WILD & WICKED / © yllwjckts
018 ⸻ Crime and Punishment

Thought I found a way
Thought I found a way out
But you never go away
So I guess I gotta stay now

Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can't fight my fear

Isn't it lovely, all alone?
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home

— "Lovely", Billie Eilish

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

I am horrifically ill today and did my best to edit this chapter as best as possible, but I'm certain I missed some things and I'm so sorry in advance for those!

Anyways, this is the second flashbacks chapter. Another long one, sorry! Triggers are as followed: discussions of past sexual abuse, discussions of past suicide, vague sexual content, blood, death, mild gore, domestic abuse, and torture. Take care of yourself <3

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

September 22nd, 1956 ✦ Apartment 6, Redwood Ave

The smell of something cooking jolted Lux from her dream — one in which she was back at Hogwarts, a place she hadn't so much as thought about in decades. In the dream, she had got lost in the halls, and no matter how many turns she took, she couldn't find her way out.

For a moment, panic seared in her as her blurry vision struggled to recall where it was she was, why the blankets weren't the soft silk of Philip's bed, why there was no cold, looming presence at her side.

Her heart sputtered to a stop when she noticed the sun peaking through the blinds. She'd actually...she'd...

Her thoughts from the night prior about making it on her own, about freedom from Philip and the Coven seemed like a child's dream with a semi clear head, the fog from a lack of sleep lifted, revealing the cold, harsh truth of her reality.

There was no escape, and she'd been a fool to think as much. They'd track her down, find her and string her up, torture her for trying to leave. The only option was to go back.

Coven members had been punished for far less than returning a day late to their home, beaten bloody by Torquatus under Philip's orders for saying the wrong thing, disrupting order.

No, Philip would have her head for this blatant act of defiance.

Not all was lost, it couldn't be. Not over one mistake. She could return during the night, she told herself as she pushed the blankets off of her body with trembling hands, return to Hollyvale Manor and beg for forgiveness on her hands and knees. Lie and scheme and flatter her way out of consequence — she'd been hurt, or trapped, or had gotten herself into a bind. It hadn't been her fault.

But until then, there was nothing to do but wait. Allow the sun to reign for a few hours until it, like everything else, fell to night. Maybe then she'd gather the courage to strike Elias down.

Lux pulled the door open, stepping out into the hallway and towards the scent infecting her sense of smell. To her luck, all the blinds in the kitchen were closed, meaning she could step on the tile as she approached Elias, who was hunched over the counter top, vigorously stirring something in a bowl.

"Good morning," she greeted after a long pause, and he turned around, grinning ear to ear.

"Morning, sunshine! Did you sleep well?"

She paused at the odd nickname he'd spun up for her, then nodded.

His smile expanded, eyes lighting up before he turned back to the bowl and continuing his stirring. "I wasn't sure what you liked for breakfast, so I made a bit of everything. Bacon's over there," he nudged his head towards the table, where a plate of red meat strips were laid across a plate, "some toast is in the toaster, and I'm almost done with some pancake batter. Do you prefer milk, or orange juice, or water? I can get all three, if you'd like. I've got tea on the kettle too, but it might be a bit before it's ready. Tea's my favorite, could drink a pot a day on my own, really, but I don't mind sharing."

Her lips parted, then closed again.

"Lux?" He frowned, turning away from the pancake batter. When he confirmed she was still, in fact, there, he asked, "Is everything alright?"

"I'm not hungry," she lied, a puddle of guilt forming in her stomach as she observed the ridiculous amount of food he'd prepared. "I'm sorry. You clearly put a lot of effort into this, and..."

"That's alright," he lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug, though she couldn't tell if he was masking irritation or not. "More for me. Makes for good leftovers as well. Come, sit, sit, even if you don't eat, you can still join me, yeah?"

"I don't see why not." She exhaled a breath, watching as Elias abandoned the pancake batter in favor of rushing to the table and pulling out a chair for her.

He was seated across from her five or so minutes later, shoving bacon into his mouth at a speed that had her eyes widening.

"Sure you don't want anything?" He asked in between bites.

Lux nodded, hands folded in her lap, fingers picking at her cuticles.

"D'you have to be home anytime soon?"

She thought, racked her mind for what to say and how to say it, before shaking her head. "Sometime tonight. After dark."

"After dark? What, are you allergic to the sun or something?"

Lux clicked her tongue. "Something like that."

He grinned, clearly under the assumption that she was joking. "I cleaned up a bit this morning. It's still awful messy in here, but at least you shouldn't have to worry about tripping with every other step you take."

She frowned. "How long have you been awake for?"

"Couple hours. Maybe since five or so?" He shrugged as he lathered butter over a slice of burnt toast, then took a massive bite out of it. "I have insomnia, so sometimes I wake up and can't fall back asleep. Best to just get out of bed and do something, is how I see it, rather than toss and turn for hours."

Her lips twitched. "I have insomnia too."

"You said you slept well last night."

"I did," she agreed, biting down on her lip. Maybe she shouldn't indulge him, but something in her wanted to spill every thought she had, pour them onto the table and be viewed for the first time by someone who wouldn't scold her for talking too much, speaking without being spoken to, picking apart her words and searching for a hidden meaning there had never been.

His eyebrows arched in a rare silence, and it was all the encouragement she needed to continue, "Best night of sleep I've gotten in years. Not sure what it was."

A lie, it was a lie and they both knew as much. Elias had been able to read her enough the night prior, sense wherever it was she came from was a home built on a surface of blood and fear, infecting the halls and haunting the bedroom.

"You're welcome to stay again tonight, if you'd like."

She shook her head, bowing her chin to avoid looking into his hopeful hazel eyes. "It's your bed. It was rude enough of me to spend one night in it."

"It would've been rude for me to make a guest sleep on the couch," Elias argued as he sipped from his cup of tea. "Besides, has to be worth it if you're sleeping well, yeah?"

"It's your bed," Lux repeated, tone harsher than she intended, but she didn't lessen it as she continued, "And you don't even know me. You shouldn't..."

"Shouldn't what?" He asked when she trailed off.

Part of her considered being quiet, but she couldn't. Philip's absence had shifted something in her, a desire to be heard when for centuries, her words had fallen upon deaf ears. "You shouldn't invite strangers into your home and let them sleep in your bed and eat your food. You don't know a thing about me, or what I could do."

"Technically, you're not eating my food," he pointed out as he placed his fork down.

Lux remained silent, waiting for him to acknowledge her other points, but he didn't.

"If you want to leave, I'm not stopping you," he said after a pause between them, exhaling a deep breath. "I just...I thought we were getting along. And that you might need a place to stay. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't upset me," she lied.

"Then why are you being all defensive?"

Lux's jaw shifted, her silence permeating the air until the tension was impossible to bear for either of them.

In an impossibly small voice, Elias spoke once more, "I'm just trying to be nice."

Nice. Lux was nice once.

Something inside her twisted, her pride shattering the moment his words came out. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dismiss you."

