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 stretched as she slowly opened her eyes. She felt like death warmed over, and her whole body ached as if she had been in a fight. And she desperately needed a shower and to brush her teeth.She shot upright as it all came back to her and then swore when the first thing she saw were the two wolves that lived with Ezekiel—the one called Derek and his blond, blue-eyed friend.They were sitting on chairs at the foot of the giant bed and looked angry.She looked away quickly when she remembered not to look them in the eyes.The wolves said nothing, but she could feel their gazes burning through her. Why were they here? Where was Ezekiel? This was the second time she had woken up in his house when he wasn’t there. Flashes of something flittered through her mind. A beast of a wolf with red eyes. Darkness all around them.She looked back up at the wolves and asked directly.“Where’s Alpha Michelson?”The Beta frowned but didn’t answer, and that worried her. Ezekiel had done something ter
Ava’s attention was pulled to the administration building the moment Derek stopped the car. Students walked around or stood in groups as they waited for their lessons to start, and nothing seemed amiss. Did she have an appointment with the Dean? No. He had refused to see her again and cancelled all her appointments.“What is it?” Derek asked.She shook her head as she undid her seatbelt.“It’s nothing. I just feel like I forgot something important,” she answered.“What else do you feel?”The blond one asked this. She frowned. Was he asking how she was feeling healthwise? Or mentally? Because mentally, she was spiralling, and she couldn’t anchor herself.“Nothing,” she shrugged.“No pain?”“A little pain. Which is weird because I normally wake up fine.”She hadn’t thought of that. Jared’s stuff must have worn off now, which meant she had to be extra careful in training.Derek looked away, his eyes glinting as if she had just told him some bad news.“How is this even possible? It will
Ava sat by herself while she waited for the coach to arrive. She ignored the others, even Emily, as she stared blankly ahead of her. There was an ache... a hole in her chest. Like something had been taken from her in that forest that she would never recover again.She should have listened to Mr Patrick, but she had been desperate—and she was still desperate. She could feel death looming over her. It would only be a matter of time before Claire succeeded. “Ava Morgan!”She was startled when she heard her name and looked around to find the coach had already come in, and the others had already started the warm-up.“If you are still sick, you shouldn’t have come back. I will not tolerate your laziness. Everyone participates in my class!” the coach snapped.She didn’t look him in the eye today. It wasn’t worth it. She could only get her head around one fight at a time, and the fact that the coach hated her wasn’t at the top of her list. She slowly got off the bench and started slowly jogg
Before Derek even parked the car, Ava had sunk into this depression that she couldn’t understand. She felt like the further they had driven away from the main buildings, the bigger the gaping hole in her heart became.The tears were back on her face as she walked into the house.“Are you in pain?” Derek asked quietly.She shook her head. Her body still hurt, but her mind was stuck in this terrible place; she couldn’t register the pain unless she paid attention to it. She forgot about the conversation she intended to have with the wolves as she forced her stiff body to move up the stairs.“This is your room.”She looked back at the Beta, who appeared to have followed her up at her pace. She had been heading straight for Ezekiel’s room without thinking, but of course, that wasn’t allowed here. With a nod, she walked back towards him and through the door he held open. The room was much bigger than she had expected, but it was nothing like Ezekiel’s and probably the other wolves. A doub
Ava looked out of the window in her dorm room. The sun was still out, and she couldn't see anything besides the woods. But she could feel Zeke there. Her door opened, making her turn quickly, but it was just Emily returning with her bags. Training had been strange. Claire and her friends hadn't made a single move. Besides the initial snarl when she walked in, the session had gone without incident. Her new coach, Coach Henderson, hadn't targeted her like Coach Baxter, so she had stayed in the background the whole time. She'd sparred with the vampire Max, so even that had been stress-free. But all it had done was make her a little anxious about when Claire would attack. Would it be another ambush?"Shall I pack this away for you?" Emily asked. "No!"What was wrong with this wolf to make her so eager to be someone's maid?"Thank you for collecting my things, but we need to talk now," she said as she finally walked away from the window and sat on her bed. The room was still empty. It
Zeke was still struggling to stop himself from going on a bloody rampage when he sensed he wasn't alone. He looked over at the lake to calm himself. It really wasn't Mr Patrick's fault, he knew that. But still, he wanted to rip his head off."Calm down, Zeke," Mr Patrick said from somewhere behind him. "Don't tell me to calm down. I should never have listened to you. To either of you."Ava's father was the first to come down to the bank and stand beside him as he looked over the water. Ava was going to kill him for this but damned if he was going to send away the only other person there who would lay their life down for her."And what was your plan?" Alpha Morgan asked. "Charge out of here and protect my daughter out there alone? Try to outrun the Council?"Zeke snorted."I think we all saw that she doesn't need protecting," he growled. "But none of that matters if she doesn't talk to her wolf, Ezekiel," Mr Patrick said. Did he want her to talk to her wolf? At this point, he wasn
