Seduction (The Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (15 page)

Weakly, she called out for me but I was already right there, laying beside her. She was unaware of her surroundings and was still heavily under the influence of the drugs I had given her. I had contemplated dosing her again but decided to hold off for the moment. She would never be able to get to a point where she could complete the change if I kept trying to help alleviate her suffering. I kept telling myself that I would only give her enough medication to take the edge off if it became too much for her to handle. But in my heart, I knew that I didn’t want her to suffer and would probably end up giving her more medication because
I
couldn’t handle watching her endure any more pain.
 

I sighed deeply, unused to the feelings that flooded me now that Aspen and I were mated and blood bound. She was my weak spot, the chink in my amour. I would do anything for her but the truth was, I was not as strong now that we were mated. Sifting through her memories and watching her dying on the ground was the most intense emotional and physical pain that I had ever felt in my entire life and I did not like it. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d cried, much less sobbed like a baby.

Truthfully, it scared the hell out of me that she had such control over me.

I held on to her tightly as she began whimpering and thrashing in the bed. Pinned against my chest and unable to move, her body finally relaxed against mine and she fell back into a dead sleep. I tip toed back into her head while we lay together;
she was dreaming.
 

Her subconscious mind was overflowing with violent and disturbing images. Dark shadows whipped by me as I stood next to her. I wished that there was some way that I could communicate with her on this plane of existence, so that she knew that I was there with her
; but her gaze passed through me as she looked beyond me into the darkness. She was being hunted in the forest. Her attacker’s face was dark but I knew who it was. She dreamed of him.
 

Of Jude.
 

I quickly pulled myself back out of her dark dream, afraid of losing myself again in a world where I had no power to help her. Thankfully, I was not so helpless in real life. As I sat there and held her, her unconscious body trembling and her breathing quickening, I gave her a gentle shake and called her name, trying to dislodge her from the dream but she wouldn’t wake. She was too far into the change.

One thing was sure, the image of hunting Jude down and killing him was starting to take shape inside my head. I could picture it so clearly in my mind as I paid him back for what he’d done to Aspen. But first, we needed to find the little bastard.

My stomach rumbled, I was starving. Mating and blood bonding expended a lot of physical energy. The blood loss alone weakened you but knowing that my blood flowed though Aspen’s veins made me feel somewhat better. Of course, Jude’s blood also flowed through her veins too. There wasn’t as much of his blood in her as there was of mine because I’d watched him intently as he’d dripped blood from his wrist into her mouth. But it still made me feel savage and full of wrath to know that someone else had a claim on Aspen.
 

I picked up her hand and stroked it gently. She was so delicately boned, I hoped I didn’t hurt her too much when we’d mated. Male Weres were notoriously well endowed and when I was fully erect and throbbing, well, let’s just say I would make any woman happy. But Aspen had been a virgin when I took her for the first time. I knew it hurt her to have me so deep inside her because she cried out and tried to push against my chest.
 

I had tried to plunge deep on the first stroke to split her right away and I had, I could immediately smell the blood from her tiny wound. She would heal fast now that she was going through the change, as Weres healed much faster than humans did.
 

I had been worried about biting her too deeply when we blood bonded but when she started coming around my cock and calling out my name, all bets were off. I had zero control then, I was all animal. It drove me crazed with lust to hear her call out my name in the throes of orgasm and it had urged me to push deeper inside her.
 

It felt like I wasn’t close enough to her and that I wasn’t biting her hard enough. It was an intense urge to possess her so completely that there wouldn’t be any question in either of our minds who her body and soul belonged to.

One thing’s for sure, Aspen had bitten the hell out of me during blood bonding and my neck was still sore. She bit hard, the little bitch. I would have to teach her some control once I took her up to the training camp.
 

I had been thinking about it while she slept and thought that maybe I might keep her up there with me for several months. For one thing, I wanted to make sure that she was safe to live amongst the pack but also wanted to strengthen our mating bond. We were newly mated and I didn’t want her freaking out and taking off once we started talking and I finally told her the truth about everything.
 

So help me, if she decided to bolt in order to punish me, I would chain her to my fucking bed.
 

There was no way that I was going to almost lose her again.
 

Chapter 18

~Roan~

It took four days.
 

Four, long, hellish, sleepless days and nights for her body to change and complete the transition from human to Were.
 

In the end, I kept her drugged far more than I should have because I thought I was going to go mad with her suffering. It was bad enough to see her go through the change with my own eyes but then to experience her suffering through our emotional bond as well was more that I could deal with.

Today, we were leaving for the training camp as Aspen was sufficiently recovered and ready to travel. However, she was being petulant and absolutely did not want to go.
 

She was being difficult because she was still angry with me. I had promised her that we would sit down and have a long talk about everything…and we still hadn’t yet.
 

The truth was, I didn’t want to have that conversation here, in Spruce Hollow. I would be an idiot to start rehashing the past five years with a newly turned Were. It just wasn’t safe. I needed to be in complete control of Aspen incase she tried to act out, bolt or hurt someone.

So, I had been ignoring her requests to “talk” and she was pretty angry and pouty about it. In my defense, it wasn’t like there’d been a whole lot of time while she’d turned because she was either in pain, hallucinating, burning, crying or sleeping.
 

Oh, and having sex.
 

Aspen was
very
interested in having sex.

