“I’m an addict. I do things.” He shakes his head, and for a long moment, I hold my breath. “When I first walked into Heaven, Lycan gave me a place to live out fantasies I couldn’t tell your mother about.”
Everything around me stills. The air gets thick with something I can’t quite put my finger on. Not guilt, but understanding. I’ve hidden my desires for such a long time. I feel his words right down to my soul.
“But I got out of hand,” Dad admits slowly, softly, as if he’s afraid I’ll kill him with my bare hands. And for a moment, I feel like I can, like I will. “I got to a point where I was drenched in sadistic tendencies that I took it too far.”
My mouth falls open. Mom’s face is a picture of disbelief, and Lycan’s hands grip my shoulders, holding me up. His warmth behind me, offering me shelter from what my father is saying.
“I-I don’t… I don’t understand,” I tell him, but deep down, I do. It’s in between the lines, in between the words he’s just uttered. I know what he’s trying to say, but I don’t want to believe it. If he utters those words, it will make it true, and I don’t want to believe my father is capable of murder.
“Horatio,” Mom’s voice cuts through the beating of my heart. It’s deafening. A lump in my throat makes it difficult to swallow. My father did something. He did the unthinkable. Just like his father.
Is this something that runs in the family?
Violence.
Chaos.
Destruction.
“I’m sorry, Marinda. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. An accident. I lost control,” Dad admits, shaking his head.
“The girl,” mom says. “The one with the long blonde hair,” she continues, looking at my father as if she doesn’t truly know who he is. Does she? Do I?
He nods slowly, but he doesn’t look her in the eye. “Lycan banned me from Heaven, he told me he would make sure it went away, that the family will be looked after, if I signed over our daughter’s hand to him because I lost a bet with Miles,” Dad says, mentioning a man he works with.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, and he looks at me as the guilt slowly eats away at him.
“If Lycan didn’t marry you by your twenty-first birthday, Miles was going to take you as his. But Lycan stepped in just before he banned Miles and I from the club. He told me if I were to ever do anything like that, go to any club that offered scenes, or playrooms, if I even stepped out of line, he would kill me himself and he would kill Miles. Lycan wanted to keep Scarlett safe from me, from my friends. And I agreed.”
Spinning on my heel, I meet the green eyes of the man I’ve loved since the moment he took me. He saved me from my father, and he saved me from the bastard who wanted to marry me because of a lost bet, and he also saved me from myself.
Lycan showed me what love is. He allowed me to delve into my desires, to live out my fantasies in a safe place. And he offered me my own heaven. Beside him.
“You really did save me,” I whisper once more, disbelief lacing every word.
He doesn’t respond, merely nods. His hands don’t leave me. They remain glued to my curves. It’s as if he can’t let me go, even if he wanted to. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”
This time, he does respond, “Because I needed your father to tell you the truth.”
And that’s when I realize, unlike my grandmother, I made the right choice.
29
Lycan
Horatio Bardot has always been a no-good bastard. But seeing him whimper about his transgressions makes me angry. The pretty gray eyes that are currently locked on me calm me somewhat, because if she wasn’t here, I’d probably do something I’d later regret. And that’s not who I am. I regret nothing in my life. Taking Scarlett wasn’t part of my plan, I didn’t set out to steal or buy her from her father.
The contract was a choice, the right one it seems. I needed her safe, away from Miles, who is old enough to be her father, and the lying, cheating asshole who is actually her blood. Both men are sadistic in their tendencies, and even though I’ve given her pain, it’s always come with pleasure.
“I tried to make sure you saw your twenty-first birthday, and I made sure Miles couldn’t come for you later on. He’s not a good man, not even by a long shot,” I tell her, knowing she’s already come to terms with being my wife, but this has solidified her feelings. I knew there was a small inkling of doubt in her mind. I could see it in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she tells me, a soft, calm whisper. When she turns around again to face her father, she steps closer to him, and instinct tells me to keep hold of her, but I don’t. I allow her to take a stand for what she needs. My girl is strong. She can handle herself; she’s proven that time and again.
When she reaches him, she stops, right in front of the man who bargained her life away. The bitter truth is, she’s better off, and I’m proud to have her bear the Shaw name. Scarlett shocks me when she grips his shoulders, lifting onto her tip toes, and gifts her father a kiss on either cheek.
There’s symbolism in the action.
Also known as
