6. Ava
Ava
I’d woken up in a nightmare. That much was certain. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the ruby stains around my mouth and the red-tinged residue on my teeth. And were those fangs?
Am I a vampire?
My pulse skyrocketed, and I ran my hands back through my hair, willing myself to wake up from this rotten alternate universe.
This can’t be happening.
This is not real.
Wake up, Ava. Wake up.
When that didn’t happen, I forced myself to be logical. Lycan said there was an explanation. He said we were alright. We were healthy. Shower first, details after.
After I fully scrubbed the last…however long…
off my body, I did my skincare routine and glanced at myself again, noticing something feral in my stare that wasn’t there in my previous twenty-six years of life.
My irises seemed to glow, almost like a predator in the woods on a moonlit night, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey.
Everything seemed brighter. The lights. The sun.
The scents circulating through my suite.
Lycan’s heavenly masculine scent floated from the living room, combined with the delicious aroma of food.
If I focused hard enough, I thought I could even track Bow and the others down the hallway.
My phone vibrating on the nightstand brought me back to my senses, and I walked into my room to grab it.
Maeve. Requesting FaceTime.
Taking a breath, I picked up the call and held the phone at eye level.
“Finally!” She sat up straight and widened her eyes. “You’re alive.”
“Maeve. Now isn’t a really good time.”
“I know,” she said. “You’ve gone through transition.”
I went still. There was that word again. Transition.
Lycan had used it to explain my fever and everything that happened after.
“This is going to sound ludicrous,” she said, “but I need you to trust me.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “Go on.”
“We’re shifters,” she said. “We transform into animals on the full moon.”
I blinked as she continued, struggling to wrap my mind around the fairytale she’d concocted.
According to her, Guin had gone into her transition at nineteen, nearly seventeen years ago.
Sol went through it last year, when she’d gotten stuck in the cabin on Bastard territory.
Maeve herself experienced it a few weeks ago.
“This is what they were keeping from us,” she continued. “They couldn’t tell us. It’s supposed to be a secret from humans, even the ones who might experience it themselves.” She ranted about mates and changing and pheromones, and I couldn’t keep up with her, too overloaded with details.
“Wait, slow down,” I said. “This is a lot to take in, Maeve. Are you screwing with me?”
“No, I swear it, Ava,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that to you, not about this. That’s what was wrong with my heart. I’ve been mated to Mill since he worked on the ranch all those years ago. It wasn’t sealed, but my shifter recognized it in him. When his heart stopped, so did mine.”
“How did you know he was your mate? Do you only have one mate? Or can you have multiples?”
“Only one, I think. My shifter side is pretty territorial over Mill, so I don’t see how having more than one would actually work.
” She laughed. “Trust me, your shifter will know. You don’t pick, and you can’t talk yourself into it.
Some shifters have tried to force it onto someone who wasn’t meant for them.
” Maeve paused to let that sink in. “It didn’t end well for either party. ”
Is Lycan my mate?
“Look, I wanted to get to you before Lycan did. I didn’t want to believe Mill first, and it wasn’t until I talked to Guin that I bought into it. But it’s true. I swear it. It’s all true. Shifters, vampires, fairies. Hell, probably mermaids and the Loch Ness monster for all I know.”
Setting aside disbelief, another emotion welled in my chest. Betrayal.
“How could you keep this from me? You’ve known about this for weeks?”
That explained the gap I’d sensed between us. She’d been hiding something, and here it was.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Maeve pleaded. “I wanted to, believe me, I wanted to. But I just…I couldn’t.”
“Guin and Sol, too?”
My family had lied to me, and it burned like a bitter pill in my veins.
“Kodiak’s the alpha, the boss. It’s a rule in the pack. If humans found out, they’d hunt us down. Experiment on us. Kill us. Some humans are in the pack. They know, of course, but only because they’re mated to shifters.”
“Maeve…” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “This is…”
“I know,” she said. “And you might not really believe me until you change, but I’m not lying to you.
This is real, and this is happening. You’ll start to notice little things.
Scents are stronger. Lights are brighter.
There’s a voice in your head that’s almost like you but separate.
That’s your other half. Mine’s a fox, like Guin and Sol. Yours probably is, too.”
