Chapter 5 - Vincent
Vincent
NO GIRLS HAVE EVER SURVIVED INITIATION.
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“Letdown”
Rory may be my foster brother, but he is still a hot-blooded bastard, and I have never seen him meet his equally unhinged match…until tonight.
For fucks sake, what did we get ourselves into? This is not a good idea. My chest clenches as I wonder what Raphael will do once he learns of this new development. But I’ve got a good idea.
Hell, I could have just released her and stopped Rory from hunting her down, but I will never forget that moment when Briella sank her teeth into his lobe and tore it clean off!
I can never tell what Raph is thinking. That’s Jude’s job. But if our alpha believes she belongs to us—and I’d bet my left nut he does—then she is in for a storm of kinship punishment.
Whether she likes it or not, she’ll abide by Raphael’s law. He’s kept us alive all this time. I can’t let her go. Only he can. But I’d bet my other nut on the Initiation.
No girls have ever survived initiation.
They break. Or they die.
We’re shameless assholes. Monsters. We are what they made us. We’ll bring her nothing but wrath and ruin.
Rory stalks behind us with his tail between his legs. If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have gone too far. Then, it would be kinship punishment for him because no one—not one of us—gets to fuck the girl before Raphael. We all answer to him.
I adjust the mask on my face, but keep the girl close. Hand firm on the back of her neck. Gotta give her more credit. She doesn’t stare at her feet. She doesn’t try to cover herself. Fuck, she’s ready for another fight with those small hands balled into fists at her side.
Or she’s ready to run again.
My cock twitches whenever I see those plump tits bouncing anytime I shove her forward, nipples still pink and hard beneath the mud.
Normally, I prefer to watch. But it wasn’t Rory leaving his bite marks all over her that got me the hardest. It wasn’t when she came.
It wasn’t even her mouth as filthy as his, but more adorable.
It was when she leaned in and traced her lips along his ear.
The calm before the storm. She may look innocent with those doe eyes, but in that moment, it was as if she knew—with every bone in her body—exactly how to tame any demon who crosses her path, including Rory.
Question is: can she handle all our demons?
When we reach the clearing where the others are, Seth stops mid-swing of his axe. Jude stiffens, darting his eyes between all of us before settling them on Briella.
And psycho statue just narrows his eyes on the girl like the perceptive hawk he is. Under Raphael’s gaze, she crosses her arms over her chest, hiding her breasts. Yeah, he has that effect. But she still doesn’t lose her glare.
“What. the. fuck?” Seth chucks the axe on the ground. It skids to my right as he rushes over to Rory, who is still clutching his ear. The blood has slowed, but he looks like he lost a fight with a small chainsaw.
I meet Raphael’s eyes, but his gaze is still fixed on Briella. When he tilts his head, she slowly mirrors him, and I chuff a breathy laugh at her challenging mischief.
“Vincent, what the hell happened?” Jude summons me, hugging his elbows and staring all of us down.
“Fucking little bitch happened,” Rory growls without removing his hand.
Briella side eyes him. “Funny. I remember making you my bitch when you started screaming like a little girl.”
Jude lifts his brows, eyes widening at her audacity. Rory lunges for her, but I shove him back. Fire rises in his eyes, but he won’t attack again. Not with Raphael here.
The girl makes a kissing sound at the raging socio.
For the first time, Rory drops his bloody hand, showing the half-eaten, rare steak scrap of his former ear.
I shrug, gesturing to him. “She bit his ear off.”
“She what?!” Seth exclaims.
“He bit me. I bit him back. Simple as that.” She sniffs.
“And precision of language,” she sasses at me.
“I bit his earlobe off.” She locks eyes with Raphael again.
Fuck, bold little girly. “At least I didn’t squeal like a stuck pig when he bit me.
” She side eyes Rory, but this time, Seth holds him back… until Rory swings his fist.
“Shit,” Jude mutters as the two get into it, kneading his brow.
Seth might not be as big as me or as tall as Jude, but other than me, he’s got the most muscles and the steeliest jaw. Where Rory is all tunnel-vision, fist-throwing rage, Seth takes him down, one crafty attack at a time. By now, their masks are gone. Not that it matters much.
Girly is ours now.
Seth pins Rory in the dirt, one hand pressing against the roadkill ear, when he snaps his head up. “Does this mean we should call him Vincent now because of the ear thing? Or maybe Van Gogh?”
Rory’s fist strikes Seth’s cheek, knocking him over, and they’re back to it, rolling around in the dirt. I look at Briella, noticing the girl’s impish smirk.
Raphael still hasn’t taken his eyes off her. Part of me wonders if he’s just assessing her next move or plotting her punishment…maybe imagining what she’d look like with a knife through her heart. Or whatever else psychos think of.
“One goddamn, monumental fuck up.” Jude rolls his eyes before glancing back at Briella. “But I gotta say, it’s the most entertaining goddamn, monumental fuck up we’ve ever had.”
“Top three easily!” Seth chimes in while the socio twists his arms back.
Jude lifts a brow. “Funnier than the half-dismembered dancing clown?”
I feel Briella shiver against me.
“Oh, yeah!” Seth laughs right before bashing his head back until Rory’s nose starts gushing blood like he’s imitating a bloody Picasso painting.
I don’t realize my mistake of keeping my grip too loose until Briella dives on my right, seizing Seth’s forsaken axe and swinging it in a mad fury.