by Kamryn Hart
“You’ve been doing a great job with Max so far,” Derek said with a roll of his eyes.
“Willow,” Nick growled, “take your mate away before I lose my patience.”
“You know you love me!” Derek called as Willow grabbed his arm and dragged him in the direction of their house.
Nick closed his eyes for a second as if to gather his thoughts. When he opened them again, they flashed a bright yellow. It wasn’t just Max after all. Something about Ava had everyone a little riled up. Max was the only one having this fit of attraction. The others had their wolves ready to pounce at any moment. It was especially odd since Ava had no reaction to it whatsoever. Her wolf was quiet inside of her. Max could barely sense her deep in the recesses of her soul, but her presence still said wolf… He thought. It was hard to explain the disconnect he was feeling. Her eyes looked nothing more than human, no trace of the animal to be seen.
“We’ll get you set up with a place to stay. Food, shelter, we’ll provide it all while you’re staying here,” Nick informed. “You’ll have lessons with other Awakened Wolves in the morning when our wolves are quieter, easier to handle.”
“Th-thank you,” Ava said with a slight bow of her head. She was trying to act submissive. That much was obvious with the fear tainting her previously pure vanilla scent.
“Our motels are full right now,” Gwen said. “We’ve been expanding continuously but we can’t keep up. You’ll need to stay in the Alpha Den in one of our guest rooms or you might be able to bunk with another Awakened Wolf in one of the motels. Most of the rooms have two beds and one might be available.”
Ava put her hands up and her eyes went wide again with worry. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”
Gwen opened her mouth, but Max cut her off. “She can stay with me.”
Oh, crap. Did he really just say that?
All eyes turned to him. He swallowed and scrambled to save himself. The wolf side of him was pleased, but the human side of him felt this was extremely inappropriate. How the two sides of himself weren’t fighting right now over the difference in opinions and feelings was a miracle. His wolf let him scramble.
“Uh, I just meant I have an extra bed in my room. It’s big enough for two people, but it would be better if one of the guys wanted to bunk up with me and give up his room for Ava.” His face was on fire. He had never been more embarrassed in his life. He sounded as horny and insensitive as Derek. Damn, but he was horny right now. He was hard. He had never reacted to anyone like this. Ava was killing him, wreaking havoc on his body, mind, and soul.
Okay. It was fine. He saved himself. No one would take him up on his ridiculous offer.
“It’s up to Ava,” Gwen said in an even tone.
Max’s mouth dropped open. She wasn’t dismissing what he said about Ava staying with him? What was Gwen thinking? Max gave her a sideways glance, unable to look the Alpha’s mate in the eye. He shredded her mate. Why couldn’t he smell any anger on her? Then again, she was avoiding eye contact with him. She wasn’t over what he did, but that cool head of hers always kept her emotions from getting in the way. What was she planning?
Ava pulled her sweater sleeves from her coat sleeves and started fidgeting with the crocheted seems. She was coming dangerously close to worrying over her fingers the same way. Max wanted to stop her before she could aggravate her wounds any more.
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” Ava reminded. She looked up at Max with… hope in her eyes? “If you want me to stay with you, that means I won’t be any trouble, right? I’ll stay with Max.” As soon as she said the words, her eyes went wide again. She put her hands to her mouth like she couldn’t believe what she had said. Max sure couldn’t.
“I-is that okay?” she asked.
“Of course. I offered, didn’t I?” he replied. Shit. Now he was saying things he shouldn’t be saying. Someone or something had possessed their tongues. The Moon? God, and Max’s right inner thigh was itching like crazy.
My mate. Fated Mate.
“Hmmm,” Gwen hummed as she looked between the two of them. She was studying Max now, and her lips were quirked up into an almost smile. “It’s decided then. Ava, I’ll take you to your motel room. Max will come in a moment.” She took Nick’s face gently in her hands. Her touch was barely a touch. Nick leaned down to meet her lips with a quick goodbye-for-now kiss. Max looked away. Gwen was handling her mate with care because of the near-fatal wounds Max had given him. The devotion she had for him, the love, was powerful.