She told me our sisters believed our mother was also a shifter, but there was no way to prove that. After our mother’s disappearance, we may never know what truly happened to her.
Lycan appeared in the doorway and leaned against the jamb, his hands in his jeans pockets. I ran my gaze over him, pausing at the signs of what I’d done—the bite marks at his neck, the pallor of his skin, the protruding ribs. I’d drained his magic, and he’d willingly let me.
“Is that Lycan?” Maeve shouted. “Hi, Lycan! Thank you for helping my sister!”
I hung my head as Lycan laughed and headed toward the bathroom. “Hi, Maeve. You’re welcome.”
After he shut the door behind him, I returned my attention to my twin.
“How was it with him?” She wagged her eyebrows. “Everything I’ve heard and more?”
“I don’t remember most of it.” I rubbed my face again, but this time, Maeve gasped, catching my attention.
“Avalon Presley Vanderbilt, what is that?”
“What?” I froze.
“The ring on your finger. What the hell? Did you get married?”
Oh. Right. Damn it.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “I might have made a few mistakes in Denmark.”
“You got married? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Well, you’re the one to talk,” I replied. “We’re in a horror story, Maeve. Getting married is the least of my concerns.”
She completely ignored my protest. “When did this happen? How? Is it Lycan?”
“Of course it’s Lycan,” I said. “And I haven’t really talked to him about it yet. It’s…complicated.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “This is amazing. I’m so proud of you.”
“What? No! Stop it! This isn’t funny.”
My life was imploding. I’d gotten married.
I was about to turn into a were-fox-shifter-sort-of-thing.
I had missed four days of meetings and appointments, which would set me back substantially.
Hell, there was probably an APB out on me.
I’d have to bribe my assistant with a huge raise to rearrange my calendar over the next few days.
I’d have to work nights to make up for it.
“Oh my God, this is hilarious. I’m happy you pulled that stick out of your ass.” Her gaze shifted off to the side before she grimaced. “Oh, shit. Oh, no.”
“Is that her?” came my eldest sister’s voice from off camera. “Let me talk to her.” Guin snatched the phone from Maeve. “Ava? How are you feeling?”
“Confused,” I said. “Maeve filled me in.”
“It’s a lot, I know,” she said. “But the sooner you accept it, the easier it will be. Listen, there’s a lot more to the story.
Lycan can fill you in on the history between the Bastards and the Bloody Scorpions, but you need to be careful.
Stay away from silver. It’s poison for us.
Vampires can’t deal with iron, so carry something steel with you. A knife. Steel bullets. Anything.”
“The Bloody Scorpions are vampires?” A lot of our history made more sense now. “Marx?”
Guin nodded. “And Percy, too. Don’t answer any calls from him, and if he shows up in Europe, stay away from him.”
“Percy?” My own brother? A vampire? “How did that happen?”
She admitted it was a long, complicated story, but she was more concerned about me being alone in Europe. “The vampires over there are civilized, for as much as filthy bloodsuckers can be. I know you’re trying to save the company, but promise me you’ll come home if shit hits the fan.”
“I haven’t secured even half of what we need,” I said. “And Scott has agreed to meet me when we go through London.”
“Kodiak said he’s sending backup, but you’re still gravely outnumbered,” she said. “For now, listen to Lycan. If he says run, you run.”
I didn’t have an argument to that. “Okay.”
“As for this alleged marriage,” she said. “I’ll have Pruitt draw up the annulment paperwork. We have thirty days to finalize it.”
When I first woke up, that had been my immediate thought. Yes, get it annulled. No harm, no foul. But now, everything inside me resisted. This new urge rose like a monster, digging in its heels and demanding compliance.
“No,” I sputtered. “No annulment.”
“Excuse me, what?” Her pitch rose, and she blinked. “I must have misheard you in your freshly post-transition delusion. Did you say no annulment?”
Maeve’s high-pitched cackle echoed from somewhere behind Guin.
“No annulment,” I said. “Not yet. I need to figure out some things.”
I’m keeping him, said a new, growly part of my subconscious. He’s mine, and I’m keeping him.
Guin scratched her forehead a few times, squinting with frustration. “We’ll talk when you’re more well-rested.”
