Hendrix ✓

62 ★ Just like a dream

     Reaching out, I boldly take his Greek god of a face and turn it to me so I can see him and he can see me.

     "What do you mean?" I press, not satisfied with his half answers. His lips pinch. I realize that he doesn't want to tell me, and that stings a little bit. I release his face, but hold tight to his attention.

     "No more lies, remember?" Cedric thinks it over, and then he sighs again. It's not an annoyed sigh, but a sigh of resignation.

     He grabs a piece of my hair, twirling the curl around his thick finger as a distraction while he explains.

     "No matter what species, there is always a dominant mate. No matter gender or age, whoever is more powerful is the dominant of the relationship." I put two and two together and realize that he is indeed the dominant person in the relationship. Whatever that means. "When two people are mated, the dominant mate becomes extremely protective of their submissive counterpart. It's ingrained in a dominant, not something they can help."

     He glances at me quickly, then gulps.

     "When... if the submissive mate dies, then something very bad happens. The dominant mate that is left alone turns into something that they're not. They have no mind, they will mindlessly destroy everything they can before they're taken down."

     I go blank at those words. They're so final, so grave that I might choke. If I died, Cedric would never be the same again. He would kill, he would go insane. It's so odd, if anything were to happen to me, then everyone would be in danger.

     I remain silent. He takes that as an invitation to continue.

     "I've seen it first hand." He whispers, and he subconsciously raises a hand to touch the vicious scars on the left side of his face.

     He's never told me about what happened to cause the red marks. I've never asked, never pressed him, but now the curiosity is eating me up. He keeps going.

     "It was my Athair. My Father. I was only 11 years old. My Ma was taken captive by an enemy clan of Vikings that Athair had been fighting for centuries. They knew she was his mate, and they killed her as revenge. They didn't know what he would do to them." He stops talking for a moment, staring up at the ceiling like he wishes it would suck him up.

      I don't say anything with words, but with feeling. I run my hands over him slowly and gently, reminding him that I'm here and he's far away from his past as he relives his darkest memories.

     "He slaughtered them all. It was a bloodbath. The trouble is that they were lycans as well, so it was nearly impossible to take them all on by himself. No one knew until that moment how serious a sin it was to kill a lycan's mate, that's why it's illegal now. We're the most dangerous creatures, and the repercussions are lethal. None survived.."

     He moves onward into the story, his voice becoming darker.

     "And then, he came after me next." I suck in a breath, horrified. "I didn't know what happened, I simply saw my Father's shifted form coming towards me slowly. I asked him what he was doing. He didn't recognize me, because he was already gone, leaving a monster in his place. He attacked, one huge slash across my face. It broke something inside of me. I started to shift, my first time becoming a wolf. I hardly knew how to control my body. But we fought, and I won. I was lucky that day. I had a silver sword on my belt, a sword that my Athair made for me to protect myself. Oddly enough, it's the same weapon that ended his life."

      I'm in awe. I couldn't even attempt to say anything right now. It's an awful story, so much pain and so much grief at such a young age. I feel sick all of the sudden, and part of me wishes I didn't know the story. I thought my family had issues.