As if she hadn't said anything, he continued, "I know I talk too much, and I'm irritating, and I'm a slob, but I thought maybe we were getting along. And I thought that—"

"How long?" She interjected him, heart racing.

Elias paused. "How long for what?"

"How long can I stay here for?"

He blinked, eyes scanning her up and down for a moment before answering, "As long as you'd like."

"I can't pay rent. I don't work. Can't work."

He didn't question her correction, simply nodding as if this was in any way okay. "That's fine. I don't work either. My inheritance will keep my landlord happy and groceries on the table for a decade. Dead rich parents are good for something, I suppose. By that point, my novel will be done and I won't need a job. I'll be rich and famous from my own work and touring the world doing things like book signings and speaking at universities — you can come with, if you'd like."

Despite understanding it was a fantasy in which she could never partake in, Lux nodded anyways. "That would be fun. But...are you sure you'd want to travel the world with me? I've known you for twelve hours."

He shrugged, any semblance of hurt from their earlier bits of conversation vanishing. "Why wouldn't I? You haven't complained about me talking too much, when you could've been mean as all hell about it. You liked my book idea, even though it's unconventional. You're nice, Lux. And you're awful pretty, if I can say so."

Maybe it should've been the compliment on her physical appearance that sent a jitter of excitement through her, but it wasn't. She'd been told she was pretty enough times to believe it. Rather, being called nice had every inch of her soaring with a happiness so foreign, she wondered for a moment if there was something wrong with her.

Over the years in the Coven, Lux had been called so many things. Beautiful, powerful, charismatic, enticing. But never good. Never nice.

"Thank you."

He smiled at her, though it faded after a brief moment. "There's something you should know about me though."

"Oh?"

He nodded as he exhaled a shaky breath, wringing his hands together and avoiding meeting her eyes. "I'm not really supposed to share this with anyone. It could get me in a load of trouble, telling you."

He rose to his feet, and she did as well, watching as he rushed into the parlor and dug around the couch cushions, evidentially searching for something. "I think it's somewhere in here...aha!"

For a moment, confusion eclipsed her as she observed what he held in his hand — a long, neatly decorated stick. No, a wand.

"You're a wizard?" She sputtered before he could explain on his own.

Elias blinked, then nodded. "I can do magic, yes. I know, it sounds insane, but I can show you if you'd like. I went to this school called—"

"—Hogwarts." Lux finished for him.

His grin, which had been one riddled with nerves, settled into one of relief as he nearly dropped his wand. Grabbing it just before it hit the floor, he glanced back upwards, eagerness in his eyes. "You know about Hogwarts? Did you go to Hogwarts too? Are you a witch?"

It would've been easy to lie. Omit the full truth. It was low hanging fruit, to say yes, she had gone to Hogwarts, and leave it at that. But Elias had offered up the truth of who he was to her without any hesitation, not knowing how she would react.

Maybe he'd strike her down where she stood, when she told him the truth of what she was. Maybe he'd kill her. Maybe he'd bring her back to the Coven, collect a handsome reward for his efforts. But Lux figured she owed herself a chance.

"I have a confession too."

Elias tilted his head to the side as he moved to set his wand down on top of the television. "Yeah?"

"I..." she began, breath catching in her throat.

"Hey." He took a step towards her, reaching down to place his hands over hers. They were shaking, she realized, only stilling when his fingers entwined with hers. "Whatever it is, I won't be upset."

She felt small and pathetic and weak as she asked, "Promise?"

"Pinky promise." Before she could inquire what he meant by that, he was positioning his pinky finger with her own, in an odd sort of formation. A lock, almost. "There, now I can never break it."

A small mixture of a laugh and a hiccup slipped from her as he released her from his grip.

"I'm a vampire."

For a long moment, Elias was silent, expression unreadable. Foolish, she had accused him of being too many times, when in reality, the only fool in the room was Lux Erzsebet, as she came to the understanding moments after her confession spilled from her lips.

Then, just as she was growing panicked, he released a breath and moved to scratch the back of his neck with his hand. "Well, that explains the hair."

Her brow furrowed together. "Pardon?"

"The hair." He waved a hand towards her, gesturing towards her blonde curls. "It's quite lovely, don't get me wrong. But it's also a bit...messy. Not to be rude. Don't think I'm being rude. There's something adventurous about it, wouldn't you say? Like you've just come back from battle. But yes, I figured you hadn't looked into a mirror as of late."

"I see..."

What she had perceived as excitement died down at her lack of response. "Sorry, was that insensitive of me?"

"No." Lux gulped, shaking her head. "I'm just...shocked that you don't seem upset over it."

It was his turn to be confused. "Why would I be upset? I didn't decide to be a wizard. I doubt you decided to be a vampire. How old are you, anyways? Can I ask that? Is that rude? I'm not trying to be, swear it. I've just never met a vampire before."

"It's not rude," she confirmed, voice soft even as she studied him, searching for buried intentions. Despite coming up with none, she found herself recoiling away from him the moment he reached out to grip her shoulder.

"Here," Elias moved towards the couch, pulling the blankets he'd had draped over him while he'd slept off and moving them to the floor. "Come on. We can chat all you'd like about it."

Part of her wanted to say no, but she shoved that bit of her away. Taking a seat next to him, she crossed her legs, avoiding eye contact. "What if I don't want to talk about it?"

"That's fine. We can wait until you do."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

September 29th, 1956 ✦ Apartment 6, Redwood Ave

Elias didn't get up to much, as it seemed. He lived a life almost as mundane as hers had been in the Coven, the only thing even getting him out of the house being a need to buy groceries, but that only occurred once in the week Lux had been living with him. Other than that, alongside other household chores, he sat on the kitchen table with his head buried into the pages he scribbled on for hours at a time. Sometimes he had the television on in the background, but other times, Elias worked in silence, spending hours with just him and those pages.

Lux passed the time in the same way she did in the Coven — reading. He had a collection of books unlike anything she'd ever seen before, titles spanning centuries back, but modern works as well. This time around, however, she didn't feel a need to fully immerse herself into the story being told, to find an escape through the fierce heroes and heroines and the journeys they went on. She didn't flip to the final page dreading its completion, as the harsh truth would set that she had to return to the real world. Instead, she could enjoy the works for what they were, and appreciate them after the fact.

A week had gone by before Elias had let out a frustrated sigh from his usual spot on the table, before dropping his quill and rising to his feet.

Lux, who was on the couch with a book in her lap, watched with wide eyes and apprehension as he approached her, mind racing to figure out what exactly he would want to hear to calm his irritation. Philip was someone she could read like the back of her hand, she knew exactly how to appease to his ego and calm his anger, but Elias was a whole new set of problems she hadn't begun to dissect.

A flinch ran through her when he shorted the distance between them, only for him to frown. "Is everything alright?"

"You're upset," she responded, an edge to her tone. She kept the book firmly lodged in her hands.

"I am," he admitted with a sigh, running a hand through his hair and moving to sit down next to her. It took everything in her not to move towards the edge of the couch, put as much space between them as possible, but he remained oblivious as he continued, "Writer's block. It's been nagging me for hours. Suppose it's time I take a break, yeah?"

