my chest aches. I cry for the fear, for Orion and his wound, for the two dead men that flash in my mind each time I close my eyes.
Lucian doesn’t let me go. He holds me through it, rocking me back and forth with a stream of soothing noises rumbling in his chest. He holds me until the tears dry up and my sobs fade to nothing more than the occasional impulsive gasp of air.
Only then does he lean back and cup my damp face with his large hand.
“I want to be clear.” His hazel eyes dart over my face, then lock onto my eyes. “I am not ashamed of you. I do not mind you having fun with Orion. I am sorry you had to experience that, and I am sorry you had to see those men die.”
That empty face flashes back into my mind like the rapid click of a torch.
“I am here for you. Whatever you need.”
Warm tears build once more in my eyes, and I whimper, unable to say how I’m feeling. He’s being so gentle with me and it’s a stark contrast to the hard, angry leader that stood in that room facing down Vincent.
“I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper, my voice rough from tears.
Lucian nods. “Then you won’t be.”
He presses a firm, lingering kiss to my forehead then steps away toward the en suite. He ensures the door remains open. Somehow, his attention remains fixed on me even as he starts running a bath.
Amidst the swirling sensations in my chest and the sharp, bitter taste when I swallow, there’s a small bubble of guilt. Guilt, I hadn’t trusted Lucian in those few seconds when I was unsure if he would follow his father’s command.
Now, the leader of the Bratva is in my bathroom, running me a bath to help care for me. Once again he breaks the mold, going against what everyone expects from a man like him.
I like it.
I like…him. Deeper than some physical crush.
“Ready?” Lucian approaches and holds out his hand. “Let me take care of you. I can’t erase what happened or what you saw, but I can make you feel better.”
I nod.
Lucian is slow and tender when helping me remove my clothes. There’s nothing sexual about his touches, either. He moves to hold and support me as I undress and slip into the bath, then he strips and slides in right next to me. Taking me in his arms, he cuddles close and after a few long minutes soaking up the warmth of the water, he starts washing me.
And I let him. His touch is so completely grounding, and the flashes of that dead face flicker less when he’s in contact with me. I soak it up, washing away the tears and letting him have complete control. Soap suds slide down my skin as his skilled fingers massage into my hair and the knots in my gut finally untangle.
“I keep seeing his face,” I murmur finally as Lucian helps me out of the bath an hour later.
“Whose face?”
“That man. That dead man.”
Lucian bundles me in a towel and then fixes me with a steady stare. “It is an impossible thing to forget,” he says softly. “But it will get easier. Time is the only cure here.”
I nod. It makes sense. It warms me how understanding Lucian is, considering death like that is surely a daily occurrence within the Bratva—or at least it was under Vincent’s control.
Lucian stays by my side as he tucks me into bed, and then he lays down next to me with one arm across my body and his chest pressed against my back.
“I will stay with you,” he murmurs as the lights fade and the exhaustion of the night’s events creeps up on me. Sleep feels impossible, but in Lucian’s arms, I could be wrong.
This entire night has been surreal. Not once did Lucian blame me, nor did he hesitate to protect me and Orion. He brought me up here, bathed me, and chose to stay with me even though I’m certain he must have a hundred things to tend to right now.
Despite all of that, he chose to be here with me.
My heart swells at the thought and a tired, sad smile creeps onto my lips.
I’m falling for him.
Despite everything I know, despite everything my mother demands, I’m definitely falling for him.
And that’s going to make what I have to do nearly impossible.
