Wolves of Haven: Lone

by Danae Ayusso

  Akia looked at her smirking brother with wide eyes; there was no way she heard him correctly, especially in front of Damian of all people!

  “What?” Connell asked, cocking an eyebrow, seemingly reading his sister’s mind.

  Softly she growled under her breath, and he laughed, mocking her by sounding like a cartoon villain as he wagged his brows then his tongue at her.

  Damian chuckled at the antics of the two. He honestly had never seen siblings, especially those of different bloodlines and generations, act in such a way. It was refreshing yet a pang of jealousy stabbed at him because he’d never experienced anything like that with his brothers. But that jealousy was shadowed by happiness because Akia was home, finally, and a side of her that he hadn’t seen outside of just the two of them was finally being shared with others.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Akia hissed.

  “This pup needs no encouragement,” Connell informed her before growling then snapped his teeth at her.

  “I will muzzle you,” she warned.

  “I’d like to see you try,” he sang, darting across the room, out of her reach.

  The look she gave him conveyed that she would shoot him if he kept it up.

  Damian threw his arm over Akia’s shoulder then pulled her into him. “Let’s get you fed. Everyone knows how moody you get when hungry.”

  Of course she growled at him under her breath; everyone knew she got moody when hungry, but that wasn’t what she was pissed off about, and all three of them knew it. Yes, she was tired, hungry, horny and internally fighting the evil darkness within her, but it was her brother who was apparently trying to antagonize her by speaking of the unmentionable in mixed company, as if he didn’t care of the repercussions that it would have, especially for her relationship. She was already struggling to keep from pushing Damian away and telling him to go home and that she’d send her brothers to pack up her things, but every time she started to push, he was there pulling her back.

  Akia hated how well he seemingly knew her when she didn’t want him to.

  Damian chuckled before kissing the side of her head. “Latria Mou, we all have our little quirks,” he said, before looking at Connell. “Did you want a ride back to the house?”

  Connell made a face. “Only if you promise to keep my baby sister from ripping my throat out,” he said then wagged his brows when Akia’s mouth fell open.

  “I make no promises,” Damian regrettably informed him, motioning for him to lead the way. “But I will attempt to keep you from becoming a chew toy.”

  On the ride back to the manor Akia sat in the backseat since the two in the front were getting on her last nerve, and read through the reports compiled by Officer Leclair. He was ridiculously thorough, even more so than she was, and it left much to be questioned, in her opinion; when there’s nothing left to the imagination and all holes are plugged, it made one suspicious. Her reports, when new to C-11, were always meticulous because she was trying to make Manning proud of her and not regret his decision in moving her to the most sought after precincts, and impress her Captain, and trying not to make it obvious that they were sleeping together by leaving him nothing to reprimand her on. After a year of black ink covered reports with a note to rewrite the submission again, she was ready to shove that Sharpie so far up her Captain’s ass that he’d bleed black, but she soon learned that he was only trying to make her a better Detective and Officer, and she couldn’t fault him for that… And he couldn’t fault her for handcuffing him to the bed and drawing a mustache and sideburns on him with a Sharpie as retribution either. It did surprise her that he simply laughed, even after the ink wouldn’t come off of his skin completely, and simply said he deserved it, just as she deserved the black mustache he drew on her when she was sleeping a few days later.

  Akia softly sighed, shaking her head as the memories mockingly replayed over and over in her head. She really did enjoy their relationship, especially Damian and his carefree and patient nature, something she was apparently the only one that got to see it. She quietly watched as Connell and Damian discussed the area, not so much the case, rather Damian was asking questions about how long the family had been there, the history behind the manor, why a talented doctor would allow himself to sacrifice their career by coming home to a small town to work as a Medical Examiner. It would have warmed her heart that the man she shared a bed and life with was seemingly getting along really well with her brother, but every word that left her brother’s lips wasn’t mentally edited and simply blurted out without regard for the consequences of his extremely questionable statements, especially considering every other thing out of his mouth was laced with canine innuendo just to piss her off.

  “Haven isn’t so bad,” Connell said, waiting for the light to change. “It’s small. They think we’re vampires or warlocks or in a gay cult or some shit because we keep to ourselves at Verulfr Manor. You’ve got to love the media and how it’s warped the minds of the next generation,” he said with a chuckle, and Damian laughed, nodding his agreement.

  That wasn’t normal, not in the least, in Akia’s opinion. Damian was an Ivy League college graduate with a master’s degree. He was an unbelievably good cop, and taught her nearly everything she knew. And yet he wasn’t put off or questioning any of the strange, off the wall, or questionably colorful comments and innuendos her annoying brother was spewing.

  Apparently I don’t need to tell him it’s over because he’ll run the first chance he gets since my family is completely insane! she mentally huffed.

  “It was about time I came home anyway, I suppose,” he continued. “When you look this good, it’s bound to leave a lasting impression. Doesn’t your family have an island or some shit where they ship all those that have outstayed their time in the light?”

  Wait, what?

  Damian rolled his eyes. “Oh, is that what everyone calls it? Trust me, it isn’t an island paradise. It’s much more comparable to San Quinton only less hospitable.”

