Lucien's scars

I could barely believe it. No, I did not believe it. The possibility of my mother being the woman Damon's father once loved, it was outrageous.
"Lucien, I thought you said you wouldn't lie." I uttered out heatedly.
"My little Vixen, I thought I said I *didn't* lie, not to you. I'm telling you the truth." He said, now staring me directly in the eye as if to prove his point. I gulped down and stayed silent. Damon, however, was not convinced and clearly more immune to Lucien than I was.
"Bullshit. How do you know this?"
Lucien rolled his eyes and shook his head before saying, "Unlike you, pathetic brother, I didn't wallow and weep after mom and dad died. I spent most of my time going through the pack history, well, as much of it as I could, and I'll tell you why if you'll just let me explain."
Lucien then pulled out a gun from the back pocket of his pants and set it down on his lap.
"If you interrupt me once more, then I will have to completely destroy the finale of my game by shooting one of you. And trust me, the likelihood of either of you surviving a bullet from this is extremely slim. It has enough wolfsbane laced into it that it could kill even the healthiest Alpha Wolf in no time at all. So please, do me the favour of shutting up."
Neither Damon, nor I responded. We just stared at the lethal weapon on his lap, more cautious now.
"Good. Now, as I was saying, Ambrose and Selene fell in love, madly in love. In fact, they planned on running away with each other... until one day, Ambrose found his mate, Rose. Not wanting Ambrose to have to choose between duty and her, Selene left the pack. He searched and searched and searched for her, but like Jasmine, she had a way of disappearing quite well. One day, however, he did finally find her, only to discover that she'd gotten married and had children with her mate, a human, Elijah Spectra. And that's where I enter the story. Ambrose had always favored Damon, always. I suspect it was because despite the fact that he hated Rose, he could not deny that attachment to the child of his mate. I always just ignored it and tried to work hard, be better, the best I could for him, to make him notice me and see me the way Rose did. I had no mother, only a father who despised everything, especially London and me. You remember, don't you. He always made you and I compete, Damon. He wanted to see which of the two would become the Alpha. If only I'd known then, that it was all futile. The will had been set in stone long before we'd grown up, already naming the son of his true mate as the Alpha. I guess making Damon and I fight for his approval was all a game to him. That's where I picked up the obsession with games from him, specifically on the night of the fire at the quaint Spectra home." He paused and looked at me, now no longer smiling but wearing a more intense, pain-filled expression on his face. It was the first time I'd seen him wear it, and it had my heart reacting in a way it shouldn't have.
"My f-father... he killed your parents Jasmine." He uttered. And it was then, that a single teardrop rolled down his cheek and fell on top of the palm of his hand. Was he... *hurt* right now? It was quite strange to witness him being in such deep emotional pain, especially regarding something that had absolutely nothing to do with him. I wanted to reach out to him and touch that teardrop of his to make sure it was real, to make sure that this sadness he was portraying was all real. But I resisted the urge, using every single ounce of willpower. I was not sure how to feel about all of this. Whether to cry, whether to feel hatred… repulsion, perhaps? The confusion was, however, not only infecting Lucien and I, but Damon as well who gaped at his brother.
"T-that can't be possible. I don-"
"Damon, I'm not going to ask you again. Shut up. And I don't care if you don't believe me, what I'm saying is true. I should know because... I was there."
And both Damon and I tried our utmost best to bite our tongue, but I could not resist it, and I doubted he'd shoot me- he’d kept me alive way too long.
"Lucien... I... what happened?"
"Jasmine, you can't honestly tell me that you believe this idiot." Damon uttered.
I looked at Damon for a second and held his eyes with mine. I needed him to know that this was okay, that listening to and believing Lucien was okay because it *had* to be okay. I needed to know this, and even if Damon didn't want to admit it, he needed to know this too. It was clear that too much had been done in the past causing deep, destructive scarring on all of us, and I was tired of running away from it all, of hiding my scars.
"Damon, just... listen. Lucien has never lied to me before, not about things like this." I reassured him.
Damon hesitated for a moment and I hoped that he wouldn't think me weak or stupid for this because I truly was not. The desire to find out what really happened to all of us was stronger than anything right now, and deep down, Damon knew it too.
