Evangeline found it difficult to even stay standing, the weight of the magic suddenly too much for her. But she was nothing if not determined. She refused to believe that she wanted anything to do with Maddox. She definitely didn’t accept that she was his mate.
That didn’t mean she was going to let this witch talk to her like that, either.
“Back off, Broomhilda.”
“You’re nothing but an Ant. You don’t scare me.”
“Yeah?” Evangeline’s outrage was almost tangible. She shoved at the air in front of her. It did nothing to scatter the smoke, but the force managed to knock the witch back on her heels. “You’re forgetting something. I might be a… an Ant, but this is still my dream. I conjured you up. I can make you disappear.”
The dark-haired witch laughed. Considering the nasty look on her face, her laugh shouldn’t have sounded as pretty as it did. “I’d love to see you try it. You caught me off-guard once. It won’t happen again.”
Oh?
Evangeline pushed a second time.
The witch was right. It didn’t work.
She stalked forward confidently, slapping aside the rush of wind as if batting away a gnat.
“I own your dreams, human. I see your fantasies, know that you think my mate is yours. You might not want to admit it, but I know. Enough. It’s gone too far now. Leave Maddox alone.”
Was she serious?
Evangeline openly gawked at the other woman. “You got it all wrong, lady. I think you’re missing some very important information. In case you didn’t figure it out, he stole me. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“He’s confused,” snapped the witch. Her face twisted, her beautiful features vicious. “He’s convinced himself that he’s in love with you. He’s wrong.”
“You want him?” offered Evangeline. “Take him.”
The witch’s ruby red lips quirked upward. “I’m working on it. You’re just a complication I didn’t need right now. The dreams should have kept you off his radar. At least I didn’t waste all of my diamonds. You clearly don’t know anything about him—as you shouldn’t.”
“What do you mean? Of course I don’t. I never met him before last week!”
“That’s right.”
There was something in the way the witch said that. Her voice went even higher, almost piercing. She was lying, Evangeline realized. But why would she lie?
Why would this witch come to her in her dreams to warn her to stay away from Maddox?
Why would she have haunted her for years?
Evangeline said the first thing that popped in her head. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of you? Please. We both know you’re nothing but Maddox’s mistake. Don’t take it so hard, Angie.”
Evangeline’s jaw tightened. When she spoke, she did so through clenched teeth. “Don’t call me ‘Angie’.”
The witch’s purple eyes glittered maliciously. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t want him. Besides, whatever he says, whatever he thinks… there’s no true mate bond between the two of you, nothing to tie you together. As soon as he comes to me, he’ll realize what he's done.”
Because she couldn’t deny that she was dreaming—however whacked her consciousness was to create this vision—Evangeline let herself submit to the compulsion toward Maddox that she’d been denying since the first time she locked eyes with him at Mugs.
It didn’t mean she was giving up. It didn’t mean she had any intention of telling the overwhelming brute that his caveman tactics might have struck a chord with her. She couldn’t come to grips with the idea that a man she met less than a week ago was destined to be her lifelong mate. And that was if she ever got over the whole, you know, abduction thing.
Still, she was lying to herself if she continued to deny an attraction that she’d felt from that pivotal moment.
“Who says I don’t want him?”
That… might’ve been the wrong thing to tell the witch.
The air crackled with magic. The purple smoke thickened, turned heavy, went dark. The wind picked up, making Evangeline feel like she was standing in the center of a tornado. Her hair slapped her in her face, stinging her eyes. She threw up her hands to protect them.
“You can’t,” hissed the witch. “He’s mine. We’re going to be together as soon as I get rid of you!”
Evangeline gulped. The pressure was back, pushing against her, forcing her to bend her knees. Her right hip twinged; the ache that never quite went away was a memento from her accident. Thank goodness her ankle held out otherwise she’d be flat on her face on the invisible floor.
Her stubborn streak returned with a vengeance. She refused to give the deranged witch the satisfaction of seeing her weak. Forcing herself to straighten, she said, “I’d like to see you try it.”
“No. You wouldn’t.” The witch’s expression was eerily calm, a juxtaposition to the elements surrounding her. As the wind picked up its pace, roaring around Evangeline, the magic gave the witch a wide berth. Not one perfectly straight piece of hair was out of place as she strode even closer, erasing the gap that existed between them. “You listen to me, human. One last chance. Get out. Get out now. You’re just a mistake Maddox will regret once I’ve bonded to him. He’ll look back on his time with you and his wolf will want to tear out your throat for being a distraction. And that’s if I don’t lose my temper and finish you off first myself.”
A burst of purple exploded over the witch’s head, showering her in violet fireworks. Evangeline buckled, dropping to her knees when she recognized the flash of purple power.
It was the same flash she had seen in every single dream that forced her to relive the crash that nearly killed her.
The witch’s clear, haunting voice lifted high, carrying over the rush of the wind. “You survived me once. Are you lucky enough to do it again?”
