Chapter Six #2
Eden’s smile was evil. “You’ll regret this.”
“No, she won’t,” Vic assured her easily as he shut his driver’s side door and led Lyric to the passenger’s side of his truck. He opened the door and helped her up, with no rush. He leveled her with a golden-eyed look. “Keep the doors locked.” He clicked the auto-lock button.
“Wh-what?”
“Take the truck if they come for you.”
“Wait. Vic?” she asked as he shut the door. “What are you doing?”
Vic pointed at Cian and then twitched his head to the clearing. Without breaking step, he peeled his shirt over his head and threw it to the side. The scars on his back were a different texture from the rest of his skin and shone silver in the porch light.
Cian’s blazing eyes and empty smile met her as he walked past the truck.
Shhhit.
Vic’s Change was fast, and a wave of power pulsed through the clearing and right through the truck into her chest as his wolf settled on all fours.
Cian Changed, but it took longer, and Vic paced back and forth, his hackles raised, his eyes trained and unblinking on him. His animal looked terrifying.
The Pack drifted toward them and formed a loose circle around the wolves. Cian lunged at Vic the moment he was upright.
In general, she was desensitized to violence. Lyric was a werewolf after all, but this? This was a different type of violence. Cian stayed on the defense from the first moment and Vic bled him so quickly. It was maybe fifteen seconds and Cian was on the ground, and not willing to get up again.
She’d never seen him beat. Not ever.
Lyric sat frozen in the seat, watching as Vic Changed back and grabbed his jeans off the ground.
He slammed his shoulder into one of the Pack who was standing in his way, and he stopped and said something to Eden on his way back to the truck.
His eyes flashed and glowed like an animal’s in the porch light as he spoke to her.
And then her hate-filled glare followed him as he sauntered toward the truck.
His skin remained unmarred by the fight. A slight sheen of sweat glistened on his shoulders and powerful chest, and every muscle was flexed as he walked, his jeans clutched in his fist. His gaze met hers through the window, and he nodded.
She unlocked the door as he reached it and he yanked the door open and slid in.
“You’re…you’re not even bleeding,” she whispered. Maybe this was what shock felt like.
Vic threw his truck into drive and hit the gas so hard, the back end fishtailed and sprayed the house with mud. He eased off the gas, caught traction, sped out of the clearing, and headed for the main road that would lead out of Pack territory.
His body was humming with tension, and she didn’t know what to do. He gripped the steering wheel so hard, the leather creaked. His abs flexed with every breath.
She’d never seen a hotter man in her entire existence. Holy shit. Her body was reaching for him, but right now, he needed to control the wolf. He didn’t need a distraction. They still needed to get out of here and figure out what the hell she was going to do.
“Who is he?” Vic asked in a snarling voice.
“His name is Cian.”
“No, I mean who is he to you?”
“My ex,” she said softly.
He nodded, his eyes trained on the road. There were headlights ahead, and her heart started beating harder.
One truck was just pulling up to a group of two more.
“My people.” Vic pulled to a stop near the closest pickup and rolled down his window.
“Are you good,” Liam asked, his eyes glowing.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. We’ll head back with you. Are you okay?” he asked Lyric.
She nodded uncertainly. Was she okay? Tonight had turned out so differently than she’d planned.
“Um, can I have permission to stay at one of your places tonight? In your territory? Just until I figure out what I’m going to do.
I’m afraid they will come for me if I hole up in a hotel somewhere alone. ”
“Of course,” Liam said at the same time Vic said, “She’s staying with me.”
A sigh of relief took her lungs, and she relaxed back against the chair. She hadn’t wanted to assume, but she felt safe with Vic. Really safe. Especially after what she’d seen him do to Cian. Cian was a trained War Wolf and Vic hadn’t even looked like he was trying.
The others turned their trucks around one by one, and Vic waited for them to turn right onto the main road that would lead to the highway.
“This is a lot,” she uttered. “I’m sorry. I haven’t even been to your territory, and now I’ve pulled you from your bed in the middle of the night and got your Pack riled up.”
“How long were you mated to Cian?” he asked.