And so, he turned towards Lucien and said, "Continue. But not because I believe you... I'm doing this for Jasmine."
"You and me both, Damie... you and me both. Now, don't interrupt me again, or else," he let a bullet fly from the gun, hitting the cracked wooden floor between the two chairs. Damon and I both flinched and then uttered out a long sigh of relief when we realised that the bullet did not touch us at all. "What you do not know, Damie, is that I spent most of my life protecting you. Father always did the most disgusting things and, most of the time, he needed a bit of help here and there. So, to keep you from the nightmare that was 'Helping Ambrose', I volunteered to accompany him on any and every single special mission of his if he kept you out of it, completely unscathed. Now, one of his 'special missions' was the very one I found myself being involved in the night this very house went up in flames. I was told, by father, that the husband of the woman that lived here was a despicable man, a threat towards the pack, one in the need of elimination. He told me that, on that day, at that time, the house was empty, save for the notorious husband in need of elimination. But something didn't feel quite... right about it. I did want to check for myself and look for scents, but father refused to have me get too close to the house, instead he made me watch from a distance as he set fire to this home. When he was done, he left me here, outside, instructing me to stay until I was certain the fire had engulfed the whole house. But that uneasy feeling only grew when he left and eventually, I found myself nearing the house. That's when I smelled her... or more importantly, you, Damon, all over Jasmine. It was then that I realise that our father had lied to me. He'd made me an accomplice in his little game of murder, and this time, attempted to kill an entire innocent family. Immediately, I ran in, through that door," he pointed towards the singed door to the entrance of the house. "But by then the place was ablaze and the flames burned against my skin. I could barely breathe through the smoke. Nonetheless, I pushed on, following Damon's scent until I found you, Jasmine, in the closest room to me. I could not smell anything else, not your parents or your siblings. They were too far away, too hidden in the smoke for me to pick anything up, and so I dragged you out and saved you. I was about to go in and take another chance at saving your family... but the roof had collapsed in and I doubted there were any survivors at all. It was the worst feeling I'd ever felt in my life as I stood over your unconscious body. I should have tried harder, I should have died saving them, but I didn't. I took you to the hospital as soon as I could and left you there in the capable hands of the medical staff. But letting your limp hand go as they whisked you off, that was by far the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my life. I was so scared that I'd lose you too, the only piece of salvation I had after I'd helped my father murder so many people. I didn't care, back then, that you were Damon's mate. What I cared about most, was the fact that you were the victim of my father's cruelty, just like I was.
"I confronted my father soon thereafter, and received nothing but feigned ignorance and indifference from him. He'd killed an entire family, an innocent, small family and he felt nothing, and I vowed to find out why. So, I began digging up dirt on the pack and at the same time, I began watching you, Jasmine. Wherever you went, I followed. It broke me, to see the hell you were living through, and it only drove me to find the answers I needed even more. And eventually, I did. I'd learned that our father had become so enraged, and so driven by obsession that he killed that which he'd been obsessed with. In the process, he'd also destroyed the future of a good, strong little girl. That day, Jasmine, I vowed to avenge you. And so, I began to plot exactly how I'd murder him, down to the T. Eventually, I had everything perfectly thought out... and that's when you, Damon, decided to take father's life instead. You ruined everything that day. I was supposed to destroy that man, not only for our family, but for Jasmine as well. I wanted to watch the life drain from his eyes. I wanted my face to be the last one he saw, and I wanted to whisper into his ear one final thing. Selene. To make it worse, after you killed father, you thought you had the right to take his position as Alpha. Honestly, Damon. We both knew you never wanted to be Alpha in the first place. That title was mine; I was *born* for it, brother. I'd taken the blows, the beatings, many of those yours and Rose's. Do you think you or your mother would have survived if I didn't become his punching bag? I think you've forgotten, brother," he then removed his shirt, exposing his well-defined, well-kept body, but Its beauty was hidden beneath multiple deep gashes, "who really got the beatings in the house."
I gazed at his skin, stunned. In fact, everything about this was shocking. Damon's father had killed my family... and Lucien had saved me. I wanted to refuse to believe that there was something more to Lucien than a twisted, insane man. But I could'nt, not when I was looking at these deep, ghastly scars on his body, reminding me of a time when he was sane.
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Stay safe, stay healthy, sending my love!