Parts of me
~
Accalia
~
Warning: Minor sexual content and themes.
When Accalia came to, the sun had dipped a little lower and swallowed the medical room in dark orange flares.
A breath fell onto her bare neck and Accalia's blurred vision found Lycus looming over her. She immediately felt settled. Stable.
"You fell asleep," Lycus explained, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face and back through her dark mane. "I asked no one to disturb you."
Accalia smiled and Lycus's pupils dilated, his eyes fading into darkness.
"Do you know your eyes do that?" Accalia asked thoughtfully.
Lycus frowned, brows screwing together in question. "Do what?"
"Turn black," Accalia slowly sat up, finding her bra latched around her and t-shirt on too. She didn't bother asking who changed her, knowing she was in safe hands if Lycus was in her presence.
Accalia slowly stretched, arms extending to the ceiling and waited for an ache of protest. Her back didn't send a pang of pain to her. She dropped her arms in relief.
Lycus scanned her, every inch and piece of her, those black eyes still the same with flecks of amber coursing through the abyss. "I changed you. The healer had to tend to other patients."
Accalia nodded and pointed to his black eyes. "How do you make your eyes go back to normal?"
Lycus closed his eyes and breathed through his nose as a slow moment passed between them. Once he opened them, they were amber and human. No trace of the lycan inside him peeking through.
"A lot of practice, Accalia. It's worse when I'm around you." Lycus said huskily to her.
Accalia's footing found the ground and she stood up, staring up at him curiously. "How so?"
Lycus closed the distance between them, brushing the pad of his fingers around her sides and stopped at her hips, reeling her into him. He balanced her, but she swayed him.
"Because you're the first being I've ever been in love with," Lycus admitted, brushing his nose across hers and then his lips dipped to hers in a teasing stroke.
Accalia smiled even as she felt it falling like the sun disappearing into grey clouds.
"My scars? Are they bad?" Accalia mumbled against Lycus and pulled away from him, the touch becoming all too suffocating.
Are they heinous and hideous? She nearly didn't want to know.
"See for yourself."
A wide and long mirror swept in front of her, but Lycus pointed behind her to see another mirror stuck to the wall.
"We use mirrors a lot to examine wounds and marks made on wolves—some just like looking at themselves," Lycus explained loosely and positioned Accalia directly in front of her reflection.
Not wanting to focus on her dreary and tired face, Accalia pulled her top up and looked in the side of the mirror, where, over her shoulder, she could see her bare back in the other reflection behind her.
Accalia concealed any withering emotion threatening to show through her features and she observed.
Her back tensed beneath her scrutiny but she could see it. The tough and jagged lines casted from the nape of her neck, midway down to the centre of her back. Four scars marred her body and were a lighter complexion than her brown skin.
Irrevocably mended with tougher and stronger skin.
Accalia's eyes drifted to Lycus to find he was already staring at her, staring through her face and body, to something else she couldn't place.
Carefully, she put her shirt back down and shook away all her fears that threatened to eat her alive. Her skin had been torn to blood and flesh by claws. Her skin was stitched back together. And now, she only had scars.
It was relief that blessed her, but revenge that would reward her.
"Can we go?" Accalia asked, wanting the freshness of air on her face.
Lycus nodded, his lip twitching into a smile. "Of course, everything is cleared with the healer. Cadence and Rexton are still waiting in the other room."
Accalia hoped they hadn't killed each other by now and by that, she meant Cadence being the culprit.
But those concerns got lost in the bliss that encased her and she kissed Lycus on the lips. She didn't deepen it and pulled away to find Lycus standing in shock.
"What was that for?"
"You," Accalia said simply. Just you. "Thank you for giving me your blood to help heal me."
The shock ebbed away and came consuming tenderness, Lycus making it known by kissing her on the forehead. "I'd give anything for you to be safe, Accalia. Anything."
The pair stepped out of the room and strolled to the waiting room.
Rexton was asleep on one of the chairs, his long stature stretched and his head slanted on his shoulder close to Cadence. She paid no mind to him and flicked through a book she had no interest in reading.
"He's sleeping?" Accalia said rhetorically to Lycus, not taking her eyes off the two in case she would miss it. The moment of brief contentment.
