Forsaken (Book #1)
Chapter Twenty-Two

I yawned, stretching out across the couch. Now that I was home and relatively relaxed, it was hard to fight off the exhaustion seeping into my bones. I yawned once more, snuggling into the couch and curling up into a little ball.

Slowly I felt myself descending towards sleep. That descent was abruptly halted when someone touched my shoulder. I jumped, a scream replaceing its way out of my throat. I fell off of the couch and whirled around, my eyes wide as I searched the room for who had touched me.

My eyes landed on Lucian who had a guilty look in his golden eyes. He was standing behind the couch his hand outstretched and I huffed, climbing to my feet sending a look of anger directed his way.

“I’m sorry,” Lucian apologized, looking sincerely repentant. “I did not know that you were close to sleeping Calla.”

“Yeah, well next time check before you touch me.” I grumbled, crossing my arms.

He disappeared and then reappeared before me. He stared down at me, hands reaching up to cup my face his eyes full of remorse.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized once again.

My face softened. “I forgive you. So, were you doing dastardly things for the Afterdark?”

“Yes,” Lucian answered after a beat of hesitation. “And I can guess that you were training,:

“How’d you know?” I asked him.

His hand brushed along my lower jaw, pressing tenderly on the skin and I winced. “You have a couple bruises,” he explained. “Grayson’s pretty tough on you.”

“Yeah, well you know I have to be ready to help stop the Afterdark from summoning Darya.” I muttered, a bitter smile on my face. “It’s not like Grayson gives me a lot of help though. A lot of the time he doesn’t teach me. I mean, he corrects my mistakes but he doesn’t give me alternate ways of doing things or strategies or how to do things better.”

“But you have improved, so whatever Grayson is doing is working.” Lucian murmured. “You’re being a little hard on him Calla.”

“Maybe, but they want me to be like Ilya. How am I supposed to do that if I’m not getting the training-”

“That you think you need?” Lucian interrupted. “That’s just it Calla, you don’t know what kind of training you need. You haven’t been fighting since you’ve been able to walk like most other supernaturals. You won’t get the same training that everyone else did – including Ilya – because you’re just, not to that caliber yet.”

I crossed my arms scowling at him. His words stung, but there was a small part in the back of my brain that hissed he was right.

“Don’t look at me like that Calla. You know that I’m right,” Lucian admonished. “You won’t get the same training everyone else does, because you weren’t born into the supernatural world. Everything is new and foreign to you, so your training will be different. I don’t like Grayson – actually, I hate him – but he knows what he’s doing. Put a little faith in him.”

I glowered at him, before grudgingly nodding. I suppose that he was right. I didn’t know what I was doing but for some reason after training for about a month I thought that I did. But I didn’t. Grayson did because Grayson’s been training people for a long time and Grayson was born into the supernatural world.

He knows what he’s doing and I don’t, so I guess I just have to put a little more faith in his training. I ran a hand through my hair and Lucian stepped closer to me, wrapping his arms slowly around my waist and pulling me towards him. I leaned against him, closing my eyes.

This was something that didn’t happen very often, and after Halloween I doubted it would ever happen again. I had always wanted some kind of epic romance, I just didn’t imagine – couldn’t imagine – that my epic romance would be reduced to nothing but smithereens and ashes in a few shorts months.

Okay, maybe this wasn’t an “epic romance” like I had called it. But it was a romance, and I think if we had more time it would be the epic romance that Cassie and I so often dreamed about – Cassie more so than me.

“You should get some rest Calla,” Lucian said, his voice rumbling in his chest. “You look exhausted.”

“Will you stay?” I asked him quietly. Inwardly I cringed, afraid that I had sounded too needy but when Lucian relaxed against me, I realized that fear was misplaced.

“Of course.” He murmured.

He moved away from me, going to sit on the couch and then tugged on my arm so that I was splayed on top of him. His heart pulsed out a steady rhythm, lulling me into a sense of security and I gripped the thin fabric of his shirt tightly in my hands as I slowly succumbed to sleep.

* * * * *

When I awoke I wasn’t alone. Lucian was still here and I felt an unmeasurable amount of gratitude and relief because of that. I sat up, staring at his sleeping face. Asleep, he looked much more peaceful and angelic. There wasn’t the fear that was so often thinly veiled in his eyes, and there wasn’t the sarcastic twist on his lips that was often there when he was awake.