In fact, we’d mated multiple times already in the past four days. When she was coherent and with it, she was one insatiable female Were and we couldn’t seem to get enough of one another.
 

For me, the wanting started as soon as I came inside her. It was never enough. We could have sex ten times a day and it wouldn’t be enough. I was one horny bastard and wanted to be inside her all the time.

Everyone in the pack had left us be,
not one
person had come over, called or interrupted us in any way. I supposed they knew what it was like for newly mated couples.
 

We were naked quite a bit, that’s for sure.
 

I was trying to get Aspen to eat some cereal at the kitchen table before we left. She was sitting there picking at it and shooting dirty looks at me across the table. Her weight had dropped substantially during her change and she hadn’t been eating much to replenish the calories she’d lost. I’d planned on trying to pack some weight on her at the training camp because she was pretty scrawny right now. Her spine, shoulder blades and collarbone all protruded in sharp angles under her silky, smooth skin.
 

“I’m not going to the training camp,” she said, sulking as she pushed her cereal around the bowl.
 

“Yeah, that’s not negotiable. Sorry. You’re going, whether I have to carry you there myself,” I said firmly.
 

“Well, then send me with Caver or the Alpha. I don’t want to go with you,” she said, her sharply exhaled breath making a huffing sound.
 

“Too bad, you’re coming with me, whether you want to or not. Period. Why are you acting like this Aspen? What’s wrong?”
 

“You said that we would sit down and have a long, serious conversation after I changed. You promised me Roan. I want to have that conversation right now or I’m not going anywhere with you.”
 

“Oh, you remember that, do you?” I said teasingly, “Aspen look, right now is just not the right time. We will talk when we get to the camp. I promise.”
 

“Yes, of course I remember that, I remember everything that happened, you asshole. And if you don’t start talking, well, then I’m not going to the training camp with you. I want to talk now. You promised me, Roan!”
 

“Aspen, I know I promised you that we would talk and we will…
at the training camp.
Now eat your damn cereal so we can leave!”
 

“Fine.”
 

I started probing Aspen’s mind immediately. After being around women for so many years, I knew that when they said “fine”, that it didn’t really mean “fine”. It usually meant, “
I’m royally pissed off at you and I will find a way to make you pay for it somehow.”

I was in Aspen’s head a lot, much more than she was in mine. She was just so unpredictable, I never knew what she was really thinking. It was almost a relief to be blood bound to her because she couldn’t hide her thoughts from me anymore.

“I want to know why you left five years ago,” she said abruptly as she chewed on a mouthful of cereal.
 

“What do you mean?”
I really didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“What the hell do you think I mean? I want you to tell me why you left Spruce Hollow and what you’ve been up to for the past five years. If you like, I can just walk through your head and see for myself, like you do to me all the time. But I want to actually hear the words coming out your mouth.”

“Aspen, you don’t understand. It’s complicated,” I said, as I looked her in the eyes.
 

She glared right back, anger flashing in their depths and coloring her cheeks.

“How complicated can it be, Roan? Five years ago we kissed in your room on New Years Eve and it was the single most magical thing that had ever happened to me at sixteen years old. Then you shoved me away, I found out that you’d had a girlfriend all along and then you up and abandoned me. You broke my heart into a million pieces and joined the fucking military. It all sounds pretty uncomplicated to me,” she seethed at me, the hysteria rising in her voice.
 

“Aspen…it’s not like that,” I said, trying to sound calm, even though my heart was pounding in my chest. Please
God, don’t let me lose her when I tell her the truth
. It would fucking kill me.

“Fine, you don’t want to tell me, Roan? That’s just fucking great. What a sham this
relationship
is! You can’t even be truthful with me Roan! You probably have a girlfriend right now, don’t you?” She dumped her spoon in her bowl of cereal and pushed it away from her.

“You want me to be completely truthful with you, Aspen? Fine. The truth is, yes, I do have a girlfriend right now. I didn’t want to tell you about her because I was afraid that you would go looking for her and hurt her. She doesn’t know about you, she doesn’t even know that I’m a Were. She is innocent and unimportant to me. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me and not her,” I said quietly, my eyes boring into hers and trying to gauge the emotions my words had evoked in her.
 

And then all hell broke lose as Aspen exploded, just like I figured that she would. She stood up, shoved her chair back forcefully, picked it up and smashed it against the wall. I could feel anger radiating off her in waves.
 

This was a bad idea. Dammit all, I fucking
knew
it would turn out like this with her being newly turned. Her emotional control would be next to zero.

“Oh my god, you have a girlfriend? What the hell is wrong with you, Roan? I gave you my virginity,” she screamed as she picked up the bowl of half eaten cereal and huffed it at me. “I can’t fucking believe you! You don’t want me to hurt
her
? She’s innocent? Well, news flash buddy,
so am I
!!” she said as she wrung her hands and paced back in forth in agitation.

“Aspen, please. You don’t understand. There’s a lot we need to talk about,” I pleaded with her, even though I knew it would be useless to get through to her now.

She picked up the toaster and threw it at me. “I am innocent in all of this, Roan, and yet, you never seem to feel badly about hurting me. So, why am I the only one that deserves to get hurt here, huh? How the hell is that fair? Have you even broken up with this girl yet or do you just plan on having sex with the both of us?” she screamed at me, completely enraged as she knocked a glass bowl of oranges off the kitchen island and sent it crashing to the floor.