by Kamryn Hart
When he came back in, he avoided her gaze. Her heart squeezed. The action hurt. What was she expecting? That he’d come back in and look at her like she was desirable, like he needed her? She smelled him still. Arousal. She shook her head of the thought, because she shouldn’t care. This wasn’t part of her mission. She needed to stay a safe distance from Max. If she didn’t, his warmth would thwart her mission. She could only imagine how angry Beatrice would have been right now if she could see the thoughts swirling around in Ava’s head.
Who would love an ugly girl like you?
She was a girl. She couldn’t be called a woman. Her heart was too fragile. She had great power, but she was also the easiest to shatter.
“What happened?” Max asked. “I smell blood.”
Ava glanced at him to see him staring at her fingers bunched up in her sweater. He saw them earlier when she shook his hand. He knew how ugly she was.
She hid her hands behind her back like that would solve everything.
“There’s an ointment in the bathroom that’ll make them feel better,” he said.
When Ava didn’t move or reply, he went to the bathroom and came back out with a small medicinal tube in his hand.
“I-I’m fine,” Ava insisted.
“C’mon. It’s not going to make anything worse.”
He walked right up to her and almost grabbed her arm, but she pulled away, crawling over to the head of the bed. Max raised an eyebrow at her, but he held his hands up in surrender.
“Okay. Just…” He placed the ointment at the foot of her bed. “It really will make them feel better. They should heal soon enough if you leave them alone and treat them nice.”
He must have known her bloody fingers were a chronic problem, self-inflicted. Her stomach turned, and she felt like vomiting.
Max went to his bed and grabbed a laptop from off the nightstand. He opened it up and started typing away within minutes. Ava glanced at the ointment and slowly crawled back over to the foot of her bed. She took the tube and squeezed out a generous amount of the stuff and slathered it on her fingertips. The burning was cooled almost instantly. It felt good.
She glanced over at Max. She wanted to thank him, but he wasn’t paying her any attention now. He was focused on whatever he was doing with that laptop. The smell of his arousal was an almost indecipherable scent in the air now. Whatever was happening between them was snuffed out. If she thanked him now, she’d bother him. He sure was handsome though. Golden blond hair, sky blue eyes, a body so powerful he looked like he could crush a boulder. His skin was a soft tan color, and it would have been flawless if not for the scars she saw on his neck and around his eyes.
Feeling dejected, Ava snatched her small bag from off the floor and looked through her stuff just to give herself something to do. She wanted to find some clothes to sleep in too. She was exhausted. She wondered about the burner phone in her coat pocket. She would probably put it under her pillow tonight even though Beatrice shouldn’t be calling her tonight. She couldn’t afford to miss a call. Hopefully, wolves respected boundaries when it came to other people’s phones, but just in case, she decided to keep it out of sight.
The back of Ava’s neck prickled. She felt eyes on her. She glanced at Max and caught him staring at her. He held her gaze for less than a second before looking away as if he was trying to hide the fact he had been watching her.
Max cleared his throat and glued his eyes back onto his laptop’s screen. “So, it’s late. We should probably turn in so you aren’t tired in the morning for Awakened Wolf lessons.”
Ava gave a stiff nod of her head. Max closed his laptop, grabbed some clothes from a small closet, and made his way to the bathroom. Ava brought her knees up to her chest and rested her chin as she listened to the sound of water running. It wasn’t enough to be from a shower. He was probably brushing his teeth.
A minute later, Max emerged. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said, “You can take a shower or whatever, but I’m going to turn in.” He was wearing a white t-shirt and sweats, but something told Ava this wasn’t his normal sleep attire. If wolves ran as warm as they seemed to, he’d probably get hot sleeping like that unless he slept on top of the covers.
“I’ll be quiet,” Ava replied.
Max grinned at her, and her heart dropped into her stomach.
“I’m a heavy sleeper,” he informed. “Don’t worry about me.”
He plopped down on his bed and turned his back to her.
