Bullied Mate Of The Lycan Kings
Chapter 49

Lily's POV

Maybe I should have just called Rhea and Chelsea downstairs was my first thought as I raised my shaking hand and touched the side of Ren's busted lip with a cotton swab.

He let out a quiet hiss of pain, his gaze, intent on me. Eyes of liquid gold searing holes into my skull.

I swallowed nervously, practically fighting for my life to stop my hands from shaking so much.

No, I was glad that I was the one cleaning his wounds for him. I was glad that he had come down here straight away to see me and even though my hands shook with an unspoken need that I did not dare voice out, I was happy that I was having this moment alone with him.

His eyes were so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at them and as he kept his gaze on me, giving me what I was sure was a smile of reassurance because even he could see my shaky hands, I wondered if he was reading my mind right now and if he could see that it was the fact that I was in close proximity to him that made my body tremble and quake.

From the way he stood so still, so close to me that his breath fanned my cheeks, so close that I could count his lashes, how he allowed me to clean up his wounds, his hands on either side of me, I doubted that he knew just how much his closeness was affecting me and I was glad.

Finally done with cleaning him up after what felt like hours to me but actually turned out to be only thirty minutes, he helped me down from the counter and I gave myself a mental fist bump for surviving this extreme sport and went to discard the swabs. He had already returned the first aid kit back to the cabinet by the time I came back. I handed him a glass of orange juice and he accepted with a bright smile, taking my hand back in his as we walked back to the living room together.

His golden brown eyes were soft and gentle on me as I sat beside him on the couch. However when his eyes shifted from my face to my neck, his smile disappeared, replaced with bone crushing guilt. I looked down and saw that the collar of the two sizes too big shirt I was wearing had slipped down, revealing the bite marks that Zac had given me, still shining in all of its glory.

He reached out and slipped my sleeve back onto my shoulder, massaging it gently. "I'm so sorry, Lily."

I leaned into his comforting touch. "It's not your fault."

"They're my friends. That makes me guilty by association."

"Ren-" I whispered.

"It's true. If only I had been with you. This wouldn't have-" he paused, eyebrows furrowing at me. "Why're you smiling?"

I bit into my knuckle to hide my smile, shaking my head. "Because we are both very alike when it comes to apologizing for things that we didn't do." I reminded him of the time that I was freaking out and having a panic attack outside the cafeteria, apologizing over and over again for causing problems with Aiden and Zac and even making him leave his girlfriend for me.

"Oh," He answered, remembering the incident, his lips still turned down in an adorable frown.

"You stopped me then and I'm stopping you now. You don't have to apologize, Ren. For anything. I'm happy to have you back in my life."

I clasped my hands together, stopping myself from reaching out to take both his hands.

He has a girlfriend, Lily. A mate.

But I couldn't help but feel warm at how empathetic he was. His powers were a clear sign of how much empathy he possessed. Feeling other people's pain, their joys and emotions in such clear detail, it had to be hard on him.

Ren was not responsible for what Zac had done to me. Neither was he responsible for what Aiden had done to me. I had been foolish to even question his innocence in the matter and that was going to change henceforth. But there was something that I had really wanted to know since the night Zac had drunk my blood.

He was supposed to be a werewolf like the rest of us and I had undoubtedly felt the presence of his wolf in him the very first time we met. So how? What had happened? "Ren?"

"Hmm?" He answered in that gentle voice of his, his voice going down an octave that made my entire body shiver.

I shook my head. I needed to focus.

"Can you tell me what Zac is? How was he able to..." I trailed off, knowing that he already understood what I was asking and when he hesitated, I thought for a moment that he was not going to say anything but instead, he shifted even closer to me and let out a heavy sigh. "You know who the Talaverras are, don't you? What they truly are." He said and I nodded.

It was an open secret, a subject of every hushed gossip that Zac's family ran a deadly mafia that masqueraded as leading socialites in the human world.

"Zac met a girl at one of his parents' numerous charities. Her name was Callista."

I froze, remembering how Zac had looked like he had seen a ghost that very first day and how his face had turned to one of rage when he believed I was Callista and I knew that I would not like where this story was heading.

"She was beautiful, strong and confident and Zac quickly developed a crush on her. He was deeply infatuated and for weeks she was all he talked about with us. We were just fourteen then and she was older by a few years but it didn't matter to Zac. He was in love and regularly snuck out of Shadow Cove to meet up with her and be with her. One day, she lured him into her home and that was when he found out that she was Callista Moroni, the daughter of not just an enemy mafia group but a superior race of vampires." My eyes widened because I knew about them. Every child, every werewolf has been taught about the hierarchy since we were little kids. Besides the hunters, vampires were our natural enemies and we learned all that we could to survive their attacks, know more about them to distinguish them from humans and avoid them if possible.

