Ava took a step back from the venom in Jared’s voice.“I... What’s going on, Jared?”“Alpha Anderson,” Jared corrected with a snarl.Her heart sank as she took another step back. How had she been completely taken in by him? There was no sign of the concerned and sometimes flirty wolf she had dealt with before. So why had he helped her? Why had he given her a room in his house? It hadn’t felt like he was faking it, and her instincts would have been screaming if she had been in danger.“Don’t look me in the eyes when you address me,” Jared continued. “Unless you want to challenge me. And we all know how well you do in a fight.”She looked down and swallowed. She didn’t feel scared of him, just a crushing disappointment that Ezekiel had been right.Jared hadn’t even looked for her after Claire attacked her at his party. He didn’t give a shit.“I’ve come to get my things.”“So you’ve moved from one Alpha to the next?” Jared chuckled. “It’s true, isn’t it? You like to see people fighting o
Zeke closed his eyes as he fought off another mental attack from his wolf. It had been more than twenty-four hours, but Shadow was determined. He kept clawing to get out, and all he could see in his head were the images of blood and severed limbs as Shadow showed him his intentions. ‘I will bathe in that wolf’s blood!’‘And then you will condemn us both to death,’ he argued for the millionth time.‘You have no idea what we are capable of. You’re weak. You are stronger than all of them, but you still hold us to their standards.’‘The rules are there for a reason. We can’t break them just because you think this human is yours.’That made Shadow go on another psychotic tirade that had him gripping the chains tightly even though he could smell his flesh burning.Pain shot through every inch of his body, and the stench of dry and fresh blood assaulted his nose. Every part of him was raw from the heavy chains wrapped and locked around him and the silver bars he was chained to. He could fe
The moment Ava stepped through the tree line, she felt the difference. The darkness was oppressive, pushing at her from all directions, almost like a living thing. Her heart started to pound. Had she made a mistake? But images of Claire’s eyes as she had tried to kill her entered her mind and forced her to begin walking forward.The trees were thicker than any she had ever seen, and their exposed roots looked like giant snakes entangled on the ground. Their long, thin branches looked like arms and fingers, making them look like petrified living creatures. She had never seen trees like this.She carefully stepped over the roots, judging the direction she needed to go. She would walk just far enough to get past the guards and then get out of this forest. Was it getting darker? How was that possible? It was already the dead of night; it couldn’t get darker than it was. She looked up and noticed she couldn’t even see the sky anymore when she was positive that there was a half-moon when s
Zeke didn’t stop running until he was in the house. He was breathless and lost his footing many times but kept his hold on Ava. Derek and Myles had shifted to keep up with him because he was a lot faster than them, even in his human form, but he had no idea how he had managed that with the silver still burning through him. He knew some of it was Ava’s pain through this cursed bond, adding to pain that had already been crippling before he had forced the shift and gone into the forest.Ava looked lifeless in his arms. His heart constricted in his chest when he looked at her pale face and the cuts and bruises all over it, but he concentrated on her heartbeat to calm himself down. She was alive. In pain but alive. Drake and Myles shifted back, and Myles made to take Ava from him, but he growled in warning. Shadow wanted her close. And so did he. Fuck.She could have died. Another minute and even he would never have been able to find her in there. The forest had claimed countless lives si
When Zeke opened his eyes, the first thing he did was look at the little human who was somehow wrapped around him.Someone had covered both of them. When he carefully pushed the bedding off, he saw no bruises on her arms, and a sniff of the air told him there was no fresh blood or infection. They were both caked with dried blood but healing. He was still weak from the silver but could feel he was over the worst.He gently pushed Ava’s hair out of her face and saw that her colouring was normal and the cuts were gone. Was the healing potion the doctors pushed into her body at the infirmary the cause of this? Maybe they worked differently on humans. Whatever the reason was, he was grateful.It was clear to him that their bond had strengthened, for whatever reason. Things had got fucked up too quickly. He had a lot to think about now so he could decide the best thing to do for Ava and himself. Revenge was still number one on his list, but it would never come with this bond in place. “Are
Zeke sat in his car in front of the administration block, still unsure of what he would do. A week ago, he would have handed Ava in with no problems, but now...He’d risked his life for her. That hadn’t been just Shadow’s decision; he had willingly run headfirst into the cursed forest without a thought about his welfare. He hadn’t thought about becoming Alpha or avenging his mother and the other members of his pack that Jared had gotten killed. He hadn’t thought about Derek and Myles, the only members of the pack who treated him like family more than his actual blood. It had been him. His decision. The moment he had known Ava was about to die, nothing else had mattered. Their bond gave him no choice, but that didn’t matter anymore. Even if he rejected her, it was clear that he would still get messed up. She was in his blood. Part of him. She was his. And that was a painful realisation.Only half an hour remained until training finished, and the other students would come out and se
