Hexed Hearts

by Becca Vincenza

  “Don’t bare your teeth at me, boy. I’m still your Beta,” Keith said with a growl himself.

  I flinched. Keith noticed, and when his eyes met mine, they softened.

  “Come on,” Keith said, his tone gentler now, “let’s find the others. Jonathan, you carry Colette.”

  I turned my head into Griff’s small, thin chest and shook my head. I held onto him as tightly as I could. I didn’t know who to trust, but my gut told me to trust Griffin. He moved his hand into my good one and pulled me from the room.

  The others followed, forming a triangle around us. Johnathan and his son, Teddy, were in front, and Keith behind. I kept looking back, expecting someone to stop us. Griffin placed an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, careful of the arm I held to my chest.

  The farther we went the more I fidgeted. I could smell a hint of outdoors, and I wanted to breathe in the fresh air. I made a small sound and Griffin shushed me. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to see the sun and sky again. I needed to know this was real. My skin felt tight, excitement, and fear that this was too good to be true beat an unsteady rhythm on my heart. My movements became jerky. I hadn’t realized that I’d been crying until tears fell onto my arm.

  John paused at a door. He looked back at us then pushed it open. I breathed in the warm, night air as we stepped out into a large parking lot littered with SUVs. The large vehicles were parked haphazard. None of the men outside were our torturers, but it didn’t stop me from drawing closer to Griffin.

  “Griffin,” a loud voice boomed. The tallest man I’d ever seen strode towards us. He looked a lot like Griffin, but his hair was darker. I stumbled backwards in fear, trying to pull Griffin with me to protect him, but he held steady.

  The man ripped Griffin from me, and I cried. It was like teeth gnashing on something deep inside me. I wanted to fight for Griffin. The enormous man was going to hurt him. But he wrapped his arms around Griffin in an embrace.

  What was happening? While they hugged while the pain got worse.

  “Dad, let go for a sec,” he said.

  “No, son,” his breath caught, “Not when I finally have you back.” He pressed a kiss to Griffin’s head.

  “Dad…” Griffin’s cry was laced with pain now as it wrapped around both of us. Was this simply from us being apart?

  I fell to my knees, crying. Keith moved to help, but Griffin’s Dad had released him. Griffin wrapped his arms around me again. The pain stopped immediately.

  “It’s okay, Lettie. It’s okay, now.” He hugged me, swaying us back and forth. “I’m going to let go, but I’ll be right here. You can grab my hand whenever you need to, okay?”

  I nodded, sniffling. I was worried that if he let go we’d never see each other ever again. He hadn’t left me yet though. Griffin ran back and hugged his dad, whose glance flickered from me to his son with those familiar black eyes.

  “Who is this?” his dad asked, still watching me.

  “Colette,” Keith and Griff answered at the same time.

  Keith had moved closer to me in Griffin’s absence. I drew a little closer, not wanting to feel alone.

  “She was the only female taken, right?” Teddy asked.

  “Yeah. Come on. We need to hurry up and see which pack she belongs with.”

  The men started to move, and I went with them, not wanting to lose Griffin. We went farther into the parking lot. There were more of the tall men. I moved closer to Keith, trying to hide behind his long legs. He looked down at me and shook his head. He turned and scooped me up before I could react. I naturally wrapped my legs around his waist, and gently rested my injured arm between us. My other hand lay upon his firm chest. Keith rubbed my back as softly as he could.

  “Shh, sweet Colette. It will be okay.” Keith’s voice was soothing. I relaxed in his arms.

  “Caine, Bade, Brady,” Griffin’s dad called.

  I peeked to see three large, tall men move towards us. A couple men eyed us, but didn’t move any closer. The one on the far right was the shortest, which wasn’t saying much. They were all extremely tall. The rightmost one was wider than the rest, with bright green eyes and dirty blond hair. He nodded once when Griffin’s dad said his name, Caine.

  “I see you found your son, Isaac,” Caine said.

  “Not only him, but a fair number of your pups.”

  “Who’s she?”

