The Awakening: Liam (Entangled Covet)

by Niles, Abby

  What if it wasn’t connected?

  Their disappearance must have been noticed by now. He always knew everything—the all-seeing menace that lurked in the background waiting for Ava to screw-up. Disappearing with the one man he’d ordered her to stay away from forever wasn’t a screw-up. It was a death sentence.

  For her sister.

  Tears pressed against the back of her eyes, and the last thread of her fortitude began to unravel. No. She had to remain strong. The only way she’d be any help to Emma now was finding a way to escape. She couldn’t let her fear for her sister break her.

  Pushing back, she looked up at Liam’s face and again her heart tightened. This was the closest she’d been to him in eight months, and even with the barrier between them, his strength and dominance flowed over her.

  As much as she wished he wasn’t here, his presence made her feel safer, gave her courage.

  “You okay?” she read from his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  When he settled beside the glass, the side of his body pressed against the spot where hers did. His fingers enticed her from where they lay on his knee. What she wouldn’t give to have those fingers curled around hers. If only…

  No reason to think of ‘if only.’ She’d made her choice eight months ago, and if she had to do it again, she’d still choose Emma.

  The sound of the steel door opening sliced through the heavy silence. The masked man walked in. Liam sat straight up, bared his teeth.

  She scooted back to the corner of her mat as her captor advanced on her.

  “Stay the fuck away from her!” Liam’s deep voice slammed into her, and she gasped.

  How could she suddenly hear him? The reason didn’t matter, his voice sounded wonderful, filled her body and encased her heart. God, she’d missed his voice.

  “Liam!” she yelled.

  When he jerked back, his gaze flying to hers, she knew he’d heard her, too.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  The man squatted at the edge of the mat, holding a Tupperware container between his knees. “I enjoyed our game earlier. Thought you might’ve worked up an appetite, so I brought you some food.” After he tossed the container by her knee, he turned his head toward Liam. “Like my surprise? You weren’t expecting him were you?”

  “H-how did you know we knew each other?”

  “Me and Liam go way back. I’ve known about you for a long time, Ava. A lot of folks know about you.” He dropped his voice, “You see, Liam has never played well with others.”

  A buzzing entered her ears as her gaze darted over to Liam, who had stilled, staring at the man.

  Never played well with others.

  “I don’t know you, “Liam said.

  “Not right now you don’t. I’m wearing a costume.” He snorted. “Can you believe him? Like I wanted him to recognize me from the get-go. Where’s the fun in that? His list of enemies is so long, I could be anyone.” He inhaled sharply. “Oh, I know! Let’s play a game of guess who! Liam, you guess who I am, and Ava, you guess what Liam did to get you in here. I’ll give you some time to stew over your first guesses.”

  Without another word, he left the room. The bolt snapping into place sounded like a bomb going off. The buzzing intensified. Long list. Doesn’t play well with others.

  Get you in here.

  Her life had already been altered once because of a man who’d wanted her stay away from Liam. Had hurt her sister to make sure she did so. Now she was being held captive by another man who knew Liam. Who really was the man she’d fallen in love with?

  Suddenly the partition wasn’t enough distance between them. She scooted further away.

  “Ava, listen to me, I have no idea what he’s talking about. I don’t have any enemies.”

  “H-how would I know that for sure? I don’t really know you, do I?”

  “You know me.”

  “There’s a whole part of you I don’t know or have you forgotten that?”

  His lips pressed together in a tight line. Maybe that had been a low blow, but she still had a hard time believing shapeshifters existed in her world. Let alone one “owned” her. That still rubbed her raw every time she thought about it. Made her wish she hadn’t met him, no matter how in love she’d been with him.

  At least then, she wouldn’t be trapped in this hell hole and her sister would be safe.

  Liam flinched, and turned away from the glass. “Do you really regret our time together that much?”

  “How…can you read my mind?”

  Wait. Of course he couldn’t. Then he would know the truth.

  “No.” When he faced her again, hurt shone deep in his eyes. “I felt your regret. And it wasn’t a wistful I-hate-that-I-dumped-this-man regret. It was an I-wish-I’d-never-met-him regret. Was I such a horrible choice to spend your life with?”

  Dumbfounded by his confession, she shook her head. “Jesus, Liam, what did you do to me when you put those marks on me?”

  “Didn’t you hear the question I asked, Ava?” he asked softly. “Was I a horrible choice to spend your life with?”

  At one time, he’d been the perfect choice. Then danger had entered her life. “I’m stuck in here because of you. How would you answer that question?”

  A stab of remorse went through her as the color seeped out of his skin. “I don’t know what this is about, Ava. I swear it.”

  She wanted to believe him. The Liam she’d spent six months loving didn’t have a malicious bone in his body, but that was before words like owning and shifting took on new meanings.

  There was a long silence before Liam asked, “Why did you really leave, Ava?”

  “Oh, we are not going to turn this around on me.”

  “I have a right to know.”

