Unforgivable (Their Shifter Academy Book 4)

by May Dawson

  “Because I want you to rule the Day by my side, as my daughter. I want to take you from the wolves and convince you to be mine.” He shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll come to trust me if I don’t trust you first.”

  That was a nice idea and if it weren’t for the horror show in his workshop, I might have bought his story.

  “How did you get to know my mother?”

  “That’s a long story,” he said, smiling faintly. “I’ll tell you about it tonight when you get back.”

  “Like a bedtime story?” I asked lightly.

  His brows arched. “Isn’t Echo telling you bedtime stories already?”

  I stumbled to respond, and he smiled as if I’d confirmed what he thought.

  “I’m not sure if you’re a very forgiving girl or a completely depraved one,” he said.

  “Possibly both.”

  He shook his head, but he was smiling. “You two crazy kids have fun stealing from the museum.”

  Echo was waiting for me in the hall. He raised his eyebrows at me when I walked out.

  “Just getting Daddy’s permission to date you,” I said, then tucked my arm into his elbow.

  “Charming,” he said. “Should be a romantic evening, stealing from the wolves.”

  I didn’t need romantic. I’d be grateful just to survive the night without killing anyone.

  But I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.

  Chapter Forty-One

  As Echo and I headed downstairs, he whistled to his cat. She came bounding down the hall and he knelt and held his arm out in one smooth motion, before she leapt onto his shoulder.

  He straightened, only to catch me smiling. He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “You’re such a badass,” I said. “Also, did you really just whistle at her? Like she’s a dog?”

  “If I offended her, she’d claw my face off,” he assured me. He slung his arm around my shoulders as we crossed the entryway to the front door. “Like the other woman in my life.”

  I scoffed. “You’ve gotten lucky so far.”

  When we walked onto the front porch, Alice smiled at us broadly and waved from the front seat of a sleek Audi. Her eyes lit up every time she saw Echo.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Echo groaned.

  “Well, maybe you should stop leading her on if you’re going to be uncomfortable when Winter sends her along on our missions.”

  I was headed toward the car, but suddenly Echo’s fingers slid up my back, then curled around the nape of my neck, drawing me to a halt. I tilted my head as much as I could, to cock an eyebrow at him skeptically.

  “I’m not leading her on,” he murmured into my ear.

  “Bullshit,” I breathed. “You don’t want anyone but me.”

  “You’re cocky,” he accused.

  “So are you.”

  Echo nipped my earlobe with his teeth, and desire jolted all the way to my core. I shoved him away, pretending to be bored.

  “You’re ridiculous,” I accused him.

  “But fun.” He swung the back door open for me, sweeping his arm gallantly.

  He was fun when he was being Echo, in his own dark, twisted way.

  I still ignored him, pulling open the passenger door and climbing in beside Alice.

  Echo rolled his eyes, then climbed into the backseat. “You load the weapons already?”

  “Weapons?” I asked.

  Alice glanced at me, her brown eyes wide with understanding. “If worst comes to worse, Maddie, we’ll do the killing.”

  “If worst comes to worst, Maddie will do her fucking job to make sure we all get out of there alive,” Echo said. “We’re not pacifists.”

  She glared at him in the rearview mirror as she pulled down the driveway. “You could be a little bit understanding.”

  “Not of that,” he said, leaning back, his arms across his chest. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to feel forgiving if someone who is supposed to be watching my back lets me down.”

  “Maddie’s forgiven you for quite a bit,” Alice pointed out. “I’m just saying, this could be hard for her. We should protect her from having to do anything…that crosses a line.”

  “Oh, Maddie liked it.” Echo’s voice was lazy.

  “I did not,” I said.

  “And we worked this out already,” he went on.

  “We did not,” I said. “You didn’t even apologize.”

  Alice harrumphed. “Don’t hold your breath. He never apologizes.”

  “How do you even make that sound?” Echo asked her curiously. “You sound like such an old lady. I almost expect you to say tsk tsk.”