  The middle one who was tall and lanky. His eyes were a muddy brown and watched closely.

  “Obviously not yours, Bade,” Keith said.

  I tried to hide in Keith’s neck. Tears were streaming down my face again. I didn’t know any of these men. They weren’t my father. They didn’t smell like him.

  “No, Beta. She isn’t.”

  “Caine? Brady?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Who do you belong with, little Colette?” Keith asked.

  “She lived with her Dad,” Griffin said, “but she isn’t going back.”

  I didn’t bother to correct him. Daddy wouldn’t let them keep me.

  “She probably misses her father. Didn’t you miss me, Griff?” Isaac asked.

  “No!” Griffin growled loudly. “She can never go back to him.”

  Griffin moved close to me and touched my leg. In Keith’s arms with Griffin’s comforting touch, I never felt safer.

  “Griffin.”

  The tone held a warning.

  “He beats her. And she is mine!”

  The men were silent and watched me closer.

  “Lettie, is that true?” Keith whispered gently.

  I nodded. With that small gesture, a deep protective rumble issued from the men there, collectively.

  “She can’t go back,” Keith said.

  “No she can’t.” Isaac agreed.

  “Then, how do we decide?” Bade asked.

  Decide what, I wondered. My head shot back and forth listening to them. They were speaking but their words went over my head. I fidgeted in Keith’s arms getting frustrated.

  “She’s mine! Why aren’t any of you listening?” Griffin said defiantly. The men turned their stern gazes to Griff. He was slowing petting my dangling leg.

  “You pack-bonded with her, didn’t you?” Isaac asked. Griffin nodded.

  “How could that happen?” Caine said. Annoyance edged his words. I knew what was next. Anger. I heard the same pattern many times before with my father. I pressed my face into the crook of Keith’s neck, trying to hide. Beatings followed anger. And I was so tired my bones felt heavy. I wasn’t sure I couldn’t take another beating.

  Griffin’s father came quickly to our defense.

  “They were together. They broke her arm and who knows what else. They’ve been through hell and back together. What did you expect? If they are pack-bonded, we can’t just separate them.”

  “You would say that, Lupen, since you’d be gaining another female.” Caine growled.

  “You know what it means to pack bond. We don’t know for sure what will happen at this age, in her condition. She could die. These bonds are too rare to risk something happening to her,” Isaac said. His eyes flashed yellow. They reminded me intensely of Griff in that moment.

  “Get your young and get out. The hunters will be back, soon. Keith, keep Colette close. It’s time to leave this hellhole.”

  Keith started walking, and Griffin followed.

  “Don’t worry, Lettie. You’re part of the pack now. You belong to us now. We will love you forever, little one.”

  I had no idea what Keith meant about the pack, but I snuggled closer. His grasp tightened as we left.

  * * * *

  Over the next few days I found out more about Griffin and his people. Werewolves. They were all werewolves, and they said I was like them. Isaac, Griffin’s father and Alpha of the pack, explained werewolves to me. He told me that I had a wolf living inside me, or I should. But it wasn’t until Griffin shifted in front of me that I really believed.

  I stayed with Keith, who took ove
r explaining things to me. Isaac frequently had to leave on pack business. So Keith explained to me that he was Isaac’s second, a Beta. The stronger the wolf, the more dominant the wolf and the higher they were in the pecking order. Keith was always gentle and I learned that no decent dominant would hurt their pack mates. Keith even worked patiently with me to connect to the wolf hidden in my body and soul. It took a while, but I found her eventually. She was quiet. Subdued. The beast within had lost her fire.

  On my fifth night at Keith's, I woke with a whimper. Curled beside me, Griff reached out and patted me in his sleep. It was usually enough to reassure me. Not tonight, though. Since I had arrived I had been sleeping in the same room as Griff. Keith and Isaac refused to jeopardize of our fragile bond. But I was growing stronger.

  One night, when my bones and skin ached and itched, I crept from bed and tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water. Keith's house didn't have rules like my father’s, but I was still cautious. Before I reached the kitchen, I heard voices.

