Only Words

Vicky was sitting on a bench in the locker room after gym class, her eyes fixed on the narrow locker directly infront of her. "Aren't you going to shower and change?" Vallant asked as he reached in and pulled out a stick of deodorant.

"There's a lot of...um...men in here." She whispered. She was ashamed that she felt they couldn't be trusted because of what Mathew had done, it wasn't fair to them that she judged them that way.

"Yeah, so?" He asked as she looked at him and blushed. He was wearing only a pair of dark blue jeans and a thick leather belt. He had yet to put on his shirt which was folded neatly in the bottom of the locker he was now sharing with Vicky. Dirty thoughts rushed through her head and she felt something start between her legs, a heat she couldn't understand. He snorted as he sat next to her.

"Um....what if....um.... one of them tries to... you know?" She paled as his body stiffened and his ice blue eyes turned black.

"I would kill any one who dared to try." He growled through clenched teeth. "Then you would have a nice wolf pelt throw-rug." A sinister smile spread across his face and she shuddered as she felt the icy chill, the light over head flickered and suddenly everyone in a ten foot radius backed away.

"Don't joke like that." She said with a shiver.

"I'm not laughing." He said. "I will kill any one who thinks they have any right to hurt you." He had explained that she was his mate and some of the laws that applied to that. In that moment she decided to change the topic and could only think of one way to take his mind off the thoughts that must have been running through his head.

"Will...will you stand outside the stall?" She asked timidly. The only semblance of privacy that the shower stalls offered was a thin vinyl curtain as a door.

"Of course I will. No one is going to bug you in the shower, I promise." He said gently as he handed her his Oldspice body wash.

"Thank you." She whispered meekly as she took the soap.

"Don't thank me for being selfish. I want you to smell like me and one way to accomplish that is for you to use my soap." He explained as he pulled his shirt on. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up." He grabbed her neatly folded school clothes and walked to the showers.

It only took a few minutes for Vicky to shower, a habit she had learned early in her mother's marriage to Adam. It came about when Mathew wouldn't stop picking the lock on the bathroom door as she was bathing. Adam nor her mother would listen to her desperate pleas to make him stop, even when he did it to Ruth they would not believe that it was a problem. As she turned off the water she could hear a conversation between Vallant and a girl she had not yet met.

"What's my name?" The girl asked tauntingly.

"Um....Valarie?" Vallant sounded unsure of his answer.

"Hard to believe that you can't remember your cousin's name. I mean we were in diapers together. Sandra, my name is Sandra."

"Vallant, can you hand me a towel, please?" Vicky whispered to rescue him from the awkward conversation.

"Yeah sure thing baby." He said and passed it around the curtain. She dried off as he repeated something he had said earlier.

"Are you going to apologize to Veronica?" Sandra sniffed and Vicky wanted to slap her.

"Is that the one who thinks she dumped me?" Vallant asked and Vicky was amused by his response.

"What do you mean 'thinks' she dumped you?" Sandra was obviously getting annoyed.

"I'll take that as a yes. Do you want to know why she lasted as long as she did?"

"My guess is that you are going to tell me anyway."

"I don't remember much of our.....'relationship', but I do remember that she had a very nasty habit of acting like the next Luna. Really it was just that she was willing to spread her legs anywhere, anytime, and infront of anyone. Sex on demand." Vicky felt sick to her stomach when she heard that. "However I was trying to break it off with her but couldn't remember her name. That pissed her off. I was breaking up with her because the sex was no longer worth the problems she caused. So to answer your question, no I won't apologize to her. Which is something you can understand, after all you don't apologize to your vibrator when you throw it away because it stopped working." Vicky cleared her throat to let him know she was still there.

"Pass me my clothes, please." She could barely get the words out, but it didn't matter. His wolf hearing picked it up regardless. He passed her clothes through the curtain and she dressed quickly. Once she was dressed she pushed out, using the curtain as a shield when she pushed past him and half ran out of the locker room while letting her hair out of the clip she used to keep it out of the way while she showered. It tumbled in dark red waves around her face, hiding the tears that were threatening to over take her.

"Vicky? Are you okay?" Vallant asked as he rushed after her only to get no response. She merely put the body wash in his locker and fled from the room with Vallant calling after her. She ignored it as she dodged a large group standing by the door.

She was almost running with out looking where she was going when she hit a solid wall and almost fell to the floor. "Whoa! Careful princess." Derik said as he caught her with one arm. He had adopted the pet name for her over the last two days. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?" He asked as she wrapped her arms around his waist and sobbed into his chest. All she could do was shake her head and hope he understood.

"Bring her in here." A vaguely familiar voice instructed and Derik guided her into an almost empty classroom. "There there sweety. Dry your eyes and tell us all about it." She sniffed as she was gently pushed into a seat.

"Vallant..." It was all she could get out before she started sobbing again, this time into her own hands. She could hear someone growling loudly.

"What did my idiot son do this time?" She now remembered where she had heard his voice. Pack management 101. He was the teacher of her first period class.

"He-he-" She hicoughed, unable to explain coherently. Just then the door opened and she heard Adrian half yelling at someone who entered.

"What the fuck did you do to my little sister?" She whimpered and covered her ears to block out the yells.

"Stop yelling, Adrian. You're scaring her?" Vicky could hear the sharp edge to Vallants voice despite the calm way in which he spoke. "Vicky, baby, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong." He begged as he knelt down in front of her and gently pulled her hands away from her face.

She shoved him back and stood up. "Sex on demand." She said coldly as she wiped her eyes and glared at him. "I won't be your personal sex toy and if that's all you want you can go fuck yourself!" She spat angrily and turned to storm out.

"Vicky, baby, please. I don't feel that way about you!" Vallant pleaded and tried to grab her arm before she reached the door. Anxiety began to build inside her as she unsuccessfully attempted to get away from him. Would he rape her? She didn't want to believe that he would do something so horrible but he wasn't letting her leave.

"You said that?!" Egil seemed furious but it didn't matter now as Vicky jerked her arm away from Vallant and kept heading to the door.

"No!" Vallant snapped as he turned to defend himself from the other men in the room.

"Yes you did don't lie about it." Vicky whined and tried again for the door only to be pulled back by Vallant once again. Her breathing was starting to get ragged as she tried again to escape the situation.

"Well yeah I said it. But not about you! Baby please believe me!" He tried to plead again as he once again stopped her from leaving the room. "Please let me explain!"

"How do you justify saying something like that?" Adrian demanded.

"I'm not trying to! I shouldn't've said it. It was only words and I wasn't thinking. But Vicky I wasn't talking about you! I was talking abou-". Panic finally stole all sense she had left in her. Tears were once again running down her face as terror raised a cold fist and grasped her throat. In a moment of pure fear she reacted, cutting off his explanation.

"LET GO OF ME!" Vicky shrieked as her hand flew back and came forward with a loud smack just as someone opened the door. In the shocked silence that followed Vallant looked at her and something unreadable flashed in his eyes. His hand fell limply at his side as Vicky sprinted desperately from the room in blind terror.