Lucian fixed his iron hand over my mouth as I ran past him, and abruptly shoved my back against his chest with an indomitable arm that he wrapped about my waist. I could not see him; and did not want to. It was enough that I could feel his stubbled jaw alongside my neck and his warm breath across my ear.

"What the devil are you doing here?!" he bit out, each word embedding painfully in my conscious.

His voice was barely above a whisper, yet I recoiled vehemently as though he had roared the words into my ear for they were no less ferocious; in spite of his disguised and deadly-calm timbre.

My ear-splitting scream had ceased almost as soon as it had issued from my terrified core; rather it had abruptly been terminated for me. I clawed desperately at the hand obstructing my fitful breathing. Although I struggled, I was marginally relieved, unwise as that seemed, that it was Lucian who now held me in his unyielding custody.

In truth, he was the lesser of any number of evils I had already conjured to mind. For a fleeting moment I had imagined it to be some loathsome rapist, or a murder besides, who had happened upon me; unsuspecting twit that I was! And then to see a flash of glowing orbs, and hear that growl, in the all-consuming, veiled dark... For just an instant I had thought that I'd seen a monster. Yet it was a different kind of beast that entrapped me now: my furious, would-be husband. Ergo, I could do naught but whimper till he removed his hand.

"Be still," he uttered in a sibilant whisper, "or I shan't release you."

I nodded stiffly and he did as promised; more or less. He turned me to face him and then backed me up against the portcullis, clasping the iron bars at each side of my head so that I was imprisoned between him and the labyrinth. He had now positioned me so that I could not help but look into his shadowed face.

"Are you in your senses, woman?!" By the incredulity he displayed, he no doubt thought me without them.

I began shaking noticeably, but it did not signify for he did not expect an answer either way.

"You must know," he said through gritted teeth, struggling to keep calm, "that I will not tolerate your willful disregard of my wishes!"

"I..." But no words were forthcoming, my straitened throat barely able to nourish my lungs.

"And for what have you come?" His asperity was menacing enough that I shrank further. "To satisfy a curiosity?!"

I balked as he punctuated the last of his words with a brutal fist that he slammed against the gate beside my head, causing the iron to reverberate noisily.

I had heretofore been conditioned by Edwyn to expect the worst from the male gender inasmuch as I prepared for his attack with a clench of my jaw and my eyes fused tightly shut. But my flinching seemed only to provoke Lucian all the more — instead of mollifying him as it at always done when I had faced my father.

"For God's sake, stop cowering!"

I'd never heard him shout thus, his voice echoing into the night and frightening a nocturnal bird from its perch nearby. Contrary to how most other maids might react, the magnitude of his latter utterance only served to calm me somewhat for the violence had dissipated marginally from his eyes. A blustering Lucian I might possibly deal with, but the deadly, quiet rage of a moment ago? I was beyond terrified by that; by him.

"Then stop scaring me!" I kept my eyes closed and head twisted away, still not convinced he wouldn't beat me, but could still feel the force of his stare.

He was still so unnervingly close and, my obvious aversion to that nearness notwithstanding, he made no move to increase the space nor did he allow me additional room to breathe. I could smell the nighttime on him; the peppery smokiness of his incense both scared and, conversely, excited me.

"I will not hurt you, Aria. Open your eyes," he commanded. I did so slowly and turned my head to face him. His eyes had dimmed somewhat and no longer held the irate blaze of moments ago. I bit my bottom lip nervously, still unsure of his intentions. "I see how much you hate me. How you fear me."

He was still gripping the portcullis, but he now moved his hands slowly down the bars and carefully positioned each palm on either side of my hips. I was still encaged and it was just as threatening to my wellbeing for I now had a greater space to cast my vigilance — to divide my attention between his eyes and his hands.

"Aye. I do fear you." I breathed cautiously, my eyes flicking down his arm to his large hand and then back up to those unsettling eyes: they were somehow pulsing with the muted glow of an indistinct, internal flame. A trick of the lamp light, no doubt! However, I did not feel exactly reassured by that assumption.

