Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow)

by Tarrah Betts

  I pulled my cell out and dial Caver’s number, “Yeah, it’s me. Aspen’s gone. She found out about Andie, trashed my room and took off.”

  “Ouch, seriously? Wow, you are in it deep now, aren’t you, man?” Caver said with jocularity.

  “Yes, I know that Caver, but that’s not really helpful right now is it? FUCK! Call Griff. Yep, I’ll pick you both up in 5 minutes. We have to find her before she does something stupid”

  Caver could be a pain in the ass sometimes but he was trustworthy as hell. Once you had Caver’s respect, you had a friend for life. And I’d pulled his ass out of enough scrapes to qualify. He’d always had my back ever since he joined the pack and I took him up to the training camp. He’d been one tough nut to crack, the stubborn ass, but there had been no way he was going to best me and I managed to pull him in line, kicking and screaming all the way.

  But more importantly than all that right now,was the fact that he cared about Aspen. He always had, ever since she was just a kid. I guess he sort of saw her as the kid sister that he never had.

  Between Caver, Griff and I, we would find Aspen, I had no doubt about that. I could track her anywhere, just by scent alone. The thing I was worried about was what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into since she’d found out about Andie. She was obviously in a great deal of emotional turmoil and god knows what that would translate into for her.

  Chapter 33

  ***

  “Aspen?” Sorcha whispered into the darkness as she opened her bedroom door quietly. I was lying on her bed, fully clothed, trying to catch some sleep so I could wake up early, before anyone else in the house, and take off before dawn.

  I had run through the plan a hundred times in my head already. I would get up early, and then make my way to the train station by foot. Of course getting up so early would mean that I would get there before the ticket office opened, which meant waiting around in the cold, but as long as I managed to get out of Sorcha’s house early enough without waking anyone up, then no one would be able to tell Roan where I’d gone either.

  And that sounded like a pretty good plan to me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “Naw, not yet. I was just laying here. Where’s your lover boy staying tonight?” I teased her. I couldn’t see her in the dark but I knew she had the sappiest, love struck grin on her pretty face.

  “Oh, Aspen, isn’t he just the cutest thing ever? And he’s a frat boy too, can you believe it? Me and a frat boy!” I could see her silhouette bopping around in excitement against the dim light in the doorway.

  I smiled. It appeared that her failed relationship with Josh was the last thing on her mind right now. Sorcha was like that, unerringly positive and enthusiastic about life, like everything that happened to her was a gift in some way. I admired that about her, that no matter how crappy life got, she always found a reason to keep smiling. I would miss her terribly when I left; she was the only true friend that I had ever had.

  I felt a lump rising into my throat but swallowed it back down. Now was not the time to start getting emotional. That was a surefire way to threaten my cover and blow my plans.

  I needed to get out of Spruce Hollow and as far away from Roan as humanly possible...and nothing was going to get in the way of that, not even the love I felt for Sorcha.

  Chapter 34

  ***

  Aspen was still at Sorcha’s. Of that much, I was certain. I had picked up her scent in the driveway as soon as I got out of the truck.

  The forest after it rains.

  “She’s here, or at least she was here at one point tonight,” I called over my shoulder to Griff and Caver, who were hanging back behind me. We had started tracking Aspen at Sorcha’s, since that was the last known place where she was supposed to have been, and with any luck, she would still be here.

  I inhaled deeply and tracked her scent all the way down the driveway towards the barn. It was late but there were still stragglers hanging around in small groups from the New Years party. Almost everyone in town had been invited, including me as I frequently worked on Sorcha’s family's vehicles. I had been so tempted to go too, not for the party but just to be able to keep an eye on Aspen.

  But after we kissed, everything had gone haywire and I needed to put distance in between us before things got even murkier. It must have been quite the party though if the inebriated state of the stragglers and the DJ set up and speakers were any indication.

  I wonder if she had liked it, did she dance all night?

  “With another male?” my wolf asked, perking up his ears.

  “Who knows? She was obviously angry when she left the house. Anything’s possible at this point, I’ve never seen her in such a state before.”

  I followed Aspen’s scent around to the backyard and then up through the field to the house. She had gone to the house at some point in the night, but the important question remained: was she still in there?

  Most of the house was darkened but I could see soft light on in the front of the house. The living room, maybe? Opening my hearing wide, I listened hard and could hear soft, hushed voices coming from upstairs.

  Two, young, hushed female voices. It was Aspen and Sorcha, if I was a betting man.

  But I wasn’t a betting man, especially not where Aspen was concerned. Listening again, I focused everything I had on the actual words, rather than just the sound of their voices. It was a lot harder to do. Sound can travel for large distances across open ground but to actually make out the contents of the sound is a much harder task.

  “Frat boys…”

  Frat boys??? What the hell?

  It was Sorcha’s voice.

  Had she and Aspen been hanging out with frat boys tonight? I’m sure that would have held immense appeal to her giddy, innocent, teenaged brain. However, what frat boys would have found appealing about her, in turn, was probably something else entirely.

