Victor

by Romi Hart

  She hiked down Lapalco Boulevard to empty country beyond the road. She waited until the traffic thinned out and darted across. Then she set off overland. Once she left the pavement behind, the Quag took over her mind. It infected her with primal dreams of flight and swimming and hunting on the wing.

  She slogged over miles of open land into the thickest woods. Good thing she wore jeans and heavy boots. She plunged in and didn’t stop until she came to a wide lake.

  She squatted down and dipped her fingertips in the delicious silky waves. Lake Cataouatche. The name came to her with no effort. Jean Lafitte National Historic Park stretched into the distance on one side with Salvador Wildlife Management Area on the other. She could just spot Timken Wildlife Management Area across the water with Lake Salvador beyond that.

  She could lose herself out here. She could leave her heartache in Anarock. The Quag didn’t know about her past and didn’t care. She spread her arms, closed her eyes, and inhaled a deep breath. It filled her lungs with possibilities and dreams. It wiped out all the despair and disappointment she left behind.

  She bent her knees, crouched, and jumped. She shot off the ground and a violent upheaval tore her in half. Her body split down the middle and a gargantuan green dragon exploded from her insides. She released the bound emotion she’d been stuffing down the last few weeks. She let her fury and frustration manifest in this monstrosity.

  Her dragon self extended her wings and pounded the air, but she didn’t descend and she didn’t take flight. She arched her powerful, sinuous body and dove headfirst into the lake. She plunged to the cool, dark depths where the outer world dared not venture.

  She skimmed the bottom. Her heightened senses detected fish and gators and frogs and insects all living their lives. They touched the water and it touched them. She rippled her spine back and forth swimming with all her massive strength.

  She shot along the mud for several miles. She reveled in the dark and the muck and the silence all around her. Once, she smelled a large bass undulating through the current. Without thinking twice, she whipped in that direction and swallowed in one gulp. She squirted the excess water between her fangs and kept on swimming. She could swim like this for days and no one would ever find her.

  She whipped her tail to and fro building up speed. Then, just for fun, she shot to the surface, broke the waves, and launched into the air. She soared in a perfect arc before diving again. She burst into a tumult of wild play. If she’d been human, she would have laughed in exultant glee. She was free. She never had to think or worry about Anarock or its people ever again.

  2

  Bryce Griffin sat under a tree and poked a stick into his evening fire. A skinned juvenile gator roasted on a spit. Bryce savored the sizzling hiss of juice dripping into the coals.

  The sky darkened to pinkish-purple colors. Bird songs and insect chirps died all around him. In between tending his fire, he gazed across Lake Salvador toward New Orleans.

  He couldn’t exactly see it over here, but he sensed it. He sensed his brothers and his mother and his sister and all their friends and relatives living their lives while he sat out here alone.

  He prodded the gator for doneness. He always liked gator meat, but after twenty-four hungry hours in the Quag, anything would taste good. He made the mistake of going without food for the last day and night. Never again. He wasn’t dead yet so he needed to eat.

  He set his stick aside and leaned forward to tear off a chunk when, out of nowhere, an almighty geyser erupted out of the lake. It shot heavenward and a huge dragon burst into the air. It vaulted free of the spray and pivoted to land. It changed in mid-air and transformed into a woman.

  She pounced down and landed in a crouch before she noticed him. When she straightened up, she arched an eyebrow and her lips parted. “Bryce? Bryce Griffin?”

  He made a mock bow from the waist without getting up. “The very same. What are you doing out here, Alexa?”

  “I should be asking you the same thing. I thought you’d be in town living it up with the rest of them.”

  He snorted under his breath and lowered his eyes to his meal. He didn’t want to look at Alexa standing there so tall and beautiful against the dusky light. She looked ten times more amazing in those tight jeans and dripping t-shirt. She could make any red-blooded man cry with her drop-dead curves and her dreamy dark eyes, but she never gave any man a sideways glance. She never cared for anyone but Victor.

  He waved to one side. “Take a seat. You can join me for dinner.”

  She looked away across the lake. “I’m not hungry.”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t you like gator meat?”

  “I like it just fine, but I just ate.” She fixed her haunted gaze on him. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you out here instead of celebrating your brother’s nuptials? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you almost look like you’re out here feeling sorry for yourself.”

  He leaned his head back against the tree bark. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  Bryce braced himself. He didn’t expect to have to explain himself to someone this soon. He thought he would have at least a month or so to dwell on his new state before he met anyone who might talk to him.

  “What, Bryce?” she insisted. “What haven’t I heard?”

  “Victor threw me out. He banished me from Anarock. Anyone who sees me can kill me with impunity. If I ever set foot in Anarock again, he’ll hunt me down and kill me himself. He said so in front of the whole assembly.” He cocked his head to study her. “You were there. You were at the ceremony.”

