Chapter 13
AFTER EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED, Ava was just waiting for the anxiety to set in. She was waiting for the urge to pick at her fingers. She was waiting for the endless shaking and stuttering, but none of it came.
She was back in the motel room with Max, and she was calm. War was coming tomorrow, but she wasn’t going to lose. She was going to protect Max. She was going to protect the wolves who hadn’t cast her out, the wolves who weren’t damning her because of what she was. They were uncertain about her, hurt by her past failures, and she would have to pay for them, but they were still warm. They didn’t hate her.
They didn’t hate her.
It was a beautiful and bizarre thing. They trusted Max. They trusted the Moon. They believed she was Max’s Fated Mate. They didn’t care she was a witch. They didn’t say Fated Mates were restricted to other Moon Shifters.
Tomorrow she would make it so Beatrice stopped hurting these shifters. She would take the first step to righting her wrongs. She hoped she’d be able to capture Beatrice, to give her a chance to feel something other than the blackness in her heart, but she was no fool. More than likely, she would have to kill Beatrice in order to stop her tomorrow.
So be it. This was her punishment.
Ava started shedding the warm clothes she wore to stave off the cold outside. Piece by piece, layer by layer, she dropped her clothes to the floor right there in front of Max. She stripped down to her bare skin. Her face was heated at the thought of Max watching her. She hoped he was watching, but she was too nervous to check and see for herself. She would have stayed like that, naked, but then she wasn’t sure she’d be able to look Max in the eye with all the nervous jitters in her stomach. She picked up her underwear, tank top, and booty shorts, pulling them on one by one. She hoped Max would keep her warm tonight.
When she was dressed, she found the courage to turn and face Max. He was staring at her. His eyes were flickering from a soft blue to a hungry orange.
“Did you watch?” she whispered, a trill of excitement humming through her body.
“I can’t look away if you’re going to strip right in front of me. You wanted me to watch,” he accused.
Yes. Yes, she did.
Standing before her was the White Wolf. Right now, he looked like a man. She had nightmares about this wolf, but maybe they weren’t nightmares at all. Maybe she had been interpreting them all wrong. Then what? What was all the snarling about, the pain? That dream was a death of something, but perhaps it wasn’t the end of her life.
Wolves, males, bit the mate they wanted to claim as their own. She knew that. Was the bite in the dream somehow alluding to a claiming bite? It still seemed like a long shot to her.
That familiar scent of Max’s arousal claimed her sense of smell. She breathed it in deep, the want, the need. Her cheeks heated when she spotted his erection pressing against his jeans. That familiar warmth was collecting in between her thighs. She sniffed the air again. Max’s scent was intoxicating. Mouthwatering. The wolf she had stripped against her will, was quiet inside of her, allowing her to use these wolf senses without any backlash. She didn’t deserve it, but she was so thankful for it.
Ava walked forward. She wanted to fall into Max’s arms, but not yet. She walked past him, brushing his chest with her hand. She went to his bed, pulled down the covers, and hopped inside, yanking the covers over her when she did.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was husky and strained, different from the clear tone his voice usually had.
Ava pulled the blanket farther up until it covered everything under her eyes. “I want to sleep with you—if that’s okay. I like being close to you.”
“Your bed is like a foot away from mine.”
Ava frowned under the blanket concealing her face. Maybe she was bothering him. Maybe he didn’t want this. Her frown deepened when he walked away. He went to the light switch and flicked it off. It took a moment for Ava’s eyes to adjust from the sudden change. She worried Max would sleep in her bed tonight, but when she felt the soft bounce of the mattress, the covers lifting, and his chest at her back, she smiled.
She shimmied into him, getting as close to him as she could. He was still wearing his jeans, but she could feel his hard-on just fine. She could feel all of him. He was so big he could engulf her in his warmth just like she wanted. He moved so his face was angled at the back of her neck, his hot breath caressing her skin. Ava rolled over to face him.
Max’s eyes were blazing orange. They were practically glowing in the dark.
“How’d you get those cuts?” she asked. “Around your eyes, your neck.”
He winced. “Fighting. I’m sure you noticed Nick’s wounds too. I did that too him. My wolf has been borderline Berserker for a while, but not anymore.”
