Chapter 5 Heath #2
She was laser-focused on where her dad had gone over the cemetery wall with the wraith. Those long legs ate up the distance on the pavement, her beast’s strength pushing her to inhuman speeds.
“Avery!” I bellowed, jogging straight for her, Wyatt on my heels.
Her head jerked in our direction, and she stumbled a few steps as she slowed to a stop.
She stared at us, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath. Surprise morphed quickly into a deep frown.
She may as well have slid a knife between my ribs.
“What…,” she said, panting. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
We stopped a few feet in front of her, taking care to be outside her sword range.
Wyatt propped his ax on his shoulder and hit her with the most panty-melting smile in his arsenal. “Helping, Wildcat. What’s it look like?”
“We don’t need your help,” she spat.
“Avery,” I growled. “You’re our Moon-blessed mate, and you’re recovering from serious injuries. Let us help you.”
Her knuckles went white around her swords, her jaw tensing as her nostrils flared. “I am not your fucking mate. You rejected me, and you left me to die in the fucking woods. Go away, Heath.”
“That’s not—” I shook my head and took a step toward her. “Avery—”
She raised her blade and pointed it right at my neck. “I said. Fuck. Off.”
Wyatt slipped into the space between us. “Come on, Wildcat—”
Another violent screech echoed from the cemetery. Kaito was still battling a wraith in there.
“Shit,” Avery swore. She turned and ran for the wall, hurdling it with ease. She disappeared into the trees, leaving Wyatt and me standing there like chumps.
Until a second Ripper stalked around the corner. Another mutant bear, which we should’ve been expecting. Wraiths usually spawned in multiples.
It was almost a relief to see it. Now we could actually be useful.
The wraith turned the empty voids of its eye sockets on us.
We were two juicy Prime souls, ripe and ready to be consumed.
It opened its bear jaws to reveal four rows of dagger teeth and two horrifying tentacle protrusions that darted from the corners of its mouth.
It roared, the sound like car tires screeching across pavement.
It charged us, and our cylinders sparked back to life.
This was what we’d been training for, and we were the best in the fucking class at it.
Wyatt’s bear tore from his body and charged the wraith, his ax clattering to the ground next to his destroyed clothes.
I ripped my saber from its sheath and followed.
Wyatt took the same tactic Avery’s dad had, circling around the wraith before launching his huge bear body at it, tackling it out of the street and over the wall into the cemetery.
I followed them over the wall. Wyatt snarled and snapped at the wraith as they tumbled through the trees and out into an open area filled with grave plots.
The wraith slashed at Wyatt with dagger talons. Wyatt tore into its patchy gray hide with his jaws. The granite headstones bore the brunt of the force of their huge bodies as they bounced off them like pinballs. Packed soil churned under claws and fur, disturbing the dead beneath it.
Taking a page from Avery’s playbook, I vaulted onto the wraith’s back and drove my sword straight into its spine.
It shrieked and flailed, tossing me off.
I landed nimbly on my feet, and then Wyatt smashed into the wraith once more to knock it to the ground.
I lunged and tore my saber from the wraith’s body.
Gripping it in both hands, I swung the blade in a brutal downward strike, severing its neck.
Aiden’s Moon-blessing held true. Its disgusting gray flesh hissed, and the wraith began to melt away into thick gray sludge, its foul stench lingering as it went.
Wyatt shifted back into a man, and I threw him a pair of shorts I had in the small pack I wore on my back. We were in human territory, so we’d prepared to be more careful with the public nudity.
I wiped my blade on my jeans and put it away, and then I shucked my shirt, now drenched in wraith guts.
I’d just shoved my shirt into my pack when Avery and Kaito sauntered through the trees.
I spared a passing glance for Avery’s dad, now no longer a cougar and who, like Wyatt, wore only a pair of tight black shorts. About Avery’s height, he had the lean, muscular build of most cat shifters. Wraith gore decorated his chest and coated his katana blade.
For several long moments, I scanned my mate from her gorgeous head to what I was certain were perfect toes inside those thick-soled boots.
She must’ve caught some wraith claws, because she had three identical slashes through her shirt, her toned stomach taunting me through the rips.
No blood that I could see or smell. Streaks of wraith goo marred her pale neck, and the single blade in her hand dripped the same gray guts, which meant she’d probably beheaded the other bear wraith after Kaito had worn it down.
A possessive growl reverberated through my chest.
Avery stopped in her tracks, frowning at the scene. What I wouldn’t fucking give for my presence to elicit something other than a frown from my mate.
Kaito’s dark brows bounced up his forehead before he schooled his expression into something like mild interest. “Got the twin, I see,” he said, surveying the remnants of the wraith. “Thanks for the assist.”