"Perhaps it is best," he acknowledged my confession. However, my answer had seemed only to dissatisfy him immensely.

Did not all men desired their wives, their property, to fear them? His reaction perplexed me. How could I deal with him when I could not very well predict his responses.

"I have little patience for fools." He clenched his teeth. "And only a reckless fool would go where tis not safe to wander!"

"Lucian, please-"

"You know this place is forbidden to you! Why else would you be sneaking about like a peccant child," he growled.

This was by far the most I'd ever heard him talk. That fact did not bode well for me, evidently, for his calm seemed to attenuate the longer I stood there gaping at him dumbly.

"I know how your pig of a father used to curb your willfulness..."

He seemed to want my confirmation, and though his arbitrary statement took me aback, I did not leave him waiting for my response. "With violence," said I, carefully.

"But how shall I discipline you?" The ways and wherefores mattered not to me. I began to shrink into myself for his words disturbed me quite. Finally he too moved back a small degree.

"I cannot answer that." My voice was far stronger than anticipated, despite my trembling lips. "But I will not let you beat me!" I would let no man loose his fists on me ever again!

"I have never, nor will I ever, raise a hand to a woman," said Lucian, his lips twisting with disgust as he shook his head. "But I am not always myself, girl," he warned. "Remember that and do not provoke me!"

I shook my head in disbelief, ignoring the latter part of his warning. Edwyn would have long since bludgeoned me athwart my head, and yet Lucian seemed more upset by my endangering my own safety than by my actual disobedience.

Erelong he dragged a hand roughly through his tousled hair. "I have never been responsible for a woman, let alone one that will soon be mine to care for."

I could see clearly that he looked on the idea with disrelish. "What will you do?"

"Bah! What do I know of discipling unruly women," he scoffed.

His disgruntlement was writ clearly in the stark plains of his lowered brows and the tightness of his mouth. I observed his fists balling ominously, but — true to his word — he did not move to use them against me. Seeking not to draw more attention to myself than I already had, I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and watched him suspiciously.

He yanked his hand once more through his tawny mane and said, "I have my own demons to fight without chasing after a wayward girl; and they are such that you can never possibly comprehend in this lifetime."

"I might do if you confide in me." We hardly knew each other; perhaps there was need of confiding.

He whipped his eyes to me and curled his lips scornfully. "Yes," he mocked, "and why should I not, for you have proven yourself most trustworthy."

Ahh, yes...that little point of contention. I could feel my temples heat with vexation.

"Besides which, you have seen fit to act the child instead of the woman you are."

"But...you will not hurt me?" I needed the fortitude of his reassurance.

"No!" he looked affronted suddenly. "I can never lose control with you!" Lord, he was getting riled again. "But attend me well, Aria, do not disregard me again!"

Or you shall do what precisely? It was on the tip of my tongue to test him, but the glower fulminating beneath his brows was warning enough for me to desist the incipient madness. I was without question beset with mind-numbing fear, but at least not hysterical enough to be quite that reckless. In any event, I would rather not know. Was not ignorance deemed to be a state of bliss? Let it be so then.

The threat, like a frozen stalactite, hung tangibly betwixt and over us — he knew well that there was no need to expound further on the matter. I understood him completely. Taking my chin between his index finger and thumb, he lifted my face so that I had to see the truth of it in his scowling countenance.

"As much I think you deserve it, I would only make you hate me if I throttled you over my knee." He shook his head and seemed to reconsider his words before he began again. "However, that is no way to start afresh; and I have no stomach for tears."

"You wish to start anew?"

"Aye, I had thought it possible." He seemed disappointed in me and, strangely, this rankled — that I had lost his esteem. "Yet am now stymied by your misbehavior."

I do not even like him! Why should I want his approbation.

"Though I shall not brook the precarious manner with which you risk your safety, I would rather break my fist against this wall than bruise an inch of your flesh."

