Zero fox given, p.9
Zero Fox Given, page 9
“Dude, what the fucking hell are you doing?”
“It won’t happen again.”
“What?” Zelda looked sharply at Victor.
That damned mask he kept up was back on his face, as though the kiss had never happened. As though he was back to being the professional, stick up his ass bodyguard.
“No fucking shit it won’t happen again.”
“Link, calm down.”
Link marched forward. “You were fucking my sister? That’s why you wanted to stay here? That it?”
Zelda stepped between her brother and Victor before something nasty happened that she didn’t want to happen. Link barely seemed to notice her as he swung his fist over her shoulder Victor.
“Stop it! Link!”
Zelda was pushed aside. She barely realized what happened next, but when Link tried to punch Victor, it seemed Victor grabbed onto not just his wrist, but his whole arm.
Victor was the one who shoved Zelda away, and he angled his body in a way that he locked Link’s arm, spun around, and flipped Link down onto his back, pinning him.
Zelda grabbed Victor by his jacket, pulling, tearing a bit more skin on her thumb. “Victor, get off of him!”
Link thrashed, cursing and promising all kinds of pain to Victor when he got to his feet.
Pain Zelda doubted he would be able to dish out.
“Calm down. Calm down and I’ll let you up.”
“Fuck you!”
“Victor, get off of him.”
“If he attacks me again—”
“He won’t. Link, relax.”
Link twisted his head enough that he was able to look up at her, his cheeks flushed with exertion and fury. “What the fuck do you want me to relax about? He was the one—”
“Link, Victor is my mate.”
Zelda had never watched a body so tight and tense melt so quickly. It was as though someone had splashed Link with cold water, shocking him with stupidity.
His ears flicked. He looked at Zelda with such wide eyes that she felt…badly for him.
She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as though she’d told him anything particularly horrific. There wasn’t anything she’d said that was bad or wrong.
So why the reaction?
“Victor, let him up. Please. He won’t do anything, right, Link?”
Link looked between her and Victor, as though thinking about his next move. He nodded. That was the important thing.
Victor backed off, taking his knee off of the middle of Link’s back.
Link rushed to feet. He looked down at Victor, then at Zelda, as though debating his next move.
Victor easily, and calmly, pushed himself to his feet. He never took his eyes away from Link.
And in that moment, Zelda really felt the power and authority Victor held. He’d let her get away with a few things before, stealing his car, forcing him to come with her to a pole dancing class, but right now he felt positively…
Alpha.
Link finally looked at her. “Is this true?”
Zelda nodded. “Yeah, it’s true.”
And her fingers hurt again, a lot, so she reached back and took the dishtowel that Victor had held to her hand, covering her cuts with it.
Link looked at Victor, then back at her. “Are you sure?”
To his credit, Victor said nothing. The look he gave Link was all kinds of dangerous.
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because.” Link glanced at Victor one more time. “You just got out of a bad marriage. You could be trying to rebound on this guy and not even know it.”
“You think Victor is taking advantage of me.”
“His job is to protect you and keep you alive while Gerard and Ben are still out there, not make out with you and trick Mike and me into letting him stay here so he can mess around with you behind our backs.”
“There has been no messing around,” Victor said.
Zelda was impressed he’d said anything in the first place.
“Whatever, okay? I just saw you feeling up my sister. Asshole.”
Zelda was getting embarrassed by this whole exchange. This wasn’t the sort of conversation she wanted to have with her brother. “He means we haven’t had sex yet, and I am not rebounding. I know better than that.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened, and even if you were rebounding, I don’t give a shit, just don’t let some guy take advantage of you when he’s supposed to be watching your back.”
Victor’s chest heaved with a long breath. He seemed to hold it before letting it out, as though holding onto the last shreds of his patience.
When he didn’t defend himself, that was when Zelda got angry.
“He is not taking advantage of me and he is watching my back! He’s working for free to watch my back.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s working for free and I don’t care if you think he’s your mate. If he’s not thinking about doing his job then Mike and I need to call someone else.”
That caught Zelda off guard for a couple of reasons. She focused on the one that made her the angriest. “What do you mean think he’s my mate? There’s no thinking about this. He is.”
Victor’s voice was low, as though trying to comfort her. “Zelda.”
She yanked her arm away when his hand touched it. She didn’t want him to comfort her when he would barely allow himself to touch her.
Great. Now she was torn between her fury for her idiot brother and her anger for the guy who had saved her tail more than once.
“Why do you think I wouldn’t know something like that for sure?” She didn’t give Link the chance to explain himself. “Is it because you think I don’t know how to handle myself?”
“You don’t know how to handle yourself.”
Zelda was taken aback. She honestly hadn’t expected him to say that.
