Page 30 of Ava: Part Two

“Please... I can’t take it anymore. Just tell me what you want from me,” Emily whispered. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep... I don’t want to die, Ava. Tell me what I should do.”

Had Zeke threatened to kill her? Was that the conversation they’d had after training when she had seen them?

“There’s nothing you can do. I trusted you, and you led me to die,” she snapped as she slammed her locker shut.

Emily’s wail followed her out of the room. Zeke was waiting outside with a frown on his face. He would have heard that conversation, and she wanted to ask questions, but whatever he’d told Emily was none of her business.

“Let's go. I’m starving.”

Chapter 19

Zekestoodjustinsidethe glass doors and watched Ava sitting by the pool with her knees drawn. She had showered and then prepared her own food, which she had eaten in her room as she had done the other night.

She was still pissed off with him. Her calling him Master and pretending to be submissive was a dead giveaway. How long was she going to keep this up?

‘She’s completely messed you up.’

He turned to watch Derek approach and then looked back at his little human. Though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when he told Derek and Myles who she was, it was still irritating him that they were here to witness all this. A little human had felled the mighty Ezekiel.

‘What are you two even fighting about?’ Derek asked in the mind link as he came to stand next to him.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered honestly.

He was frustrated. After waking up in Ava’s bed the other morning and embarrassing himself after he’d dry-humped her like a human teenager, he’d expected she would at least let him back into her bed. Ava’s door had been locked last night. She’d had her nightmares again, and he’d felt her need for him, but her locked door told him clearly that she didn’t want him near her. He hadn’t wanted to break down her door and scare her further.

But he wouldn’t allow her to lock him out again tonight. Ava had impressed him tonight with her fighting skills and had eased his mind a little, but he knew how brutal the evaluations got. He needed to be near her tonight. He needed to feel her body heat. He needed to drown in her scent. He needed to mark her.

‘Prince Gideon is on his way,’ Derek said.

‘Call me when he’s here.’

With that, he opened the door and walked out to his mate. Ava didn’t even turn to acknowledge him.

He sat down next to her and dipped his feet into the water. He liked doing this. It reminded him of the beach at home, but the smell of chlorine always ruined the illusion. Ava seemed to like it, too, so maybe after the evaluations, he would take her to his favourite spot in the woods. A natural pool that no one else dared to visit because it belonged to Shadow.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Ava. You’re going to have to start talking to me. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

Ava sighed and then turned her head to face him.

“I’m thinking of how I’m going to get out of this place. Every day brings us closer to when the Council will return, and I don’t want to be here when they do.”

He already had a plan for that. It was funny. He didn’t know what or how he would tell his father about the vampires or that he wouldn’t be mating the wolf he had chosen for him. But he knew how he would take his mate out of Phoenix Academy.

“As long as your plans don’t involve going through the forest. We can’t do that again,” he said.

That forest had felt like Shadow’s domain, but he never wanted to feel that pain again, and he didn’t want it for Ava. How had she even lasted in there that long? He had told Myles it was the bond, but Ava was nothing like he expected for a human. He was starting to think there was much more that he didn’t know.

“Let’s just worry about the evaluations for now.”

Before he told Ava the plan, he needed to set some things in place. He also had to know where Claire was and what she told the Council when they found her. He heard the other Omega in the dressing room. He’d smelled her fear long before he heard her words. What had happened in town? Why was that wolf so terrified of his little human?

The other night when he tried to talk to Ava, he’d insisted she tell him how she was sure the Council knew what they had done. But his mate made some stupid excuse and escaped to her bedroom. He didn’t like that she was hiding things from him, but he would make her talk after they survived the evaluation.

Ava looked back over the water and then sighed. He felt like he had said the wrong thing again.

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