Page 91 of Ava: Part Two

He took a deep breath and let it fill him. Was it stronger? Something had changed.

Once he got ahead of the mob, he stopped and growled in warning.

Watching them fall over themselves would have been comical if he hadn’t been trying so fucking hard to stop himself from attacking them.

They had dared. They had dared to try to hurt his mate, and that just wouldn’t do.

He watched the fear spread among them as they started to back away. The stench of it brought up his hunting instincts as his canines elongated and his claws lengthened. His lust for their blood began to take him over. Ever since Shadow had made his bloody appearance, he had been terrified of feeling like this again, but for the first time, he welcomed this. He revelled in it. He and his beast were one, and that feeling settled on him like a comforting balm.

They took small steps back as if they could tell he was on the verge of ripping them apart if they made any sudden moves. Were any of these his father’s allies? He would start with those first.

‘End them,’ Shadow snarled.

He wanted to. Fuck, he wanted to bathe the street in their blood. But Ava’s scent... What was happening to her?

He looked back and sensed his mate’s location. She was still moving incredibly fast.

‘No, Shadow. We need to find Ava. We need to mark her so they know she is ours.’

He looked back at the trembling bodies before him and took in all their scents. Students who had joined in this suicide mission and their parents. He could hunt them anywhere in the world now. Their fear increased, clogging up his senses and almost pulling his attention away from Ava again.

They all knew who he was. What he was. They would have heard the stories he tried so hard to distance himself from. But he was that beast. He was that demon.

And to protect Ava, he would drag them all to the depths of hell with him.

“She is mine,” he growled, his voice deeper as Shadow said the words.

The pack Alphas among them would know what he meant even if they didn’t understand it. This was more than an Alpha publicly claiming a human. It was his wolf, his beast, declaring that his soul was entwined with another, and he would kill for her without hesitation.

He turned and started following his mate’s scent down the long driveway, stopping where it led him into the woods. They were closer to the cursed forest here, but his senses told him his mate was skirting the boundary. She hadn’t mindlessly run into the danger.

Ava was heading towards his lake. His little human was taking herself right where he wanted her. He took another deep breath of the sweet scent, and it hit him differently. It completely replaced his bloodlust as the need to mate took him over.

And that was the only thing on his mind as he started running towards Ava. He had denied himself for too long. He had denied Ava for too long. As he got closer, he could pick up her elevated heartbeat and the impossibly fast pace of her feet as they pounded on the ground. But her breathing was even steadier than it should have been as if she hadn’t run so far and so fast.

He slowed down when he heard her stop and silently closed the distance between them. Ava was on her knees just before his lake. He could sense all her emotions beating down on him, but it was her pain he felt the most.

He was feeling the same pain—the pain of being at odds with his mate. It had floored him for days before, but that moment when he saw her again and realised she had accepted him, something changed. Maybe that was why her scent was stronger. He had no idea how the bond affected humans, but he knew there would be some changes. Her scent and speed could be one of them.

All that remained now was to have her offer her neck to him, accept his mark and the fact that she belonged to him forever.

“I don’t know why you still call yourself an Omega. You’re the least submissive person I know,” he said quietly as he leaned on a tree trunk behind her.

Ava tensed, and her pain was replaced by anger. But instead of turning to fight this out, he could tell she wanted to run.

“Don’t even think of running, little human. Unless you want me to hunt you.”

“Why are you here?” Ava snapped, getting to her feet and turning to face him.

“Where else would I be?”

“Go back to your mate, Zeke. I don’t want to play these games with you,” Ava said.

She turned away from him again and started marching forward, wearing her anger like amour. He followed at a more leisurely pace until Ava came to the clearing. When she stopped, he knew she had now realised precisely where she was.

“She’s not my mate, Ava.”

“Whatever she is, she’s the one you need to be with,” Ava insisted through her teeth. “We clearly have no future together, and I refuse to be your plaything.”

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