  “Tsk tsk, you shouldn’t torture a girl and then expect her to just get over it,” Alice shot back.

  I smiled to myself as I opened the console between my seat and Alice’s, searching for sunglasses.

  “Do you always make yourself at home?” Echo asked as I found a pair. I held them up to Alice, but when she shook her head, I slipped them onto my own face.

  “Yes,” I said. “No reason not to.”

  “You should.” Alice smiled at me. “I know it’ll take time, but the Day can be your family now. We’re not perfect—”

  “As evidenced by the stupid cheesy nonsense we say,” Echo put in.

  Alice continued, undeterred. “But we look out for each other. And now we’ll be looking out for you too.”

  “Thanks.” I took a deep breath, debating what to say next. Stealing the Cure was no longer my top priority, but it would be good to bring home just in case.

  Most of all, I just wanted to protect Alice.

  She’d run away from the packs for a reason. Maybe she was just as trapped here in the coven as she had once been there. I couldn’t do anything to endanger my mission, but I hoped I’d be able to take her with me when we left, eventually.

  Echo reached out and caught the end of my ponytail. I twisted in my seat to smile at him or slap him or possibly both, depending on how things went.

  “Shut up,” he warned me, tugging sharply on my ponytail, hard enough to hurt. “You’re annoying me with your sentimentality.”

  “Why are you like this?” I demanded. I raised my hand to smooth back my ponytail, my roots aching. Sometimes I liked it when Echo pulled my hair. But not like that.

  Restrained heat blazed in his eyes, his jaw tense. His words came back to me.

  I’m an asshole, sure. And I’m the best of them.

  He didn’t want me to trust Alice.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I knew that I couldn’t entirely trust Alice yet; she was loyal to terrible people like Winter. But I needed Alice to trust me.

  He narrowed his eyes right back, already reaching out for me again.

  I twisted in my seat so he couldn’t reach me. “I swear to god, I’m going to cut your throat in your sleep if you push me, Echo.”

  Echo leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Do it. I’ll come back as a poltergeist and skin you alive in your bed, love.”

  He was so adept at playing a fucking psycho, it worried me.

  That didn’t prevent me from being turned on, which worried me far more.

  His cat meowed, and no matter how dangerously Echo spoke, he still picked her up and cuddled her against his chest. She butted her head under his jaw, and he leaned back, holding eye contact with me.

  That was my Silas in there, though, loving on the kitty cat.

  Whoever the hell he really was, part of me still wanted to crawl over the console and straddle him, grab his hair and yank his head up and kiss him. I’d loved Silas practically since I met him. That hadn’t changed. But something a little bit dark and fucked-up had been born between us in that closet.

  As if he could read the desire in my eyes, his face softened. He winked at me, then dipped his head, caressing the cat’s head with his chin.

  “You two have some kind of chemistry,” Alice said, her brows arching. She didn’t even sound jealous in that moment, just a bit stunned. “
Burn down the house, or maybe the world, probably-gonna-kill-each-other chemistry.”

  When we reached the museum where the last piece of the Dark Collar was, Alice and I headed inside to get the lay of the land. The plan was to hit the truck while the object was in transit, but better prepared than not.

  As we headed up the museum steps, Echo skulked toward the back, his hands in his pockets. I paused to watch him go. His body hadn’t changed, just his face; he was still leanly muscled, his posture both perfect and relaxed in a way that was Silas’ own. He was smaller than my other men, but he carried himself with easy power.

  I’d missed that body. It reminded me of all those runs when he’d been just ahead of me, all the times between classes when he’d bumped his shoulder into mine. The slender, tightly muscled planes of his chest and shoulders reminded me of how our bodies had locked together for a few aching seconds, before he threw himself off that bridge.

  I only took an instant, but I caught Alice watching me as I headed up the steps. She turned her head in a hurry, her dark hair flickering over her shoulders.