Aaah, a one track mind. She could tell Vic really didn’t like him. “We don’t have to go into it.”
“I just saw him trapping you against a counter trying to kiss you while you struggled against him. Why the fuck does he think he has the right to touch you like that?”
“He doesn’t. He doesn’t have the right. I broke up with him four years ago.”
“Why did you break up?”
“Ummm…” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I really don’t like talking about it.”
“Every instinct in my body right now is telling me to pull over to the side of the road and fuck you mindless, and fill you with so much cum that every male werewolf from here on out will be able to tell exactly who the fuck you belong to. Please. Lyric. Tell me what happened.”
Well…that actually sounded amazing and exactly what she wanted right now and she was pretty sure that could fix some of her problems. “I think I would rather pick choice A. Fucking on the side of the road.”
A flash of gold was all she saw in his eyes before he returned his attention to the road. “Tempting, Pretty Lyric, but I’m not bonding to you until I know the last one is broken.”
“Are you jealous?” she asked somberly.
“I want to know exactly where I stand. I like you. I can’t stop thinking about you.
When you called me to you tonight, I went a hundred miles an hour to get here, and I fought the Change the entire time.
My animal is obsessed with being near you.
You terrify me. I want to know if you are going to trail the ghost of your ex into my life and torture me with it. ”
Something started clicking into place. He spoke of pain like he knew it. “Has that happened to you before?”
“Yes,” was all he said.
“An ex?”
“Yes. She left me for her ex. It happened ten years ago, and I just now have my head above water. I can’t do that again.
When I saw that guy pressing against you in there, I wanted to kill him, Lyric.
You asked me to come get you and help you, and now I can’t get my blood to stop boiling.
I keep seeing him pressing against you, over and over.
” He gripped the steering wheel again and shook his head hard.
The growl that rattled through the cab of the truck was concerning. Vic couldn’t Change in here.
“What do you want to know?” she asked softly. She would do anything to reassure him.
“Where did you meet him?”
“I Turned him?”
“Fuck!” He cast her a fiery glance and then eased onto the main road. “You have a Maker Bond?”
“I broke it.”
“You broke it,” he repeated. “Just broke it. Just like that.”
“No, not just like that.” Pain washed through her as she explained.
“I loved him, and I became a different person to match him. He was a mess when Aro chose him as a War Wolf for the Elders. When he was human, he was a UFC fighter who had lost control and killed his opponent in the cage. His career was over and he was drinking, and toxic, and had so many unacceptable habits. The Elders didn’t care about that.
They wanted his aggression, and he needed a new job.
He needed a coach who could keep him in line and train him to be a soldier. ”
“And that coach was you?”
“No. That coach was Aro. I was just the one who gave Cian the wolf.”
“Did you love him before you Turned him?”
“No. I didn’t know him.”
His chest rose and fell faster. “How many people have you Turned?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Fuck, Lyric,” he whispered. “Is Cian the only bond?”
“He was my only Maker Bond before Destiny. I got good at avoiding it after him. I learned the tricks. I never wanted a Maker Bond again. He couldn’t leave me alone.”
“He still can’t,” Vic growled.
She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears and inhaled sharply as the memories flooded her.
“It was confusing. He wasn’t a match for me at all in any way.
He was cold and distant. He didn’t care.
If I told him my feelings, he would tell me he would never change and I had to accept it.
He paid attention to other women, and none of them looked like me.
It messed up my head. I didn’t feel pretty enough, or good enough.
Over time, when things didn’t improve, I began to accept that it wasn’t love.
It was just the Maker Bond making everything blurry.
I stayed for way too long. I took on way too much damage.
I asked for basic needs to be met a thousand times and was told to accept him as he was because I wasn’t worth the effort and compromise.
He thought I could never leave, so he put in no effort to make me feel secure.
I had to become this quiet, sad, sex toy for him to match what he needed and make us last. And for me, he only provided protection, but as time went on, I realized I didn’t need protection from anything but him.
He bonded to me when he was unhealed, he stayed unhealed, and I had a moment where I just knew what to do. I knew how to break the bond.”
“How?”