Divided Territory

Chapter Eighteen

The bubble had to burst eventually.

About ten minutes into the journey, the weight of what Vicky had seen caught up to her and she found herself sniffling back tears, one hand coming up to rub at her eyes, the other pushing back hair from her face.

Being in that warehouse had affected her more than she thought.

Christopher stayed silent, eyes only flickering to her once before he let her release her pent up emotions without his input. Vicky was actually thankful for that- his attempt to give her the space she needed despite the restrictions of the car.

She just needed a moment to deal with everything going through her head so that she didn't implode. What had seemed like an average day at first, soon turned drastically to the contrary. It was the fact that she had watched a woman die. The fact that she had been travelling around with an organisation that had caused that.

The fact that she was a third. According to Mattheus, at least.

The weight of that was especially pressing- mostly because putting a label on the weird things that were happening to her body felt like a step too far. And as well as that, it was daunting to think that she didn't have any control over what would happen to her next.

"Chris?" She looked over at her mate, eyes dragging over the rigidity of his form from where he was hunched over the steering wheel.

His eyes flicked in her direction again, some of the tension appearing to drain out of him as he addressed her. "Mmm?"

"It's over, right?"

They pulled up to a traffic light and he turned to face her when the car rolled to a stop. "Is what over?"

"This whole crazy adventure," she felt ridiculous calling it that. "I don't want anything more to do with Mattheus, or the SRLP."

He sighed, softly. "Yeah. It's over."

The light turned to green and they started moving again.

"And what about the changes happening to our bodies?" She asked him, watching as a line formed in between his brows. "Do you know anything more about that? Please tell me that's over too."

He took a bit longer to answer that question, tapping his fingers against the wheel as he mulled over what he was going to say.

"I- um, don't know, Victoria." He finally admitted. "I probably know just as much as you do. But I hope it is. Over, that is."

Vicky reached for a bottle of water that was laying around in the car, probably Sebastian's, and took a sip to wet her dry throat.

"Yeah, me too."

The car fell quiet again and she shuffled in her seat.

"Well, I guess if there are any more changes, it can't be too bad." She joked, trying to think on the positive side. "I mean the only thing that's really happened so far is that I've developed a fixation with calling you daddy."

Christopher's head whipped to the side and he looked at her in utter shock, barely managing to stop the car from veering sharply to the left as he righted himself.

"You what?"

Vicky had the decency to feel a little bashful. The words had kind of just slipped out.

Somewhere along the line, she had started to feel comfortable around her mate, forgetting that he was still the uptight, highbrow man that she had first mated with.

Oh well. She thought, shaking off the initial embarrassment. She would have herself some fun loosening him up. And anyway, the general uptightness added to the whole daddy vibe he had going on.