Chapter Eight
The black Challenger had been sitting there for the last hour, right across the street from the commercial building they were working on.
Vic wouldn’t have paid any attention to it, except he’d never seen a Challenger around this town ever, and the windows were tinted dark. Whoever was driving it hadn’t gotten out.
The huge front picture windows of the store front were the perfect look-through to see the car. Vic’s hackles had been raised since it had shown up.
“Nice car, right?” Donny said.
Vic narrowed his eyes at it and went back to work lining up a huge piece of sheet rock.
“Did you hear me?” Donny asked. “I said nice car. Right?”
Vic slammed nails into the sheet rock with the nail gun in quick succession, then set the gun down and made his way to the door. He didn’t even bother to take his tool belt off as he jogged across the street.
The window rolled down as he approached, and sure enough, it was Fuck Boy Cian. “I’m just here to talk.” His face was still showing red marks from the fight last night.
“What the fuck do you want? Round two? I’m ready.”
Cian frowned and looked around. “There are human witnesses.”
“Say what you want,” Vic barked. “I’m at work. I don’t have time for your games.”
Cian’s expression darkened. “We need her back.”
“Tough shit. Request denied. Anything else?”
“I’m serious. The Elders have groomed her—”
Vic winced. “Try a better word.”
Cian’s sigh turned to a growl. “The Elders have trained her from a very young age to be their Turner. That’s what she’s called. That is her job with our people. Lyric is the Turner. She is the only one.”
“I guess they won’t be able to Turn humans without their consent anymore.”
“We had their consent. She Turns people who know they will be Turned. Do you know what the percentage rate of dying is when Turned?”
“Fifty-three percent,” Vic recited. Every werewolf worth his skin knew that stat.
“Guess what the percent is when Lyric Turns one?”
He inhaled deeply and slid his glance to a car that was headed his way. He stepped closer to Cian’s car so they could pass. “Did anyone ever ask her what she wanted to do?”
Cian pursed his lips.
“That’s a no. If you ever cared for her, you wouldn’t show up here asking me to persuade her to go back to something she clearly doesn’t enjoy doing.” He twitched his head down the street. “Piss off before I kill you.” Vic turned to leave.
“Vicious Hunter Wake.” Cian uttered his full name way too easily.
Vic froze in the street, his back to Cian. He turned slowly, his eyes narrowed on the werewolf. Cian pushed up his sunglasses, exposing eyes the same colors as Lyric’s.
“You were born to two human parents. Your dad had a best friend named Badge Henson. He was a Rogue. He was a drinker, wasn’t he?
He and your dad were drinkers together. They got into trouble.
Your mom had to wrangle them. And then one night, Badge was drunk and out of control.
He hit on your mom, your dad got pissed, punched him, Badge Changed, and you were there, weren’t you?
Protecting your parents? You shot him, didn’t you?
And what did he do? I always get fuzzy about this part of the story.
Oh, that’s right. He bit you. He Turned you.
A man you’d grown up trusting. A man who had protected you and your family for all that time.
You had a Maker Bond to him, didn’t you?
He trained you up. Taught your wolf how to fight.
Only the more you acted like him, the less your parents recognized you.
You started fighting with your dad, and eventually your mom kicked you out. How old were you again? Fifteen?”
“It wasn’t their fault,” he gritted out.
“Yeah, but you’d think they would be more loyal to you, right? You had protected them from the big bad wolf that night, after all. You’d stopped Badge from hurting them and they repaid you by kicking you out. Fifteen is young to be on your own.”
“I was fine.”
“You couldn’t even drive yet.”
“I said I was fine. Fucking clearly, I’m fine!
” he yelled. “I was a mess, and I was hard to handle and I Changed too much, and I couldn’t control the wolf.
My parents needed to kick me out. They had a right to.
It was justified. Don’t you dare fucking judge them.
I know what this is. It’s bait. Keep fishing, motherfucker.
You think reciting my history is going to hurt me?
I own that shit. I’m proud of my history.
You want to sit here and look cool because you did a little research on me?
Go research how many little fuckboys like you I left bleeding after they tested me.
That story is way better. I got the girl in the end.
Accept it. This isn’t about my past. It’s about Lyric.
Your bond is dead and you’ve lost control of her.
” Vic allowed an empty smile. “Your loss.”