The witch lifted her hands. She held them in front of her, keeping her palms facing each other with about a foot of space between them. Her fingers started to take on a pale lilac glow.
“Is it worth it?” she wondered. “Ask yourself that. He’ll hate you for the rest of your life. Considering Maddox’s wolf is an unpredictable beast at the best of times, that’s assuming he even lets you have a life. Come, come… are you that desperate to have someone love you?”
Evangeline tilted her head back, glaring up at the witch. “I already have someone who loves me.”
Her mother, her father… Adam. Sure, they didn’t cause her to dance along the thin line that existed between anger and hate, attraction and something so very primal, she almost—almost—understood why Maddox felt like he had to abduct her, but she had no doubt that they loved her even so.
A glowing orb the size of a softball hung between the witch’s hands. The color darkened to lavender, throwing garish purple shadows across the hatred in her face.
“Good,” she bit out. “Remember that.”
Before Evangeline could duck, the witch threw the orb right at her.
It struck her dead in the chest.
22
Choking, Evangeline’s eyes sprang open as she suddenly came to. An instant later, she shot straight up in the bed, panting as if she’d just finished running a marathon.
Apart from the mild ache in her ankle, she didn’t feel any pain, though her hands were wrapped around her middle, cradling her chest. Poking her side, probing her rib cage, her first instinct was to check for an injury.
There weren’t any. Her skin was unmarked.
Her heart was still racing, though.
And that’s when she noticed the man sitting in the corner.
Maddox.
Of course he was there.
He looked like hell. Some time while she slept, he had dragged a big wooden chair into the corner across from the bed. He was perched on the edge, his elbows on his thighs, his hands folded aimlessly in front of him. His hair was longer than it had been, or maybe that was because he’d been anxiously running his claws through
it. Strands stuck up all over the place. The scruff on his jaw was so thick, it was more like the beginning of a beard.
Purple bruises shadowed a pair of dull, golden eyes rimmed with red. He was watching her closely, barely blinking. His body language screamed he was alert while his eyes were glazed over. It seemed as if he hadn’t slept for days.
Wait—
How long had she been sleeping?
“Wha—” Her voice was thick with sleep, yet rough, sounding more like a croak. “What time is it?”
“You were out even longer this time.” Maddox untangled his fingers, then ran an anxious hand down his face. “Almost fourteen hours, and for most of it you were twitching, crying out in your sleep. You kept calling my name.”
That was a revelation, and not one that Evangeline wanted to hear about—or explain.
Maddox must have sensed her reluctance. Leaning forward in the chair, he said softly, “What were you dreaming about, Angie?”
“What’s going on?” she whispered, ignoring his quiet question. Her dreams were her own, as crazy and inexplicable as they were. Now that she was conscious again, the witch’s threats seemed like nothing more than a manifestation of her confusion. And, on the off chance that some crazy witch managed to infiltrate her dreams, she refused to tell him about it. As protective as a shifter could be, he would try to fight the witch for her.
What if it turned out her dream was right? That Evangeline wasn’t his mate, and that witch was? If Maddox went to these lengths to capture her to prove that she was his, what would he do if it turned out he was wrong?
Better that she keep her secrets. God knows that Maddox had plenty of his own.
Like this room.
She… she shouldn’t be in this room.
Evangeline didn’t want to face it. If she thought she could slip into a dreamless sleep, she’d close her eyes and pretend that this wasn’t happening. Any of it. But her dreams were often even harder to live through than her reality. Especially this strange new one where everything she thought she knew was questionable, and Evangeline didn’t know what to believe anymore.
That was just another thing she struggled to accept.
“Where— where are we? Where am I now?”
Because one thing was for sure: this much bigger room wasn’t the same one he put her in while they were at the secluded cabin. That was obvious from her first glance. But… but she recognized it all the same.
Well. Kind of.
It was her bedroom, but it wasn’t. Small details were off. The walls should be sage green instead of this soft mint shade. There was a nightstand on each side of the bed; in her apartment, she only had one on the left side. The lampshade was a vaguely different shape. The wall art featured soothing photos of sweeping countrysides. At home, she posted frames that showed bright city landscapes.
It was like a facsimile of the bedroom she’d spent months getting just how she liked.
But… but why?
How?
She was shaking. Covering her mouth with her hand, she didn’t know if she was going to start sobbing or simply throw up. Throwing up was definitely up there on her list of options. Because this… this was too much. To be torn from a dream where she’d been threatened and manipulated into admitting that, despite all of her denials, she might kind of, sort of have feelings for her abductor only to wake up to… to this—it was just too damn much.
She had to ask. She had to know.
“How did you know what my room looked like?” Evangeline whispered.
“What do you mean?” Maddox frowned. “This is your room.”
That didn’t make sense. Did he change it around while she was sleeping? Her head still felt dizzy and foggy. It was too hard to understand what was going on. “My apartment? How did you get inside? I have wards… and a key—”
Maddox tightened his grip on the chair’s arms. The wood creaked a second before one splintered off. Tossing it to the carpet—it was beige, just like before—he got up and started to pace.
