COLOURS || Seth Clearwater

THIRTY FOUR

"What do you mean Jacob is here," Lucinda frowned, her hands, which had previously been mashing leaves for a potion Virginia was making, pausing mid task. "He can't see Bella. Not when she's like this. She's too weak."

"I can't do anything about it," Emmett murmured, leaning against the kitchen doorway. "I just thought I'd warn you since, you know, you haven't spoken to Seth since Bella got home."

Lucinda closed her eyes and tried to force away the feeling of her heart cracking into pieces before she answered. "Edward and Bella didn't want anyone to know about the pregnancy. I can't keep secrets from him. This was the only thing I could to," she answered monotonously, looking him in the eye.

"You should probably head upstairs, then," Emmett sighed, reaching forward to place a hand on her shoulder. "And just so you know, Lucy," he smiled sadly. "You don't have to pretend you don't miss him."

"I'll be in my room if anyone needs me," Lucinda muttered quietly, lips pursed to hide the heartbroken expression that was threatening to take over.

"I'll send Virginia and the twins up in a few minutes," Emmett smiled understandingly.

Lucinda simply nodded as she moved silently up the stairs, unable to hide the way her hear hammered anxiously in her chest. Confrontation was one thing she had never been good at. Whenever it was required, she found herself snappy and rather rude, which — generally speaking — never really solved anything.

As soon as she had thrown herself face first onto her bed, she sent a short burst of purple mist out the door to make her some tea before shutting it with a wave of her hand. Exhaling shakily, Lucinda closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the ever-present ache in her chest.

All she wanted to do was cry into her pillow and lay there for the rest of the day, but she couldn't. Not when Bella would need her.

Lucinda glanced up at her bedroom door as it silently opened, watching Dorian, Virginia and Leon make their way in with sad smiles. "Emmett told us why you aren't talking to Seth, love," Leon murmured, closing the door behind him.

"There was nothing else I could do," Lucinda muttered, her eyes falling to stare blankly at the wall opposite to her.

"We know, honey," Virginia shook her head softly as she slid into the empty space on the bed behind her friend. "We understand, there's no need for you to explain yourself.

After making themselves comfortable on the bed, Lucinda found herself squished between Dorian, who had her legs on his lap, and Virginia, who's head was on her shoulder. Leon laid comfortably on the bed with his head on her thighs, staring up at her with soft hazel eyes.

She knew that, one way or another, they could all understand the pain she was feeling. Every immortal being on the planet had felt it at some point; pulling them self away from the one they wanted to live out the rest of their days with. And they knew that Lucinda had felt it more times than could be deemed fair.

So rather than pushing her to talk about it, they simply sat with her in silence. Leon with his head in her lap and his arm outstretched so the back of his hand was pressed against the skin of her ankle; Virginia with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as if she could squeeze out all the pain she was feeling like one would when trying to empty a tube of toothpaste; and Dorian, who kept an arm around her shoulders while his fingertips gently threaded through her hair, the warmth they emitted working to comfort her.

Although she wanted nothing more than to run through the woods, find Seth, and kiss him like it was the only thing that allowed her to breathe, she settled for curling further into the tangled mass of limbs around her. They stayed there for nearly an hour, unmoving. Lucinda could feel Leon's gentle breaths against her ankle, and Virginia's chest rising and falling against her side. The two had fallen asleep.

She lifted her head from Dorians shoulder so look at his face, meeting his sad brown eyes. "How do you feel?" His voice was hardly above a whisper so quiet she wasn't even sure he had spoken.

Lucinda swallowed the lump in her throat and sighed. "Better," she admitted softly, settling her head back down in its previous spot. "This helps."

"We thought it would," Dorian murmured. He glanced over at the closed door, as if hearing something she couldn't. "I'll be here if you need me," he whispered before allowing his eyes to flutter closed, head resting atop hers.

"Come in."

Jacob opened the door slowly, his lips pulled into a thin line. Lucinda met his brown eyes with her cold, dull grey ones, unable to hide the hurt that had made itself at home on her face. He seemed taken aback by that as he slowly closed the door behind him. Then moved to stand at the bed. "He misses you, and he's worried." Lucinda unintentionally glanced over at the pile of rolled up letters on her desk at the opposite end of the room, which Jacob seemed to understand. "Why haven't you been answering him?" He pressed.

Lucinda cleared her throat and blinked the unshed tears out of her eyes. "I'm assuming you've seen Bella's predicament?" She murmured, curling herself further into Virginia's grasp. When Jacob nodded, she exhaled shakily. "Well, if wasn't my place to tell anyone about it," she explained softly. "And I can't keep secrets from him. So until Bella and Edward decided to announce the news, I had no other choice."

"Is there anything you want to say to him? Or Leah?" Jacob questioned, folding his arms over his chest as he waited for a response. "Because they are both going to see this, so you might want to explain yourself now."

Rather than feeling the disapproval she knew he meant to convey, all Lucinda felt was a spark of anger. "You cannot talk down to me, Jacob Black," she spoke lowly, grey eyes flooding with a spark of anger he hadn't seen before. "You are not allowed to speak to me as if I have done something wrong when you can't understand a thing that I am feeling. I made a choice — a choice to put my family first — which is not something I have seen you do since I arrived. All you have done is put Bella ahead of your pack brothers and everyone else in your life when you know damn well that she does not belong to you. So don't you dare tell me I have to explain myself when there is nothing I have to prove to you, or anyone else." She sat up slightly, lips curled back as she looked at him with disgust. "Now before I am forced to use my magic, I would love nothing more than to see you leave my room and shut the door behind you."

They stared at each other for a moment, Jacob trying to figure out if she was serious and Lucinda summoning all the self control she had, before he averted his eyes and did exactly what she had told him to do. When her bedroom door closed, Lucinda slumped into Dorians side and closed her eyes, allowing a few stray tears to escape before opening them again.

She cleared her throat and huffed, settling herself into her mattress, minutes passing before she drifted into an uneasy sleep.