Neither of them spoke to the other for the rest of the day, with Vivienne remaining upstairs in her bedroom where he could hear her running over lines in privacy. From the sounds of it, the part she was auditioning for sounded like the stereotypical jealously evil ex from a soap opera, the one who jumped in the middle of the relationship between the main leads in order to drop some shocking information about the man or woman or reveal that she’s pregnant, etc.
While Marcus diligently patrolled the perimeter of the house and kept a vigilant eye on the security cameras, a series of intricate thoughts tugged at him. Amidst his duties, he couldn't help but keep one ear attuned to the sounds emanating from within the house. Through the walls of the mansion, Vivienne's monologuing voice carried through the air, bringing with it the full weight of her character's emotions, resonating with an intensity that was impossible to ignore.
In spite of his thoroughness, he couldn’t
On the other end of the call, Marcus's keen ears picked up the sound of a giggling woman's voice calling for Liam, her tone far from innocent. It was a jarring contrast to the earlier conversation, and Marcus could sense a change in Liam's demeanour too as he called back that he was ‘on my way, Ginger’. Then, without warning, the call abruptly cut off, leaving Marcus staring at his phone in bewilderment. The lingering echoes of the giggles and Liam's hasty departure hung in the air, leaving an angry, unsettled feeling in the pit of Marcus's stomach. It took him much longer to fall back asleep. The next morning arrived with the gentle light of dawn filtering through the polished glass of the mansion windows. Marcus, having risen early as was his habit, had already completed another patrol of the property, ensuring its security and that they hadn’t had any nighttime visitors. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he waited in the kitchen for Vivienne to wake up and com
The morning continued to drift by on light wings, with Vivienne diligently engrossed in her books and notes. The sunlight streamed through the parlour room window, casting a warm glow on her work. She was so focused on her textbooks and notepad that she hardly noticed the passage of time as the clock ticked down to the afternoon hours. It was only when Marcus returned from cleaning up the kitchen and settled down on the floor opposite her that she became distracted.Vivienne looked up, a faint blush dusting her cheeks as she met his interested gaze. Marcus was leaning over, his eyes scanning the array of numbers and atomic structures covering the page of the thick book. From that side of the table, the contents must have been upside down and he was tilting his head as if trying to read them. The sight was so painfully adorable coming from such a large, grizzled man that Vivienne almost wept with bliss."Oh, hey," she greeted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her e
As they stepped inside, Alexander Hardison Sr and Grace Hardison – Liam's father and mother – greeted them with warm smiles and cheerful greetings. The elder Mr. and Mrs. Hardison were the very picture of sophistication and affluence, their presence commanding respect and awe. It was no wonder that they’d both been featured on the front page of TIME magazine as a purportedly ‘perfect’ couple. Looking at them from the outside, Vivienne understood the appeal. Hardison Sr was an impossibly successful lawyer and the sort of silver-haired fox that appealed to both older and younger women. Grace Hardison was flawlessly beautiful, her skin only slightly wrinkled with age, and she owned a successful line of criminally expensive designer clothing brands. Together they had been the Hollywood power couple of the 80s.It was just too bad that they were shitty people. No matter what, they were still Liam’s parents, and thus th
The atmosphere in the parlour room was markedly different from the earlier tension that had filled it before, Vivienne noted when she walked in. Liam and his father were seated on plush chairs, glasses of whisky in hand and a half empty bottle of something that looked expensive on the table between them. It was a squat glass thing, reminding Vivienne more of a laboratory volumetric flask than anything you ought to drink out of, and covered with a matching glass stopper in the shape of a crystal diamond. The air was sour with the scent of alcohol, which mixed badly with her husband and father-in-law’s colognes to create a noxious that put Vivienne in mind of rotting trees and trash. Not that they noticed, as their conversation was completely dominated by boasts about their various real estate investments, and neither of them even noticed when Vivienne pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold. Marcus was by the door, looming there so silently that Vivienne d
In the comfort of her own room, Vivienne quickly changed out of the peach pink dress and into the worn band T-shirt and shorts combo that acted her coziest set of pyjamas. As she stripped and dressed, she tried her best to push thoughts of the evening, Marcus, and the menacing threat of the Hardison family out of her mind. Slipping beneath the covers of her bed, she tried to focus on the mundane details of her surroundings—the soft glow of the bedside lamp, the familiar scent of her room, the gentle rustling of the curtains in the night breeze. Yet as Vivienne settled in, the reality of the situation began to sink in and a single thought struck her with the dizzying intensity of a baseball bat to the back of the skull. For the next several weeks or even months, she was going to be completely alone with Marcus. It would be just them, alone, secluded away from either of their lives in the city. A frisson of heat shot down Vivienne’s spine. The thought both excited and terrifie
The soft, golden light of dawn filtered into the guest room where Marcus had spent the night. He stirred awake, his senses sharpening as he rapidly transitioned from the realm of dreams to that of reality. Though it had been years since he’d left the army, there were some things that you never forgot and instincts that never left. That was why Marcus was almost always awake at the crack of dawn, though he was a little surprised by his own punctuality this time as he had spent most of the night both agonizing over hurting Vivienne and trying to pacify his inner bear who was not happy with the scent of misery pouring off their mate. Mate?! Marcus scolded himself once again. She is not our mate. We don’t have a mate anymore, remember? As he lay in the quiet room, feeling the too-soft mattress on his back and the roughness of the duvet, the man couldn't help but think about Vivienne and the situation they were both in. The one
After exchanging a few more empty pleasantries, Marcus ended the call, feeling a mixture of relief and apprehension. As soon as the man hung up the phone, he heard the subtle rustle of movement coming from the upper floors of the mansion; foosteps pattering over carpeted floors and then the dragging noise of a rolling luggage bag. Vivienne had woken up clearly, and he was glad that – even though she didn’t want this – she was being suitably proactive about their imminent departure.Marcus wasted no time and moved with purpose, grabbing an empty duffel bag from his own suitcase and began clearing out Vivienne's bookshelf. Although they were in a rush, he handled each book with care, stacking them atop one another according to size and tucking them into the bag alongside her important notes and personal items. These books were a part of her, a collection of texts that represented a dream that she hadn’t renounced in spite of Liam’s abuse.Wi
Three years earlier, Marcus had been in a very different state of mind and a very different set of circumstances than he was now. At the time he had been fresh off his last official job with the Warrens, he had been bloodied and bruised from a particularly intense skirmish between several anti-shifter groups, and the loss of his handler had left him beyond shell-shocked. Damien had tried to cheer him up, to get him to the Warren’s in-house medic, but Marcus had only shrugged him off and wandered out into the night. Disoriented and disconnected from the world around him, he hadrifted through the city streets, following the siren call of alcohol and the promise of greasy meat. His steps had led him to a seedy bar; a dimly lit establishment where the air was thick with the scent of spilled liquor and the raucous laughter of inebriated patrons. Marcus had paid little attention to his surroundings, guided only by an instinctive need to find relief in the bottom of as man