18. Ava
Ava
I worked most of the day, taking meetings from my laptop and rearranging my schedule to accommodate the change in plans.
I went through the legal contracts my team sent over for final approval before they went to the companies we’d made deals with.
Two of the five had come back with questions about Montana.
Nothing in writing, just counsel asking whether the investigation might affect the timeline.
I answered both in a tone I’d learned from Guin, but it meant the story had crossed the ocean.
Scott would likely have it before I sat down with him.
Distracting myself with work did not cause the tightness in my chest to go away. Watching Lycan leave had been harder than I thought it would be, and I struggled to reconcile how much my life had changed in the last two weeks, let alone the month before that.
His magic still twisted through my body, faint and shimmering, but I couldn’t hear him telepathically anymore, something my wolf hated.
Admittedly, I hated it, too. We weren’t mated, and the transition magic would only go so far.
It should have faded by now, and it hadn’t. I chose not to read into that.
Poe sat next to me on the couch, alternating between reading a horror book I’d never heard of and writing in his journal.
I tried not to stare, but it was difficult to keep my focus to myself.
His dark hair gave way to high cheekbones and a strong jaw, cascading farther into a beautiful body that held as much strength as it did grace.
I didn’t know Poe as well as I knew Lycan, but my bones seethed with a certain understanding I couldn’t ignore. It had been there the first time I’d set eyes on him, and it had only gotten worse in the days since.
Poe flicked his gaze to me, and I quickly looked away, my cheeks burning at having been caught ogling him.
“What?” He closed his book and put a finger in between the pages to keep his place.
“Nothing.” I closed my eyes in a desperate attempt to brush it off. Images of him bent over the table with Lycan rutting behind him while I furiously rubbed my clit flitted through my mind. They were magnificent together, and the whole experience was the most erotic thing I’d ever done.
I wanted to remain dedicated to my plan. Once we got back to Montana, Lycan and I could get our marriage annulled and…what?
“How much more work do you have?” Poe asked, breaking my imagined worst-case scenario.
My eyelids weighed a thousand pounds and my head hurt, so I shut my laptop and rubbed my temples. “I’m done for the day.”
“Good.” He set his book on the end table and stood, holding a hand out to me. “C’mon.”
I stared at him with my mouth open. “Where are we going?”
“I’m hungry,” he said. “And we’ve been stuck in this tiny cabin all day. We could use a walk.”
I didn’t have a good reason to argue, so I put my hand in his and let him pull me upright.
The moment our palms touched, that buzz of magic shot down my arm and settled in my heart.
I shivered and tried to hide it, but Poe must have seen because he rubbed his hands over my upper arms and furrowed his brows.
“You cold?”
“No, it’s just—” You. Touching you. Being near you. “Never mind.”
I looked at the ground and stepped around him to put on my shoes.
If he knew I’d lied to him, he didn’t say anything.
He opened the door for me and put his hand on my lower back to guide me out.
Again, that shock of connection hummed inside me, and my wolf wanted to burrow herself in his arms and never let go.
Which made this whole mess even more complicated.
Leave it to me to take something that wasn’t my business and insert myself firmly in the middle.
Lycan and Poe had a history. It should have been theirs to figure out.
But after three glasses of whiskey, I purposely lost the game so I’d be sitting naked in between them.
Had I no tact? No shame? Who the hell was I now and what happened to the reserved, controlled version of me that had flown to Paris over a month ago?
“You’re quiet tonight,” he said as he fell in step next to me.
“Just…ruminating,” I admitted.
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrows and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Care to share with the rest of the class?”
“About last night,” I said.
“Ah.” He pulled his lips into a sad little grin and hung his head. “Right.”
“Do you and Lycan usually…” I didn’t know how to ask what I wanted to know.
It seemed intrusive, especially since Lycan wasn’t here to add his own input.
But maybe I wouldn’t get much time alone with Poe.
Maybe this was my only chance to get his side of things.
“Is it usually like that between you two?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “How do you mean?”
“He seemed rough with you. Rougher than he is with me.” I didn’t know if I liked that or not. Certainly, Lycan’s dominance turned me on, but he always took care of me, checking in, making sure I felt safe. He didn’t do that with Poe. Or at least he hadn’t last night.
Poe huffed a short laugh under his breath and tilted his head back to look at the night sky. “He can be an asshole sometimes.”
