“You can’t put this off anymore. A decision needs to be made.” Elder Cayenne said, his face wrinkled with sympathy. Adrian didn’t buy it.
The impatience of the council was palpable. For three days, they had badgered him. Three days they had brought complaints and requests of the pack members to him.
He needed to announce to the pack that he was going to accept their demands, they told him.
Now more than ever, Adrian wished he ruled his pack the way that Adelaide did without a council of Elders to share power with.
If only in the aftermath of losing his father and Ava he hadn’t decided to give the council more power because he knew how heavy the duty was for him to carry out alone. Now the decision he had made in a time of duress had come back to haunt him.
He looked at Elder Elvis who had only been too happy to volunteer his daughter, Ivy, to become the mother of the future heir of the pack. After all, he needed someone who the pack members preferred to be his bride. Who better than the daughter of an Elder?
His ploy had become clear once the pack members had begun to kick against Adrian. They wanted an heir and they wanted it now. Elder Elvis wanted to play for more power in the pack and he wasn’t ashamed to use any means necessary to accomplish his goal, including his daughter.
The fact that he and Ava still hadn’t consummated their bond had only made things worse.
It seemed to cement the opinion that the pack had of the fact that Ava had never accepted Adrian as her mate so why would they accept her as their Luna?
The past three days had been hell on earth. He had been unable to visit Ava in the hospital even if his thoughts never strayed far from her.
Even though he knew better. He knew she didn’t love him. If anything, the attraction between them had crashed and burned with the Shawn issue that had spawned this entire saga. Yet after she had saved his life, dangerous hope had bloomed in him that maybe there was something that he wasn’t seeing.
Adrian didn’t even know why he was hesitating to announce his decision. He had been with so many women, what was one more? She wouldn’t matter to him like all the others. The one woman who mattered to him didn’t reciprocate his feelings.
He doubted Ava would even mind if another woman carried his child.
“I will take a consort.”
Their gazes locked and the world paused.
Ava’s grip on her towel tightened as she saw her mate for the first time in days.
She had been avoiding him. What else could she have done? Even if all she wanted to do had been to run to him and beg him to be hers and hers alone. She couldn’t be selfish yet she knew that seeing him would weaken her resolve.
Maybe she would have changed her mind if she hadn’t entered the pack house to find out that Adrian had given in and decided to choose a consort. Her replacement.
It had hurt to hear it. Hurt so much that she thought she would die from the pain.
So she had avoided him. She only came out of the connecting room after she was sure he had left the room or gone to bed.
Ava had spoken to Alex immediately after she had heard the news before he did something crazy like telling Adrian everything.
Alex understood why she was hiding the truth, Gabby was his sister as well and the last thing he wanted was for her to get booted out of the pack or worse killed. At the same time with his experience of having a mate, he told her that Adrian had a right to know. It wasn’t just her relationship that was in jeopardy, it was equally Adrian’s too.
Ava had made him swear that he wouldn’t tell and he’d looked at her.
“Ava, how can you be so self-sacrificing? Gabrielle is my sister as well but I don’t understand. This is your mate bond at stake. How can you be so…”
Ava thought about it.
“Right from the start, I have always felt that this thing between Adrian and I was wrong. That it was something to be hidden. Gabby had him first. I know he isn’t a book or toy, a possession to place dibs on but I think to myself. What if it had been me?”
“How hurt would I be if Gabby marked and mated with my childhood love during our mating ceremony? I would be hurt. I would be bitter. Her pain and anger are not misplaced so how can I allow her to be banished to turn rogue or be killed for that? I can’t do it.”
Her parents were in worse condition. Her father had been a bad decision away from going to confront Adrian.
“How could he?! He promised me that he would treat you right, Ava. You are his mate. Even if everyone in the pack were against you, he should stand firmly with you. That is his duty.”
Gabrielle had just sat and watched everything, her expression holding sympathy but her eyes dead flat as she quietly sipped her juice.
Ava was drowning in a sea of lies. She couldn’t be honest with her parents once again. She couldn’t tell Adrian. She couldn’t prove her innocence to the pack. Hell, she couldn’t even share a meal with them.
Whenever she came down the staircase in the pack house, all conversations would cease and the stares would begin. Some with censure, some with dislike and distrust, others with indifference.
If she sat at the dinner table, every single wolf present stood up quietly and left her alone there. No one openly disrespected her or called her out as they had during the trial.
Alex had told her that Adrian declared her innocent, for all the good that had done. The pack members had accepted his decision but ostracised her and since she refused to go down with Adrian because she was actively avoiding him, it continued.
Until now. She had been so sure he had turned in for the night so she went for a shower only to step out to see him some mere footsteps away in shorts alone.
Her heartbeat accelerated. She was uncomfortably aware of the fact that beneath her towel, she was completely naked.
She lowered her gaze from his and began to walk to her room. Adrian stood in her path. She moved and he moved with her, blocking her path.
“Adrian.” Her voice was low and breathy in the quiet room.
“Are you avoiding me, Ava?”
Goddess, save her, his voice. He sounded so sure and composed, his voice dripped like honey but felt like velvet as it wrapped around her, it got to her so much that she felt her core tighten reflexively.
“What does it matter, Adrian?”
She needed him to pull back before his scent made her do something stupid like kiss him.
“You know that I am taking a consort and yet you say nothing. You can take a bullet for me but you wouldn’t mind seeing me with someone else?”
“I told you before Adrian. I did that for the pack. It had nothing to do with you.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke.
Ava’s knees were weak. Being this close to him was affecting her so much that it was a wonder that she could still speak.
Adrian moved closer to her and she didn’t back away. She would have needed control of her legs for that, which she didn’t have.
“I know. I bloody know that Ava. I saw you with him. I know that everything has been in my head yet I can’t seem to get you out of my head. I waited three days like a moron for you to be discharged before I decided. I don’t know what I had been expecting. For you to show up and tell me it was all a mistake? I hate you so much, Ava.”
Her eyes fell shut as tears escaped them. She wanted to apologise. To tell him, she was sorry. She loved him. She always had, she realized. That was why he had always gotten to her so easily in the past.
“I know.” Ava tipped her head back to look at him. Their gazes met. Green against blue. His chiselled jaw was clenched tight and his eyes were shadowed with pain.
The space between them was negligible. Adrian lifted his hand and as though in a trance then he tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear.
She shivered uncontrollably. His hand left her hair and trailed down her nape until he reached their mating mark. Tracing his fingers lightly on the mark sparking her desire, he spoke.
“I pick my consort tomorrow.”
“I know.”
She fought to keep her breath even as his touch made her come to life.
“Tell me to stop. Beg me to stop. I don’t think I can say no to you.”
Ava was shaken up by the vulnerability in his voice. The truth was that she wanted nothing more at that moment.
“It doesn’t matter to me, you can have as many consorts as you please. It is what the pack has demanded of you and as their Alpha, you have a duty to them.” Her voice didn’t crack as she spoke but her heart did. His hand on her nape paused.
“Of course, all that matters to you is the pack. Do you know that they want me to choose Gabrielle? She is someone they expected to be their Luna after all.” His voice became colder, distant.
“Then you should do as the pack demands.” Ava’s voice lowered in pitch as she fought back a sob.
Adrian’s hand went under her chin. She looked at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. He brushed his lips against hers in the mimicry of a kiss.
He pulled back and let his finger stroke her cheek for a brief second and dropped it almost immediately.
“If that is what you want then I shall pick a consort.”