It seemed Max had been fighting with his own demons well before now. He said he wasn’t borderline Berserker anymore, but what if she made things worse for him again? What if she drove him to full-on Berserker because of what she was? She couldn’t imagine Max like that. She couldn’t stand the thought of him turning into a rabid, mindless monster.
She reached out and touched his face, feeling the day-old stubble on his jaw through the palm of her hand. “Remember how you said I shouldn’t feel pressured into anything, that this is my choice and not the Moon’s?”
“Yes.”
“The same goes for you. I understand if this is too much, if you don’t want—”
He grabbed the back of her head and pressed his forehead to hers. “I want you.”
“You don’t have to save me just because you think the Moon wants you to.” He already saved her anyway.
“I want to,” he stated. “I want to. You helped me, Ava. I was almost a Berserker. I rejected my wolf and couldn’t imagine ever getting along with him, and it got to the point I almost killed Nick. I was being an idiot about so many things for so long, and then you showed up like a day ago and changed literally everything. You made me see what no one else could. I was hiding, acting like love is something that breaks too easy, like a wine glass, but it’s not. True love doesn’t break. It’s fighting to understand someone. It’s caring about them even when you don’t understand.”
This wolf was much too good for her. Ava smiled and brushed her fingers against his full lips. She hated that she couldn’t feel his skin because of what she had done to her fingertips, but the intent was there. She could feel it in her heart.
“I want you to kiss me again,” she whispered.
“I want to kiss you again,” he replied.
He took her hand in his and pressed his lips to hers. This time, Ava parted her lips right away. She wanted more. So much more. When his tongue entered her mouth, she answered with her tongue. The taste of him had her taste buds dancing. He was like ginger in the way he spread fireworks across her tongue.
Max wrapped his arms around Ava and rolled them over so he was lying on his back and she was on top of him. She had never done anything like this before, but her body seemed to know what to do. She kept kissing him, and her hips started moving against his hard stomach. She moved down to match his hips, still kissing him as he curled up slightly to meet her lips still. She rubbed against him time and time again. Her sex was tingling, swelling. There was a pressure that continued to build as she moved. A moan escaped her lips because it felt so good.
Groaning, Max caught her hips. He was so strong. He stopped her from moving at all. “I’d really prefer to last a little longer if it’s all the same to you,” he said breathlessly.
She giggled. She didn’t know why. It just came out. She couldn’t stop smiling. She settled for kissing him again, but the need to feel him grew worse. Kissing wasn’t nearly enough. She stopped ravaging his mouth long enough to pull off her tank top. She maneuvered to get her shorts and underwear off as well. Max’s gaze was growing darker by the second. He moved fast, so fast she didn’t know what was happening until her head stopped spinning. Max was hovering over her. Now she was the one with her back against the bed. She pressed her hands to his chest, searching for that feeling of his skin blanketing her like it had in Blue Forest. His silver cross dangled between them, catching the light and glinting.
Max ran his hand down her left side. When he got to her hip, he stopped for a moment. He skipped over her needy sex and went right for her thigh. He spread her leg wider, exposing more of her sex as well as the Lunas Sigil resting on her inner thigh. He touched the sigil like she had touched his back in the forest. She gasped at the burst of energy that shot through her body from his fingertips. Her sex throbbed. Now she knew what he felt when she had done this to him.
“Please,” she begged as she tugged at his shirt. “Your skin, Max. All of you.” Her words were clipped between gasps.
He growled and tore one of her hands from his shirt. He held it between them, but he was tense. Every part of him. His muscles were flexed and bulging.
“If we’re really going to do this, I’m going to claim you,” he said between gritted teeth. “I won’t be able to stop myself. My wolf is wild with a mind of his own a lot of the time. He’s chosen you to be mine.”
“What about the man?”
He leaned down. She thought he would kiss her again, but he went for her chest. He licked her right breast, teasing her nipple into a hard bud. Then he pulled it inside of his mouth and sucked. Ava bucked, unable to stop the reaction. She grabbed Max’s shoulders and breathed hard.
