Transfusion (Transfusion Saga #1)

Chapter 17

Home Invasion

I screamed first in shock and then in anger the second I walked inside my once perfect space only to see that it had been trashed.

Someone had broken in and totally smashed up the place.

Lucius suddenly acted on impulse turning into dominant protector mode.

He dropped the bags, grabbed my arm and spun me so that he was suddenly pressing me up against the door.

I swear it was almost worth the home invasion for that single moment alone.

“Stay here and don’t move, do you understand?”

he growled down at me and I tried to swallow down the hard lump which wasn’t going down quick enough for me to answer.

“I mean it, Amelia, I want your back against this door and you don’t move it until I say so, now is that understood?”

He said more determinedly this time.

I nodded, thinking this was the best course of action with an angry Vampire stood over me looking like some coiled white tiger ready to pounce at the first sight of danger.

“Good girl,”

he said tapping me under the chin with a curled finger before he pushed himself back off the door.

Then he did a walk-through of my flat making sure no one was still in there.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long as he only had my bedroom and bathroom to check.

Just the idea of Lucius in my bedroom meant that by the time he came out my cheeks were red and hot.

Thankfully though, I had just been broken into, so any smart person would put it down to this and not having lust induced hot flushes.

“It’s clear,”

Lucius said as he scanned the floor where it looked like most of my possessions were scattered.

“And not as secure as someone likes to think,”

he then muttered to himself making me frown and question what he had meant by that.

But then I took one look around the place and the comment was quickly lost to overwhelming misery.

“Who would do this?”

I asked as I too now looked around feeling heartbroken at seeing everything they had done.

All the cupboards in my kitchen were open, some of which were barely hanging on their hinges where someone had just swept their contents to the floor.

I knew this because beneath the open doors lay dinted tins, broken jars, cooking sauces splattered on broken tiles with rice and pasta sprinkled on top.

Then, next to that were smashed plates, cups, bowls and even my beautiful cake stand that I had bought on sale in one of the country manor house gift shops.

I shook my head as I took in the state of my kitchen seeing that even the contents of the fridge were on the floor and I was only thankful that I had been due a food shop or it could have been a lot messier with sour milk added to the top.

“I think it’s safe to say they are part of the same group of people that attacked you today,”

Lucius said.

“Yes, but why, if they already knew I had the box on me?”

I asked suddenly remembering the suspicious van parked across the street the night of the gala.

Had they been watching me? Lucius was about to answer me when suddenly I looked to my living room and screamed,

“NO! No, no, no!”

I then ran over to my beautiful sofa and picked up the slashed cushions, holding the now unrepairable pieces to me as if this would help.

Lucius watched my desperate actions with a frown and what looked like a clenched fist at his side in frustration.

He looked very much like he wanted to kill someone.

“Oh no, this is awful! Those bastards! How could they do this!”

I ranted making Lucius take a step towards me and saying in a soft tone,

“It’s just a sofa, sweetheart, it can be replaced.”

Now this being said was sweet enough, especially after he had chosen the right time to use an endearment like sweetheart.

But unfortunately, I was too lost to my rage.

So, I looked up at him, held out my cushion and said,

“No, it’s not! Its more than that, Lucius! Me, Ben and Wendy had to heave this bugger up here and then it took me hours to…”

I paused midsentence as from the look on his face he just didn’t get it.

So, I took a deep breath and told him,

“Look, I am not expecting you to understand here, but this is something I made! I bought it secondhand and then spent hours lovingly re-covering it…Hell, I spent hours washing the bloody thing just to get the old lady smell out of it…and now look at it!”

I said in a sad voice looking down at the pinstripe material I loved and threw it aside in my anger.

Lucius looked as though he wanted to say something, but I wasn’t finished and for once, I wasn’t taking notice of him.

Because if I had been then I would have noticed the tender look he had been giving me from the start.

But the reason I didn’t was that I was scanning for more damage and when I found it I freaked…my precious nerd collection.

“Oh, Gods no!”

I shouted before storming over to my shelf and looking down at all the pieces on the floor.

Then I bent down and picked up pieces of Lego that quickly crumbled between my fingers to the floor.

I felt like crying.

“Just look at this! Do you know how long I spent building this?!”

I said as if speaking to myself as it suddenly occurred to me that Lucius had no idea what Lego was or how important it was to a geek like me.

“Whatever it was, it’s in a lot of pieces now,”

he commented making me snap my head up and almost growl at him.

“This is a Lego Death Star that had 4016 pieces! It took me over twenty-four hours to build and now look at it, blood of the Gods but I will be lucky if I even find half of them! And look, they even ripped the head off my Chewbacca.”

I said shaking my head in sorrow.