  I needed to win her over. Her jealousy was a hazard to my mission.

  But the thought of spending the next several months infiltrating the coven while ignoring him seemed… impossible. Actually impossible. No matter how good my intentions, my gaze would always find him. My heart would always beat a little faster.

  My Silas, lost and found.

  I could pretend to embrace Winter as a father, I could play besties with Alice and the other witches if they would let me, but there was one thing I could never fake.

  I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t love Silas.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As dusk fell, the three of us set up on the roof of a neighboring building, watching the loading dock of the museum. They were scheduled to move a whole load of art and artifacts tonight. We only needed one.

  Alice kept trying to flirt with Echo. He indulged her for a while, although he always seemed irritated by her efforts. When I caught him eyeing me, as if to check that I noticed how desirable he was to the opposite sex, I pulled a face at him.

  Yes, I noticed all the young women in the coven were obsessed with Echo.

  And I noticed he was cocky as hell.

  I was willing to bet that ego was all Silas. He’d always had a sort of deep, warm confidence in himself.

  When Echo grew bored of tormenting me through Alice, he tried to get her to leave him alone.

  “We should focus on the mission,” he said, boxing her out with his shoulders as he turned to look over the city. The lights were blinking on in the distant buildings as night fell heavily over the city. “If our wolfish friends are coming, they should be here any minute. And so should that truck.”

  Alice didn’t seem to take a hint. It worried me sometimes, the way she seemed so sweet and so… oblivious…at the same time. She lived in a world where the punishment for being naïve was often death. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Alice.

  She made the mistake of running her hand over Echo’s broad back when he was focused on a truck turning the corner that might be our museum transport truck.

  He turned on her, his brows rising, and I leaned forward, trying to stop him from saying something mean. I could read his posture, his face, but she must not. She was still smiling.

  Then he said coldly, “Why don’t you learn a spell that will help you realize when you’re not wanted?”

  She flinched as if he’d burned her.

  “Echo,” I scolded him.

  “She’s just exasperating me,” he muttered. “I want to focus on the mission.”

  Her face relaxed—she thought his disinterest was a temporary condition—but she said, “I’ll, ah, get ready to attach the bug.”

  We were using a literal bug—which had been enchanted—to track the vehicle, in case we lost sight of the truck. A fly clinging to a window wouldn’t attract any attention.

  “That’s a great idea,” Echo growled. Then he managed to add, “Thank you.”

  She bobbed her head in a nod and headed for the stairs down into the building.

  I rounded on him as soon as she’d gone. “Why are you so mean to Alice?”

  “She’s the kind of girl who likes to work for it,” he said. “I’m not hurting anything.”

  My lips parted in shock. He did not just say that. “You’re an absolute asshole.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? You have a type, Maddie.”

  “I do not.” He wasn’t an asshole back at the academy. Who the hell was he?

  “Mm?” He slid his hand up my hip, stepping intimately close so he could run his fingertips up my spine. His chest filled my vision, then he wrapped his hand around the base of my neck, squeezed gently. He walked me back, forcing me with him until my shoulders bumped the edge of a wall. “You don’t?”

  His jaw brushed my ear when he murmured, “You don’t like the fact that I can’t stand another woman touching me? Because all I want is you?”

  I’d been about to tell him off, and I was still angry but that confession was disarming. As I stared up at him, he smirked down at me like he knew he’d won.

  “I need her,” I hissed.

  “She’s not going to hand over the Cure even if you become her bestie,” he whispered in my ear. “She’s a true believer. Give me time. I’ll get you out of here with everything you need.”

  I’ll get you out of here? “And you’ll come with me.”

  His lips quirked at one corner. “We’ll see.”

  “There’s no we’ll see. I’m not leaving without you.” My hands roamed up his abs, up his shoulders, as if I couldn’t resist him.

  His hand moved to fist in my hair as his lips brushed my throat. “You’ll do what I tell you.”

