Chapter 7 7
Lucien's pov
My wolf stopped, rigid tensed, yet it barred its jaws already on the hunt. It moved, abandoning the half dead carcass it was just devouring, paws pounding and as it dashed forward, gnarling sounds filling the forest. The wind rang in its ears, wheezing fast and loud as it increased its pace.
I had returned home hours ago, but I had been restless to do anything and had found myself going for my usual hunt after soaking in the lake in the forest a few meters away from the pack house.
My wolf had sensed something, but what I didn't understand was why it was back at my pack house, right close to the back, Lena's room was just steps above but her window didn't show any signs of lighting. She was asleep.
But something was off.
The snarl of a wolf behind me as it moved snapped me out of my perturbing thoughts and immediately, my wolf was sent scrabbling back, dust rising in the dark night air.
Its lips curled around its teeth as it growled before turning to meet a similar wolf, only smaller with thick brown fur instead, crimson eyes burning into mine.
Kael.
Bones cracking into place, I shifted back, but he didn't take it as a sign to back down, he went straight for me again, my throat this time around, paws in reach with a malicious blood lust in its eyes.
With ease, I grab hold of his wolf, instantly decapitating his neck bones and letting the weight of the animal drop with a sickening thud, leaving him temporarily paralyzed.
"You know you're not doing a pretty good job concealing yourself from me."
The bushes rustled and Riven walked into the scene, bearing his cocky smile, hands placed into his pockets as he closed the distance between us.
"What's your intention coming here. Speak right now while I'm still considering you family."
Kael's wolf writhed in pain beneath us as it healed but neither of us paid it heed.
"Is it hard to believe your Nephews wanted to pay you a family visit? Or are you perceiving us as threats already Uncle?"
Eyes narrowed, I snatched the clothing he tossed at me, wrapping it around my waist. "Don't take me for a fool, Riven. I know you and your short tempered brother well enough to know you don't just come visiting without ulterior motives. Here I find him snooping around my pack house like a rogue. I'd kill the bastard but he's not out much of a fight for me to."
"Fuck you." Kael curses at me, his voices strangled between his tone and his wolf's. He's shifted back, but the furs remain, peeping behind his neck, his knuckles, so as his carnivores.
Riven raises both hands in a plea of genuine but I can see the malicious look in his eyes as he stares straight at me.
"We came to talk."
"I just returned from a hell of a meeting. I've done all the talking I've needed to do. Take your paralyzed brother and leave before I do more than break his neck."
The glaciers emerge in his eyes and he finally snaps, completely closing the distance between us. The crimson red gleams in his eyes as he furiously holds my gaze, fists tightened. "You steal our mate and threaten us still. Uncle, that's going too far."
I smirk at his restraint. Riven is not a coward, but smart. He knows not to test boundaries. Unlike his brother.
"You're still surprised and that's why you're a fool, Riven." Kael snaps at him from the ground where his neck bones crack in place while he glares at me in anticipation of murdering me perhaps.
With a chilling, satisfied smirk, I step over his neck, relishing the pain etched in his face as he curses at me. I kick him across the yard, before grabbing Riven, pulling him in by the collar.
I see the wariness burn through the rage in his eyes, see the reflection of the crimson red of my wolf in them, the glint of my canines.
"She's an adult woman. She made her choice. And she clearly had her reasons- reasons I'm beginning to understand may be valid."
"Valid? And before then? Before you actually thought of the consequences of your actions... What it meant for us to actually lose our mate, did you think she was sensible enough to have made that decision. "
"She is my mate too, you seem to forget that. I'm not going to share her with my pathetic Nephews. As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to see you or Kael around her. You boldly write to me threatening war, I want to see you actually follow it up rather than coming here to plead." I roughly released him, watching his every move while monitoring Kael who just rose, wiping the edge of his lips in disbelief.
"We didn't come begging," he squeezes out the words between gritted teeth, the resentment for me evident in his eyes.
"You came to take her. You were probably watching me these past few days,waiting for the moment I'd leave again, and then you'd come- " the look in his eyes confirms all I need to know.
The rage that courses through me is palpable. The thought of their hands on Lena disturbs my rational thoughts for a moment. Everything fighting back my bloodlust almost comes undone.
I haven't been the perfect mate to Lena. Neither did I care to be. But for the meantime until I had made good use of her, she was still mine. I had claimed her with ease as I have many other women, and I didn't plan on having my Nephews have her anytime soon.
"Uncle you've had hundreds of mates come and go in all your centuries of living. Let us have this. She is ours." Kael growls stubbornly as he joins Riven and they both apprehensively glare hatefully at me.
I smirk reminiscing on them, little boys, same expression, only, I had locked their father up after I found out he had hit my sister with his mate. Of course they weren't aware of what had happened, they only saw the image of a monster who hit their father and locked him up.
"If she didn't even want you two. Then she was never yours to begin with." I need no other words to dismiss them as I turn away, retreating towards the pack house.
"This is a warning. You almost committed an atrocity completing the ritual with her. You either let us have her now or we'll fight you Uncle. And I mean it."
I pause in my steps. A smirk finds its way to my lips but I don't turn. My shoulder, my back, they strain from tension, anticipation, excitement of what was to come. Bloodshed.
"Fools. You'd fight and shed blood while giving the enemies an upper hand. Your father trained you better."
"The same man you killed? Coming from you,. we'd take our chances taking you down. You're a much bigger threat than the shifters. We gave you a chance."
I turn, but it's like they've vanished into the darkness. A glint of crimson red flash briefly across my eyes before I disappear back into the house.
Heading straight for Lena's room wasn't what I had in mind. But it was like the moment I stepped into the house, her scent drove my feet and I found myself moving towards her.
Disapproval clouded my features when I realized she's left her doors open. Just like she left her windows slightly open. She wasn't knowledgeable on the basics of caution. Riven and Kael would have easily had her in a snap of a finger.
I shut it, and find myself standing at the edge of the bed, watching her in the darkness. My vision is good enough to trace every feature, burning it into memory over and over again.
I want to leave, but I'm captured by every second, the way she rolls over till she falls but rolls over on the other side. The way she murmurs in her sleep, flinches or snores at precinct times. She's like a fascinating creature I can't seem to let my eyes waver off of.
Mercy informed me how she's grown incessantly bored with the same routines, and although she never mentioned it, I know she thinks I must have abandoned her. We barely see, and when we do, I'm busy as usual barely giving her a word or second of my time.
Riven and Kael come to mind and my expression grows cold but worry lingered in my gaze as I watch Lena, hearing her heartbeat slow and steady, in sync with her soft rising and falling chest as she sleeps.
Lena wasn't like the majority of women I've met in my life, but what exactly was it about her that made the Twins incessant about wanting her to the point of waging a war.
I'd done my research on her the past days and haven't exactly found what would make the Twins much infatuated with her despite their harem of women.
What piqued my interest was the information about her mother.
Apparently she had had an affair.