“Max,” Gwen said his name soothingly.
“Yes?” he answered uneasily.
“I’m not mad.” She pursed her lips. “But I expect more. I know you can do better.”
Max ducked his head, submissive and apologetic. Even his wolf seemed sorry. See how much better you are united instead of divided? He wasn’t united with his wolf, but this was as close as he had ever been. Maybe something big changed. Maybe he’d eventually be able to, “Play nice with his wolf.”
Well, he wasn’t finding out tonight. He wasn’t shifting.
His wolf didn’t fuss. His wolf was content as long as he had Ava. He could feel it. This change was all her doing. And probably the Moon’s.
“I’ll do better,” Max told Gwen. His words were resolved, bold. He would do better, starting now. The doubts he always felt weren’t making him doubt himself for once—wolf included.
“Good.” Gwen nodded her head in approval. She placed a friendly hand on Ava’s back and guided her to the motels. Max didn’t miss Ava looking over her shoulder at him, though. It made his heart flutter.
Nick grabbed Max’s arm, startling him. He pulled Max close and whispered in his ear, “What are you doing?”
“I have no idea,” Max replied honestly.
“Do you really think Ava is going to be safe with you when your wolf is so damn out of control?”
Max flinched. “I don’t know! If you’re worried, why didn’t you stop Gwen from okaying it?”
“Because your wolf isn’t wild right now.” Nick let him go, took a few steps back, and stood still, studying Max. “It’s a fucking miracle, and it’s because of Ava.”
“But it can’t be.” Max’s wolf growled in his throat. Fated Mate.
“Better not to fight it, right?” Nick commented. “You’ve been punishing yourself, Max. Stop. I’m okay. Anyone you’ve ever hurt is okay because you don’t really want to hurt anyone. Listen to your wolf like you were listening when Ava was standing right here. Hell, consider the possibility that she’s the one for you.”
The way Nick said that last part told Max that Nick had absolutely no doubts about Ava being “the one for him.”
“You think she’s my Fated Mate,” Max muttered.
“What does your wolf think?”
Max huffed.
“Everyone could sense the sparks flying between you two,” Nick said matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t sure about her at first, but now I’m determined to make her stay here. She got through to you without trying.”
“What do you mean you weren’t sure about her?”
“She smells… different. Feels different.” Nick shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”
But Max knew exactly what he was talking about—not that he cared. Ava was perfect.
Nick sighed. “I just need you to tell me you won’t hurt her.”
“I won’t hurt Ava.” Max said it easily because it was true. His human and wolf sides agreed wholeheartedly.
After studying Max’s eyes for a moment, Nick nodded his head. “Good. Pretty weird that things ended with Lizbeth the way they did and when they did.”
Max frowned. Willow must have told him all about what happened. “I’m not… I don’t want to jump to conclusions about Ava being my Fated Mate. It feels wrong. Having a mate feels wrong. Thinking about romance at all after what happened and so soon…”
“You’re not human anymore, Max. You never were. Stop trying to be something you aren’t.”
Max bit his bottom lip so hard he made it bleed. He could already feel his body healing the tiny wound, but it didn’t make him feel any better.
Nick patted Max’s shoulder. “Go on. You invited her. She chose this. Don’t keep her waiting. Also, check in with me every now and then. I’ll do the same with you.”
“Right.” Max swallowed hard. “Thanks, Nick. I know I’ve been a pain in the butt. I’ll do better. I swear it.”
“I know you will.” Nick looked in the direction of the motels. “The biggest piece of advice I can give you is not to fight it. The rest is up to you, man. It’s always been up to you. I’m Alpha of Blue Pack, but I can only do so much.”
Max nodded. So, his potential Fated Mate was waiting for him in his motel room. This couldn’t be any worse.
