The Awakening: Britton (Entangled Covet) (25 page)

Britton had known it would end like this, but Val…she’d had so much faith in the High Council. This

would be a devastating blow for her.

Or maybe not. All could still end well. He had to hold on to that possibility. He didn’t want to accept

that the last time he held Val in his arms had been with terror in his heart.

Harwood cleared his throat. “Officer Townsend, we would like to express our gratitude for your help in

quashing this threat to the shifter community. Now that we are once again at peace, it is time for you to

return to your duties at the Carnal Ridge PD. In sixteen years, after you have fulfilled the entirety of your

sentence, we shall reconvene here and you will be free to live out your remaining years as a shifter.”

Thanks a fucking lot.

He surveyed the ten faces before him. Other than Harwood, who held a resolute, superior posture, the

other members were pensive and agitated, especially Seeder. The older man kept glancing down and

shaking his head. The rest of the council didn’t seem to back the elder’s decision. Britton should feel some

comfort in that. But it was resentment that clawed forward, that and fury, at their ability to just sit back and

let it happen.

It was the way of the council, though, wasn’t it? The elder had the final say. A method that had worked

fine until Harwood took the post. Maybe it wasn’t really Harwood, but the way the world had changed so

much over the last fifty years. Hell, maybe it was a combination of both.

It really didn’t matter.

“You know how this goes, Townsend,” Harwood continued. “It will be instantaneous.”

Yeah, he knew that. Unlike when they’d given him his beast back and it’d taken hours and then days for

his abilities to return slowly, bit by bit.

This time, he would walk out of the room human. Beastless.

Again.

Fuck.

“Whatever. Let’s get this over with,” he ground out.

Harwood nodded, and a councilman at the end of the table stood and approached Britton. After lifting

his shirt, the councilman poked around Britton’s right side until he found a place between two ribs, and he

inserted the needle.

And the agony began.

His beast yowled, jerking in desperation as the molten liquid spread from under Britton’s skin and

penetrated deep. Clenching his eyes closed, he gritted his teeth against a bellow. A blaze of searing fire

torched his side as his beast swiped its massive claws at his flesh, snapping and growling with bared teeth.

Britton latched onto the arm of the chair, digging his nails into the wood as his body went rigid. Immobile,

his beast attacked, snarled, gnashed, flaying his insides. Just as he reached the point where he was certain

the animal would erupt through his skin leaving behind the carcass of his mangled body, all went still.

The agony lessened to a dull ache, then nothing, as if he hadn’t just had a part of himself ripped away.

Gasping puffs of air into his lungs, he relaxed his body back against the chair.

His beast was quiet. No movement. No rumbles. Not even a flutter.

Gone.

And so was his chance of
fewsing
with Val. Would he ever get to?

Dea
, please don’t take her away from me before I can.

He looked away from the council, refusing to let Harwood see the fucking tears, not wanting the bunch

of bastards to see how unmanned he felt at this moment.

“Are we done here?” He despised the hoarseness in his voice. Despised how deflated he sounded. And

felt.

When the restraints released, he stood up and left without looking back.

What he needed most right now was Val in his arms, to know that the council hadn’t taken her away

from him, too. Had she made it back from the compound yet? Was she even aware of what was going on?

As he made the long hike down the hall, his speed increased. He’d kiss her, remind himself that even

though his beast was gone and would no longer stir when he saw her and touched her, he was still alive and

his body would stir in a new way. A safer way.

Then she was there, running around the corner at full speed, fear filling the tense lines of her face.

When their eyes connected, she stumbled to a stop. “Britton!”

Revulsion exploded inside him, festering, spreading, until he was consumed by it and all he wanted was

to distance himself from the source.

Val.

The woman he loved.

No!
He wanted to scream and rail at the unfairness of it.

Horrified at what he might do or say, he forced himself to take another step forward, and he was

punched with another potent wave of disgust.
Dea
, it had happened. The thing he feared most. Even with

the
Drall
completely awakened, it still failed to acknowledge Val as his mate. But saw her as the enemy.

Why?

The soul-screaming question echoed inside his head and throughout his body until he was certain he

would crumble from the weight of the grief that tortured him.

“C-come”—he cleared his throat, needing to relieve the hatred that squeezed his airway, strangling him

far worse than it ever had before.—“Val, come to m-me.”

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t take another step toward her. Somewhere deep inside, something

stronger than the love he knew he had for this woman kept him planted to the spot, made him want to run

in the opposite direction. How fucked up was that? To know he loved this woman, but only felt revulsion.

But hope refused to die. Maybe if she came to him it would be okay.

When she took one hesitant step forward, her expression shadowed by alarm, he shuddered and

instinctively jerked back.

“B-Britton?” So much hesitance. So much fear.

He made himself maintain eye contact with her, made himself watch her face crumple with dawning

realization, made himself watch her accept.

“Oh,
Dea
, no,” she wailed, tears glittering in her eyes as her shoulders started to shake. She slumped to

her knees, covering her face with her hands.

The sounds of her anguish were magnified as they bounced off the cherrywood walls, almost bringing

him to his knees. Reaching for her, he stepped forward, and disgust surged through him. Terrified that if he

touched her, he’d recoil, he stumbled away. He refused to cause her more pain, refused to give her more

awful memories of him. She already had years of his nastiness to look back on. Her last memories of him

would
not
be more of the same.

