“A diamond, dear wolf. A diamond.”
Evangeline tried to pretend she wasn’t hungry, even going so far as to hum to drown out the rumble of her stomach.
She made it maybe three hours.
Her body clock was all thrown off. Night had fallen fully since her captor returned her to the second floor room. It was dark, she still didn’t have any idea what time it was, but it had to have been close to twelve hours since she had something to eat.
At first, she didn’t even feel any hunger; stress and anger and nervousness tended to do that. But as the night wore on and she realized that a dangerous shifter believing she was his mate meant that she was the safest she had ever been—since Maddox would save her from everyone and everything, including himself—her stomach started to remind her that it had been hours since the fateful coffee.
She was starving.
Well, he did say that he was going to prove himself to her. And he had mentioned something about dinner.
So maybe she had thrown it into his face that she would never sit down and have a meal with him. That was back when her appetite was missing. Now? She needed nutrients to keep up her strength if she wanted to try escaping again.
Besides, her ankle was still screaming with pain.
She’d finally given in and taken the aspirin about thirty minutes after he left her alone. It helped a little, but the harsh aspirin wasn’t sitting right in her empty stomach. She’d always had to swallow her painkillers with a meal; going without meant feeling nauseous and weak until it worked its way through. Better than outright pain, but not by much.
Careful not to put her entire weight on her swollen ankle, Evangeline limped over to the door. He promised that he wouldn’t lock it again. She didn’t even bother to check. What was the point?
She banged on the door. “Hey! You! Are you just going to leave me to waste away in here?”
The door knob turned within seconds. Maddox was there, like he’d been waiting out in the hall for just this moment.
“Finally hungry, my mate?”
Ugh. The way he called her his ‘mate’ so easily almost stole her appetite away. It seemed as if he was taking a new approach, too. She was going with acting like the biggest bitch around so that he reconsidered keeping her with him. Maddox? He was all “act like she is his and maybe she will be”.
Yeah, right.
Not gonna happen.
Crossing her arms over her chest, leaning on her good ankle, Evangeline scowled. “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t eat dinner. I just said that I wouldn’t eat it with you. If you’re gonna keep me in here, the least you can do is feed me, you jerk.”
He smiled. The bastard actually smiled. “Of course. Give me a second. I’ll be right back.”
Maddox pulled the door behind him before he left. He didn’t lock it. She was kind of surprised.
Evangeline thought of the aspirin she finally swallowed, and the last of the water that was probably warm and stagnant by now. She cupped her mouth with her hands, shouting through the door. “A glass of water, too, if that’s not too much to ask of a kidnapper!”
Maddox heard her. He returned a few seconds later, carrying a fresh glass. “Here,” he said, offering it to her. “I figured you’d get hungry before long so I already made you a plate. I’m just warming it up now. Get comfy. I’ll bring it to you.”
He was as good as his word. Evangeline had just resettled herself on the bed when Maddox was coming back, carrying a platter with him in one hand, a tray table in the other.
Her mouth immediately started to water.
He made her steak and a monstrous-sized baked potato for dinner. It was one of her favorite comfort meals, and one she didn’t have often because she could never find the time to bake the potato for long enough. Not to mention that, every time she tried to grill a steak inside of her apartment, she tended to overcook it.
This one looked perfect. There was even a pat of butter sitting on top of the potato, melting down the salt-encrusted skin.
Just how she liked it.
Why wasn’t that a surprise?
He held the tray table out to her. Evangeline snatched it from him, settling the table over her legs; she had her ankle elevated on a pillow. Maddox placed the platter on top of the tray, then added a fork and knife he pulled out of his back pocket.
She yawned.
Maddox noticed. “Feeling tired?”
It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to admit to a prospective weakness. It just slipped out. “Yeah, I just… that’s so weird.”
Maddox chuckled. “That’s okay. Escape attempts take it out of a girl. You and your ankle will feel better after a full night’s sleep, promise.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes, a spark that made him even more attractive. As if that was hard. He might be a no-good kidnapper, but he was a gorgeous no-good kidnapper.
Damn it. It wasn’t fair.
As soon as her meal was arranged so that she could eat it, the bastard had the nerve to perch on the edge of the bed, leaning up against the bottom post. Forget gorgeous. The easy position, the stray lock of hair falling forward… he was sexy as hell.
Still wasn’t fair.
Her stomach flip-flopped. “Are you planning on sitting here and watching me eat?”
“I’ve just given you a knife. Gotta make sure you don’t try to use it to stab me in the back or anything.” He paused, obviously teasing, though there was nothing but earnestness in his tone when he added, “You’d only regret it when you remembered me.”
Evangeline snorted. If she could have any wish, it would be that she could remember everything she’d lost over the last handful of years. Wouldn’t it just twist his tail if he discovered that she still had no clue who he was?
Even if his eyes—and that sly smirk of his—were so annoyingly familiar, glancing at his face was like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
She shrugged, trying to push her burgeoning uncertainty aside. “Watch me. Whatever. It’s just food.”
“You’ll enjoy it. I made it just the way you like.”
