Lucy’s POV
The morning that followed was a quiet one, but held promises that it whispered into my ears. I went through all the motions I usually went through on a normal morning. Taking a bath, putting on clean clothes, and pulling my hair into a single long fishtail. With some changes to how servants came to my room, I had gotten the liberty of picking my own clothes, which was what I really wanted. I was tired of having people dictate what I wore. At least then, I could feel some semblance of autonomy return to me.
Breakfast was brought to my room, and Tessa and I ate until we were satisfied with the garlic bread and steaming plate of chicken soup.
In the weeks that had gone by since Tessa had come to live with me, I had seen her body undergo the wonderful changes that came with leaving a place where all the like was getting sucked out of you, to a place where you could find peace and joy. Her eyes were brighter, her skin, while spotted with freckles, had become so much smoother. Some fat had built up underneath her cheeks, arms, and legs, giving her a plump, healthy look. Her hair shined from all the care it was getting, and her posture had evened out, becoming more straight and feminine. Each time I looked at her, happiness swelled within me because it was obvious that she was happy, and I had been opportuned to play a part in that.
That day, she wanted to put her hair up in a bun, and asked me to help her with it. She was wearing a bright pink dress that bought out the rosy tint of her skin, and twirled in it every now and then, giggling.
I took out an elastic band from my dresser and approached her form seated on the bed. “Why? Are you perhaps trying to . . . impress someone?” I asked her with a teasing smile.
Her cheeks became tomatoes. “No! I’m just trying to look a little different today,” she said, tripping over her words in such an endearing way.
“Why do you want to look different?”
She put her hands in her hair, looking absolutely adorable as she tried to make her point. “My hair’s always like this. It’s wild and everywhere . . . and-”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, stepping closer to her and putting a hand on her head. “I hope you’re not trying to change it because you think that’s what people want from you.”
She looked down at the rug underneath her little feet. “I’m . . . not. My hair just gets in the way when I’m playing with the others, that’s all,” she said. “I love my hair.”
“That’s alright. I just wanted to be sure,” I said, drawing her close and helping her style the hair in a few minutes. When I was done, I took her to my dressing mirror. “Look at it, what do you think?”
She gasped, full of awe. Her eyes went wide and a huge smile pulled her cheeks apart. “I love it!” She turned around in my grasp and gave me a constricting hug. “I love it I love it I love it!”
She hopped closer to the mirror and inspected it up close. “I look like a princess!” she said and came over to where I stood, flashing her pearly whites at me.
Giving her a smile of my own, I patted her on the head, finding the situation a little humorous. “Now, go and have some fun. I’ll go and prepare something for us to eat when you get back.”
“Can we have pancakes?” she asked, looking up at me with wide, pleading eyes.
“Is that what you’d like? What I plan on making is three times better than it.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Can we have both?”
I laughed. “That would be a lot of work for me, but I’ll see what I can do, agreed?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded, before hopping out of the room.
A few minutes later, I went to the personal kitchen, which was joined to our own wing of the villa, and picked out the ingredients I would use from the shelves and cabinets. I got to work quickly, putting together everything I required to make the sweet meat-pies my mother had taught me to make years back.
A blissful two hours went by, but I took little notice of it. I was consumed by the process involved in putting flour together, preparing the dough, cutting up the meat and potatoes, and putting them all together.
At last, the pies were ready. I arranged them neatly into a tray and covered them up with foil paper, before going to drop them off in my bedroom. That way, Tessa would have had something to snack on once she got back from playing with the Halflings, who has now become her closest companions, especially that particularly inquisitive boy that seemed to always follow her around recently.
I took off my apron and dusted the flecks of flour that had dropped on it-the ones that could have been dusted off, that is.
A glance outside the window told me that the noon was just getting started, from the way the sunlight kept growing in intensity.
I took out one of the warm meat-pies from the tray and stepped out of the room, going to my best spot in the entire villa. In seconds, the pastry had been reduced to nothing but crumbs that I got rid of by rubbing my fingers together.
On getting to the special room, I immediately saw that it wasn’t empty.
Right on the balcony, on the very spot I usually stood to watch the sun set and the flight of birds, Scott sat on a drawing bench, with a canvas before him. Elegantly, he dipped his brush into the pallet and continued painting something that resembled a landscape.
“Take a seat,” he said, adding a line of blue paint to his artwork. “You’ll be able to appreciate it better that way.”
“How long have you known?” I asked, settling down in the only other seat in the room. I didn’t know who had the place, or who had owned it, but they had been lucky to sleep and wake up in a place so attuned to the natural world.
“From the moment you stepped through that door.” After a little more painting, he gently put down his paintbrush and turned to face me. His eyes were open and welcoming, and a small smile sat comfortably on his mouth.
The longer I stayed with them, the more I could tell apart the differences each brother held. Only someone with poor perception would have had trouble telling them apart.
“What are you painting?” I asked, lifting a finger to his work, which indeed, looked better now that I was sitting down.
“Moongrowl.”
“Here?”
He nodded. “When we left here 13 years ago, things were a little different from how they are now. I wanted to capture those changes.”
The work was a stunning replica of the villa. Every stroke and dip of paint on the canvas held intention, and purpose.
Just a little, I moved my head to better appreciate the painting. “Your work is beautiful. Where’d you learn to paint?”
“Self-taught,” he simply said.
Out of more questions to ask, I sat there, watching him watch me. The silence didn’t bother me, but it could have been filled with something, anything at all.
When it didn’t look like he was going to say anything else, I took the lead. “You usually keep to yourself, but I can see now that you actually have a lot to say.”
He blinked, slightly taken aback by my words. When he recovered from that, he stood up and walked over to where I sat, looming over me. “Well, some people are worth talking to.”
Warmth filled my chest, the sweet, lovely kind. It almost took my breath away. I became hyper aware of his ice-blue eyes on me, drinking me in like I was an oasis in the desert.
I got up as well, drawn to him by some otherworldly pull. When I stood before him, and was close enough to touch his skin, I placed my hand on his cheek. The dense bone underneath was cut so perfectly, and his jawline could cut glass. His eyes were framed by lashes as long as wings: so thick and full that if he blinked too hard he might have been swept off his feet and into the air out of my reach.
He leaned into my palm, welcoming my touch. His warm breath brushed against my skin as he pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. As he moved his mouth away, he looked at me for a little moment, before closing his eyes and pressing his face to my palm like a cat searching for caresses, and I, was his master.
Would I have felt anything from kissing him? I had no idea what the answer would have been, but I knew that either way, I wanted to try it. I wanted to taste him and know whether doing so would quench the insatiable desire fanned by the mate bond eating away at my senses. The ravenous hunger that could only be sated by the touch of the one it had chosen.
Obeying the tugging deep within my soul, I leaned in close, gingerly. My eyes fluttered shut as well when our noses were less than a centimeter apart . . .
The door to the room creaked open, disrupting the sweet, pregnant quiet. I turned to the door to see who had entered, but didn’t move away from Scott. At the back of my mind, I realised that his hands had found their way to my hips, holding me against him almost possessively.
Shaun stood at the entrance, watching the two of us. A dark look passed over his expression quickly, but not enough for me to have missed it.
It looked a lot like anger. Or could it have been . . . jealousy?