they’re too afraid, feel too weak in their human bodies. You going to judge them for that? Judge my mother?”
I shake my head. “No, I—”
“You want to stand there like you’re so much better than Ruin Falls, even though you don’t know shit? You want to walk around like the world should be apologizing to you?” He makes a face of disgust. “Maybe you should take a good look at yourself and stop behaving like you’re ashamed of your shifter nature.”
“I’m not ashamed!”
His brown eyes level with me. “Oh, really?” He waves a hand in front of my face. “Then why do you flinch every time I look you in the eye?”
My breath catches in my throat, stunned that he noticed something I hadn’t even realized I was doing. “Everyone looks at me and sees this,” I reply, pointing to my broken iris, the pale blue warring with the gleaming violet of my wolf. “Twin Rivers fucked me up. I fucked me up. And now Rabid is all I see.”
“So what if you’re rabid?” Tyran demands without a hint of sympathy. “You’re a fucking wolf. Stop thinking like a human. Someone wronged you and your wolf spirit? Then get revenge. Don’t walk around battered and bitter. Show them who they should have never fucked with, and be proud of that savage spirit inside of you. Fuck your old pack.”
“Oh, like it’s so easy to get revenge?” I challenge, my voice irate and yet dripping with desperation.
“You’re a wolf, aren’t you?” he counters as though that’s all there is to it.
“I was one wolf,” I shout, slamming a fist against my chest, my features bathed in vehemence, my soul drenched in pain. “I could barely stop my alpha from trying to rape me in the middle of my Flux. I couldn’t stop him from drugging me and tossing me here to die. I couldn’t stop him from murdering my mom or setting up my dad to be killed in the pack war,” I seethe at him, voice cracking. “How do I get revenge when I don’t even know how to fix myself?” I demand, wishing I knew the answer to that question with every fiber of my being.
“You don’t need to be fixed!” Tyran shouts back at me, his eyes livid and his muscles taut with anger. “Accept what you are and use it to strengthen you. The transformation with your wolf is done, it’s ancient history. Now change how you’re looking at it!” he snarls in my face, his breath hot and his words leaving no space for excuses.
I’m so lost, but I can feel the map in what he’s saying.
“How?” I ask, despising myself for the weakness spilling out of my mouth.
Tyran presses in against me, my pebbled nipples compressing against the heat of his skin. His body is hard against mine, as unforgiving and rigid as his words, and even though I don’t want to admit it, there’s a comfort to his presence.
“Stop fighting what you are,” he tells me more quietly this time, his deep voice vibrating through me as though it’s settling the pieces of myself that I haven’t been able to put together. “Stop denying the truth of what you are.” Fathomless brown eyes soak me in, hard, honest, reading me as though my story is one he could dive into over and over again. “You are claimed, Vicious.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the flint in his eyes shuts me down.
“You participated in the claiming hunt. You might not have had it all spelled out for you, but if you’d listened to your wolf, you’d have known. We’re instinctual, and your wolf chose me for a reason.”
My face flames with the heated denial, but he doesn’t give me room for argument, doesn’t give me a moment to turn it around back on him.
“You hate Ruin Falls, when you don’t even fucking know my pack. You’re pissed off at your circumstances, wanting to pretend that you had no choice, but what’s your plan when you reject everything that’s being offered to you?”
“I’ll fucking leave, that’s my plan,” I retort, but the outrage is hollow. Just a mask for the uncertainty I feel, while he shoves reality at me hard enough that I barely feel like I’m hanging on.
“And then what?”
My mouth opens and shuts, mind racing, though I’m unable to form words because…
“You have no idea, do you?” He shakes his head, brown hair mussed in the wind, shoulders bunched with tension. “You were