Page 100 of Ava: Part One

She looked up to see Ezekiel walking towards her, and then he pulled the legs of his sweats up to dangle his legs in the water, too. He was too close. She was so aware of his body that she had to force herself to think of other things so she wouldn’t keep embarrassing herself.

“I’ll make something later.”

She didn’t feel right having the other Omegas make her meals when she knew what they thought about that.

Ezekiel was quiet. She risked a glance at his face and saw he wasn’t even paying attention to her. There was something on his mind as his eyes scanned the woods. Was he also wondering when Claire would make her move?

“You haven’t told your family what’s going on,” he stated.

“They worry,” she answered with a shrug.

“Do they know what this place is?”

“My dad and older brother.”

She kicked her feet around in the water. It was already scorching, and it would have been nice to swim for a while, but she didn’t have a bathing suit. She wasn’t likely to ever go into town again to buy one.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Four brothers.”

“Human?”

“No, unfortunately.”

Her life would have been a lot easier if her adoptive family had been a simple middle-class human family worrying about everyday things like bills instead of when the next insane wolf would bite her.

“You have a thing against wolves,” Ezekiel said.

“Can you blame me?”

He was silent again as they watched the water.

“How are you wolfless?”

She didn’t know why he was so chatty today when most of their prior conversations involved threatening her to make her leave. Had he also seen the futility of that plan?

“Adopted.”

Ezekiel nodded and then went silent again. Something about this scene reminded her of her daydream of the beach. She had been sitting next to him, and everything had been so peaceful.

“You can call them anytime, you know,” Ezekiel said after a while.

“Thank you. But maybe only on weekends. I don’t want to have to explain why I’m living here.”

“They’ll know about me soon; you might as well tell them.”

She frowned at the confident tone in his voice. Why would her family know about him? They were so overprotective of her that she knew how that conversation would go.

“No. I’d rather not argue with them about why I’m living with a boy.”

Ezekiel looked at her, and his eyes flickered red and then back.

“I’m twenty-two. I haven’t been a boy in a long time,” he growled. “But you will have to tell them about me, Ava, because you’re mine now.”

Ezekiel stood after he said that. Her jaw dropped. What the hell did he mean by that? He thought she would just fall into his bed, as he had threatened? He thought he could just declare she was his, and it would make it true? Her anger started to build up as she watched his retreating back.

“There are wolves in the forest watching you. Come into the house.”

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