Page 89 of Ava: Part Two

And Zeke had been there. She didn’t say that part out loud as the pain shot through her body again.

“We have a lot to talk about, Roland, before we figure out how we’re going to help her,” Mr Patrick said. “Dominating Alphas. Missing students presumed dead. Expeditions into the cursed forest. Interrogations by the Romanian branch of the Council. And one demon wolf who’s claimed her.”

Her eyes widened again as she watched her father’s horrified reaction. Mr Patrick had a big mouth. This hadn’t been part of the deal at all.

“And no, Roland, you can’t get her out of here. It’s too late.”

“No, Dad! Don’t listen to him. We can get out. You can take me home. Or I can go anywhere in the world,” she said desperately, grabbing her father’s hand.

“The Head of the Council is coming for her, Roland. And you know why that would be a bad idea as well as I do."

She couldn't understand the expression on her dad's face when that information sank in. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.

"You have three days to prepare your daughter, Roland. And then you must leave her here to meet her fate," Mr Patrick said.

Her dad's arms tightened around her, and she knew her fate had been sealed. Her father wasn't going to get her out of this hell hole.

Chapter 57

Avacouldonlyguesshow Mr Patrick and her dad would prepare her for this meeting with the Head of the Council, which was never going to happen.

They were crazy. As if she was going to stick around for that death sentence.

Her father had dropped her off at the Administration block so he could drop his stuff off and see where he was staying for the next few days. People were still arriving for the weekend, so the whispers and looks from guardians and students were constant. She ignored them all as she crossed over to the fountain. She and her dad were going to eat while he extracted the whole story from her. She’d only told him and Mr Patrick the highly edited version. There was no point getting him too upset.

Especially since a lot of it involved Zeke. Zeke, who’d had a mate waiting for him this whole time.

Her fists clenched, but she took a deep breath and calmed herself. All of this would be over soon. There was no point in getting angry. She would never have been with Zeke, anyway.

Mr Patrick would meet them after his last meeting to help ‘prepare her’. He was a professor at the academy; surely he knew how to get out safely? All he had to do was tell her that instead of wasting time with this rubbish.

She rolled her eyes as she sat on the edge of the fountain to wait. She could have been packing her things and discussing how her father was going to sneak her out if Mr Patrick hadn’t opened his mouth. Was her father really going to leave her here to face things alone? After all the stories he had told them about the Council?

“Bullshit,” she muttered to herself.

She was leaving with him, one way or another. Especially now that she couldn’t rely on Zeke anymore.

Her chest squeezed again as it had been doing every time she thought of him. It was funny how she had been near enough paralysed by her emotions when he hadn’t come home for days, but now her body was working fine when her pain was much worse. Another unexplained phenomenon at the academy. It truly wasn’t meant for humans if everything affected her so extremely.

She threw a little pebble into the fountains and watched the waves ripple. Briefly, she eyed the giant spherical sculpture in the middle with the silver symbols before she looked into the depths of the water. Was she imagining things, or did it look bottomless today? She picked up another pebble, threw it in, and watched as it slowly started sinking. The dark abyss at the bottom swallowed it effortlessly. A chill ran down her spine at the similarities between the darkness she saw many times in her room trying to swallow her up the same way. Coldness started to seep into her body the longer she stared into the bottom. Something wasn’t right with this fountain.

“Is this her? The human who humiliated you?”

The deep, raspy voice startled her to her feet as she faced the person who had spoken. A little fear replaced the coldness in her body when she saw Douche Dexter standing next to a man who could only be his father. They looked identical, except the older man was a much larger version of his son—all muscle with cruelty radiating off every part of him.

Douche Dexter senior took a step towards her, making her back into the edge of the fountain as she lowered her gaze.

“Are you serious, Dexter? This thing?” he growled. “This thing knocked you out not once but twice?”

She risked looking at Dexter. He looked angry, but there was fear in his eyes as well. It seemed to her that he had learned to be a bully from his father’s treatment of him. None of the parents around her stepped in to help, but she knew they were all watching. Shame on them. Was this the culture the Council encouraged?

“She did something. She’s not right, Dad,” Dexter mumbled.

“She’s fucking human, Dexter. What could she possibly do to you, an Alpha, that you can’t protect yourself from?”

He took another step towards her, but she had no more room to retreat.

“There are rules against this, sir,” she reminded him.

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