15. Poe
Poe
I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.
Watching Lycan and Ava together twisted the knife in my heart, but fuck if I could look away.
They were beautiful. The way he commanded her body reminded me of all the times he’d forced me to submit and how much I’d loved it.
Even if he said he wanted me, even if she looked at me like I was a full fucking meal, it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t.
They’ll leave me.
Nothing’s permanent.
They don’t want me, not really.
Then why did he still stare at me like he couldn’t wait to devour me whole? Why did he tease me by suggesting he’d make me do something deplorable if I’d only asked nicely? And why did Ava keep going when she knew I was watching?
I couldn’t dwell on it. If I did, I’d lose my fucking mind.
The afternoon after the change, I woke up before them and watched them sleep for far longer than I’d ever admit.
Lycan lost ten years of stress when his features were relaxed, and Ava’s lips twisted into the cutest grin while unconscious.
I wondered what dreams made her smile like that.
I wondered if Lycan even wanted me in this nest with them. Had he only agreed because Ava asked?
Lycan cracked his eyelids and met my stare, and in that liminal space between sleep and waking, his wolf called to mine. He seemed to ask what I was doing, and mine responded with a swift, “I have no fucking clue.”
He held a hand out to me, almost as if he was asking me to come closer, but I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t do that to myself again. Instead, I pushed up to standing, grabbed my clothes, and headed to the bathroom at the back of the cabin.
They could have each other. They should have each other.
Anything I’d have with them would be fleeting, at best. They’d choose their marriage in the end, and I’d be left alone like always.
Staring at myself in the mirror, my wolf rebuked that thought. He’d felt whatever happened between the three of us last night. The bond. The connection. The utter rightness of being a three instead of a pair.
I sighed and got in the shower. After I’d washed away any thought of a bond, I got dressed and disappeared into the woods, quietly shutting the door behind me.
I’d been brooding in my self-loathing and trying to focus on the next steps in our trip when my cellphone rang around five p.m. Seeing Channing’s name on the caller ID, I answered with a gruff, “Yeah?”
“Well, hello to you, bestie,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re still all moody because of my stupid brother.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “This can’t be why you called.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “I want the details. Is he still playing hard to get? Or has he already coaxed you back into his bed?”
“I’m sure you heard he married her,” I said.
“Honestly, who hasn’t gotten shitfaced and married someone in a foreign country?” she asked with a laugh.
Was she joking? Knowing Chan, either could be true.
“Too soon,” I said.
“Are you out sulking in the woods?” she asked. “You should be with Ava and Lycan, trying to figure out what this Evelyn bitch wants.”
I narrowed my eyes and glanced around. “How the fuck—”
“Because I know you.” A keyboard clattered in the background while she chewed on something that sounded like pretzels. “For what it’s worth, I’ve got nothing back from the Harlots yet. Whoever this witch is, she’s not in anybody’s records. That’s weird, isn’t it? Everybody’s in somebody’s records.”
“Keep digging.”
A brief pause passed between us before she said, “Hey, cheer up, okay? Go back to the cabin. I sent Lycan some updates I found in the archive, and I’d rather they tell you. It’s important.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
“Go home, Poe.”
After she hung up, I debated whether to pine away out in the woods for the rest of the night or venture back to the cabin to check in with Ava.
Being this far away from her, from them, for so long grated on my wolf in the most annoying way.
He wanted to rub up against her like he did last night.
He wanted to nip at her neck and goad her into playing with him again.
But I couldn’t let that happen. It would hurt too much when it was over, and I needed to protect myself.
Ava’s muffled laughter echoed from the other side of the door as I climbed the steps to the porch.
Lycan’s deep voice followed, calling her more trouble than he originally bargained for, which only made her giggle harder.
I stood outside and hung my head. Whatever I found when I walked inside would only wreck me, make me feel like more of a pariah than I already was.
“Go,” my wolf urged. “Take. Claim. Mine.”
“Shut up,” I told him.
In my thirty years of life on this earth, we’d never disagreed this much on anything.
I’d gotten us through the first nineteen years; he’d gotten me through the transition.
I’d gotten us to the Helena pack; he’d accepted his place within it.