“The man has chosen you, too,” he said when he released her from his mouth. He locked his eyes on hers. “I’m never going to find anyone else like you. If you left, decided you didn’t want me, that would be it for me. I’d never move on. I can’t explain it, but you make me feel things I’ve never felt before. This is crazy fast, but I wouldn’t be touching you like this if I hadn’t already made my choice. That’s just not how I do things. Maybe God picked you for me, maybe the Moon, but I know it’s all right. You’re right. There’s no logic to it. It just is.”
He chuckled. “Apparently, wolves don’t believe in waiting, and my wolf is being very impatient. When you’ve found the one you’ve found the one. So why wait? That’s what my wolf is telling me.” He paused. “I already love you, Ava. I know I always will. This isn’t a fragile kind of love. This is a true love. No matter what happens, I’ll be there for you. If you need my help, call. I’ll come running. Anything for you. If you don’t want me to claim you, tell me now. I’ll stop.”
Ava’s lips trembled with emotion. “I’ve never told anyone I love them. No one has ever said that to me either. I saw it, though, and I always wanted it. I want to love you, and if what I feel right now is love, then I do. I just… I don’t know what this feeling is Max. A part of me doesn’t believe any of this is real. A part of me still believes my nightmare.”
“I’ll prove it,” Max said. “One day at a time I’ll prove it to you. I love you, over and over. I’ll show you. I’ll tell you. Every day.”
He touched her cheek and wiped away a single tear that escaped her eye. “You didn’t answer my question,” he murmured. His eyes never faded from the heat consuming them, the need, the blazing orange. “Do you want me to claim you or should we stop?”
“Claim me, Max. If you love me, claim me,” she whispered.
It was then she understood. Her nightmare was not about the end of her life. The White Wolf, Max, was killing the person she was. She experienced the pain, the agony and sorrow over what she had done, and now it would all fade away when he bit her, when he released her from Beatrice’s hold and made her his own. She was starting over, and now she could spend each day becoming the kind of person she wanted to be. She didn’t know what kind of person that was just yet but striving to be like Max was a good place to start. She would be proud to be like him.
“I’ll work too, Max,” she said. “I’ll work to be good. Every day. I’ll make sure I’m worthy to be yours.”
“You are good. You are worthy. You always were, Ava. Life just had other ideas, but now you’re taking your life back. You. Are. Amazing,” he told her as he sipped at her lips.
“Will you take off your shirt now?” she asked him. Her sex was still buzzing with needy pulses. She wanted this now.
He grinned at her with a wicked gleam in his eyes atypical to him. Maybe this was his wildness showing through. “Not yet,” he whispered in her ear.
She was about to protest, but he silenced her with his sweet kisses. He hadn’t kissed her this rough or hard before, but she liked it. She tangled her fingers as well as she could in his golden blond hair. She was out of breath by the time he trailed his kisses down her jaw. She was squirming when his lips were hot on her neck. He laved her skin with his tongue in between. He kissed her breasts and nipped at each nipple. She jolted when he did and let out little surprised squeaks, but it felt amazing. The soft and the hard all melded into one. He went to her stomach next, spending quality time there. Kisses and licks. Her stomach was pulsing with the feeling. Her sex was mad and wet. She could feel the wet dripping out of her.
She wiggled underneath him, trying to relieve the pressure in her body. It had built to the point where she wasn’t sure she could take any more.
“Max,” she begged.
“Not yet,” he said.
He held her down with ease. She didn’t know how he was this strong. She was out of control right now. He kissed her right and left hips. She thought he would finally go where she needed him to go, but he skipped over her sex. Again.
“Max!” She was getting desperate.
This time he flat-out ignored her. He kissed her right inner thigh, coming dangerously close to her sex. Teasing, teasing, but not giving in. She was whimpering with this all-encompassing energy she didn’t understand. This had to be an orgasm about to peak, but she didn’t know that for sure because she had never touched herself. She never had any desire to just like she never had any interest in men. Her life was too empty for such things. All she knew was what she had heard in her life. This was an all-new experience in every way.
