Fuck! Ray cursed silently. Clearly, he was going to have to find some other way to stop his mind from reeling.
Chapter 11 - Macie
Tossing and turning all night long, Macie couldn’t stop thinking. If only she had managed to shift on the night of the full moon, she would be out there right now with the rest of her pack, patrolling and searching for the demon wolf that had escaped, not stuck in her room only able to think of all that had gone wrong in her life so far.
During the short moments when she was able to nod off, she found herself plagued by dreams, not just of the demon wolf with its fingers gripping her throat but also far more heart-throbbing dreams of woodland sex, wild animalistic sex that left her utterly drained and sated, only for her to wake feeling more frustrated than ever.
What the hell is wrong with me? she asked herself as she lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
By the time the early hours of the morning came around, she had all but given up on trying to get any sleep at all. Throughout the night she had been hearing the comings and goings of the full-fledged members of the pack, all going about their duties while she was forced to stay behind like one of the babies of the family. It was more than a little infuriating.
She had just pushed herself up into a sitting position, wondering whether she should just get up and head downstairs for an early breakfast, when a knocking upon the door caused her to almost jump right out of her skin.
Lifting her nose to the air, she attempted to pick up the scent of the person standing on the other side. It was no use. Though her senses seemed to have been growing over the last few months as she drew closer and closer to her birthday, they still weren’t anywhere near close to that of a full werewolf. Yet another reminder that she was only half of what she should be.
With gritted teeth, she clambered from her bed and shoved her feet into the slippers she always kept just beneath it.
When the knocking came again, her jaw clenched and she hissed, “I’m coming.”
What kind of idiot came knocking like that during the middle of the night? If she had been able to shift she might have clawed their ears off for waking her up, not that she had been asleep, but they didn’t know that. For a second she wondered whether it was someone coming to warn her that there had been a development on the demon wolf front, and she even started to feel a little guilty.
But the moment that she unlocked the door and pulled it open, the guilt was gone, replaced by surprise.
“Ray? What are you doing here?” she exclaimed, blinking and unable to believe that he was actually standing before her.
Though annoyingly handsome as usual, he also looked drained and melancholy, and the look upon his face made Macie’s stomach twist with concern.
“What’s wrong? Did they find the demon wolf?” she asked, her skin crawling as she started to wonder whether something had gone terribly wrong. The sudden urge to rush past him and check on the rest of her packmates, her sister chief among them, was almost uncontrollable.
Ray sighed deeply and nodded. “Yes, they found him.”
The tone of his voice was not entirely reassuring, and Macie gripped the door handle just a little tighter. She knew if she looked down at her hand, her knuckles would be white as bone. “What happened?”
Ray shrugged his shoulders and said, “Nothing too disastrous. Malia and Emily managed to use the hellstone to take him down and return him to his cell.”
Macie breathed a deep sigh of relief, feeling some of the weight lift from her shoulders. “Did he give anything away? Did he say anything about who might have helped him?”
Though it wasn’t certain that anyone had helped him, Macie had heard enough whispers before making it to her bedroom. It was clear that the pack thought someone had to have helped him, what with his managing to remove his cuffs and all.
“He hasn’t spoken a word,” Ray assured her and when he lifted his gaze to meet hers, Macie felt an odd sense of discomfort traveling down the length of her spine. There was something about his expression that left her feeling extremely uncomfortable. “And for the record, you don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone about your sister’s involvement. She just needs to keep her own mouth shut.”
“Excuse me?” Macie gasped, unable to believe what she was hearing. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Ray’s gaze deepened then and he looked more than a little exhausted. Shaking his head, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shook his head. “Forget I said anything. It’s not the reason I’m here anyway. We need to talk.”
Macie’s discomfort was only growing stronger with every word he spoke and she remained right where she was, gripping the door handle until she thought she might actually rip it off the door.
“There is nothing for us to talk about,” Macie said defensively. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Ray’s eyes hardened then, and she could see from the clenching of his jaw that it was taking everything he had in him not to snap at her. “Macie, please, will you just let me in?”
Macie cringed at the desperate tone of his voice and though she wanted to remain hard and angry at him for knocking on her door in the middle of the night, she couldn’t help but step away, gesturing him inside. Through gritted teeth, she said, “This better not take too long. I’ve had a rough enough night as it is.”
It was only when she clicked the door closed behind him and turned to look at him again that her breath was taken away by the expression on his face. He looked at her with a twisted expression, one filled with remorse and guilt and perhaps even sadness.
Does he regret what happened between us that much? she wondered, a shiver running throughout her entire body. Even though she would never admit it, she knew exactly why he was really there. It wasn’t to talk about her sister or the demon wolf or even about her still not being able to goddamn shift. It had everything to do with the small life that was growing inside of her, the one she had been physically able to feel since the demon wolf’s threat against her life. Yet another reason she had been unable to sleep.
“What do you want, Ray?” she asked, standing before him, feeling more uneasy than ever as she realized that now the door was gone from between them, she was utterly exposed to his gaze. Though she was wearing an oversized t-shirt and some small pajama shorts, she somehow felt as though she was wearing less than nothing.