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“For God’s sake, Victoria, be aware of your fucking surroundings! Shifters aren’t going to attack one at a time!” my dad yelled.
Lying still, I caught my breath, my head threatening to split in two.
Anger simmered in my gut as I raised my head and caught the smirk of the asshole who couldn’t wait to drop in on the fight. Gritting my teeth, I held back my groans and tears as I got onto my knees and looked across the long field of the desert landscape that spanned for miles all around us.
Kyle was beating the shit out of four hunters with little problem. One second, he was taking an upper-cut fist to the jaw, and the next, he had the other guy in a chokehold while forcing the other hunters back with fast and precise kicks to the knees and throat. He was impressive in a fight. Watching him in hand-to-hand combat made me cringe for the other guy every time.
Many of the hunters volunteered to spar with him because they didn’t have to hold back and risk my father’s wrath. They’d rather take a beating from Kyle than deal with my father’s repercussions.
Now, didn’t that say something?
Loud, heavy claps bounded through the air as my father watched my brother. “That’s it, Kyle. You got it. Keep it up.”
For a moment, my heart dropped at the praise he was giving my brother, but it vanished as fast as it sprung.
“Victoria, what the fuck are you doing? Knitting a sweater? Get back at.”
Cursing him out in my mind, I eased back up to my feet as every bone, muscle, and tissue in my body screamed in protest. The pain soaked into my soul, but I used it to accept another round of torture disguised as survival training. If only my opponents were human, then I’d be fine…
Training session after training session, my father never let up. Whatever I gave, he took and demanded more. It was never enough. If I didn’t run fast enough, if I didn’t pin my sparring partner, if I didn’t ace the weapons, he screamed and punished me for not doing better, then pushed me that much harder. Limits weren’t to be respected; they were to be broken. Even then, my father worked and broke me beyond my capabilities.
Over my training, my father became ever colder and angrier. Without Kyle, I never would have survived my father’s rage. When he was at his worst, Kyle stepped in and took the brunt of it. Kyle was his star pupil, the one I couldn’t live up to no matter how hard I pushed myself. To him, I’d never be enough.
My father’s constant disappointment only served to break my spirit further. I was no longer the Victoria of before. I had become nothing more than a shadow of my former self. All at the hands of the one man I should have been able to trust and know he’d have my back—my dad.
For the longest time, I hated myself more for envying my older brother. After all, his transition into a hunter had been so much smoother than mine. He’d progressed in training faster than anybody my father had ever seen. He was proud of his son and had no qualms about using it as a stick to beat me with, constantly comparing my “lackluster performance” with Kyle’s accomplishments.
It took the entire first year of living life on the run to realize the problem wasn’t mine but my father’s. He was an egocentric, manipulative control freak. Whatever good my mother had seen in him had died along with her. I hated him, and if I passed my father on the street and he was on fire, I would one hundred percent walk on by, not even deigning to stop and piss on him.
That didn’t mean I loved my brother any less, though.
During that year of hell, only one person understood what I was going through, and that was Kyle. It wasn’t Kyle’s fault that nothing I did pleased our father, so I never blamed him for my father’s preferential treatment of him. He was doing what he was great at, fulfilling our father’s every demand with flying colors. I was even grateful Kyle was hunter material because with how nasty our dad was with me, I couldn’t bear thinking how he’d have reacted, what he’d have done, if neither of his children fulfilled the family legacy.
I missed my brother deeply, so much so that I had to force myself to forget him and bury my memories of us in a box in my mind. Otherwise, it hurt too much to think about him.
We’d always been close as siblings, but we’d grown even closer during that last year. My brother stayed at my side, working through drills with me or quizzing me. He battled it out with our father on my behalf more times than I cared to count, particularly when I was injured and our father demanded I work through the pain. Kyle didn’t stand for that and would interfere, even though it often meant he’d have to endure his own suffering at the hands of our dad.
Through all that, I had my brother. My hero.
Then the worst possible thing happened, outside of our mother’s murder. My first nightmare of a shift shattered my entire world, and I lost the last connection to my family.
While on the run, I did everything possible to not think about my brother. That’s when I created the little box in my mind that had my brother’s name all over it. I figured he’d probably hate me for being what I was, even though I had no control over it. I had been born that way. It was the only explanation.
After our brief reunion in this very room a handful of hours ago, I knew I was right. My loving, devoted brother thought I was a monster.
It hurt so much more than I’d thought possible, which surprised me because I’d expected it. It hurt even more because I didn’t think of my wolf as a monster anymore. Sure, we were still in the very early stages of getting to know and understand each other. Pushing her down and isolating her from other shifters had only damaged us both. The stunt back at the hospital had shown me a frightening version of my future. I had to work with her and find a balance instead of constantly fighting her every step of the way, or I really would be a monster.
As I struggled through the memories, I realized I also needed to mourn the once-solid relationship I’d had with Kyle. Yes, he’d technically spared me last night, but he’d committed a cardinal sin, one I wasn’t sure I’d ever forgive: he’d taken Ridge. In the depths of my soul, I’d never be able to forgive Kyle if he or any other hunter killed him. If my father even looked in Ridge’s direction…the very thought riled my wolf up. She was desperate to track him and every hunter involved. It took what little strength I had to compel her submission and not force another shift on us again.
As the minutes ticked by, it became clear that no matter how tight I thought I’d shut the mental door labeled “Kyle,” it wasn’t locked. A conversation flashed into my mind from when I’d been nearing the end of hunter training, when it was almost time for me to take the pledge and officially become a hunter. I hadn’t thought of it in years.
My body stiffened as the memory bubbled to the surface…
“Tor, you can’t say anything. I’m not supposed to tell you, but you’re about to be sworn in, so what does it matter whether you know this sooner rather than later, right?” Kyle looked at me with his usual crooked smile and that cocky tilt of his head.
Cocking my head back at him, I fiddled with my water bottle, then set it aside. We eased ourselves into muscle stretches after the training run we’d just completed. I was trying to get my heart rate back under control.
A grin spread across my face as I looked at my big brother. He didn’t always adhere to all the rules the hunters enforced. I wasn’t wholly sure if it was because he was a rebel when it came to rules or if he just didn’t like being told what to do. It didn’t matter. His getting in trouble over it was a constant worry for me, but no matter how many times I pleaded with him, he didn’t stop.