Max was at her left thigh. He touched her Lunas Sigil, and stars burst into her vision at the same time. That throbbing was back in her sex with a vengeance, but the energy still hadn’t released. It amped up. Then, finally, like a soothing balm, Max’s lips were on her sex. His tongue eased the fire. She couldn’t stop the sounds coming out of her mouth, incoherent murmurs and moans. His tongue flicked a sensitive area at the top of her slit. She screamed as her hips bucked up instinctively, her body begging for more. Max obliged, but he held her still, working his tongue all over her sex, dipping deeper and deeper until he was inside of her. His fingers were hard on her thighs, digging into the skin almost enough to hurt.
“Come for me, Ava,” he said as he buried a finger inside of her.
As if his words and finger were enough to command her body, the energy inside of her finally exploded. She screamed Max’s name and buried her fingers into his shoulders. The ache it produced at her fingertips was barely there because she was floating on a high of endorphins. Her body pulsed over and over as Max added another finger, riding her orgasm, but this time the pulses allowed the energy to dissipate. It left her exhausted.
“Max,” she said breathlessly. “I want more. I want you inside of me.” Her body was wrecked, but the tension was ramping up again so quickly. This wasn’t enough.
Max chuckled. “We’re not done, angel. I haven’t claimed you yet.” His lips went back to her stomach, and she tangled her fingers in his short hair.
“Now, Max. Now,” she chanted.
He yanked off his shirt in a flash, even his necklace. Suddenly, his pants and underwear were gone, too. He was naked on top of her, easing down on her, positioning himself. His thick cock was teasing her entrance, pleasing her sex by rubbing up and down her slit. He was making small movements, but it was ramping up the heat in her body again, coaxing—commanding—her body to rocket toward climax once again.
Ava pressed her fingers into his back. She had the urge to claw at him, to bring him as close to her as she could. However, she had already put a lot of strain on her tender fingers, and they hurt. She loosened her grip some, but she didn’t shy away. She was determined to keep him close.
It was back to sweet drowning kisses. Max’s hot breath collided with hers as he kept the rhythmic roll of his hips against hers. He was dipping his erection farther and farther down her slit, riding up and brushing the top of her sensitive flesh, driving her out of her mind. The first time he shallowly penetrated her, she arched her back and begged for more. She rolled her hips up to meet his, and he went a little deeper. This sensation was everything. She and Max were meant to be joined together.
Max grabbed her waist, and then he flipped them over, changing their positions again. He was on the bottom and she was on top. She was settled on his hard abs, but Max scooted her farther down until his cock was pressing into her ass.
“Up,” Max told her.
Ava lifted herself high enough so she wasn’t resting all her weight on him. Max grabbed his swollen cock with one hand and guided her with the other, positioning her so he could spear into her. His eyes were blazing orange. Ava gasped when he bucked his hips up and his cock teased her entrance again. Max was breathing heavily. His body was shaking.
“Your pace,” he said. “Show me what you want, beautiful.”
Slowly, Ava experimented with easing down onto his cock. He was so big. Every time she tried to bring him deeper like she wanted, she shied away because of the slight discomfort. She was beginning to have doubts he would fit. For the first time since being with Max so intimately like this, she felt self-conscious. She felt anxiety.
“You haven’t done this before,” Max said.
Shaking her head, Ava averted her gaze to try and hide the shame there. Max reached up and placed his hands on her cheeks, easing her to look at him again.
“I-it kind of hurts,” she confessed.
“You’re tight. If we ease in little by little, it shouldn’t hurt anymore. You’ll adjust around me. You’re in control.”
Ava nodded. She placed herself over his erection again and focused on what felt good. If she rubbed against him, he brushed that sweet spot at the top of her slit. It made each time she let his shaft bury deeper inside of her less painful. Pleasure and pain, and she was loosening up. Bit by bit. She was taking more of him.
“God,” Max breathed. “You feel so good, Ava.” He was clenching his teeth. His hands were digging into the bed because he was trying to restrain himself from bucking into her. She could feel his impatience growing.
“So do you,” she replied. The pain wasn’t so bad now. Him being buried inside of her no longer seemed like an impossibility. Her fears were gone again, and she was back in the moment. She rolled her hips and sat deeper, deeper. It still hurt some, but she didn’t care. She wanted Max as deep as he would go. The farther she went, the better he felt.
