Chapter 11
Henry
My hand smoothed over Maya’s hair as her soft breathing evened out, despite the dark bruising on her neck still not healing. Because she had to break skin for that to happen. I felt a snarl break through my lips as Bella looked up from where she was sleeping on top of Maya’s head.
My hands were shaking with anger and my eyes fluttered over to where Lorn’s blood was splattered across her pearl-like wallpaper.
Asshole wasn’t dead. He was going to wish he was because his father was a mean son of a bitch and we were even worse.
Either way he was going to suffer. I clenched my jaw still feeling the punch I’d landed on him, knocking out several teeth, which felt far better than it should have.
I shook my head and I was glad I’d chosen to stay up here, not trusting myself not to kill him.
Just like the night she’d woken up from the nightmare, her panic was clear as day with that high pitched sound pushing my dragon forward.
I’d been searching for her as it was, the three of us caught up in a security breach that we now realized was Lorn.
Something we wouldn’t have expected since his father had arrived minutes later.
As far as his father was aware, Lorn hadn’t planned on coming tonight. It didn’t matter anymore, we’d shut the party down immediately without explanation. Only Jordan and the other alphas had been made aware of what was going on, their concern authentic. It didn’t make me feel any better.
I took off my glasses and ran a hand over my face, feeling exhausted and murderous.
It was an unhealthy combination. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was the vision of Maya trapped against the bed, looking terrified and Lorn threatening her.
My fists clenched as I breathed out, standing up because I needed to fucking do something.
I went into her closet and pulled out her bag because we were going on this damn trip we had planned.
If I didn’t stop looking at the blood on the wall I was going to lose it.
Better yet, I think we should just replace her entire fucking bed.
I opened her suitcase on the small end bench and began to pack things up for her.
It was pretty easy considering we were only going for two days.
I turned to see Anani standing in the doorway looking concerned and stressed out.
Neither of the twins did well with violence, but Anani was far worse. When we first found them, Ledger was more likely to inflict violence and Anani flinched from it. Now I wasn’t positive about what would happen. I think both of them teetered on that edge of snapping and keeping calm.
“How is she?” He asked. Maya shifted, letting out a small sound.
“Hasn’t woken up yet but I haven’t tried to wake her either,” I admitted, “I’m not sure I am in the best state of mind to handle this correctly.”
“The others are out back with Lorn,” he said softly, his voice edged with anger, “well, Ledger is coming up here, but if you want to go, we can pack her up so we can leave right away.”
The jet would be ready in about an hour. “What about his father?” I asked quietly.
“Essentially left him to deal with the mess he made,” he admitted as I inhaled and walked around the bed, kissing her forehead before nodding to Anani.
I shrugged off my suit jacket as I made my way downstairs and rolled up my shirt sleeves, feeling my temper boiling over.
As I stepped outside, I walked towards the forested area surrounding our house.
Atlas offered me a head nod to where he and Croy were watching Marco and Lorn fight. If you could call it that.
More like Marco beating his ass. His attempts to fight back were weak but still, he was allowed to.
Marco’s shirt was splattered with blood and he looked fucking furious.
Sai sat against a tree, blood splattered as well and hadn’t looked any better than before where he almost lost his shit.
Marco stepped back sneering at Lorn’s crumpled body before going towards the house.
“We sure we can’t kill him?” I voiced, as Atlas chuckled.
“Not this time,” Croy admitted clinically, something he was quite good at, but I could see the anger right under the surface, “too many people would know.”
“I don’t care if they know,” Sai offered, taking out a pack of cigarettes. He rarely smoked so if he was it meant he was fucking livid.
“Stand up, Lorn,” I spit out as the bear shifter groaned and his dark eyes met mine.
“You coming to get your piece also, Henry?” He sneered as I chuckled, shaking my head. The man was a shit talker even when he was no doubt suffering brain damage.
As someone who had been trained to practice medicine, I had made a promise to never harm someone. But that was in the human world. I lifted Lorn’s collar and made sure he was looking me right in the eye when I spoke to him.
“Lorn,” I rasped, “let me make something painfully clear. The only reason you are alive right now is because others know. If I see you after today, I am going to kill you.” His eyes widened and I was glad I’d made my point.
Just to make sure, I started to beat him, I didn't stop until he was unconscious.
“We have been in the air for how long?” Maya asked in a confused sweet voice as she sat up, responding to Anani’s answer to ‘where are we?’
“About seven hours,” I looked at my watch as I took a sip of my coffee, “but we should be arriving fairly soon. I don’t think any of us took into account that the time change was so distracting, so you may have to miss school on Monday.”
Maya’s lips tilted up, “Oh no. That’s terrible.” I almost chuckled at that, seeing a hint of sarcasm peek out, no doubt due to Sai if I was going to guess. I still felt tense but you wouldn’t believe the wonders beating the shit out of some asshole would do for the temperament.
Then her face went serious, “Wait, where are we going? And when did we…oh.” Realization hit her, having only woken up minutes ago, as her eyebrows went up and Bella pawed at her hair seemingly trying to distract her. Her voice was soft and worried when she asked the question everyone was dreading.
“Lorn?” Her voice had a slight tiny rasp to it that I was blaming on him.
Those bruises were driving me crazy on her neck but what would drive me even more insane would be to see her bleed, so for now she would just need to try to heal normally.
Although, her healing was rapid compared to humans as it was.
“Unconscious,” I answered and without thought continued, “should be dead.”