  Akia looked between the two curiously. If she didn’t know any better she’d swear that her brother knew more about her boyfriend than she apparently did, and the scary thing was, Damian appeared to be well aware that Connell knew something she didn’t.

  “Ooh, where do I sign up?” Connell beamed, and the two laughed. “You’re rather quiet back there, Sis,” he said, looking at her in the review mirror.

  Absently she nodded.

  “Cat’s got your tongue?” he teased.

  “No, not in the least,” she said. “I feel like the third wheel between my brother and boyfriend, that’s all.”

  Again, they laughed.

  “It isn’t funny,” she said. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tell Father on you… No, better yet, Seff.”

  Connell made a mocking face and rolled his eyes. “You’re the one that’s leaving me to entertain your boyfriend. I’m not Fae, so Mr. Greek Police Officer Extraordinaire is doing nothing for what I am so very proud of in my pants. What’s with you? And don’t you dare use the copout that you’re just thinking about the case because you’re not.”

  Akia flipped him off, but didn’t say anything. She hated how well her pesky brother knew her, and right now he was consciously pushing her buttons, but she couldn’t figure out why he was tempting fate at the moment.

  “Don’t mind her,” Damian said. “She’s just trying to figure out how she’s going to break up with me.”

  “What?” the two asked in unison.

  He smiled and looked at her from over his shoulder. “Whenever you try to distance yourself, and get quiet and reflective, it’s because you’re trying to figure out how to get out of something. And at the moment, I’m assuming, that something is me and our relationship. You said so yourself that you and what we have will most likely kill me-”

  “Yeah, that was just romantic as all hell, Sis,” Connell interrupted, getting a hard smack on the back of his head from his sister. “Ow!” he whined. “You already bruised the hell out of
my face, and now you’re trying to give me a concussion. Not cool. Usually you’re less moody and more fun when in heat.”

  Akia’s eyes widened and mouth fell open with a popping sound.

  Damian shook his head. “That was very inappropriate,” he scolded, not at all curious of the very loaded statement.

  “She started it,” Connell argued. “The side of my face is killing me still from her meaty fist, and you can’t say I deserved it because I didn’t. I took a damn nap, big deal. If I could simply screw the hell out of some hot piece of ass like she can, I wouldn’t need to run two times a week. Instead I have to find ways to let my wolf run without letting him run.”

  “Connell!” Akia snapped at him. “Shut up!”

  “You shut up!” he shot back, finally running out of patience with her. “Look at the damn arm you keep rubbing then pull your head out of your ass!” He put the car in park, turned it off then got out, slamming the door behind him.

  Akia looked from her brother’s retreating form as he pulled his shirt off and kicked out of his shoes, making absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that he was about to run, to Damian. The look on his face was one of amusement. “I…” she stammered, trying to find the words.

  “Yes?” he said, prompting her to continue, turning around in his seat to look at her.

  She looked away from him, trying to look at anything but him, when something registered with her. She pulled the sleeve of her shirt up and her eyes widened; where he had bit was bruised and sore. It should have already been healed. Connell’s face was still bruised and slow healing because damaged inflicted by another of their kind slowly healed…

  Akia looked up at him with wide eyes. “You know…” she stammered, trying to find the words.

  “That you’re a werewolf?” Damian said with a chuckle, as if it was obvious, and she absently nodded. “You’re the lone werewolf, the sole female in existence,” he continued, and she looked away from him. “Don’t turn from me,” he pleaded, coaxing her by the chin so she was looking at him. “I’ve known for a long time, and what I found in the basement only confirmed it.”

  Her eyes widened before she smacked him. “Why in the hell did you go in the basement?” she demanded. “You hate the basement.”

  He chuckled. “I needed a bag big enough for our clothes… Latria Mou, why do you shackle your wolf?”

  Akia opened her mouth more than once, but nothing came out.

  For years she had waited for that day to come, the day when she’d have to tell Damian what she truly was. No man, especially a talented police officer, wouldn’t wonder why their girlfriend never aged, was never sick, healed in only minutes from gunshots, cuts and contusions as if they were nothing, ate more than seven-thousand calories a day but struggled to keep weight on, or why they chained themselves up in the basement on new and full moons or whenever their inner wolf started to surface because the beast couldn’t be trusted. No man would want to be with someone like her, and yet she seemingly found one, one that was looking at her with so much tenderness that it made her want to punch him in the face.

  “Will you please say something?” Damian whispered, caressing the backs of his fingers along her cheek.

  Instead of facing the problem, and it was ever more of a problem than it was before because Damian knew exactly what she was, she was going to run from it just as she had done ten years prior.

  Akia got out the car, slamming the door behind her then ran. She didn’t know where she was going, or how she’d get there, but she had to be anywhere but there at the moment.

  Her existence wasn’t supposed to be possible; male werewolves were the result of a mutated gene carrying father—a werewolf—and it was only passed down to a small percentage of male heirs. There was no way to make a werewolf through any other means. They weren’t venomous, a werewolf’s bite simply hurt like any bite would…

  Absently she rubbed the bruise on her arm from where Damian bit her earlier that morning. He didn’t break the skin, but he left a bruise. Werewolves healed rapidly, in wolf or human form it didn’t matter, unless the damage was inflicted by another werewolf. Those took longer to heal, the same rate as it would take a human to heal, she supposed. For nearly five years she religiously studied the history and lore of werewolves with Beowulf and Louvel in the archives at Verulfr Manor, all in hopes of trying to discover the truth of her origin, of how it was possible for her to exist at all.

