"What do you want from me?" Zuri hissed viciously at him. She should know no one was sane enough in that family.
She felt sick when she remembered how she fell to his fake kindness and there was time when she thought of him as a brother figure when he came to her and offered a little bit of protection.
"Zuri, don't think badly about me," Liam said, he shook his head and looked at her deeply. "I hold no grudge against you, this is only wrong time and wrong place for someone like us. We need to strive to survive."
"Enough with your bulshit," Zuri snarled at him. "You don't, but I do now."
Only if she could shift into her beast form, she was sure that she could take him down easily. She had fought him in their training and won, of course, unless that was part of his pretense, Zuri was sure she could bring him down even in her human form.
"That is so unfortunate." Liam clicked his tongue and shook his head, the gesture made Zuri wanted to rush toward him and that was what she did.
She rose to her feet and came to him, but Damon stopped her. He was the beta of Alpha Xerxes, but Zuri assumed he was Liam's now.
"Gather yourself, girl," Damon growled at her and pushed her down so hard to the ground. It was hard to fight him when your hands were tied.
"Okay, enough with this, lets get to the business." Archie clapped his hands, he was very impatient to move to their next plan. "You need her to find Chaos? How will you do that?"
Liam had declared that he knew the way to get to that abomination creature, it was only a trial, but Archie was more than willing to try anything just to get his hand on that creature.
"Right, let's go to the business, after you sent all the unrelated people away," Liam ordered Archie again and he loved the look on his face when he had to receive such an order from the creature that hated.
Liam had to let Zuri escape in order for her to join the organization that July led, but all of that actually was a bet.
Zuri could have run to different direction or has no contact at all with these people that related to McKeltar, but he bet to her inclination to close to people, who could give her comfort. It was Zuri's trait that he had learnt for a long time.
Her habit.
"Jasmine, take your sister home and inform the other to take the rest," Archie ordered his daughter to do the job. He didn't want to be bossied around by this nasty creature.
Liam smirked when he saw how Archie held his pride highly. He didn't mind, he had a lot of chance to fool him around later on if this plan worked well.
"Damon, take her to the lake," Liam said and then walked out of the tent.
===================
The length of the shirt that Zuri was wearing only managed to cover half of her thigh and this cold weather like this, even though she was a shifter, it was still a torture for her when she had to walk out of the tent, by only wearing this piece of clothes.
Her legs were numb when she had to walk on the frozen ground, as the cold wind bit her skin. She shuddered, but Damon didn't even spare her a glance, as if Zuri was a burden and he wanted to get rid of her immediately.
Only when Liam came to follow them, after talking a few thing to Archie, he draped a jacket on her shoulder.
"You don't need to act like you care," Zuri hissed at him, but the warm that the jacket made her felt a little bit better.
Liam also got her a pair of boot and knelt down to put them on her feet.
"I can kick you, you know," Zuri warned him, as his face was within her range. If she wanted to kneed him, this would be a perfect position.
"You will not," Liam said confidently and then stood up after he had done put the boot on her feet. "See? You are too kind to attack me like that."
"I will kill you next time."
"I doubt that."
Zuri had her hands cuffed, so Liam put his arm around her shoulder to keep the jacket on its place, but she dodged him and glared at him.
"Stay away from me," she said in dangerous tone.
For a moment, Liam looked at Zuri intently, but then he nodded and didn't try to touch her again. He knew that his plan would leave a big scar on her, but it was necessary for him to do it that way.
"Do you behind all of this? You have all planned from the very beginning?" Zuri asked him as they walked toward the frozen river and she could feel her heart thumped wildly.
"Yes."
Zuri gritted her teeth when she heard that. "Including that night?"
She didn't need to elaborate further about what night that she was talking about, because both of them new, what night it was.
Liam took a deep breath when he replied. "Yes."
"Fuck you!" Zuri was lost it, she could feel all the anger and hatred that she has been trying to suppress, now it resurface again, all the repulsion and the disgusted feeling that crept on her skin, which made her wanted to skin herself, returned.
"Zuri," Liam watched her with impassive gaze, it was hard to tell what he was thinking right now.
"FUCK YOU!" Zuri screamed on the top of her lungs and the air shifted around her. The air crackled and there was a loud cracking sound from the frozen lake.