She eyed him with hesitancy.

"What are you reading?" He leaned over, reaching for her book.

She jerked away.

A frown formed on his face. "Did I do something?"

She paused, opening and closing her mouth a couple times as she struggled for what to say. Then, as she sensed the genuine confusion in his hazel eyes, she shook her head.

His lips curved upwards.

"You said you're having trouble with your novel," Lux began, shoving her nerves to the side and forcing herself to hold his gaze. She could fix this, she could appease him, she could dissuade his anger. "Is it anything I can help with?"

If he was shocked at her initiative, he didn't show it.

"Maybe." He shrugged, giving her an awkward sort of look. "Emma and Matthew are about to kiss for the first time, and I've never written that kind of scene before. Everything that comes out feels unnatural."

Lux thought, then answered, "Write what you know."

He gave her an amused stare. "If I wrote what I knew, I'd write about a social recluse with too much to say and no one to say it to. The fun is writing what I don't know."

Choking down a laugh, she raised her eyebrows. "Don't tell me you've never kissed a girl before, Elias."

"I've kissed a girl!" He protested with indignance. "Sally Wright — she was my neighbor growing up. On my tenth birthday, she kissed me on the cheek! Right here!" He lifted a finger and jammed it at his left cheek, then after a moment of silence, sighed, shoulders sagging. "Doesn't have the effect I think it does, does it?"

This time, Lux did laugh, shaking her head as she did. "It does not."

His shoulders slumped, though he was grinning to himself still. "I take it you've kissed a bloke, then?"

Lux considered this, her jaw shifting, then nodded. "Once, when I was human. His name was Jude Greengrass. We were both fifteen, and I'd been forced to work on an essay with him at Hogwarts. After a week of bugging each other in the library, we were in another fight and we just...kissed. Never spoke about it, either, and a month later he was seen holding hands with Elizabeth Selwyn. I think he was ashamed — I'm a muggleborn and was in Hufflepuff, and he was a pureblood Slytherin, so..."

"Stupid blood supremacy." Elias shook his head, nose scrunching at the thought. "I'm half blood. Mum was a witch, with muggle parents. Dad was a muggle as well. It's disgusting, how people think that means we're worth less than them just because of how much magic our ancestors have."

"It's sounds silly to admit, but it really did feel like the end of the world at the time. I thought I was so...useless. Just because Jude Greengrass had picked some pretty pureblood girl over me. But looking back, that was the least of the problems I'd have to deal with."

"Like vampirism?"

Another nod.

"It must be hard, not going into the sun. Having such a restriction around what you can do, where you can go." His hands were twiddling as he spoke, thumbs messing around with the other. "How have you been eating then, while you've been here? Don't you need blood to survive?"

Lux felt a blush creep across her face at the harsh phrasing, but his question wasn't accusatory. At least his tone was laced with genuine curiosity, no shame or anger within him that she could tell.

"I snuck out a few times, while you were asleep," she admitted, eyes flickering towards the door. "Not far, just...to the gardens. You've got a nice collection of rabbits."

His curious gaze intensified, not at all horrified by her confession. "Animal blood works for vampires?"

"There's a difference between animal and human blood, but it all does the job at the end of the day."

"I see. Do you have a preference, then? What about other vampires? Is there a general consensus on which is better? Have you ever met other vampires, or is it just you?"

Her throat bobbed, Philip flashing over her vision for a brief moment, before she blinked it away. "I'd rather not discuss any of that."

Part of her expected him to be upset at her request, but she knew Elias better enough now to know nothing got on his nerves, not really, anyways. Someone could punch him in the face and he'd still find a reason to shake their hand.

"Oh. Okay." He smiled with all his teeth — crooked and some stained yellow from all the tea he drank, but she found charm within it anyways, unable to keep herself from mirroring him.

"You're smiling," Elias commented after a few moments of silence.

"I am," she agreed, not bothering to deny or hide it as she might have done before.

"You don't smile very much."

"I don't often have reason to."

His head cocked to the side, weight shifting as he slid ever so slightly closer to her on the couch. "Should I feel special, then?"

Lux glanced down for a brief moment, finding where his hand was placed on the cushion, before meeting his eyes again. "Very."

He too looked away for a moment, swallowing a breath. "Would you mind if I kissed you?"

She blinked, certain she hadn't heard him right. "Pardon?"

"I mean, it could be beneficial for my novel," he stuttered, as Lux realized he'd meant exactly what she'd heard. "Like you said, write what you know. I don't know what it's like to kiss someone, so...not that that's the only reason I'd want to, of course. You're pretty. And clever. I...I like having you around."

Maybe Lux should've been horrified at the idea of kissing a man, a human, a boy she'd known for little over a week. Maybe she should've said no, slapped him, even. It would've been the sensible action.

But nothing Lux had done as of recent had been sensible. It hadn't been sensible to abandon the Coven on the whim of a man she'd met a day earlier. It hadn't been sensible to inform him of her identity the moment the opportunity presented itself. It hadn't been sensible to sleep in his bed, not to mention with the door unlocked.

She didn't give Elias an answer. Instead, she moved towards him, pressing her lips against his in a soft, brief kiss. The grown out scrapes of his typically shaved facial hair scraped against her skin as she did, moving her hand to place it against his cheek.

Lux expected him to pull away from the kiss within seconds, but he didn't, shattering any doubt within her mind about him. Elias may have been inexperienced, awkward and generally clueless when it came to girls, but damn could he kiss. He seemed to know exactly how much pressure to have against her, where to place his hands and how to guise what boundaries were set in place without her having saying a word.

He did pull away first, after a minute or so, breath heavy and cheeks flushed pink. One of his hands was on her cheek, and the other atop her knee, neither of them leaving their places even as his eyes drifted up to meet hers.

They both smiled at the same time, grins spreading across their faces and gentle laughs emitting from them.

"That was lovely," Elias said, breaking the silence with an almost breathless claim.

Lux nodded in agreement, and for the first time in centuries, didn't stop for even a moment to contemplate her words before she spoke, "It was."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

October 5th, 1956 ✦ Apartment 6, Redwood Ave

Philip enjoyed haunting Lux's dreams. It seemed to be a hobby of his, a final reminder of his existence, that she would never truly be free of him even as she found her shackles ripped off of her aching wrists. She would never escape him, in the way humans cannot escape death. Philip was an inevitability.

It was the middle of the night when she woke up from a dream consumed in flames, finding Philip hovering above her, peering down where she lay on a bed that was not her own. A bed she had no business invading.

No, no, not Philip, she realized as her vision cleared up. Elias, the menacing grin truly a look of concern. His hands were on her shoulders, not holding her down, but shaking her.

"Lux, hey, hey, wake up, wake up," he was saying — no, pleading, only letting go of her when he noticed her eyes had shot opened. "Sorry," he grimaced as she inhaled long, heavy breaths in an attempt to steady her pounding heart. "You were screaming. I think you were having a nightmare."