“What kind of demon is a Chowbacca?”

“Chew, not Chow…and he’s not a demon, Chewbacca is a Wookie,”

I corrected making him frown.

“And what in Hell’s depths is a Wookie?”

At this point I stopped trying to get Chewie’s head back on and looked at Lucius as if he was the one missing the head.

Or should I say that he had five heads and neither of them knew what Star Wars was.

“Are you joking?”

I asked making him frown.

“Seriously, how is it you have lived this long yet you do not know of the greatest movie franchise ever created?”

I asked him in an incredulous tone.

“How about ruling over thousands of Vampires, saving the world a few times, including your troublesome mother’s ass, running a business empire and oh, let’s not forget doing the few favours here and there whenever your father feels like making me one of his fucking lackies, that’s how,”

Lucius snapped, and I don’t know why but it was in that moment that I looked around the room and really felt like crying.

Not because of the stupid ass in front of me who had zero tact in this situation when being around an emotional woman who’d just lost everything in her world.

But mainly because my beautiful little flat was in ruins.

A shuddered breath escaped me, and I looked down at the floor as my shoulders slumped, meaning Chewie’s head and body rolled out of my hands.

I heard Lucius sigh before saying,

“Look at me, Sweet”

At first, I shook my head, knowing that if I did I wouldn’t be able to stop the tears from coming.

Then he asked me again and this time when I did I could feel the tears already fill my eyes and one blink was all it would take to make them overflow.

He homed in on my eyes just before I looked down again but not before I caught his frown and the sight of him raking a hand angrily through his hair.

Then I heard him hissing two words,

“Fuck it!”

the second before I was in his arms.

I gasped when I felt them wrap around me, pulling me to him and placing a gentle hand to the back of my head so that he could pull me tenderly to his chest.

I didn’t know what to do at first and kind of just froze solid in his hold, being in too much shock to even breathe.

“Relax, sweetheart, I won’t hurt you,”

he whispered gently down at me and it sounded so sincere I would have sealed it away in my heart as a promise.

Then he purred his next command.

“Now take a breath for me.”

I did as I was told and the second I did it broke the damn flood gates, drowning me with emotions that had built up over the last two days.

It was seeing Lucius again that night of the gala.

It was the confusing emotions he stirred up in me yet again.

The flirting and teasing that quickly turned to annoyance and irritation.

The irrational behavior that was jealousy and over protectiveness.

The lies he told and the gentlemanly actions he bestowed. Then there was being attacked and nearly shot to death, going on a date to a place Lucius had never taken a girl and now standing here in his arms after he just snapped at me. And now being surrounded by the life I had created in ruins, and I didn’t just mean my possessions…but more like the vault I had built back up around my heart against this man.

It took me a moment to realise that because of all this I was quietly sobbing in his arms and he was simply holding me close and letting me.

I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how long this lasted for, but I know that when I heard him utter my name on a barely heard whisper, I knew he was saying it to himself and not to me.

“Oh, Amelia.”

“I’m…I’m sorry, I guess it’s…well, it’s just been a…”

I started to say pulling back slightly, so that I could look at him and I was surprised to find that he didn’t let me go as I thought he would have.

“Bad day?”

he finished off for me making me sniff a laugh, saying,

“Yeah, something like that.”

Then I reached my arm up in between us and rubbed my nose, making sure it wasn’t running.

He tilted his head to the side a little as if trying to get a read on me but yet again, he still hadn’t let me go.

I didn’t know what to think in that moment but if I thought just being in his arms was confusing then what he did next blew me away.

He let go of my neck where he had let one hand rest the second I had pulled back to look at him.

Then he raised it up to my face and tipped my head back so that I was looking up at him before he captured my fallen tears, wiping them away with the pad of his thumb.

Then he spoke,

“Your eyes are always beautiful but when you cry…”

he paused a moment and closed his own eyes as he hissed a curse before continuing,

“Fuck me…they are breathtaking,”

he told me with such a fervor of lust and emotion in his voice that I didn’t know what to do.

Didn’t know what to think, how to act, how to even breathe again! I was just frozen like time for me had stopped and the world was no longer spinning…it was paralyzed.

Because that was the power of Lucius.

The feeling that in that moment he had the power to turn back time and heal the fractures he had inflicted upon my heart.

And I wanted to hate him for it, but all I could do was love him even more for not breaking it completely, for surely if he had, then I wouldn’t be feeling this way now?

This blinding love I felt towards him that was ready to sacrifice the depth of my soul just for one night.

Just for one single moment where he made me his and branded himself in my small forever as the one who took my virginity.

The first man to claim me, even if the memory of it was only a drop of water in the turbulent waves that was his long eternal life.

But for me…

It would forever be my ocean.