  “I saw the Enforcers came home today.” Keith’s voice was lowered.

  “Yes,” Isaac said, “Our fears were confirmed. It was a rouge. They pried as much information out of him as they could.” Isaac paused. “Colette isn’t his biological daughter. Teddy scented that right away. The man claimed that some wolf had left her with him, never to be heard from again.”

  “Two deadbeat dads and an absent mother?”

  They quieted for a moment.

  “The mother?”

  My ears perked up, hope wiggled its way into my heart. I had never hoped for a mother before. If she was like my father, I didn’t want her. But they made it sound like she wasn’t normal. According to them, the man I called ‘dad’ was not.

  “The rotten bastard had no idea. Anyways, the Enforcers weren’t keen on letting him live too long. Not after what he admitted to doing to that poor child.”

  “Perhaps the mother was human and not the father’s true mate? Half-breeds aren’t unheard of. It would explain why her wolf is so weak.”

  I backed away. The news of my family that had abandoned me made my eyes well-up.

  “What about the other pups?”

  “Safe and sound.”

  Their conversation turned to trivial, unimportant things.

  “And what about him. That creator-damned beast of a man. The warlock didn’t manage…”

  Their voices faded as I started to my way back upstairs without my water. I made it to the bottom of the stairs when I stopped.

  “Crying doesn’t help, remember.”

  Griffin whispered, tapping my arm. I turned around, wondering how he’d gotten behind me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and encouraged me to keep walking.

  “You don’t need them, Lettie. You have us now. You have me.”

  I nodded and stepped into my bedroom.

  “What’s an Enforcer?” I asked softly after he closed the door.

  "They're cool. Our version of police. Alpha's are cooler, though."

  I hid my smile. Griff was only saying that because he was going to be Alpha one day.

  “You need rest, Lettie.” He said pointedly looking at the cast on my arm.

  Sliding into bed, I curled beside him and closed my eyes.

  Chapter Two — 11 Years Later

  “Griff,” I mumbled, pushing him away. He was crushing my arm, which still ached when it rained. Again. The push didn’t wake or move him.

  “Griff!” I pushed harder. Balanced on the edge of my bed, the shove was just enough to push him over. He landed loudly on the floor.

  “Dammit, Lettie!”

  Griff’s mussed haired head popped up above the edge of the bed. He scowled at me as he got back into bed. He had bulked up over the years, and now even the full-sized bed seemed too small with him in it. I didn’t have it in me to tell him to leave, though.

  “Shut up. You’ll wake up Keith,” I whispered, annoyed.

  “Keith is already awake,” Keith said from my doorway. “What the hell are you doing in here, Griffin?”

  I lifted my head to gauge Keith’s irritation while Griff drifted back to sleep again. Keith had aged well, as most wolves do. He barely looked a year older than the day I met him. A day I remember well. Rose, Griff’s mom, joked that Keith I kept Keith young. Except the new grey hairs at his temples. He said those were my contribution.

  “Lettie was having nightmares again,” my new ex-best friend said sleepily.

  I jabbed my elbow into Griff’s stomach, but he only grunted. I sighed. I wasn’t really mad at him.

  With the pack-bond that Griffin and I had formed when we were young, Griffin could always tell when I had those dreams. He and I were tied, but not in a romantic way, like you might think. A pack-bond only forms between two shifters only under extreme conditions, like when we’d been caged. Bonded members give each other strength in times of hardship. Or, in some cases, they can pull each other into emotional weakness. But no one could break a pack-bond. To try would result in pain, like when those men had forced us apart.

  “Lettie, you alright?” Keith’s concern was obvious. Werewolves were always very protective of their own, something I’d never known until after moving in with Keith.

  “After so many years, you’d think I’d be able to let it go,” I said.

  “Can we not talk about it?” Griff said. He had thrown his arm over his eyes and I could see his neck tightening. His teeth were clench together and the muscle in his temple began to tick.

