Page 20 of Ava: Part Two

“I’ll pick you up here in ten minutes, and then we will go for breakfast,” he said.

And then he did something else unexpected. He leaned down and pecked her lips before he carried on walking. Pecked her lips as if that was an entirely normal thing to do. As if she was his girlfriend.

She brought her fingers to her lips as she watched him walk to his locker room. Something had changed in Ezekiel lately. He had gone from wanting her out of the campus to this in a matter of weeks. A complete one-eighty turn. And if she was honest with herself, she had felt something different within herself since her adventures in the forest. Was it the darkness? She could still feel its stickiness all over her body when she thought about it. Had it planted itself in her somehow, and now it was attracted to Ezekiel and his darkness?

What she was feeling for him wasn’t normal. And if she followed through with all of this madness and ended up in his bed, what would become of her afterwards? She had to leave before anything happened. Maybe she would have to leave during the Parents’ Weekend after all.

Chapter 13

Inhisfreeperiod,Zeke casually strolled into the busy library. Trying to have this conversation where they could be overheard was stupid, but he needed to know. He couldn’t resist Ava anymore, especially when she was under his roof.

Her scent was everywhere. And even if she denied it, she couldn’t hide that she wanted him, too. He only had to touch her, and she’d be his.

He had to fix this situation so he could concentrate on everything else.

When he walked into the atrium, Miss Donovan was at her desk dealing with some students. Her sharp gaze was already on him, as she had probably sensed him coming. Fucking in the library was not allowed. This wasn’t an academy rule, it was Miss Donovan’s, so he was on her shit list. Would she still help him out?

He imagined she’d had many reasons to enforce that rule with all the soundproofed study rooms around the library. Things around the academy sometimes got hairy, especially when a female was in heat. But Miss Donovan told all of them to take that shit away from her precious books.

Miss Donovan’s eyes narrowed on him, and then she looked away to continue speaking to the student she was helping. He sighed and walked around the room for a little while until he saw she had no one left to serve. Then he made eye contact and then started to walk up a set of stairs to the second-level study rooms.

Would she follow? If the Council had been in the library straight after their meetings with him and Ava, they must have come here to look through one of their restricted books. Miss Donovan must know by now that something bad was up. Maybe she wouldn’t want to get her hands dirty at all. Anything that involved the Council was likely a death sentence.

He paced the room while he waited. Shadow wanted to go back downstairs and make her talk, but this situation wouldn’t be resolved by showing his teeth everywhere.

He’d given up and was about to go back to his lessons when the door was pushed open. Miss Donovan walked in with her head held high and not an ounce of fear. Her hair was in a tight bun on top of her head, and her pale skin was flawless. She was the definition of ageless.

He backed away from her to lean against a desk, not once looking away from her angry gaze.

“You lied to me. How?”

With her allure, he shouldn’t have been able to lie.

“I didn’t lie.”

“You’re lying right now. You made me believe you wanted to help the vampire prince,” Miss Donovan hissed.

“I do.”

“You’ve done this for yourself! You think I didn’t see that yesterday?” she snapped angrily. “I should have known better than to trust you. Now you have knowledge you shouldn’t have and are on the Council’s radar.”

“What you saw yesterday... I apologise for getting carried away—”

“You were in a mating frenzy! If that human hadn’t stepped away, then you would have tried to kill me!”

Mating frenzy? Just how old was Miss Donovan to know about such things? Had she been around at the time true mates were common?

“I apologise. But I didn’t lie, Miss Donovan. I just didn’t tell you everything. As you’re now well aware, I’ve found myself in an impossible situation,” he said.

Impossible was putting it mildly.

“I need to find out—”

“I won’t help you break the vampire and the wolf’s true mate bond,” Miss Donovan declared.

“I don’t want to break it,” he answered honestly.

He was going to tell Prince Gideon his decision tonight. His father would threaten to disown him, and he would threaten to make someone else the Alpha, but deep down, everyone knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop Shadow. It was time he asserted himself.

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