Chapter 23 To Kill a Mocking Man
To Kill a Mocking Man
The rest of Lucien’s speech was about seemingly mundane pack matters, and the shift from his savage and intimidating beginning to a more civilized and indifferent rhetoric was so staggering, it took me a few minutes to snap out of my shock.
He then proceeded to talk about a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. Something about pack guilds and something called Velunor that I didn’t have the context to understand the meaning of.
At one point, tension rose when he said, “This week’s hearing will be postponed to next week, due to the upcoming full moon.”
That had caused many pack members to murmur among themselves.
I was a bundle of curiosity, especially about the full moon, by the time Lucien stood up and said, “Montrévère pack meeting is now adjourned,” in a tone that sounded far too formal, even for this formal setting.
He added in a low growl, “Go back to work. I sincerely hope this is the last pack meeting I’ll have to hold for a while. Am I clear?”
The audience as one chanted tersely, “Yes, Alpha!”
With barely a nod to acknowledge their response, Lucien easily hopped off the stage and walked up the stairs. I realized everyone else was remaining seated, waiting for him to leave first before they would follow.
As he drew closer to the doors, his arctic-blue eyes snapped to me and lingered. My heart beat a little too fast as he held my gaze with such intensity, all kinds of butterflies came to life in the pit of my stomach.
He reached the doors, and before I could say or do anything, he pulled me into his arms and whisked us out the door so fast, within one blink we were back outside at the beautiful meadow-like Heart of the Pack.
I gasped when he suddenly lifted me princess-style and ran to the large cabin on the Pack Hall’s right. Only when we were inside with the door closed did he put me down.
But his arms remained around me.
And his twisted monstrous face shattered, revealing his beautiful one once more, only gravely exhausted. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, he said, “Let me hold you for a few more moments.” He swallowed hard, eyes searching mine. “Please.”
He looked so tired, and so broken, too, that I felt my heart wrench.
Slowly, hesitantly, I raised my hand to his face to cup his cheek, like he’d done to me earlier.
An unnamed emotion unfolded deep within me at seeing him so vulnerable all of a sudden, leaning into my touch.
The feel of his faint bristles tickled my palm, and I traced my thumb over his cheekbone, watching his eyes flutter closed as he let out a deep breath.
His arms squeezed around me, causing my gut to tighten, and something inside me made a circus-worthy flip-flop. Wordlessly, I raised my left hand, more assured this time, to cup his other cheek, holding his face between my palms.
When he let out another sigh, an uneven, stuttering one, I felt like I was in a trance, holding this outrageously gorgeous and dangerous man’s face.
After his display of power in the Pack Hall, the realization that this man was truly an Alpha of a werewolf pack completely settled deep in my gut. Seeing him so vulnerable now, it seemed almost foreign for someone in his position to show such emotions.
I was suddenly sent back almost a week, to when I’d petted his soft, beautiful coat as he lay, bleeding, in his wolf form, on my sofa. He had leaned into my touch then, too, just like that. He had let me soothe his pain as much as I could.
Until now, I realized, he hadn’t had any time to truly breathe. He’d been constantly on guard—against Chase and Avenor, his pack members, and of course, the Syndicate—and he hadn’t let himself simply be.
And that applied to me too.
So we stood there for a few long moments, taking in the much-needed albeit short break, and simply breathed.
Lucien was quiet, saying nothing, as I looked around me. I noticed that pack members watched us when we passed by on our way back to Lucien’s car. Mostly, they stared at Lucien—some of them in awe, others with fear, and a few with displeasure evident on their faces.
There was also more than one woman and man who sneaked him appreciative looks.
That made me extremely, irrationally irritated. I wanted to grab Lucien’s arm and dig my nails into his skin to show them who he belonged to.
But I stifled the urge to do so, since Lucien belonged to no one. Least of all to me.
And that thought, for some reason, was too devastating for me to acknowledge.
What irritated me even more was the fact no one seemed to notice me, or rather, everyone simply ignored my existence.
It was as if Lucien sucked all the attention to himself without meaning to, just because that’s who he was.
And I understood; while all the werewolves I saw were attractive, Lucien was in a league of his own.
But it chafed, too, to have people look past me, as if I were invisible.
It was a feeling I was familiar with. With my plain girl-next-door looks and baggy band shirts, I was nothing to look at. Usually, I couldn’t care less; as long as I was living the life I chose, wearing what I wanted and avoiding makeup at all costs, I was content.
