Prologue
I Run to You
The second the song came over the radio I cursed that my hands were full and therefore I was unable to turn off the beautiful notes of Lady Antebellum’s ‘I run to you’ quickly enough. It had been nearly two months of banned love songs and as the lyrics seemed to tell my life’s story it was of little wonder why…
‘I run from hate, I run from prejudice, I run from pessimists, but I run too late…I run my life, or is it running me?’
And wasn’t that just the question right now I thought as I struggled to the table with yet another armful of research papers my friend Yosef had given me. Damn my Spotify account recommending songs!
I quickly got to the table only dropping a few scrolls and one book, doing so just as the lyrics continued with…
‘Run from my past, I run too fast, or too slow it seems… when lies become the truth…’
“Yeah, you can say that again!” I said picking up my fallen articles with annoyance and slapping them back on the counter just before grabbing my tablet and turning it off just as the beat kicked up with,
‘That's when I run to you… this world keeps spinning faster, into a new disaster so I run to you…I run to you baby’
“Nope, not now and not ever,” I commented as I killed the music and the second I did, that was when I felt it. Like a presence so powerful it sucked all the energy from the room and left me near gasping for breath. And that difficulty in breathing wasn’t just from the moment you realised that you were no longer alone, but it was more when you realised who it was that stole that solitude from you. Because when you were on the run there was only one being out there you hoped not to find in the room with you…
The hunter.
And I knew my time was up when the first words spoken in that smooth hypnotic voice of his that told me,
“Now that is a shame.”
I sucked in a deep breath, one that felt as though it had the power to suck much more than just the air into my lungs. Which was why I started questioning my sanity the moment I heard it. The voice that I had heard so many times in my dreams. The one that had me crying out his name nearly every night. The one that had me in tears and wishing I could go back. Go back to the beginning, just to relive those perfect moments together. The dreams I had that didn’t include the reasons I ran but only the reasons why I never wanted to. The moments where I was his one and only.
But then I would awaken to my reality. One that told me that I could never go back.
Not after what I knew.
It could never be undone.
So, he became a cruel dream I couldn’t control. He became the dream I longed sleep for as much as I tried to keep myself awake from having it. But now it wasn’t a dream and that cruel temptation was standing in my reality once more. I didn’t know why or how he had found me. I had been so careful. I had left no traces. No breadcrumbs to follow.
Not a single scrap of evidence.
But yet found me, he had.
I knew this the moment I felt that presence behind me stepping closer. A presence so strong that you could do little but feel it. The way it seemed to consume me. Draining me dry of every emotion before emitting back a force powered from the core of what I knew was a stone-cold heart of a Vampire King who had been hunting me.
Well, the hunt was over.
I had been found.
I had been caught.
And the moment I felt those hands take hold of me I knew with his whispered words, words I had forbidden him to ever speak again, that I had also been,
Captured…
“Found at last, my Khuba.”
Lucius
Chapter 1
Fists and Forgiveness
The moment I saw Amelia stepping out from her chosen hiding place it took me just a single look at the devastation on her face to know that the conversation she had heard, hadn’t been the same one spoken. I had even started to quickly replay certain parts of it in my mind, ready to begin to rectify the situation as soon as I first overcame what I knew was her urge to run from me.
But then I noticed the blood, after scanning the length of her body, starting with her blood-soaked shoes and trouser hem that continued on as splashes of crimson up her jeans. There were also smear marks on her cream sweater that I knew was from the only blood that belonged to her and was no doubt from the injury I could see on her hand. But there was also something there on the side of her head where her hair was soaked with blood too.
Gods, but what had happened to her this time?! I was fucking furious at the idea and almost grabbed her to me, caring little for what her reaction would be. But then it was the tears in her eyes that stopped the impulse. As I knew that I could heal her body in moments, but I was only free to do so after first attempting at healing what looked to be her damaged heart. Something that, by the looks of things, wasn’t going to be easy.
“Oh Gods, Fae! I…we…didn’t mean for you to find out this way…we didn’t know you…” Keira started to say having no clue where her daughter’s mind was really crashing towards. For it was of little doubt in my mind that Keira was thinking the worst of her daughter’s heartache was solely based on the fact that her mother’s knowledge of our relationship had been kept from her. But the second Amelia snapped back with utter distaste,
“Oh, I know you didn’t!” That was when I knew that both Keira and I had far a worse problem on our hands. One that for me personally, seemed as if it was going to become a battle of the past all over again. Which was why I told her,
“It is not what you think it is, my Khu…”
“NO!” she roared at me with such anger I swear I could hear it echoing around me as if the walls were about to crack from the force of her pain.
“You don’t EVER, ever get to call me that again!” she screamed at me and I couldn’t help but physically react, flinching as she openly scorned my love for her. It was starting to become clearer still, with the level of rage and hurt that she felt had been inflicted by a shadow of the truth. Which was why I raised my hands slowly, knowing any moment I would have no choice but to strike out by reaching for her quickly, to contain her and grab her to me before she fled.
“Lucius, what is happening?” I heard Keira asking in a pained and worried tone that told me the true horror of what her daughter believed she’d just witnessed was only now just starting to penetrate.
“Alright now, Pet, let’s just take a breath and calm things…”
“Calm things down…are you fucking serious right now!?” she snapped, interrupting me after I had ignored her mother’s question and focused solely on her. Then she stepped up to me, getting close, and I was seconds from making my move when suddenly she thrust the box into my chest with a hard shove into my body, one I barely remained immobile against, flinching only against the roar of anger she threw at my face when she screamed,
“YOU’RE FUCKING MY MOTHER!” I closed my eyes for a few seconds at the grief throwing those words at me inflicted, knowing the true meaning of pain as they ripped through me. To believe that was what she truly thought of me. To know that after everything I had done, all I had said, all the fucking love I had shown her, every second of it set alight and crumbling to ash at my feet in a single heartbeat…to know she believed it all to be lies just after one moment of mistaken affection shown for someone dear to me.