She paused, then nodded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up."

"It's no matter, really. I was already awake. When inspiration strikes, you've got to take it, yeah?" He let out an unenthused laugh. "If you don't want to go back to sleep, a bath might help. I always take them when I have bad dreams. They help clear my mind."

Another nod. It did sound nice, she thought to herself, relaxing in a bath, letting the water soothe her back into a calm enough state to return to sleep.

"I'll go run it for you," Elias volunteered as she rose to her feet, pushing the blankets back onto the bed. Voice echoing from down the hall, he called out, "Do you like the water warmer or colder?"

"Colder," Lux answered, hesitating before adding, "As cold as you can get it."

A pause. Then an uncertain, "Right. If you're sure."

She entered the bathroom minutes later, just as the tub had fully risen with water, with Elias hovering at the side, measuring the temperature with his hand under the faucet. "It's really cold," he warned her. "I know you said you want it cold, but—"

"Thank you," Lux cut him off, forcing a smile.

He mirrored it, the wavering nature of the expression she gave him, but didn't say anything more on the matter as he exited the bathroom, softly shutting the wooden door behind him. Lux wasted no time, stripping down out of her clothes — oversized pajamas borrowed from Elias, and sunk into the tub.

It was nearly two hours before Elias gentle knock echoed through the bathroom, only just loud enough to have Lux's head momentarily moving away from it's position staring down at her body, watching as she scrubbed her skin raw with a washcloth.

"Are you alive in there?" He asked, an attempt to sound casual failing. She could hear the worry in his voice.

"Yes," was the short answer she gave, her own voice thick and raspy. Only then did she realize she'd been crying, though she couldn't find it in her to cease her scrubbing for enough time to wipe away her tears.

A silence passed between them.

"I've got a towel for you," Elias eventually continued, slightly muffled by the wood separating them. "May I...may I come in? I can leave it at the door too, if you'd like, but..."

She paused, gulping, before saying through a shaky breath, "Go ahead."

The door pushed open, and Lux went back to scrubbing, her knees pulled up to her chest as she worked at her upper arm with the rag, over and over and over again until that patch of skin was as raw and inflamed as the rest of her.

"Bloody hell," Elias gulped, nearly dropping the towel. "Lux, you're shaking."

"I'm fine," she insisted, more to herself than to him.

For a moment, he observed her, before rushing to grab the washcloth from out of her hand, pulling it away from her even as she struggled to maintain her grip on it. "Stop that! You'll wear down your skin."

"Give it back," Lux begged.

(Oh Merlin, when was the last time she'd begged?)

"I'm not clean yet."

Elias ignored her, reaching past where her legs were pulled up and tucked to her chest, concealing herself from him as he moved to unplug the drain. He hissed when his hand met the water, but persisted anyways, yanking the plug out and tossing it to the side.

"You'll catch a cold if you stay in here much longer." A hand fell on her shoulder, ever so slightly squeezing down. Below her, the water drained, but the sick feeling engraved into her flesh didn't leave with it.

Lux didn't have the heart to tell him vampires couldn't get sick. If he wanted to assume there was even a fraction of humanity left in her, that was his right.

Elias paused, gaze never leaving her face. "Why don't you think you're clean yet? You've been at it for hours."

"I can still feel him on me." She hadn't meant to say what she did, but she showed no reaction after the words left her mouth other than a resolute sigh. There wasn't a use lying, pretending to be anything she wasn't. Not with him.

Elias, to her shock, didn't press on the topic. The water had fully drained, and he reached down, gripping onto the towel and draping it over her shoulders, wrapping it around her body. He was right, she realized as his arm grazed hers. She was shaking.

Lux wasn't positive how she wound up in the bed. Maybe she'd walked, or maybe Elias had carried her, or maybe she'd somehow managed to teleport, but she found herself buried in a mountain of blankets, the towel still wrapped around her body, concealing everything that needed concealing.

Elias hovered above her, eyes flickering about and expression riddled with uncertainty. She certainly could relate to the inner turmoil — she'd stopped crying, but her tremors had yet to subside, and her mind was both numb and racing in a horrible mixture, making maintaining coherence a struggle.

"Do you want me to—" he began, at the same time that she asked, "Can you stay?"

Elias blinked. "Stay? As in the bed? Or the floor? I can sleep on the floor, really, I don't mind."

"It's your bed," Lux insisted with a sniff, the sound of his voice easing the tension in her mind and body. "And...it's big enough for the both of us."

"Suppose you're right." His lips gave a nervous twitch as he glanced down at the large gap. "Would you be shocked if I said I'd never shared a bed with a woman before?"

A smile tugged at her lips, sad and soft but somehow still a smile. "I never would have expected, really."

"Oi, don't tease." He leaned over, pushing against her shoulder with his hand and causing a wet laugh to slip from her.

Lux rolled over onto her back, trying not to squirm as she felt the rustling of the blanket, signaling Elias sliding into the bed at her side. But to her surprise, the warmth that radiated off of him didn't fill her with fear, but eased the tension in her muscles.

She turned back on her side, forcing herself to meet his eyes. He was in the same position as her, eyes scanning her up and down. "We could get you into pajamas, if you'd prefer. You don't have to sleep in a towel."

"I'll be fine," she murmured, a soft lazy smirk sliding onto her lips as she shifted to get more comfortable in the mattress. Truthfully, her body now felt like goo, and moving to get up and change seemed like an awful lot of work, and the surface beneath her was so soft...

"You seem like you're feeling a little better, now that you're out of the cold." Elias observed as he reached over, placing his hand on top of hers. "Do you want to talk about it? All of it, I mean. Whatever it is that had you crying. I know you said before you didn't want to talk about things that happened before you came here, but if you do, you can. Only if you want, of course. Don't think I'm pressuring you."

For a moment, Lux sat in the idea, sleepy thoughts full of maybes and what ifs, and perhaps because Elias knew so much about her already, informing him of the rest wouldn't hurt.

Chances were, her inability to restrain her words while in the tub already had him jumping to conclusions.

"You have to tell me something as well, then. First, too," Lux decided, any sense of tranquility on her expression vanishing as it morphed into a stone cold one. "Something you've never told anyone."

"I don't have many secrets," Elias admitted with the purse of his lips. "But...I can tell you about my family, if you'd like to hear about it."

She nodded from where her head was rested against the pillow.

He inhaled a deep breath, jaw shifting in a rare expression of serious contemplation, as though carefully choosing his words. "I'm an only child. My parents married young, about our age, actually, and my mum, she couldn't have kids after me. There were complications in my birth that nearly killed her, so it was just us three. My father died in the war when I was six. Got drafted in forty one, served for a few years, then got blown to smithereens by the Germans. There wasn't a body left to bring to us — all of him was just...gone."

Her throat seemed to close up. "That must've been awful."

"It was," he agreed. "But I had my mum. We'd always been close, and it brought us together. But she died as well, two years back. So it's just been me ever since. I sold our home — I regret it, if I'm being honest, but I couldn't bear to be in it. Found this flat, moved in, never looked back."