Ava hurried to the bathroom with her own clothes and a toothbrush, shut the door, and immediately started splashing water on her face from the sink. The cold liquid helped sooth the burning in her cheeks. She wasn’t going to shower tonight. No matter what Max said, she didn’t want to be the reason for making him tired tomorrow. She was probably going to be the one tired tomorrow. She didn’t know if she would sleep tonight.
If she did sleep, she hoped she wouldn’t dream of the White Wolf. She didn’t need to wake up gasping in the middle of the night, or even screaming. It happened sometimes. Beatrice was used to it. She never asked Ava about her dreams. She was a witch, but she didn’t believe in foreseeing the future or dreams being omens. Ava told Beatrice about the White Wolf once, but her keeper dismissed it immediately. Since then, Ava kept him to herself.
The White Wolf was her secret, and he would kill her.
She was worried. The wild animal inside of her wasn’t making her feel any better. The snarling was ringing in her ears now. The wolf sensed when she was off balance, and her wildness grew worse in response. Ava didn’t think the wolf inside of her planned these attacks because she didn’t have a mind left. She was all instinct now. Nothing more. Nothing less. Her thinking mind no longer existed. When this job was over, Ava would release the mindless animal. Beatrice couldn’t sell a fragment of a shifter.
She shuddered when she remembered stripping this vital piece out of the shifter woman. It was the most agonizing process Ava had ever endured. It wasn’t claiming a shifter’s free will, basically leaving it untouched but putting it under a new command. It was slowly picking the shifter apart at the roots and dismantling her, making it so she would never function again because her human side had not survived the separation. It was much worse for the shifter, but the process took its toll on Ava as well. She felt weaker afterward, more broken even though she had succeeded in stealing a shifter’s ability to shift. That small girl’s heart inside of her chest was cracked like the plains of a land ravaged by earthquakes. Soon those rifts would swallow her into their depths. Once the White Wolf was through with her.
Her visions grew worse after she stripped the animal from that shifter. The White Wolf plagued her with a vengeance. That was why she was so relieved when he finally left her alone once arriving in Moonwatch. But it wasn’t a good thing. It was a sign, a warning. This was her last stop. That’s what it had to mean. Maybe she would accomplish what Beatrice sent her here to do or maybe she wouldn’t. Time would tell.
What did she want to do before she died?
Her mind drifted to Max lying in a bed in the room just outside. Maybe she wanted to revel in his warmth and not worry about the consequences. Maybe she wanted to hide the fact she was a witch, so she could continue to bathe in this warmth. She could embrace it instead of pushing it away because of what she had to do, because of what she was.
Ava had faint memories of an abstract concept called love. When she was a young child on the streets, unwanted and unclaimed, she saw people together. Men and women. Children too. They laughed and smiled. They hugged. They kissed. She longed for that, but none of them loved her. They scorned her. Until Beatrice. Beatrice smiled at her, took her in, even hugged her at times. She said she loved her, but she never looked at her the way people who loved or were in love looked at each other. Ava could see the difference. Beatrice loved Ava for what she could do for her, not because of who she was. She knew the difference, but it didn’t matter. Beatrice wanted her. That was enough.
> But what would it be like to have Max look at her with love in his eyes? Her cheeks flushed at the thought. It would feel a lot like the warmth when he touched her, the warmth in his words, gestures, all of it combined. He tried to fix her fucked up fingers. Already, Max loved her more than Beatrice. However, that wasn’t true either. Everyone in Moonwatch thought she was a wolf shifter.
No one loved her, the fragile hearted girl, and no one ever would.
The White Wolf was coming.
Ava wondered if Beatrice would miss her when she was gone.
Chapter 7
SLEEPING WAS A JOKE. Max thought his body and mind would tire out eventually, but all he could think about was the beauty sleeping in the bed next to his. She was so close, but not close enough. He wanted her in his arms. Her scent made his cock half erect the entire night. His wolf side was grumpy because he hadn’t taken her in his arms like he wanted. His right inner thigh started bothering him as he lay in bed, too—really bothering him. It was an itch that wouldn’t go away.
