Chapter 19
Hendricks
Maverick has slept all day again after getting injured in that werewolf fight last night.
I should have been there with him, but watching over Lydia took priority and now I feel guilty having left him to that deranged pack by himself.
At least now they were vanquished once and for all.
The question is what the hell were they doing back here at all.
With no survivors there’s no one to ask.
All I have is speculation and theories at this point, but something is telling me they weren’t here on their own volition.
I wish I hadn’t left things with Lydia the way I did though. It’s been eating at me all day. Replaying it again and again in my mind.
She’s everything I could have ever hoped for, and there I went fucking things up.
It’s a lot to ask someone to accept you for all your fucked up bits normally.
But add in being an immortal monster? Forget it.
The minute she figures out this place is real— she’s out of here.
She’ll run and it’s stupid to get my hopes up that she can really be ours.
No matter how right it felt being with her. There’s no shaking reality.
Reality is a bitch like that. Always popping up to remind you that it exists.
“The fuck are you doing, Hen?” Maverick mumbles.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You’re watching me sleep.”
“Well, you never do, and you look like a fucking angel. So can you blame me?”
A pillow zips past my head, hitting the wall behind me. I’m sitting on the ground in our room, unable to rest. I pick up the pillow that smells like Maverick and throw it back, hitting him square in the face.
“Fuck, you’re asking for it,” he grumbles, but I just chuckle. I love pushing his buttons.
“It’s nearly dusk. Time to get your lazy ass up, old man.”
“Have I told you how insufferable you can be?”
“Not lately,” I respond, pushing myself off the floor.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I took the tunnels down to spy on Lydia earlier today. I caught her in the showers looking like the most delicious snack. I wanted to take her right there, but I held off knowing that announcing my presence during the day could lead to countless complications.
Complications I’m not ready to deal with yet. While Lydia still thinks we’re humans the chances of her staying longer are higher. Call me selfish, but I don’t want our time to be up just yet. Not when we’ve just found her.
“You ready?” I ask after he’s finished pulling on a fitted t-shirt and dark wash jeans.
As he fixes his hair, he winces.
“Still bad?” I ask coming up next to him.
“Werewolf injuries are a bitch.”
“Do you need more rest?”
He shakes his head no. “I’m not missing out on any more time with Lydia. You got her all to yourself last night. How was it by the way?”
We didn’t get a chance to talk before he passed out in bed.
“Fucking life changing,” I say crossing my arms over my chest.
Maverick’s eyebrows raise at my declaration. It’s one thing to know something ahead of time. To be told that it might happen. To prepare and hope and plan. But when it’s happening and you actually get to experience it and feel how fucking great it could be? I blow out a sharp breath.
“You think we have a chance to make her stay?” I can’t stand hearing the hope in his question. I don’t even want to feel myself get hopeful, let alone have to deal with the possibility of his disappointment on top of it too.
“I don’t fucking know, Mav.”
His face falls and it guts me.
“Sorry, I just— I don’t want us to pin all our hopes and dreams on her just to have her leave at the end of this week.”
He gives me a sharp nod.
“Well, then we’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t want to leave us.”
We stalk off into the night intent on getting our girl to stay. Whatever it takes.
We find her alone at the cabin. Her friends nowhere to be seen while she’s curled up in her bed with a book propped up on her lap. She’s wearing some sort of device on her head that illuminates the pages for her as she reads. It’s so fucking cute it hurts.
Maverick knocks on the cabin door with three sharp taps. We wait outside on the porch in the warm night air while she shuts her book and shuffles to answer. I can hear every step she takes and that inhale of breath once she sees who’s waiting at her door.
“Hey,” she says, sounding surprised to see us.
“Hey yourself,” Maverick says, leaning against the doorframe. “Want to come out and see something?” He asks.
Lydia looks between the two of us as she chews on her bottom lip. She’s wearing sleep shorts and a crop top. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun with those two blue highlights framing her face. “I shouldn’t. I told my friends I needed a night off.”
That’s when I see it. The mark on her wrist.
“What happened?” I ask, grabbing at her arm and pulling her wrist up to get a better look.
“It’s nothing,” she says, yanking her hand away. But her distant attitude tells me otherwise. Something happened. Something left that mark on her.
“Bull. Tell me what happened.” I can feel my anger rising at whatever dared to hurt her.
She frowns at me. “Just because you fucked me, doesn’t mean I owe you anything, Hendricks,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
The way she says my name like a curse lets me know she cares way more than she’s trying to portray.
“What’s the matter, little screamer? Catch some feelings for your one-night stand that you weren’t expecting?” I bite back.
Her mouth pops open.
“Come on, Lydia. You’ll like it, I promise,” Maverick says with a smile trying to break the obvious tension with his charm.
I can see her contemplating it in her mind. Weighing the options.
“Where is it?” She asks.
“It’s a surprise.”
She looks up in annoyance and then lets out a sigh. “Give me a minute. I need to get dressed.” She slams the door in our faces, but that fire in her attitude gives me a sliver of hope.
We take her deep into the forest where there’s a waterfall that runs off into a stream.