Lux thought about keeping her mouth shut, since the topic was clearly upsetting him, but after a moment of contemplation, she forced herself to ask, "How did she die?"

His jaw shifted, eyes moving from her for the first time since their conversation began. "She never really got over my father's death. And I suppose I stopped needing her as much. I guess she didn't see much of a reason to stay once I'd grown up. Grown away from her."

Lux blinked, once, twice, as she struggled to comprehend what exactly he was implying, then, "She killed herself?"

"Yeah. Hanged herself in her closet in the middle of the night. I found her the morning after." He said these words with such a matter of fact tone, though she could sense the emotions hidden away, locked in a corner of his heart just as her own had been for so long. She'd released hers in every way but words by this point, but it was evident that Elias was not ready to let go in the way she was. His wounds were too fresh.

"I'm sorry. That's awful." She paused, and a pang of guilt shot through her. This time, it was her turn to look away, heat rising in her cheeks. "And I'm sorry I made you talk about it. Had I known..."

"It's only fair," he assured her. "It's easier to talk about, now that it's been a while."

Lux got the sense that he was lying, but didn't call him out on it. He seemed one wrong word away from bursting into tears, and she wouldn't blame him one bit for it.

"It's your turn, though."

"I don't know where to start," Lux admitted.

He thought, then said, "Start at the end. How you became a vampire."

"It was sixteen twenty eight. I was seventeen. I had just come back from my sixth year at Hogwarts. My family — my mum, dad, and two younger sisters and a baby brother. were all muggles. We all lived in a muggle village, ate muggle foods, lived muggle lives. Everything was lovely, really, until I was turned in for witchcraft."

His hazel eyes grew wide. "By who?"

She lifted her shoulders as best as she could from her position on her side. "Not sure. Suppose it doesn't matter. Whoever did it is dead too, now. My family, rather than being implicated with knowing about who I was, what I'd done, fled into the night after I was arrested. I was held in a cell for a week — I don't remember much about it, I hadn't hardly any food or water, but at some point a vampire snuck in and bit me. Then, after I was tied up and burned at the stake, I came back."

Elias gulped. "That's an awful way to die."

"It was," Lux agreed, her skin burning at the mere memory. "I couldn't breathe, and my entire body hurt unlike anything I'd ever felt before, and everyone watching just let it happen. Cheered, even. But that's all besides the point. It's the beginning of it all."

A silence fell between them, one in which Lux debated if she truly wished to go through with detailing the events of three hundred years. Of held tongues and spread legs and a longing for something, anything, to pull her up as she tread water in crashing waves. Of skin that never seemed to get clean, or air that could never be too cold.

Then, with a deep breath and a recollection of having nothing to lose, she told him. All of it, the good and the bad and the bloody, making no effort into painting herself as anything but what she truly was. It was gritty and unfiltered and had Elias flinching every time she recalled a ripped open throat or a person begging, screaming, pleading for their lives just as she had when tied to that pyre.

She talked in depth about Philip, about the words she kept shut tight in her mouth. They wouldn't have made a difference anyways, Lux explained, causing him to pale. He'd have just used it as a reason to make her more miserable, strike her or have Torquatus beat her or make their days together hurt.

By the end of it, Lux wasn't crying, but Elias was. She hadn't noticed until his hand moved, wiping away something near his eye. A tear, she understood after a moment, something awful settling in her stomach.

"I'm sorry," she swiftly began, heart racing as dread and regret jumbled in her. "Shit, Elias, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare—"

"Don't apologize," he interjected before she could get another word out. "I'm not scared. I swear it, you've not scared me one bit. I'm just..." His voice trailed off, for once seemingly at a loss for words.

"I'm not scared, Lux, I swear it. But I'm upset," Elias declared a few long seconds later. "You didn't deserve this. Any of this. It angers me that this all happened to you. It isn't fair, and I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to apologize for. It's not your fault."

"I wish I had met you earlier," he continued as though she'd not spoken, a slight tremble in his voice. "No, I wish I'd been born earlier, so I could've met you and gotten you out of there faster."

"Who's to say we would've met if you'd been born a hundred years prior?"

Not a breath was spared before he said, "I don't think any of the lives I could've possibly lived were meant to exist without you in them."

It was her turn to blink back tears that she hadn't even realized were building until the statement nearly caused her heart to stop.

"Can you make me a promise?" Elias continued after he understood she had nothing to respond to him with.

Lux nodded. "Anything."

She meant it, too. In the little time in which she'd known Elias Hyde, she understood there was little she wouldn't do for him, nothing she wouldn't risk.

"It's going to be hard. Escaping that hell you call the Coven is just the first step, Lux. After that it's going to be a years of this — of crying in cold bathtubs and feeling scared and nervous and disgusted and a dozen other emotions I can't begin to comprehend. But I want you to swear to me you won't..." He gulped, inhaling a sharp breath and staring up at the ceiling for a moment, before finishing, "That no matter how haunted by the past you feel, you won't do what my mum did."

She stopped for a moment. Suicide had never been something she'd considered, never an option to her. She couldn't imagine it ever would become one, but the same could not be said for Elias. The more she looked at him, the more she understood. He seemed broken to his very core, in a way telling her she'd shown up in his life just in time. "As long as you promise the same."

"I promise." A hand found hers, holding down onto her as though his very life depended on it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

October 6th, 1956 ✦ Apartment 6, Redwood Ave

Elias was already awake when Lux's eyes slowly opened late into the next day, her conscious shifting from the realm of dreams into the reality she lived in. A reality she found she didn't mind at all, perhaps even enjoyed, as her gaze settled on where Elias stood at the edge of the bed, back towards her as he struggled to tug a shirt over his body.

Sensing her gaze, halfway through lowering the blue tunic over his bare chest, he pivoted around, eyes expanding before promptly falling over.

"Bloody hell!" He cried out as he hit the floor, sending a laugh through Lux. She watched as his head peaked out from the edge of the bed, an apology written into his hazel eyes. "Sorry! I didn't think you'd wake while I was changing. Really. I didn't mean to flash you."

"Don't worry about it. It was your chest, not your cock," Lux said with the roll of her eyes, and he exhaled a breath at the word cock, as though she'd said the foulest of curses. "But if it bothers you so much, why didn't you change in the bathroom?"

"I thought opening the door would wake you up. You're a light sleeper, from what it seems." He shrugged, rising back onto his feet, this time with his shirt properly on.

Moving around towards his side of the bed, he sat down just as she pushed herself into a sitting position, making sure the towel she'd fallen asleep in kept upright.

"Were your dreams any better?"

Lux nodded. "I think our talk helped a bit, oddly enough. I always thought that speaking about it would just make it worse, make it more real, but...maybe that wasn't the case."

He gave her a soft, understanding smile. "It's good to get things out. That's what my mum always told me, when I'd get sad and wouldn't want to talk about it. Letting feelings fester just makes whatever it is worse over time."

