Chapter Three

IT WAS A restless night of checking windows and poking at the healing gash on her shin, which was red and puffy at the edges. When the sun rose and the locked door clicked open, Violet stalked after Mikel down the hall, as she was already frustrated.

“Clothes.” The announcement was gruff when he held out a paper bag for her to take in the living room. “You can choose your own later, but this will do for now.”

He was still in sweats, she noticed, hair mussed from sleep and a tank top doing very little to hide his mass. She dragged her eyes from him and glowered at the bag for so long he set it down on the coffee table and left her for the kitchen.

She snatched it up, paused to try the front door—locked—and stormed back to the bedroom to change. Thankfully his taste wasn’t horrible. Plain black T-shirt in a size small, dark-blue jeans that were an eight when she wore a six, and a black hoodie, also a women’s small. Violet tugged off the borrowed shirt that had come down to her knees and her old, tattered jeans.

It felt good to be in new clothes. She wanted to hate Mikel but she couldn’t help appreciating the five-pack of black cotton socks at the bottom of the bag. She caught her reflection in the mirror and wanted to gag.

“Master has given Dobby a sock,” she joked to her own humorless face. She still looked tired, gaunt, with lank, dark hair and sunken eyes. She looked away.

When she crossed the hall again, her boots were laced and the hoodie tied around her waist. Violet followed her nose to the kitchen. If she had to be a prisoner, at least there was fucking food.

He was on his way out as she went to go in.

“A real shirt,” he noted with a smile, and she longed again for the moment where she’d punched him in his stupid throat. “We’re eating in the shop.” He shook a Tupperware container at her and led the way back to the living room and out of a side door she hadn’t noticed before.

“Hey man what’s—woah,” a male voice greeted them.

Violet was torn between looking at him and looking around the expansive shop that apparently backed onto Mikel’s house, pieces of all kinds of furniture in various states of finish ordered neatly around the space. The scent of fresh-cut lumber was sweet in the air, and suddenly, she remembered the smell of his hand over her mouth in the forest, the same smell that clung to his clothes when he’d pushed her against the doorframe last night.

“I thought Red was kidding, Davis. You really did it?”

Violet glared at the man who was staring at her. “Took some innocent girl captive and is currently refusing to let her go, yep.” The plosive popped on her lips. “He did,” she sneered.

The man smirked at her appreciatively. “Hey, I’m Jack, nice to meet you, and damn—” His gaze swung back to Mikel. “What’s up with that?”

“He needs psychiatric help, urgently,” Violet cut in again, quickly taking stock of Jack and deciding he wasn’t much of a threat. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a phone I can borrow, or you’ll call the cops for me?”

Jack laughed at her like she’d told a joke. When her eyes flicked to Mikel he was smirking too, that good-natured, stupid, crooked smirk. Violet fumed.

“You brought breakfast?” Jack asked him, completely ignoring her, hands already reaching for the Tupperware before Mikel snatched it away.

“Not for you.” His eyes met Violet’s. “Hope you like pancakes,” he offered and set them down on a nearby workbench in front of a stool. “Want to help or watch?”

“Neither,” she replied and pushed past him to plonk down on the stool and busy herself with the Tupperware.

He seemed to take this in stride and moved toward what looked like the skeleton of a bench with Jack, dismissing his questions about her and talking about this varnish and that cut. She was bored in about five seconds, but she listened anyway, found herself watching him while she tore into surprisingly good blueberry pancakes. He was passionate about wood, intense and focused while he measured and marked pencil lines here and there. Captivating.

After he caught her looking the second time, she gazed around for something to busy herself and pushed the empty container away. A sketchbook by her elbow caught her eye. She pulled it to her without asking and opened the sawdust-marked cover, surprised by the neat script inside that labelled the extensive diagrams and blueprints for a gazebo. Violet had studied his design for a dining set, two bedroom sets, a complex ornate chest, and a bench when a thud beside her made her jump.

She looked up to find a mug on the table in front of her and green eyes looking at her expectantly.

“See anything you want to order?” His eyes crinkled softly, and she thought that might be a joke. The smell of coffee softened her response, and she only shrugged.