Now, however . . .
I shook my head. Whatever I looked like to these werewolves didn’t matter. Not when there were far more pressing matters to attend to. Like investigating Alby and Dianna, Mack’s associates I had shot.
A chill made me shiver. Right. I shot people. I’d actually shot two people for the first time in my life, and with everything turning into pure chaos, I’d barely had the time to even think back to it.
And now the memories of the deafening noise of bullets shooting forward, the click of the trigger as I pulled it, the sight of the bullets hitting real flesh . . .
Lucien suddenly stopped, and I snapped out of my dark thoughts. We’d arrived at the car.
The drive passed in silence. My mind was running in circles, bringing to the forefront the memories of shooting Alby and Dianna, memories I hadn’t realized I was suppressing. Now, though, they repeated over and over in my head.
I told myself I’d done the right thing. I’d reacted when I should’ve. If I hadn’t, Alby and Dianna would’ve gotten away without punishment for conspiring to kill Lucien.
If there was one thing I refused to do, it was to have more regrets.
After some time, Lucien parked the car near a warehouse-like cabin.
There were two casually clothed werewolves standing guard at the door, where a sign read Pack Penitentiary.
When they saw Lucien and me get out of the car and approach the entrance, they straightened their backs and gave a curt bow of their heads simultaneously.
Lucien nodded back, and the two let us in.
The lobby was surprisingly bright and colorful. There were plants all over, and little sculptures of mushrooms and beetles, and whatnot. The man who sat behind the front desk was also wearing bright neon colors.
When he saw us coming in, he immediately jumped to his feet and saluted. “Good afternoon, Mr. Alpha, sir.”
To my surprise, Lucien’s lips twitched. “I told you calling me Alpha is enough, Miguel.”
Miguel didn’t reply but kept saluting.
Lucien seemed half amused, half tortured, as he sighed and gave a quick salute back to release him.
Once he wasn’t saluting anymore, Miguel smiled, eyes twinkling, and asked, “How can I help you today?”
“We’re here for Alby and Dianna,” Lucien said, face growing serious.
Miguel nodded quickly and motioned toward the door next to his desk. “They’re at cell twenty-six, sir.”
“Thank you,” Lucien said quietly, nodded, and headed to the door, but before he opened it, he turned to Miguel and said, “I know you’re new, and you’re still getting the hang of things, but remember, this is not the military.”
The bright man nodded so fast, his hair flew everywhere. “I know, sir, Alpha,” he said, smiling a little. “I’m working on it.”
Lucien, to my surprise, smiled back. “All right, then.”
Once we walked through the door, I looked around me as the surroundings took on the opposite feel from the front desk’s.
Here it was bleak and moist, gray walls and floors, an aisle of prison cells greeting us.
To my surprise, most cells were empty, but the few that weren’t were inhabited by werewolves in their wolf form, who seemed to be avoiding looking at Lucien altogether as we passed by.
The silence, though, was heavy, broken only by our footsteps—and my curiosity, which thankfully pushed my dreadful thoughts from before to the back of my mind. “So Miguel is new?”
Lucien heard the question in my voice and glanced at me with a somewhat cryptic look. “Yeah. He hasn’t been a werewolf for long.”
My heart came to a screeching stop as my throat grew dry. “What do you mean—”
“We’re here,” he cut me off as he stopped by cell twenty-six.
Biting my tongue and swallowing the rest of my questions, I looked into the cell through the thick metal bars.
There were two wolves there, both with dark fur and gold eyes, though they weren’t identical in the slightest. One had a sharper face, and a shorter tail that had a pretty silver ring around its edge, while the other had thicker fur and a longer tail.
“Alby, Dianna,” Lucien now said, looking at the wolves. “Shift.”
The wolves stared at Lucien as they immediately shifted.
While I’d witnessed Lucien shift before, the sight still startled yet fascinated me as I watched their fur being sucked into their skin, followed by a hissing sound.
Their limbs grew longer, and a faint sound, almost like a paper being folded into origami shapes, filled the silence.
When they were finally in their human form, both were naked, but they didn’t seem to care about it. It made me wonder about the nudity culture in the werewolf society. Lucien had been comfortable in his nudity, too, every time I’d seen him without his clothes on.
Which, granted, were a few very precious moments.