Pointedly ignoring his comment, she was reaching for the fork when a thought occurred to her.
“Wait.” Evangeline shoved her plate toward him. “You first.”
Maddox cocked his head.
She jerked her chin at the fork still lying on the tray table between them. “I remember something—I remember what happened the last time you made me something. Your ‘calming’ drugs were in the coffee, right? You never confirmed that.”
Maddox’s lips thinned. Okay. Seemed as if he still wasn’t going to admit to it.
Fine. “How do I know that you didn’t do something to this dinner?”
“You don’t.”
“Exactly. You take a bite first. From the potatoes and the steak. Until you do, I won’t eat a single bite. I’ll starve first.”
For a second, she thought he would refuse. He didn’t. Locking eyes with her, Maddox grabbed the fork. He used the edge to slice off a piece of steak, then popped it in his mouth. A forkful of the baked potato followed. He chewed. Swallowed.
He placed the fork back onto the plate. “There. Perfectly fine. Now eat.”
Evangeline didn’t like being told what to do. However, she was so hungry that she chose to take up the fork on her own. Within minutes, she’d polished the entire steak, eating half of the potato until she picked up her glass of water again.
She drank, then set the glass on the nightstand before turning her attention to the rest of the potato.
Maddox let out a soft rumble that seemed like contentment. Did wolves purr? Evangeline didn’t know, but it’s what the sound reminded her of.
“I know you don’t remember this,” he murmured, “but I’ve always loved watching you eat. It makes me happy.”
Evangeline nearly choked on her bite. She snatched at the glass of water again, draining the rest of it in three gulps.
His eyes glittered innocently. “Was it something I sai
d?”
“No. It just went down the wrong pipe.”
“Mm.”
She meant to glare at him. The effect was ruined when, as she narrowed her gaze on him, a huge yawn ripped out of her. Her eyes were so heavy, they were like sandbags weighing on her lids.
Her hand went limp. The fork fell onto the sheet.
And that’s when she realized why this stupid, dozy feeling felt so familiar.
“You…” Evangeline glanced down at her plate. It was hard to do any strenuous thinking since her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton candy, but she could still put two and two together. “The food— you drugged me again? How? You ate some!”
“You’ve always been smart, Angie. I knew you’d expect something like that in your meal.”
It dawned on her. “The water. It was in the stupid water.”
Maddox nodded.
“This time I mean it,” she slurred, her head drooping. “I really hate you.”
“I know, Angie. I know.”
21
Evangeline was sleeping.
At least, she thought she was.
She’d been waiting for Maddox to come back after the way he stormed off last night. If she knew how to find him, she would’ve chased after him. She had a thing or two to say to him, especially since a relationship wouldn’t work if there wasn’t an open and honest communication. It was a shame that he had left his phone behind.
But then the night wore on and her anger turned to worry when he didn’t return to Wolf’s Creek. She thought about giving up and driving home to Woodbridge—they’d talked about moving in together a couple of times, though she still had her house—and decided that she’d give it a few more hours.
She must have fallen asleep because, next thing she knew, she was being nudged gently awake by a strong, warm hand.
“Angie?”
That was her name—no. That was what Maddox called her.
Maddox.
She came to slowly, stretching her arms, her back, her toes before shifting from her side to her back. It was brighter than it had been. She blinked a few times, then focused on the handsome beast of a man crouched next to her.
Evangeline smiled. There was no one in the world she’d rather wake up to than Maddox Wolfe. “Hey.”
Relief flashed across his face. “Hey. What are you doing on the couch?”
She was quiet for a moment, thrown back to the night before. The argument when Maddox sprang an impulsive proposal on her, and the awkward discussion when it came to becoming his bonded mate. He asked her to marry him because he wanted to bite her, wanted to claim her fully. Evangeline was down with mating—she wanted to hump him so bad, it wasn’t funny—but she had insisted that they get married by human officials before the claiming.
A paranormal through and through, her shifter mate balked at the idea.
Evangeline stood her ground.
Maddox left the house, probably to cool off, then realize what a massive, hypocritical dick he had been. But he was back now. Whatever his reason, he came back.
That didn’t change the fact that he left her.
Evangeline’s smile slid off of her face. “Oh. I was waiting for you to come back home. I guess I fell asleep. Sorry about that.”
“You could’ve slept in the bed.”
Without him in it? No, thanks.
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping,” she told him, purposely turning away.
The long night weighed on her shoulders and she started to yawn. She stifled it with the back of her hand before shrugging. For some reason, it seemed important not to let her big, bad wolf see how much his abandonment hurt her. Because now? Evangeline couldn’t find it in her to be angry, even though she was. Maddox was her mate. The one who professed to love her. He wasn’t supposed to run away.
He wasn’t supposed to leave her alone.
They had a bond. All that was left was the final claiming, and the two certificates that would make them married and mated in the eyes of all. She already gave him everything: her love, her hope, her dreams, her future. When he was ready to take her, she’d give him her body.
