Cohen

by Emilia Hartley

  Ashe shut her eyes against him. She pressed her lips together. She wished she’d never called him. While it was nice having Gage and Archer home, she could barely stand being in Cohen’s presence. He terrified her.

  His hands slammed into the wall on either side of her head. She tried not to flinch, but failed. Cohen made a pained sound. His arms fell away, and she felt him back up.

  “I came here to help Archer, not to become the Alpha of my own Pack. That was never the future I wanted, but here I am. Because of you.”

  What could she tell him? That he was blind and dumb? The words rolled around her mouth but eventually fell back down her throat to land like a stone in her stomach. Ever since Gage and Kaylee pledged themselves to Cohen as his Pack, his bear had been easier to manage. It liked looking after the two idiots.

  So, what happened to set him off this time?

  Summoning whatever courage she might have inside herself, Ashe gradually opened her eyes. She met Cohen’s gaze. His eyes burned with a dark fire; it was the slumbering presence of his bear that was always ready to be released. She knew she should have felt fear looking into his shadows, but she didn’t. Instead, there was a kind of peace that scared her.

  As if they both felt it, Cohen’s shoulders dropped. He took a step toward her.

  “I called you back to Stonefall because this is your home.” Ashe ducked and ran. She slipped down the stairs before Cohen could think to recover.

  His voice was a distant whisper as she slammed the front door behind her.

  Damn this house and all who live beneath it’s roof. Damn this town and its shifters. Ashe wanted to hate all of them. She knew she had every right to for the way she’d been treated all her life. They pushed and teased her, trying to pull the animal out of her as if it was possible. They pushed her to the edge, hurt her and acted like it was her fault that she was weak.

  But, she didn’t hate them. She’d found it in her to forgive them and moved on with her life. She’d moved out of her father’s house and left the horrid memories locked behind it’s doors. She’d found her own place, a small apartment above a library. Her life was her own and the pain she endured was over.

  She told herself she didn’t care if her body would not bend to an animal’s shape. She told herself the life she would lead was fine. Then, the cards spoke a different story and she wanted to curse them, too. They told her of freedom and the spark of love. For a moment, her heart had soared.

  Then, Cohen appeared. The cards told her he was bound to her, the Emperor to her Empress. Hadn’t she lived through enough? Hadn’t she earned the freedom she so desperately wanted? To be bound to the cursed bear…

  “I need a break,” Joanna groaned as she appeared.

  Kaylee, her hair now a deep shade of purple, stepped into the yard beside her. There was a slight, still healing hickey on Kaylee’s neck. When she saw Ashe staring, her face darkened, and she moved to cover it with her hand. Ashe looked away.

  Joanna and Archer found a kind of sanctuary within each other, using each other to remain standing. Kaylee and Gage were always a bundle of laughter. No matter where one was, the other could find them with the brightness of their aura.

  It made Ashe bitterly jealous. Her jaw clenched, her mouth grew dry.

  “How about we head out for a girl’s day? Sushi, maybe?” Joanna’s voice was hopeful, tentative even. Had she seen the emotion that had slammed into Ashe?

  The back of her neck prickled, and she looked back. Cohen smoldered as he threw open the door. He wanted more answers, but she didn’t have them. She did what she thought was necessary to help her friend and her Pack.

  Ever since, he’d stalked her like prey.

  “Yeah,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. She looked back to the house, searching the windows for a face she told herself she didn’t want to see. “That sounds like fun.”

  Chapter Two

  “Okay,” Joanna began. “Spill. Why does Cohen stalk you like a lost puppy?”

  Ashe’s head shot up. Her eyes were wide, and she knew it. Kaylee and Joanna watched her expectantly.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She dipped her California roll into a small bowl of soy sauce and jammed it into her mouth.

  Joanna gave her a look. They’d been friends for far too long for her to lie and get away with it. They both watched Kaylee smear a large chunk of wasabi onto her roll with a mixture of awe and disgust before turning back to the conversation at hand.