However, even after this admission, the kiss I had been desperately praying for never came, as I could see it the second he felt himself going too far.

I felt his hands relax their hold before his body followed.

He took a step back from me and I couldn’t help but notice the way his chest rose and fell in a heavy rhythm.

But then again, maybe he also noticed the way I then wrapped my arms around myself to replace his.

Did he know it was so that I could keep the feeling of warmth and comfort he had given me for just that moment longer? Fooling my body and mind into believing his touch still lingered, if even for a mere few seconds longer…it was worth a try.

Then his voice shattered everything, and it did so in the weirdest way when he asked,

“This Wendy, how long have you known her?”

I frowned at his question before saying,

“For years, why?”

“So, you trust her?”

he asked in an assuming tone.

“Yes, with my life,”

I replied watching as he walked over to my handbag where I had unconsciously dropped it on the floor the second I saw what had happened to my flat.

Then he dug out my phone and handed it to me at the same time issuing his orders.

“Good, then call her and ask if you can stay the night,”

he told me, and I took the phone but argued,

“But my flat, I have to…”

This was when he decided big bossy Vampire King was back in play and he growled the next demand at me,

“Just do as you’re told.”

He saw my face drop and must have felt guilty about it or something, because he lowered his stern tone and actually said,

“Please, Amelia, just this once, do as you’re told… yeah?”

And because of this I nodded and tapped on her number making him sigh in what looked like relief.

“Yo Smock, you get laid yet?”

she asked making me blush when I saw Lucius raise an eyebrow at me in question.

I turned away from him and hissed down at the phone,

“No! Gods Kirky, so not the time!”

“Oh Christ, what’s happened now, did you fall off the toilet whilst painting your toe nails and break your coccyx again?”

I groaned aloud knowing again that Lucius could hear her, and I was just thankful that I was never going to get these two in a room together seeing as embarrassing me was like her second job!

“I didn’t break it…it was…it was just sprained,”

I argued hissing at her making her chuckle.

“Uh, not sure you can sprain your tailbone, sweetie, and I was with you remember…oooh, do you remember the sexy doctor that was totally flirting with you and asked you about grabbing a coffee…man, why, oh why doesn’t shit like that ever happen to me?”

I rolled my eyes knowing that Lucius could still hear all of this and I looked over my shoulder at him to see that he was looking more than pissed off with his arms crossed.

“Firstly, you’re not clumsy, not even in the ridiculous heels you wear, so no chance of doctors asking you out and secondly, he wasn’t that sexy and it was unprofessional of him to ask me out,”

I said still whispering, although with Lucius only a few feet away it was pretty pointless.

However, it was enough for Wendy to pick up on.

“Why are we whispering?”

she asked mimicking me.

“Because I am not alone, that’s why,”

I told her making her squeal down the phone and I held it away from my ear giving Lucius a shrug of my shoulders and a nervous little chuckle.

“Oh my God, you hussy! You did it, didn’t you!? Oh praise the lord above she is now a…”

“Kirky! Just shut up a second okay!”

I said seriously before she blurted out the embarrassing truth that I was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin to the man of my dreams and the very one who I had been saving it for all this time, like some hopeless romantic in some period drama waiting for her solider to come back from war or something.

Man, I was pathetic! To the point I would have shaken my head at myself had he not been in the room.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

she finally asked, getting a hint on my panicked voice and becoming the good friend I knew I could rely on.

“Okay, so don’t freak out but someone broke into my flat and…”

“Holy shit! Are you okay? Were you there? Are you alright, are you okay? Jesus, Emmie, talk to me!”

she said repeating herself in a high-pitched tone of panic.

“It’s okay, I’m fine, just my place is trashed and I just wanted to know if I could sleep with you tonight?”

“Yes, of course! You know you don’t even need to ask,”

she replied making me release a sigh of relief seeing as I didn’t really fancy a night on my own tonight.

Then I turned around to face Lucius and nodded yes, that she would, when really, I didn’t need to because he could hear it for himself.

“Great, I will grab some stuff and head over in a bit.”

After this I said goodbye and hung up only to find Lucius on the phone, this time giving orders to someone else.

“I want that surveillance footage with me in the next ten minutes, everything in the building and within a two-mile radius.”

Lucius listened to who was on the other line and suddenly shot me a look before saying,

“What no, not Caspian, he will scare the shit out of her! No send me Ruto and tell him to bring D, I want everyone on this and I want these fuckers caught yesterday, do you understand?!”

he snapped, pausing to listen again before snarling a deadly promise, one that made me shiver.

“Your only job is to keep them alive long enough for me to deal with them and deal with them I will.”

I swear seeing Lucius this way should have had me running for my life not turning me on as it was doing.