“Only got powdered creamer, sorry.” He set that down beside her cup too, and it made her want to scream.

How could he go about his day, his life, making her pancakes and apologizing for his creamer when he was keeping her a prisoner?

“Need something?” he asked, seeming to notice her quiet contemplation.

“To go home.” She hated the resignation in her voice.

He nodded like he understood, stuck his hands in his pockets, and went back to his woodworking. Violet glowered at his back, then at his protein coffee creamer, which was probably going to be gross, but mixed it into her drink anyway and went back to leafing through his sketches. He was a psycho, no doubt, but she could appreciate good work, and they were beautiful pieces. Intricate yet simple. Masterful.

“Catch you later, Violet,” Jack offered as he passed her to head to a door on the side of the shop. She started at the sound of her name. “Mikel told me—” He stopped for a second close to the bench where she sat, staring at her for a few seconds before he blinked and went on his way.

“Dude,” Violet heard him say, head dipped like she was reading though she watched him stop by Mikel, “she smells like a freaking buffet. You haven’t…sealed the deal yet? You take her out in public, and it’s going to be a brawl.”

Mikel looked up from the sanding he’d been doing, his eyes catching directly on hers. Violet shot her gaze back down to the book quickly. Whatever he said in response was low enough she didn’t hear anything but the buzz of his deep voice.

She spent the rest of the morning trying to keep sealing the deal and the fact that these freaks could apparently smell her off her mind.

“Mating you means fucking you, marking you with my bite,” he’d said. She glanced up to see him running a handsaw back and forth over a long, thick plank of light wood. Mikel’s skin slightly shone with sweat, arms bulging under his dark-gray T-shirt. It was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, she was sure, that made her stomach and lower prickle with interest at the sight.

Mikel was attractive; she could admit that. Never in a million years would he be the person she’d approach at a club—he was older and just huge and a guy. Something about him struck her as not being the type to be into her anyway. The memory of him pressed against her, half-hard, last night said otherwise, as did the hot drag of his lips and tongue on her neck. Violet stopped herself. So, he was an attractive psycho, but he was still a psycho and potentially a werewolf. Her mind balked and skittered away from that, and she let it.

It was too much to confront.

She’d read the book twice. Bored, she searched the bench for anything else to entertain herself. Her gaze fell on a cup holder full of the long, flat pencils they sold at the hardware store, a few markers, ink pens, and a screwdriver. Her eyes settled on it and an idea struck. One glance up told her Mikel was still busy with his work. Violet was quick to reach for it, to bring it into her lap then look down at the sketch book like she had never moved to start. A few, long minutes later, when she was sure he hadn’t seen her, she reached down and worked it into the hoodie pocket. For the first time all day, she smiled.

 

IT HAD BEEN a long day of watching Mikel in his shop and waiting—the highlight being snagging a pair of scissors in the kitchen and cutting up the real shirt he’d bought her to match her crop top. He’d eyed it darkly and said nothing, but Violet knew she’d gotten under his skin.

She was positively cheery now, carefully wiggling the screwdriver back and forth under the window handle, which was loose, wobbly after twenty minutes of careful, quiet prying. She was going home. Her car was still out there in the woods; she only had to find it, and the nightmare would be over.

The handle gave way with a loud crack.

“Shit,” she hissed, rushing quickly across the floor to lie down in the bed, screwdriver pressed under the pillow out of sight. She closed her eyes, tried to slow her racing heart, and strained to listen.

It could have been minutes or hours later when, finally, she decided she was in the clear. Hoodie on and boots laced, she breathed a long sigh of relief and elation when the window slid up. She climbed out and jumped feet first into the night.

His house was cute, a neat red brick against the backdrop of vast green forest. Violet looked around for her bearings. It felt like a week ago that Mikel had carried her through the streets slung over his shoulder. She had no reference point, no idea where to go except into the trees to try to find the small road in the forest where she’d last seen her car.

It might be better to wait, a small voice warned. Keep the window a secret, get to know the town or find a map, then try when she was better prepared. The thought had barely formed when it was banished by the memory of the mansion, vast and cold, and the thought of Lila there, alone, missing her. Resolved, she shoved her hands in the pocket of the hoodie and headed into the thick trees.