  “I think you know and you just don’t want to talk about it. You know everything, so for you to suddenly not know something is suspicious.”

  Her shoulders sank. Cohen was… terrifying. He was a monster, one she did not wish to have in her life. The shadows that swirled across his eyes echoed the violence of her childhood. Yet, when they cleared and showed the soul behind them, she thought she saw hope.

  He was confusing, at best.

  Yet, her cards seemed insistent that they were bound. There was no future for Ashe without Cohen. No future for Cohen without Ashe. It scared her. When she was around him, her mouth seemed to act independently. One of these days, she was going to say something that pissed him off.

  He was less the man she once knew and more the monster that lived behind his eyes. She didn’t know how to explain it. There’d been a time when the Vancourt brothers had been her friends. She’d hid with them when the Pack became too much, when her father wanted to try to pull out her shifter again. Archer would lie and say he hadn’t seen her. Gage would keep her father busy with his pranks. Cohen would… just exist beside her. He was the tall force that guarded the door, which used to make her feel safe. Even then, he’d been quiet and scary. They hadn’t tried to fill the space with small talk, hadn’t tried to get to know one another.

  The silence between them had always been enough.

  Since then, his monster had grown into something far more violent. It shifted over his eyes, as if manifesting its own cursed body. The shadows rippled and writhed around his form. Whoever he’d been before seemed gone. All that was left was the monster.

  “We used to… have an agreement.” Ashe pushed her sushi rolls around her plate. “I think Sampson told them not to talk to me, which they didn’t really, but they protected me. Some days, Cohen was the wall between them and me.”

  Joanna and Kaylee sat in stunned silence. Neither of them knew the history she shared with the brothers. Kaylee had an idea, after what they’d spoken about during the drive downstate. Joanna knew what Ashe endured, but Ashe never really spoke about it. She didn’t want to give the past a voice. No more than that happened and now it’s over.

  “Okay,” Joanna ventured. “So, you have a relationship already?”

  “What?” Ashe’s head shot up. “No!”

  “I don’t think Joanna means sexual or romantic. I think she just means you have more history with Cohen than anyone else for at least a three-thousand-mile radius.”

  Joanna snorted. “And that’s putting it lightly. No one knows crap about Cohen other than his own brothers and even then, it’s been a while since they’ve seen him. Archer said about a year after they were ousted, Cohen upped and left them.”

  Ashe cocked her head, curious.

  Joanna nodded. “Apparently, Cohen took a trucking job and just never came home. They completely lost track of him until you called them back to Stonefall.”

  That explained the change, she thought. He’d shut himself off from the outside world. Limiting human interaction could drive humans insane. She shuddered to think about what it would do to the pack mentality of a shifter’s mind. Her eyes drifted away from the women before her. If Ashe could get Cohen to stay, it might help reverse the change.

  No, she told herself. That wasn’t her problem. She’d brought the brothers back for them to fix their mistakes, for them to save Joanna’s family from Killian, for them to take leadership of the Pack that needed them. She’d partly hoped that Archer would rise up to both challenges. She loo
ked to her friend. Archer had helped Joanna take back her family, but he hadn’t taken lead.

  While Gage was a sweet boy, he was wild and unpredictable. He was not a leader. That left Cohen. She wanted to groan, but stifled it. He would be a good leader, she thought, but it was not her job to convince him to stay. She wouldn’t take part in that. It was up to Archer and Gage.

  “I think they’d make a cute couple,” Kaylee said with a sparkle in her eye.

  Joanna choked on the shrimp tempura roll she’d shoved into her mouth. After they patted her back, the conversation strayed away from the subject of Ashe and Cohen. They talked about Archer and Joanna’s attempt to start a family. They talked about Kaylee’s new tattoo shop.

  It was almost normal.

  Ashe wanted to enjoy it, but a cloud hung over her. She remembered the cards she’d drawn. There was still a fight on the horizon. The sense of calm and happiness they shared was only momentary.

