The Female Hybrid Everyone Hated Chapter 06

The Female Hybrid Everyone Hated Chapter 06

How ridiculous.

Twice in one day I had tried to kill myself and both times I ran into someone I had once tried to win over.

Was the world really that small?

I walked without direction, my feet carrying me away from the ruined ritual circle, away from Aldric’s unreadable eyes. The woods were quiet around me. Dawn was breaking cold and grey through the trees and I was so tired I could feel it in my bones.

“You know,” Claire said conversationally, “you’re building quite the collection of failed attempts.”

“Claire.”

“I’m just observing.”

“Observe quietly.”

Footsteps behind me sounded nearer, steady but unhurried. Catching up without rushing.

I didn’t turn around.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at Rose’s wedding?” I asked, my voice flat, my eyes fixed on the path ahead. “Celebrating with everyone else?”

“I wasn’t in the mood.” Aldric fell into step beside me, his jaw tight. “Needed air.”

Oh that right. He had feelings for Rose too. Everyone did. It was practically a requirement for existing in this world. Today was her wedding to the Lycan King and here was Aldric – powerful, controlled, the most decorated healing warlock in the territory – wandering the woods at dawn because he couldn’t stomach watching it.

At least we had that in common.

“What were you doing performing a binding reversal in the middle of the woods?” he asked. His voice was clipped. Restrained. Like he was holding something back with both hands.

I said nothing.

“With Brian,” he added, like that detail personally offended him.

“That’s my business.”

“Did you know I’d be nearby?” His tone shifted – something sharper underneath it now. “Is that what this was? Another attempt to get someone’s attention? To win back sympathy?”

There it was.

I had heard different versions of that sentence from different mouths over twenty-five years. Fake. Manipulative. Seeking attention. After a while the words stopped landing. They just became noise.

“Yara. He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. His eyes were dark and furious and something else underneath that I didn’t have the energy to name. “Yara, can you please come up with a new act? This fake unstable routine is getting old

His words didn’t even hurt anymore. I’d heard them so many times.

He always said my unstable connection was fake.

But I really was unstable and now depressed. Why couldn’t he see that?

When someone doesn’t love you, does everything you do become a lie?

I didn’t answer. I stood up and walked away, already planning my next attempt in my head.

Maybe I looked too broken. Maybe something in my eyes scared him.

I stepped around him.

He grabbed my arm.

Not roughly – but firmly. The grip of someone who had made a decision and wasn’t changing it.

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“You just attempted a soul severance ritual at dawn with the least qualified warlock in this territory.” His voice was dangerously quiet now. “You don’t get a vote.”

His healing quarters were on the upper floor of the warlock stronghold – clean, sparse, smelling of herbs and old magic. He sat me down like I was a problem he was solving and immediately began running diagnostic spells over me, his hands moving with practiced precision, his expression thunderous the entire

time.

He didn’t speak for a long time.

Neither did I.

“The tension in this room,” Claire murmured appreciatively in my head.

Go away Claire.

“Absolutely not.”

“The ritual didn’t complete.” Aldric said finally, not looking at me. “Your binding is intact. Both threads.” He paused. “You’re lucky I got there when I did.”

“Lucky. I repeated flatly.

His eyes snapped to mine. “What would you call it?”

“Unlucky,” I said. “I would call it unlucky.”

Something crossed his face – fast and uncontrolled, gone before I could read it properly. He turned away and set down his instruments with more force than necessary.

He was angry. Genuinely, barely contained anger. And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out who it was directed at.

“Both of you,” Claire said helpfully. “It’s directed at both of you.”

I ignored her.

Aldric moved to the window, back to me, arms crossed. “Your unstable connection.” he said carefully “it

“Don’t,” I said.

He stopped.

“Don’t ask me about my unstable condition.” I looked at my hands in my lap. “You told me it was fake. You told me I was manipulating you. You screamed it at me with Rose in your arms and told me to get out.” I kept my voice even. “So don’t ask me about it now like it suddenly matters.”

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

Before he could respond the door opened.

Tyson walked in first. Still in yesterday’s wedding clothes, dark circles under his eyes, expressions already curdling the moment he saw me. Behind him came Dorian – the Lycan King himself, tall and imposing, his fated mate bond apparently not enough to keep him from answering Aldric’s summons.

And behind Dorian, half hidden in his shadow, her silver hair perfect and her eyes wide with practiced pretentious fear-

Rose.

That bitch, she was a snake, both deceiving and manipulative.

She saw me and pressed herself back against Dorian’s arm immediately, like I was something dangerous. Like I was the threat in this room.

“Yara, what exactly is your problem.” Dorian’s voice was cold. He looked at me the way you look at something you’ve already decided about. “Do you really have to pull everyone into your dramas? Today of all days?”

“For God sake It’s her wedding day,” Tyson said, jaw tight, nodding toward Rose. “And here you are making it about yourself. Again as you always do, acting selfishly and seeking attention.”

“Haven’t you hurt her enough?” Dorian said.

“I just wanted a happy wedding, I can’t believe it’s all ruined” The pretentious bitch just had to speak up.

Damn I nearly almost drew out my claw to rip her throat if not that matters will get worse.

Rose made a small wounded sound and I watched three grown men shift instinctively toward her like she

was made of glass.

I looked at each of their faces. Tyson’s contempt. Dorian’s cold dismissal. Aldric standing by the window stili ( and furious and giving me nothing.

And Rose – Rose who was watching me from behind Dorian’s arm with eyes that were perfectly wet and perfectly calculated, then she revealed to me a corny cruel smirk she hid instantly.

Twenty-five years.

I had given twenty-five years to this world and these people and this impossible mission and it had ended with all of them standing in a room looking at me like I was the villain of a story I hadn’t even chosen to be

I felt it then – the thing I had been holding down all day.

It moved up through my chest like a tide.

My hands started shaking first. Then my vision split – gold bleeding into the edges of everything, my wolf side clawing upward, my vampire instincts spiking cold and sharp underneath it.

I hadn’t lost control of my hybrid nature since I was a child. I had spent twenty-five years keeping it locked down, keeping myself small, keeping myself manageable so nobody would have another reason to fear me.

I stopped holding it down.

My eyes blazed gold. The temperature in the room dropped sharply. Every candle flame bent sideways at once. Dorian took an instinctive step back. Tyson’s hand went to where his wolf strength lived. Even Aldric moved – just slightly, just one step forward, like a reflex he hadn’t approved.

Rose pressed further into the corner.

I looked directly at her.

“What if I told you,” I said, my voice coming out strange and layered everything you believe about me is a lie?”

–

wolf and vampire both – “that

Nobody spoke.

“What if Rose was the one who hurt me?” I let the gold burn in my eyes. “What if she hired a rogue to give those marks into her own body – and then told all of you it was me? What if I told you I was the one those rogues assaulted, almost raped and killed me?”

The room was absolutely still.

Rose’s perfectly wet eyes had gone very wide.

Not with fear.

With something that looked a great deal more like calculation.

“Wow.” Claire said quietly in my head, all the amusement gone from her voice for once. “Now it gets interesting.”