Tracked: A Valkyrie Saga Book 2

Chapter 15 - Oakland Clan

Connor

From my vantage point on the floor, I caught a glimpse of Ray with weapons in both hands before she simply disappeared from sight. I selfishly was grateful that I could no longer hear her soft heartbreaking cries. I gained my feet, readjusted my grasp on my short sword, and rounded on someone I had grown to think of as a brother.

"How the fuck could you do that to her?" I said in a low, deadly voice, silently reminding myself that Ray was still here and I didn't want to scare her further. I knew she was still here because she hadn't collapsed her shield and we could still see it surrounding the same spot in the kitchen. "She looks like she just went ten rounds with a heavyweight champion. You were on top of her when we came in. Her shirt ripped and it looked like..." I dropped off, unable to ask what I needed to know. 

If he had crossed that line, compulsion or not, I would kill him.

Derik refused to look up from the spot on the ground he had fallen when Ray's shield had come up. I had a crazy urge to walk over there and start kicking the living shit out of him with every bit of my Strength until he resembled the beat-up mess that Ray did. I heard Max and Blake trying to talk to Ray but I couldn't concentrate on anything but this right now. I was too enraged. Had too much anger inside of me to be anywhere near my beautiful broken angel right now. She deserved better than me right now.

But Derik was a different story. Derik more than deserved my anger and I wished that he would get up and threw a punch so that I could destroy him. I stepped forward, not one hundred percent sure I knew what I was going to do next when I felt a touch at my elbow and looked down to find Elijah standing by my side. When had he come over here? And why wasn't he with Ray? Elijah always knew what to say when we were hurting. Ray was hurting right now. She needed him.

"He was Compelled. He couldn't stop what was happening. It's not... it's not his fault," Elijah said in a strangled voice after pausing to glance over at the kitchen. I scanned the area myself to make sure that she was still safely locked away in her void and then narrowed my eyes at Elijah.

He had been the one who quickly turned the car around when he felt that something was seriously wrong with Derik. That Derik was in an immense amount of pain. But we had been too late. By the time we had barged through our own door, Ray had been beaten to a bloody pulp and one of my closest friends in the world was on top of her while she cried out helplessly.

We had failed to protect her. More than that, my own clan member's fists were the ones that had hurt her so badly. 

What else had he done to her?

I tightened the grip on my sword and turned back to the piece of shit still sitting on the floor. I had to know. And quite possibly, Derik had to die. "Did you rape her?" I forced out through suddenly wooden lips.

Derik flinched away from my words and then dropped his head into his hands, harshly gripping the roots of his hair. I didn't like the look of that response and shifted forward but Elijah stopped me once more.

"No, he did not. But he had been Compelled to do so. If we hadn't shown up when we did, things would have... continued to progress," Elijah murmured, and I felt my breakfast revolt in my stomach. I rushed down the hall, into the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before heaving up everything in my stomach.

Who would ever Compel another person to rape someone they cared about?

Even the thought of it was incomprehensible to me, yet living inside of me was the ability to do so. I had never hated my Compulsion Gift before, but at this moment I wished to my core that I was never born with it.