  They found no answers.

  Beowulf and the others always stressed the need for discretion, and that other wolves couldn’t know of her existence. If the Elders knew that Beowulf had hid from them the existence of a lone female, it wouldn’t end well for the family and pack. They would be eradicated, and she would find herself, once again, in a cage and on display. She would be nothing but a means to try to secure, to produce, a full-blooded werewolf.

  Never again would she be in a cage or forced…

  “Never again,” she whispered before she was slammed into from behind, knocking the wind from her; she rolled across the grass, coming to a rest on her back.

  When the flashes of light cleared from her vision she focused on the pure black wolf standing over her, head tilted to the side to regard her, what was left of a Dolce & Gabbana tie dangled from his neck, and sapphire eyes moved over her many times.

  Akia blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision since she had to be seeing things. When werewolves were in wolf form their eyes were amber or gold, not the color of those when in human form, and yet there was no mistaking that the large eyes looking at her intently were the same eyes that she had gazed upon nearly every day for the past five years. With a shaking hand she reached up and caressed his head, and his eyes closed before a soft hum of contentment rolled from his chest. His fur was nearly as soft as the heavenly curls she absently played with in her sleep. Propping herself up on her elbows, she buried her face in his furry neck and inhaled deeply and suddenly, as if it were a mythical connection, his human scent and wolf scent connected in her mind, which would forever be with her now, and it made a complete creature.

  When she giggled under her breath, as the realization that the one thing she had been desperately trying to hide from Damian was the exact same thing he was trying to hide from her registered, he pulled back to look at her curiously.

  “I’ve smelled you before,” Akia whispered, looking over his wolf; tall, broad shoulders, thick, muscular thighs, wide paws, long maw with a solid black nose, and long tail that swept from side to side, waiting for her to finish her appraisal. “I thought I was going mad,” she said with a smile. “I couldn’t make the link in my head without seeing it firsthand.”

  Over the past year, Akia had picked up the scent of a wolf around their home, in their home, but she could never pinpoint the origin of it. It made her paranoid for months, but Damian assured her that it was nothing, possibly she was imagining things.

  She wasn’t.

  Damian nodded his understanding; the connection between wolves was only there if they allowed it to be there. When in human form, werewolves smelled like everyone else, but once in wolf form, a connection is made in the animalistic side that links the human scent to the wolf scent, and that solidifies the two in the mind. Now, Akia could track Damian for miles if needed, just as she could for each member of her pack.

  Damian wanted her to figure it out, he needed her to, but her more than apparent apprehension of their species confused him as much as it intrigued him. It wasn’t until two years into their relationship that he discovered what she was. At first he was terrified; a lone female was beyond disbelief. He started working later and later, sometimes staying on the couch in his office, and even spent a week at his pack’s compound in upstate New York going through the extensive library there, looking for answers.

  He didn’t find any.

  In a rare show of backbone, his mother, frail and aged beyond her years, not knowing what he was looking for, but could see that the weight of the world was
on his shoulders, told him the answers were in his heart, and only his heart knew what he needed to do. His heart belonged to Akia de Wolfe, regardless of her returning the sentiment, and he promised his mother that he would do right by his heart.

  And he did, as much as Akia would allow him.

  Now there was nothing between them, other than her clothing and apparent amusement, and Damian was strangely okay with that.

  “You’re a very handsome wolf,” Akia teased, and he rolled his eyes before softly nuzzling against the side of her neck. “Yes, I know,” she huffed, “stating the obvious. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “I asked first,” she argued with a sheepish smile that quickly fell, and she tried to push Damian off of her, but it was too late.

  A large, sandy blond wolf slammed into Damian’s side, and they rolled across the grass in a tangle of snapping maws and fur.

  “Goddamn it, Adam!” Akia yelled, scrambling to her feet. “Get off of him!”

  The two wolves circled each other, growling and snarling, trying to size the other up. The sandy colored wolf was taller, broader, and thicker, but the black wolf wasn’t scared of him in the least.

  “This is almost entirely your fault,” she hissed looking down at the dark brown and black wolf sitting next to her.

  Connell shook his head.

  “Yes, it is,” she hissed, smacking him upside the head, and he growled at her then got to his feet and ran after the smaller, blue haired wolf racing towards the other two. “Goddamn it,” she groaned.

  Connell caught Ulrik and tackled him to the ground before he got stuck in the middle of the dog fight, and Rafe took his time joining them, the golden blond and white wolf plopping down on top of the thrashing blue wolf, pinning him to the grass.

  “I hate men,” Akia grumbled under her breath before pulling her side arm and shot into the air, effectively stealing the attention of everyone at the estate. “Adam, crawl back into that dark hole Varg calls a head or else the next shot won’t be in the air,” she warned, leveling her gun at him.