  She looked away again and shifted her feet. “I left as soon as it ended. I couldn’t stay and watch…. that.”

  He bent over his fire and stirred the embers. “Yeah, well, it happened after that. After everyone pledged their loyalty, my turn came. He could have killed me then and there. Malachai said he should, but he let me go instead. So here I am.”

  Alexa observed him in silence. He didn’t have to look up to know what she was thinking. She was checking out his hair that he shaved close to his scalp as a symbol of…. of what? Of mourning? Of penance?

  That wasn’t why he did it. He did it to mark his new status as a ghost, a pariah, a non-person in the sight of all New Breed. He was walking dead, a zombie without a home or a family. He was nothing.

  When she spoke at last, she murmured in an undertone. “Why did he throw you out?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know that, either.” He leaned back and propped his elbow on his knee. “I thought everybody knew.”

  “Well, I don’t. I’ve been out of the loop since Victor came back with that….” She cut it off before she said it.

  Bryce’s head shot up and he gaped at her. “You too?”

  She shrugged. She kept casting longing glances over the lake toward Anarock and home. The stars came out over there. At least one other person in this world sensed the same gnawing ache he did.

  “I just don’t want to…. you know…. I don’t want to see him with her. It hurts too much.”

  “So you ran away?” he asked. “I understand how you feel. I wish I had. I wouldn’t be in this mess now if I had.”

  “I didn’t run away. I just… left.”

  He frowned. “Is there a difference?”

  “I didn’t have to leave. I could have stayed. I left for my own sanity.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t want Victor to be happy,” he chided. “If you cared about him that much, you should want him to be happy even if he’s not with you.”

  “I don’t want Victor to be happy. I want him dead.” She glanced at him and lowered her eyes. “Sorry. I shouldn’t say that to you.”

  He stiffened when heard that harsh bite in her voice. Then he shrugged. “Why shouldn’t you? I can’t do anything. I can’t report you if that’s what you’re worried about. You might as well say it to me. You’re not going to be saying it to anyone el
se out here.”

  She looked around again without seeing anything. She kept shuffling from one foot to the other and looking behind her.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested again. “It’ll be dark soon. You might as well spend the night here.”

  She turned her mysterious eyes on him. She studied him for a minute. He blocked out the desire to try to divine what she was thinking. The realm of human thought and emotion no longer concerned him. He dwelt outside.

  Finally, she crossed the last few feet and sat down cross-legged by his fire. The orange glow lit up her features and made her so much more beautiful. She didn’t know how beautiful she was. She never did. She never valued herself. She was always too busy chasing Victor.

  He got busy tearing into the gator. He lifted it off the spit and slid it onto a flat piece of bark he prepared for that purpose. He tore off the hind leg and held it out to her. “Are you sure you don’t want some?”

  She raised her hand and a magnificent smile lit up her features. “I’m sure. You go ahead.”

  “As long as you don’t think I’m being rude….” He sank his teeth into it and the juice ran down his throat.

  Alexa watched him eat. The sky faded until only the fire gleamed in the dark. She didn’t say anything until he finished eating and wiped his hands on a piece of cloth. “You still haven’t told me why Victor threw you out.”

  He didn’t look up. He knew this would happen. Once she heard, she would probably walk away and leave him alone. That didn’t matter. He ought to be alone. He deserved that.

  “Bryce?” she prompted. “Aren’t you going to tell me? A death sentence and banishment are pretty severe. What did you do?”

  “I attacked him during the invasion.” He dared not look up at her. He trained his gaze on the coals. “I challenged him for the Crest while he was fighting the military.”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t make a sound. She just sat there staring at him in silence. An eerie stillness surrounded her and his heart sank. He met up with the one person in all the world who didn’t know what he’d done. Now she knew. Now she would leave him to his fate or maybe she would try to kill him. That would be just flaming fucking perfect.

  She didn’t say anything, though, and she didn’t move. She just sat there by the crackling fire. He dared to steal a peek at her. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you going to tell me how I deserve to be banished or killed for doing something so low and cowardly?”

  “Why would I do that? I just said I wished Victor was dead for marrying some bitch he doesn’t even know when I’ve given him my heart and soul for years. I would probably have attacked and killed them both during the invasion if I had known where to find them. I can’t exactly blame you for doing the same thing.”

  He shook his head down at the flames. “You don’t understand. I didn’t just attack him. I was going to kill him when Pop came out of nowhere and defended him. He jumped in to guard Victor. He was trying to kill me when he got shot in the head. With his dying breath, he ordered Victor to get rid of me. Victor showed mercy by banishing me instead of executing me in front of everyone.”

