Chapter 207: Maverick’s Story - 3

"She said I would be hers forever..." he breathed. "At first, I tried to fight her off, but I was only thirteen. She beat me with this special whip made of silver. I had the marks all over my body..."

Maverick’s hands moved instinctively, one brushing his neck before reaching toward his back. Then he paused.

"Oh, right..." He seemed to remember. "They’re gone."

"Gone?" Aria frowned. She didn’t know everything about werewolves, but even humans knew what silver could do to them.

"My mother took me to the Fae realm to have the scars erased. She said my fathers’ scars were enough for one family and she wasn’t going to let that bitch leave her mark on my body too."

A laugh escaped Maverick then, so completely out of place with everything he’d just told her that Aria stared at him.

But there was something almost morbidly funny about the memory to him. His mother had been furious about those scars, as if Elsie leaving even a single permanent mark on her son was a personal insult Violet Purple refused to tolerate.

Then whatever little humor had entered his voice disappeared again.

"While the scars aren’t physically there anymore, I can still feel them sometimes. Like a phantom limb. Therapy helped, but it can’t erase the memories. Some nights I sleep and I see her." Maverick swallowed. "I relive everything. I’m that small boy, helpless to stop her. Helpless while she does whatever she wants to me."

"But you’re not helpless anymore, Maverick," Aria told him, her voice almost a whisper. "You’re grown now. You’re the all-powerful Alpha Prince Maverick Nightshade. Even if, by some impossible stroke of luck, that bitch ever made it out of prison, she would never lay a hand on you again."

Maverick’s face changed suddenly.

"Who told you she made it to prison?"

Aria paused. A small furrow appeared between her brows.

"If she didn’t make it to prison, then what happened to—" The question died on her lips.

She stared at him as the answer came to her before Maverick ever had to say it. Her mouth opened, but for once, Aria had absolutely no idea how to put what she was thinking into words.

Maverick didn’t leave her wondering for long.

"I killed her."

There was such cold finality in the words that Aria froze. She said nothing. Maverick didn’t either.

For several seconds, they simply stared at each other, his expression unreadable as though he were waiting for something from her.

Revulsion, perhaps.

Fear.

Whatever it was, when Aria gave him neither, Maverick finally spoke.

"I think this is the part where you’re supposed to look at me like I’m some kind of monster. Or maybe get disgusted."

Aria raised her chin and looked him dead in the eye. "And why would I do that?"

"Perhaps because I was the anomaly whose wolf manifested under extreme trauma at thirteen." Maverick’s words were disturbingly matter-of-fact. "And the first thing I did with him was rip a grown woman apart so brutally there wasn’t a single part of her body left intact. The police who arrived after my parents found me couldn’t even keep their breakfast down."

Aria studied him. The detached, methodical way he described it wasn’t accidental. Maverick was trying to scare her. He was laying the ugliest parts of himself at her feet and waiting to see if this would finally be enough to make her run.

Aria understood why.

He had carried what Elsie did to him for years. The nightmares. The phantom scars. The instinctive recoil whenever a woman touched him. And along the way, Maverick had convinced himself that surviving it—and what he’d done to escape it—had made him unworthy of being loved.

A dull ache settled in Aria’s chest.

It made her feel stupid for every assumption she’d once made about him. Back in her province, so many times Maverick had appeared on her television and all she’d noticed was the privileged son of Violet Purple, surrounded by wealth, power, famous parents and everything a person could possibly want. She’d thought his life had probably been easy because she’d only known what the cameras showed her.

She had been so fucking wrong.

Aria wasn’t even sure she could have walked out of that experience with her mind intact, yet Maverick had grown into the man sitting before her. A professor. An Alpha. A man who loved her dearly.

And he genuinely believed this was the part of his story that would make her stop loving him? Was he kidding her?

Maverick did not see her next move coming. Instead of answering, Aria moved, straddling him and locking her legs around him until she was comfortable. Then, with one arm around his neck, she ran her other hand through his hair almost affectionately.

"Good work, Maverick," Aria said, much to his shock. "Give Feral a big thank-you for me as well."

Maverick stared at her, dumbfounded. This was not the reaction he had expected.

"I have a sister named Davina..." Aria said, immediately drawing his attention. "And for her, I’d do anything. If she’d been in your place..."

She didn’t finish.

And for the first time, Maverick saw a ruthlessness in his mate’s eyes that he hadn’t known she was capable of.