It’s small, but the view is beautiful. We come here a lot in the off season, just to sit and take in the ambiance.
Crickets are buzzing loudly as the noise of the water crashing down from above fills the night air.
It’s a breezeless night, tepid, but not overly warm. The stars shine brightly from above, and I catch her looking up at them.
“I always forget how many stars there are. Where I live, you can’t see them like this,” she says.
“Where’s that?” Maverick asks.
“Holland. I live in the house my parents left me when they died.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, knowing that being as young as she is without her parents has to be tough.
“It’s alright. I’m used to it. I have my friends and my job. I keep busy,” she says. But the way she says it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself that her life is alright.
“How old were you when they passed?” I ask.
“Um,” her teeth dig into her bottom lip, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Eighteen.” She rocks back onto her heels and then forwards.
“I was a senior in high school when they got into a car accident. The roads were icy from the lake effect hitting hard that year. My dad was driving. He was always such a good driver. Careful. He knew how to handle the car in bad weather. But that night, there was a party and the people there were drinking pretty heavily.” She takes a deep breath and by the expression on her face I can tell that just talking about it is like she’s reliving this moment all over again.
Even though it’s been years. She looks back up at the sky, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“They had just gone out to dinner one night. A date night. I’ll never forget how my mom was wearing a red dress that she’d just bought. She always smelled like roses. My mom loved roses. And when she bought the dress, she said it made her feel like a dozen roses.
My dad did everything right, according to the police officers.
When their car started to slide, he did everything you’re supposed to do.
But see, that party, had just let out. And someone got behind the wheel after having too much to drink, and they plowed right into my parents without stopping.
They eventually found the guy that did it.
He got two years in jail. But my parents.
They were gone. I guess it’s supposed to be some kind of solace that it was fast. They say they didn’t feel anything. ”
She wipes her face and sniffles. “God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to spill all my trauma out like that. And here you were just asking me where I live, and I word vomited all over.”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize for that,” I say, going over to her and putting my arms around her shoulders. “You’re allowed to process what you went through. Sometimes trauma comes out at unexpected times, and if someone makes you feel bad for that then they aren’t worth your time.”
She blinks slowly, absorbing my words. I take my thumb and wipe away the remnants of her tears.
“I’m so sorry you had to carry all of that. And at eighteen. You’re so fucking strong, Lydia,” I tell her because it’s true.
She lets out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, it didn’t feel like I had a choice but to be strong. My grandmother moved in briefly after the accident, only she died shortly after. Heart attack. The neighbor found her in the yard. And it’s been just me ever since.”
She walks over to the stream and runs her fingers through the cool water. Maverick and I look on at her as she processes her feelings. Unloading all that trauma drudged up so many thoughts in her mind that she’s a whirlwind of emotion right now.
Fireflies sparkle all around us, lighting up the dark forest. One lands on her shoulder, and she lets it crawl on her before she reaches out with a cupped hand. The bug crawls into her hand as she stares down at it.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve caught one of these since I was little,” she says with a small smile. She holds out her hand and the little thing flies away.
She stands up then and turns to look at us both.
“Have you seen Jack today?” She asks.
I look at Maverick and shrug my shoulders.
“No. That’s not unusual though. He tends to keep to himself,”
Her shoulders drop enough that I can tell that disappoints her.
“Are we not enough for you?” Maverick teases with a smile on his face.
“Oh, you’re plenty. I could have been in bed reading right now.” She rolls her eyes.
“Well then let me make it worth your sacrifice,” he says, spinning her into him. They sway beneath the pale moonlight dancing to no music.
She lets out a laugh as he spins her out and then back into him. Her finger finds its way up to his mouth and she pokes at his fang.
“Do you wear these all the time?” She asks.
That makes him laugh and I can’t help but smile as well.
“Yeah, they’re kind of attached,” he says.
Her eyes widen. “Really?” Her thumb presses against the sharp tip and then she pulls back with a wince, putting her injured finger in her mouth. “Sharp,” she says around her digit.
He takes her hand and pulls it from her mouth and slowly brings it up to his own, taking his tongue and licking the blood from her wound. His eyes flutter closed, and I can smell that metallic scent of her in the air. My canines elongating and cock hardening on pure instinct.
“Do you want to play a game with us, little screamer?” Maverick asks.
Her eyes are zeroed in on Maverick’s mouth in almost a daze. “What kind of game.”
“The kind where we chase you. And if we catch you, we get to fuck you.”
Her eyebrows raise and she turns the prospect over in her mind.
“And what do I get if I win?” She asks.
“You get whatever your heart desires.”
“Anything I want?”
Maverick and I nod.
“Deal,” she says.
“You have to stick to the trails when you run though, otherwise you can fall into one our traps,” Maverick warns, and I can tell he’s using his vampire coercion on her to keep her safe.
She gets a blank expression on her face as the coercion takes root. “I stay on the path,” she agrees then blinks hard with a frown that is wiped away quickly as Maverick plants a kiss on her mouth.
“You have thirty seconds,” he tells her. “Start running.”
She turns and takes off into the night at full speed and we start counting down, readying ourselves for the hunt.