Summary: After you and your mate escape the Autumn Court into Spring, you have constant nightmares about being captured and brought back. This is you telling your mate you’re scared.
Warnings:None.
Word Count: 864
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“What’s wrong?” Lucien asks, sitting up stock straight next to you, chest heaving as he frantically searches the room, eye humming softly as he scans the room for danger. He can feel your rapid heartbeat in his chest, his matching yours as the frozen terror you felt from your dream burns like ice in his veins.
“What–” your breath catches in your throat, hugging your knees tightly to your chest, eyes brimming with tears that you can barely hold back. The silk sheets beneath you are damp, it’s much hotter than the Autumn Court. “What if they come after us?”
“They can’t,” Lucien responds softly, placing a hand gently on your back, rubbing a familiar pattern up and down. “They can’t enter the territory. We’re safe here.”
“Just because they can’t enter the Spring Court for territory reasons doesn’t mean that they won’t,” you say, picking at your cuticles and chewing on your lip. You refuse to look over at him, afraid that you’ll see the disappointed look on his face. “You know how your family is.”
His eye whirrs, irritated. And he’s thinking that he does know who his family is. His father is powerful, but he would never enter the Spring Court, never cross that line, too lazy to do the dirty work himself. No, he’d make someone else do it.
Most likely one of his siblings.
But not Eris. Lucien knew that both of you were safe from his oldest brother and he could relax with that thought alone – that his most powerful and intelligent kin would not volunteer nor accept the demand to find the both of you, even if it meant answering to his fathers fists.
“He wouldn’t dare send them after us,” Lucien’s voice is shaky and his hand stops its trail up your spine, slipping down onto the bed where the sheets are still warm from where you were lying not so long ago. “Not after–”
“Please,” you choke, cutting him off, throat burning with tears, “Don’t.”
Not after he killed his brother and Tamlin slaughtered the other.
You couldn’t hear him say it aloud, the basis of your nightmare. His brothers chasing after you with wild eyes and feral grins, teeth glinting like the blades of their knives. It hadn’t been pretty, but the two of you had gotten away and were still together, at least you had that.
You and your mate sit in silence, trying to calm your breathing and to take your mind off of the harrowing events that happened only a fortnight ago.
You haven’t been able to sleep since. Your stomach in knots, churning throughout the day and into the night, the constant fear of one of the Autumn Court family members or courtiers coming to drag you back always in your mind. You knew Beron has spies, some of the best in Prythian, and they would surely be sneaky enough to murder you without a whisper.
You’d hardly even left the luxurious estate, though both Lucien and Tamlin tried. The High Lord even offered you protection from his best warriors, a promise that you were safe in his lands, but you’d politely declined, hiding your trembling fingers behind your skirts.
“Tamlin says that we’re safe,” Lucien breaks the silence, his voice quiet. You don’t quite believe him.
“Well I don’t trust him either,” your response is nearly inaudible, wondering if the High Lord of Spring has his own spies.
“Why?” And it’s not an accusation. A genuine question from your mate, and you finally set your gaze on him, showing him the utter fear in your eyes, flooding the bond with your fear.
“Because he killed the High Lord of the Night Court.”
Lucien bites back the retort threatening to escape his throat. He doesn’t want to upset you further. Instead, the amber haired male pulls you tight into his arms, reclining backwards into the bed, your head resting on his chest as he holds you close. Pressing kisses into your forehead and pushing every ounce of love he holds for you through your bond, you relax slightly, shutting your eyes and breathing in his familiar scent.
He knows exactly what kind of crimes Tamlin has committed in the last few centuries, knows the entirety of the muddied tale between Spring and Night, who murdered who. But for some reason Eris trusted the Spring Lord, and he trusted his brother. Until he could think of a better plan to protect you, this was all he could do.
“I will protect you with my life (Y/N), I can promise you that. I love you too much to let anything happen to you.”
You look up at him, hand resting over his steady heartbeat beneath your palm. His eyes are earnest, caressing your cheek with a light touch.
“And I love you too. But I don’t want to live if I am not with you, Luc,” you admit, “It’d hurt too much.”
“Then let’s just live tonight,” he responds softly, brushing your hair behind your ear, using the hand to slide around the back of your neck and pull you into him fully, meeting your mouth in a long, passionate kiss.