Okay, so it was official, I needed therapy!

“Take them to the warehouse, I will be there this evening…I have a few things to deal with here first,”

Lucius said looking to me once more as I was currently picking up any of the figures that managed to survive the attack and looking as though I was not listening, which I certainly was doing.

“And get Liessa to call me.”

The second I heard him utter the other woman’s name I swear my heart skipped a beat and the Star Trek original communicator I got three Christmas’s ago snapped shut from the pressure I applied with my tense fingers.

Who was Liessa? Oh, Gods please don’t say that she was his girlfriend.

I don’t think I could cope with that on top of everything else.

But how was I to find out? It wasn’t as if I could just casually drop in the conversation, ‘So are you seeing anyone recently?’ Oh yeah, just been broken into and this was what I was focusing on…okay, so note to self, google therapists in my area the second I was alone.

“You need to pack a bag,”

Lucius said making me realise that he had finished on the phone and was now talking to me.

I nodded getting up from my knees now noticing my slashed rug and thinking that another trip to Ikea would be happening in my immediate future.

Then, as if on auto pilot, I walked into my room and hunted around for my bag, wanting to suddenly cry again when I saw that even most of my clothes had be slashed.

Well, even if I didn’t scream like I felt like doing, I must have made a noise of distress of some kind because Lucius was suddenly in the doorway and found me sat slumped on the bed, with my beautiful bedding in shreds as well.

“What is it?”

Lucius asked with his hands either side of the door frame looking ready to turn the wood to pulp, he was that tense.

I looked down at the heap of cut material in my lap and said in a small voice,

“I don’t have anything left to pack.”

Lucius followed where my gaze was focused, and I heard the wood splinter like before, only this time he didn’t even bother to fix it, and why would he…look at the place, what was the point! I hated the idea that I might have to use my father’s credit card because, realistically, there was no way my meagre savings were going to cover all this!

“Alright, Sweet forget packing, let’s just get you to your friend’s place,”

Lucius said after obviously needing a minute to compose his anger.

But after that minute when I didn’t move, I jerked the second I felt his hands come to mine and I looked up to see him crouched down in front of me, trying to pry my hands from one of the funny T shirts I had been bought years ago.

It had a picture of a toothbrush and a toilet roll talking with each other.

The toothbrush said in a speech bubble, ‘I hate my job’ and the toilet roll’s pissed off reply was in another speech bubble that just said, ‘Seriously?’

“My Aunty Pip gave me this T-shirt,”

I told him for no particular reason other than the fact it was as if I needed to tell someone, before it was lost in some bin somewhere.

“Figures,”

Lucius said with a chuckle as he saw it for himself with the way I was still trying to hold the two pieces it was cut into back together.

That’s when I remembered that he knew Pip well, as she and her husband Adam used to work for him back before my mum and dad got married.

“Come on sweetheart, let’s get you out of here,”

he said gently, taking my hands and pulling me up to stand in front of him.

“But what about my clothes?”

I asked looking around and trying to see something that I could take…even my damn underwear had been cut up!

“Let me worry about that,”

he said pulling me from the room and I had to look down to check I wouldn’t trip up on anything as my stuff was scattered everywhere.

“But, but I…”

He cut me off by stepping closer to me and placing a leather covered thumb across my lips as he gently ran his fingers down my cheek.

Then he looked down at me and asked me only one thing,

“Do you trust me?”

I thought about my answer for what seemed like an age but in reality, must have been only a minute.

I knew this because I am pretty sure Lucius was the type of man who didn’t like waiting for anything, let alone my answer.

But no matter how long it did take me, I couldn’t help but really think about the full depth of that question.

Did I trust Lucius?

Well, I think that after today and what happened many years ago then I could safely say that I trusted him with my life.

He had proved himself back then and today after placing himself in front of me and taking I don’t know how many bullets for me.

“Amelia, I asked you a question,”

Lucius said again, obviously getting impatient and making me realise he had been waiting what must have been a minute too long.

Which was when I noticed that for some reason this seemed important to Lucius and now, along with everything else, I was asking myself why?

So, in the end this was why I nodded a ‘yes’, not trusting myself to speak in that moment from fear of what I might blurt out if given the chance.

To ask him why he cared if I trusted him or not.

To question why in fact, he hadn’t taken one look at my flat and said, ‘nope that’s it, I’m out, my job is done, I have the box now have a nice life and good luck cleaning this shit up’.

But he was still here.

So, in the end, the answer that I had given him had been a ‘yes’, I did trust him but even as I nodded my head and gave him the answer he was looking for, I knew deep down that it was only half true.

As there was still one big part of me that didn’t trust Lucius.

Because the truth was, I didn’t trust him…

With my heart.