Page 114 of Nest Of Lies

I sit beside her and reach out to touch her hand. She pulls it away and puts it in her lap. A tear falls, catching my attention, and I think perhaps my heart is shattering.

“Lia,” Mills whispers, his pain echoing mine.

“Talk to us, say something. Say anything.”

She sniffles and hunches in even tighter on herself.

I stand up and stalk away from her. Valen and Ranger take my place while I quietly head outside.

“Ianto?”

I hiss. “What?”

“She doesn’t understand.”

I take a moment, but it doesn’t calm the storm that is building inside me. Zaden grabs my shoulders and turns me. I attack him, pushing him back, shoving him off me, and then I jump at him, slamming him into the wall, pressing my mouth to his.

Zaden stays calm and still while I kiss my fury out on him. I kiss his jaw, and then down to a faded scar on his throat that still makes him groan. I bite down.

Zaden cradles my head. “She doesn’t understand. She thinks we lied to her. That her scent-matched mates are out there, and we stole her. She needs to come to the realisation herself. If we force her, we’ll never be able to keep her.”

I cut him off, thrusting my tongue in his mouth. He grips my top in fists and growls into my mouth.

“She wants someone else, and she’s got a damn bond on her neck. How are you okay with this?” I hiss.

Zaden grips the back of my neck and presses his cheek against mine. “Because this is a blip, just a blip. She’s mine now, and it doesn’t matter what they say or do, it’s my bond she wears.”

I shove away from him. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Ianto?”

I pause, my shoulders tense. “What?”

“Don’t go dark.”

I go completely still, hearing the bark, the command in those words. Don’t go dark. Translation; you don’t get to go off and kill; you don’t get to go self-destructive. And you don’t get to run away.

We’re a pack.

I remember the words he said when he bonded me. I was eighteen and savage, wild. My parents had left me, my parents had fucked up my entire life. I was a wild, violent mess, sucking drugs down as fast as I dropped bottles of booze. All I was good at was hurting people.

Zaden, Ranger, and Valen saved me.

I’d stolen Zaden, desiring him, wanting him more than I’ve wanted a line or a bottle. And instead of courting or wooing, I'd bitten the young alpha, making him mine with no regard to anything other than my own drunken impulses.

But Zaden is a mountain beneath the skin. His strength poured into me. He challenged me, he demanded, he commanded better from me, and I could do nothing but rise to his expectations.

He saved me.

I’d risen through the club, becoming part of Zaden’s crew, devoted to Zion, but even more so to my alpha, my president first. I think Zion knew it, too. He took me aside one day.

To this very spot, out under the huge sycamore tree, and handed me a cigar.

We stood there, side by side, and he grunted.

“I’m going to find a city to open a new chapter.”

I didn’t say a word, just watched him cautiously.

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