Isolation.The Council called it that like they were in a human prison. But this was a lot worse.Zeke sat in the unnatural darkness—inky blackness that even his superior senses couldn’t penetrate. But it wasn’t the darkness getting to him. His bonds with his pack were dampened, almost as if they had been severed. If his father hadn’t been aware that something was wrong from how he had walked away from their phone call, he would feel this. His pack would feel the loss as if he was dead. Just as he now felt the loss of everyone in his pack all at once.It was a cruel punishment, but it wasn’t even the worst of it. Already, he could feel the invasive, icy tendrils of the magic trying to seep into his mind, into his body. He would suffer less if he kept it at bay longer, but it had only been an hour and he was struggling. He wouldn’t last four days.Sweat poured off him as he gritted his teeth. All the pain he felt from losing his bonds was real, even though, in his mind, he knew they we
Screams. Blood. Crunching sounds. Huge, bloody black paws with deadly claws. Her hands covered with it.Screams. Blood. Crunching sounds.Over and over again. Darkness. An evil, almost tangible darkness all around her.A woman, lying prone in the woods. Lifeless, the same as others around her.A beach. It was so calming, so peaceful. But the darkness bled in, ruining the moment, sucking her back in.Ava shot up with a jolt, fighting the darkness. It was all around her, on her skin, seeping into her body. Her heart was pumping triple times as she fell off the bed and jumped to her feet immediately, still swinging her fists.It took her a moment to realise she was standing in Ezekiel’s bedroom and there was nothing to fight. But it still felt like there was, as if she was drowning in something. Her head felt like cotton wool, her thoughts disappearing the moment she had them. Was she awake? Or was this still a nightmare? Everything had a hazy, dreamlike quality as she looked around the
Ava stayed in the bleachers for all the matches for the beginners to complete. She was just being a coward. Between his matches, Zeke had paced up and down the whole arena, and every time he stopped at the beginners’ section, his eyes burned through her. She’d kept her eyes down even though she was obviously frustrating him. If other people hadn’t heard the rumours about them by now, she was sure his behaviour had made them aware. He was scaring the shit out of everyone. But it was okay. She wasn’t going to be at the arena much longer. She’d won some matches already but would tap out on the next one to avoid winning a spot in the top ten. This day wouldn’t end like the last one.Predictably, the coach called her name first. She ignored Zeke as she went to pick a weapon and chose a very small chain. It could still be deadly in the right hands, but she didn’t want anything that would intimidate her opponent. They’d all been wary of her already during the earlier matches. She hoped t
Zeke stood near the bleachers in his section, his eyes trained on Ava. She looked fearsome with that deadly weapon in her hand and her face devoid of emotion as she waited to cut her opponent down.He would have been very impressed if he hadn’t been so angry with her. Ava looked very confident with weapons in her hands. But as it stood, he wanted to fucking throttle her.Gideon told him that the vampire yielding had not been his doing. The prince claimed to have been just as surprised as everyone else. And, of course, he couldn’t rip that vampire apart because he had taken himself straight to Isolation the moment he had yielded. He would not be able to interrogate him until the end of the day.He still had the vial of Gideon’s blood in his bag, so Ava had not taken that before her last match; she’d had something else. She could have died last night! Who had given it to her? Who did he need to rip apart with his bare hands? She was keeping too many secrets; he and Shadow didn’t like it
Ava slept in her own room and silently made her way downstairs before Zeke woke up. The Omegas were the only ones awake when she went into the kitchen to grab a piece of fruit. She would have breakfast in the dining hall before going to the arena for the second day.The Omegas were just standing around, and the moment she walked in, they tensed and looked down.“What are you doing?” she asked with a frown, keeping her voice to a whisper so she wouldn’t wake anyone up. And why were they lowering their eyes?“Alpha Ezekiel keeps ordering us not to cook, but we have to. We don’t know what we should do,” one of the Omegas said. Samantha, if she remembered correctly. This Omega was usually the one bold enough to answer Ezekiel.“I would do what he says. Prepare your own food and then go to train and get ready for today, or whatever. I won’t say anything,” she said, reaching for a banana. She ate it quickly before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and putting it in her bag. The p
