“You’re going to start a war over not wanting to be with me? Seriously?” Cian asked, one eyebrow arched high. “I don’t remember you being this emotional before.”
Lyric pulled her suitcase into the kitchen and yanked it to a stop in the kitchen. “Well, people change.”
“It hasn’t been that long. I still remember the important stuff.”
Lyric glanced over at Eden, who was on the phone with someone, pacing the living room. From the sound of her conversation, she was waking up the Pack.
Lyric’s hands shook as she dug through one of the cabinets for her favorite set of pans.
“I know what you’re looking for. You aren’t taking those,” Eden barked, and rushed into the kitchen.
“Grandma gave them to me for my birthd—”
“She’s not your grandma! She’s mine. You were a stray we picked up off the streets. Clearly, we’ve already established that.”
Lyric clenched her jaw as all of her memories went to war. Grandma was Aro’s mother, and had been kind to her. She’d taken care of her in the summers while Dad…Aro…took Eden on vacations. Now it was hitting her. Aro had been taking Eden on trips while he left Lyric behind because she wasn’t his real daughter.
“Was I kidnapped?” she asked suddenly.
“Just get here now!” Eden snapped at someone on the phone. She hung up and turned her fiery glare to Lyric. “You still have a job to do. You are still a member of this community, and you are still my—”
“Was I kidnapped?”
“You were taken from a prostitute drug addict mother who overdosed two weeks later. There is a ninety-nine percent chance she didn’t even notice you were gone. Your dad never wanted anything to do with you.” Eden’s eyes lit with fire as she approached slowly. “He didn’t even want his name on your birth certificate. You come from nothing, Lyric. Youarenothing. We gave you a home and a purpose and you have betrayed us every chance that you have had.”
“I didn’t betray you.”
“You have defied my father, the Elders and me as your Alpha more times that I can count.”
“You aren’t my Alpha, Eden! You are paired with an Alpha who travels all the fucking time. You don’t absorb his rank just because he’s not here! And I only defy you on things that are wrong! You are wrong, Eden! What you and Aro did to the Rogue Pack is wrong! The humans the Elders have forced me to Turn? It’s wrong!”
“Oh give me a break, Lyric. You Turned them on you own. Their blood is on your hands. You can’t pin that on us.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Lyric yelled. “The Elders gave me orders and if I wasn’t good enough at my job, they threatened to banish me or kill me! How was any of that my choice?”
“You’re so weak,” Eden snarled in her face. “Aro always hated that about you. You come from weak stock. Your mother was trash. Your father was trash.Youare tra—”
Lyric hit her. Before she even understood what her body was doing, she clenched her fist, reared back, and cracked her fist against Eden’s nose. Eden stumbled back a few paces.
She looked shocked, and her eyes blazed too bright as she looked from the blood she’d wiped off her upper lip to Lyric. “How dare you.”
“I’ll rearrange your whole fucking face if you call me or my real family trash again.”
Cian placed himself between them and grasped Lyric’s arms. “Hey, look at me.”
“Don’t touch me,” she gritted it, trying to escape his stony grasp.
“Hey, Lyric, look at me.” He pressed her back against the counter. “You’re losing it right now. I can see what’s happening.”
He grabbed her wrists and she could feel that old pull of their Maker Bond. “Stop,” she whispered, trying to pull away.
“I know how you work. Someone has gotten into your head. Whoever you called, he’s messing with your logic. You just need to remember us.” He leaned in and she angled back.
“Get off of me!” she struggled but his grip on her was titanium.
“You just need me to bring you back to yourself.” He was looking at her lips and tried to kiss her again.
Lyric gritted out a sound of struggle and tried to push him off her. “Vic!” she screamed. She didn’t know why she’d said that. She didn’t want this, she didn’t feel safe, she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want this to happen!