He seemed to want to reassure me with his declaration and I bestowed on him a tremulous half-smile; though it did not reach my eyes. I wished to make amends, however, I knew not how?

"I Promise you this-" but he cut me off, heedless of what I might have said.

"Take care what you vow. You have yet to earn my trust as I have yet to earn yours. And I give mine but rarely." His glare caused me to shut my mouth directly. "However, before you become too complacent, know that ... you are not out of the woods yet."

"I don't understand."

"Punishment, Aria. Children are usually punished when they misbehave, are they not? Lest they think to act rashly again."

Why does that sound so parlous. "I am no child!" I said heatedly, but he merely raised a dubious brow. "Lucian..." But what could I say?

"Have not your actions thus far proved the contrariety of that assertion?"

"Yes," said I, feeling suddenly very foolish. And how would he go about chastening me?

"I had expected better from you, Aria." His countenance was grim and his displeasure corrugated his brow into deep grooves.

I had meant to reassure him of my sincerity somehow, and to assuage him now that he had vented his spleen. However, I saw that it was a hopeless endeavor! I had no power over his actions, least of all over him. Ergo, I dropped my head back and looked up to the waxing moon as my shoulders slumped in hopeless surrender.

There is naught to say that he will listen to. "Well, I don't believe you," I said miserably.

"What do you not believe?" He sounded confused. I imagined he was frowning again too, but my eyes were yet cast heavenward; he was always scowling.

"That you will not hurt me." How else will you punish me if not by violence?! Would he withhold my supper? Lock me in my chamber? I could bear all of that and more, I thought with rancor.

"Aria..." he sighed furiously, my name itself a warning. The man sounded as though he were at his wit's end, but what did I have to lose?

Just the flesh from your body, you suicidal half-wit! "No! I thought you meant to start anew!" I ignored the threat in his tone. "You said you would not hurt me, yet you mean to punish me still! Is that not a contradiction in and of itself?" I brought my eyes back to his. Green flashing against amber.

"We were to start anew until you acted rashly!"

"I still and all do not believe you," I chafed again.

Shut up, Aria! Howbeit, the sagacity of my own conscience again went unheeded because to me, punishment and pain were one and the same.

I had invited that raw part of Lucian back into our discourse by way of my belligerence; it had immediately sparked his ire and wherefore, consequently, it now blazed with latent and terrible fury; kindling wildly within his gaze. I could see it even in the darkness that stretched between us.

"You do not even know me," said he with harrowing quietude.

"That fault is your own!" I countered recklessly and he lunged at me then; driving his mouth ruthlessly over mine.

I clawed at his arms, but my nails seemed to do no damage — just like those fingernails on the other side of the wall. I had never been kissed before and if this was what it was like then I hoped to never suffer through a kiss again! I stopped struggling and held still; instinct taking over. I became as wooden and inert, in the face of his impassioned onslaught, as the unresponsive prey of a predator: feigning its own death; perhaps I too might escape molestation by adopting, and assuming, a corpse-like pose. However, this predator before me was unlikely to be fooled.

Lucian finally registered that I had withdrawn distantly from myself and he wrenched his lips away in disgust. I remained standing where I was for he had not moved so far away that I could bolt, and not be run down the next instant.

"I apologize," he offered coldly, watching as I wiped him from my mouth.

"Think nothing of it." I glared between heaving gasps for he had not only stolen my breath with his smothering kiss, but disrupted my thoughts enough that I had no sharp retort or chastisement to proffer. "But consider me now effectively disciplined."

My response had been clipped, as devoid of warmth as his own, but this seemed only to ignite his ire once again; whether at himself or at me, I cared not a whit. The man was as unstable as an ocean, however, I was gratified to notice his face flush with shame. I found it a moot point in any case for he moved right back toward me, taking up the same position that had so disturbed me before. Thus, we stood staring at one another again: the wolf to the rabbit; a hunter observing an easy meal.