 

THE FIRST STRETCH was easy. It might have been half an hour; it might have been two. The air was cold, crisp, and it was dark under the canopy of the trees, but somehow less foreboding than she’d thought.

Violet strode with purpose, fortified by freedom and the certainty that soon, the world would start to make sense again—no more werewolf descendants and no more confusing, alluring, annoying Mikel.

When she passed the same mushroom-shaped rock for the third time, some of that hope started to dim. A fine shiver had started in her core and was fast spreading. Her lips were cold, chapped by the wind, and the woods were bigger than she’d imagined and much harder to navigate.

Lila, she reminded herself when she tripped on another root, jarring her still healing ribs.

She had to get home for Lila; her sister was seventeen and too young to be left alone to her father’s games, to that big empty house on the hill where the ghost of their mother had never resolved to leave. Violet ran the back of her hand over her eyes, ignoring the tears that shone on her skin in the moonlight.

Her fucking car was out here, and she would find it, even if she were hopelessly lost. Violet banished the panicked voice quickly, pressing her hands together to try to rub some warmth back into them. Twigs cracked and leaves rustled while the tall trees around her swayed. The sounds of the forest had stopped, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand hours ago. It was never quiet, but as she started determinedly in what she thought was a direction she hadn’t tried yet, the feeling of being watched gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

It’s nothing. It’s probably Mikel.

Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she found herself hoping desperately it was the second one. Her feet picked up speed, and once she was power walking, her adrenaline spiked and demanded she run. Chased, her blood insisted, she was being chased…hunted. The forest turned ominous around her, and she could hear it now, a crunch of leaves here, the snap of many twigs there, getting closer.

She tripped on the brush, barely catching herself before she fell, stumbling up to carry on, heart hammering—

“Hey.”

His hand over her mouth stifled the scream. Violet looked up, chest heaving and her body shaking, into Mikel’s gold-ringed eyes. His face was a grim mask, jaw tight, yet she still sagged against him in relief, and he still let her.

His hand loosened and she nodded, sensing danger. He uncovered her mouth and raised a finger to his lips. His anger was a palpable thing. Violet nodded her understanding. She didn’t fight when he took her by the arms and pushed her back, sitting her down on a large rock like a child. He gave her a long look that she assumed meant stay, then turned and disappeared so fast the shock of it made her gasp.

“Kyle, Robert, nice night to hike.” His low voice rumbled in the silence up ahead, and shock crawled through Violet.

She was being followed. The thought of what might have happened if Mikel hadn’t found her turned her stomach. “You’re a piece of property that can be borrowed or stolen or used by idiots like Jason,” he’d said, and the reality of how much danger she was in dawned on her, left her sick.

The forest was quieter now, like it was holding its breath.

“Mikel Davis,” a voice said. “You looking for the bitch in heat too?”

Violet jumped at the growl that answered the words, low and rough and loud in the night.

“She’s claimed, mine,” Mikel said.

Goose bumps rose on Violet’s arms, across her thighs.

“Smells like she ain’t nobody’s yet,” another voice countered.

Then silence. It stretched for one breath, three, five. Violet squinted ahead into the darkness, swallowed, and stood. It was near impossible to move quietly across the forest floor. Dried leaves and twigs crunched underfoot while she tried to creep forward.

“Go home.” Mikel’s voice rumbled, low in the night.

She let out a quiet breath and leaned around a tree, finding the clearing where the three of them stood, postures drawn tight and chests puffed wide.

“Gon’ kill us like your daddy slaughtered that town?” one of them asked.

Mikel’s hands balled into fists at his sides, but other than that, he was deadly still. The silence was loaded.

“If I have to,” Mikel said. The words sounded like a promise, low, unhurried, and absolute.

Violet watched one of the men run a hand over his beard, watched both of them shift on their feet.

“Come on, Kyle. It ain’t worth the time,” his companion said, stepping back.

Mikel and the man were staring still, intent crackling in the air. He was a head taller than either of his opponents, twice as wide, but Violet doubted he’d walk away unhurt if they fought. Guilt came cold to call, and anger was on its heels—she’d only wanted to go home, yet she felt bad.

