Page 70 of Ava: Part One

Everything came rushing back to her. Her heart hammered again as she moved her arms from her bra to inspect her torso. There was absolutely nothing, not even a scratch. The only evidence there was that she wasn’t imagining things were the traces of blood that someone had wiped from her skin and the splashes on her bra.

Claire had really done it. She had shifted and tried to kill her in front of witnesses.

All because what? Her boyfriend had been making advances on her?

She covered herself again and met Ezekiel’s gaze head-on, not even bothering to pretend she was submissive in any way. This was all his fault.

“That’s not what I asked. Why was I in your bed?” she repeated coldly.

“I already answered that question, Ava. Unless you wanted to sleep down the hall in the guest room, in a house that Claire probably knows better than I do because she was always here.”

Was. He saidwas. Had he dumped Claire, then? She didn’t want to feel anything about that, but she couldn’t help the intense rush of satisfaction that filled her body.

“Now, are you going to answer my question?” Ezekiel said. “How do you heal so quickly? You almost died last night, but here you are, asking why you’re in my bed instead of why you’re alive.”

Hearing him say it out loud weakened her limbs. She took a breath and sat on the edge of the bed as it hit her all over again.

She’d been prepared to die last night. Claire’s eyes... The hatred in them was something she would never forget. Claire would have ripped her apart. She would never have seen her family again.

How had she survived that? Jared’s cream couldn’t be that strong.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

As much as she hadn’t liked Jared’s surprise party last night, she didn't want to drop his name into the messy situation when she didn’t understand how his cream worked in the first place.

The sun started rising on another day at the academy, and her heart grew cold at the thought of going out there again. Where was Claire now? The last thing she remembered was the really huge thing, too big to be a wolf, that had attacked Claire and stopped her—the huge creature with red eyes.

Her eyes widened as she turned to look at Ezekiel.

“Claire... Is she...?”

“She’ll be out there waiting to get you alone again. It’s probably safer for you to stay here until I deal with her.”

Stay with Ezekiel? When she knew she turned into a senseless idiot around him? That wasn’t going to happen. And how was he going to deal with Claire anyway? If she had been bold enough to attack her like that when the school was so big on its rules, she would do it no matter what Ezekiel said.

Once again, she lamented her lack of bruises because she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if she went to report Claire for what she had done.

“I have to get to the kitchen. I’m already late setting off,” she said as she stood up from the bed.

“You lost a lot of blood. I think you need to take it easy the whole weekend. You can’t attend to your duties now,” Ezekiel said.

“They don’t care about any of that,” she snorted.

She found a blanket on the floor and wrapped it around herself. She would need to get to Jared’s like this so she could shower and find some clothes to wear.

“Where are you going?”

Ezekiel came out of his bed. She avoided looking lower than his face as his hulking frame approached her.

“I have to go and get something to wear—”

“You’re not going near Jared again,” Ezekiel growled.

“Excuse me?”

The nerve of him! He couldn’t order her around just because he was an Alpha! This had nothing to do with him.

“Where was he when all this was happening? Why did his pack just stand there? They would have smelled Claire a mile away,” he growled.

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