by Woods, Erica
She deserved slow.
I saw the occasional fear in her eyes when she looked at me, and I knew it was not fear of my wolf—a priceless gift—but fear of herself. Something about me reminded her of a darkness she sought to escape. I did not know if it was something in her past or something about herself. But until she faced the fears she clung to, I would have to bide my time and be patient.
And patience was something all predators knew.
Patience, the wolf agreed. For now. But soon. Soon we will have her. Soon we will have our mate.
A knock on the door had my head tilt at a dangerous angle. I had to take several deep breaths to control the cold flame of my beast, reminding it that the males on the other side were allies. Friends. They were not here to encroach on our territory, but to offer aid.
Once I had succeeded in forcing a calm I did not feel, I greeted the male on the other side of the door. “Blake.”
Blake took one look at me and retreated to a safe distance, though he did not lower his eyes and his chin remained strong, not tipped to the sky. “We’re ready.”
21
Lucien
“You want me to babysit?” I attempted to keep my face from giving away my thoughts on the matter. Spending time alone with the galling human was the last thing I needed. Especially while my blasted emotions were out of control.
Again.
Seeing her bond developing further with my clown of a brother was like stepping on a rusted nail. And maybe having one shoved through the eye socket.
The feral gleam in Ash’s eyes intensified. The full moon was affecting him more than normal. It was affecting us all on a level that should have been impossible considering our age.
Jason was the only one of us used to this level of disruption.
I threw the pup a disdainful glance. How was it that he was capable of forming a bond with the chit? Hadn’t he learned his lesson when it came to being vulnerable?
“I’ll stay,” Ruarc volunteered. He glared at the door Hope had disappeared through like he could coerce her return through sheer force of will.
Ash cocked his head at an unnatural angle. “The enforcer is needed.”
Hands fisted at Ruarc’s side. “And Hope? Our female?”
“Do you not trust Lucien?”
Sending me a sideways glare, Ruarc ground his jaw. “I do.” The words were forced out. “But she’s better off with me.”
Ash’s attention shifted to me. The cold calculation in his eyes lacked Ash’s abnormal perception and the warmth he used to temper his actions. “You are needed. Lucien will stay.”
“Fine,” Ruarc said with a growl and turned to me. His finger shook as he pointed it straight at my chest. “You hurt her and I’ll rip your arm off and beat you with it.”
“He won’t hurt Hope,” Jason said quietly.
My jaw became steel. I had hurt her. And the fact that it shamed me . . . That was perhaps the most dangerous thing of all.
“We have to go. The others are waiting,” Blake said
Ash was the first to leave. Without a backward glance, he glided out the door and disappeared into the dusk. Ruarc and Jason followed shortly, the former grumbling a warning before ducking out with tense lines around his eyes, the latter giving me a curt nod.
“Lucien.” Blake inclined his head but did not move. “I don’t know what’s going on with you all, but a word of advice? Be sure.”
Face impassive, I stared back.
He sighed, absentmindedly rubbing over a spot on his left shoulder. “Before you do . . . anything, be sure it’s what you want. Sometimes with females . . . When a line is crossed you can never go back. No matter how much you might want to.”
His advice offended me. I allowed my lips to curl and delighted in the tightening of his expression. “Give Zakhar my regards,” I said and slammed the door in his face.
Foolish wolf. He dared offer me advice without a token understanding of our situation? Blake knew nothing of me or my relationship with the human.
You do not have a relationship . . .
A hiss of air escaped between my clenched teeth.
Either way, the fool was mistaken. Nothing was ever too late. Not that it mattered—the bothersome female would never cease to annoy me with her pleasantries and one-sided conversations. She would always attempt a friendship of sorts, and the fact that she had not today was only because she was sulking about our earlier incident.
I stalked through the living room and pounded on the bathroom door. “Get out here and cease your pouting. The others have left and you have yet to eat.” For reasons beyond my understanding, her failure to eat was yet another rusted nail through muscle and bones.
There was shuffling from inside.
“Female?” I pounded on the door once more, ignoring the creak of wood and the bite of bruised knuckles.
“I . . . I’m not hungry.”
“Do you believe I care?”
A slight pause, then, “No. I know you don’t.”
The surety in her tone nagged at me. “Come out before I break the door.”
“Where did the others go?” Her voice sounded small. Too small.
My jaw clenched. “Errand. Come out here. Please.”
A few seconds later, the lock disengaged. I threw the door open and was about to drag her out when I noticed her red rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks.
She had been crying.
I recoiled, something in my chest squeezing so tight I could barely breathe. “What . . . what is the meaning of this?”
Confusion flickered across her face before she controlled herself. When a blank mask descended upon her elfin features, the vice-like band around my chest grew tighter.
Why was she hiding from me?
“I don’t know what you mean,” she muttered.
Refusing to meet my prodding gaze, she stood with her body angled to the side, eyes downcast, and shoulders hunched. It was a position I recognized from my childhood. A position one assumed when expecting abuse, or when wanting to protect oneself against an onslaught of cruelty.
