Chapter Six
“You’re going to start a war over not wanting to be with me? Seriously?” Cian asked, one eyebrow arched high. “I don’t remember you being this emotional before.”
Lyric pulled her suitcase into the kitchen and yanked it to a stop in the kitchen. “Well, people change.”
“It hasn’t been that long. I still remember the important stuff.”
Lyric glanced over at Eden, who was on the phone with someone, pacing the living room. From the sound of her conversation, she was waking up the Pack.
Lyric’s hands shook as she dug through one of the cabinets for her favorite set of pans.
“I know what you’re looking for. You aren’t taking those,” Eden barked, and rushed into the kitchen.
“Grandma gave them to me for my birthd—”
“She’s not your grandma! She’s mine. You were a stray we picked up off the streets. Clearly, we’ve already established that.”
Lyric clenched her jaw as all of her memories went to war.
Grandma was Aro’s mother, and had been kind to her.
She’d taken care of her in the summers while Dad…
Aro…took Eden on vacations. Now it was hitting her.
Aro had been taking Eden on trips while he left Lyric behind because she wasn’t his real daughter.
“Was I kidnapped?” she asked suddenly.
“Just get here now!” Eden snapped at someone on the phone. She hung up and turned her fiery glare to Lyric. “You still have a job to do. You are still a member of this community, and you are still my—”
“Was I kidnapped?”
“You were taken from a prostitute drug addict mother who overdosed two weeks later. There is a ninety-nine percent chance she didn’t even notice you were gone.
Your dad never wanted anything to do with you.
” Eden’s eyes lit with fire as she approached slowly.
“He didn’t even want his name on your birth certificate.
You come from nothing, Lyric. You are nothing.
We gave you a home and a purpose and you have betrayed us every chance that you have had. ”
“I didn’t betray you.”
“You have defied my father, the Elders and me as your Alpha more times that I can count.”
“You aren’t my Alpha, Eden! You are paired with an Alpha who travels all the fucking time.
You don’t absorb his rank just because he’s not here!
And I only defy you on things that are wrong!
You are wrong, Eden! What you and Aro did to the Rogue Pack is wrong!
The humans the Elders have forced me to Turn? It’s wrong!”
“Oh give me a break, Lyric. You Turned them on you own. Their blood is on your hands. You can’t pin that on us.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Lyric yelled. “The Elders gave me orders and if I wasn’t good enough at my job, they threatened to banish me or kill me! How was any of that my choice?”
“You’re so weak,” Eden snarled in her face. “Aro always hated that about you. You come from weak stock. Your mother was trash. Your father was trash. You are tra—”
Lyric hit her. Before she even understood what her body was doing, she clenched her fist, reared back, and cracked her fist against Eden’s nose. Eden stumbled back a few paces.
She looked shocked, and her eyes blazed too bright as she looked from the blood she’d wiped off her upper lip to Lyric. “How dare you.”
“I’ll rearrange your whole fucking face if you call me or my real family trash again.”
Cian placed himself between them and grasped Lyric’s arms. “Hey, look at me.”
“Don’t touch me,” she gritted it, trying to escape his stony grasp.
“Hey, Lyric, look at me.” He pressed her back against the counter. “You’re losing it right now. I can see what’s happening.”
He grabbed her wrists and she could feel that old pull of their Maker Bond. “Stop,” she whispered, trying to pull away.
“I know how you work. Someone has gotten into your head. Whoever you called, he’s messing with your logic. You just need to remember us.” He leaned in and she angled back.
“Get off of me!” she struggled but his grip on her was titanium.
“You just need me to bring you back to yourself.” He was looking at her lips and tried to kiss her again.
Lyric gritted out a sound of struggle and tried to push him off her. “Vic!” she screamed. She didn’t know why she’d said that. She didn’t want this, she didn’t feel safe, she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want this to happen!
An enormous crash sounded and something hit Cian in the back. He grunted in pain and slammed against Lyric, pinning her for a painful moment to the counter. Cian pushed something off of him. It was the door.
“Fuck!” he yelled as he released her and held his hand onto the back of his head.
The entire door was splintered and leaning awkwardly against the counter now, and through the open doorway stormed a monster.
It took Lyric a split second to realize it was Vic.
He looked different. Terrifying. Bigger.
Wider. His eyes were glowing such a bright gold, it lifted chills up her spine.
It was the first time she’d seen him without the contacts in, and he was different than his happy funny self now. He was vengeance.