  I felt jealousy slowly begin to creep through my veins. Just how old were these frat boys? Had anything happened with one of them? Did they find her as attractive as I did? Did they try and get into her pants, like most young boys would if given the chance?

  “Of course they found her attractive,you idiot, have you looked at her with both your eyes open lately? She’s not a little girl anymore, Roan,” my wolf said.

  This situation with Aspen was killing me inside and kissing her last night was akin to opening Pandora’s box. The problem was, I didn’t want to slam the cover shut.

  “She’s our mate, Roan. Admit that you want her, admit it out loud. Your true feelings will never be hidden from me. I know the truth, Roan. You burn for her. You take Andie to your bed and it’s Aspen’s face you see.”

  “Stop it, just stop it. You’re starting to piss me off wolf.”

  “I only speak the truth and I am getting sick and tired of listening to your half truths.”

  “I don’t care what you think you know. This is the way things are right now, whether you agree with it or not. You got it? I’m the captain of this ship, not you. So you can take your unwanted opinions and shove them down your throat for all I care!”

  My wolf was angry. I was angry. Aspen was angry.

  What the hell was I supposed to do? Take Aspen home, throw her on my bed, and rip her panties off and rut with her like a wild beast until I spilled myself inside her over and over again until I felt sated?

  Yeah, that was a great idea, pervert.

  “I want to blood bond with her. I greatly desire to. We do not have to turn her Were in order to blood bond, as you well know Roan. You can worry about turning her later. But, right now, I desire a deeper connection with Aspen rather communicating through simple text messages on a cell phone. I want a direct line to her thoughts and feelings, as she’s feeling them, not something I hear about at a later date or not at all,” my wolf bit out.

  “I see,” I said.

  Blood bonding.

  How I wanted that too. Things would be so
much easier between Aspen and I once I was able to walk around in her head and read her most intimate thoughts. Blood bonded Were couples were generally quite peaceful and deeply content and settled with one another. There was very little room for misunderstandings of any kind once you were privy to the other person’s psyche.

  I wanted that with Aspen.

  I wanted to know how she felt about everything. Me. My wolf. Building a life together. I wanted to know more about her suffering as a child and the circumstances that led her to me. I wanted to gain that knowledge so that I could ease those hurts for her.

  I wanted to take care of her, forever, and blood bonding would allow me to do that as I would have intimate knowledge of her every need.

  The problem was that blood bonding was an act that could only be performed during the frenzy of mating.

  “Listen, we’ll talk about this later, okay? Right now, we have to find out if Aspen is here or not.” I knew this was not the end of the conversation as unrest regarding Aspen had been brewing for quite some time between my wolf and I and I was praying that a simple acknowledgement of his desires would suffice.

  I was wrong.

  “Don’t try and misdirect me with your shallow attempts at deception. You know as well as I do that Aspen is in there. Listen hard; can you honestly not hear her? She is in there. I am sure of it. Perhaps you are not as sharp as you once were, Roan.”

  Stilling myself inside, I held my breath, closed my eyes and focused my hearing as hard as I could on the upstairs window. I could hear Sorcha with no problem at all, but whomever she was talking to was very quiet and had a forced and distressed tone to their voice. It was so faint at first but soon enough, I was able to make out Aspen’s gently hushed timbre.

  She sounded limp and distressed, like her spark had been snuffed out.

  The need to get to her and comfort her was intense. She was my mate and she was suffering because of our circumstance and the choices I had made regarding Andie. I felt tremendous guilt. It suffocated me and ate my insides raw.

  “I told you she was in there,“ my wolf said haughtily, “now get her out and bring her home. She is in terrible emotional pain. We need to comfort her and make things right. We need to blood bond with her and the sooner, the better.”

  “Listen, now is not a good time and that’s the end of it, okay?”

  “Do you not desire to blood bond with our mate?” my wolf questioned angrily.

  “Of course I do, I just don’t feel that right now is the best time. She is still too young.” I replied.

  “You are a blind fool, Roan Sabre! Our mate is maturing into a beautiful and alluring young female and you are too blind to see it. You let others who are unworthy of her, steal her affections from right under our noses! Perhaps you are no longer the dominant entity in our relationship,” my wolf said as he bared his teeth to me in blatant hostility.

  My wolf was enraged at the thought of another male stealing Aspen from him. I could feel his fury threatening to explode inside me. He had never once bared his teeth to me in all the years we had been together.

  I actually felt shocked and kind of pissed off that he would dare issue such a bold challenge to me.

  For the first time since I had become a Were, I did not feel a peaceful symbiosis with my wolf and it was an unsettling sensation that left me feeling unbalanced inside.

  It worried me because a shift in the symbiotic balance between wolf and man frequently translated into a shift or struggle for power as well. And that never turned out well for man or beast. It left the Were highly unstable and volatile and prone to turning rogue, with no mate or pack to call home.

  My wolf and I shared the same consciousness at all times. But when I was in human form, the man was in control, always. My wolf had free reign to express his opinion and feelings and he frequently made his desires known, but I was in control of my actions, not him. Conversely, when I was in wolf form, my wolf was the dominant being and in control of his actions, yet I was present as well.