There were three races of vampires. The Moroi, the born ones, the superior race that descended from the very first vampires that walked the earth. The strigoi, those turned. They were violent, wild and untamed, driven only by bloodlust and desire for c*****e. And there were dhampir. Half human, half vampires. As long as one of their parents is human and the other a vampire, they were dhampir.

The Moroi were said to toe the line between benevolence and necessary evil. They were rich, graceful, ethereal, but they were also calculating, greedy, power hungry and even more territorial than us werewolves. They were wise and strong, capable of thinking rationally and intelligently and because they didn't age as quickly as we do and outlived us, most Moroi were successful and highly influential.

From what I knew, their bite was strong enough to turn others into vampires and they were powerful enough to compel strigoi, werewolves and dhampirs to do their biddings.

Shadow cove did not have vampires to the best of my knowledge so why had they come here?

As if he could see the question in my eyes, he continued.

"The Moronis were new to town and were fighting with the Talaverras for dominance over their territories. Zac was who they saw as the weakest link so they used their daughter to get to him. He was kidnapped and subjected to torture." His fists clenched, his voice broke, "he was subjected to so much torture, Lily. No fourteen year old, no child or human should ever have to go through what they put Zac through. They'd record the videos and send it to the council, placing high demands to let go of Zac. His experience at their hands altered him forever and he still has nightmares about that day."

I swallowed, clenching my shaking fists. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop my heart from constricting at all the horror he was forced to go through. All for greed. Power. Dominance... a piece of land.

"Do you know how Moroi turn humans into vampires?"

I nodded. With vampires, venom flows through their veins as easily as blood. It was a tedious and risky process to turn a person. It involved continually injecting venom into your victim while draining out the blood of the victim, until all their blood has changed to

venom.

The person is killed at the end of the process and they would wake up as a strigoi. Frozen, violent, bloodthirsty and wild, with zero morals and humanity. Heartless in every dark, wicked sense.

"Zac was used as a bargaining chip to get the Talaverras to back down and accept defeat and they had started the process of turning him, amongst other tortures, while he was still with them." Ren added and I could only nod, horrified and speechless. "So he's a strigoi now?" I whispered and Ren shook his head.

"Not completely. His parents found and rescued him before the process was completed, but the damage they had done was irreversible. Regular strigoi cannot go in the sun, enjoy food or water and are driven by bloodlust. Zac isn't like that. He can survive long amount of days without needing blood, although he occasionally needs it in his diet to survive. The sun merely annoys him but doesn't kill him and he ages like his normal self."

A hybrid. Zac had become a hybrid in the worst way.

"But that's where the good part ends." He continued. "Before he was kidnapped, Zac was kind and charming. He cared, Lily. But when he came back..." he trailed off, poking at a loose thread on the sleeve of my cardigan, "he changed. He's apathetic on his good days and downright cruel on his bad days. He bonded with Aiden better when he came back and it was just a very bad time to be their friend at the time. With Aiden intent on hurting people and Zac intent on enabling him." My eyes widened. "D- did they ever hurt you?" I gasped.

"No," he said quietly. "They'd never do that. Zac won't, at least. He's incapable of experiencing emotional or mental pain like sadness, fear or guilt but I noticed that feelings and emotions that persisted after he got turned were stronger than before. Logic, respect, love, loyalty, even hatred. I guess that's why he sticks with Aiden so much. They were friends long before I even entered the picture and he's more loyal to him than I ever will be."

I pondered on everything Ren had just said, wondering if his apology to me in the bathroom had actually been genuine or if he was just playing games. Is he really as cold and heartless as Ren thinks or does he still have a heart after all? Is he so altered that his humanity is completely gone now, or can there still be a piece of him left in there?

"What about the council? The others? Do they know what Zac is?"

"The council does," he answered, "but it's a tightly kept secret from other Shadow Cove residents. Most people know that he was kidnapped by an enemy vampire clan, they know he was lured and tortured by them, but they don't know he was turned and the council plans on keeping it that way. Not everyone would be comfortable with a werewolf vampire hybrid living amongst them. Even though it was not his fault, being part strigoi and living here in Shadow cove should be impossible. The council had wanted to banish him but all of the royal families had vouched to keep him in line."

"Keep him in line?"

"He has to follow the rules. He's only allowed to drink refrigerated blood from blood bags and he's forbidden from feeding on Shadow Cove residents."

He had thrown that rule to the wind with me though and I wondered if I was the only person that he had broken that rule for.

"Has he broken the rule before?"

Ren nodded with an embarrassed look that made me certain I would not like the answer.