Cian didn’t have time to do more than back up a step before Vic was on him.
He ripped him away from Lyric and slammed him against the kitchen island.
There were three quick hits to Cian’s face, and then he took a step and slid him off the counter.
Cian’s body went flying into the stone hearth.
Eden screamed and had to jump out of the way as he turned on her.
“Did you hit her?” he snarled at Eden.
“She hit me!”
“Good!” he roared in her face.
And Eden the untouchable. Eden the pretend Alpha. Eden the eternal bully. She cowered and exposed her neck to Vic, and that told Lyric all she needed to know—Vic had been hiding the monster inside of him.
A quick glance out the open door, and it was just his truck, still on, headlights aimed at the corner of the house. He’d skidded sideways to a stop, and there was no one else in there.
He hadn’t brought any backup.
Chills, chills, chills.
He spat on the ground beside Eden and ripped his terrifying gaze from her, then strode for Lyric. “Are you good?” he asked in a demon’s voice she didn’t recognize.
She nodded, and on instinct reached for him. His hand slid to her throat, and he kissed her right there in front of Eden and Cian. It was quick and violent, but it settled something inside of her. She was safe now.
“Where is your stuff?” he ground out in an animal’s voice.
“Uhh-ummm, I’m packing the suitcase. Eden took the keys to my car.”
“Why,” he barked out.
“Because it’s not her car!” Eden griped. “My father gave it to her. Everything transferred to my name when your Pack fucking killed him! That car belongs to me now.”
“It’s fine,” Lyric murmured. “I don’t want anything with their name on it. I’ll figure out a car later. I want some of the dishes from here though. They’re sentimental.”
“Take your time,” he gritted out, eyes on Cian as he stood slowly. “I hear that wolf in you,” Vic said, standing to his full height. The heaviness that washed off of him made it hard to breath. “You want that fight? Fuckin’ gladly. Go outside.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Cian asked.
“Your upgrade.” He lifted his chin into the air. “Fuckin’ clearly.”
“Do you know who I am?” Cian asked.
The truth in Vic’s voice rang with each of his words. “No and I don’t care who you are.”
Lyric hid a smile. Cian wouldn’t like that. He thrived on the fame of his role as a War Wolf for the Elders. Vic was a bigger beast though. She could feel it. Cian would too.
She reached into the cupboards and sifted through the mismatched dishes, finding the mint green worn out pots and pans that Grandma had given her.
Vic stood between her and Cian and Eden. At the front door, the Pack was gathering, but they weren’t coming in. They looked uncertain. Lyric could see it in the sideways glances they were giving each other.
“It’s one asshole!” Eden yelled. “Get him!” But Lyric noticed Eden wasn’t Changing to attack him either. Vic was unsettling them all.
“I’ll kill anyone who steps foot in here,” Vic said in a dead voice.
Whoooo the truth rang out in his tone. A memory of the scars on his back flashed through her mind.
“You’ll let her leave with me or you’ll lose your lives.
I will run through this entire Pack if I have to, and piss on your carcasses.
I won’t call a cleaning crew. I won’t bury you.
I’ll let the crows have you and not lose an ounce of sleep.
You can rot on this land you took from my people, you fucking parasites. ”
Lyric pursed her lips at the coldness in his tone. Monster.
Lyric rushed to shove the pans into a paper sack she found under the sink, then bolted for her room and grabbed a few more things and shoved them into a backpack, and dragged the rest out in an armload to shove into the suitcase she had sitting in the kitchen.
She looked up to find Vic’s hand out. She slipped her palm against his and a warm sensation drifted from his touch up her arm.
Safe. She was safe. He was going to get her out of here.
Vic took her backpack from her and shouldered it, then grabbed the handle of her suitcase as he passed it, and kept a firm grip on Lyric’s hand, holding her tightly behind him.
He didn’t rush or lower his posture. He walked unbothered out of that house and met the eyes of the werewolves that were gathering on the porch.
They backed off one by one. A couple stayed down in the yard at a distance.
“It’s done,” Vic told them. “Lyric doesn’t belong to this Pack anymore. If you come for her, you will meet your death. I swear it.” Truth, truth, truth. Chills, chills, chills. “It’s time to let her go.”
“I’ll never let this go,” Eden gritted out from the porch. “You are my enemy now.”
Lyric lifted her chin higher into the air as Vic set her suitcase in the back of his truck. “I think I always was, Eden. Be grateful for the years I did your bidding, and move on.”