Chapter 2

Ava stretched and then slowly opened her eyes. It had been a while since she had woken up so peacefully. Despite everything that had happened, she hadn't had any nightmares, and even though it was nighttime, the shadows were at bay.

That had probably been because of Zeke. Her smile stretched, and she buried her face in her pillow to try to stop it. If she weren't dying soon, she would have loved to spend her whole life doing what she had done with Zeke.

If she wasn't dying.

Her smile disappeared as reality kicked her up the backside.

What was she going to do now? She had been set on handing herself in, but after what Mr Patrick said, she wasn't sure what to do now. She didn't want to be the Council's soldier. She didn't want to do their dirty work. But how would she pay for what she had done to Claire and her friends?

She didn't even know the names of the other students she had killed, so she couldn't even apologise to their families.

With a sigh, she got up to take a quick shower. She'd skipped lunch because of Alpha Michelson, so she was starving.

She'd been eating a lot lately. Was that because of this murderous wolf hiding inside her? The wolf that had somehow commanded an Alpha? Did that mean she was close to finding her wolf? She didn't want that. She didn't want to be so intimately connected to the thing that did all those atrocities she saw in her nightmares.

Once dressed, she headed downstairs to find Zeke. She had felt how close he'd been to going after his father. There would have been another murder at the school, though not the victim that Alpha Michelson intended. She didn't want Zeke to be provoked into doing something so horrible that he'd end up in the same position she was in with the Council.

The front door was just leaning on the broken frame like her bedroom door was. If Zeke's father wanted to come in and retaliate, there would be nothing stopping him now. They had to fix that before they went to sleep.

She followed the raised voices in the kitchen and only remembered what she had done with Zeke when she saw her father and Mr Patrick sitting at the table. When her father turned to look at her, she lowered her gaze and felt her cheeks colour.

This was worse than the other day. Way worse. Had her father heard everything? She couldn't think of anything worse than her father hearing any of that.

"You're awake just in time," Mr Patrick said. "We have a plan."

"No, we don't," Zeke growled.

"It's the only way," Mr Patrick said.

Mr Patrick had been very excited about his original plan—to find her wolf—but whatever plan had him so ecstatic now, she didn't want any part of it.

She ignored Mr Patrick and threw a furtive glance at her father.

"Hi, Dad," she said.

Her father didn't answer, and when she met his gaze again, she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Come," he said gruffly as he stood from the kitchen table and left the room.

She followed slowly, her embarrassment flaring again. Her gut told her they were going to have 'the talk'. Wolves were very sexual creatures, so she had seen and heard a lot in the pack, but the only thing her father had ever told her about sex was, 'Don't do it.'

Her father was standing by the pool when she joined him. His hands were in his pockets, and he looked to the woods beyond the yard. She stood next to him and waited for him to speak first.

"There's been so much shit happening; we haven't had a chance to sit and talk," Alpha Roland started. "I came here to take you home, but instead..."

She risked another glance at him and found him lost in his thoughts.

"I've always known you would find someone who would appreciate you and be worthy of you. I just didn't expect that you would find him here. I thought you'd be my little girl for a while longer."

"I'm still your little girl," she protested.

"No, my girl. You're a woman now. It will take some time for me to get used to it, but Zeke is your fate, and I know we can't fight Fate," he said as he turned to face her. "If my Louise were still alive, she would have been so much better at this conversation than I am."

Luna Louise had passed away during the birth of the twins, so she had never met her. But when people spoke of her, they always did so with love. Her memory was still alive in their house.

"Despite all this shit happening, are you happy with him?" he asked.

She nodded. In another life, she would have been ecstatic to be the one to wake up next to Zeke forever.

"Then that's all that matters."

"You've always said you would kill my boyfriends," she pointed out.

"There is no one in our pack that deserves you. You were always destined for bigger things. Besides, Zeke is more than a boyfriend. He's yours for life."

However long that was.

"I shouldn't have put off the birds and the bees talk," Alpha Roland muttered to himself.

"It's okay. We don't have to talk about that," she said quickly.

"There's stuff you need to know that you won't find in all those books you read."

"I'll figure it out," she said, her cheeks colouring again as she looked away.

"Okay. Okay, good," her dad said. He looked as relieved as she was.

"Okay, now that's out of the way, tell me what you need me to do. Those two have their ideas about what needs to happen, but I'll take your side on whatever you decide."

"Were you really going to take me away despite the Council's rules?"

"I told you before, I don't care about being an Alpha or getting exiled. I'd do anything for you kids."

And that was true. He had always done his best to be both mother and father to them on top of his Alpha duties.

"I think the consequences would be more severe than that," she admitted. "If what Mr Patrick said is true, my running away from here would put your lives in danger. I can't do that to you guys."

"We're in danger either way. So if you want to run, we'll all run. We'll stick together."

She sighed. Risking her own life was one thing, but she wasn't willing to do that to her family.

"Let's go and hear this plan, and we'll take it from there."

Her father pulled her into his embrace and kissed the top of her head.

"We'll face whatever is coming together. Love you, kid."

"I love you, too, dad."

When they returned to the kitchen, Zeke was quietly arguing with Mr Patrick while he prepared some food.

"Well, she can decide for herself," Mr Patrick said when she sat at the table. "Ava, from what I can tell, your wolf forces a shift when you're in mortal danger, so I know how we will coax her out. What's more dangerous than the forest that traps us here?"