Chapter 57 Deadly Honest

Chapter 57: 57 - Deadly Honest

(Yaya’s POV)

Noodle’s gaze slid past me, past the shadows I’d retreated into, and fixed on the entrance. There, Dickhead sat with Nugget. They must have been conversing in their beast language, their eyes occasionally flicking back to us.

Noodle’s forked tongue darted out. Then again. He rose without a word, and approached the two.

Dickhead noticed immediately. Of course he did. He pushed himself up slowly, hands spread open in a gesture of peace, "Kurus—"

The name barely left his lips before Noodle lunged. Dickhead twisted aside, caught the snake male’s shoulder, and they slammed against the hollow’s curved wall. In seconds, Noodle was pinned, Dickhead’s hand pressing against his throat. A sharp punch landed in Noodle’s stomach, forcing a wet cough as saliva and air erupted from his lungs.

"I don’t want to hurt you, Kurus," Dickhead’s intimate whisper reached my ears. "We’re in this together, remember?"

"Mate..." Noodle gasped, struggling for breath. "Mate is rejecting me again...too many males...you are going to make me lose her..."

Dickhead’s knuckles drove into Noodle’s gut. The impact made a dull sound against the curved wall of the hollow. Noodle’s back arched. His pupils expanded, swallowing the crimson irises until they became pitch black.

I couldn’t place the expression on his face. His focus landed on Dickhead, then on Nugget sitting nearby. He bared his teeth, ready to strike. "You...you want to get rid of me..."

He lunged forward, and Dickhead grabbed his wrists, pinning him back against the wall. Nugget moved to intervene, but one look from Dickhead made him freeze. "No, you stay out of this. We’re fine."

Noodle snapped his jaw at Dickhead’s face, but his aim was off, and he missed.

Dickhead clicked his tongue. "Don’t let ancestors cloud your mind. Do you think Precious will ever let you touch her if you lose yourself? She will cut you down."

Noodle snarled, "She will do that anyway! I felt it! Mate bond doesn’t lie! She hates us! She...she wants to be rid of us. Of ME!"

The strain of his voice made my stomach clench. His head turned toward me, but his eyes didn’t seem to focus. The way he held himself and watched the others had changed completely. This wasn’t the Noodle I knew.

"Your mate is not thinking clearly." Dickhead shifted his hips, pressing Noodle harder into the curved wall, dominating the space between them. "You have to be patient with her. The path to recovery is never straight."

Noodle looked at me again. "How to make her well then?!"

"By not listening to Dickhead." I moved from the shadows and drove my shoulder into Dickhead’s side, throwing him off balance as I wedged myself between the two males.

My hands shot out, one palm flat against Noodle’s chest to hold him back, the other braced against Dickhead’s sternum to keep him at bay. My feet dug into the tree’s floor, knees bent in a fighter’s stance, ready for either of them to make a move. "Breathe, Noodle."

"I’m breathing," he replied, his pupils shrinking back to normal.

"Wrong kind of breathing." I touched his chest, tapping lightly over his racing heart. "Let me get rid of the cause of your anger, so you can breathe properly."

I dragged Noodle’s trembling form away from the entrance, then rounded on Dickhead. My kick connected with his chest, sending him stumbling back into the rain. "Go drown yourself, Dickhead. And take Nugget with you while you’re at it. You deserve each other."

I kicked the other one out, not caring if he flew or fell. Monster? I heard them shouting from the outside. Call me a monster; I didn’t care. If I could get rid of them in one go, I’d be the happiest monster on this planet.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a deafening thunderclap. The rain fell harder, as if the heavens were weeping for the two fools I’d just sent out into the storm. Good. I hoped they’d catch a cold, and the cold would kill them.

A low hiss brought my attention back to the hollow.

"Go to sleep," I told Noodle as I lay on the ground, using his tail as a pillow. "We don’t need them. Your ancestors aren’t always wrong, you know? If you feel a threat, it’s probably there. Don’t ignore your instincts."

Noodle curled up lopsidedly around me, his body still trembling a bit from the beating he received. "What about your father, mate? You can’t defeat him, can you?"

Goosebumps rose on my skin at the mention of my father. My thoughts immediately went to how many times I tried to stand up to him and failed. "No."

"Vick said ’if we work together, we can free you’." Noodle continued, revealing all the lies Dickhead told him. "I don’t want to lose you, mate."

He rested his head on my stomach, his hair acting as a blanket to keep me warm.

I looked down at him, seeing the handprint on his neck. "He is lying to you. Dickhead will never go against my father. It will mean his death."

Touching the bruise, I felt the heat radiating from it. "He is using you to get closer to me. Don’t fall for his tricks, Noodle."

He nuzzled against my hand, his eyes half-closed, "He said he doesn’t want to mate you, either. He just... wants to be close to you, like me."

"You are my mate, and you shouldn’t even think about sharing me with others," I said, moving my fingers to his cheek. His skin was cool, like marble.

"You are hard to handle, mate," Noodle said, making me pinch his cheek. "It became easier with him around. I was able to rest a bit."

"Is it your instincts telling you that? Or is it some of Dickhead’s brainwashing? I can’t trust what he tells you." I said, bringing his face closer to kiss his lips.

He blinked, not thinking twice about what he’d say next. "Vick didn’t say it. My instincts did. He is useful. And he can handle you when I can’t. It would be a waste to kill him, mate."

"..." I ended up kicking Noodle out of the hollow as well (without harming him through the mate bond).

Smacking my lips with a satisfying pop, I watched him join the other two fools in the rain, checking whether the lightning had killed them.

Noodle’s honesty would be the death of me one day. He needed to learn when to keep his mouth shut and read the mood.