  She blinked at him. “Is that it? Is that all you’ve got to punish yourself about?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  She shrugged. “So you fucked up. So what? If your father hadn’t jumped in to defend Victor, you might have won and then you’d be sitting in Ogru-Kuche right now instead of him. Either way, he’d still be with her and I’d still be out in the cold, so don’t cry me a river about how Fate done you wrong. You’ve got your whole life in front of you.”

  “You mean I’ve got the whole Quag in front of me with every hand against me. How am I supposed to live with that?”

  “How should I know?” She reclined back and leaned on her elbows. “Maybe you won’t.”

  He snorted again and turned away. “Thanks a lot for cheering me up.”

  “I wasn’t trying to. It looks an awful lot to me like you don’t want to be cheered up.”

  “And you do?” he fired back. “You want to cry over your broken heart and believe you’ll never love again ‘cuz some man married another woman? It’s pathetic. He never deserved you. He never cared a shit about you and you’re too tragic to see the men who would really love you back. You want to drag your tired ass after the one man who kicks your heart into the gutter so you can feel like Fate done you wrong. Don’t give me that shit about how I don’t want to be cheered up. Look at you. You’ve got everything going for you and here you are, miles from home, and you won’t even share my gator that I offered you.”

  She bobbed her head back and forth. “And what man, may I ask, are you referring to that would really love me back? Tell me that and don’t go filling my head full of all kinds of crap about how you would ‘cuz we both know you ain’t but a trifling third wheel.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

  “Oh, don’t play me, Bryce Griffin,” she returned. “I saw the way you looked at her. You wanted her.”

  “Who—not…. not Riley!” His jaw dropped. “You can’t think I wanted Riley.”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding? Do you think I’m blind?”

  “I never wanted Riley! She’s nothing but trouble. Besides, she’s married to my brother.”

  Alexa’s finger shot out and she pointed in his face. “Ha! I gotcha! You just admitted it. You wanted her.”

  “I did not! Shut up!”

  “Is that why you attacked him in the street?” she crowed. “Did you think you would take the Crest and her in the same stroke? Admit it.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” He lunged to his feet. How did she get under his skin so fast? “I never wanted Riley. She’s been a pain in the ass since we first found her. We had to nurse her through the goddamned seizures, for Christ’s sake. She nearly got us all killed. Besides, she…..”

  He halted a few paces away. He had nothing to look at but the black lake spread out before him. The stars winked above his head. The fire’s heat was too far away now and left him chilled.

  She didn’t cackle and poke fun at him now. She sat without saying anything and left him to ponder. Did he want Riley? Was he jealous when Victor hooked up with her instead? That couldn’t be right.

  He heard his voice coming from somewhere far away. “I never wanted Riley. I might have been jealous, but not over her. I was jealous of Victor, sure. Victor gets everything he wants without even trying. Women flock to him. Pop favored him. He’s everything I could never be.” He heaved a sigh getting this out. He never expressed these feelings to anyone, not even himself. “I wanted the Crest, all right? I wanted half the attention from women that Victor gets. I wanted all that attention and the praise and the success. I’ll never get that now.”

  He turned around to see Alexa gazing up at him in the firelight. She didn’t draw away. Her eyes gleamed with inner light.

  He waved his hand at nothing in particular. “I suppose Riley represented all of that. We find some woman floating in the Quag and what do you know? She falls head over heels for who? For Victor. Not for me. Not for Finn or Lincoln or Isaac. Victor. Only Victor. All the women want Victor. Shit, even you want Victor. He’s married to someone else and you still want him. It’s sick. What does Victor have that I don’t have?”

  Her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped. “You? All this time?”

  He couldn’t look at her. He wound up staring out into the trees. “Well, what did you think? You’ve got your head so far up Victor’s ass you wouldn’t know another man if you tripped over him.”

  She gawked at him with her mouth open. “Bryce!”

  He shrugged and hurried back to his place. “Forget it. It doesn’t mean anything. Just forget I said anything. In the morning, you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll both keep on believing that Fate done us wrong.”

  He dropped onto the ground and set to work wrapping up the cooled gator. He bundled it in a length of pla
stic sheeting and stuffed it into his backpack. When he looked up, Alexa was scrutinizing him across the dying fire. “You’re right.”

  “About what?”

  “About me. About Victor. About all the women who have their heads so far up his ass they don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

  He bit back a smirk. “It’s not as bad as that.”

  “It’s not as bad as that because you just told me. Thanks.”

  His head shot up. “What for?”

  She smiled at him and showed all her teeth. “For pulling my head out of his ass. I needed that.”

  Click here to keep reading Bryce…

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Victor. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I did writing it.

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  About the Author

  Romi writes steamy contemporary and paranormal romance with hot alpha rugged bad boys and their strong heroines. You'll love her if you like reading books with passion, love and HEAs.

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  Also by Romi Hart

  Anarock Shifters Series

  Victor

  Bryce

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  Devil’s Flame MC Series

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