Selene
Morning in Eryndor never felt like morning.
It felt like the city had simply changed the shade of its darkness.
I woke up before the alarm.
I always do.
For a moment, I didn't move.
The ceiling above me was still. Too still. No flickering lights, no dripping water, no footsteps outside a warehouse.
Just—
quiet.
I hated quiet.
It gave space for thoughts.
The rain had stopped sometime during the night.
I could tell without looking.
The air felt different.
Less heavy.
More deceptive.
It was too early, too early for me to hear the taps of the shower of my bathroom stall inside, the taps of the water blurred the echoes surrounding my ears.
Someone had intruded into my bathroom. Nobody fucking gets inside, and past the vault, I had settled in my private wing.
The top floor of the Headquarters
My penthouse
The drip drip drip
Sounded awfully slow and almost nauseous, hazy, or was it just my brain? My vision? Lucien.
I lay back down until my foggy mind was ready to think for the day; the dawn hadn't crept in.
It was still dark around.
The hum of the heater wasn't doing much to the dizzy sound my ears had echoed since the second I woke up.
You know, sometimes, the devastation gets to you, and you won't know when your control slips and the weight settles in your body instead of your mind. The body is heavier and still. I don't know when I got into this mindstate.
Up until I came back from the warehouse, he so easily accused me of betraying a marriage, a marriage which was my own, and bound me with the goddamn monster I was in love with.
I got up slowly
Pulling out the pistol from under my pillow and pointed it towards the bathroom door and got up to shoot whoever entered the most secure vault in the entire Eryndor.
Only one person could break through it.
Only one other fingerprint would work, or maybe even face recognition. Aiden's
Aiden was our son
Mine and Lucien's, 3 years old, I had left the mansion of Voss's. When he was still an infant, a sensitive, delicate newborn. A bundle of flesh and illusion. I couldn't believe I gave birth to that starry-eyed boy. Sometimes, the awe gets to me. And makes my heart ache unbearably, but Aiden is too little to break through a security vault. Besides, she's with my mother now, back to our village, two stored building.
The first ever building that had 3 security vaults so that nobody could invade it.
If not Aiden, then who might it be?
I walked toward the side table, and a vase was there, picking up my phone from there, that porcelain vase.
Three missed calls.
Marco.
Of course.
I didn't call back.
Not yet.
Instead, I opened the shipment logs.
Routes.
Timings.
Security patterns.
Nothing obvious.
Which meant—
It was done well.
I put back my glasses, realising the blur in front of my eyes wasn't actually my mind playing vague imprints with me.
I walked the marble path towards the bathroom and pushed it open, already pointing the gun towards whatever I was about to encounter. I stiffened
I didn't realise what it was until I found myself screaming.
A loud screech, my throat breaking apart as I rushed towards Lucien's limp body, someone had cracked a heavy rod of pipe to the side of the forehead. My heart lurched, and an unconscious paralysing fear entered my body, and my blood started thumping. Roared and raged and raged until I palmed his face with trembling hands. The stillness and coldness of his body were so unconditional, I was about to weep. I hated him, I hated him so much, but I didn't want him to die.
He was unconscious
Blood gushing out into my fingers, and I could barely breathe. Control slipped through my brain as I took the phone and, with shaky hands, dialed Victor's number.
"Boss," his sleep-addled voice making me surprisingly suspicious
" Come to my private wing, someone broke in, left Lucien's body in my bathroom, under the shower tap."
I said steadily, even though I didn't even know if my voice broke or not, if it was shaky or heavy. I thought I was firm enough, but maybe not, but I wasn't caring much about it. I felt like I was carrying my heart in front of me, bruised and crushed to pieces.
" Lu," I whispered, realising I was losing my voice, my head would soon enter a state of swim where I wouldn't know where the waves would come from. But I won't be destroyed out of it. I felt my entire body shaking, the dread clinging to me like a second skin. I couldn't do it. He was unmoved, the moles scattered around making me scream again, but I wasn't screaming, was I?
I didn't know
My heart was burned
Too burnt to survive this
I got up as Marco and Victor came
With doctors and emergency staff of the hospital we own in one of the secret underground areas
I didn't move
I wouldn't move
I let Lucien's head rest on my thighs as I sat gripping his shirt from the shoulders. Soaked. Too much blood. Was I still screaming
Victor and Marco came to me, but I pointed the gun at them and then at the doctors ahead.
I didn't know when I got monstrous like this, even after so many years, but maybe I was always a monster. I could feel their eyes, worried and maybe haunted by my reactions, but I didn't care. He needs to live; otherwise, every soul near him wouldn't live for another goddamn second. I would burn this entire city with me in it.
Once I hear Lucien breathe
The one who was breathing down his neck a few hours ago won't live long enough to take a breath for his survival.
The death would be so painfully slow
He wouldn't believe if it's a relief or torture
The doctors cleaned him, stretched his skin, and checked which vein and artery were torn, which ligament was broken. Maybe that's how hospital words are, if I'm correct. Maybe I was still screaming, grabbing Lucien's head, snuggling him from behind, blood splotches on my glasses.
"Breathe, breathe, breathe, breath," I chanted and chanted like a mantra in his ears. My shaky voice breaks my own heart. When did I become so pathetic for this man. So out of my element, destruction over this?
No internal damage, but the injury is serious.
But the crack didn't hold into the skull, and his head wasn't broken apart to be exact, he started breathing after the doctors gave him an oxygen pump, with oxygen cylinders hurriedly rushing into the room by Victor and Marco.
I didn't even notice when they came
Did I?
I don't remember much of it.
I changed him into comfortable clothes, which were given by Victor and Marco, who had spare clothes in the Headquarters.
They live down the street. Always handy. With their help, I, with great difficulty, led his limp body to the bed; his brain must be confused and foggy because of the anesthesia, so I wouldn't disturb his healing. I kissed his neck subconsciously and slowly. Too softly, and I didn't realise whether I was putting effort into it or not.
It was natural
But the wrath infiltrated my brain as I looked back at Marco.
"Who was it?"