  “You mean the same way I had the right to know I was owned by you?” She lifted the hem of her nightshirt to mid-thigh, spread one leg out to show the discolored circle on her inner thigh, then let the gown fall back around her knees. “You put marks on me without my permission, Liam. I’m not the kind of woman that just accepts that and moves on.”

  “It’s instinct. I had no choice.”

  “Instinct. Like an animal.”

  He flinched. “Yes. Like an animal. If it’s any consolation, I hate that part of myself now. You made me hate it, and I wish I could take back the marks.” He paused, jaw clenching. “Why were you so happy yesterday morning, Ava?”

  The magnitude of his connection to her hit her like a ton of bricks.

  “How much can you feel of me, Liam?”

  “At 12:37 this morning you died.”

  Again she was struck dumb as her mind rebelled against what she was being told. How was any of this possible? Everything he was saying was unimaginable. “B-but I didn’t. I thought I was dying, but I didn’t.”

  “No, you died. You were completely gone from my body until you woke up in that room. It just happened again when he dragged you out.”

  “He injected me with something.”

  Liam started pacing. “Damn it.”

  “What?”

  “Whoever captured us has to be a shifter, and he must know you Dserted me.”

  Deserted. She hated the way that word sounded. But it was true. She had abandoned him. “Why would me breaking up with you make a difference?”

  He spun to face her, anger contorting his face. “No. You Dserted me, Ava.”

  “I-I don’t understand.”

  He nodded toward her leg. “Those marks bond me to you.” He stepped forward. “I told you those marks meant I owned you out of desperation, because I knew you were going to reject me.”

  “You don’t own me?”

  “No, you own me.”

  “What kind of twisted world do you live in? How are permanent marks on my body ownership over you?”

  “They bond me to you, making you a part of me.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I feel you. The beat of your heart. The flow of your blood.
And now your emotions.”

  Dismayed, she cupped her hand over her mouth. “Oh God. W-what happened when you thought I died?”

  “You were just…gone.”

  …

  Liam rose to his feet and turned away from the horror on Ava’s face. There was so much more he could tell her—the hell she’d put him through since she left him, what would happen to him when she truly died, just how painfully she had been “gone” from his body, that he’d spent the last eight months battling Dsershon, a condition that had stripped him of his manhood.

  Because of it, he’d become a pathetic jerk in need of constant supervision. No one knew when he’d have a Bahrraj episode. Before he’d learned to control the episodes through therapy, his therapists had to shock him with a device called the Splycer to bring him back to this reality. He’d lost his connection with his beast—the thing that made him what he was. He may not have much left, but he still had his damn pride. She would never know what he’d been reduced to after she’d rejected him. He didn’t need her pity. And didn’t want her guilt.

  “What is Dserted?”

  Cringing, he wished he’d never uttered the word, knowing she was hearing deserted, instead of Dserted. The spelling might be off by one letter, but the meaning behind the word was still the same, though the effects of it were completely different to a shifter.

  He turned back to look at her, and found her standing up, as well. “There are other ears listening. How about we save this conversation for later?” he suggested.

  “Oh, hell no. You just said this guy must know you’re a shifter and that I Dserted you. The words are already out there. You started it. Now finish it. What. Is. Dserted?”

  The stubborn tilt of her of her chin made him scowl. She could be such a pain in the ass when she wanted to be. But at least she was standing toe-to-toe with him again and not moving away from him in fear caused by a man’s false insinuations.“It’s exactly what I just said.”

  “I may not be hip to your cool shifter lingo, Liam, so you could tell me anything and I would have to take you at your word, but I can still tell when you’re lying to me.” She looked pointedly at his fingers.

  Damn it. He fisted his hands to keep from flicking his fingers, his tell to when he was skirting around a topic. “Drop it, Ava.”

  When her eyes narrowed, he knew a pissed-off Ava storm was brewing. He had to give her something. “All right. Fine. Do you know why shifters mark their mates so fast?”

  “That’s not what I ask—”

  “Do you want to know?”

  She pressed her lips together in that this-conversation-is-so-not-over way she’d done so many times in the past. “At least I’ll have an explanation for something, won’t I?”

  Bitter sarcasm saturated her words. She was angry, and she had every right to be, but the topic of Dsershon was off-limits. “We mark so quickly to preserve our existence.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Have you ever told another human what I am?”

  Her brows furrowed. “No. Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind.”

  “Have you ever wondered why that is?”

  “Not until this moment, no, but now I’m curious.”

  “My mark makes you incapable of speaking about it, even by accident, to another human. It’s a way to preserve our species. We can mate with humans. I don’t know why. It’d be a hell of a lot easier just to mate with someone with our own genes, but it doesn’t work that way. A shifter has as much of a chance of having a human as a mate as he does a half-shifter.”

  “Half-shifter?”

  “The females of our race.”

  “Why are they considered half?”

  “Because they don’t have a beast. They do not shift. But they do have special abilities.”

  “Wow.” She lowered back onto the floor, staring off into the distance. “What kind of beast is it? Are you all the same?”

  “No. Our beasts come from a wide range of animals.”

  “What is yours?”