“You watch yourself, Davis.” Kyle finally sniffed and stepped down.

He shook out his arms, looking around, then locked eyes with her. Violet was so shocked by it that she couldn’t bring herself to move, to look away while a smile that made her sick broke over his face. She yelped at the crack of Mikel’s fist against his jaw. Pressed herself tight against the tree as the sound of a scuffle broke out. Then boots crunched away from her across dried leaves.

Silence.

Minutes passed. The forest came to life again around her: the soft chirp of an owl overhead and the rustle of a small night-time animal across the clearing. Violet stayed pressed against the tree, shivering, breathing, crying. She wiped roughly at the tears on her cheeks, forcing down the voice inside her that was growing to a fever pitch of desperation and wishing over and over that she could just go home.

Underneath was guilt. She’d agreed not to go outside. Mikel was a psycho, but he’d fed her, clothed her, smiled that stupid crooked smile at her over the counter in the kitchen, and she’d never meant for him to get hurt. She closed her eyes.

Cold fingers closed around her throat, and Violet screamed. She blinked up at Mikel, and the sound died in her chest, leaving only her ragged breathing against the backdrop of the night.

“Why can’t you listen?” he demanded, but she was stunned, still stupid with shock, and strange warm relief at the sight of him, unharmed but furious with irises blazing gold. “What’s it going to take?”

He pressed in close. The pressure on her neck tightened enough to be uncomfortable, and he was burning, white hot, quick, and wild. Violet swallowed and couldn’t find her voice, couldn’t find the words to bring life to her relief, to all her anger, or to the sadness underneath. His green eyes were alight, boring into her, while her hands clutched tight around his wrist.

“Get off me.” The words finally made their way past her lips.

His hold loosened just barely but not enough to let her up from where she was pressed against the tree. His chest was heaving, and he was hot against her cold body, skin silver in the light of the moon. The charge between them was electric. All her nerves were coiled, ready to fire, and she wanted to tear him apart and press herself in close all in the same breath.

Violet watched him wet his lips, swallow, and suck in a breath like he’d heard the thought, like he could feel the sick heat gathering in her belly. She’d barely drawn a breath then he was kissing her. It took a second for her brain to catch up, to process the scrub of his stubble and the heat of his mouth. Then, her fingers fisted in his shirt, and she was kissing him back in some strange catharsis.

It was animal, dark, rough, and consuming, that need to rip him apart with her bare hands and to hold him captive with kisses. She molded to the tree under his weight; the release of pressure was addicting. His hand slid around her waist and pushed between her and the tree, taking hold of her by the ass, while pulling her forward so her hips ground into him. Her voice caught in her throat, loud in the night, at the feel of him against her, already hard and hot, even through their jeans.

“This what it takes to get you to be good?” His fingers left her neck and took hold of her chin, turning her head to the side and steadying her while he kissed and sucked her ear lobe and down her neck, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. He ground into her, and she was wet, slick and eager for a release, for some kind of victory, for an escape.

“Fuck you.” It came out less convincing than she’d hoped, soft and breathy…hungry.

“All right.” Violet felt the rumble of his voice in his chest, pressed against hers, then he was up off her, strong hands spinning her around and pushing her back against the tree, his body pinning her. She blinked; the bark was rough against her cheek.

“Like this?” he demanded.

His hands came back around her, one sliding up the hoodie, into the black lacy bra she’d picked out days ago to wear to the club, and finding her hard nipple with ease. When she only sucked in a breath and didn’t reply, his soft touch became a pinch.

“Yes.” The word was a breath, a moan, and she was grinding her hips back into him as much as he was rocking against her, tilting her pelvis forward so he was rubbing against her aching cunt.

Something in her belly clenched at his answering grunt, at the arm that snaked up between her breasts so he could pull her back against him and hold her around the neck while his other hand made quick work of the button on her jeans.

She was so hot that his fingers felt cold against her belly. The rough “Fuck” from behind her when he slid lower and through her wetness was gasoline over the fire, and Violet burned. She burned so hot she didn’t care when he pulled his hand away to yank her jeans and panties down around her knees. She only trembled against him when his hand came up the back of her thigh, and he pressed a finger inside her. Her body pulled taut, desperate for release, for a way to burn off all the stress of the last few days.