His wolf disagreed. Couldn’t be any better.
Chapter 6
WHAT WAS WRONG WITH her?
Ava followed the Alpha’s mate to one of two motels on the outskirts of town, pretty far removed from everything else with fields of distance between them and other buildings like the farms—except it made no sense to her. Why have motels so far removed from the tighter cluster of buildings she could see in the distance? There was probably a grocery store and a gas station there at least.
Whoa, okay, but that wasn’t the real problem here. She was following the Alpha’s mate to a motel to share a room with a male wolf who smelled like sex. Or… wanting sex. Yes, smelled. She hadn’t the faintest idea of what arousal smelled like before, but with her new… body situation, she learned the smell of a lot of things she never noticed before.
She tried to swallow the persistent dry clump in her throat, but all it did was make her throat drier.
The alpha she-wolf barged into one of the rooms without bothering to knock. Well, Ava knew no one was in at the moment, but why wasn’t the door locked? Did wolves not believe in privacy? Beatrice would have been spitting mad if Ava ever entered her room without permission. But they did have permission, didn’t they? He offered to let her stay with him in this room with two beds.
Max.
Thinking his name gave her shivers. The color of his wolf eyes did too. Were they orange?
Images of the White Wolf flashed in the back of her eyes.
She shuddered and gently pressed her hand to the burner phone hidden safely inside her coat pocket.
“You sure you’re fine with this?” Gwen asked as she set Ava’s meager bag, a bag she insisted on carrying for her, down on an untouched bed. Hers. Obviously. Why did she want the messy bed? Her cheeks heated when she wondered if it smelled like him, a subtle masculine scent that flooded her nose when she stood close to him and shook his hand.
Now her hand was tingling.
And her left inner thigh.
“Ava?” Gwen grabbed her attention as she plopped down on the bed, producing an almost silent squeak. Ava probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it before Beatrice’s experiment.
“Y-yes?” Ava asked.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“I asked you if you’re sure about this setup.” Gwen leaned back, resting one hand behind her as she stretched her back. Her other hand went to her belly, which had a small bulge. That was another thing Ava could smell now, the fertile dreamy scent of a pregnant woman.
Gwen stared at her, brown eyes expectant. Ava didn’t know what to say. She knew what she should say, but her body was revolting against her. It wasn’t the wolf inside her acting up. It was all her.
“Yeah. I’m good with this,” Ava replied. Those were the smoothest words to leave her lips since being surrounded by wolves. She shouldn’t have said that. She should have taken the Alpha and his mate up on the offer to stay in their mansion in a guest room. It would have been a better placement for everything. She would have been sleeping right next to the pack leader.
“Great,” Gwen said with a big smile on her pretty lips. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she wasn’t wearing makeup, and she looked strong, not very womanly. She was beautiful, though. Her skin was flawless, too. Ava felt self-conscious of her scabbed fingers and carefully hid them behind her back.
“You don’t think it’s weird?” Ava asked quietly. She shouldn’t have said that either, but this wolf in front of her was… warm.
“Nope.” She cocked her head. “Relax, girl. You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you. Definitely not Max. He’s the biggest sweetheart. He’s the type who wears his heart on his sleeve, you know? A real gentleman, too.”
“That other wolf… with the black hair—”
“Derek.”
“Yes. He said Max doesn’t have control over his wolf.”
“He’s been having a rough go of it, but we’ve just found the solution.” She eyed Ava like she should know exactly what this solution was. Of course, she had no idea.
Ava nodded her head in a jerky fashion, playing along. She should tell Gwen that she couldn’t go through with this after all. But she didn’t. She tried to blame the wolf clawing and biting at the depths of her soul. Ava was the one in complete control, but the animal inside her was ripped from the wolf shifter she and Beatrice had captured in Florida. She was angry and vengeful. She was nothing but a feral beast, frothing at the mouth. It was disconcerting, but this wasn’t because of the wolf. This was Ava’s fault. She wanted to be close to Max again. She wanted to touch him again. His warmth was something she only imagined being able to feel, but it was real, right there in him, when he touched her.