  Eleven years later, he was more handsome than when I’d first met him. At thirteen, he’d already been five foot seven; now, at twenty-three, he stood well over six foot five inches. His chest was solid and his arms thick. His hair had darkened to more black than brown, matching his eyes. He looked so much like his father. Turning more Alpha by the day.

  “You still sleeping, kiddo?” Keith asked.

  I shook my head. There was no way I wanted to return to dreams where men hit me and yelled at me to shift.

  “Then, Griff, get the hell out of my daughter’s bed.”

  Keith’s paternal protectiveness had me smirking as I crawled over Griffin to get out of bed.

  “Keith, you used to let him sleep here when we were young.”

  I didn’t mention that Griff had continued to sneak into my room even after we’d been told we were too old to share a bed. Because Griff was over all the time and his scent was so imbedded in our home. I don’t think Keith never knew.

  “That was different,” Keith said. “What do you two have planned for today? Rose said you could stop by her place to help plan—”

  “No, thanks.”

  Rose wanted to plan my birthday party. Normally, I’d be fine with that. But not my twenty-first birthday. It was a big day for a werewolf... one who could shift anyway.

  “We got pack stuff to do,” Griff muttered into my mattress, coming to my rescue.

  “Going to the mall is not pack business, Griffin. Come on, Colette, I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  I looked at the clock and winced. I’d finally managed to drift to sleep at 2:00AM. And now it was 5:00. No wonder Griff was still tired.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was apologizing for the nightmares or because I still hadn’t shifted.

  “Hey, sweetie, it is not your fault,” Keith whispered, taking me under his arm and kissing the top of my head.

  I nodded and ducked out from under his arm. Despite my hopes to grow taller, I remained short for a werewolf at five feet four inches. Well, I supposed technically three and half inches, but it was close enough to round up.

  “I’m going to shower first.”

  “Put on something other than sweats,” Griff said.

  I rolled my eyes, closed myself in the bathroom, and turned on the shower to let the water warm. While I waited, I twisted my brown hair up to the top of my head. It hadn’t been cut since I moved in with Keith; Rose’s idea. I avoided washing it when I could. It was natur
ally wavy—no curls, just wavy, light ridges that cascaded down—and a bitch to dry. I was convinced that my hair was evil.

  Stepping into the shower, I tested the water, then washed my face. My cheeks were a bit too round in my opinion. Griffin said I was more curvy than anything. Curvy and short with hair that had a mind of its own. I sighed. I continued to wash and finished turning the water off. I stepped out of the shower dried off.

  The dream always brought my doubts to the surface. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my appearance, I did. It was just that I didn’t look like a typical werewolf. That and my inability to shift made me feel...not like a werewolf. I sighed again and dressed.

  * * * *

  “Why do we have to go to the mall?” I asked as Griff put the car in park. Instead of answering me, he flashed me a devilish smile.

  “And, I don’t understand why I had to take my damn sweatpants off.”

  “Because, lazy ass, you haven’t done anything for the past week,” Griffin’s deep voice was filled with humor.

  “I’m not a lazy ass. I just don’t want to be around people.” I shuddered, remembering the dream I had and how it weighed heavily on my mind. I could feel the cold bars…Griffin grabbed my arm that I been absently rubbing. The one they had broken.

  “Colette,” his voice dropped a couple octaves, as he rubbed the back of his neck.

  Using his pack bond, he lent me some of his calmness. I looked up at him and his expression reflected my own tortured look.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  Griff nodded stiffly and turned away from me to look out his window. He was trying to control his breathing. My memories of that awful place upset him greatly.

  “Alright, let’s just forget about it. Liam and Nick are waiting.”

  I groaned. Of course he wouldn’t tell me that those two idiots were coming as well. Since coming to live with Keith, my life had been one big protective bubble. First, there was Griffin. After everything we’d gone through, Griff wouldn’t let any males, aside from Keith and his dad, near me when I’d first arrived. It took a while for him to allow that circle to expand to include Liam and Nick. I loved Keith to death, but saying he was over-protective was a bit of an understatement. Having three big brothers on top of that was suffocating.