10. Ava
Ava
I had a plan. Undoubtedly, it was a stupid plan, but one I became dedicated to, nonetheless. I thought, perhaps naively, that if I slotted myself next to Lycan, if I made it apparent how desirable he was, Poe would crack, and Lycan would fold, and I could fade into the background.
It would have been easy, had it not been for the way Lycan and I so seamlessly melded together. He liked to dominate, and I liked to be dominated, and where did that leave Poe? Moreover, when I got Lycan and Poe back together, where did that leave me?
Underneath the plan was one glaring complication: I wanted to be wanted. Perhaps a small, shameful part of me wanted that from Lycan.
But once I had my mind set on something, I so rarely let anything derail me.
This is how you fix it. This is how you make yourself valuable.
Each morning, Poe woke up early to work out and run before returning to the hotel to make breakfast. I, too, was an early riser, so a few days after that first scene, I climbed out from under Lycan’s massive arm when I heard Poe return from his run.
My husband stretched and whined at the loss but fell back asleep easily.
I wrapped a silk robe around my nightie and walked into the kitchen, where Poe stood shirtless, dripping in sweat, holding a bottle to his mouth while he chugged water.
The thick muscles of his throat worked as he swallowed, his chiseled abs on reckless display.
And his scent…it radiated off him in decadent waves, all male pheromones and pine and sea salt.
I stared, swallowing the smell, relishing the hint of his taste on my mouth. I wanted to lick up his torso and sink my teeth into his neck. A throb hit me between the legs, and I clenched my thighs to soothe it, trying to ignore it.
I already had a twisted relationship with Lycan. I didn’t need to screw it all up with Poe.
“Morning,” he said, breaking my trance.
Damn it.
He’d caught me gawking at him like a creep.
My cheeks burned as I walked to the coffee maker next to the sink. “Good morning. Sleep well?”
He hummed and nodded. “You?”
“Fine,” I said. “Lycan’s a bed hog.”
Poe laughed and opened the fridge, pulling out the carton of eggs, spinach, mushrooms, and toast. He went after the butter next, followed by jelly and sliced ham.
“You know, the hotel has amazing chefs,” I said. “You can order whatever you want and charge it to the room.”
He shrugged. “I like cooking.”
“Oh.” I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms while I waited for my coffee to brew. “I never learned.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, and before I could assume he’d meant it as an insult, he added, “Sol didn’t know, either.”
Oh… Right. He’d been at the cabin with my sister when she’d crashed there and mated the VP of the Royal Bastards.
“But she was a quick study,” he said. “I imagine you are, too. If you want to learn.”
“Sure,” I said, sensing an opportunity to sneak past his defenses.
It had been over a week of this awkward living around each other.
We’d offered Poe his own suite, which he’d declined.
Lycan had his own suite, but once I’d invited him into my bed, he didn’t leave.
So now we walked on eggshells, trying not to acknowledge the tension suffocating every space the three of us occupied.
Poe grabbed a knife and held it out to me, handle first. “Cut up that spinach, enough for the three of us.”
I grabbed a handful and placed it on the cutting board, bunching it together while I tried to saw my way through it.
“So, you’re from Baltimore?” I asked, making conversation.
“I am,” he said. “That’s where I got my road name. Poe…like Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Do you write?” I grimaced at the mess I was making, certain I wasn’t doing more than butchering the spinach rather than slicing it into cookable pieces.
“Poetry, mostly,” he said. “But it’s dark. And most of the pack doesn’t like it. Those I let read it, anyway.”
“Why don’t they like it?” On my third failed attempt at doing anything with the spinach, Poe noticed and chuckled, walking around to stand behind me.
“Here, hold it like this.” He extended one arm along my side, wrapping his hand around mine as he adjusted my grip on the knife.
His chest pressed up against my back, the heat from his body radiating through my thin robe.
I shivered and tried to hide it, but the resulting tremble in his own muscles made me look over my shoulder at him.
An electric current raced through me from where we were connected, something profound and magnetic, and when our gazes met, his irises shifted from brown to amber and glowed.
His wolf.
The animal inside me answered, whimpering for more. She yearned to rub against his body, to bury my head in his neck and lap at his sweat-soaked skin.
“You see?” His voice came out in a deep, gravelly rumble as he lifted the thickest part of the blade, keeping the tip on the cutting board. “That’s better.”
