Bullied Mate Of The Lycan Kings
Chapter 119

Lily's POV

Immediately I barged into the music room and saw Zac sitting by the piano playing a sad tune, I froze in the center of the room just as the music stopped and he flicked his eyes up to look at me. "Hey-"

He immediately looked away, gritting his teeth hard as if he couldn't stand the sight of me.

Wondering if there was something on my body, I looked down and realized with horror that I had not finished doing my buttons like I thought I had after I ran out of the class room where Aiden and I had... I didn't want to put words to what had happened between Face turning red, I quickly buttoned up and cleared my throat.

us.

"I'd like to stay here for a few minutes," at least until I get my s**t together and form a better plan to escape my psycho mate. "Do you have your phone with you so that I can call Ren?"

His finger came down hard on a key and I gasped as a wave of pain suddenly knocked into me, so hard that I had to brace my hand on the wall to steady myself.

But as quickly as the pain in my chest came, it left.

What the hell?

"No, I don't." He answered, his voice tight. "There's no service up here anyway." He continued, still not looking at me or even bothering to check for his phone.

I could tell that he was lying but I had no idea why and I was about to call him out on it when I heard Ren's voice so clearly in my head it made me take a step back. 'Lily!'

What? How...

And then it hit me. The bond! We share a bond now!

'Finally,' he sighed in relief, 'I've been trying to get a hold on you. Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?'

Suddenly excited to see him again, my heart sparked to life as I tried to communicate my response to him, the same way he had.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the faint link between us as I tried to communicate my response. I realized that the effort it took to send the telepathic message was so hard, I had to hold on to a chair to keep from collapsing to the ground. It wasn't as easy as it looked.

I heard him chuckle lightly. 'Don't strain yourself, love. I think I'd feel it if Aiden hurt you, anyway. Tell me where you are. I'll come get you!'

How does he make it look so easy? I was currently melting my last braincells to send a simple reply.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to focus on the bond again. It was like a white thread that connected us in the attic of my subconscious. I could feel it almost immediately, the small link that was barely established but would grow with time. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I pushed out three words back to him and I cursed harshly for nearly passing out while Ren makes it look so easy.

'Zac's music room.'

His reply was instant.

'Good. Stay where you are. You'll be safe with him. Aiden has the whole ground floor roaming with shadow creatures looking for you but you'll safe in there. His scent should overpower yours. I'll come get you as soon as I can.

I could only nod, knowing that I didn't have the mental strength to send back a response and I could feel his presence retreating as fast it has appeared in my mind.

My cells were catching fire from this one interaction but the moment he retreated, I started to feel even more uncomfortable and panicky even though he had said he was coming to get me.

Even being around Zac didn't seem to help like it had done back at the hospital.

My heart was pounding, a lump in my throat as I clenched my trembling fingers, my skin suddenly feeling alive and hot.

What is happening to me? I need him here. I need him now!

I was going to burst into tears from need.

I shut my eyes and gripped my hair with trembling hands, wondering what had suddenly come over me.

"Lily?" Zac's voice sounded urgent but far and distant. "f**k! Look at me, Lily!" he said, gripping my arms, suddenly in front of me.

I looked up at him, my eyes brimming with tears. My heart felt like a frightened bird trapped in the cage of my chest and I wanted to tear these walls down to create more space, suddenly feeling claustrophobic.

"Come with me," he said, taking my hand and leading me to a couch. He cradled my cheek gently as my body trembled.

"What is happening to me, Zac?" I whispered nervously.

He took another critical look at me before standing up and shuffling around for something.

"You- you bonded with Ren. I believe your wolf is in nesting mode at the moment."

"Nesting mode?" My voice came out as a whine.

Zac chuckled without any mirth. "It's what happens to bonded mates immediately after bonding. Your wolf wants to stay close to your bonded. It wants to drown in his scent and wallow in his space until the bond you share is properly established." He sighed, "it's like how you were with me at the hospital."

"What?" My head snapped up so fast, I nearly had a whiplash. "But I've not- we didn't... did we?"

"No. I'm sorry." He cleared his throat, continuing to dig around the boxes. "Forget what I said. Anyway, Aiden forcefully taking you away from him was not very smart on his part. I heard it's a lot harder on females."

Coming back to where I was, I saw him holding a faded grey hoodie and scarf.

"This belongs to Ren. He used to stay here a lot once upon a time." "Once upon a time?"

"Yeah, well, incase you haven't noticed, we don't exactly see eye to eye anymore," he drawled, using a hand to flick up his charcoal black hair that had fallen over his forehead.

It shocks me that they are... or were once best friends that grew up together. They were so different from each other in every way.

"Lift your arms for me," He said and when I obeyed, he helped me put on the hoodie. He bent a knee before me, so that we were on the same eye level as he wrapped the scarf around my neck.