  My palms flattened on his shoulders, ready to push him away. “You know better than that.”

  “Brat,” he growled against my throat. Then he nipped me, his teeth scraping over my skin in a way that made me gasp in shock, my hips rocking forward against his. His other hand swept across the curve of my ass, pressing my body against him, holding me there, intimately close.

  “Don’t call me names,” I ordered. I twined my fingers through his hair before I yanked his head up, just as rough as he was, before I claimed his mouth with mine.

  His lips were as unyielding as his grip, and when he kissed me, it was full of urgency and need.

  He yanked my head back, our lips parting long enough for him to remind me, “You’re the one who’s been flinging around names like asshole.”

  Before I could respond, he kissed me again fiercely. The tip of his tongue teased across my lower lip, urging my mouth open. When I surrendered, his tongue swept into mine. My fingers slid through his hair to twine at the base of his neck, letting him carry my weight as he held me arched back.

  When he pulled back, his dark eyes were heavy-lidded and soft; bedroom eyes, even here.

  “You’re the one who’s not ashamed of being one,” I reminded him.

  He stared at me in shock, then threw his head back and laughed. “You always have a comeback, don’t you?”

  “Pretty much, yep.”

  “I wonder if it’s even possible to fuck you speechless,” he half-growled, half-laughed, before he caught my hips and spun me around.

  I caught myself with my palms pressed flat against the cold wall in front of me. “I don’t like your chances.”

  “I’m not afraid to try,” he promised me. His hand slid across my lower abs, his thumb delving into the waistband of my jeans as he worked the button. His hard body pressed against my back, and I bit my lip at the wave of desire that washed over me.

  As soon as my waistband released, his hand delved into my panties, his fingers gliding across my wet heat. He murmured into my ear, “Well, well. You’re awfully turned-on for someone on a mission.”

  “Maybe I should try to see if it’s possible to fuck you speechless, because you sure have a lot to say.”<
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  I caught his grin from the corner of my vision, right before he punished me by nipping my throat. He alternated sucking a bruise until it hurt and kissing it better, his fingers all the while working steadily across my clit. I let out a soft moan at the sensations of sweet pain and pleasure intermingled.

  My head lolled back against his shoulder as his fingers worked against me mercilessly, driving me closer and closer to an orgasm as sparks began to burst in front of my eyes.

  “Si…” I started to warn him before I cut myself off. I couldn’t call out his real name, and I couldn’t bring myself to call him Echo. “Asshole, I’m about to come. Dial it down.”

  “You really are insufferable,” he muttered, shoving my jeans down my hips, his grip rough in just the right way that I wanted now.

  I pressed my ass against his cock, felt how hard he was against me. “Not sorry.”

  “You will be,” he murmured before he pushed me forward, smacking his hand across my ass. My core clenched as if that only made me want him more. The heat he lit across my ass was only matched by the heat between my thighs.

  “Doubtful,” I murmured, and he smacked me again, the slap reverberating in the air. He withdrew long enough to get his hands on his own jeans, and at the sound of his fingers unbuckling his belt, the sound of his fly unzipping, I murmured, “Finally.”

  “I’m not sure you deserve this,” he muttered in my ear right before he pressed the tip of his cock against my swollen clit.

  “I do,” I promised him, right before he drove inside me. I gasped at the sensation of him filling me as his arm circled my waist.

  He was rough and punishing, his cock sliding inside me deep and hard. I slammed my hips back to meet him, the two of us panting and grunting together. I rested my forehead against the cool metal in front of me as the rest of the world faded away. There was nothing but him and me and the sounds our bodies made rising in the cool night air.

  Sparks tingled across my skin. Then the deep need coiled low in my belly unfurled as every muscle in my body tightened, my body spasming around his cock as he held me tightly, his grip warm and possessive as his cock continued to drive into me. I cried out, my fingers trying to curl against the wall but there was nowhere to find purchase. He drove home inside me hard, letting out a roar as he came too.