“Zel, you’ve been taken care of your entire life. We all knew you weren’t into marrying Harry, but you did it anyway because it was what the pack wanted. Every step of the way someone’s had to take care of you, and the one time you’ve lived on your own was after seeing Maxwell choking on his own vomit over the dinner table.”
“Okay, stop.”
He didn’t stop. “And even then, you didn’t get a job or sign up for school. You went off the deep end and started dressing in weird clothes and going to night clubs and other places you had no business being in. You don’t know how to take care of yourself and now you expect me to believe that you’ve found your mate in the guy that Mike and I hired for you? Seriously?”
He asked it as though he expected an answer. He looked as though he genuinely wanted one.
Zelda couldn’t give him one. Her throat closed, and her heart was heavy. She looked away from Link, but only so he couldn’t see the burn in her eyes.
She might as well have not bothered at all.
“Shit, Zelda, come on. Don’t do that.”
She marched out of the kitchen. “Screw you.”
Screw them both as far as she was concerned. She was out. She was going to her room and she was leaving Link to fix his own Goddamned dinner.
She slammed her bedroom door behind her, flopping onto her bed with the pink sheets.
She may have grabbed onto her pillow and smothered herself with it to try and cut off any crying that she may or may not have been doing, which she was never going to admit to anyone one way or the other.
She hated it so much. She hated it because her asshole brother was right. He knocked at her door, called her name softly and asked her to come back outside, but no way in hell was she going to do that. She didn’t want to be seen by anyone. Not him. And definitely not Victor.
Because Link was right. Zelda didn’t want to admit it even to herself in the quiet of her mind, but he was right.
She didn’t know how to take care of herself, and when she watched Maxwell die at the dinner table, only a few seats down from her, something snapped.
She couldn’t entirely explain what it was; maybe Victor could. He was another guy that seemed to know absolutely everything.
Christ, he’d even hinted to her at one point that he knew what was up.
She tried to remember his exact words. Had he said them when they were at the police station? Or was it when he’d searched her apartment after she’d stolen his car?
He’d said something to the effect of how her behavior was being manipulated by her experiences.
Basically, she’d seen something traumatizing and had decided to go off the deep end.
She’d put on makeup she’d never worn before, bought clothes she never would have worn, and shed her good girl persona for drinking, dancing, nightclubs, and even sex.
Even when she’d tried to take back her independence, to prove to herself that she could be something amazing, something powerful and strong, she hadn’t proved anything but what a complete flake she could be.
It was probably why Victor wasn’t touching her. He could give her that speech all he wanted about how unprofessional it was, but the two times he’d kissed her so far proved he could overlook that sort of thing, at least for a little while.
Her brother didn’t respect her enough to believe in the choices she made. Uncle Mike was probably the same way, what with how he was babying her since she got back.
Victor was definitely the same.
And she couldn’t blame them for it.
Chapter 14
Zelda stayed in her room feeling sorry for herself until someone barged inside.
She lifted her head from her pillow. She’d been dozing and hadn’t realized it, which was probably why she was so sluggish to react when Victor grabbed her by her arm and yanked her out of bed.
“What, hey! What are you doing?”
“You’re getting out of bed. You’re not doing this.”
“Let go of me!”
“No.”
She hated it when he said no to her. He always did it with such conviction in his voice, as though he knew he was going to get what he wanted. As though every time he said the word no, people obeyed.
Zelda wasn’t his Goddamned employee and he wasn’t her alpha. Victor got her outside by the time she managed to yank her arm free.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Victor looked at her. Even when she’d taken his car for a joy ride, she’d never seen such intensity before. Impatient was too soft a word to describe what she saw in those eyes.
“You’re not going to sit around in your room and sulk over nothing.”
“What the hell gives you the right to decide that for me? If I want to go to bed and stay there I’ll damn well do it!”
“Yeah? Well too damned bad. I had a talk with your uncle and brother and they agreed with me. You’re coming out here.”
“What?”
Uncle Mike came home?
She supposed that made sense. A quick look up at the sky told her how much time had passed. The sun was setting, the shadows long, and in the distance, the tips of the trees turned black against the contrasting sky.
She must have been in her room for hours. She definitely wasn’t making dinner now.
Victor grabbed her arm and yanked her forward. He took a hold of her so quickly, and with such strength, that this time there was no chance for her to fight him off.
“Will you get off of me?”
“No. You’re coming with me. I’ve got permission to do this, too. So don’t bother fighting too much.”
“I don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything!”
“No?”
Victor yanked her around, forcing her to face him.
It was odd to feel such power and strength in his body. If she went up against him in a fight, there would be nothing she could do about it.
With how nice he was to her lately, how sweetly he touched her, when he bothered to touch her, she sometimes forgot that he was a powerful male.
Not even fully human. Subhuman. How much was he holding himself back around her?
And Goddamn, why did she have to like that show of strength so much?
“What are you doing?”