  Chapter Three

  Her scent drifted through the house. It was spicy and warm like cardamom. Cohen followed it through the house, feeling his heart beat pick up speed. That scent once calmed the beast inside him. He didn’t know why or how, but when Ashe climbed into the small fort they’d made out of the shed, he’d always been happy.

  He’d told his brothers to go off and do whatever they wanted. He would look after her while she hid. They always argued that it was time to take turns, that he didn’t always have to hide with her, but he never told them he liked it. He didn’t tell them that he eagerly awaited the witch’s arrival if only to quiet the beast inside him.

  His father told them stories, about a time before Ashe had been born. Her mother was a witch, one with great power. She bonded with Ashe’s father, what Cohen could only consider a mate bond now. Only, the witch took advantage of it. She tried to bind her mate to her as a pet and not a lover.

  It was supposed to be a horror story, one meant to keep his sons away from Ashe. His command kept them from talking to her. None of them could open their mouths to even say a word to her, but the girl that came out of that jaded relationship didn’t seem like the monster Sampson tried to paint.

  Now, that girl was a woman. She’d grown into thick and voluptuous curves, her black hair falling past her shoulders in a fine wave. The bear craved her, demanding they hunt her down and pin her against the wall. It demanded they study the taste of the space between her legs until she was boneless and could no longer run. Cohen could barely find a voice to tell the beast to shut up. She’d turned into a vixen with a sharp tongue and Cohen couldn’t help but remember his father’s stories. As much as he was pulled to her, he drew back. He wouldn’t let her take control of his monster and use it against those who’d hurt her.

  No, he would ask her to do this one thing for him, a token of their past, and then he would leave Stonefall behind. The place was better off without him. Archer would rise to the position of Alpha, binding the two packs together. It was the only outcome Cohen could see happening once their father died.

  She opened the back door, dropping paper bags with a huff. Cohen lingered in the shadowed hall, watching her. The wave of her black hair swayed back and forth like water around her. It made him think of a darker Aphrodite on the scallop shell. He leaned back and watched her bend to pull things out of her shopping bags. He’d seen Wiccans wear flowing dresses and tops, but Ashe’s clothes clung to her skin as if they were the voice she hardly used.

  They screamed look at me! Her wrap dress dipped dangerously low in the front, revealing an abundant cleavage. When she turned to place something in the fridge, the wrap slid aside to bare her creamy thigh. Cohen spared a moment to wonder what it would feel like to lose himself in that creamy skin, in the scent of cardamom. What would he have to do to make her sharp mouth scream his name?

  He shook his head. He was losing his focus. Finding her was not about any carnal kind of desire. It was about freeing himself of Gage and Kaylee’s rash decision. It would get them killed if he couldn’t make Ashe help him. That meant he couldn’t afford to think about the witch like that.

  He crept out of his shadow and sank into a kitchen chair. Ashe froze for a second, like a rabbit. He cocked his head. Was that what lived inside of her? A small rabbit that refused to show itself around the predators of Stonefall?

  “You used to find comfort in my presence,” Cohen acknowledged.

  His words broke the spell over her and she resumed motion, now slamming things onto the counter. She’d told him off, the first day he’d seen her again. It had taken him by surprise. There was power in her words and an icy rage in her eyes when she told him to leave her alone. He couldn’t help it. When he saw the change the years had made to the small girl he’d once known, his first instinct had been to get closer.

  Before he and his brothers had been outcast from their Pack, she’d only been a small teenager with no curves to speak of. If anything, she’d been malnourished and weak. The woman she’d become… well, she was anything but and he found himself entranced.

  “What did I tell you, Cohen?”

  “Not to follow you around.”

  “And, what are you doing?” She slammed a jar of suspicious looking liquid onto the counter.

  “Sitting in my father’s kitchen, having a somewhat civil conversation with the witch of Stonefall.”

