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
“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 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
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
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 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, unable to process what he was seeing. Ava’s emotions had morphed into something completely different the moment she had seen the Omega. He felt all her anger and disappointment as if those feelings were his own. And he felt her deadly intent.The moment she shouted at the wolf to fight her, even Shadow paid more attention to that tone. Something had washed through his body as they watched Ava expertly pummel the Omega like she was some sort of demon. She looked so incredibly sexy as she committed acts of violence not normally seen in humans. Was it wrong to feel this fire spread through his body at the sight? It felt like his body was no longer his own as he walked to stand outside her ring.Every move she made wasn’t wasted, and it looked so effortless. Ava maintained control so easily that she would put most of the people at the Academy to shame. Her focus was entirely on the Omega. She fought as if she was made for it, as if she was some sort of warri
“That was a very immature thing to do. You’re not children! I will not tolerate such undignified behaviour in my academy.”Zeke only half-listened to what the dean was saying. All he could smell was Ava; all he could feel was Ava. He needed to go for a run to clear his mind before he ruined everything. Ava wasn’t ready for this. She would run a mile from him if he told her, and her running from him when they were in danger was the last thing he needed.Last night, she’d almost died from whatever foolish thing she did, but his anger evaporated during her match as if it hadn’t existed. How could he have forgotten that there was someone among them who wanted her dead? How could he have easily forgotten about Claire and the Council? It was like he’d been mindless, stripped down to his primal nature to focus on one thing only.‘...two days in Isolation, and believe me, I will find out who did it...’The Fourth-Year fire assembly point was quite a distance from the First-Year one, but he co
The Silver Daggers. A bunch of fucking neanderthals who’d dwindled their numbers down before the Council had formed to take them down. Probably the only good thing the Council had done.Psychopaths on the same level as Hansson, with their well-documented kills and torture methods. And they had somehow dug up enough information on his mate to have a recent photo of her and also know which orphanage she’d been at before being adopted. In which world was that the kind of information someone kept to themselves?Shadow growled in his head, pissed off with Ava’s family for the first time since meeting Roland. ‘Let’s go hunt them down,’ he ordered. Oh, that was a given. The only question was how to make Ava go back home. Dealing with Hansson together was one thing. They had been trapped at the academy and had no other option. But he would not willingly let Ava face another asshole like Hansson. He would not risk her life. “Answer me,” Ava said, stepping closer to Nate.“No, I don’t thin
Ava glared at her brothers after she pulled a T-shirt over her head. The boys had accepted shorts and were already eating bowls of meat and vegetable stew that they had been offered. How could they even eat at a time like this? She took her place beside Zeke, and the older woman who’d given her the clothes gave her a bowl, too. She recognised her as the Luna immediately. Audrey had come forward before Nate could tell her anything about the secret they were keeping.When her father first brought her to visit the Moonvalley Pack, she was impressed that the pack's protection fell on all their shoulders equally despite being so traditional in other roles. Her father said Luna Audrey could kick ass as hard as Alpha Barrett.“I’m sorry, Luna. I don’t think I can eat right now,” she said, smiling at the woman.“Your wolf needs to eat,” Luna Audrey said, pushing the bowl towards her. “It’s true, isn’t it? You shifted?”Her reputation as the only human in the Mystic River territory had spread
The air was sharper, and his eyes picked up the smallest grain of soil—as impossible as that seemed. He could hear the smallest critters scurrying under the decomposing matter on the forest floor. His hind legs launched him easily over shrubs and fallen trees while the wind rushed past his face with an almost overwhelming force.His heart pumped with the surge of adrenaline, and below that, the strange, unfamiliar energy. What the hell was this? Nyx hadn’t stopped running since they shifted when they reached the forest. Keeping close behind her, Shadow followed the almost non-existent trail. Even with his stronger senses, Alpha Morgan’s scent wasn’t there at all. And the warriors he’d taken with him must have been some of his best men because they’d hardly left a trail.He’d expected Nyx to flounder a few times because she was still new, but the other half of him hadn’t lost the trail even once. Not that he expected anything different. Even without the strange boost they seemed to
No. No, no, no.Her fault. Why the hell hadn’t she trusted herself?Ava was out of the door before anyone could stop her. The guards had already gathered in the front yard, discussing what was happening. “...they’ve brought the bodies to the morgue. Can’t recognise them...”“...might be the same rogues that attacked the Moonvalley pack...”“...they didn’t make it there, so we still don’t know what’s going on over there...”Her fault.It was Emily and Dexter all over again.She shouldn’t have stayed in the background when she knew she was strong enough to help.“Ava,” Caleb called out as he followed her down the front steps. “I’ve already organised the search party. The trackers are already out there, and I’m going to join them. Stay here and—”“Even now, you’re trying to stop me?” she asked, facing her brothers.“It’s not safe—”“Then tell me why the hell you’ve kept me inside when you know I can help?” she growled.Caleb didn’t look away from her, but Nate, Alex, and Nick glanced a
Ava opened the back door again and glared at the wolf leaning against a tree at the edge of the forest. It was long past noon, and there hadn’t been any word from her father or the people he’d left with. Nyx growled, growing restless. She should have listened to her wolf from the start.Nyx was not very vocal, but she understood her wolf’s emotions perfectly. And it wasn’t helping that something else was simmering just under her skin, ready to burst. It had worried her when she woke, but there were bigger things to worry about now. Anxiety made the wait unbearable.Her father had always taught her to stand up for herself, so whatever rumours were going around about Zeke shouldn’t have made him go to such extremes. It was easy to prove that he was innocent. Why did it feel like she was missing something?That was the only thing stopping her from going after him. The fact that she didn’t know what was really going on. Her brothers were protective but always let her make her own choices.