Accalia may never see it again for either of them.
"A lot better now," Lycus said hoarsely and weaved his fingers through Accalia's. "He's coming along, all things considering ..."
Lycus trailed off and Accalia wondered if that was his guilt whirling inside him for what he had done. It silenced him even when he hated silence because it bought along things he didn't want to hear.
A book slammed shut and Cadence stood up, whacking Rexton on the leg to wake him up. "About fucking time. I was about to read the bible over there to pass the time."
Rexton jerked awake with a start and stood up tiredly, scratching his tousled hair.
"Is everything alright?" Rexton asked Accalia, scanning her up and down.
Accalia breathed out in contentment and only nodded.
"Does the scar look badass? I bet it does." Cadence taunted and strode up to her cousin, flicking her nose in her peculiar ways of affection.
"I reckon it does," Lycus commented and wrapped his arm around Accalia's waist as she shoved him playfully.
Cadence cleared her throat and slapped Accalia lightly on the face. "I gotta head off to Erisa's. Will you be okay here?"
Cadence was similar to winter, it came and went as biting and blistering as it could be. She was touch and go, hanging by a thread waiting to snap and Accalia often wondered if this would be the last she would see the Larren hunter.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." Accalia cupped Cadence's skinny wrist and gripped it tenderly. "Go check in on her. See if there are any updates with Cole."
Because no one knew when the war would be upon them. They had no set time, no date planned, whenever it came around the corner, they had to be ready.
Cadence stepped back and tugged her wrist away. "Will do. And you—" she jutted a finger at Rexton who immediately stiffened under her leery gaze. "—stay here. You can't come this time, got it?"
Rexton masked his disappointment but jerkily nodded.
Cadence didn't bother sticking around and left.
"Good boy, Rexton." Lycus teased his brother in a sweet tone and Accalia didn't hesitate in slapping him across the arm. He wasn't in the slightest bit fazed by it.
"Don't listen to him, Rexton," Accalia said sternly and sent a warning glare to Lycus.
"But I have to listen to Cadence," Rexton said to them and dragged his hand down his tired, handsome face. "It's the only way I'll earn her forgiveness."
The hybrid bade them both a good afternoon and left for the Fenris manor, dragging his feet back home.
"I have to do patrolling. Do you still want to do it with me?" Lycus asked as they left the cabin.
Accalia only had time on her hands, the hours and days seemed to become slower, and she wouldn't refuse an opportunity to do something.
"I'm a Luna, right? I have to take on the tasks soon enough." Accalia said pointedly.
Lycus exhaled and led them further away from the cabin and deeper into the labyrinth of the woods.
"Once, I wished I had the option of choosing if I wanted to become an Alpha," Lycus stated and Accalia would've come to a dead halt at that if it wasn't for her mate's hand stringing her along.
"With your past and what you're known for, I wouldn't have thought," Accalia mumbled and wrapped her other hand around his bicep, leaning against him.
"Many wouldn't, but many forget the title was forced upon me very quickly. After my father was killed, everything went into chaos and I had to become Alpha. I never imagined it for myself for a few more years or decades."
Accalia huffed into his skin and peered up at him to see he was staring blankly ahead, no emotion or feeling passing through his hard features.
"Who killed him?" Accalia asked. It was never mentioned in history books nor was it ever said.
"Someone he wanted dead for a long time," Lycus said and brushed his finger along Accalia's arm, kissing her on top of the head. "Roman was a very hateful lycan, hated all things unlike him or anyone who tried to stand up to him. He was repulsed by Rexton and his late-blooming — he resented my mother for it. Thought she was cursed or tainted for what she birthed into this world. I thought Rex was a blessing, he gave me something I never thought I could have after I become a lycan."
"What did he give you?"
"Something worth loving and dying for," Lycus stated and a slight smile tipped across his lips as he recounted the past. "He was everything I would have wanted to be as a young boy. Humane and innocent. I never had any of that but I was glad Rexton did. Even for a short time."
Accalia and Lycus scoured the borders of their lands for hours, the afternoon blooming into dusk where clouds become darkly coloured and the sun began to dip behind the citadel of trees.