  A struggle for power could ensue with the end result being the wolf in control of the man at all times, in wolf form or not and there was no way I would allow my wolf to take over as I was way too much of a dominant control freak to allow that to happen.

  But the fact remained that my wolf could choose to fight me for control at any time and would likely choose times where I was most vulnerable. Such as when I was with Aspen, off pack lands or in town, surrounded by humans.

  “Listen, don’t you dare threaten me, you mangy dog. You let Aspen lead you around like a common stray, doing tricks for dog biscuits. How dare you question my right as the dominant entity in our relationship?” I bellowed.

  “I do those things for love of our mate! What do you do for her? How do you fulfill her emotional needs? You do not. You micromanage her life. You control and suppress her. You deny your feelings for her and ignore her when she declares her love for us. You do not deserve her, Roan. I do,” my wolf said, his hackles rising.

  “She is mine and always will be. I dare you to try and take her away from me, wolf!” I shouted back at him.

  My wolf lowered his head and glared daggers at me, contemplating his next move.

  “You will come to terms with blood bonding with her, Roan, or I will do it for you. This is not a threat, it is a promise,” my wolf said with snarling bared teeth.

  “It’s like that, is it? Either I blood bond with Aspen, or you will? Are you crazy, she’s a sixteen-year-old girl! You leave her the hell alone. She doesn’t need this, not right now. She deserves to live her life and be a normal teenager,” I said calmly, trying to reason with my pigheaded wolf.

  “I have said how I feel on the matter. We have obviously arrived at an impasse and I assure you, I will not be the one to flinch first, Roan. Aspen wants us and I want her, whether you think now is the right time or not. Act now or try and stop me. The choice is yours,” my wolf said with finality.

  I knew the discussion was over, as there really wasn’t much else to say, other than some macho posturing about whose will was going to prevail. We were at an impasse and I would not be the first to bend. There was no way I would cave, I loved Aspen too much to hurt her by blood bonding with her right now and my wolf was unwilling to accept that.

  Because of this new threat from my wolf, there was one fact that I was now glaringly obvious; I could not safely be in Aspen’s presence anymore. My wolf couldn’t be trusted to be around her and therefore, I couldn’t be trusted either.

  I sat down on the front steps of Sorcha’s farmhouse and stared out into the darkness while I waited for Griff and Caver to finish their perimeter search.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  My throat felt dry and my chest tight as I held my head in my hands. I hadn’t cried since my father died when I was a kid, but I wanted to cry right now. The severity of the situation was staring me right in the face and I didn’t want to acknowledge what I had to do next.

  I would have to leave Spruce Hollow for Aspen’s own protection.

  Protection from both me and from my wolf, incase he should succeed in wresting control from me. I could feel him trying to force his will on me already.

  The bastard!

  He wasn’t wasting any time in trying to take over. I would have to be on guard at all times until I left Spruce Hollow and got far enough away from Aspen.

  I wanted to scream and smash things with my hands as the knowledge that I would be separated from Aspen indefinitely burned me like a white hot poker in my chest.

  Oh god, why? Why now, you stupid fucking wolf!

  Standing up, I paced the front walkway, like a man possessed, the Alpha’s words coming back to haunt me: “Step back…let her grow up like a normal teenager… until she’s ready for you.” He was right but I didn’t want this to be my reality.

  Hadn’t I suffered enough? Hadn’t I been a good mate, patient and nurturing, while I waited for her these past ten years?

  My head
was reeling, desperately clinging to the thought that I could claim Aspen now, as she was and regardless of her age.

  But I knew deep down that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I stole her innocence from her. I needed to do the right thing and leave Spruce Hollow until she was mature enough to claim as my mate.

  Damn it Aspen! Damn your newly discovered sexuality!

  Things were going just fine up until the last few months or so. Before that, I was able to stay away from her and resist her reasonably well, but them WHAM! Something changed about her and it hit me like a bat right between the eyes.

  Maybe it was the way she walked, smooth and lithe like a cat. Or maybe it was the way she looked at me now, her eyes soft and pleading, like she wanted something from me but wasn’t quite sure what it was.

  She was changing in so many ways by letting go of the girl she once was and becoming more of the woman she would eventually be. And my inner animal couldn’t help but sit up and take notice of the change in her. She was like a siren, calling me to shore with her song.

  I was crushed inside and I knew Aspen would be devastated too, regardless of the anger she felt right now. I had been the one constant in her life for the past ten years. No matter how much we disagreed about curfews, friends and dating, she knew that she could always count on me to be there for her and keep her safe.

  No matter what.

  “Hey, you find anything?” Caver asked as he stepped out of the shadows from around the side of the house with Griff following quickly behind. “Yeah, she’s inside,” I said as I swallowed hard against my wolf’s persistent push for control.

  Caver cocked his head and looked at me. “You okay, man? You don’t look too good.”

  “Not really. We need to talk, I need you guys to do something for me.”

  Chapter 35

  ***

  The cold night air was filled snarls and low growls as we made our way back to my truck.