  Nope, they weren’t going to venture down that road of questioning. What if she wanted to see his beast next? He hadn’t shifted since her rejection, and there was no way in hell he was going to explain to her why he couldn’t shift and have Dsershon brought back into focus again. “That’s not a question I’m willing to answer.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t share the most personal part of me with a woman who left me.”

  The hurt that sparked in her eyes made his silently curse, but he’d take the hurt over pity any day.

  She remained silent for a long time before she said, “Fair enough, but there’s so much I don’t know about you. Things that are so hard to believe. If this guy problem is with you, why was I brought into it?”

  The reminder that he was the reason she’d been taken, was being hurt, made him grind his teeth as helpless rage filled him. The man could spout off anything he wanted, but Liam did not have any enemies, and he sure as fuck didn’t associate with people who would use an innocent woman to extract revenge.

  “I-I think he’s using you to torture me.”

  “He hasn’t touched you.” Eyes wide, she smacked her hand to her mouth. “God, that sounded awful. I’m so sorry, Liam. I don’t want him to hurt you. I-I don’t.”

  “I know you don’t, but he doesn’t have to touch me to torture me. I can feel your emotions, remember? I feel every bit of your terror while I’m forced to watch, trapped inside this room, unable to get to you…to protect you. In those moments, I would give anything for it to be my own pain, my own torture, instead of yours.” He stepped forward, wishing he could take her face between his hands, while he delivered the part, and make her see the truth in his words. “For some reason, I have brought you into this, but I swear to you I don’t know why. I know that becoming hard for you to believe considering what that bastard is saying, but you are my mate. I would never put you in danger, ever.”

  She swallowed. “Why would someone go to such great lengths to hurt you…to hurt me?”

  “Don’t have a damn clue, but I’ll do anything to get you out of here so you can resume your life.”

  She shook her head. “No. No matter how strained things are between us, we’ll both get out of here.”

  The small rectangular opening in the middle of his door creaked opened and a tray laden with steak and potatoes slid inside, filling the room with its marinated scent. His mouth immediately began to water, his beast gave a low rumble, and his stomach growled, but he was conscious of one thing: the food had been given to him through the door.

  The man had walked right into Ava’s chamber, leaving her door open as he delivered her food, had even stopped to have a conversation. He obviously considered Ava weak, easily subdued, which, considering the man’s towering build, was the truth. But it was also cocky. Which gave them a possible advantage.

  Liam glanced back at Ava to find her staring at his tray and scowled. All she’d gotten was some sort of slop, and he had a feast before him. He turned away from the food and moved back her.

  “You can eat, Liam.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  Shrugging, he ignored the way the smell of the food made his beast pace and his stomach twist in hunger, and sat back down beside the glass. She grabbed her bowl and sat next to him. After scooping up a generous spoonful of oatmeal, she stuffed it in her mouth and looked at him with a forced smile. “Mmmm, it’s good,” she said around the mouthful.

  He scowled again. Giving him such a fulfilling meal while watching his mate eat crap was just another form of torture—though a mild one in comparison to what they had already been through.

  “If anyone is going to get us out of here, it’s going to be you,” she said. “You need your strength.”

  Always the voice of reason. Growling, he fetched the tray. After he sat back down, he lifted the steak and tore off a mouthful with his teeth.

  “Hap
py?” he asked around the meat.

  She smiled, lifted her bowl again. “Yep.”

  To placate her, he forced himself to take a few more bites before pushing the tray away. When she noticed, she lowered her bowl. Suppressing a groan at her stubbornness, he decided to just let the food issue go…for now.

  The silence that fell between them was heavy, deafening, making it all the more clear they were trapped, that at any second that man could return and hurt Ava some more. He couldn’t stand the tension, the underlining fear, in the air. He needed to hear her voice, her sweet cadence that had always had the ability to calm him in the past.

  “So yesterday?” he asked.

  There was a long pause and he started to wonder if she would answer when she finally said, “My sister got into a prestigious summer program in France.”

  “Emma?”

  Ava’s fifteen year old sister had stayed with them a lot on the weekends while they’d been dating. Despite the age difference, the sisters were very close, probably because Ava had practically raised Emma while their parents had worked long hours. Though she had done everything she could to be a good role model for the child, Emma had gotten in with a bad crowd about two years ago. The teenager he remembered was one arrest away from juvie.

  “She’s come a long way since she moved in with me.”

  “Emma is living with you?”

  “Yeah, about eight months now. Mom and dad were at their wits’ end and were close to just letting her go to juvie, especially after…” She inhaled. “Anyway, I suggested she come to live with me for awhile before they took that route. I hoped by getting her into a different high school and away from those kids, she’d turn around. And she has.

  He’d noticed her pause during her speech. “After what?”

  Lips pursed, she looked at Liam. “After that night.”

  Not the night she’d rejected him, but the night Emma had really gone over the line. Thankfully, no one had been hurt by Emma’s reckless behavior, but Ava had once again immediately jumped up to rescue her sister, and hadn’t told him about it until afterward. They’d had a doozy of a fight over it—one of many when it came to her sister.