Her left inner thigh was hurting again, right where the White Wolf tore into her in her dreams. It was foreboding, a warning since she had landed herself in the middle of a wolf pack. She thought her visions would go out of control as soon as she was surrounded by wolf shifters, but he was being quiet. He hadn’t appeared anywhere in the waking world since she arrived. All she saw was a ghost image of him in her memories because she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop worrying.
She was stuck between the worst fear imaginable and the highest form of pleasure. The White Wolf and Max. What did it mean? What was going to happen to her in Moonwatch?
“Max is a good pick,” Gwen informed. “Trust your wolf and the Moon. That attraction you feel for him is important for you and him.”
“A-attraction?” Of course. Every wolf there could smell the heat that pooled between her thighs. Nothing like that had happened to her before, but that was sexual attraction. That was her body reacting to Max. And no one was mad.
She wasn’t used to this. Beatrice was good to her, but it was Beatrice alone. No one else gave her an ounce of positive attention or a purpose to be. But, in the short time since she arrived in Moonwatch, every wolf she met was paying her a lot of attention. They were inviting, talking to her, wanting her to talk back, giving her free smiles, a place to stay… The life of a wolf was warm. The life of a witch was cold.
Her life would return to coldness soon enough.
Beatrice praised Ava for her accomplishment, because Ava was powerful enough to steal a shifter’s animal and use that animal and shifting power for herself. She praised her because she was her little weapon. She hugged her, combed her fingers through her hair—but it wasn’t warm.
No. Beatrice has always been good to you. The only one. You have to capture these wolves. Tame them for her. That’s why you’re here. Besides, these wolves will happily kill you if they learn what you are.
She shouldn’t crave their warmth. Max’s warmth.
She would make this work. She would capture Max’s soul first and make her way up to the Alpha and his mate.
“You’re staring at the wall,” Gwen noted. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, Ava, but we all want to help. You can talk to me or anyone else. Whoever you’re comfortable with. You shouldn’t have to keep your fear locked away—”
“I’m fine,” Ava replied quickly. “Thank you for escorting me here. I think I need a minute to settle in.”
Ava sighed. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She could breathe again in this room. Alone. Alone was what she was used to. The cold was settling back in like the cold from outside was seeping through unseen cracks in the walls.
Her thigh burned. Ava stifled a cry as she dug her fingers into the denim covering her legs, scratching hard enough to hurt her skin. It wasn’t enough relief. She couldn’t reach the source of her discomfort like this. Sitting down on the untouched bed, Ava stripped off her boots, socks, and then went for her jeans. Her tender fingers were burning from how furiously she scratched at her jeans. She had reopened the wounds on her fingertips again. Blood stains were streaked on the denim fabric.
Ava pressed her fingers to her left inner thigh. As soon as her fingers made contact, she drew back in shock. It was like touching a hot stove. She gasped and held her hand to her chest as she looked back at her thigh.
The Moon?
She cautiously pressed her fingers to her thigh again, moving her skin around to catch the electric light above her. Part of her skin shone like a singular scale on a fish, and it was shaped exactly the same as the Gibbous Moon in the sky. It was a reflection of the Moon.
“No,” she hissed as tears stung her eyes.
She dug at the death brand with her jacked up fingers, making a mess of more blood as she succeeded in making angry red marks on her thigh. The White Wolf was going to find her here.
She gasped when she heard the crunch of snow outside of the door. She quickly crossed her legs, covering her bloody thigh, and hugged her hands to her chest, hiding her bloody fingers too. Wolf hearing warned her of someone’s presence, but she still squeaked in alarm when Max opened the door. He looked her over quickly with a latent shock. She didn’t miss the way his pupils dilated and the subtle smell of sex—the need for sex. It sent shivers down to her toes. Max cleared his throat, walked back out the door, and shut it behind him.