Page 57 of Ava: Part Two

The whistle blew, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn back to Robert. The match in the intermediate ring next to hers made it even more difficult to see over it.

Some students screamed and shouted, and for the first time since she started, she saw panic on the coach’s face as he started to rush towards the other side of the arena.

“Robert, what happened?”

She could feel her panic rising as she pressed against the unyielding magical barrier and, along with it, fury like she had never felt before. That had to be Zeke. How could she feel that?

“Alpha Ezekiel shifted. He’s... He’s going to kill him.”

Her breath hitched. If Zeke killed anyone, they would take him away. The Council would have their hands on him, and his life would be over. She didn’t want that. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing him again. She had to stop him.

“I yield! I yield!”

By the time the barrier dropped and she ran across the arena, the most gigantic black wolf she had ever seen had a smaller grey one by the neck, ignoring its whimpers as blood seeped onto the ring mat. Though the barrier was down, no one dared to approach to stop it because coming between a wolf and his prey was a death wish. But she put no thought to this as she slipped into the ring.

“Zeke!”

Red eyes shifted to her, and nostrils flared. She felt no fear even though Zeke’s wolf’s jaws were so huge he could easily fit her head in his mouth.

“Please... Please don’t hurt him.”

It took a moment, but the beast loosened his jaws and released the whimpering wolf. Jared wasted no time slipping out of the ring, leaving her with the beast who had risked it all to follow her into the forest. The beast who had committed so many atrocities in her name.

It was only then that she realised what she had done.

She had yielded.

Chapter 38

Somethingwaswrong.

As Zeke’s angry haze slowly disappeared, he watched the way his mate sank to the ring mat. Her body started trembling, and her fear almost knocked him over.

But she wasn’t scared of him; he could sense that. This was something else.

Why was she in his ring?

His gaze shifted to the people surrounding the ring, and he growled at them, warning them to keep away from his mate. With Shadow’s size, it only took moments to walk around, cataloguing everything and everyone’s scents to try and see where the danger was. Everyone backed off, and the stench of their fear assaulted his nose. He would rip any of them apart if they had hurt Ava.

‘Let’s do it anyway. It’s time we showed them she belongs to us,’ Shadow said.

It was tempting. He’d been holding back so long that the urge to hunt down everyone who had hurt Ava since she had started at the academy was stronger than ever. But Ava’s fear was getting progressively worse, pulling him back to where she sat. Shadow inched closer, unsure what her reaction to his closeness would be.

This was the first time Ava had seen him, and he wasn’t exactly a cute, cuddly wolf. Shadow was probably the ugliest fucker at the academy, and just the sight of him was enough to give anyone nightmares.

‘Speak for yourself. I’m very handsome,’ Shadow growled.

He ignored the wolf as they stopped in front of Ava. She was so small he felt like if he made a wrong move, he would crush her under his paw. She looked so fragile as she looked up at him with her big blue eyes. Though she was still scared, there was curiosity in her eyes, too.

No one had ever looked at Shadow like that, without a hint of fear of him. No one had ever been so fascinated by him. He had thought Ava would run and hide the first time she met Shadow, but she surprised him again.

The need to mark her on the spot grew. How was this little human going to handle him? How was he supposed to mate with her without breaking her?

“Miss Morgan, step out of the ring.”

His thoughts were interrupted by the dean’s voice. Ava flinched and moved closer to him as she turned to face Alpha Russell. That little act warmed something in him. There had to be something in her that recognised that he would never hurt her.

He looked at the dean and saw him standing with a few academy security personnel. Was it the dean she was scared of? What did he want with her?

---