“I had that girl for years. She’ll always think of me.”
Vic froze, his fists clenched and the snarl in his throat unending.
Wolf, no.
“Do you know what a little whore—”
Vic reached through the car window and yanked him out before he even registered that his body had moved. He slammed him onto the concrete and pummeled his fist against his face over and over. “Change,” he snarled. He would kill him for calling her that word.
He didn’t change though. Instead, Cian smiled up at him through a bloody, split lip, and said, “Help!”
Vic froze with his fist raised in the air. Help?
“Get off him!” came a yell from nearby, and Vic looked up to see a police officer exiting a dark gray unmarked car. It was one of those camouflaged cruisers without the lights on top. “Freeze!” he yelled, drawing his weapon.
“He’s trying to kill me!” Cian yelled, scrambling out from under him.
Disgusted Vic stood, staring at Cian as he scrambled away, acting hurt and scared. What was this? Real men didn’t act like that. Werewolves wouldn’t ever act weak like this. He thought Cian was a War Wolf. What was happening?
“Werewolf!” Cian screamed, pointing. “He was trying to Turn me!”
Vic was shocked into stillness as he realized what the game was. Cian had known that officer was there. He’d said all the right things to get a rise out of him, and now Vic’s cover would be blown.
“Hey, that’s just Vic,” Donny yelled at the officer who was slowly approaching, his weapon drawn.
“Stay back!” the officer said, and now there was another behind him from the same vehicle. “We need backup,” he called to his partner.
“I’m not resisting,” Vic said, backing up slowly. He really didn’t like having a weapon pulled on him. The wolf inside of him wanted to eat this man for threatening him.
“Down on your knees!”
Vic gritted his teeth against the growl in his throat, trying to stop it. He shook his head hard to dislodge the vision the wolf put in his mind of him Changing and attacking the officer.
“I can’t do a cage,” he said low. “I’m not fighting.”
“Put your hands behind your head and drop to your knees,” the officer demanded as his partner asked for backup in a radio at his shoulder.
Cian was spouting off a story about how he had been stalking him and trying to Turn him for days.
“Look at his fuckin’ eyes!” Vic barked. “He’s a werewolf!”
“He wants me to be!” Cian yelled. “Please help me.” He was sniveling and crawling away, dramatic with blood pouring from his split lip.
Vic had never been more disgusted in his entire life.
Never been more disgusted with himself either. He’d taken the bait.
“Vic isn’t a werewolf,” Donny said, but his voice was more uncertain now. “Right, Vic?”
Vic didn’t answer. The cops would run his license or fingerprints and he would be outted. Fuck. He loved this job.
Cian had done it. He was going to get rid of Vic and leave Lyric unprotected.
Shhit.
“Look man, I really can’t do a cage. Can we just talk out here?” he begged the police officer. “Out in the open.”
“So you can escape? Hell no.” He tossed him handcuffs. “Put those on. We have protocol with werewolves. We can’t touch you. It’s shoot-on-site if you fight an arrest. Do us all a favor and make this easy.”
Vic squeezed his eyes closed, trying to rattle the visions of attacking.
Cian was sitting to the side, leaning against his back wheel. The officers weren’t looking at him, so he was smiling.
“Weak,” Vic said. “You used to be a UFC fighter and now look at you. Sniveling on the side of the road.”
The smug smile faded, and anger flashed in Cian’s eyes.
“I wonder what your old coaches would think of you now. You got your ass kicked last night. You’re crying in the street today.”
“Stop talking,” the officer demanded. He kicked a pair of handcuffs closer to him, and now both of the officers had their weapons aimed at him.
“Couldn’t even keep your mate with a Maker Bond,” Vic said low. Oh, he had him. From the look in Cian’s eyes, he had him. He understood the game now. “Little Bitch-boy running errands for the Elders—”
Cian’s wolf ripped out of him, and he bolted to Vic. His animal exploded from him and he went to war. This time it would be death. This time he wouldn’t have mercy.
Vic lost his mind and the world disappeared around them. There were no police…no humans…only the need to punish Cian.
This time he would destroy the threat to Lyric.
Nothing else mattered but the pain he inflicted on Cian.
Nothing mattered until the gunshots rang out, and pain ripped through Vic’s head.
And then…nothing mattered at all.