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Admittedly, it was at infrequent times in Lucien’s life he gave himself over to much self examination. Over the past three hundred years or so he would not deny that he had often been called selfish, cruel, vain, and frivolous. This was not to be any revelation to him as it had always been a certainty of any upbringing regarding a regaled prince of Autumn, and that was just a fact of his very existence and being.
The reality that he had also been such a popular courtier for so long did not hinder this reputation whatsoever or give cause to paint him in a more favorable light. Nevertheless, it was as often as he spoke that a Lord or Lady would be hanging on his every word, whether that be a word of salacious gossip or minor pronouncement put forth on behalf of his High Lord. To do such a job well did not call for meekness or insecurity, and if he ever had bouts of this, (unfortunately they seemed to be appearing more often as of late) then he would be quick to put up his defenses and set his emotions back to rights, or at least show outwardly that he did.
As it was, he seemed to be barely hanging on to his own life as it whipped him to and fro in its crashing waves of torturing whimsy. Much of his future had not been determined by his own action, and it seemed at present that whatever part remained for him to live out would likely not be so either if something were not apt to change.
He had been dwelling on this thought in recent weeks, specifically of his dour and melancholy behavior when he seemed to think of his skittish mate or find himself in her presence. His attitude had seemed a proper choice at the outset of what could only be called her death and remaking. And after, if he couldn’t help but hide his anger and anguish over not just her fate, but his part in it with a soft word and a genteel attitude, what did that make him but a feeling male?
However, as it was going now into the third year of this anxious and tired procedure of her avoidance and his cosseting, Lucien was starting to chafe against one most unfortunate effect of his upbringing, (such an unfavorable characterization of which he would humbly admit to anyone), and that was the issue of course, of his vast impatience.
In the beginning of their stilted acquaintanceship he had not comprehended or even considered his coddling and gentlemanly manner was not what his mate needed, as surely it was the right course to start upon based on the initial circumstances of her becoming fae and the unfortunate Court she herself had ended up living in directly following the tragedy (as that too would surely unsettle anyone, previously human or not). Yet, he noticed as years passed her smile in his presence never so much touched her eyes once, except admittedly on the rare occasion he saw her with the new winged infant of Feyre’s in her arms.
Even the distractions she engaged herself with over the last year or two provided her no real joy he could determine. Between the tiresome baking and gardening, he could determine nothing else but that the tasks she set herself upon were most servant-like in their manner and he frankly did not like the way she applied herself to the pursuit of them like she truly was her sister’s servant! Her meek behavior confounded him greatly, especially considering the fact she was supposed to be his mate after all.
The whole perplexity of the situation and his persistent aching heart brought him now to the bothersome business of an unwanted bout of self examination. He had made no progress he could see in his attempted ease of her journey to healing. The first and foremost tactic of which was the virtue of giving her space away from him, which Feyre reiterated the need for much more often than was necessary, which then in turn agitated him to epic proportions and kept him farther away and for longer periods.
Yet, even with the distance he gave her and the mask of a most refined and well-mannered attitude he wore when they did cross paths, he could tell plainly what it seemed the others could not - and that was the certainty that Elain was not doing as she ought if she were truly well.
For that was it, wasn’t it? He had traded one mask for another in her presence, and he would no longer deny that it was not a hardship to act one way around his friends and fellow emissaries and another around his mate and her family. How could it be that he could act more himself around a pair of rowdy humans than his own race of emotional and territorial High Fae?
Lucien knew the answer at once of course; because he had followed the dim-witted and moronic ideas of those now related to the other Archeron sisters. (In this named family grouping he was of course referring to the insufferable and ill-mannered Illyrians it seemed Feyre would unfortunately end up consorting with for the end of time.) Who when it came down to it, just could not know his mate as he knew her, even if the only thing between them at present was a fraying bond in their chests.
There seemed to be only one solution: the time for coddling and glamours was to be over. If Elain was going to reject his advances, he might as well firstly make an honest effort to seduce her.