"It sounds like your mother was a very wise woman."

For a long moment, Elias was silent, and her stomach churned in fear that she'd said something wrong. Just as she was about to question if he was alright, he spoke again, voice small, "I've been awful lonely, Lux."

"I—"

"It felt like after my mum did what she did, the world became black and white. I didn't know if I'd ever meet someone I really connected with, someone that understood even a small amount of what it's like. Then you showed up, and you understand me more than I thought anyone ever would."

"But I've never known someone who's killed themselves," Lux countered, frowning.

"Maybe not, but you've still gone through something. A lot of somethings, actually. Things you blame yourself for, feel guilty for, when you know deep down there was nothing you could've done to change the outcome."

She thought for a few seconds, then, "I suppose you're right."

Running a hand through his hair and releasing a breath of mild frustration, he continued, "My words get all jumbled and messy in the mornings, I'm sorry. What I'm trying to say is, I'm thankful we met. Beyond thankful. And I...I..."

When it became clear he was struggling with words, with initiative, Lux took it upon herself to break the barrier between them, leaning over and placing a soft kiss on the stubble of his cheek.

Against her, she felt him grin as he pulled away slightly, only to turn his head towards her. For a second, his hazel eyes simply looked into hers, before his lips made contact with hers.

They hadn't kissed since that time on the couch about a week prior, but Lux had been under the assumption that they would pick up where they'd left off eventually. More importantly, she'd wanted to, she'd craved his touch like she craved the taste of blood on her tongue. For the first time since she'd rose from the ashes of that pyre, she'd wanted her body revealed, her skin caressed, she wanted to be kissed and shagged and held afterwards as their mutual highs lessened.

This kiss reeked of her intentions, her desires, separating itself from the chaste, gentle moment they'd shared on the couch.

It was minutes into their lasting passion when Elias pulled away, eyes scanning her. "Lux, wait, is this—"

"It's okay," she assured him before he could finish his sentence, unable to bear the feeling of her lips without his on them. She kissed him again, quickly as to quell the burning sensation in her, before saying, "I promise, it's okay."

Relief shone in his expression, but even so he appeared apprehensive. "You'd tell me if you wanted me to stop, right?"

She nodded, reaching her hand over to his and entwining their pinky fingers, as he had done to her once before. "Pinky promise."

Their lips found each others again, melting into their touches as their hearts raced to the same racing tempo. It wasn't long before clothes were carelessly discarded to the floor, the towel she wore and the shirt and trousers he'd only just dressed in. More reassurances were given in between kisses, and when Elias finally found his place inside her and moved with intent, Lux nearly came undone there and then.

Only after they'd collapsed side by side, shaking and sweaty and all too satisfied, did Lux have the thought to compare it to Philip. He'd never been gentle, never cared for if he pleased her or hurt her or if she felt nothing at all, only seeking out his own satisfaction. Sex had always felt like something she had to grit her teeth and push through, dreaded but put up with for the sake of peace, but Elias had proved it didn't have to be that way.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, turning onto his side to look at her, blankets shifting from where they were placed atop them. His hand found a place in her hair, absentmindedly twirling her blonde curls, threading it with his fingers.

"I think I love you."

His hand stilled.

Lux regretted her words the moment they came out, her filter having evaporated sometime last night, when he'd worked out all the other truths of her life from her. He'd listened, he'd cared, but even so. Certainly it was far too soon for professions of love.

But Elias always had a way of surprising her, when the brief shock he'd had flash over his expression was replaced with a giddy grin, like a child being told Christmas had come early.

"I love you too, sunshine."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

October 31st, 1956 ✦ Apartment 6, Redwood Ave

"Do you ever think about death?"

Lux frowned, eyes peering out from the book she'd been buried in, moving to find where Elias hovered above his pieces of paper. His endless scribbles had ceased, the words he'd been spewing out for hours at end finally coming to a still just as the sun began to set through the concealed windows.

"Not really," she admitted, closing the book and setting it to the side. "I've got no reason to. I'm essentially immortal. Why would I contemplate something I doubt I'll ever meet?"

"It's universal," Elias countered, twirling his quill in his hand. "Even vampires can die, if you go in the sun. Or get staked. Right?"

She raised a playful eyebrow. "Why, are you planning on killing me?"

Despite the humor in her tone, signaling that she was joking, his eyes grew wide with horror. "Never! You know I'd never! I love you! I've just been thinking...I'm going to die someday. I'm going to get old and die, and you're going to be young forever."

Her jaw shifted, any humor in her deflating at the bitter reminder, something she'd been acutely aware of since she'd first stumbled into his apartment, bloodthirsty and confused. "This only just occurred to you?"

"I don't want you to get bored of me. Or irritated, once I get too old to move around as well. When I'm tired all the time and grumpy and can't perform as well in bed and—"

"Where are you going with this?" She cut him off.

For a long moment, he was silent, fingers twitching nervously. Then he said, "You can turn me, can't you? Make me into a vampire."

"You're kidding."

He let out a breath, rising up from the chair and onto his feet, making his way towards her. "Lux, please, don't be angry with me. Just hear me out. It makes sense, doesn't it? If we can live together forever, in our prime, why not take the opportunity?"

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair. "I won't subject you to the fate of a vampire, Elias. I won't. I won't make you a monster."

His brow furrowed together. "I wouldn't be a monster."

A scoff lifted from her throat, amusement dripping from her at his naivety. "What else would you describe someone who can only live through the blood of another?"

For the first time in the month she'd known him, Elias was silent. She thought she felt her heart break in her chest, but didn't bother glancing down to check if pieces of glass stuck out of her skin as it felt.

"Quit being delusional," she scolded, hating the array of sounds around them — the hum of the overhead fan and the whistle of the kettle he'd placed on the stove, and not his voice. His silence bugged her in a way she'd never known. "We've got a nice life as it is. We don't need to murk it up with complications."

"The complication is already here," Elias pressed, moving to sit down next to her, his weight sagging the couch. "I'm the complication, by being far too mortal."

She shook her head. "If anyone's the complication, it's me. Elias, you don't understand, as a vampire, you'd never see the sun again. You'd never get to go to a beach, or go on that book tour you've talked about once you finish your novel. Hell, I don't know how you'd go about getting it published at all, if you can't go to pitch your work to publishers during business hours."

He thought for a moment, then suggested, "I could get an umbrella. A massive one."

A weak laugh escaped her.

"You can't tell me you haven't been anxious about this too," Elias said, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close against him, his body warmth radiating onto her. She nuzzled herself onto his shoulder, taking a deep breath as she struggled to repel the flood of emotions. Inhaling the scent of his cheap soap had her senses relaxing, heart returning to a normal pace.

"It's occurred to me, yes. But I didn't want to bring it up. I thought it would upset you."

"I wouldn't be upset if you brought a concern to me. It matters. What you have to say matters, Lux. I won't have you think otherwise."

She leaned further into him, until he was practically supporting her entire body weight. "I love you."