Avery shook the sludge from her sword and sheathed it on her back with an exasperated huff. “We could’ve taken care of it, Kai.”
I dared a step in her direction. “Killer, are you hurt?”
She winced, and my stomach dropped into an even lower circle of hell. “That’s not your concern anymore, Heath.”
“Avery—”
A shrill whistle sounded from somewhere outside the cemetery. Kai returned the call with two short whistles of his own.
A few seconds later, Avery’s Alpha father jogged into view. He also wore only a pair of shorts, indicating he’d shifted at some point this evening. Following close behind him were Ian, Aiden, Elijah, and Avery’s fox dad, Joseph—all of them still fully clothed and splattered with gray guts.
“Oh look,” Ian said, chuckling as they joined us around the grave plots, “the gang’s all here. Aves, you owe me fifty bucks. I knew there was no way they were going to wait until camp to butt back into your life.”
Aiden and Elijah drank in the sight of Avery like dying men in the desert who’d crawled their way to an oasis. She lifted her chin, her eyes sparking electric blue as she glowered under their attention.
Elijah blinked away his beast, his lips quirking into an almost smile, while my brother’s face looked the way my insides felt, which was totally fucking destroyed.
Rand cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, we do appreciate the assistance. We had to take down a full dozen swarmers and three Rippers in the east quadrant, and the extra blades were handy. It was the most active night we’ve had so far this year.
” He met my stare and put the full authority of his wolf behind it.
“But it’s probably best if you boys head back home now. ”
Wyatt blew out a harsh breath and cracked his neck. His bear did not want to leave his mate.
“We’ll be on our way shortly,” I replied. “If we could just have five minutes to talk to Avery—”
Ian snorted. “Fat fucking chance.”
“That would be up to Avery,” Kaito said, twirling his katana lazily, “and no one else.”
Aiden’s gaze had yet to leave our girl, the turquoise glow around his irises faint but present. “Avery, can we just—”
Avery held up a hand and looked at Rand. “Give me thirty seconds, please.”
He nodded. “Let’s go, everyone,” he said, motioning for the rest of the group to follow him down the path that led back to the road. “That means you, too, Ian.”
“But—”
Joseph snagged him by the back of his shirt and dragged him off.
Once they’d disappeared, Avery crossed her arms over her chest and surveyed the group of us with yet another frown.
And then she let her beast off her chain.
The tiger’s presence crashed into the space between us, a tsunami of pure power. I smothered a gasp at the push of such a dominant Prime against my wolf.
How the fuck had she hidden this from us last semester?
My wolf floated to the surface, growling his approval as he held out against her onslaught.
Elijah chuckled happily. In any other situation, his beast would’ve taken over and gone straight for the kill. Not even my father would’ve dared.
“Fuck yes, Wildcat,” Wyatt said with a deep growl. His bear was riding him hard. “Give me those claws.”
“Shut up,” she snapped, and we all stood up a little straighter. “Whatever this is—” She gestured between the four of us. “—it stops now. We are not mates. We are, at best, classmates and Guardian teammates. That is how we’re all going to act at camp.”
Wyatt snorted a laugh.
“Not happening,” I declared. “You can’t deny it, Avery. Your beast felt it, just as ours did. We are Fated. It’s the Moon’s divine will that you belong to us.”
“I belong to no one,” she growled. “Least of all you four. You made it very clear how you felt about me as a candidate for your central bond.”
Aiden blew out a frustrated breath. “Avery, you know what bond theory says, why we thought—”
“Save it, Professor. I don’t want to fucking hear it.”
My wolf pushed hard against her, and she sucked in a breath.
“Killer,” I said, my voice low and threaded with dominance, “camp starts in two days. You can’t avoid us forever. We fucked up, but we can’t fix it if you won’t talk to us. We have things to say to you, and you will listen.”
Her electric eyes went nearly white, and silver fur sprouted along her arms for a flash before it faded away.
My wolf’s power swelled against hers. We fought it out for two blissful seconds until she snapped my hold like a fucking twig. A sharp sting of pain reverberated through my bones.
“Just like you listened when I begged you not to leave me alone in a wraith-infested forest?” she snarled.
I blew out a frustrated breath, my heart pounding in my chest. Excruciating silence stretched between us.
“Dove,” Elijah whispered. “Please.”
“No.” She pulled her beast back, and the pressure relented. She shot us one last clear-eyed look full of hatred—or was that pain? “Fuck off, all of you.”
She turned, giving us her back.
We could only stand there and stare, our beasts mingling into a mess of longing and anger and self-loathing as the object of our deepest desires walked away from us once again.