He stirred, his eyes opening slowly. His golden orbs were a little hazy and he yawned, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so. I smiled at him, running my hand through his hair. His eyes opened again and he smiled at me. It was a smile unlike anything I had ever seen from him before.

It was carefree almost, and it seemed like a true smile. It wasn’t something that he had to force and it didn’t seem awkward either.

“Morning,” Lucian said his voice husky from sleep.

“Morning,” I echoed, crawling off of him.

He pouted, but didn’t say anything. He merely sat up and stretched his arms over his head. His bones popped and his shirt rose up slightly, revealing a little of his toned stomach. I flushed, looking away from him. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him shirtless before – I had – but even seeing a little bit of his physique got me to blush.

“I assume that you have some dastardly business to do for the Afterdark?” I asked him, standing and glancing at him.

He frowned, “Why does everything I do for the Afterdark have to be dastardly?”

“Because the Afterdark are the bad guys?” I answered back my tone a little harsher than I meant it to. “Come on Lucian. The Afterdark wants to raise a demon that will probably bring about the apocalypse. Yeah, that sounds a little dastardly and evil to me.”

“There are always two sides to every story,” Lucian grumbled, getting to his feet a hard look in his eyes.

“Yeah, there are but that doesn’t exactly explain why they probably want to kill me.” I snapped, narrowing my eyes. “Speaking of why haven’t you killed me?”

In a blink Lucian was in front of me, a dagger in one hand while the other gripped my throat. I stared at him, fearfully. Obviously I had pushed his buttons too much. The blade of the dagger trailed along my throat, pressing just enough where I knew it was there and knew that if he wanted to he could kill me.

“I could,” Lucian said his voice a whisper filled with deadly intent. “I could kill you, it’d be so easy. You don’t have anything to protect yourself with and your so-called protector is nowhere to be found.” Then in a blink he was on the other side of the room, his eyes staring at me with liquid heat. “But I won’t.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because, I’m not the bad guy Calla.” Lucian murmured. He hesitated, “I’m in love with you. I can’t kill someone that I’m in love with.”

This was the first time that I had a verbal confirmation of what exactly his feelings were. Last time, he had just said that he had feelings for me. But now I knew without a doubt that he was in love with me.

“You can’t be in love with me,” I told him. “I am not going to be involved in a star-crossed lovers situation Lucian.”

His face fell and he looked away from me, swallowing hard. “Then this is where I leave you.”

“I care about you Lucian, but we’ve known each other for a really short time. It takes time to fall in love,” I told him trying to reassure him and give him some hope. “With more time I’d fall in love with you, but right now the only thing that I know is that I’m very attracted to you and I really like you. But I don’t love you.”

“I see.” His tone was clipped and harsh. “And I suppose that you’ve told Grayson the same thing? After all the two of you have kissed before haven’t you?”

My mouth dropped open and I froze. How did he know about that? We had been in a city of New Haven. A sanctuary one might call it, and Elysia and the other Exalts had seemed fairly confident that they would be safe there. But if Lucian knew about the kiss then it stands to reason that he also knew about the city, so how safe really were they?

“New Haven isn’t as sneaky as they sometimes believe,” Lucian answered, his mouth twisted into a frown. He looked away from me. “The Afterdark will raze that city to the ground. Then the focus will be on Darya, and New Haven won’t be able to stand in their way.”

“Why are you telling me that?” I asked him. “Shouldn’t you be trying to keep that a secret?”

“Maybe, it’s not like it matters much now. The city will be destroyed by noon.” Then he disappeared.

I stared in shock at the place where he had been standing. Then I looked toward the clock in the room. 9:45. Just a little over an hour until the city would be destroyed. I wanted to rush out the door and get Grayson to take me to the city, to save all of the people but what were the chances that they would believe me? Even if they did, they’d wonder where I got that information from and I couldn’t exactly reveal that I got it from Lucian.

Then they wouldn’t believe it and all my efforts would have been for nothing. Still, there had to be something that I could do. Maybe I could tell one of the Exalts, like Elysia or maybe Grayson’s father Henry Emmanuel. They’d believe me. Wouldn’t they?

I hope that they would. But what reason did they have to believe me? I was Ilya’s descendant, and they were relying on me to stop Darya from being summoned. They trusted me enough for that, but would they trust me and believe me when I told them that the city they inhabited was going to be destroyed?

I could only hope so. Even though I had no idea if Lucian was actually telling the truth I wasn’t going to risk people dying.

I was going to do my best to save them.