It was strange to see all four mini Morgans looking at him directly without an ounce of fear. He and Ava sat on one couch while the brothers sat on the massive leather one that ran along two walls of the lounge. They had the same ash-blond hair in different styles and the same piercing blue eyes. Alpha Roland’s genes were clearly superior because he couldn’t see a trace of their mother. Even the judgy expressions were the same as their father’s.“Is this what they teach you in your pack? To disrespect a girl in her own home?” Caleb growled.They’d remained quiet until they herded him and Ava into the house. The rest of the pack had remained at the school, but he could sense some of them coming closer.“I meant no disrespect—”“She’s my little sister,” Caleb interrupted. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”As the oldest and the one who would take charge after his father, Caleb would have been given the same lessons as he had. At least the basics. Did he not understand what a true mate was?
Okay, now that was messed up. Nyx went on alert when all the attention focussed on Zeke, and Ava’s blood started to simmer. “Why are you looking at him?” she asked, finally lifting her head to look around the room.She’d anticipated some backlash once everyone heard the whole story about Hansson but assumed it would die as quickly as it usually did when she caused her father some trouble. It was why she’d not wanted to cause any waves for minor things. But for them to call Zeke a demon and blatantly suspect him of such a heinous crime?“He’s walking around with you, so something is obviously wrong with him,” Riley muttered from somewhere behind her.“As opposed to a wolf who can barely shift and can’t be admitted to an academy where a mere human was accepted?” she growled, not ashamed to hit below the belt.Several gasps brought her back to her senses, and she breathed deeply to calm the storm brewing inside her.The last time anyone had been a threat to Zeke, she’d levelled him in
Zeke glanced back at the women who reminded him so much of Amber and her cronies before allowing Ava to pull him toward several single-storey buildings nestled under the forest canopy.‘Are you sure you don’t want me to take care of them?’ he asked again.Time had already proven that they had to get rid of their enemies before they took things too far. As the future Alpha of his pack, he’d learned that lesson well before his peers. Ava would have to start thinking like a Luna—Alpha?—so the burden of leadership on her shoulders wouldn’t become too heavy to bear. ‘I’m more worried about this damn meeting. Let’s just find out what’s going on.’He could relate to that. After living in fight-or-flight mode for so long, it was tempting to let all the other shit go. As they approached, he sensed that many people had gathered in one of the buildings, and the hum of their conversations drifted to his ears. “Is this where you learned to fight?” he asked aloud. The buildings looked like they
There was something weird in her body. Or could Ava call it that when her whole bond with Zeke was strange? But as the wind blew her red, curly hair and the morning sun warmed her face, she knew something within her had changed. Again.Was it Nyx? She hadn’t been acquainted with her wolf long enough to know if something was wrong, but surely she wasn’t supposed to keep getting stronger. When she marked Zeke and they defeated Hansson, it felt like they were already at the top of their game. But now, something coursed through her blood, a fire that hadn’t been there before, almost fighting with the constant darkness inside her. It was as if, without the threat of death, Nyx was free to be herself and lean into her bond with Zeke and Shadow. Nothing was holding her back now.But there was something else to consider. Something that could have been the cause. Her parents.Alpha Diego was stronger than any wolf she knew, and he’d said his parents had both been like him. The true mate bond ma