“More,” she heard herself say.

His lips, tongue, and teeth took a pause from working on her neck, on the smooth skin of her shoulder. “Do you ever say ‘please?’” It was a growl, and it made her squirm.

“No.” She pushed herself back into him and gasped when her head was pulled back and to the side, held there by her hair. Then, she was looking up into strange eyes.

“Try,” he demanded, pulling his finger out, adding another to press against her, to run slick up and down her and bump her clit but never quite push inside.

Violet hated him, and she needed him.

“Please,” she hissed out like a curse, watching satisfaction spread across his face.

His lips caught the moan out of her mouth when he pushed into her again. She was already tightening, heat roaring through her, and her mind blessedly quiet save for thoughts of him, of his hands and mouth on her and his breath against her ear.

Her orgasm shimmered into view, and like he sensed it, Mikel stopped. Violet turned to protest but heard the click of his belt, the rub of his zipper, and anticipation and nerves answered. She tried to turn around.

“Easy, baby.” The words were low and rough and shot straight to her cunt, then he was between her legs. She felt the heat of him, the throb, the slick slide of him against, not in, her. “You’re all right,” he breathed, groaning at the friction between her thighs where he was rubbing her.

Violet’s body clenched; her thighs inched apart. His hands were softer now, on her hips and across her breasts. His kisses were long and slow, meted out between short breaths against her neck.

“Ask me to mate you, Violet,” he demanded.

The pace of his rocking speeding up. Her legs shook. She wanted it, and a tiny part of her feared it. Her cunt screamed at her to answer, to ask him, to beg him, yet she couldn’t find her voice.

His fingers kneaded her breast, and her head fell back against his shoulder while she warred with herself.

“Virgin?” he asked at her hesitation, sounding breathless and surprised.

“Never been with a man,” she admitted.

She felt the stutter in his rhythm the moment he digested the words, then his cock slid from between her legs, and she wanted to cry out at the loss. Seconds later, his fingers were back, pushing gloriously straight into her, curling up to touch a part of her that made everything inside pull tight.

“Fuck, I want you.” It was a growl, laden with self-restraint, and it was almost enough to throw her over into coming.

Mikel said so little, and hearing those words, being hit with the sudden realization that maybe he’d caught that arrow out of more than just pity, it turned her molten. Violet’s fingers dug into the bark of the tree where she held herself upright and gave herself over to him.

His fingers moved inside, perverse wet sounds accompanying their rhythm, his heavy breathing at her back, and she was lost, her voice and her pleasure sung loud into the night. He was rocking behind her, something hot and wet bumping the back of her thigh occasionally. When Violet realized he was touching himself, the heat in her belly snapped. She came, long and loud, trembling against the tree while he grunted, then the hot strings of him finishing painted her backside.

She was boneless when it was done, held up by her chest against the tree and his fingers still inside her, as she basked in the afterglow, her body shivering when he kissed the soft skin under her ear or breathed on her. She whimpered when his fingers slid out, barely cognizant while he rubbed the mess on her behind into her skin.

“Might help with your scent.” He cleared his throat, and she smiled at the hint of bashfulness she thought she heard there.

When he was done, Mikel pulled her panties up, and she winced, finally coming back to herself, at the sticky mess her skin had become.

“You can shower when we get home.”

She knocked his fingers away from where they were struggling to rebutton her jeans and did the job herself. When she glanced up at him, he was quick to look away, back in the direction she assumed the house was.

Violet fought hard against the blush that wanted to color her cheeks and steeled her resolve.

“Those guys hurt you?” she asked.

It was lame, but it was the first thing that came to mind. When he looked at her, his eyes were dark.

“No. You going to start listening to me now?”

She couldn’t help the smirk that broke on her face. “Maybe.” It turned into a full smile when the edges of his lips quirked in reply.

“Come on.” He turned back toward the house, and they began to walk.

Violet tripped twice before he snatched her up into his arms, and she was too tired to fight. He was warm. Somewhere between listening to the steady thunk of his heart and watching the gold fade from his eyes, she fell asleep.