Aria’s voice was deadly when she said, "I’m sorry to say this, but you gave that bitch Elsie a quick death."

Maverick blinked. His mate might as well have been possessed.

"If she were still alive, I’d probably hunt her down myself. I once read that having your fingernails ripped off is one of the most excruciating kinds of pain." Her fingers continued moving gently through Maverick’s hair, completely at odds with the words leaving her mouth.

"I’d make sure she understood exactly what helpless felt like. And when she screamed, I’d record it for you so whenever she showed up in your nightmares again, you could play it and remind yourself that she can’t hurt you anymore."

She added with a wink, "For therapy, obviously."

Fuck his life. No one had ever said anything remotely like that to him.

Feral was practically howling inside his head, absolutely delighted by this vicious side of their mate, and Maverick wasn’t doing much better. Somehow, while Aria sat in his lap describing what she would have done to the woman who had abused him, his cock had gotten hard.

It wasn’t the violence. It was her.

His mate who could barely hurt a fly was calmly telling him she would hunt someone down for what they’d done to him. There wasn’t an ounce of fear, disgust, or pity in her eyes. Just fury on his behalf and the absolute certainty that Elsie’s death had been far more merciful than Aria believed she deserved.

Goddess help him, that was apparently a fucking turn-on. And unfortunately for him, she wasn’t done.

"Since she loved hurting children so much, I’d have something special made just for her. Something covered in barbs sharp enough to tear her every time it moved. And once she’d suffered enough from that, I’d have her whipped with silver too. Let her find out what it feels like to have that shit tearing through her skin over and over again."

A mirthless laugh slipped from Aria. "God, there are so many ideas dancing through my head right now."

Any average person probably would have been running for the hills by now. Maverick sat there staring at her with nothing but adoration in his eyes.

"I’d keep her alive through all of it," Aria continued, completely serious now. "Every time her body tried to give out, I’d make sure she survived long enough for the next one. And when there was finally nothing left I wanted to do to her..."

Her eyes hardened. "I’d put her in acid and watch every last trace of her disappear. Flesh. Bones. Everything. Because after what she did to you, I wouldn’t want a single piece of that bitch left to contaminate the earth."

Silence descended between them. Then Aria tilted her head.

"And now that you’ve seen how wicked I can be, I think this is the part where you’re supposed to look at me like I’m some kind of monster." Her brow lifted. "Or maybe get disgusted."

Maverick recognized his own words immediately. Slowly, something dark and heated entered his gaze. His arm curved around her waist, drawing her closer as his voice dropped to a husky murmur.

"Perhaps we fit each other after all."

"Is that so?"

Aria arched a brow before gripping his jaw and holding his face firmly between her fingers.

"Then how dare you think you belong to that woman?"

Maverick went completely still.

The way Aria held his face, the possessiveness burning in those blue eyes and the fact that she was still straddling him after hearing the worst thing he’d ever done, made every instinct inside him surrender willingly.

He had wronged his mate.

"I’m sorry, my love," Maverick said with all the humility he could manage.

Aria’s eyes narrowed.

"You belong to me, Maverick."

A shiver of pleasure went through him at the words.

"I belong to you, Aria."

"These lips..." Aria leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his mouth.

Maverick didn’t move. He let her take it.

"This body..." Her lips left his and traveled along his jaw before finding his neck. "All of you..."

The words warmed his skin. Aria drew back just enough to meet his eyes again, her hand still holding his jaw.

"Mine. Do you understand?"

Maverick’s gaze never left hers.

"Yes, my Queen."

Aria stilled.

"I’m yours," he continued. "Body, soul and mind. Not Elsie’s. Never Elsie’s." There was absolute certainty behind every word. "Yours, Aria. Only yours."

For a moment, Aria could only stare at him.

She had meant to reassure him. To make him understand that nothing he’d confessed tonight could make her afraid of him. But Maverick had turned it around on her, offering himself with such complete devotion that her heart didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

His eyes dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to hers.

"So..." The faintest hint of his usual Maverick returned. "Can I kiss you now?"

Aria’s lips twitched.

"Yes, you—"

She never got to finish. Maverick’s mouth came down on hers.

The kiss was hard, immediate, and filled with everything he’d been holding back since he’d begun telling her the truth. Aria wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her against him.

There was no fear sitting in the back of his mind waiting for Aria to pull away. She knew the ugliest parts now, and she was still here. Still in his arms. Still kissing him. Still his mate. The party could continue without them.

Maverick had everything he needed right here.