Blood Ties

37

Parts of me
~
Accalia
~
Warning: Minor sexual content and themes.

When Accalia came to, the sun had dipped a little lower and swallowed the medical room in dark orange flares.

A breath fell onto her bare neck and Accalia's blurred vision found Lycus looming over her. She immediately felt settled. Stable.

"You fell asleep," Lycus explained, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face and back through her dark mane. "I asked no one to disturb you."

Accalia smiled and Lycus's pupils dilated, his eyes fading into darkness.

"Do you know your eyes do that?" Accalia asked thoughtfully.

Lycus frowned, brows screwing together in question. "Do what?"

"Turn black," Accalia slowly sat up, finding her bra latched around her and t-shirt on too. She didn't bother asking who changed her, knowing she was in safe hands if Lycus was in her presence.

Accalia slowly stretched, arms extending to the ceiling and waited for an ache of protest. Her back didn't send a pang of pain to her. She dropped her arms in relief.

Lycus scanned her, every inch and piece of her, those black eyes still the same with flecks of amber coursing through the abyss. "I changed you. The healer had to tend to other patients."

Accalia nodded and pointed to his black eyes. "How do you make your eyes go back to normal?"

Lycus closed his eyes and breathed through his nose as a slow moment passed between them. Once he opened them, they were amber and human. No trace of the lycan inside him peeking through.

"A lot of practice, Accalia. It's worse when I'm around you." Lycus said huskily to her.

Accalia's footing found the ground and she stood up, staring up at him curiously. "How so?"

Lycus closed the distance between them, brushing the pad of his fingers around her sides and stopped at her hips, reeling her into him. He balanced her, but she swayed him.

"Because you're the first being I've ever been in love with," Lycus admitted, brushing his nose across hers and then his lips dipped to hers in a teasing stroke.

Accalia smiled even as she felt it falling like the sun disappearing into grey clouds.

"My scars? Are they bad?" Accalia mumbled against Lycus and pulled away from him, the touch becoming all too suffocating.

Are they heinous and hideous? She nearly didn't want to know.

"See for yourself."

A wide and long mirror swept in front of her, but Lycus pointed behind her to see another mirror stuck to the wall.

"We use mirrors a lot to examine wounds and marks made on wolves—some just like looking at themselves," Lycus explained loosely and positioned Accalia directly in front of her reflection.

Not wanting to focus on her dreary and tired face, Accalia pulled her top up and looked in the side of the mirror, where, over her shoulder, she could see her bare back in the other reflection behind her.

Accalia concealed any withering emotion threatening to show through her features and she observed.

Her back tensed beneath her scrutiny but she could see it. The tough and jagged lines casted from the nape of her neck, midway down to the centre of her back. Four scars marred her body and were a lighter complexion than her brown skin.