Page 94 of Ava: Part Three

“A special meeting has been called after lunch to replace today’s training,” Derek said as he scrolled his tablet.

After lunch. That was when the world would end.

Zeke turned to his packmates and said, “You didn’t find anything at all in the library? It could be an ornament, maybe even a book. Miss Donovan said they have special things in there, and Mr Patrick said that’s why the forest was made stronger here in the first place.”

She whipped her head to look at Zeke in a panic. Why was he discussing this out loud and so close to everyone? The guards standing close to them would have heard that.

“What the hell?” she hissed at him, then looked at the guards to see their reaction.

“What? What happened?” Zeke asked.

She looked back at him and then his friends, who were also looking at her as if they didn’t know what Zeke had done wrong.

“I’m sure there are some conversations that you can just mind-link to each other instead of telling the whole world,” she whispered.

But she knew even a whisper would carry to the guards. She shook her head and picked up her fully loaded bag before meeting Zeke's gaze again.

‘I did,’ Zeke said.

Without his lips moving.

Her eyes widened as they moved from his lips to his eyes and back again.

Holy...

Was that the change she felt? She could mentally connect with him now?

‘You can hear me,’ Zeke stated, and then a slow smile formed on his lips.

How was she supposed to answer him? Just think of her reply the way she had done with her wolf?

‘Can you hear me?’ another voice said in her head, and she turned to Derek, wide-eyed.

She knew she was supposed to be able to mind-link with Zeke because he was her mate, but not with Derek. They didn’t belong to the same pack. She hadn’t sworn her fealty to their Alpha, which she knew she would never do after she defeated him. She wasn’t part of their pack link, so how could she hear him?

‘What’s happening?’

They all looked at her as if she had grown another head. They could all hear her.

‘I’m not sure,’ Zeke answered with a frown. ‘I think last night...’

Her cheeks coloured as she thought about what she had done to him. What her wolf had done to him. She couldn’t stop playing it in her head.

“Eww. Okay, figure it out,” Myles said as he rushed out of the car. Derek laughed and followed.

Had he seen that, too? Goddess... Embarrassment made her whole face heat up as she looked away from Zeke.

‘You will figure it out. Nyx will help you,’ Zeke mind-linked with a smile as he leaned over and caught her lips.

Would it matter? They only had a few hours left.

“I’ll see you at lunchtime,” Zeke said. “Everything will be fine.”

She couldn’t help feeling down because of their impending doom as she walked across the quad to her first class. She was no longer confined in one building like the rest of the Omegas. She looked back at the first-year block and saw some of them already seated and ready to start their lessons. Andrei wanted her to pick any one of them and be done with it.

But in her heart, she was still one of them.

“Hey.”