The infirmary. Ava had missed it. As she slowly blinked the sleep out of her eyes, she heard the beeping of the machines and realised she was hooked up to some IVs. The curtains were drawn around her bed, so she knew she wasn’t in a private room this time. She could hear faint moaning from one side of her. It made her wonder what had happened to that poor student for them to be in that much pain because all the students healed quickly, and the Infirmary had their fancy potions to help them.She gingerly lifted herself onto her elbows and looked around, trying to judge the time. The dim lights were on, so it was nighttime, but whether it was still the same day was up for debate. She hoped so. This would be a brilliant time to be unconscious for days so she wouldn’t have to participate in the rest of the evaluation.There was a slight commotion somewhere in the ward, and a female voice saying, “We told you to come back during visiting hours. There are too many patients tonight; you can
“Can we even do that? Can we yield?” Ava asked again as she paced Zeke’s dressing room floor.Her anxiety levels were through the roof, and she didn’t think even Zeke could get her out of this.What the hell was happening today? She'd expected her day to be over by now. She’d expected to be recovering in the infirmary by now or Zeke’s bed, where she usually woke up after something like this. But here she was, about to fight expert fighters—Zeke’s equals who were probably as ruthless as he was.“It’s against the rules. You invalidate all your progress for the term and get a day in Isolation,” Zeke said quietly. She whirled around to face him, horror filling every part of her. Even Jared warned her about Isolation and how it broke someone. Zeke seemed to have come out unscathed, but she knew how much pain he had been in. How could someone like her survive that? And why would anyone do that to themselves on purpose?“Is that vampire crazy? Does he have a history of doing such messed up
The moment it sunk in that she won, she was in Zeke’s fancy dressing room, and her three housemates were looking at her as if she had grown another head. She sat stiffly on a sofa, looking at them as that thought kept going round and round in her head. She won.She beat Douche Dexter.And then something else occurred to her. She was going to have to fight again. She was going to have to fight a student at the advanced level.“What the hell have I just done?” she whispered.Zeke, Derek and Myles looked at each other and then back at her. Goddess knew what they were mind-linking each other, but they all probably also realised she had just screwed herself. There was no way she could fight anyone more advanced than Dexter. That was a death sentence!“How did you do that?” Derek asked.“I don’t know,” she answered, rubbing her temples. “I just got angry, he’s always an asshole... What have I done?” As the adrenaline had worn off, she had expected the pain from his blow to return, but the
Ava walked straight into the ring, and everyone in the arena started to quieten down. She told herself to breathe. This match would be her real test after fighting the beginners, so she had to let all her fear drain away as she had been taught to do. She told herself she didn’t need that vampire’s blood; she could fight under her own steam. In the silence of the arena, with all the students and faculty looking on, she concentrated on counting her breaths so she wouldn’t have an anxiety attack. To be more effective, she had to do what she told Robert that morning. She had to pretend no one else was in this room except her opponent, whoever that would be.As she waited, she started her stretches. She was lucky that she was flexible, but sometimes fear made her body freeze up. That couldn’t happen today. She had no idea how much longer she would be in this school, so she could have just lost all her matches earlier and avoided all of this. But she had her pride. She could admit that. A
Ava hadn’t managed to eat anything, and Zeke sat in the dining hall opposite her, not even pretending to eat. He sat so still as he watched her that she wondered what scheme he was hatching in his head. Would it get him sent to Isolation again? Or much worse?Zeke’s gaze only shifted from her when his body tensed, and he looked at the entrance. Moments later, a group of students entered the dining hall. She recognised a few of them as the vampires who had visited Zeke last night.The whole dining hall quietened down as they stopped to look around. Since vampires didn’t eat solid food, she had never seen any in the dining hall before, and those, in particular, she would have remembered. Like last night, she was struck by how powerful their allure was. Not as strong as the dean’s secretary or the Councillor, but such strength was rare in people so young. Wolves and vampires were natural enemies, even if the Council forced everyone to co-exist. She hadn’t imagined they would willingly i
Ava wasn’t surprised when she heard Coach Baxter’s booming voice calling her name. She met his gaze and saw the cruel smile on the man’s lips. He would enjoy every hit she took as if he was delivering it himself. She stood slowly and lowered her gaze. It was one thing to antagonise the coach during training, but there was an entirely different atmosphere in the arena and hundreds of people watching. She couldn’t openly break the rules. She felt hundreds of pairs of eyes on her as she walked into the wrestling ring and stood in one corner. Silence descended in the arena. She was sure the only sound they could hear was her loud heartbeat. Were they all waiting to watch her get her butt kicked? The whole school had to know by now how many times that had happened in training. Would it be the same now?She risked looking up and then had to look down again. The coach hadn’t announced her opponent and seemed to be enjoying making a spectacle out of her. The other levels hadn’t started yet;