“Thanks, Guin. Thanks, Maeve. I needed this.”
My sister smiled. “Take care. Do good work.”
After we hung up, Lycan came out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, water dripping down his pecs and abs. He looked marginally better after the shower, but still not up to his former glory.
“I take it they gave you the rundown?”
“It’s…uh…unbelievable.”
“Understatement.” He bounced his brows and nodded toward the living room. “Get dressed. Locust brought us takeout.”
I put on a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt, Lycan’s by the smell and size of it, and walked into the main area. He sat at the dining room table with a spread of food in front of him—meats, cheeses, fruits, salad. My mouth watered, and my stomach growled.
He turned to face me, raking his gray eyes down my body and up again, before he grinned and held a hand out to me. I took it, and he pulled me closer, tugging me down onto his lap. I tried to protest and scoot away, but he wrapped an arm around my hip to hold me in place.
“Stay,” he said. “Please. Aftercare is as much for me as it is for you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “We didn’t…that wasn’t… From what I understand, that was a biological imperative, not for funsies.”
“That’s the story you’re going with? Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.
” He leaned forward to pick a strawberry off the plate he’d already prepared, holding it out to my lips.
I took a bite and moaned at the decadent fruit.
Everything tasted better, the juice sweeter, the skin crisper, the flesh softer.
And the smell sank into my molecules like ecstasy.
“You told your sisters you didn’t want our marriage annulled?”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “Or at least, I didn’t. Not until I talked to you. Is that what you want?”
Lycan hummed and reached for pieces of sausage and cheese to place on my tongue next. “I could certainly do worse than being married to a Vanderbilt, but I’ll admit, Trouble, I never planned to marry anyone.”
“Wasn’t that part of the appeal? We knew what this was when we went into it.”
“We were drunk,” he explained. “Everything sounds like a good idea when you’re loaded.”
“Of course.”
You weren’t a choice. You were convenient.
Just there while he was drunk.
Who would want the frigid Vanderbilt bitch?
Fix it. Make yourself useful.
“Hey, none of that.” He grabbed my chin and forced me to face him. “I told you to stop talking to yourself like that, and I expect to be obeyed, or you’ll be punished.”
I attempted a half-hearted laugh, knowing he was teasing me. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken my self-deprecation out loud.
“My magic’s still inside you,” he said. “For the next few days, you might hear my thoughts. I might hear yours. It’ll fade.”
I tried not to overreact to all of the implications, all of the filthy things I’d thought about him. Did I not have any privacy anymore? What did it mean to have him read my thoughts, to be able to read his?
“I’m not always in your head.” Lycan brushed a finger down the side of my cheek. “It’s sort of like a broadcast. I think it to you, and you hear it. You happen to be a loud thinker.”
I mulled that over. It didn’t seem so bad. “But it’ll fade?”
“It will,” he said. “With time. As for our marriage, we have thirty days until we have to do something,” he continued. “Let’s just see where this goes, how it feels. Who knows? We might like it.”
Then it hit me. We’d spent the last few days in bed together. I hadn’t been on birth control in ages, not since I was with Scott. Panic flared in my lungs. I didn’t know if I wanted kids. I’d never had a reason to think about it.
“Lycan,” I started, “I’m not on the pill. We didn’t—”
“You can’t get pregnant unless you go into heat,” he said.
“Heat?” I scrunched my nose. “Like a dog?”
“Kind of,” he said. “Besides, transition magic is powerful. There’s no chance of it happening then. So until you go into your first heat, you’re fine.”
“How will I know?”
He chuckled softly to himself. “You’ll get a fever. You’ll get chills, and your magic will call out for a willing partner.” Lycan fed me another piece of fruit. “You’re okay, Trouble. I’ve got you until then.”
Some of the pressure lifted from my chest, and I smiled, reaching for a piece of pineapple to hold to his mouth. He opened his lips and accepted the fruit, his storm-gray eyes never leaving mine.
“Now, tell me about shifter magic. Maeve said something about silver and iron, but she was talking really fast,” I said. “And what’s a knot?”
Lycan hugged me tighter, the sound of his chuckle vibrating through my chest.