//
Lucien watched as Elain held her hands in the dirt and seemed to be digging gloveless again, wholly and pointedly ignoring his entrance into the enclosed rear yard of the River House, as if he was totally beneath her notice.
Lucien looked around and quirked his lip. They did not find themselves alone amongst each other’s company often. He could think of many pretty words of flattery useful for the moment, but for some forsaken reason chose to speak his mind.
“Surely my lady, you cannot be enjoying this?”
He heard the sudden grinding of teeth and saw her jaw flex with a muscle he did not think he had ever focused on before. That was something he was sure would never go remiss by his eyes again.
Lucien hummed softly at her continued non-response.
She didn’t look up at the noise, but let out an outraged huff as she seemed to realize he wasn’t going to be leaving and continued counting seeds in her dirty palm.
“Are you quite ready to run away with me yet, Lady? I’ve never found a court so uncouth and ill-mannered, and I can now say, after a long examination, I find that it hardly suits either of us.”
Suddenly, she was looking right at him. The slight parting of her rosebud lips, the rapid blush spreading out from her face, and bright flash of eyes enraptured him.
He never thought her eyes dull before, but looking at him the way she was now, there was such fierce light emanating from them they almost turned jewel like, and he found himself the rest of the day and into the evening trying to remember if they resembled the rare brown version of the gemstone, Scapolite, of which he was first inclined to believe as they hailed from his own home court. Or, as he thought much later after she had abruptly brushed past him and back into the house, those eyes alight with fury, if they more resembled shining chocolate opals, a gem hailing from the small inland mountains of Summer.
He begrudgingly admitted as he laid down to sleep that a chocolate opal was the likely answer, and wondered what she’d think of a gift of such, perhaps set into a necklace. He teased himself of fantasies of her wearing only that jewel between her breasts as she gazed upon his own naked figure in appreciation in some future shared bedchamber, gauzy with white linens and the sound of the sea; the setting of which he surely would have thought odd, if he had not already fallen asleep.
From that point forthwith Lucien was decided on a different approach to garner his mate’s affection and attention. Though he cared and yearned deeply for Elain’s well-being, he knew with complete conviction the time for cosseting and soft words now had to be a finished business if he was to bring her heart back to the surface with the living. He knew very intimately what wallowing for too long without distraction did to one’s soul. And he found he was beginning to despair to imagine her in such a prolonged state.
Of course, to his further disquiet, he found his good humor fading with the amount of time he spent away from his mate. He was sorely tempted to return to her the next morning, for no good reason at all. Indeed, it would take him out of his way to do such a thing, as he had no real business with Rhysand as of late. He just about resisted the lure, though he knew Elain would be delightfully tense and stewing on his return. The opportunity to tease and distract her out of her anxieties was incredibly tempting. He relaxed again as soon as the easy decision was made. After all, he was to be no longer in hiding or belaboring the fact that he was an incredibly self-absorbed male, especially when it came to a desperate wanting for her presence and attentions.
//
In the last few months something had changed with Lucien. He was visiting much more often, usually for no other reason than to bring along an unimportant missive from one court or another. Letters Elain knew with certainty there was a most definite magic for delivering, one that he quite excelled in if she wasn’t mistaken. Lucien would then usually stay about the house for hours, always finding her or drawing her out, and worst of all, teasing her and plying her for conversation. Just when she’d think his song and dance was done, he’d accept a stray and unserious offer to stay for dinner!
Moreover, she felt sure somehow that he was practicing deceptive arts when it came to his appearance. He was always lounging on seats and leaning against pillars, so you did not notice the true strength and stature of his build.
She had often reflected on it. His hair for instance. He wore it far too long, making him appear prettier than he really was, especially when you took into account the blood red color and where it ended, right at his tapered waist. When you took a good look at him, his real eye, which so often gleamed with irreverent mirth, was merely an indeterminate shade of russet and amber.