When he checked the time again for like the billionth time, he decided five was as long as he could wait. He wasn’t going to try to sleep anymore. He turned over in his bed to get a look at Ava. She was curled up in a ball, blankets all around her like a cocoon. When she took off her hat to sleep, he saw her black hair was almost shaved down to the scalp. He didn’t know if it was a fashion statement or what, but it wasn’t typical. Did it make her any less attractive to him? A hard no. He had never been more attracted to anyone in his life. She was so gorgeous. The tangled mess of blankets she was buried in made him crack a smile. She hadn’t slept any better than him. He heard her every movement during the night. She seemed to be sleeping now, though. Her breaths were long and deep, a subtle rise and fall in her chest.
Max sat up, grabbed his laptop, and made some progress on commissioned work, coding for various things. It kept him busy for a couple hours, and Ava continued to sleep soundly.
Busying his mind sort of made him forget about the itch, but it never went away. Enough was enough.
Quietly, he closed his laptop, got out of bed, grabbed some clothes for the new day, and padded with light steps to the bathroom. He shut the door for privacy—though his wolf thought that was stupid and unnecessary especially considering Ava wasn’t even awake—and stripped his sweats. He touched his right inner thigh. There wasn’t a bump. His skin was smooth as ever, so the burning wasn’t because of a bug bite. He moved and looked down at the skin. An area close to the size of his palm reflected the light at a certain angle. His heart sank and swelled at the same time. That was the Moon. He had a Lunas Sigil. He was afraid of this. That was why he hadn’t checked it last night between being frazzled and not wanting to deal with it. But how? Why did he have a Moon Mark?
You know how. You know why, too.
“Fffffuck,” Max gritted out. Swearing be damned. Derek swore at least one hundred times a day. The words were just kind of stuck in his head at this point, and they seemed to relieve tension, but it wasn’t by much. Nothing made him feel better—until Ava. This could not be happening.
Max needed to ask for advice.
You already know what it means.
But he really wanted to talk to someone about it, and not a Fated Mates pair of wolves. Nick, Gwen, Willow, and Derek were out of the question. They would tell him what he already knew. Julie didn’t have a Lunas Sigil but she was mated. She and Howard went through a rocky spot, but they were okay now. She was happily mated. She was the history keeper, too. She knew all the stories surrounding Lunas. What did a Lunas Sigil actually mean? Maybe there was more to it.
Now you’re making excuses.
“Shut up, stupid wolf,” Max hissed as he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He was going to talk to Julie. He made his decision.
You’ll give in eventually.
Max tried to ignore it, but that thought held truth. The wolf side of him was being patient—patient—for now, but if he started warring with himself again, he’d do… something. He thought about Ava sleeping all curled up in a mountain of blankets. Warm and safe like he wanted her always. If he could only make her smile and smash those fears he kept smelling in her scent, everything would be perfect. A smile tugged at his lips again. He caught the stupid face he was making in the mirror and composed himself.
Once he was presentable, ready for the day, he emerged from the bathroom to see Ava awake. She was sitting up in bed, her many covers pushed to the side. She was wearing a large t-shirt, but the fabric was thin and the way her back was curved as she stretched made it impossible not to see her small breasts through the fabric. Her nipples were perky and showing through. Max went weak in the knees. He righted himself when she stopped her stretch and looked at him inquisitively. He was hard again. She knew. She knew how she turned him on. That was one of the “benefits” of being a wolf after all. She didn’t have to look at his pants to see his boner. She could smell the desire on him just fine.
God, he was embarrassed. He could smell her arousal too, and it made him worse. It was painful to be wearing jeans when his dick pressed so hard against them, begging for freedom. Begging for Ava. Dammit. He had lost all of his goddamn sense. He should at least take her on a date first? A date? How long had it taken him and Lizbeth to get to the sleeping together part? Forget that she cheated on him. Feeling this unbearable attraction for someone wasn’t like him at all. Call it a low libido or whatever, but he never looked at a woman before and immediately thought sex. He didn’t want to start with it now. It was too weird. He should get to know her first. He wanted to get to know her first.
