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
Zeke looked down at the beautiful, fragile face of the girl asleep on his chest. She hadn’t let go of him all night, but that was okay because he hadn’t let go of her either.He didn’t know how she had done it or if she had done it at all. He and Shadow had been so close to breaking. The darkness had started to invade, even with Shadow’s stubbornness. Several times, he had been pulled into his nightmares, watching all his sins play out in front of him like a horror movie. He had felt the pain in his head, all over his body, a pain he couldn’t even describe.And then Ava appeared.The darkness had disappeared in the blink of an eye, and he found himself on the cliffs with his little human mate.Maybe it was Shadow’s longing for her that had conjured her. Perhaps it was his longing.Or maybe it was the little human’s.He pushed her hair out of her face and watched her, memorising everything. Did she even know she had been calling him? Pulling him to her so strongly that she chased all h
The shared bathroom was nothing like Ezekiel’s. It was still spacious and decorated well, but it didn’t have the large clawfoot bathtub that Ezekiel had in his. Her face started burning again at the thought of the Alpha. Last night was a blur, but she remembered throwing herself at him. She remembered the way he had kissed her, the way she had ground herself on his hard body. And then to wake up with her limbs tangled in his...She didn’t know what had come over her. Ezekiel was a wolf, the most dangerous one she had ever met. The aura around him was always dark. He always looked at her with such heat in his eyes that she knew his threat that he would have her in his bed if she didn’t leave was accurate.It could have happened last night.She pushed that thought aside and chided herself for being so foolish. Ezekiel had done nothing to deserve her body.Nothing except save her a few hundred times.She pushed that away again, afraid that if she thought about it, the images in her head
Zeke waited for the phone to ring, but his attention was on the human pacing her room upstairs.‘You almost marked her.’He looked at Derek sitting as far away from him as possible in the lounge. Understandable. This was the second time he’d almost snapped his Beta’s neck.It was true. He had been ready to mark her. Sink his teeth into her and then drop her towel and sink into her. It was taking all his willpower to stop himself from doing that right now. ‘Sorry. Shadow is territorial.’That had been more than territorial. And it was a lie; he couldn’t put this on Shadow. He had been the one who’d lost his temper because of Derek’s timing. He’d been the one who wanted to see his mark on Ava’s smooth skin. He’d been the one who’d wanted to pin her down underneath him. And Ava had been willing.So willing.He looked up again to concentrate on her movements. He could sense what she was feeling a lot more than before, and she was kicking herself for what happened. His little human still
Ava took a deep breath to calm herself. She had chosen to sit with her feet in the pool while she thought of what to tell her family. She didn’t want to lie to them, but she also didn’t want them to know the full horrors of what she had gone through. She had tried to go home to them and failed.And in the process, something had changed. She could feel it. She would never be the same again.Trying to escape had been selfish, and yet she knew she would try again somehow. But she didn’t want her family to come and get her; she wanted all the blame to go on her. Maybe then she could plead for the Council to leave them alone, and she could suffer the consequences by herself.With another breath, she dialled the number. Like the last time she had called, someone picked up straight away.“Ava?”She sucked in a breath.“Hi, Dad,” she said, but she sounded like she was going to cry. She cleared her throat.“What happened?” he asked straight away.“Nothing.”Everything.“I’ve been calling every
Zeke stood on his pool deck and cracked his neck as he sensed his woods. It didn’t matter that the boundary of his territory didn’t extend to the woods. Shadow had still marked his territory, and everyone knew this.There were six of them there—six of Jared’s pack—and they had been watching Ava. They had already started retreating, but it didn’t matter. It had been a long time since he had gone on a hunt.Shadow was already tracking them, ready to be let loose.‘Kill them,’ Shadow growled.‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous,’ he answered as he started to jog.And then he shifted. It took him only an instant when it took other wolves longer. Shadow’s huge paws thundered on the ground, and then he ran toward their chosen prey. They ignored the little animals they would have normally hunted as they tracked the wolves. If he wasn’t mistaken, that scent belonged to Jared’s Beta. He was getting fucking answers from him today. What the hell did Jared want with Ava, and had he realised the truth ab
Ava hid in her room for the rest of the weekend. She had waited in her room, watching from her window to see if Ezekiel and his friends would come back okay. Why had the wolves been watching her? Had Claire sent them? Was it Jared? His threats were still clear in her mind. She had not chosen any side, but it was clear she was now involved in whatever issues these packs had.She’d heard howling and then silence. Ezekiel’s friends had returned alone, but she hadn’t seen him until much later. She’d waited by her window the entire time and still couldn’t understand why she had been so scared for him. But the moment she saw him, she stepped back from her window with her heart in her mouth. Ezekiel had strolled casually out of the woods, naked and with blood all over him.Blood.It was the beginning of another school week, and she still felt the icy fear rolling down her spine. This was the man she had almost mindlessly given herself to. A dangerous man. A murderer?What had he done to the
Zeke watched Ava walk into the First Year block before he turned and joined Derek and Myles.“Are you sure about this?” Myles asked.He wasn’t sure about anything except the fact that Ava belonged to him. “The pack might tell your father. We don’t know who his spies are yet,” Derek added. “The fact that she’s human—”‘She’s still mine,’ he said in the mindlink with a growl.‘And we accept that. We witnessed the bond, remember,’ Derek said. ‘I’m just saying if we don’t have a plan yet, we’ve just put a giant target on her back.’Ava always had a target on her back, but at least now she had his protection. Only the really foolish would even dare.He stopped walking when he saw Jared coming out of his car. He and Shadow watched him as he looked around and then stopped his gaze on them. Shadow growled.Jared’s eyes glowed in anger before he turned away and started walking towards his classes. Shadow didn’t like that. That wolf had sent his minions to spy on Ava, and then he dared turn hi
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;