“This . . . This is . . .” For the first time since I was a child, I had no words. My mind, a mind that had stayed sharp and laser-focused throughout the centuries, ceased to function, and I was left gaping at the female like a dimwitted numbskull.
For all of five seconds.
Then fury sprang from an unending well deep inside. A place that burned and burned and would never empty. This was not the cold, impassioned anger that sustained me, but a hot, terrifying emotion I’d never wanted to feel. The type of rage that led broken bones and torn flesh. The kind that had plagued my childhood. “Come,” I pushed through gritted teeth. “Eat.”
Short, unintelligible sentences were Ruarc’s forte, not mine. The fact that I had lost control so thoroughly because of this vexing human once more was infuriating.
And damning.
I’d had a plan. Keep her at a distance and repair the tears in my armor. Why was it not working?
“But I’m not—”
Before she could spew more protests, I grabbed her slim wrist and dragged her into the living room. While she gaped at me, I plunked her down on the couch, warned her not to move, and gathered the food she hadn’t touched earlier.
“Eat,” I ordered and put the plate down in her lap. “You look like a skeleton.”
It was a lie, of course. Since coming to stay with us, she’d put on enough weight to lose that gaunt, hopeless look. But she could do with some more meat on her bones.
My words made her blanch, and I could have kicked myself. Not for upsetting her, but for the sick feeling in my gut that followed.
I waited with bated breath for her reply, craving an argument that never came. The female kept her eyes locked on the food in front of her and did as she was told.
Perplexed, I studied her downturned head. What thoughts occupied her? What lies waited to spill from her honeyed lips?
“Do you like it?” The words w
ere out before I could stop them. I did not want to draw her into a conversation, but I craved a response, a reaction that told me this was all temporary. That she would get over her hurt and once more attempt to lure me into a friendship.
Not that I would be lured.
A slight nod of her head and she went back to eating.
Not good enough.
“What were you doing so long in the bathroom?”
She tensed. “Nothing.”
“Is that so?” When she failed to respond to my mocking tone, the unfamiliar emotions churning in my gut heated. “Do you normally run to the bathroom when something upsets you?”
Brown eyes dulled further and she simply shrugged.
Her apathy was torment. “Nothing to say, human?”
Again she shook her head.
“What is wrong with you? Are you sick?” I leaned over and put the back of my hand over her forehead. Humans got sick all the time, did they not? Could she have contracted a virus? Was she seriously ill?
Her eyes widened and she pushed my hand away. “I’m not sick.” She stared at me like I was the one acting strange. Two of her front teeth were revealed as she bit her lower lip. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what you want from me.”
I wanted her to stop chewing her lip into bloody ribbons!
My hands clenched with the effort not to free the plump flesh, the never-ending war I fought when around her prodding at my temper.
“What I want?” I scoffed. “You are the one always chattering away.”
“Well . . . not anymore. I got your message loud and clear. You don’t need to worry about me bothering you anymore, okay?”
Okay? It was most certainly not okay.
I opened my mouth, ready to deliver a scathing lecture, when she finally gave up on her asinine charade and looked at me.
Words perished.
Her normally warm, soulful eyes were devoid of expression. They looked dead. Lifeless. Gone was the curiosity she’d never been able to hide when she looked at me. Lost was her preposterous admiration for my looks and the warm kindness she always displayed regardless of my cruel tongue.
When she looked at me now, there was nothing left. Nothing. Just a vast, empty landscape of meaningless darkness.
“Hope, I . . .” My throat closed; the acute sensation of loss drew a ragged hole through my chest and left me reeling. This wasn’t right! Pushing her away was meant to have left my walls intact and all feelings at bay! Not this. Never this.
Horror slowly dawned, and with it came a whole heap of chaos crashing down.
I did not know what to do with them. The emotions. Urgency lashed at my back. Hollowness chewed through skin and muscle in my gut. Something hot and violent and oh-so-seductive filled my chest with a roar I had to clench my teeth to keep locked away.
I couldn’t remember this from my childhood. I remembered fear. Terror. Pain. And aching loneliness. I remembered crushing disappointment every time my mother rejected my attempts at earning her love, and I remembered my heart crashing to a halt when my sire turned from her crumpled form—her eyes somehow managing to spit hatred my way despite being nearly swollen shut—and brought his rage down upon me.
But I did not remember this.
Hope had stripped me of my protection, and now she had the pleasure of watching me being scraped raw.
“I do not understand,” I said, unsure who I was addressing.
My skin felt tight. Crawling.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, and an uncomfortable sensation washed over my palms. It took me several mute seconds to understand what was happening.
Clammy hands . . .
My fingers twitched. I’d never experienced such a thing in my life.
This has to stop.
I could not go on like this. Constantly fighting myself. Keeping her at a distance while longing to taste her. Wanting to punish her for destroying my equilibrium, and drowning in guilt when I caused her pain. How could I begin to rebuild the armor she shredded with every word, every look, every breath, when each second spent in her company sparked a war?
A war I was losing.