The patrolling wolves stationed every inch of the Fenris lands, looking ahead of what lurked beyond the borders and waiting for anything that came their way.
Some were armed. Many cursed wolves couldn't control their wolf side, that control was bound to the moon and instead, geared up with spears and crossbows.
Other wolves were calm and collected, lounging around the verdant grass or laying against the tree trunks. They were either lycans or werewolves that had their other side under complete control. They straightened up once they latched eyes on their Alpha.
In the long stretch of fields, many of Lycus's wolves trained and sparred. They were feral just as they were brutal, leaving no room for preparation or awareness and wholeheartedly taking down the threat without a doubt in their lycanthropy bones.
It reminded Accalia of how animalistic Lycus could be when put in positions of instinct. She had seen him not only fight but bloodily torture and tear people apart. This seethed into the very veins of his people, the way he fought, mercilessly and with no chance, they exercised the same moves.
Lycus led Accalia away from the patrolling and training, taking her further east where very few guards watched the perimeter.
Accalia trailed by Lycus, not questioning him and when she came to the top of overgrown and vine-covered steps, she was glad she said nothing.
The rustic orange cliffs were parted for an overflow of water that graced down tranquillity, the slight sounds of mist smashing against the water and an evening flow following through.
The pool of water sparkled against the setting sun and Accalia looked at Lycus breathlessly.
"I remember this place," Accalia recalled their teases and negotiations. Their kisses and ties. "You kissed me here."
"When I made that deal with you. It was completely pointless. I shouldn't have laid that upon you." Lycus said coldly, the annoyance reflected at himself rather than her.
It was utterly meaningless, their lives were in constant peril, parted as individuals and even more so as mates. They were in danger either way and there was nothing to stop it.
"Well, I fell for it." Accalia countered, thinking back on the brief and fleeting moment.
"I thought you just wanted to kiss me." Lycus teased her and Accalia said nothing in return, a smile gracing upon her lips.
They took the steps that paved the way to the waterfall and Accalia nearly forget how breathing-taking this place was. It was unlike the well-known bleak lands Lycus owned, this place was reaped with beauty no one would expect.
The water was fresh and transparent, where you could swim and never want to resurface.
Before Accalia could settle by the bank of the river that showed the waterfall at a distance, Lycus whisked Accalia away elsewhere, a place where a path weaved them closer to the waterfall and on a cliff that looked all the more appealing to jump off.
But the rocky cliff they stood upon took them right next to the gushing waterfall, the mist spraying and water glistening against the dusky colours of the skies and setting sun.
"You better not throw me in this time." Accalia gushed to Lycus, brushing her finger along the bleeding water that flowed and flowed endlessly.
Lycus came behind her and pinched her sides, causing her to jerk closer to the edge of the cliff.
"Lycus!" Accalia hissed and whipped around, straightening her back. "You're a menace."
Lycus laughed and jumped back when Accalia splashed water at him, droplets splaying his shirt and face.
She expected frustration or at least, a need to get back at her, but the Alpha only smiled. So brightly at her, as radiant as the light of the moon and brightness of the stars in the night sky.
It was holy and golden, a sight she would want to capture in her mind for eternity.
Accalia wanted him in her life forever.
"Lycus, do you still want me?" Accalia thought to ask, walking away from the water and closer to him to where their breaths mingled and skin touched.
And she would be a fool to say such a thing.
"In any way I can have you, Accalia."
"Have me now?" Accalia questioned, brushing her rosebud lips against his, trying to electrify the already rousing friction casting between them like magnets pulling to each other.
Parts of me.
And he did.
Laying her gently to the ground, Lycus coated her in kisses, ebbing lower and lower from her mouth, leading downward and caressing his lips and tongue to the apex of her thighs.
Unveiling the innocence of her body that heated beneath his touch and left her craving more, Accalia surrendered to all that Lycus did to her.
Lycus aligned himself to her, whatever moan she exhaled, he sought it out more. What words left her mouth in a bleeding whimper, Lycus would deliver. And when she asked for more, Lycus gave without question.
Lycus devoured and tasting her before losing all sense of sanity, sheathing himself exactly where they both wanted it.
In the ringers of her soul that spoke to his, Lycus branded her as his in any way he could have Accalia.