S. Yule - Lycan Vengeance

“We don’t have to talk about this right now. Only know that you do have the main scent, and any lycan that gets near you will scent it. You are in danger from rogues.”

“I have always been in danger, but I’m good at what I do. You are the only one—well, the second one—

who has gotten close to me.” Then it dawned on her. She’d almost killed Knox. How many others had she killed mistakenly, taking them for rogues? My God, how many innocent lycans have I murdered?

Knox leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin on his hands. He was close enough that the warmth of his skin seeped into her leg. She was beginning to think that maybe she was no better than the supposed monsters she’d hunted over the years. She’d never stopped to consider that there were good and bad lycans.

“Hey.” Knox waited until she looked at him to continue. “I’d be willing to bet that the only lycans you’ve killed have been ones that have deserved it. You’d never get an ancient.”

“I almost got you.” She cringed when he smiled. This was no laughing matter.

“You didn’t almost get me. Yeah, you shot me, but it would have taken much more than that to take me down. You are good at hunting, but I’m better. Besides, I was aware that you had been following me for nearly a month before you tagged me, almost had you a few times, but you were always smarter than I gave you credit for. Of course, I did think you were only an overzealous hunter for the most part. I never really took you seriously, thought you’d either eventually give up or I’d catch you.

“I found it a mystery as to why you were following me in the first place. It was disconcerting to think a human might be hunting me because I was a lycan. That knowledge could end up being the end of all lycans. I couldn’t have realized how close to the truth I actually was. And it was all due to the careless behavior of a rogue.”

She sucked in a breath. How had he known that? She hadn’t told him about Tammy or that horrible night, although, she supposed it was a logical assumption on his part.

“How did you know that?”

“I didn’t, lucky guess, but now I know. Is that where you got the scars on your legs?” His eyes glowed, and his lips tightened into thin lines.

“I didn’t realize you’d noticed them.” He must have seen them when he’d carried her back to the house while she’d been wearing only his T-shirt. “I got them later, after I’d found out about lycans. They are badges of war, I assume much like the ones you wear.”

“I notice everything about you, Rose.”

Her eyes widened in surprise when another thought occurred to her. “How did you know I’d been following you for a month? I used the deer urine, and no other lycan has ever caught on before.”

“Rogues haven’t been around as long as ancients. The deer urine trick is a good one, but if you’re going to follow a lycan around for longer than a day or two, you should probably get more than one bottle. After all, what are the chances of that same deer following you around place to place? I was on to you within the first couple days, but you are good. I’ll give you credit for that. Every time I thought I had you, you’d disappear like smoke.”

She hadn’t thought about a lycan scenting the same urine from the same bottle, but it was a logical conclusion that she should have come to. She was beginning to realize how much of a role luck had played in her survival all these years. She had skills, but her approach had not been infallible.

“I think you and I are closer to being on the same page than you think. I hunt rogues. If I think they have a chance to be reformed, they get that chance. Otherwise . . .” He shrugged.

“I don’t have that luxury. I kill all the ones I can.”

“Do you still believe I should be killed? I am a lycan, but I am also a man. I don’t hurt others, Rose. I don’t enjoy inflicting pain on anyone, and I don’t like to kill others of my kind, even though sometimes it’s necessary. I think you are narrow-minded on this subject. After all, we aren’t all that unlike humans. There are good people, bad people, murderers, molesters, and every other type, but you don’t go around killing everyone you come across because some of them are monsters. Yet, that’s what you chose to do with us. Why?”

She couldn’t deny he had a point, and she couldn’t say that she believed he deserved to die now after spending time with him, but she couldn’t allow any of the real monsters to get away. All it took was one to wreak havoc on someone’s life, just one to create a tragedy that could kill or scar emotionally for a lifetime. If she had it in her power to make sure not even one more person like Tammy died because of these monsters, she had to continue on. But Knox isn’t a monster, is he?

Knox watched the uncertainty dance over her beautiful features. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was finally getting through to her. She looked as if she was beginning to better understand lycans, and if that was so, she was probably also feeling a bit torn about some of the things she’d done in the past.

“Don’t do that to yourself.”

She looked at him with her pale blue eyes, and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her, taste her, breathe her essence into his soul, where she would remain for eternity.

“Do what?” she asked quietly.

“I already told you, chances are, until me, all the lycans you’ve come across have been rogue. An ancient would never try to hurt you, nor would one be easy to take out, as you’ve found out.”

She watched him, and anger colored her cheeks as her brows drew down and her full lips pulled into thin, straight lines.

“So what am I supposed to do when I come across one of your kind? Wait to see if he wants to rape me or take me home and protect me before killing him? Or maybe I should just say, ‘Hey, I’m Rose. Are you a rogue or an ancient? Just wondering because I didn’t know if I should kill you or not.’”

He understood her logic, but she was missing the point altogether. She shouldn’t be hunting lycans at all.

He got sick to his stomach when he thought about how many times she’d exposed herself to danger, and how long she’d been doing so.

“How about you don’t put yourself in that position to begin with? There is no reason for you to do so.

There are others like me who are working to bring our race back under control and instill the ones who have strayed with the honor we pride ourselves on.”

But something was driving her to do what she did, and he wanted her to trust him enough to tell him. He knew, better than most, that the only way to heal old wounds was to deal with them head-on. The worst thing to do was submerge yourself into the dire muck of desire for revenge. There was never a satisfactory outcome for revenge. Revenge only bred more contempt and anger.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Why you hate us so badly.”

Rose had vowed never to speak aloud of it again after Russell, but it might be her only way to gain Knox’s trust so she could escape. Unfortunately, she couldn’t deny that there was a part of her that wanted to tell him, confide in him what had happened, what had hurt her so badly. To share it with someone was a luxury she’d never had, and to talk to someone who wouldn’t think she was crazy, someone who would understand her story, someone who knew that lycans were real was an opportunity she never thought to have.

But if she told him, she’d be connected to him forever. A small part of her that she’d never shared with anyone would be his, and she’d feel . . . vulnerable. Yet it came full circle to getting him to trust her so she could make her escape. The problem was she wanted to trust him as well. But would she feel right about duping someone whom she trusted? That’s when she realized she didn’t just want to trust him—she needed to.

After that thought occurred, she refused to contemplate the why of it any further.

“Where did you send that bastard that attacked me?” She watched the hesitation play across his handsome features and wondered if he’d lie or simply flat-out refuse to tell her.

When he cringed, the scars running over his face puckered a bit more, and she sympathized with the pain he must have endured from the injury, but then she realized that those scars should have healed if lycan lore were true about shifting being able to heal wounds. She watched as he carried his empty plates to the sink, rinsed them off, then carried her own over and followed suit.

“I sent him to a place up north called Sanctuary. There is a pack up there led by ancients who run a reformation program for rogues.”

While he hadn’t given her an exact location—“up north” could mean northern Michigan or Canada, for all she knew—he hadn’t lied to her, or at least she didn’t believe he had. She nearly laughed. Had she expected him to give her an address? Her gut told her Sanctuary was in northern Michigan, and she hoped to check it out soon for herself. When he turned, she stared at the scars again, and he ran his fingers over them.

Her fingers acted before her brain could stop them, and reached up to smooth over the lines one by one.

He sucked in a breath at her touch, and she jerked her hand back once she realized what she’d been doing.

“Sorry.”

“You can touch me anytime you like, Rose. But don’t do so unless you really mean it.”

His eyes glowed. Her stomach did a funny flop before heat settled between her thighs, she took a step back, and swallowed hard.

“Why did they not heal?”