"I love you too." He leaned down, placing a kiss on top of her head. "Now, talk. Tell me how you're feeling about this."

"I...I don't want you to have regrets."

"How could I have regrets with you?"

"Because we can't do things every other couple can. We can't go on walks in the summer sun, or go out for ice cream, or get married. We're stuck here, in this flat, for as long as we live. I can't even have children, Elias, don't you want that? When you're old and grey and dying, don't you want to be surrounded by your family, your children and grandchildren? Not just...not just me."

"I don't know if I want kids. I don't think I'd make a great father," he admitted. "But even if I did, relationships are about sacrifice, about struggle and hardship and getting through them despite it all. I'd give it all up to be with you. I don't care if I never leave this flat again, as long as you promise to stay here with me."

"I won't age," she continued as though he hadn't spoke, voice cracking and tears building in her eyes. "I'm going to be like this forever. You'll be sixty years old, and I'll still be a teenager. Won't you want a woman who resembles you? Who can share in the trials of being a human?"

"I want you," he insisted, grip on her tightening. "I want you as you are, nothing more, nothing less. I wanted you to turn me for the same reason. I thought you'd get bored of me, find me less attractive and fun once I'm all wrinkly."

A smile slid onto her face as she wiped away a stray tear. "I could never be tired of you."

"This is forever, Lux. I promise you." Another kiss on her head, before he pulled away, moving so he could examine her. "You're sleepy."

She nodded in agreement, not bothering to attempt to lie. "I didn't rest well last night. Nightmares."

"Anything you wish to talk about?"

"Later," she said as she rose onto her feet, hating every moment of it. Without his touch on her, she felt all too alone, despite his close proximity to her. "I should get some sleep."

"I'll join you soon," Elias promised as he stood up as well, making his way back towards his novel. "I've got a few final thoughts to jot down."

She gave him one final kiss, before vanishing down the hall and into their bedroom, collapsing into the blankets and falling asleep while Elias remained stationed in the parlor.

Hours later, a thud jolted Lux out of her dreams.

She jerked upwards, eyes wild as she scanned the bedroom — more importantly, the still made blankets on Elias's spot of the bed, and the door open at the same angle she'd left it. He hadn't joined her yet.

Lux was on her feet before she'd told herself to move.

"Elias?" She called out as she stepped into the hallway, heart having found a place in her throat, pounding away until it began to hurt.

An all too familiar sound ripped through the flat just as she was halfway down the hall, causing her feet to stop in their tracks. It had been several weeks since she'd last heard such a noise, such a primal, human cry. It was the sound she'd thought she'd grown numb to, one of weak, pathetic pain.

The world seemed to stop, Lux included. It was as though someone had pressed the pause button on her, snatched away her function and replaced her with someone who could act without being told. In the corner of her mind, Lux cowered, observing as something else took over her body.

She didn't command herself to move, but she did. Nor did she feel a thing, the numb pause that had a claim over her body having taken over her heart and brain as well.

Her steps came to a halt once more when she found herself in the same parlor they'd been in just hours ago.

She could smell the blood before she saw it. Raw and thick and everywhere — oh good God, it was everywhere, on the walls and the ceiling and covering the mangled body of what had at one point been a man, been Elias Hyde, but no doubt was now nothing more than a corpse, a vessel that had once carried the sun in a person.

Her heart stopped. Shattered.

It was only when the man on top of the body turned around did Lux regain any sense of self preservation, stumbling backwards as Philip came into view, his bloodied lips and eyes wild with anger.

Her back hit something. A wall. She thought so, anyways. She couldn't be bothered to turn away from her impending doom, from Philip and the blood that stained him.

Elias's blood.

Elias.

"Please."

Lux couldn't comprehend what she was begging for. For the boy she loved to be saved? Elias was dead, that was clear by his shut eyes and still body and the blood that seeped out from his neck.

For herself? She was dead too, even though she hadn't met the afterlife just yet. No begging would spare her.

As she met the reaper in his cold grey eyes, she wasn't sure she wished to be saved. What good was a world without Elias? What worth was there in living?

Words were shouted, nothing she could pick up on. Philip's fist found a place around her throat, slamming her head against the wall, over and over until she could hardly comprehend the pain. Even so, she kept still. There was no use fighting. There never had been. Even as her consciousness slipped away, all she could hear was Elias's voice.

This is forever, Lux, he had promised her.

Who knew forever could be so short?

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

November 1st, 1956 ✦ Hollyvale Manor

Something had a grip around Lux's wrists. Her arms were stretched upwards, something keeping them in place even as she attempted to move them.

Elias, she thought as her head lulled to the side, eyes kept shut. He was messing with her, teasing her, as he so often did in the mornings. She inhaled a deep breath, prepared to be met with the scent of that stupid tea he drank like it was the cure to death.

She recoiled when the subtle scent of smoke assaulted her, eyes shooting open. When she was met with Philip's face, she let out a yelp, causing a sick grin to slide onto his lips.

Elias.

A hand found her cheek, stroking it with his thumb as he so often did, almost as if nothing was amiss. Almost as if he hadn't ripped the life out of the boy she loved — and tore her own heart with him. "You didn't think we'd let you get away, did you?"

Lux was standing — and so was he. Her arms held up by rope, tied to the ceiling and keeping her upright. Her head ached. She wasn't wearing a shirt.

They were in Philip's bedroom, only feet away from his bed, she came to understand as she spared herself a second to take in her surroundings, before revering them to the monster in front of her.

She held Philip's gaze, jaw hardened even as sorrow and panic ate away at her insides. If there was anything she'd learned from the Coven, it was how to conceal her emotions, and he wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing her break.

There wasn't anything left to break, anyways. Everything in her had already dissolved at Elias's murder, ripped out of her, gutted and tossed to the side to rot like he surely was.

"Do you know how long you were gone for?" Philip asked when she kept her mouth shut at his first question. No answer was answer enough.

More silence.

"Forty days," he answered for her, nostrils flaring, though somehow his composure remained. It sent a chill down to her very bones, followed by a crippling sense of dread that nearly overrode the swirling grief inside her — Lux would rather him just kill her now and get it over with. "You've been absent for forty days."

"Are you going to kill me?" She asked through a hoarse, scratchy voice, not bothering to struggle against the ropes keeping her suspended, nor caring at all for her lack of decency.

"I should, shouldn't I? You abandoned me, us, your family, for the first boy who'd give you an ounce of attention." His voice was thick with sardonic, mocking pity as he continued, face inches from hers, "What did you think would happen, sweetling? That he'd fall in love with you — the Lux who has killed hundreds of his kind, the Lux who feasts on blood and preys on innocents? That you'd live happily ever after with a human man, after all the wretchedness you'd done to his kin?"

Yes, she wanted to say, if only to defend Elias's memory. If only to say he could love, whereas Philip, for all the lives he'd lived and lives he'd stolen, could not.

Instead, she was silent.

Gritting his teeth, Philip continued, "That kid was a fool. Invited me right in when I showed up at his doorstep, pretending to be lost. Didn't occur to him that I might hurt him."

