The Vycan's Forbidden Mate

A Week of Mercy

Lyra's pov

Everything in my brain went utterly blank, blurring into a terrifying void I knew I couldn't afford to get lost in. Not when Vane was still standing less than three feet away from me.

Not when these two strange guys..who I knew wouldn't stand a single chance against this demon if he actually decided to make good on his lethal threats..were actively risking their lives to stand between us, protecting me.

And especially not when Vane had spoken about my mother like they shared a long, deeply twisted history, like they absolutely hated each other. It didn't make any logical sense. The man towering over me looked no older than twenty-one.

How could he have known my mother well enough to harbor that kind of bitter, ancient resentment?

"You can deal with her later," the blond-haired guy said through gritted teeth, his muscles visibly straining under his leather jacket as he kept his eyes locked on Vane. "We need her, remember? Her father is back in town and we need to know why."

Vane's eyes widened instantly, his attention snapped completely away from me, redirecting toward the guy who had just spoken. His jaw clenched so hard I could swear I heard the bone click under the pressure. "Her father... is back?"

The other guy, the one with dark brown hair, gave a nod, raising his chin slightly. Suddenly, it felt like I was the smallest, most insignificant thing on their radar. "This morning, right after the full moon."

Every muscle in my body locked tight. My eyes darted frantically between the three of them. First my mother, and now they knew my father too? Who the hell were these people? And what kind of twisted academy was this?

"Who are you?" I wheezed, my voice cracking despite my best efforts to steady it. "What the f**k is wrong with this town?"

The blond-haired guy turned his head toward me. Beside him, Vane looked even more furious than before, his eye color having fully shifted back to its dark, storm-cloud hue. But his hands remained curled into white-knuckled fists. The frantic, raw obsession I had seen in his eyes a moment ago had completely morphed into something else...something far darker. Was it hate?

The blond assessed me with a long, heavy gaze, an expression that looked dangerously close to pity plastered across his face.

"Now, what are we going to do with you, Lyra Thorne?" the blond murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly. As he stared, a sudden flicker of familiarity seeped through the cracks of my panic. It felt like an electric shock. Somewhere deep in my subconscious, it felt like... I had met him before, like I knew him.

"You really shouldn't have come back to Omen's Peak," he added softly.

That was the breaking point. What the hell was I doing standing here? Where was every single survival instinct my mother had spent years drilling into my head? Adrenaline surged through my veins. I pushed off the stone wall, bypassed the three men, and yanked the heavy metal door open. I heard the sharp, low sneers of the guys behind me, but to my surprise, none of them tried to chase me down.

The moment I burst back into the main hallway, a wave of fresh air hit my nostrils, momentarily clearing away the suffocating, dark energy I had just encountered. Almost.

Something was wrong with the people in this school. Terribly, horribly wrong.

I fumbled frantically with my purse, my hands shaking so violently I could barely zip it open as I searched for the spare truck keys Dad had given Kael and me. I had to find my twin, I had to get Dad, and we had to leave this cursed town and never look back.

"Kael... he has to be at the main office, right? Getting our class schedules," I whispered to myself, scrambling down the empty hallway. My eyes moved over the closed doors, desperately looking for a plaque or a sign that indicated the administration wing. Hell, I would even report what I had just witnessed to the principal. I would report the fact that Vane wasn't... wasn't what? Human?

Suddenly, a blinding, white-hot pain flared in my ankle.

It struck right on top of the skin where Mom had drawn that butterfly mark. My eyes widened in pure terror as my leg buckled beneath me. I collapsed sideways, slamming hard against the wall of the corridor.

Tears burned my vision instantly. The pain weaved through the muscles of my leg like physical lightning bolts, shooting straight up my veins and exploding into my brain. What the hell was happening to me?

I threw my head back against the wall, a raw, unfiltered scream tearing from my throat as the sheer agony made my vision cloud over with white spots.

"Lyra?"

A familiar, frantic male voice echoed down the hall. A figure came sprinting toward me out of the gloom. "f*****g hell, Lyra! What happened? What's wrong?"

My heart raced, thudding erratically with each consecutive zap of lightning that filtered through my system. Cold sweat beaded across my forehead. I began to slide down toward the floor, but Kael caught me, holding my curled-up body upright against his chest. I could hear him cursing, his words laced with a frantic panic that I could barely make out through the ringing in my ears.

"The clinic! I need to get you to the school clinic right now!" he yelled, lifting me into his arms.

"N-no..." My voice cracked, a fresh wave of tears turning the entire hallway into a blurry smear of light and shadows. "The house... Dad... Kael, I need to see Dad."

Suddenly, a deep growl resonated from the end of the hall. It was so loud and laden with fury that goosebumps raced down my skin, completely bypassing the agonizing heat radiating from my birthmark.

I caught his scent before I even heard his footsteps.

