Chapter 5 WILD

CHAPTER 5 | WILD

LYRA

The silence in the room was so thick and tense that everyone was afraid a fight would break out.

I was both baffled and furious that anyone at all would think I was a possession or a property to be fought over. What do they take me for? A piece of land?

I slammed the knife on the table, fury surging through my body. I saw red as my hands trembled with pent-up rage. With a shaking voice, I locked eyes with Adrian, daring him to say something else and watch me maul him with my knife. “I am not a thing. I am a person with choices to make. And those choices involve rejecting all of you arrogant airheads. I will not sit back and watch you treat me like a prize to be bargained for.”

My defiance wiped the smile off Adrian’s face, irritation carved deep into his expression.

He tried to cover it up with a mocking laugh. “You are too wild for a pregnant woman. Calm down, pretty.”

He looked toward the Valentino brothers, expecting them to step in, but they stayed back, watching me deal with the arrogant jerk myself. I raised my chin. “And you are too stupid and unattractive to be a Lycan. I heard every Lycan is bestowed with wisdom, but you must have been too busy chasing women to get yours.”

He couldn’t hide his rage anymore. Irritation spread across his face, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he exploded.

The attention shifted from us when someone screamed and a sharp clank echoed through the hall.

A guard had just attempted to attack Damian with a knife but was caught before he could land the strike. Even though I was furious at them for caging me and treating me like property, my heart still jumped at the thought of anything bad happening to them.

It didn’t take long for the guard to falter and confess that he was paid by Adrian to attack the brothers.

All eyes turned to Adrian, who wore a nasty, proud smirk. He wasn’t remorseful and didn’t bother to deny it.

His intentions were clear. He was trying to provoke the twins. He didn’t want to strike first, so he wanted them to pull the trigger, just so he could claim to be the victim.

He raised a brow at Damien, daring him to do something, to give him an excuse.

I knew this was my only chance. While they were all caught up in their vendetta, I had to escape.

Without thinking twice, without a plan, I bolted for the entrance, praying they were too distracted to notice.

I made it to the door, but the moment my hand touched the handle, an arm wrapped around my waist and yanked me back.

“You think you want freedom, but trust me, you don’t. You don’t know what is out there, Lyra. You have no idea what we’re protecting you from.” Damian’s voice was low, laced with suppressed fury, his breath hot against my ear.

He dragged me back to the dinner table, where everything but the table itself was in chaos.

Damien was gripping Adrian by the collar, blood smearing his face, a sign that a fight had broken out in the brief time I tried to run.

The guard who had attacked lay on the floor, pale and lifeless. I gasped at the sight, but Damian covered my eyes and barked orders to have the body removed. When he let go, the room was spotless again, as if nothing had ever happened.

Adrian calmly shrugged off Damien’s hold and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his white shirt.

He returned to the table, digging into his meal like nothing happened, a satisfied smile on his face.

“What happened?” I asked Damian, but he ignored me.

Instead, he released me and pulled his brother aside for a heated discussion.

Before leaving, they ordered the guards to keep watch over me.

I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, painfully aware of Adrian’s eyes on me. He watched me like a predator sizing up its prey.

“Lyra, right?” he called, startling me.

Reluctantly, I nodded.

“You want to leave here, don’t you?”

I hesitated, not because I doubted my desire to escape, but because of who was asking. Something told me whatever he proposed, I wouldn’t like it.

“Yes, I do.”

He smiled, making my skin crawl. “I can help you leave. I can take you somewhere they’d never find you.”

“At what price?” I asked cautiously. “What do I have to pay?”

“Nothing much. Just a night with you. Just one night. I’ll go easy, I promise.”

Disgust hit me like a wave. I would have lunged at him for even suggesting it if the Valentino brothers hadn’t walked in at that moment.

I turned away, refusing to give him another glance.

Trying to smooth things over, the brothers ordered the dinner to continue, as if nothing had happened. Fine by me. I was starving and dehydrated.

The table was quiet for a while, almost peaceful, until Adrian leaned back, gesturing toward me with a mocking grin.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

Curious, I frowned. “Know what?”

Adrian’s eyes glinted with malice as he spoke, “Who the real father of her child is.”