Lately, his smile, which she had heard called charming, was more often than not, cruel. He drew your eye, quite deliberately in her opinion, to his pretty rings and embroidered sleeves, so that you almost failed to notice the bejeweled dagger at his hip. When he laughed, if the jest was not directed at her, she could admit he was almost handsome.
Oh, very well, he was handsome. He was extremely handsome. She could admit it when alone in the quiet of her room. It was just not the sort of handsome she had personally ever cared for.
She was incredibly vexed after just a few evenings ago, she had noticed with despair that he had quite extraordinarily beautiful hands. Then he had teased her mercilessly for a half hour, speculating that she must covet his ruby ring. It had always been that if Elain could cross a room to avoid him, she would, but as he was so frequently found now in her sister’s home, she had come to view him almost as a necessary evil. A man of whom she had always heartily disapproved since she first heard of him before her making. A frivolous, insincere, and vain man, who cared only for his own hedonistic pursuits. Of course, she had only the vaguest ideas of what those pursuits might be now with his ever changing attitude, and perhaps that was just as well.
Months after this first agitating encounter, Feyre and Rhysand had taken to visit an exposition that evening and the next in the Day Court, as they had received a personal invitation from the Lord of Day. A male who for some reason that Elain was not privy to, made them both smirk and giggle like no other when he was mentioned.
She had been playing with Nyx on the floor in the sitting room when a knock sounded upon the front door. A knock that when she focused, accompanied a steady heartbeat that seemed to emanate from her own chest, though certainly, even with what little she knew in the study of anatomy, did not come from the right spot. She knew at once who was outside at the door as she sighed heavily and tried to ignore the way her own heart seemed to beat faster at his arrival.
Just as she had rearranged herself in a more lady-like manner upon the settee rather than sprawled on the floor, Lucien entered and made himself comfortable lounging languidly on the cushion next to her, of course taking the closest spot to her in his newfound boldness. He let out a slight cough announcing his presence, as she had not acknowledged him presently.
“I hope you have not actually taken ill,” she muttered, her eyes straining to stay toward the floor and not towards him as they always seemed to do. She tried not to focus on the fact he was cuddling up to her side of the short couch.
“So do I,” he murmured. “For I make a devilishly bad patient. Complaining and feeling sorry for myself and the like.” He gave her a smirk. “Then of course I’d need a nurse, of which you’d have to do.”
Elain tried to mask her blush as she pursed her lips and focused on the black-haired babe playing with his own feet on the floor and giving them both a gummy smile. “I have no interest in playing nurse to you.”
“Ah, but please entertain me to give it more thought. I believe in the right circumstance, if you had to choose betwixt yourself and another, you would not let another female so close to what is rightfully yours, especially in my vulnerability, would you?”
She wished she could say anything else or even nothing at all, but he always brought out the most improper behavior in her. “Is that what you think I am, Lord Lucien? Rightfully yours?” Her nose was high in the air now, as she attempted a look more befitting her ill-tempered eldest sister. He winced.
“No no. You misunderstand me.” He shook his head. “Though aye, I myself am truly yours now and forever, and I would very much one day soon like to find the fact you think so too most agreeable.” He winked at her as her blush deepened.
Elain could no longer hold in her thoughts as she marveled at his brash behavior. “Please pray do tell me, what has garnered this unseemly change in you as of late, my lord?”
“Unseemly? Why, I thought you had mentioned to me once that Feyre had already relayed many a boisterous story about my past unseemliness. I’d think it’s rather hardly a change. Except that many mistresses by now would have fallen to my charm.”
She gave him a scathing look that he thought only proved his earlier point of her unseen jealousy, but continued on. “However I can see how you might think me of a different mind per my long-suffering and awkward behavior after learning of my own part in my mate’s… making.” The smirk had finally fallen from his lips at the topic.