You do know her.
That was a mega huge lie. He didn’t know anything about her.
Ava’s brown skin flooded with red, especially on her cheeks. She averted his gaze and grabbed the clothes she had spread out on her bed. She ran past him to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. She was skittish—not that he blamed her. She was a new wolf. Knowing his desire for her had to be unnerving.
Max shook his head forlornly. This sucked. Maybe he should leave so she could have some time to herself. He could slip outside right now. That would be rude though, wouldn’t it? Leaving without a word?
Sighing, Max walked up to the closed bathroom door and knocked. “You can grab breakfast at the cafe. It’s easy to spot. I’m heading out.”
“You’re heading out?” she repeated.
“I gotta do something.”
“Eat breakfast first. I… could use an escort.” The anxiety in her voice rang in his ears like warning bells. She didn’t want him to leave?
“Sure, okay. Breakfast first,” he agreed.
“I-I’ll be quick.” The anxiety in her voice disappeared, washed away by a wave of relief.
Max didn’t know what to think. He went back to his bed, sat down, and pulled the cross outside of his shirt so it could be seen hanging around his neck. He held it in the palm of his hand and silently asked God for help.
A moment later, Ava stepped outside of the bathroom. She was wearing a warm sweater and jeans, a lot like what she wore yesterday. She went to the edge of her bed to pull on warm socks and boots, so Max started doing the same so they could leave as soon as she was ready. He took another peek at her face because something seemed different. She applied makeup. That’s what it was. It was light and not very noticeable, lip gloss and mascara. Not to point fingers, but it was obvious she wasn’t a makeup guru—unlike Lizbeth. The mascara was a hasty job that didn’t look bad, but makeup was something she did not have a lot of experience with. She hadn’t worn any yesterday. Was she dressing up for him? His little sister got obsessed with makeup when she started junior high because she said she wanted to catch the boys’ attention.
The thought of his little sister brought a frown to his face. He missed his family. He would have to suck up the hurt and confusion soon. He needed to talk to them and tell them what was going on. Adopted or whatever the case was, he had stayed away from
them for too long. They would love him no matter what, right? The fact that he was unsure made him feel sick. He had never doubted his family’s love before, but the wolf thing was kind of a big thing. How would they react?
You won’t know until you tell them the truth.
When the hell did his inner wolf become so sage-like? Where was the wild animal he had been fighting with for two months?
Max watched as Ava donned a scarf, a coat, and a hat. She was really bundling up. Yeah, it was snowing and cold, but wolves ran pretty hot. All he needed was a long-sleeved shirt or jacket, jeans, and a pair of boots, and this weather didn’t seem to bother him much usually.
Ava caught his eyes, but she didn’t hold his gaze. Her eyes went to the cross dangling from his neck. “What’s that?” she asked as she fidgeted with her fingers.
Max shrugged. “A cross. My mom gave it to me years ago. I wear it all the time because it helps me feel closer to God. It reminds me to stick up for what I believe in.”
Ava went silent. Her scent soured. For whatever reason, it seemed she didn’t like what he had to say about the cross, or maybe God. Fear was interlaced in her scent. Strange. She was the one who asked. Didn’t a cross usually have something to do with God?
Trembling, Ava hid her hands behind her back. A pair of gloves were sitting on her bed, but she made no move to put them on. Then Max smelled it, the iron, the blood.
Without thinking, acting on nothing but instinct, Max snatched one of Ava’s wrists. She whimpered as he held her hand and saw the fresh blood seeping from the wounds on her fingertips. She just barely ripped them open again, and he hadn’t noticed. That was what she did when she fidgeted with her fingers. It wasn’t simple fidgeting. She picked at the scabs.
Ava tried to jerk away from him, but he was stronger than her and had no intention of letting go. “Why’d you do it?” His voice was low in his throat, quiet.
