Virgin Sacrifice to the Last Lycan - Chapter 29: Chapter 29

Justin’s POV
The fight is my favorite part. The adrenaline, the shift, even the possible injuries. My lycan responded well to pain; too well to it at times, but I had to flicker away from the roughness he had come to enjoy with our mate these last few days.
Her scent still marked me, even in this broad, muscular stance. The Game Master had called out his countdown to begin but there was hardly a waiting period. Everything moved so quick, without warning, that the shredding of skin and fur had started long before the fight was intended to.
I undercut my opponent’s underbelly, latching my claws into his side and dragging it down before he managed a swipe in my general direction. It hardly hit at all, marking my wrist without a clear definition of a wound being made.
My head was in a frenzy, my blood burning throughout every pulsing vein as I struck forward, sinking my teeth deep into his back before lifting to create an identical mark. He would enjoy the sight of these scars later on, I can imagine, due to their perfect puncturing symmetry to one another.
This was natural for me, for my lycan, and it was easy to participate knowing another celebration would await my mate and I tonight. I hadn’t even considered to look for her in the crowd but she said she would be here, so I was comforted with that fact long enough to sink my jaw into my opponents throat.
It felt so right, as if it was customary, a daily task, and I stood up to eye the Game Master, wondering why the Alpha King wasn’t around to call this fight as over. It was over too, his gurgling body left twitching at my ankles.
That wasn’t the sole purpose of my pride, though.
I turned and shifted back with minimal ease to embrace my mate, though she never came forward. Everyone was cheering, throwing a fit of a party at my win, but it couldn’t have been much of a surprise. This thing was unbalanced from the start—I’m just glad it didn’t get too gruesome for the likes of my mate to witness.
Though, I continued searching. She continued evading me.
I stopped a jeering, enthralled wolf and his eyes lit up in fear when I looked through him. “Where is Helen? Where is my mate?”
“She was taken to the barracks by the Alpha King’s guards,” he puttered about, his brow knit in an intimidated response. “I thought you knew that. Everyone heard about it this morning.”
“Why?” I snarled, knocking him back a step.
“The murder of—”
I didn’t have the patience, nor did my lycan, ripping through the crowd until I could track her honeydew scent to a level of dark, rusted cells underground. Her blood had been exposed to the air and when I thought I had control, I was rattled with the threat of shifting back into my lycan.
He would handle this situation far worse than I would. I didn’t like having her see me like that, so I swallowed it, as hard as that was, and charged forward to the back edge of the barracks, seeing a whimpering, defeated she-wolf strewn out onto the floor.
I hit my knees, reaching through a gap in the insurmountable amount of chains and locks that kept her trapped away from me.
She looked up at the first inhale of a whiff and when our eyes locked, something horrible transpired between us.
“Who hurt you?” I growled, my voice not mine anymore.
She shook her head, unwilling to speak as she panted off her cries into her palm.
“I didn’t do it,” she assured me, or herself—I couldn’t differentiate which. “I didn’t do it, Justin.”
She broke for the first time in a while.
It was clear she needed to.
Helen POV
I didn’t like appearing weak in front of Justin.
He was the epitome of strength, reliance, and hell, he wasn’t coined The Devil because of his soft emotional woos. It physically hurt to be this sad little she-wolf curled up on a dirty floor when I should have been the doting mate, congratulating her mate on his victory today.
The fact I hadn’t even known the outcome crossed my mind and I shot forward at the sight of blood on his forearm. He recklessly ignored my concern and wrapped me in his arms that just barely made it through the gaps of the cell.
“You’re hurt,” I said, turning over against the bars to grab for his scratched arm. He waved off my focus on that, pinning me to the chains a little too hard for my comfort, keeping me there while I tried my best at composure. “Did—did you win?”
“What does that matter?” he snarled, offended in tone by my question. “Tell me exactly what led to this outcome. Why are you here? Who accused you of murder?”
I felt like that pup I had been when I first met my chained mate, his questions too heavy on my chest for me to answer right away. I sat in the darkness, our roles reversed, his questions only a formality because there was no breaking me out of this trouble.
“I will kill them all,” his lycan cut in, the voice obviously gurgling and furious at the base. “Go sit back, I’m tearing you out of here.”
I refused to release his arms from leaving my body, fighting for them to stay put. With unwillingness, they did.
“Whatever is going on, I’m going to handle it,” he growled, his voice vibrating against my back. “Just compose yourself.”
“Impossible,” I grated. “They are saying I murdered Donna and—” I let my head fall, blood still trickling down my forehead from my fresh gash that sat there. “—and the King says he has proof.”
“Proof? Proof of what?” Justin was snarling again and if I were to turn to face him, I could only imagine his sharp teeth protruding from his gums while foam would fizz at his lips. “This is maddening to have my mate detained—It’s such bullshit.”
“I don’t know what to do, Justin. If The Alpha King says he has proof that I killed Donna, how am I to prove I didn’t? I’ve been with you all the times we haven’t been in the games. They won’t believe my mate; you’re going to take my side no matter the truth or not.”
“The truth is clear,” he snapped. “I will have it known by all.”
He pulls away, as though to leave, but I plead with him to stay. His eyes crease, his fangs retract, and he looks normal, as far as normal can be for his attractive nature, and I press my wound to the bars.
“I need help,” I muttered, unsure how to ask in such a time as this one.
He bit off a smile, no matter how difficult, and grated a light laugh through the hollow hall of cells. “Really, my dearest? Of all the moments to crave my body, this is it?”
I flush pink and turn in humiliation but his hands caught me early on and yanked me backwards, my back slamming against the cell while he used one of his hands to restrain both of mine. His free hand snaked around the bar, brushing my thigh as he pulled it in, his hot breath pressing against my ear.
“Now, I didn’t say you could move away, mate, did I?”
I tensed expectantly. “Medicinal,” I uttered, a true statement apart from the general, constant desire I held for him. “This cut hurts a lot. “
“Then I guess I should heal it for you before we lay waste to this place.”