Elain spoke after a moment of silence. “I thought maybe, that you were always so morose. But then of course, I knew that not to be true because of my sister’s stories… as you mentioned.” She shook her head but kept her eyes forward and off of him. “I started to believe I brought out such insipid feeling in you. Which seems at your word now to be true.”
“Elain, you must understand, if I mourned, it was mourning with you. If I acted insipid and unfeeling it was because I was a fool following the lead of those that do not seem to know you at all.” He suddenly swept his large body to the floor and held her hands with his as he knelt at her feet. “I would ask your forgiveness every day for my own shock and the way I hid my feelings from you, these three years too long. I should never have given you space or made you believe I was anything other than what I am.”
Elain started. “I-I am quite sure I needed, uh, need, the space.” He was still looking at her in such a way she could not figure out and she quite wished he would stop so she could get her wits about her once more. She itched to knead her fingers together in her skirts, an unfortunate nervous habit, but he was still holding them firm in his own. He didn’t speak, as if anticipating her question. “I am now curious, who may you be then if you had truly been hiding your true self all this time?”
“You have not figured it out these last months? I am naught but a selfish, vain, and spoiled bastard who wants you all to himself. Whose dreams involve you kidnapped into my care with you wearing nothing but a jewel I’ve bestowed on you.”
Elain’s face and décolletage were completely flushed and a bead of sweat had even begun to appear at her temple at his licentious words.
“I will even say to you now though you must have heard it a hundred times before, you are the most beautiful woman that has ever graced Prythian, and if I could just keep but seeing you every morrow, I would feel the luckiest male in all existence.” He nuzzled closer to her as she fought to catch breath and someone, she was not sure which of them, let out a soft moan. “Your heart - I’m addicted to the sound of it.” Lucien rasped.
For once, Elain thought, his sincerity shown on his face and it was that thought, that he was listening to her heart, that made her do the absolutely lewd and unthinkable, in front of a babe no less.
She grasped his collar and pulled him up to meet her face with a kiss.
Though she should have known for all he was a rogue disguised as a gentleman, it was not an elegant or proper kiss at all. His mouth met hers with abandon, his full lips possessing a passion and desire for her she felt deep in her marrow.
“Do you know,” he said breathless, “how many times have I wanted to do this to you over the past few years?” His fingers stilled on her face.
“No,” she answered faintly.
He lowered his lips to hers once more. “Every time I saw that demure look on your face.”
“To k-kiss me?” she asked, breathless in her own way.
“Have you at my mercy,” he corrected her, his mismatched eyes roaming over her face.
“W-why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, swallowing and clearly finding it hard to hold his gaze at such close quarters.
“Because,” he answered in a harsh whisper, “now the fateful moment has arrived, I am not so certain who is the victor and who is the one seized…” They stared at one another. Before she could speak, he said in a rush, “I have been thinking about you all day.” His tone was rough, the confession, unanticipated. He was slightly horrified to hear himself make it.
“You have?” She was practically panting as he touched his forehead to her chest.
Lucien was just about to answer her and potentially care to take back some of his pride, though with the way she undid him, it was not likely, when Nyx let out a particularly loud squeal. The princely infant was apparently fed up with the lack of attention he was receiving, and loudly scolding them both for their remiss lack of care in the only way he could.
Elain startled and pushed Lucien roughly off her legs as she stood and grabbed the babe off the floor in escape. She bounced him in her slender arms and avoided her mate’s gaze, though it did not discourage him from looking his fill of her. What would she look like, he wondered, with his own babe in her arms?
The thought was an unsettling one, as he had never once hoped for an offspring of his own before this moment. In fact, he usually prayed to the Mother for the opposite after every dalliance he’d ever remembered having.
“What have you done to me?” He was fully aware that he should not be talking like this so soon, but in the moment, he felt powerless to stop.
Finally, with Nyx calmed against her chest she faced toward him and they locked eyes once more, their quick heartbeats in sync.
“Naught that you have not done to me,” she whispered softly back.