“But you like it?”
“Yeah, I like it,” he admitted. “I can never give in to him. After everything, I can’t let him win without a fight.”
“After everything,” I murmured. By that, he meant asking Lycan to mate him and being turned down and breaking up, only to arrive in Copenhagen to see Lycan had drunkenly married me and didn’t seem pressed to annul it. “I’m sorry. Again. For the whole…marriage thing.”
“Stop,” Poe said with a sigh. “My baggage isn’t yours to carry.”
Maybe it wasn’t. But like a people pleaser who always took care of the people in my life, I couldn’t leave it alone.
“Lycan and me,” he continued. “It’s a fucked-up mess. He doesn’t want me like he wants you, and I’ve just got—”
“That’s not true,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips.
“He talked about you a lot,” I said. “And he missed you. He loved you, I think. He still loves you. Not that he’d ever admit it.”
Poe didn’t say anything, just sighed and put his hand on my back to help me through a thin part of the trail. I softened into the touch, ignoring how much I liked Poe’s hands on me.
“Are you okay with what happened last night?” Poe glanced away, seemingly afraid of my answer no matter what it was.
“Okay?” I exaggerated rolling my eyes and laughed. “Two gorgeous men doting on me before each other? No, I’m horrified. How will I ever recover?”
Poe grinned and pushed his palm back through his hair, ruffling the fringe near his twinkling eyes. They lit up his entire face, and I instantly wanted him to do it again. My fingers itched to run through it myself, my wolf howling to get closer, to touch him, to claim him.
“I guess I’m trying to say I didn’t mean to intrude on you and Lycan,” he explained as we cleared the treeline and walked closer to the cafeteria building. “It got a little out of control.”
I shrugged and shot him a flirty smile as I opened the door. “Maybe I like being a little out of control.”
The sounds of the pack settling in for dinner drew my attention, but I thought I heard him whisper, “I can see why he calls you trouble,” under his breath. Inside, the room smelled like garlic and roasted meat, and my stomach grumbled.
“There she is.” Madeline skipped over to us and linked her elbow with mine, steering me toward a few people I recognized from the night out at the pub.
We filled our plates with food and settled in while conversation drifted around us, half of it in Danish.
Poe had been right. It was nice to get out of the cabin and see other people.
Sometime around the end of dinner, Poe got up to refill our drinks, and Madeline leaned closer to me.
“What’s going on with you and him?” She nodded at Poe. “I thought you were with Lycan.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t with either, but the words skidded to a halt in my throat. “What makes you think something’s going on?”
She gave me a knowing look. “His bonding scent’s all over you.”
“Oh?” I tilted my head toward my chest to inhale, recognizing both of them. Which made sense. We’d been shut in a cabin together for a few days.
“Oh.” Madeline mocked with a knowing look. “Are you fucking both of them?”
“Maddie,” said her friend, Astrid, from the other side of her.
“Don’t be so crude.” She admonished Madeline in her native tongue, but I picked out spit-roasted and threesome from the syllables.
A flush snaked up my neck and into my face as I focused on the table, my blood running hot from the visual.
“I’m just curious,” Madeline said. “Besides, she doesn’t have any friends here. She might need someone to talk to.”
“Thank you for your concern,” I said. “It’s…uh…complicated.”
“Those are the best kind, huh?” Madeline bounced her eyebrows, and I laughed, giving her a friendly nudge in the shoulder.
Poe came back, set down a glass of water in front of me, and eyed the two other women like they’d been plotting something nefarious in his absence.
We hung out until most of the pack left before saying our goodbyes and heading to our cabin. Poe was quiet on our way back, occasionally checking his phone before shoving it back in his pocket.
“No word?” I asked. Lycan hadn’t texted me, either, nor had I reached out to him.
I didn’t want to distract him. If things got ugly, I didn’t want him to worry about what was going on with me.
With Evelyn Vane on our tail and whatever other business the Bastards got into, the ride would be dangerous enough.
“No,” he said. “Which isn’t a bad thing. He’s probably fine. He’s with a bunch of shifters. They’ll protect each other.”
“But they’re not pack.” Not like him. Not like the other Helena Bastards back home.
Poe didn’t say anything else, just put an arm over my shoulders and hugged me closer while we walked.