All she wanted was him—
There was so much more that should have happened. Like the strongest sense of déjà vu, Evangeline had the feeling that she had lived this exact same scene once before. Maddox would apologize, the two would work out their feelings, and then… something would happen.
Something did happen.
The room flooded with a cloud of thick smoke. It wasn’t dark, more of a pale purple, and it moved like thunderstorm clouds across the sky. Within seconds, Evangeline was surrounded. She felt it reaching for her, washing over her, pushing her down like a wave crashing over her. She was blinded by it, consumed by it.
And, once again, she was alone.
The couch disappeared the instant that she got to her feet. Evangeline walked easily on both feet, another sign that this was still a dream. While she was awake, her right ankle was too swollen and painful to support her weight. At that moment, she trudged through the empty space, searching for her mate.
“Maddox,” she shouted, waving her hands through the pale smoke. “Maddox! Where are you?”
“Where you can’t touch him.”
Evangeline went still at that unwelcome female voice.
It was light and clear, almost cheery, despite the force behind the words. Power underlined the statement, reverberating through Evangeline’s skull. She couldn’t even be sure that the words had been spoken out loud, or that she had heard them in her head.
She couldn’t see anyone. She had no clue who was there with her, especially since it wasn’t Maddox.
But that voice?
Evangeline knew it almost as well as her own. It was the voice in the back of her head that often warned her about trying too hard to remember. After all, some things were best forgotten.
She clenched her fists. The same voice used to follow her in her dreams, inevitably turning them to nightmares. Right after her accident, it endlessly mocked her, causing setback after setback in her mental recovery. Eventually Evangeline had to make a choice: her memories or some peace.
So for three years she dealt with the nagging sensation that there was something she forgot. As soon as she gave up, the voice disappeared.
Was… was this what it was all about?
Maddox.
Evangeline gasped, taking in a lungful of the dense purple smoke. The gasp became a choking fit that left her short of breath and extremely dizzy. She tried to fight her way through it.
Where was she? What was going on? Last thing she remembered, Evangeline had gotten so hungry that she asked her captor for a meal. She made sure it wasn’t laced with a sedative by telling him to taste it—but it wasn’t in the steak.
It was in the water.
She stopped pushing at the smoke.
Holy shit. The bastard had drugged her again!
Was this a dream? It had to be. Coming up with a fantasy where Maddox groveled and begged her forgiveness? A dream where she gave in to her insane urge to touch the deranged shifter? A nightmare where the mocking voice reminded her again and again that she was worthless and should’ve died in the crash?
Evangeline felt the old, familiar anger returning. For too long she’d done everything she could to claw some independence back. Nobody—not her parents, not Adam, not Maddox… not this bitchy voice—was going to take that from her.
“What is this? Who are you?” she demanded. “Why can’t I see you?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
No shit. “I don’t want to be. Maddox kidnapped me. I want nothing to do with him. I only want to go back home!”
A disbelieving scoff echoed all around her. “What do you think you’re playing at? I can tell when you lie. Sure, you want to go home, but despite everything I’ve done to you, you still feel the connection. Don’t deny it,” the female voice snapped when Evangeline was about to do exactly that, “I know better. Are
you trying to take my mate away from me?”
Mate? What mate? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maddox is mine. You’re wasting his time. He only gets one mate and that’s me.”
The voice seemed to grow closer. Or maybe it was just louder.
A heartbeat later, the smoke parted like the red sea, revealing a statuesque beauty with straight black hair, caramel-colored skin, and a pair of wicked purple eyes narrowed in obvious hate.
Evangeline could have forgiven the purple smoke. But the eyes? There was no denying it now. The voice that haunted her these last three years might belong to her conscience or even her battered self-esteem. But since it just manifested as a Para, she was beginning to understand that it might be more than that.
She was dealing with a witch.
“Look at you,” the female witch sneered. “A knock-off version of me. Do you really believe that he could ever love you when I exist in his world?”
“He’s the one who said I was his mate,” retorted Evangeline. “Not me.”
“My Mad is confused. His wolf has led him astray. One of the downsides of dealing with shifters, I’m afraid. The animal is led by base instincts and its nose. But the man… he’s in control of the heart. And Maddox loves me. He belongs to me.”
The witch made it look so easy, gliding through the smoke as she pointedly circled Evangeline. Nothing stopped the witch from prowling; it was as if the space only consisted of the two women and the smoke. She moved effortlessly, her glare constantly on Evangeline.
Evangeline found it difficult to even stay standing, the weight of the magic suddenly too much for her. But she was nothing if not determined. She refused to believe that she wanted anything to do with Maddox. She definitely didn’t accept that she was his mate.
That didn’t mean she was going to let this witch talk to her like that, either.
“Back off, Broomhilda.”
“You’re nothing but an Ant. You don’t scare me.”
“Yeah?” Evangeline’s outrage was almost tangible. She shoved at the air in front of her. It did nothing to scatter the smoke, but the force managed to knock the witch back on her heels. “You’re forgetting something. I might be a… an Ant, but this is still my dream. I conjured you up. I can make you disappear.”
Hungry Like a Wolf (Claws Clause Book 1) Page 20