A dark flash filled Maya’s gaze making me consider whether we’d been sheltering her too much. She didn’t seem upset by the notion of him dying. Or maybe that was my wishful thinking. All of this flashed through my head before she nodded and looked down at Bella, “So where are we going?”
“Paris,” Sai groaned, stretching his arms.
“Really?” She shot her head up as Bella rolled to the ground after jumping in surprise at her quick movement, and Maya tried to hold in a laugh.
“Sorry, baby,” she cooed and Bella huffed, crawling up on the bench. Maya refocused trying to be a bit quieter. The twins and Croy were sleeping nearby but I didn’t think very much would wake them up. Everyone was exhausted despite not admitting to it.
“Paris?” She asked again, smiling, “That’s so exciting!”
“We are going to spend the day there, but then I want to stop by our property down on the coast. We haven't been there in a few months,” Marco explained, offering her an affectionate smile. My hands twitched to pull her against me but I also didn’t want to overwhelm her.
Maya stood and she ran a hand through her hair looking a bit unsure suddenly.
“Is there a shower on here?” She asked quietly, rubbing her neck as I saw the slight panic hitting her as everything flowed back into her memory, like a trickle.
I could see it which means that she was worked up, way more than usual.
Her emotions were always very apparent but there was definitely a range, and I was worried she was going to work herself into a panic attack.
Standing up, I offered her a hand as she gripped it, shaking slightly as I led her towards the back cabin of the jet.
“Everything including your bag is in here,” I whispered as she closed the door behind her, nodding as she sat down on the bed.
“What happened?” She asked quietly with her eyes wide and worried.
“He almost choked you out but I stopped him,” I whispered, kneeling down in front of her, “he won’t be a problem anymore, Maya.”
Her pulse fluttered as she gripped my shoulders, “I feel really off, Henry.”
Pulling her against me, I ran a hand through her hair gently as she let out a small sound and I felt tears against my neck.
I tugged her closer so that she was wrapped around me as I leaned against the bed, her crying softly as images floated through my mind.
Reflections of her thoughts, of Jed mixed with Lorn.
Panic and sadness filtering over her as she seemed to dip deeper and deeper into that hole.
I pulled back and spoke, “Maya, sweetheart, you’ve got to breathe. Come on. You have to pull out of this. I promise you are safe.”
She hiccuped and continued to cry but she was slowly calming down a bit.
I made the decision to stand her up and led her towards the massive marble bathroom, an actual tub waiting for her.
Turning on the hot water, I turned to find her looking in the mirror with a furious and upset expression.
I smoothed my hands over her shoulder and turned her from looking at the bruises that covered her throat.
“Don’t look at those,” I said softly. I easily lifted her silk tank over her as I tried to not tighten my grip on her.
I looked down her curvy frame, her breasts tight and nipples hard.
My mouth practically watered and I resisted the urge to kiss, bite, and lick every inch of her body.
Last thing she needed was for me to mark her body anymore than it was.
My dragon let out a frustrated noise in the back of my throat, insisting that not only was it not the same but that we needed to find a way to replace his marks with ours. Because that was a logical and healthy mentality, Henry…
I eased down her jeans and then her dark purple lace panties, unable to resist the urge to run my finger along her wet heat. I could feel her panic dip as I stood and tilted her head back, kissing her while slowly running my hand along her silky body.
“Are you going to join me?” She asked quietly, her pupils dilated.
A brief sense of victory fused through me at her confidence and comfortability with me already.
I loved that. I loved that she was becoming less worried and jumpy.
I would be damned if Lorn ruined the healthy progress she had made in removing the shackles from her previous life.
I urged her into the water and stripped off everything but my boxers, not trusting myself not to screw her senseless to make sure she really did forget about all of this.
Instead, I sunk into the water behind her so that her back was against my chest, the hot water running over her skin as I massaged her shoulders gently.
I tried to not look at the bruises too much myself, because let’s face it, my control wasn’t very good right now.
I didn’t trust myself to not fly back across the Atlantic and kill Lorn.
“I feel bad the party got ruined,” she mumbled.
I chuckled softly, “Maya, people were there for you, plus people were already pretty drunk by the time we were ushering them out, so I doubt they noticed.”
“Still,” she sighed, looking up at me, “I can’t believe you guys held a birthday party for me. I mean that was amazing, you guys are so…perfect.” I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and noted how that almost sounded sad.
“Trust me, Maya, we are only this sweet because of you, we are sort of all assholes actually.”
She shook her head. “I disagree.”
And that was perfectly okay with me. I took off my glasses and instead of putting them down, Maya stole them from me, putting them on herself.
Now, my eye sight wasn’t awful, but they did help, especially when it came to long distance stuff.
It was easy to see her though, and I found myself groaning because somehow glasses on her looked sexy as fucking hell.
“Do they look good?” She teased, wiggling against me.
I growled and nipped her ear as I pulled her against me. “Stop wiggling or else I’m going to be inside you so fast it will make your head spin.”
Maya paused and then looked up at me under her eyelashes, before wiggling purposefully. I growled and locked her into place before wrapping a hand around her leg gently, making her shiver as my thumb ran over her mating mark.
Instead of fighting me on it though, she relaxed and I smiled knowingly as she closed her eyes, completely comfortable with me.
I felt honored that she trusted me that much, if I were being honest, and I could feel her breathing even out.
Any desire was greatly outrun by the exhaustion that seeped through her mind.
No, it wasn’t the time to slide right into her…
but hopefully soon or else I was going to lose my mind.
I kissed the top of her head as her breathing evened out and I eyed the bruises on her neck.
I’d officially decided. Lorn was going to fucking die.