Pushing her away had not worked—I clawed at my chest—and ignoring her was impossible. The chit had broken me with her infuriating attempts at friendship, with her warm smiles and gentle understanding, with her quiet strength and staunch refusal to ever strike back, by making my blood boil and melt the ice I relied on. I was broken and it was all her fault—
And why the ever-loving-hell would she not look at me?
“Look at me!” I snapped.
She jerked back, startled, but her eyes were still devoid of life. “W-why?”
“Because this is ridiculous.” I could not stand it. I could not stand those empty eyes, nor the chaos of emotions they’d unleashed. I was coming undone, unraveling, left vulnerable—a state in which I’d sworn never again to find myself.
“W-what do you mean?”
The tips of my fingers ached with claws wanting to erupt.
What did I mean?
I looked at her, consumed by her silence, famished for her smiles, eviscerated by her empty gaze. And a dark, ravenous need roared through my bloodstream.
Wilting under my intense scrutiny, Hope shrank back. Her chin dropped to her chest—protecting her throat but laying the curve where neck met shoulder utterly bare.
Defenseless.
A deafening silence struck me over the head, muzzling all thoughts but one.
Mine.
My limbs became strangely heavy, the bare expanse of Hope’s pale skin a dangerous taunt.
Madness. It was utter madness.
But then, so was this. So was being ripped open and torn apart by nothing more than a female’s empty gaze.
I need her.
Foolish. And not true. I did not need her. I did not need her warm smiles or shy greetings. I did not need her light.
But I did need this hell to stop. I could not go on like this, out of control, dangerous, bleeding emotions. And I could not continue punishing Hope for my mistakes. What had she done but attempt to forge a friendship? What had I done but condemn her for her actions? Extinguishing the light I wished to preserve.
And, to my eternal consternation, hurting her was tantamount to dousing my armor in gasoline and lighting it on fire. As scandalous as it was, her feelings mattered, and nothing I did seemed to change that insufferable fact.
Vexing female.
“Lucien . . .”
Perhaps it was time to cease pushing her away in favor of pulling her close?
If she cared for me, there would be no reason for the black fury that had descended when I scented my brothers all over her. She would shower me with attention, obey my commands, confide in me, tell me her secrets . . . Perhaps when I knew it all, when she was no longer a mystery but a flawed thing laid bare to my scrutiny, this torment would end.
And if not, at least she would be mine and I would no longer have to war with myself over this infernal craving.
“L-Lucien your e-eyes . . .”
I could rebuild my armor. Regain my equilibrium. Remove the shadows from her eyes.
As long as I did not succumb to the weakness of emotions, she could safely do so. I would be her armor, her defense. She could afford to be weak as long as I remained strong.
The tightness in my chest eased somewhat.
“Lucien!”
“Yes?” I would mend the rift between us, secure her affection, and enjoy the restoration of my sanity.
“What . . . what did you mean?”
I allowed myself a moment to assess her, to hunt for weakness and scout the stubborn will she occasionally wielded like a burning sword cutting through our commands. Taking in her pale face, her pinched mouth, the gaze that lacked the light I’d come to rely on, I narrowed my eyes and prepared to battle. “I think it is time you and I became friends.”
22
Hope
He couldn’t be serious?
I gaped up at Lucien and tried to wrap my head around his latest command. His behavior since the others left had me reeling. One second he’d frown, the next, his expression was wiped clean. He seemed on edge, flashing between hot and cold, between a seething fury and a startling pain. On the brink of . . . something. His unwavering attention seized at my every movement, that sharp gaze growing sharper until each sweep over my body felt like cuts.
And now he wanted to be friends?
An unintelligible, half-strangled squeak tripped off my tongue.
The too-beautiful male cocked his head to the side and watched me through eyes that were thin slits of frosty green. “You heard me.”
“I—I heard you, I just don’t understand.”
He heaved a heavy sigh and stared up at the roof. “You will not be angry anymore,” he said, like I was the one being unreasonable. “And we will attempt this . . . this friendship madness.”
I should have been elated. I should have jumped up and down for joy and hugged the marble-statue of a man where he sat in his impeccable suit with his offer of a new start, but instead, I withdrew.
Apparently Lucien thought nothing of the hurtful things he’d said to me earlier. Thought nothing of all the times he’d wounded me with his harsh comments and not-so-veiled insults. He wanted me to just forget everything?
“No.”
Lips flattening, Lucien drummed his fingers on the table in front of us. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“No, I don’t want to forget what happened. No, I don’t want to be friends. At least not yet,” I added, unable to slam the door all the way shut despite the hurt he’d inflicted. Lucien wasn’t the kind of person who offered fresh starts often, and I didn’t want to be petty and stop him from opening up to someone in the future.
I just couldn’t accept such an easy out when he’d made me feel so low.
“Then when?” Green eyes roamed over my face. Burned.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not acceptable.”
Suddenly I was angry. Angry and hurt and a myriad of other things that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. “You’re just going to have to accept it,” I snapped and looked away. When he reached out to touch my face, I flinched and jerked back so suddenly that I tipped over and landed on my back on the couch.