I immediately sank into the warmth and scent of my mate and I could feel my wolf writhing with joy and my nervousness slowly ceasing.

"Wow. I didn't know it would be this bad," I answered and looked at him for a reply but he just stared at me, his onyx black eyes moving down to my lips before gazing back up to stare at me.

My cheeks flushed, my throat immediately ran dry as I became painfully aware of his delicious scent, his large presence.

"What have you been working on?" I asked, because it was a much better distraction than talking about the weather and he snapped out of whatever he must have been thinking about, looking away with an awkward clearing of his throat. "Nothing really. You should go now. I'm sure the coast is clear."

"Ren wants me to stay here with you."

"Ren is too trusting for his own good."

"You won't do anything to hurt me."

"How do you know?"

I reached out and touched his cheek, a spark sizzling through me at the contact. "I just do."

He swallowed and wrenched himself from me, rising to his feet and walking back to the piano.

At least he wasn't chasing me away.

I rose to my feet and decided to snoop around and my eyes moved to the shelf where books were arranged in a disorganized manner. My heart tugged me towards that direction, my intuition pushing me until I stumbled on a particular book that caught my attention because there seemed to be a picture inside it.

Taking out the book, I slowly pulled out the picture, my heart pounding in my ears... and froze.

The image was me, but at the same time it was not. It looked like an alter ego version of me; a fiercer, more confident version with a sinister smirk on her lips and a beauty spot beneath her left eye.

I knew who she was immediately.

"Is this her?" I asked as I turned around to look at him, raising the picture. "is this Callista?"

His melodic tune came to a stop as his hands froze on the piano when he looked up and saw what I was holding.

His face turned pale as he gritted his teeth and I could swear that I felt pain suddenly taking over my veins and a tightening in my chest like I couldn't breathe. I knew instantly that the pain was not mine but Zac's but how was that even possible? Why was I feeling his pain? And why did every fiber in my being long to put him out of his misery?

Confused by my irrational thoughts but feeling the intense pain, I rushed to sit beside him and gently took his hand.

"The sad tune? And the reason you didn't want me here, the reason you don't even want to look at me... Is it because of her?"

I expected a confession, heck, even a meltdown wouldn't have taken me by surprise. But Zac through his head back and laughed a scathing laugh and just when I was starting to think that I should probably get help, he ripped the picture out of my hand and threw it on the ground before turning around to face me.

"Who the f**k cares about Callista? To hell with the dead, Lily. The only person on my mind, on my every thought right now is you. The fact I even have to spell it out-" he pressed a fist to his lips. "You come in here, smelling of him. The only reason Ren is still walking around with his head intact is because I know my action is going to hurt you a whole lot more but it's getting harder everyday to see you guys together. It makes me wonder why it's him. Why couldn't it be me? At least with Aiden, you can blame fate on that, but with Ren, it's worse. You chose him. Why did I have to cheat to even get you to be with me."

Pain so raw gripped me by my chest. Throttled my throat. Kicked me in my spine.

His pain felt so real I could almost taste it on the tip of my tongue and tears slipped down my cheeks as I held my chest, overwhelmed by the intensity of his emotions without even knowing why.

"I'm sorry-" I said, apologizing, not even sure why I was apologizing. He just admitted to wanting to kill my boyfriend and all I cared about was relieving the pain in his chest. In mine. "I'm so sorry-" "No, baby," he said softly, gently cradling my face and kissing my tears. "No, don't cry. Please don't cry for an a*****e like me."

"I'm sorry."

"f**k, don't apologize either. You've done nothing wrong and I-" he rasped. "I know that you being here feels like nothing to you right now but just this tiny interaction makes me feel alive." He gripped my hand like he was holding a handful of diamonds and pressed tender kisses to my knuckles, my racing pulse.

He held my wrist to his nose and inhaled deeply, like I was his favourite drug and he was quickly getting high. "I have your attention and it feels like I'm on top of the world. Like I'd do anything to keep your eyes on me. You don't even know that you're the center of my universe."

"Please stop saying these things, Zac. Please. I don't think I'm the one you want. The picture-" I whispered but he shook his head with a sad smile.

"Since I got turned, I felt lost. Dead to this world. I didn't care anymore, nothing else mattered. I felt almost nothing. I lived life on the edge and got high just to feel something. Anything."

"Zac-"

"And then you came along and knocked me world off its axis. The first time I saw you was the first time my heart raced since I got turned. It was the first time that I felt my heart beat like that and I convinced myself that it was simply because you looked like Callista. But with everyday that passed, my heart wouldn't stop racing at the sight of you. At the thought of you. You have no idea how many times you've starred in my dreams, duchess. I was losing my mind. And when you were attacked by those beasts, it was the first time I felt pure, unadulterated terror. The first time I understood what it was like to feel for the one you love."

"Do I have to tell you, Lily? Do I really have to tell you how you brought me back to life?"