Nothing. She didn't so much as blink, even as her stomach twisted.

Fury seemed to spike in Philip, her lack of response the only defiance she knew how to give.

He hit her. Hard. Her head went flying to the side, feet losing their balance on the ground and the suspension of her arms being the only thing preventing Lux from falling to the ground.

She looked up, meeting his eyes through her own teary gaze as he raged, "After everything I've done for you, after I saved your pathetic life, this is how you repay me? Running off with a human? Bedding a human? Where is your fucking loyalty, after all that I have given you? Ungrateful harlot!"

Another strike across her cheek, this one harder. At least this time she saw it coming, was able to brace herself for impact. Her own blood melted onto her tongue.

This was it, Lux thought to herself, a bitter sort of laugh building in her, one she only was just able to hold back. It was all over — three hundred years, and this was how she was destined to go. She'd spent so long, worked so hard to appease Philip, for it all to be worth nothing.

At least she'd see Elias again, when the pain subsided and the life left her. At least she wouldn't have to live another hundred years, shrouded in guilt for what her actions had done to him.

But Philip stopped. His grey eyes scanned her — her chafed wrists and the plaid pajama pants she'd stolen from Elias and the blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, for once not belonging to anyone but herself.

Then, he jerked his head towards something behind her. Someone.

"Torquatus," he began, tone placid.

Her heart seized as the sound of footsteps echoed from behind her. She hadn't noticed him, had assumed she and Philip were alone. Despite the situation, shame burned in her at the realization of her exposure, instinctively attempting to pull her arms down from their confines and conceal her bare chest.

"Forty days," Philip said as Torquatus stilled his steps once he was at Lux's side. "Forty lashings will do."

It instantly became clear to her why she'd been stripped out of her shirt.

Panic seized in her, head spinning to the side as her wide eyes met Torquatus's mad expression, alight with glee. A butcher through and through, lips curved into a menacing grin and hand curled around a long, thin strip of leather.

For the first time since she'd been brought back to Hollyvale, she allowed her hardened mask to slip. "Wait—"

"It shouldn't kill you," Philip cut her off as Torquatus positioned himself behind her. "The belt has been laced with allicin, of course, so it has a lasting impact. We can't have you forgetting what you've done, and making the same mistakes in the future, can we? If you're meant to survive, you will. If you don't, it's a show of how weak you truly are."

Lux was many things, but she was no longer a fool. She couldn't stop what was coming any more than she could've stopped herself from being burned alive three hundred years prior. Once again, she was helpless to the whims of men who cared little for her being and only for their presumptions of her, for the crimes she'd committed in their minds.

"Bastard," she spat.

Philip simply laughed.

When the first blow struck her back, she screamed. She hadn't meant to, had hoped to grit her teeth and push through it as she'd done so many times before. But it wasn't Philip that was prepared to maim her back into something unrecognizable — Torquatus had perhaps even less of a care for her wellbeing than Philip ever had, more brute strength and enough will for destruction to see it out.

A second, then a third, each one breaking her skin and sending blood trailing down her bare back. Four, five, six.

Her head spun. Screams died down as exhaustion already seeped into her. The allicin, likely, the traces of it flooding her bloodstream.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Lux had closed her eyes at some point, preferring the darkness to Philip's blurry frame.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

Everything hurt. Even through the fuzz that had clouded her thoughts, she knew it hurt.

Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

Something had a grip on her chin. She opened her eyes once again, expecting to see Philip, prepared to strike her again. Even in this abuse, he couldn't leave her be. In his eyes, she couldn't even take torture in the right way.

A relieved breath released from her lips. Philip was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Elias had a hold on her, hazel eyes murky as he stroked her chin, her cheek. "It's okay, sunshine."

His voice sounded as though it was underwater, coming from a far distance and echoing towards her. She clung to it anyways.

"It's okay."

Despite it all, she smiled.

Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

The pain had numbed. She'd grown used to it, perhaps. Or maybe that was just her conscious, slipping away one final time as she prepared for death. Philip had been right — she was weak.

She couldn't save Elias. She couldn't save herself.

Weak.

Twenty...twenty...twenty...

She'd lost count.

Through it all, the phantom touch of Elias remained, until his skin on hers was the only thing she could feel in the abyss of darkness that devoured her whole.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

No one bothered to clean Lux's blood off of the wooden floor of Philip's bedroom. Maybe it was too difficult to get out, or perhaps he'd kept it there on purpose. Philip seemed the type to revel in the reminder of what his words could do, what his influence had.

Perhaps he was under the assumption that it made Lux squirm. That it would make her recoil from ever so much as thinking about rebelling once again.

For a few days, it had. When she'd defied the Gods by surviving what Torquatus had inflicted on her, regained consciousness several days later, and found her back ripped apart and the floor stained with the remnants of what had happened to her, she'd only just managed to not throw up all over the bed.

"You didn't know better," Philip had said when she'd silently glanced at him, pain jerking through her still as her wounds still struggled to heal against the remnants of allicin. She couldn't think well enough to come up with a response, so she'd kept her mouth shut, waiting for him to elaborate.

He did, excusing an action she'd never apologized for.

"You're young, sweetling. You're new here. We all make mistakes. You know better now. You won't make the same mistakes anymore."

Maybe he meant to convince himself rather than her, stroke his own ego. Her betrayal was, to him, a great insult, a blow to his pride. The proclaimed strongest vampire of all time could not be undermined by what in his eyes was a little girl. It went against the very reputation he worked so hard to craft.

It didn't take long for Lux to dissect the very essence of Philip's being, on a mid November day where his arm was placed around her waist, securing her in place. Despite what he had professed, she knew what he feared more than anything — she'd flee again.

Philip may have possessed the teeth of a vampire, but beneath the surface, he was nothing more than a man. A stupid, foolish man, with opinions of himself so high, he failed to notice the angry mob forming at his feet, praying for his downfall.

What was a mob to a king, he likely thought. What did he have to fear? What sway did they have over him? But Philip was no king, and Lux was no angry mob. She'd become the very thing Philip had willed her to be, clever and cunning and ambitious. The only thing missing was a cult-like loyalty.

Maybe she'd worn her belonging to the Coven on her chest like a badge of honor before, but they'd been ripped off of her the moment her flesh had been marred and the boy she loved murdered in front of her eyes.

Loyalty had been replaced with a need for the freedom she'd managed to graze. Loyalty had been replaced with a hatred so vile, it oozed from her to the point of shaking, even as she spouted professions of love and regret towards him. He had been foolish enough to believe her.

Philip ruled the people below him with an iron fist, with fear of retribution inflicted on those who dared defy him. What he failed to understand was that Lux had nothing left to lose, and there wasn't a thing on the planet more dangerous.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───

I'm not tooo happy with the final scenes even with editing but oh well. Next week we get back into the normal timeline chapters :) normal length, normal timeline, normal angst! Love you all so much and thanks as always for reading <3

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .*:☆ﾟ. ───