Chapter 7
Morgan
Murder is against the law, but I still consider it as I fix my cup of coffee.
Whatever sludge Sylvan tried to make for me might as well have been fertilizer.
Not to mention, the house is a fucking mess.
Tufts of fur have gathered in corners, he clearly hasn’t done any dishes, and empty bowls and plates litter the counters.
There’s even a half-eaten loaf of bread on the counter—crumbs everywhere.
He brought me really good soup, but at what cost? My fucking sanity?
My cold shower brought me back down to reality. Whatever the hell happened the night of the full moon, I wasn’t myself. The last three days have been hell. I’ve never experienced a heat like this, and I loathe myself for wishing he’d been with me the entire time.
This is not working.
I sit down at the kitchen nook as I wait for him, finally checking my texts. I’ve been in and out of it. I managed to send a message to Verena the other morning assuring her I’d be okay, but my heat was bad.
Me
I’m alive
Verena
Thank the goddess. I was about to buy a plane ticket out there. WTF happened????
Where do I even start?
The origin of my problems makes himself known with a singular grunt as he enters the kitchen. I keep my expression neutral as he sits down across from me.
“Better?” I ask, keeping my tone pleasant.
His brows pull together. There’s a little blush in his cheeks, which gives me a moment of satisfaction. It’s fucked up, but I like how I affect him. He deserves a little torture after leaving . . . Fuck.
I’m being unreasonable again. He doesn’t deserve torture for sending me running the other night. It was the right thing to do.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he finally murmurs.
I need to focus on something else. My frustration with him and the state of the house, not the way his throat looks when he swallows or how the sunlight coming in from the windows turns the tips of his hair a reddish brown.
It brightens the longer I stare at him, and soon the sunlight is swallowing him up just for me.
Focus, Morgan. Come on.
“I did consider murdering you just a moment ago,” I say. “For the state of the house. The kitchen? What have you been doing the last three days, Sylvan? There’s dishes everywhere. There’s fur everywhere.”
He rakes his fingers through his hair. Stubble lines his jaw and I realize I’ve never seen him unshaven. “I’ve been . . . Nothing. I’ve been doing nothing. Just waiting for you to finally come out of your room.”
I take a slow, obnoxiously loud sip of my coffee. His eye twitches.
“You’ll be cleaning the house,” I say. “I’m not picking up after a grown man. Just because I’ve been . . . sick the last three days doesn’t mean I’ve been lazy.”
“I never said you were lazy.”
“The insinuation was there. And believe me, I wish I could get the last three days of my life back.” For some reason, the pain I felt during my heat stabs me all over again. “This is unacceptable. This does not work for me.”
Sylvan rubs his chest, his head shaking. “It doesn’t work for me either, but I can’t do anything about it.”
“You could do something about the dishes and fur.”
“Fur is inevitable when your roommate is a werewolf.”
“You want to know what else is inevitable? You in a grave if you don’t clean up after yourself.”
Sylvan’s expression tightens. Silently, he rises and goes to the sink. He pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing his forearms.
I must still technically be in heat, because that sight sends a bolt of need through me. I suck in a breath, my thighs squeezing together. His nostrils flare. I look away, focusing on the crescent moon shapes at the top of the arched windows, really focusing on anything else but him.
Coffee won’t cure my heat hangover. I need to get out of the house. Away from Sylvan.
I slowly slide out of the booth, but he makes a noise.
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business,” I say as I move for the doorway to the dining room.
But there he is. Blocking me. Getting in my way, like always.
“I want to take a walk,” I say.
“Then let me finish the dishes, and we’ll take one.”
“Without you.”
Sylvan’s eyes crinkle at the corners with a lethal smile. “You’re never escaping my sight. Do you understand? I am your bodyguard. And after whatever happened that night with what you saw . . .”
My heart launches to my throat. “Did you see it?”