A flash of anger had her sinking back into the pile of pillows behind her. He threw her a look of hunger, a look of despair when he noticed, then purposely kept his distance while scowling, as if her reaction had personally pained him.
His voice was low. Rough. “You don’t understand. I thought this would help… this is your room, Angie. Our room. The room we used to share before you forgot all about me.”
Evangeline didn’t know what to say about that. She couldn’t deny that she didn’t remember Maddox; no matter how much it hurt him to hear her admit that over and over again, she couldn’t force herself to remember. If she could, she would’ve filled in the nagging gaps years ago.
Maddox continued to pace like a caged animal, his heavy steps barely muffled by the thick shag carpet.
“Ang… if the room in your apartment looks anything like this, that has nothing to do with me. Maybe— maybe you remember more than you think.”
The big holes where her memories should be had been a source of aggravation for Evangeline ever since she woke up in the hospital and couldn’t remember anything about the year that led up to the crash that nearly killed her. At the time, she had a hell of a recovery to look forward to. Her parents were against using any magic to help heal her injuries; they meant well, but their wariness when it came to anything paranormal led to an extended recovery time while Evangeline relearned how to use her entire right side. They told her that her missing memories were the least of her worries. She’d get them back in time.
Three years later, she was still waiting.
Frustration welled up inside of her. She wanted to scream.
Because the truth was that she just wasn’t sure. Monday morning, she knew one thing. Since then, her whole life had changed because Maddox insisted she was his mate.
How could she tell him time and time again that she wasn’t his when she couldn’t remember?
Maybe she was. Fresh on the heels of that vulnerable dream, waking up in a room that was as familiar as it was strange, Evangeline wasn’t about to discount anything. Maybe she was his mate—
No.
No.
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. And not only because Evangeline hated the idea of having her choices ripped away from her.
Her mother would have told her. If she was mated to a shifter, her family would’ve known. She wouldn’t have pushed Evangeline toward every eligible bachelor in East Windsor before finally having success with Adam Wright—
Would she?
For the first time since she woke up and discovered Maddox had abducted her, Evangeline began to really wonder.
Maddox loped across the wide room, his stride eating up the steps before he would turn, throw a helpless glance toward the bed, then stalk again. She was agitated. So was he.
“I brought you here on purpose. The cabin didn’t help because you never made it there before the accident. You didn’t know it. Fine. But this… this is our home and I thought— I want you to remember… can you tell me that none of this is familiar? That I’m not?”
Desperation flashed in those golden eyes of his.
The same eyes that had been eerily familiar from the start.
Evangeline gulped. “You know it is. I just told you. My room… my bedroom looks almost exactly like this. But, please, just listen to me: this isn’t my home.”
“It is—”
Why wasn’t he listening? “I lived in Woodbridge before I had to move back home, now I’m in Grayson. I know I’ve never been here before.”
“No,” retorted Maddox. “You don’t remember it. You moved in with me more than three and a half years ago. We’d been dating for six months by then and you decided to put your house up for sale so you could live here. This became your home. Our home.”
Three and a half years ago. That fell firmly in the space where she couldn’t remember anything. Same thing as the six months prior. If what he was saying was true, she could have lost an entire relationsh
ip after her accident.
No. No. It couldn’t be. This was Stockholm Syndrome hard at work. She was, for some unknown reason, drawn to this shifter. She wanted to believe that he was good, that he had a reason for everything he’d done so far. If they really had a history she couldn’t remember, she could blame his mating instincts and possessive shifter nature for how he just took her, disregarding all laws and decencies like, oh, maybe telling her that she used to be his mate instead of just running off with her.
It couldn’t be. Any man she loved—any man she chose—would treat her better than a possession that he could grab at will.
“There’s no way—”
“You just don’t remember,” he insisted. “You will, my mate. Whatever it takes, I won’t stop until you remember everything.”
Evangeline flinched. The way he said that—my mate—with such fierceness, such conviction… he was never going to drop it. Didn’t matter how she tried to reason with him. The witch was right. Maddox was convinced that Evangeline belonged with him.
To him.
She pulled herself up, resting her back against a thick oak headboard that was way too close to the one she had at home. “This has gone far enough. Look, for the last time, I’m not your mate. I don’t know why you think I am, but you have to understand that. I won’t tell anyone that you abducted me. It was an honest mistake… just let me go and you can find your real mate. Because it’s not me. It can’t be me. I—”
“Angie.”
She trembled. There was something about the throaty way he said her name. She’d given up on getting him to call her anything else; deep down, she liked it, even though she knew she shouldn’t. A chill coursed through her, making her shudder. She tried to ignore it.
She had to. No matter what he said—what he believed—Maddox already belonged to another. The witch was willing to fight for him, and Evangeline wanted nothing to do with that. So it didn’t matter what he was doing, what he was saying, or the fact that having him in this room felt right for some reason.
Hungry Like a Wolf Page 21