Ava came out of the Administration building, and the first person she saw was Zeke. She had felt him there even before the guards opened the doors for her to leave. She made her decision the moment she saw the way the guards stood at attention with their hands on their weapons, ready to hurt him. Zeke's eyes were red, and his fists clenched at his sides. He stood like a statue, but she could sense the danger emanating from him as if one wrong move would end everything. She knew he'd been waiting to save her. He would put himself on the line if she were in danger. She'd condemned him to her fate. She lowered her gaze and started walking down the steps. "I'm fine," she told him quietly. "No, Ava. You're not 'fine'," he growled. So she wasn't hiding it as well as she thought. "I will be," she said truthfully. Whatever was going to happen next was her fight. Zeke needed to stay out of it to stay safe. At least he would have a chance that way."What did he want?""I've been removed
Ava closed her eyes when she felt Zeke's pain mixing with her own. "Move."The guard behind her nudged her, causing her to stumble, but she righted herself quickly and continued walking down the hallway. "Faster, human," the guard said, and then he grabbed her arm and half pulled, half dragged her the rest of the way.This was no school. The Council could dress the academy up all they wanted, but it took more pride in the training than the academic side. And now, with the Council soldiers manhandling students, there was no way they could hide it.When she entered the dean's offices, Penelope was already looking right at her. She wasn't typing and ignoring her as she usually did. Her allure felt different. It was still strong; it still drew her towards the woman, but it didn't feel threatening. Penelope looked at the guard who came in beside her and then at his tight grip on her arm. And that was when she felt the full force of the vampire's nature."That's unnecessary. Let her go,"
Zeke sat on the bench in the Quad, watching the seven students standing in the middle of it. They weren't talking; they just stood there as if they were waiting for something. Or someone. He tilted his head and focused on each of them. Their wolves were still there, but he could barely sense them. So, did that mean they couldn't shift anymore?The Council had found them when the dean and his guards had failed. Dead or alive? That was what he couldn't figure out. What the hell had been done to them? And was this Ava's doing or the Council? Claire turned her head to look at the building behind them. Then they all turned. Shadow snarled inside him because he knew what they could sense. Ava. Ava was in that building, still in her lessons, and her heart pumping away. Terrified. He had been tracking her all morning, on the verge of shifting at any little thing, waiting to run to her aid the moment she needed him. If she needed him. He pushed thoughts of the forest out of his mind and
Ava felt all the eyes on her as she made her way to her Needlework class. It was back to the same old rubbish again.Only it wasn’t the same now. Over the weekend, she’d gone and got mated, then beat the crap out of an Alpha, and to top it all off, she'd willingly walked into the darkness of the forest. She was not the same person as before. Instead of shoving her, they were moving out of her way. She couldn't be sure whether it was because they had heard what she had done or they had seen her holding hands with Zeke. However, she didn’t think Zeke’s dad would have publicised what she had done to him. But none of that mattered now, anyway.She’d felt something in her chest the moment Claire and her friends had walked in.The first had been the brief joy when she had realised that she hadn’t killed them. She wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t have to hand herself in to the Council.Then came the feeling of dread. The darkness she felt was coming to claim her had been coming from those stu
Zeke pushed down his emotions as much as he could, but Ava could clearly sense some of them. She'd been looking at him since they'd woken up. He hadn't expected Mr Patrick's plan to work at all. He'd thought it would be exactly like the last time when he'd felt her pain and run into the forest raging. But instead...He looked down at the woman sitting next to him and felt like going back home to hide away. Like what Shadow was doing. He hadn't heard anything from the beast since they'd had their heart broken. But it wasn't Ava's fault. He had to keep reminding himself of that. He sensed Ava's fear seconds before he smelled it. The stench of death and decay. The stench of evil darker than anything Shadow had hidden in his soul. His beast unfurled and paid attention. Something wasn't right.This thing was coming closer to the assembly hall. For Ava? For him?And then he caught a scent that he had thought he would never smell again. It was just a hint as if it was fading, but it was
Ava gasped for air and clawed at her throat as she sat up. Something was squeezing her throat, making it hard to breathe. The darkness was inside her. She could feel it. "Shh. It's okay. You're okay." She felt Zeke's warm, hard body against her bare back as his arms circled her. The relief was instant as she greedily inhaled and exhaled deeply. Zeke's large arms tightened around her as he brought his lips down to her mark briefly. The security she always felt in his arms failed to ease her mind. There was danger all around them, danger inside them, and she didn't think she would ever feel safe again. But still, her breathing evened, and her heart rate lowered. Zeke didn't need to say another word, but her body relaxed as if the nightmare hadn’t happened. "My dad?" she asked."Gone. I did what you asked," Zeke said. Her heart squeezed again. She would have wanted a better goodbye. If the pain she’d felt all over her body was anything to go by, her dad would have been traumatised a
It was almost lunchtime when her father returned. She had been on her way downstairs to eat something when Alpha Morgan knocked the broken door out of the way and marched in.She stopped when he noticed her and her heart squeezed in her chest. Her father was in pain. She could sense that as if her wolf senses were helping her, even though she still couldn't feel anything different inside her. "They're all over the boundary," her dad said. "We have to find a hidden place to cross into the forest."He was still saying 'we'. She walked down the rest of the stairs and went into his arms. When his arms tightened around her, she felt him tremble a little, and her heart broke again. This could be the last day she saw her father.But he would have to go. When the car came for him to take him to the airport, he would leave alone. He had the boys and the whole pack to take care of. She'd had the entire morning to come to terms with that. It was the only way. "I will go into the forest, and