He let go of my hand and took a step back, watching as I did it on my own.
“Good,” he said. “Very good.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying to yank my mind out of the gutter. Did my praise kink know no bounds?
He went back to cracking eggs into a bowl, breaking the shells with a knife before pouring the contents one after another. He had strong, beautiful hands like Lycan. They were callused from years on the ranch, but veiny and elegant, and I would have bet they felt like heaven on tight muscles.
Probably felt like heaven in other places, too.
What? No. Stop it.
“I’m all doom and gloom,” Poe said.
“What?” I’d gotten so lost in my filthy thoughts, I had no idea what he was talking about.
“They don’t like my poetry because I’m all doom and gloom,” he said. “Because Lycan is such a golden retriever, I think they expected me to be…I don’t know…lighter, somehow.”
I giggled at the comparison of Lycan to a happy-go-lucky dog with his tongue hanging out.
Sure, he was optimistic and jovial most of the time, but I’d seen the side of him that ached and wallowed and called himself an evil piece of shit.
Maybe he’d changed since his breakup with Poe. Maybe the loss had soured him.
Poe whisked the eggs together, adding a little bit of water and a splash of milk before whisking some more. After I finished the spinach, I started on the mushrooms.
“Would you read some to me?” I asked.
His laughter made my knees weak. He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “We’re taking over the world together while trying to evade a vampire ringleader. Surely, that bonds us on a level deep enough for dark and gloomy poetry.”
“Hmm,” he said. “What about you?”
“Well, I don’t write.” I moved on to cutting up bananas, strawberries, and apples for a fruit salad. “And I can barely hold a kitchen knife, so that should tell you how interesting I am.”
“No, I mean…how’d you end up here?” Now finished with the eggs, he put a pan on the stove, scooped some of the butter into it, and turned the heat to medium. “Don’t you have a whole group of minions you pay to take over the world for you?”
“Yes, well, minions can be very mercurial,” I said. “Like you saw, sometimes you need to send in the Vanderbilt bitch to set everybody straight.”
“Isn’t that Guin?” he asked.
“Who do you think I get it from?” I said. “She taught me everything I know. And we both take after our father…much good may it do us.”
“You’re not happy about that.” He raised his eyebrows as he poured some of the egg mixture into the pan, delicately pulling at the sides with a spatula.
“My father…” Memories of the Vanderbilt patriarch drifted through my mind.
His angry eyes. His patronizing tone. His cold apathy.
“Well, he didn’t win any Father of the Year awards.
There’s a reason the Bastards and the Vanderbilts hated each other for so long, and trust me, he played his part in that. ”
“I didn’t know my parents,” he said. “They died or took off before I could remember.”
I suspected I should be more grateful for the upbringing I did have, even if my father were the blueprint for the emotionally devoid patriarch.
“Lycan said you went through your transition alone,” I said. “That must have been horrible.”
“I don’t remember most of it,” he said with a grimace.
“The pain, though. The pain was excruciating. I woke up a week later, certain I’d died and ended up in hell.
” Poe paused, his eyes focused on nothing, one corner of his mouth pulling into a wince.
“I owe my life to the Helena pack. Without them, I would have died.”
“I’m thankful they found you when they did,” I said.
“Me too.” He tilted his head toward the stove and gestured for me to come closer to him. “Here, wait until the eggs start to harden. Then we’ll add the veggies and fold it.”
I moved to stand next to him, and he flipped the spatula and handed it to me. I took it and looked down at the food, my stomach choosing that moment to let out a loud, embarrassing grumble.
“So,” I continued, trying to cover my hunger pangs, “poetry. Strategy. Omelet extraordinaire. What else do you do for the Bastards?”
He grabbed a plate and loaded it with berries before cutting up a banana. “Shovel shit, mostly.”
I giggled. “Delightful.”
“I went over your agenda for the next part of the trip,” he said, passing the plate closer to me. “I’ve got some suggestions.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “Once Lycan gets up, we can talk through them.”
He tapped a finger on the side of my breakfast. “Eat.”
“I can wait. This is almost—”
“That wasn’t a request,” he said. “Your stomach’s growling loud enough to give me a migraine.”
I narrowed my eyes in protest, but he picked up a strawberry and held it out to me.
“Do I have to treat you like a pup?” He bounced the fruit closer. “Chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo!”