She moaned when he was so far inside of her that his abs touched the sensitive part of her slit. This was perfect. This was where she wanted to be. She rubbed against him, each brush of his skin taking her closer to the peak of pleasure. Max groaned with her and now his hands were on her hips, fingers digging into her skin. He moved with her, small bucks of his hips.
“Ava,” Max gasped as he kept moving, “please tell me you’re close.”
“I’m so close,” she whimpered.
Just as the first waves of her orgasm came crashing through her body, Max pushed her up, pulled out of her, and placed her chest first on the bed. She was lost in the throes of utter bliss and didn’t have the strength to react at all to what he was doing. She braced herself against the bed because it was the only thing to steady her. A sharp pain mixed with the high of pleasure jolted her. She was barely aware of it, though. It was the claiming bite. Max bit over her Lunas Sigil, right on her left inner thigh. When her orgasm was almost through, the pain got worse, but then Max was hovering over her, positioning her quickly, grabbing her hips and angling her ass high, his knees forcing hers wider. He eclipsed her, covering her body with his heat. Then he was inside of her again with one quick stroke. He went so deep, she gasped. He pulled all the way out and then pounded into her like that again.
Ava screamed his name as she braced herself against the bed. There was a flood of energy swirling through her, and her body was already pulsing with the onset of another orgasm. Again and again they joined like this until Max didn’t pull out again. He stayed deep inside of her and stroked hard, filling her like she had never been filled. Ava arched her back when she hit her climax again. She screamed because it was overwhelming. So good, so right. Max shouted with her, froze, and then shot streams of warmth inside of her as his cock throbbed. He moved again, spilling everything inside of her.
This was right. This was where she was meant to be. Max was everything. Ava had never been so sure about anything in her life.
When both of them were spent, Max slipped out of her, and caught her in his arms as they both collapsed onto the bed. Ava turned to face him and immediately buried her face into his shuddering chest. They were both slicked with a thin sheen of sweat, and she loved it. His heart beat fast and warm. So warm. He was the light in the darkness of her existence. The darkness wasn’t so dark anymore.
Max’s hand snaked down to her left thigh. He touched her gently. She expected to feel a sting, but all she felt was the burst of energy that came when he first touched her Lunas Sigil. It made her moan.
“You might have a scar,” Max said.
“It’s still there? I don’t feel it,” Ava replied. Curious, she reached her hand down to her thigh. Sure enough, she could feel the ripped skin and warm blood. Now it hurt a little, but she didn’t care. Having Max’s mark on her was something she was immensely proud of.
Max puffed out a breath that tickled the top of her head. “This claiming stuff doesn’t work the same with you as it would another wolf I guess. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Gwen and Willow don’t have scars. I don’t know if Karol does…”
Ava didn’t know who Karol was, but right now she didn’t care. She eased up so her nose touched Max’s. “I’m glad you claimed me. I’ll wear your mark proudly.”
“You sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“Not much.”
Max sat up. She wanted to pull him back down, but his hands were back on her left thigh. He hunched over and started licking away the blood. When his tongue laved her wound, she thought it would hurt, but it didn’t. His tongue was a cold that numbed the pain.
“That feels perfect,” she whispered when he was done. “Max.”
“Yeah?”
She reached out her hand. He took it.
“How are your fingers?” he asked.
“Also perfect.” She smiled warmly. Her mate took good care of her. Mate. She was his. She was his the moment they met, but now it was official.
She tugged him toward her. He listened and lay down next to her again. His hand went to the small of her back as he held her close.
“My mate,” Max said.
“Your mate,” Ava agreed.
“Get some rest, angel.” He ran his fingers over her buzzed hair, petting her scalp, and she closed her eyes in contentment. She wiggled closer to him and smiled into the skin of his neck.
Tonight, Ava wouldn’t have bad dreams. She wouldn’t have the recurring nightmare. She would never have that nightmare again because the deed was done. Max killed the person she was, and she was emerging as someone new. It all started with the light Max planted inside of her. Someday it would grow to the surface and the change wouldn’t be obvious to only her but to the people around her as well.
She had to survive tomorrow.
No, she had to make sure Max survived tomorrow. He was hers to protect.