But now I wanted to punch him in his stupid snout for roping me into this mess, and he was biting at my metaphorical heels to make me move.
I pushed it aside, turned the handle, and walked inside.
Ava and Lycan sat around the tiny dining room table between the kitchen and the living room, the remnants of our nest still on the floor.
Plates full of chicken and vegetables sat between them, and my stomach growled to remind me I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday.
Whatever Ava had been about to say died when she shifted her attention to me.
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes brightened, and she sat up straighter like I was the best present under the Christmas tree.
Not the welcome I was expecting, but I’ll take it.
Lycan raised one degrading eyebrow, and I locked my legs to keep from falling to my knees.
“He returns,” Lycan said, tilting his head to the side. “How was your hike?”
I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck. “Fine.”
“You must be hungry,” Ava said, gesturing to the spot next to her. “Bas brought us dinner about an hour ago. The rest of the pack usually eats together, but since our shift was yesterday, he thought we might want some time to adjust.”
I took an involuntary step toward them, my foot moving on its own. Or maybe it was the fucking wolf again. The scent of the spices on the chicken drifted toward me, and my stomach let out another angry howl.
“Oh, he’s starving, poor thing.” Lycan nodded to the empty chair. “Come on. I’ll fix you a plate.”
He stood and walked to the kitchen cabinets, and I found myself taking another step toward them.
“You don’t have to do—”
“I didn’t ask,” Lycan said. “Sit. I’ll feed you.”
The command rattled through me, compelling me forward before I could stop it. I planted my ass in the chair, Ava poured me a glass of water, and Lycan came back to the table, piling meat and veggies on the plate like he was feeding someone who’d survived a famine.
“Thank you,” I said when he set it down in front of me. He walked back to his chair and lowered his massive body into it, his beautiful lips twisting into that smirk that used to make my cock hard. At the swoop in my belly, I had to admit it probably still did.
“Channing called while you were out.” He tapped his fingers on his glass. “She had some news.”
I took a bite of the chicken and nearly melted. Fuck, I was so hungry. Why did I let myself go this long without eating, especially the day after a full moon?
“She’s been in the pack archives,” Ava explained, her voice going flat and careful, the one she used in boardrooms. “She found a mating request from 1986. Never fulfilled.”
“Between a Bastard named Logan Coates,” Lycan continued, “and Priscilla Kennedy.”
The names sat there for a moment before my mind caught up. “Your mother?”
“Also known as Priscilla Vanderbilt.” Ava pushed a piece of chicken around her plate without eating it. “She was from a pack out west, apparently. The Sierra Nevada. She never told any of us that.”
“We knew she was a shifter,” I said. “None of you would have turned otherwise.”
“That’s not the strange part.” Lycan’s jaw worked. “Coates changed his name when he patched in.”
I let the implications of that sink in. “Who?”
“Zion,” he said.
In Calgary, Alberta, another shifter pack had been forming for years, led by a bear shifter and former Bastard named Zion.
After the Scorpion attack that had killed half our pack twenty years ago, Zion disappeared, and Bastard protocol dictated we hunt him down and take him out, but Kodiak had never given the order.
But this was something I didn’t see coming.
One of our elders said Priscilla came to the pack shortly after the birth of her last child, claiming she was in trouble and needed help.
The alpha at the time, Kerrick, had turned her away.
Why would he do that if she was supposed to be mated to Zion?
In fact, why would she marry Uther Vanderbilt if she was meant to mate Zion? None of it made sense.
Ava sighed and ran her fingers over her forehead. “I was six when she died. I didn’t know she was a shifter. I mean, obviously, she was. But it’s still…it’s confusing. Twenty years and this is the first time I’m hearing that a man wanted to mate her before my father ever met her.”
“I talked to Kodiak,” Lycan said. “He agrees. It seems like more than coincidence that Zion is choosing now to encroach on our territory after four of the Vanderbilt children have transitioned.”
“Did your mom ever talk about her life before she married your father?” I told myself it was none of my business, that I was only asking because of what it meant for the pack.
“I knew she came from California,” she said. “I only met her family once…maybe twice. She wasn’t close with them.”
“Do you think she still has family there? Maybe we could ask them.” I shrugged and stabbed a potato with my fork before biting into it.