Blood Ties

9

What others don't see
~
Lycus
~

Rexton was an eclipse, a veil of what was beyond but shouldn't be unearthed.

Lycus didn't want him found, he didn't want him freed and in his mind of thoughts, he knew it was for the best.

The best for Rexton.

The lycan's eyes lingered on the blood beneath his claws and grimaced, jaw ticking. His bones cracked and snapped, falling back into place to the design of a human. He almost didn't want to turn back. Not with what awaited him.

Lycus wanted to claw his own heart out, tear it out and crush it before he fell to his death. He wasn't even around his little brother for a few minutes and an argument unravelled, a fight that turned bloody.

Twisting his head around, his jaw snapping and chin jutting out, he felt his canines fade away.

So the same Rexton looked. Lanky, messy-haired and a soulful face that never died out from the darkness.

The darkness Lycus created for him.

"I don't know, he drinks more than he ever has, Accalia," Tristan said sombrely from the second story of the manor, his voice drilling into Lycus's skull.

Lycus paused in his steps, his claws retracting, fur retreating into his skin and his surroundings becoming distinct, but in a different light. His vision in his lycanthrope phase was much more glaring and prominent — all objects closer than before where he could pick apart sand, count every single star in the sky and see her.

At times, seeing her could be blinding.

"Does he—" caution etched in Accalia's throat and Lycus wanted to take it away from her. "Does he talk about me?"

Lycus searched around the bushes, slipping his hands through the cracks of branches and scooping up a pair of grey sweatpants. He wasn't exactly in the mood to stalk through his house stark naked with many potentials catching his behind or front.

"You know how Dad got, losing mum and then Aunty Katerina, Uncle Henry, Grace and Derek, he had to take us all on by himself." It was loyalty in Tristan's words, plain and unfaltering loyalty.

"I know, but it doesn't excuse how he turned out."

Accalia hardly spoke about her father, all Lycus knew about him was his firm and strict nature, his infamous lineage stemming from that. From time to time, Lycus recalled when he slapped Accalia across the face and his blood ran hot, wanting to enforce an example on the man for it.

"I, mean look at how all of us turned out?" Tristan responded and his stocky frame encompassed the window, his back pressing against the glass.

"What do you mean?" It was pain in Accalia's voice.

"We're all fuckheads — never mind, I better get to bed." Lycus watched as Tristan shifted away from the glass and his voice grew distant. "Will you be fine here on your own?"

Why wouldn't she be? Lycus seethed into his head.

"Yeah, of course. It's been a long day, everyone is already sleeping anyway. Night, Tris."

A door closed and the bedroom light blew out.

Lycus grounded his teeth together, still reigning the beast into its cage. He didn't like the idea of Accalia being all alone, trying to sleep with the stitches and in a room he wasn't close to.

His room was at the other end of the house, further away from everyone and closest to the woods, for a reason that reminded him of what occurred today.