Page 30 of The Awakened Wolf

“Hey! Elyse, that’s enough.” Evan grunted as he pulled me off the door before I wolfed out and did some real damage. “Let it go.” He dragged me backward, my legs still spiraling. “She’s trying to get a rise out of you.”

“She’s sick,” I said, my chest heaving as I wrestled against his powerful arms. “But don’t worry about it. I’ll figure out a way to get Blaze myself. And then if Sebastian doesn’t come back…” I stopped fighting and took a breath, the energy of my raging wolf still rippling through me. “Then we can mate. Like we said.”

Evan stepped back and released me, shoulders drooping. “Great. Peachy. Happy to be your dick-in-a-box. Just break in case of emergency.” His tone was plaintive.

I was so surprised that both my wolf and I stopped dead.

“Evan,” I mumbled. “Sebastian wasn’t right… was he?”

His gaze met mine, brow furrowed.

“I mean,” I stammered, “Are your like… desires changing? It’s okay you know. Sometimes my wolf side and my human side, um… aren’t on the same page.”

That was nicely put from someone who keeps telling me to shut up.

Look, I’m doing my best here, okay? If you could offer me something besides despair, it would be useful. Like what do I do if Evan’s wolf develops the hots for me?

You mean the hots for me?

You’re insufferable. Really.

I’m doing my best.

“You’re doing the tennis-ball-eye thing again,” Evan said, his mouth softening. “And to answer your question: Gods, no.”

This statement came with a level of sarcasm I didn’t know was possible. Could an eye roll be a whole-body thing? Ouch. But then his fingertips brushed my arm, and his teasing smile faded into something more sincere.

“Elyse, I’m hoping like you are that Sebastian will come back. But if he doesn’t, then maybe… being with each other would be the next best thing. There’s definitely no other woman…” He looked away, and I felt a funny shiver down my spine as his throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Unless you would want to be with Blaze instead?”

I stared into Evan’s handsome face, my eyes tracing the square jaw and strong nose, the ocean-blue eyes and dark brows. For a moment, I remembered how I’d felt the first time I met him. And then I grabbed his face and pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his. His mouth was full and warm and his chest strong as I leaned against him, my anger toward Sebastian finding its way into my fingertips as they clawed at the next best thing’s shirt.

My mate abandoned me.

He ran off in the middle of a battle where I could have died.

And he didn’t come back.

The battle was over. His mother was safe somewhere. Yet he was still gone. He’d had time to think. He knew what he was doing. And he didn’t care what it did to me.

Kiana was right. He was never coming back.

Anguish and fury poured out of me into the kiss as Evan’s lips parted.

I pulled away, panting, surprised at the flood of emotion and heat.

“That’s how I wanted you to kiss me on my eighteenth birthday.”

Evan laughed, wiping a trembling hand across his mouth. “You were not ready to be kissed like that on your eighteenth birthday, Homeschool Girl.”

Then he stepped forward and slammed us into the wall, using his arm to cushion the impact as his lips crashed into mine. My wolf was howling in protest so loudly I could barely think, but then thinking wasn’t necessary to part my legs around Evan’s thigh as our ardor intensified. I was swimming in a haze of desire, frustration, and shock. If I could make him want him me…

Evan’s lips found my jawline, and I startled when the howl of another wolf—a male wolf—drifted through me. The sound was… distant.

What was that?

What was whaaaaaaatttttt?

My wolf’s response trailed off into what I now thought of as the never-ending yodel of misery, and I suppressed my own desire to scream. Since Sebastian had decided to evaporate, my wolf had done the same. Or at least, her brain had evaporated.

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