  She spun around. Her eyes blazed with cold fury. He watched the muscle in her jaw work and felt a small pang of remorse. His choice of words had been awful. Could he blame his tactlessness on his time away from society? Or, was he just an awful human, too?

  Before he could find an apology, she turned back to what she was doing. The things she pulled from her bags didn’t look like anything one could find at Paul’s Mart. Instead, they looked like canned goods Ashe had made at home, but instead of vegetables and fruits, they were odd liquid concoctions speckled with herbs and oils.

  “What is all this for?”

  Her fingers tapped on the lid of one of her jars. “This one is for his cough.” Her fingers moved to another jar. “This one is for his pain.”

  “You’re taking care of my father? After what he let happen to you?” Cohen stood and moved closer, unsure of what distance would make her bolt.

  “I can’t heal him. I can’t make the cancer go away, but I can make the days he has left a bit easier.”

  “That explains why he thought he was well enough to come downstairs,” Cohen added as he moved to stand beside her.

  Ashe sighed, a heavy sound that he watched settle onto her shoulders. His hand was halfway to her back before he caught himself and forced it back down. She continued to stare at the jars, seemingly oblivious to what he’d nearly done. The urge to touch her, to pull her into the shelter of his body still coursed through him. It was similar to the need he felt to protect his brother and Kaylee, but stronger. It was nigh overwhelming, and he took a step back just to keep from touching her.

  “I have a favor to ask,” Cohen started.

  “And what makes you think I owe you anything?” She still refused to look at him. He wanted her to see the pain in his face, see the monster that he carried and understand.

  “We’ll say it’s payment for the years we hid you from your father.”

  Ashe grew still.

  Once more, he’d said the wrong thing. He wished he could stop bringing up her pain. Her father had done awful things to pull the shifter out of her, to make her more like him and less like her mother. Not everyone lived in their pain, like him. He seemed to forget too often.

  “Fine,” she said, finally. “What do you want me to do? I won’t kill your father if that’s what you want me to do.”

  “Do you really think so little of me?”

  “No.” Her voice was small, barely audible. But he heard it and he heard the tenderness that it held.

  It swept him away, the fact that anyone could address him with such softness. Her eyes lifted to meet his and he found that the ice had melted. He fell head first into the
soft, gray cloud of her gaze.

  “What did you want, then?”

  Cohen slammed back into his body. He had to physically shake his head to clear it. What was happening to him? Perhaps he needed more time alone with himself. There were desires and urges he could take care of on his own. It was best that way. No one would get hurt that way.

  “I want you to separate me from Gage and Kaylee.”

  Her brows knit together, mouth pressing into a small O while her mind worked it out. “You want me to undo the bond of an Alpha to his pack?”

  “You can do that, right?”

  She continued to stare at him with a mixture of confusion and repulsion. It was a knife through his heart, but he would take it. He needed to get away from Stonefall as soon as possible. He couldn’t handle being surrounded by so many people all the time. He would slip, and he would hurt someone. It was only a matter or time before he did.

  When that happened, it would not be a matter of outcasting. The Pack would have the right to kill him. It would prevent him from losing control and hurting anyone again. Cohen wasn’t sure he was ready for that. For all the pain and torment that clung to him, the roaring of the mad bear inside him, he wasn’t ready to let go of life.

  “No,” Ashe said with conviction. She turned back to sorting through her magical concoctions.

  Cohen grabbed her arm and spun her around. Her eyes flashed wide, ice spreading over the momentary surprise. There was no rabbit inside her. Whatever animal lived beneath her skin, it was just as much a predator as the rest of them.

  For a moment, Cohen was caught in the thought. Then, Ashe yanked her arms free of his grip and he remembered what he’d asked for.

  “You don’t understand,” he growled.

  “I will not be bullied by you,” Ashe said, her voice low and controlled. “I will not be pushed around by anyone. Not even someone who fancies themselves a damned monster. I’ve seen monsters and I’m not afraid of you.”