A low growl rumbled in Victor’s throat. Was he even aware he’d made that sound?
“Those people love you. They love you and care for you. They want to take care of you. Now is not the time for you to be laying your guilt trips on them.”
Zelda glared at him. “Right, how dare I feel bad when my own brother tells me no one takes me seriously? That they still think I’m a child?”
“And whose fault is that?” Victor’s teeth snapped.
Zelda fell back a step.
“You’re a grown woman. You’re an adult. You want to prove that? Then prove it. Don’t run away when someone says something pseudo mean to you. You face it head on with your head held high and deal with it.”
“That is so easy for you to say. Everything goes your way. You never had to grow up in a pack. You never had to deal with an arranged marriage.”
“No.” Victor pointed his finger at her as though stabbing her through her heart with it. “You do not get to say that shit to me. You have no idea who the hell I am or where I’ve been.”
“Oh, yeah right. You’ve had an arranged marriage to deal with that you had no say in?”
“Yes, I fucking did.”
That information caught her off guard. So hard that it felt as though she’d been punched in the stomach with the information.
An uncertain laugh bubbled its way out of her gut instead. “What?”
He glared at her, not taking back his words.
She still couldn’t believe it. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Why? Because I’m subhuman? Do you even know what that word means? What people think of when they say it? The answer is no, you don’t. So don’t give me this shit about how I don’t understand anything.”
“You’re…” Zelda’s first thought was to ask about his wife, but a quick glance down at his hand confirmed that he didn’t have a ring there, and he never did. There was no trace even of an indent from having worn it. “What happened?”
Victor wet his lips. He propped his hands on his hips, the muscles in his arms and shoulders tight. Everything in his body language told her how he didn’t want to say anything else to her. He’d likely only revealed so much to her because he’d wanted to shut her up with her pity party.
“Are you still married?”
“No. I never was.”
That was one thing she didn’t understand. “But you just said—”
“I know what I said.”
Victor lifted his hand, as though he wanted to make some point, then dropped it with a sigh.
“She was the alpha’s daughter in a neighboring pack. We were friends; she wasn’t afraid to come near me because I couldn’t shift. She was my best fucking friend, and somehow, my parents convinced her parents that an arranged union between the two of us wouldn’t be such a bad thing. With her bloodline, I might even be able to give her children that wouldn’t be defective.”
Zelda pressed her lips together. She brought her hands up and rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling cold.
Hearing him say the word defective like that, as though he’d been called that more than once, probably by people who were supposed to love him…
Christ, now she wasn’t angry with him anymore. Now she was torn between wanting to go and hug him and stay right where she was, embarrassed and ashamed.
“So you backed out of the marriage?”
“No. She did. Left me at the altar.” Victor shook his head. “I loved her. I loved her so much and I was ready to marry her. She’d told me more than once how much she loved me, too, but I guess with pressure from her parents and mine…she only ever saw me as her friend. She didn’t want to make a mistake she and I would both regret, so when it came time to say our vows, she just never showed up.”
“That…I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Victor shook his head. “I’m not.”
Zelda blinked. “But you just said you were in love with her. She left you at the altar. That’s…that’s horrible.”
“No, it wasn’t. Think about it.”
“I am. I don’t get it.”
Victor’s shoulders sagged. He approached her, slowly, as though to make sure she didn’t run. “I loved Angie, I thought she was going to have my children, and I was crushed when she didn’t show up. I thought every negative thing you could think. About her, about myself. I thought she couldn’t go through with marrying a defective subhuman, but that wasn’t it, and when I got it, I got it.”
He was toe to toe with her now, looking down at her, waiting for her to understand.
“What did you get?”
Victor’s hands were on her shoulders. Gently, he rubbed her arms.
“That she didn’t want the decision to be made for her. That she couldn’t force herself to love someone she didn’t love. Not even her best friend. She’s still my best friend. We still talk.”
A spike of jealousy caught Zelda in her belly. She didn’t like the idea of Victor talking to other women. She crossed her arms.
“Do you still love her?”
He smiled, as though the idea of her closing herself off to him amused him. “Not like that. Not anymore, but there’s still something you’re missing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” She was still swimming in her jealousy.
“That Angie had the choice, even when everyone around her told her she didn’t. Even when her alpha, who was also her father, made the decision for her. A decision that would have been good for her pack. She backed out because, ultimately, it was her choice. It was her choice whether or not she was going to marry me, and it was your choice whether or not you were going to marry Harry, as much as it was your choice to leave. It was a good choice, by the way,” he said.
“No kidding,” Zelda replied. “I knew it was a good choice, the right choice, but I still can’t believe I did it.”
“And Angie couldn’t believe it when she pulled together the guts to leave me. It wasn’t just her family and pack she was disappointing. She knew how I felt, and she thought she knew how she felt. It took a lot of courage for her to do it, but she still did it.”