He needed her memories of him to be the good—their blissful, joyous time together in each other’s

arms; how he’d clung to her in love, and not how he flinched away in disgust.

Thank the
Dea
, he’d had the strength not to bond with her. There was no telling what they’d both be

feeling right now if he had placed his marks on her thighs. As it was, he was the only one having to deal

with the clusterfuck of negativity warring inside him. At least he’d saved her from that anguish.

When she lifted her head, tears streaked her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Britton.”

The fact that she apologized to him left him stunned, as did the way the sound of her voice was like

nails on a chalkboard, making him want to press his hands to his ears. What the fuck was happening? His

reaction to Val had been bad before, but not this bad. “Not your fault,” he choked out, then wheezed in a

breath against the vise around his throat.

“Y-you tried to tell me, but I believed in them. I gave you hope. I made you think we could be together,

and now you hate me.”

As the sweet resonance of her voice slashed at him like razors, his heart squeezed tight in agony at her

sorrow. He wanted to weep, scream, and flee all at the same time. He cursed the serum, cursed the High

Council.

No matter what, though, she had to know the truth.

His entire body quivered from refusing to submit to the serum’s demands. “No. I. Love. You.”

Why was he having such a hard time forming words around her?

His confession made her cry even harder, and he felt cleaved in two.

“Can’t do this to you.” His voice was thick from the tears that blurred his vision. “So sorry.”

Knowing his presence only gave her more grief, he rushed past her to the elevator.

“Britton?”

Bile surged in his throat as her voice flowed over him. Keeping his back to her, refusing to let her see

the extent of what she did to him now, he stopped.

“I-I love you, too.” A harsh sob sounded, making him clench his teeth. “I wish I had realized that

before now. So we were h-happy.” Another shuddering, soul-crushing weep stabbed at him, shredding him

with conflicting emotions that made him want to scream. “Y-you’re my mate. I accept you. I will wait for

you!”

The moment of acceptance from their mate was what every shifter waited for their entire lifetime. For

him, though, what was supposed to be a joyous occasion was anything but. He’d known this would

happen, known Val would eventually realize what she was losing by being his mate, and he’d failed to

protect her from it happening.

He wouldn’t have her wait for him.

“No,” he strangled out. “Forget me. Move on. Live your…life.”

“My life, my
eternity
, is with
you
.”

“Can’t wait for me. Please. Don’t. Will kill me.”

Silence deafened the hall and he made himself go to the elevator. As the doors shut behind him, leaving

her slumped on the floor, staring at him with helpless grief, he punched the wall. Hard.

His life, Val’s life, their life together, were all destroyed.

…

Dea
, Britton missed Val like crazy. He’d missed her from the second those elevators doors had closed

between them two days ago.

The deep ache of his loss had dragged him down to her section of the police department, but he’d

stopped short of going in, halting in the hallway right outside the SPAC offices. He knew what would

happen the moment he saw her. The same damn thing that had happened the last two times he’d been

unable to control his overwhelming need simply to lay eyes on her.

He pictured Val’s smile and embraced the pleasant flutter that encased his chest. As long as he

manifested the image of her in his mind through memory, he was rewarded with all the positive feelings he

had toward the woman he loved. Any kind of outside source—a picture, a sound bite, a damn
voice mail
—

filled him with all the awful, fucked-up shit. Even worse was the time in between when he just missed her

like crazy—like now.

All he wanted was a glimpse.

After bracing for the negative impact that was about to hit, he took the final step that brought him just

inside the doorway.

He gaze immediately went to her desk, but it was empty. Relief coursed through him, then he cursed the

emotion when just moments before he’d been desperate to see her. As he searched the room, he finally

spotted her walking out of an office toward the back. Revulsion latched onto his throat and squeezed like a

vise, and he fisted his hands at his sides.

When she looked up, she froze. He struggled to keep his face expressionless, but his fucking top lip

curled up anyway.

Even though he was sneering at her, she didn’t flinch, she just sent him a sad smile. His insides

quivered from the disgust building within him, his lungs burned from the constriction on his throat, and the

repulsion finally propelled him backward into the hallway.

As soon she was gone from his sight, grief replaced all the nastiness. Just like that. Instantly, he wanted

to be with her. To have her in his arms, hear her voice, talk to her.

And he couldn’t even look at a picture of the woman without sneering.

Smothering a bellow of rage, he stalked down the hall, keeping his fists at his sides and not sending

them through the wall as he so desperately wanted to. He fucking
hated
this. Every goddamn second of it.

Worse, his bad reactions to Val were even stronger this time around.

Before, he’d gotten into nasty, word-flinging encounters with her without issue. Now, uttering so much

as a syllable around her felt impossible. Hell, getting within fifty yards of her was impossible. He figured it

was because the
Drall
had been awakened, and had heightened his responses to her—both the good and

bad.

Which meant his emotions went to the extreme opposite the moment he’d removed himself from her

vicinity. That reaction was new, too. Before, he had to calm himself down after leaving her, as his body

shook from disgust. Now, he shook with revulsion in her presence, but he immediately missed her when

she was gone. He thought about her. Worried about her. Was consumed by his love for her.

A part of him would have preferred the constant spike of hatred. The constant up and down of

emotions made him feel as if he were going insane. He’d never survive sixteen years of this. And if by

some chance he did, he would be worthless to Val. Two days had nearly broken him. Years of this torture