Sylvan’s posture eases. “Yes. I chased after it, but couldn’t figure out what it was. I was out all night.”
“You said I was outside for hours, but I only remember being outside for fifteen minutes or so. I drank my tea then walked through the garden, then I saw it in the woods.”
“What exactly was it?”
“Just nothing. Nothingness. Darkness.”
“Has anything like that ever been seen out here? You did say the coven is in the woods. Could it have been some sort of spell?”
It’s different from that. I’m not exactly sure what it was. “I don’t think it was from witches.”
“Well, it wasn’t wolf or daimon.”
“Yeah.”
We stare at each for a bit, then I place my hand on his chest. The movement startles him enough that I have a split second to get by him. I slide past—
Sylvan’s arm loops around my waist and then my world is spinning. I yell and kick as he takes me to the island counter. He sets me on top of it, his hands settling on my hips. Goddess, how the fuck can he just manhandle me like this?! Why is he so frustratingly strong?
He leans in, his growl low in warning. “Stop causing trouble.”
“I’m leaving,” I say. “Let me down. I’m going to change, then I’m going for a drive to clear my head. I need space. I need room to breathe or I’m going to lose it.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I snap. “You can’t control me.”
His eyes drop to my lips then back up again. “I said no.”
“I’ve been inside for days. I need to get out or I’m going to go insane, Sylvan. You are driving me insane. And you’re lucky I’m a nice witch. The way you keep acting—”
“I keep acting?” His fingers loop in my hair and pull.
I gasp as my throat is exposed to him, his grip on me unyielding.
I try to clamp my thighs together, but his hips are there, wedging them open.
Keeping me exposed and at his mercy. “I should mark you,” he whispers.
I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or himself.
“I should do it. So I can always find you.”
“Against my will.” I swallow. “Is that the kind of werewolf you are? The kind of alpha?” It’s a low blow, but I take it. “Would you really take a chance on marking an omega who isn’t yours? Putting us both at risk with our future fated mates?”
His breath hitches. “I don’t have a future fated mate.”
“Well, I might.”
“I don’t know what else to do with you, Morgan. You keep threatening to leave, and after what happened the other night . . .”
Does he mean the darkness? I hope he means the darkness. I never want to think about the humiliation of offering myself up the way I did again. It was embarrassing. I’d begged him to fuck me. I’d wanted him so terribly that I lost track of how many times I came thinking about him.
But the dream of him and the reality of him are two different things.
“I wasn’t myself,” I whisper.
“And neither was I.”
“Right.” His hips are still between my thighs.
His hands are on my hips, one of his fingers making small circles.
It’s turning me on. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
I like the feeling of him up close like this.
I like being able to see his crooked nose and his scar. “I mean, I don’t know. You were you.”
“I wasn’t like myself.”
“You were an asshole, which is pretty on par with what I know about you so far.”
Stormy eyes cloud with heat. “I made you go inside, which was where you should have been to begin with. I literally broke my chains to get to you, Morgan.” His voice chokes on my name and he pulls back as if I stung him.
“Maybe consider for a moment how much control I had to have in order to break my chains, save you, and then not touch you when you’re begging me to. ”
“Sorry it’s such a burden for you to keep your hands to yourself.”
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. He growls, of course, then shakes his head. “Go get dressed. We’ll take your walk around town.”
“I can just wear this. Make them all talk.”
“I’d have to rip people’s eyes out, Morgan.”
He can’t be serious.
He looks serious.
Damn it, this is all a disaster.
“Go.”
He lifts me off the counter and sends me walking out of the kitchen toward my room. My cheeks burn with the implication that he’d do such a thing to someone for looking at me.
He’s such a bossy wolf. An alphahole. A stubborn and mean big bad wolf of a bodyguard.
I hate him. Every minute I spend with him, the more I dislike him. The more I want him.
Eventually this wanting will stop. By the next full moon, I’m sure, neither of us will even want to look at each other.