"You look at me as though I were a monster," he smiled grimly, humorlessly, as I kept my silence. "You see me clearer than most then." I frowned, perplexed by his arcane speech. "That was," he hesitated, "your first kiss, I think." It was not a question, so I gave him no answer. He sighed. "This will not do..."

Before I knew what he was about, he brought his right hand up to my cheek and it was all I could do not to cringe, but he laid a fevered palm nonetheless against the side of my jaw; regardless of my aversion to its being there. I knew what he was about and he clearly saw the distaste on my wary countenance.

"Close your eyes, Aria."

To what end? I swallowed loudly, but did as he bade me.

My eyelids lowered slowly and shuttered softly against my cheeks. Without my sight, my other senses subsequently increase in acuity. I felt the pad of his thumb move against my bottom lip, where he freed it from my teeth, and I waited for what would come next.

Very slowly, so unlike his previous attempt, he gently pressed his warm lips onto mine with so much care that my eyes flew open and were instantly devoured by the liquid gold of his. The sensation of sight and touch was far too intense so I quickly closed my lids again. The contrast of this kiss was...so completely removed from the first; a whole other species, in fact.

At first he merely held his lips to mine, allowing the heat from them to seep into my own — they were almost blue from the cold. After a little while, when he felt me relax slightly against his chest, he began to move his lips deliberately. His mouth caressed mine, feather soft, as his left hand crept up along the back of my hip where it rested heavily. I became gradually aware of my skin puckering under his skillful ministrations and my heart beat quickened as a result; but for an entirely new reason now.

Yes, the fear was ever present, coiling in my belly like a snake, yet somehow another separate pressure coiled and ignited right beside it; an even more powerful sensation — Desire.

It was imperceptible at first, this curious seed. But soon I felt it grow. I was compelled now, by my own need, and opened my mouth to his urging tongue. By degrees I let him in to explore further, I neither cared for the 'how' nor the 'why', and was so taken over by my own wanton response that I soon lost myself to all sensations.

Our breaths mingled heatedly, mine indistinguishable from his, as his hands tightened on me. He became increasingly ardent as I relinquished the last vestiges of my resistance; there was none now. I had only the wherewithal to feel and to savor his flavor and his touch.

Lucian's lust was now riding him hard, but I was as yet insensible to aught but the hypnotizing taste of him. I felt the cold air lick at my bare limbs as he lifted my gown to expose a leg, raising my thigh so that he held my left knee possessively against his right hip. It was when his hand came between us, to cup at my breast, that the fear overtook the pleasure. It doused the fervor as readily as a pail of snow. I clutched that same audacious hand and moved my face to the side, evading his hungry mouth.

"Lucian. Stop!"

I was prepared to fight him still more, but he suddenly released me as if I had burned him myself. I hadn't looked at him yet. I required a moment to set my mind to order and, to that end, I brought my hands over my scalding face. My chest and cheeks were suffused with the flush of blood and my breathing had not returned to normal, but I looked up at him finally. In an instant, that same blood, that had been coursing just beneath the surface of my visage, drained completely from my face.

"Lucian?" I gasped. "W-what is wrong with your eyes!"

They had always been odd. Unnatural. Now they practically illuminated me where I stood. If I turned to look behind me I was sure to see my shadow being cast at my back.

Impossible!

"Do not look at me, Aria!" His snarl had me backing away further, but he had turned instantaneously from my horrified regard.

"What in God's name are you?" My breath hitched loudly.

I averted my gaze, but wished I hadn't for I could now see the damage he'd wrought to the iron bars of the portcullis. They were bent slightly. It was imperceptibly done, but damaged nonetheless. I knew these bars well enough by now to know they had not borne these indents afore now; where leaden fingers had clutched so hard as if the bars were made of wax. I turned to him again, my face bloodless and my voice weak.

"Lucian-"

"I am the same as you," he seethed.



⭐️I so badly wanted to name this chapter Fifty Shades of Lucian Greyback! LOL...erm, not funny? Okay then *awkward silence*. ⭐️