Fated To Three, And I Broke Them All

Verity:

He looked furious as he approached me. I could see the muscles in his neck bulging. His eyes had darkened, as though he were ready to unleash his wolf.

"Where is he?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes at me.

I couldn’t understand what he was doing here. I even took a step back, staring at him in confusion.

"Where is the lycan?" he pressed, leaving me even more confused.

"How did you know there was a lycan here?" I asked in a soft, gentle voice.

Not because I was pretending to be gentle, but because I was genuinely at a loss for words. Something had simply frozen me in place.

Then he pulled out his phone and held it up for me to see.

That was when I realized that, when I’d sent the video I’d recorded back at Roman’s condo to O, I’d accidentally selected multiple recipients, sending it to O and Ragnar at the same time.

That explained why he was here.

"Oh," I gasped, placing a hand on my chest.

"Wait, you weren’t sending it to me?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in confusion, probably wondering who else I could have been sending it to.

"I thought I was sending it to Jaguar," I uttered, quickly coming up with a lie as I hyperventilated.

"You were sending it to Jaguar and not me?" he repeated.

I did a double take. Shouldn’t he be more worried about the lycan instead?

I mean, he had been when he arrived. So why was this random gossip more important now?

"The lycan," I reminded him, pointing toward the woods and bringing his attention back to what mattered.

Ragnar followed my gesture.

"Go sit in my car," he ordered, unbuttoning his coat.

"There’s no need for all that," I replied, pointing at his coat.

"Excuse me?" he questioned in his low, husky voice, leaning down to hear me better.

He got a little too close when he did that. I gulped and cleared my throat before pointing back toward the woods.

"The lycan is dead," I uttered, taking a deep breath and meeting his eyes again.

He kept studying my face as though trying to understand what I’d just told him.

"The lycan is dead," he echoed.

Then he straightened and strode toward the woods like a giant.

I hadn’t even thought about that part.

What was I going to tell him about who had killed the lycan?

There was no way I was giving him the Fox King’s name.

If the Fox King didn’t want anyone to know about him, I wasn’t going to tell anyone.

So while Ragnar was gone, I climbed back into the car and pulled out the same pocketknife I’d stolen from Roman’s apartment.

I took it out of the plastic bag and opened it, staring at the dried blood on the blade.

Then I moved quickly, knife in hand, and headed into the woods after Ragnar.

But he didn’t know exactly where the lycan was.

I did.

I reached the body before he did, and the moment I saw the severed head, my heart nearly stopped.

The lycan’s head appeared to have been caught mid-transition, half of his face still human and the other half lycan.

I closed my eyes and stepped away from the head before quickly stabbing the pocketknife into the severed neck.

I wasn’t sure how convincing it would be, but it was going to be my truth, and they would have to accept it.

Then I stepped back.

"Here! He’s here!" I shouted.

Ragnar appeared almost immediately, as though he’d been close to finding the body himself.

Frowning, he approached the severed head and nudged it with the toe of his shoe, studying it before giving it a small kick.

Then he moved to the body.

He crouched beside it and tilted his head at the pocketknife before turning to me.

"You killed him?" he asked.

I anxiously rubbed my hands together.

Back at Roman’s condo, there was evidence that could be used against me, along with all the plans I’d been making.

Roman had gathered quite a lot of information while stalking me.

"I—I’m not sure," I stammered, bringing my hands to my head.

"One second, I’m running from his condo—." I began to hyperventilate, deliberately dragging out what came next.

I took a deep breath and swallowed.

"I’m in a cab, and then the cab driver, he’s saying these things about me—" I glanced around, deliberately rambling. "A knife in my hand— a lycan— his neck—"

I let the rest dissolve into incoherent words.

Ragnar immediately stood and rushed over, grabbing both of my hands when he noticed my knees beginning to give out, or rather, when I pretended they were.

"Calm down. We can talk about it later," Ragnar reassured me.

But I let my body sink. He tried to hold me up, but I went completely limp in his arms, allowing my head to fall back and my hands to hang loosely at my sides.

We stayed like that for a moment. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking.

Then he suddenly grabbed my right hand, pulled my arm over his shoulder, and hoisted me onto his shoulder.

Once my head was hanging down his back, I lifted it just enough to watch the lycan’s body grow smaller and smaller as Ragnar carried me out of the woods.

He carried me toward his SUV, then lowered me onto the back seat. I felt him pull his coat over me, covering me up to my chest.

Then I heard the car door slam.

I opened my eyes just a little and watched him standing outside as he pulled out a cigar and lit it.

He stood there with his hands on his hips, surveying the area before marching over to the cab driver’s car.

I guessed he examined it for a while because I eventually saw him heading back toward his SUV. I quickly squeezed my eyes shut.

He got into the driver’s seat but left the door open as he dialed a number.

"Theodore, bring in the warriors. We have a monster dead in the woods."

He paused.

I could feel his eyes lingering on me. I wasn’t sure whether he was watching me through the rearview mirror or had turned around to look at me.

Then he spoke.

"And a passed-out beauty in the car."

The word "beauty" was almost unrecognizable, so quiet that even I had to wonder, Did he really just call me that, or did I imagine it?