"What the f**k do you think you're doing with her?" Vane's furious voice demanded.

I forced my heavy eyelids open just enough to see his eyes boring into Kael’s startled ones.

"Can't you see she's hurt? We need to take her to the infirmary! Where the hell is it?" Kael snapped back, looking around the corridor in sheer panic. Either my brother was simply too worried about me to notice the lethal threat radiating off the guy in front of us, or he genuinely wasn't intimidated by Vane's massive size.

I threw my head back as another spasm of pain shot through my ankle, parting my trembling lips to speak. I wanted to tell Kael to back down. I wanted to tell my brother not to fight him. I needed to tell him to take me far away from this place..to run and never look back.

But the words wouldn't form, my throat felt entirely paralyzed and before I could take one last look at my twin, a heavy, suffocating darkness dragged me under, pulling me into the shadows.

The pungent, earthy smell of crushed herbs hit my nostrils first. It was calming..almost too calming..and entirely familiar.

I inhaled deeply, my fingers instinctively curling into the soft, coarse cloth underneath me. As the herbal scent filtered deeper into my brain, a tight, painful ache squeezed my chest. I recognized this smell. Mom used to hand-pour wax candles with this exact aroma.

I bit my trembling lip and squeezed my eyes shut tighter, the vivid memory of my mother washing over me. I could see her clearly, placing the small glass jar on my bedside table, telling me it was a special Neem-root blend. She had smiled, brushing a strand of hair from my face, telling me it was meant to chase all the monsters in my dreams away.

Except now, the only thing plaguing me... was the haunting memory of her absence.

A solitary tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. "Mom..." I mumbled into the pillow.

"Not Mom," a cold, harsh voice snapped, instantly shattering the memory.

My eyes flew open. My gaze landed directly on a thoroughly pissed-off Vane.

"But you're about to lose the only parent you have left if you don't start doing exactly what I say," he added smoothly.

I shrieked, scrambling backward in fear until my spine hit the hard wooden headboard of the bed. Vane was sitting casually on the edge of the small mattress where I lay. I frantically looked around the room, the clinic was completely empty. Kael was nowhere to be seen. I was entirely alone... with him.

Every single hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as I stared at him.

"Wh..what do you think you're doing here?" my voice shook violently.

Vane's lips curled into a slow, predatory smirk.

For some strange reason, a nagging sensation twisted in my gut—like a crucial piece of the puzzle was missing from my head. I remembered the confrontation in the hallway. I remembered him pinning me against the wall, wanting to mark me, and I clearly remembered running away. But... was that really all?

Right where the memories of something vital should have been, it felt like there were empty, hollow gaps in my mind. I could have sworn something terrifying had happened with his eyes... with his teeth. Something that had absolutely frozen the blood in my veins. But when I shook my head, trying to force the memories to resurface, I couldn't grasp them. Everything was hazy. The only concrete fact I knew was that the man sitting on the edge of my bed was dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" My voice cracked, tears hovering at the edges of my vision. "I haven't done anything to you."

Vane raised a single, dark brow. "You being in this town has done everything to me," he growled lowly, his voice vibrating with a dangerous undercurrent. "And now, I need you to take your disgusting family the hell out of my territory. I need you to leave, Lyra. Pack up and get out, or I swear to the Goddess.."

"How dare you think you can tell me what to do!" I fired back, a sudden surge of defensive anger overriding my fear. My hands curled into tight fists against the sheets. "You might be rich, and you might think you're entitled to own this entire school, but you have absolutely no right to threaten me. You have no damn right to tell me when I can leave and when I can't!"

Tears burned my eyes as the image of my father flashed in my mind...remembering everything he had sacrificed just to relocate us here, how desperately he was trying to find a quiet place where we could all heal from losing Mom.

"And you have no right to threaten my family!" I yelled.

"Don't I, Butterfly?" Vane tilted his head calmly. He watched me with a relaxed, steady posture that made it clear my emotional outburst did absolutely nothing but entertain him.

Slowly, he stood up, he towered over the bed, his massive height and broad shoulders casting such a heavy shadow over me that I instinctively pulled back against the headboard.

"I'm not a very patient man, Lyra," Vane murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. "But I am going to give you exactly one week to take your family and leave Omen's Peak on your own accord."

"And if I don't?" I challenged, my chin lifting defiantly despite the terror screaming in my veins.

His lips curved upward into a slow, chilling smile. For a split second, a terrifying flash of elongated teeth and a burst of gold light flared in his irises. But like an eraser wiping a chalkboard clean, it vanished in a fraction of a second. It happened so fast I couldn't even be sure it was real, leaving me wondering if my mind was completely fracturing.

"Then I will destroy you," Vane whispered, the dark promise hanging heavy in the air. "Remember, Butterfly... one week."

Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked out of the clinic, leaving me entirely alone, staring at the empty doorway.