Unleashed

Chapter Twenty-one: After the Fight

Connor

"It sickens me how you stood in front of the window every evening, looking at me while your mind was busy thinking about killing the people I loved, while my mind was confused about wanting you!"

Her words kept repeating in my mind. Wanting you, she said. I'd wanted to let her feel how I wanted her too, but her next words cut me like a knife.

"You truly are a heartless beast."

My vengeance, however, wasn't what had me pulling towards my window every evening.

She was the reason.

An attraction to see her every time I could. To ease that ache in my heart, whatever that may mean. Maybe it was better for her to think I had different reasons and was a heartless beast? I didn't know. I fucking knew nothing apart from that I wanted my plan to succeed and I didn't want my desires for someone to get in the way. And what kind of someone she was? A noble-born human, above all! Those, whom I've always loathed with every fiber of my soul.

Oh, for fuck's sake, who was I even trying to convince here? I didn't loathe her at all. I could never.

Just recalling her scent caused goosebumps to wash all over my skin again.

I had almost lost it when I smelled her, her skin all sweet, damp, and hot underneath my breath. It had taken every ounce of my willpower not to force myself onto her at that very moment. Luckily, I was in time to shift back into a man or things might have turned out awful. And the only reason I was able to do that was because of that disgusting amulet hanging around her neck. I didn't know what kind of content it held, but it smelled terrible.

I just couldn't let my craving for her stand in my way. But may the Gods help me with that.

***

The rest of the day went as I'd planned it in my head. I had searched in every room of every villa and inside every pocket of every guard for the vials, my sense of smell as my guide.

After my quest was over and I had successfully annihilated every bottle, I found my fellow Lycans in the courtyard.

"What do you want to do w-with them," Rhett asked, a trembling head cocking at the equally trembling humans we had spared. His shivering condition resulted from side effects, while the humans trembled because they were scared, their fear stinking up the place.

I felt bad for Rhett and the others, remembering how horrible those days of detoxing had been for me, trying to hold myself together.

"Let me deal with them in a minute," I answered. "First, I want to know how you are doing."

"Oh brother, I feel so fucking bad. But still... I'm doing better than expected."

"You all need to stay occupied. It'll all be over soon," I said loudly, so they could all hear it.

"Fucking hell, how did you ever do t-this without us realizing?" Chann whimpered.

I walked to him and patted his shoulder. As the youngest, he might have it the hardest. "It'll be alright."

"It's so awkward how I suddenly believe everything you say to me."

I then understood my newly gained dominance wasn't only strange to me; it was just as strange to them. Just as I had a sudden power over them, they had a sudden need to follow me.

It was a power I needed to be careful with, though. That much I knew.

I ordered Ulric and Ludovic to go inside the villa, yank off curtains, bind them together, and stuff them full with things we could use on the road because we wouldn't stay here. I told them to collect jugs of water, wine, food, medicine, spare clothes, a few cooking pots, spades, and stakes to help build a tent with the curtains as a cover for when it would rain.