Wolves of Haven: Lone (19 page)

“This pup needs no encouragement,”
Connell informed her before growling then snapped his teeth at
her.

“I will muzzle you,” she
warned.

“I’d like to see you try,” he sang,
darting across the room, out of her reach.

The look she gave him conveyed that
she would shoot him if he kept it up.

Damian threw his arm over Akia’s
shoulder then pulled her into him. “Let’s get you fed. Everyone
knows how moody you get when hungry.”

Of course she growled at him under
her breath; everyone knew she got moody when hungry, but that
wasn’t what she was pissed off about, and all three of them knew
it. Yes, she was tired, hungry, horny and internally fighting the
evil darkness within her, but it was her brother who was apparently
trying to antagonize her by speaking of the unmentionable in mixed
company, as if he didn’t care of the repercussions that it would
have, especially for her relationship. She was already struggling
to keep from pushing Damian away and telling him to go home and
that she’d send her brothers to pack up her things, but every time
she started to push, he was there pulling her back.

Akia hated how well he seemingly
knew her when she didn’t want him to.

Damian chuckled before
kissing the side of her head. “Latria Mou, we all have our
little
quirks,
” he
said, before looking at Connell. “Did you want a ride back to the
house?”

Connell made a face. “Only if you
promise to keep my baby sister from ripping my throat out,” he said
then wagged his brows when Akia’s mouth fell open.

“I make no promises,” Damian
regrettably informed him, motioning for him to lead the way. “But I
will attempt to keep you from becoming a chew toy.”

On the ride back to the manor
Akia sat in the backseat since the two in the front were getting on
her last nerve, and read through the reports compiled by Officer
Leclair. He was ridiculously thorough, even more so than she was,
and it left much to be questioned, in her opinion; when there’s
nothing left to the imagination and all holes are plugged, it made
one suspicious. Her reports, when new to C-11, were always
meticulous because she was trying to make Manning proud of her and
not regret his decision in moving her to the most sought after
precincts, and impress her Captain, and trying not to make it
obvious that they were sleeping together by leaving him nothing to
reprimand her on. After a year of black ink covered reports with a
note to rewrite the submission again, she was ready to shove that
Sharpie so far up her
Captain’s
ass that he’d bleed black, but she soon learned
that he was only trying to make her a better Detective and Officer,
and she couldn’t fault him for that… And he couldn’t fault her for
handcuffing him to the bed and drawing a mustache and sideburns on
him with a Sharpie as retribution either. It did surprise her that
he simply laughed, even after the ink wouldn’t come off of his skin
completely, and simply said he deserved it, just as she deserved
the black mustache he drew on her when she was sleeping a few days
later.

Akia softly sighed, shaking her
head as the memories mockingly replayed over and over in her head.
She really did enjoy their relationship, especially Damian and his
carefree and patient nature, something she was apparently the only
one that got to see it. She quietly watched as Connell and Damian
discussed the area, not so much the case, rather Damian was asking
questions about how long the family had been there, the history
behind the manor, why a talented doctor would allow himself to
sacrifice their career by coming home to a small town to work as a
Medical Examiner. It would have warmed her heart that the man she
shared a bed and life with was seemingly getting along really well
with her brother, but every word that left her brother’s lips
wasn’t mentally edited and simply blurted out without regard for
the consequences of his extremely questionable statements,
especially considering every other thing out of his mouth was laced
with canine innuendo just to piss her off.

“Haven isn’t so bad,” Connell said,
waiting for the light to change. “It’s small. They think we’re
vampires or warlocks or in a gay cult or some shit because we keep
to ourselves at Verulfr Manor. You’ve got to love the media and how
it’s warped the minds of the next generation,” he said with a
chuckle, and Damian laughed, nodding his agreement.

That wasn’t normal, not in the
least, in Akia’s opinion. Damian was an Ivy League college graduate
with a master’s degree. He was an unbelievably good cop, and taught
her nearly everything she knew. And yet he wasn’t put off or
questioning any of the strange, off the wall, or questionably
colorful comments and innuendos her annoying brother was
spewing.

Apparently I don’t need to
tell him it’s over because he’ll run the first chance he gets since
my family is completely insane!
she
mentally huffed.

“It was about time I came home
anyway, I suppose,” he continued. “When you look this good, it’s
bound to leave a lasting impression. Doesn’t your family have an
island or some shit where they ship all those that have outstayed
their time in the light?”

Wait, what?

Damian rolled his eyes. “Oh, is
that what everyone calls it? Trust me, it isn’t an island paradise.
It’s much more comparable to San Quinton only less
hospitable.”

Akia looked between the two
curiously. If she didn’t know any better she’d swear that her
brother knew more about her boyfriend than she apparently did, and
the scary thing was, Damian appeared to be well aware that Connell
knew something she didn’t.

“Ooh, where do I sign up?” Connell
beamed, and the two laughed. “You’re rather quiet back there, Sis,”
he said, looking at her in the review mirror.

Absently she nodded.

“Cat’s got your tongue?” he
teased.

“No, not in the least,” she said.
“I feel like the third wheel between my brother and boyfriend,
that’s all.”

Again, they laughed.

“It isn’t funny,” she said. “If you
don’t shut up, I’m going to tell Father on you… No, better yet,
Seff.”

Connell made a mocking face
and rolled his eyes. “You’re the one that’s leaving me to
entertain
your
boyfriend. I’m not Fae, so Mr. Greek Police Officer
Extraordinaire is doing nothing for what I am so very proud of in
my pants. What’s with you? And don’t you dare use the copout that
you’re just thinking about the case because you’re
not.”

Akia flipped him off, but didn’t
say anything. She hated how well her pesky brother knew her, and
right now he was consciously pushing her buttons, but she couldn’t
figure out why he was tempting fate at the moment.

“Don’t mind her,” Damian said.
“She’s just trying to figure out how she’s going to break up with
me.”

“What?” the two asked in
unison.

He smiled and looked at her from
over his shoulder. “Whenever you try to distance yourself, and get
quiet and reflective, it’s because you’re trying to figure out how
to get out of something. And at the moment, I’m assuming, that
something is me and our relationship. You said so yourself that you
and what we have will most likely kill me-”

“Yeah, that was just romantic as
all hell, Sis,” Connell interrupted, getting a hard smack on the
back of his head from his sister. “Ow!” he whined. “You already
bruised the hell out of my face, and now you’re trying to give me a
concussion. Not cool. Usually you’re less moody and more fun when
in heat.”

Akia’s eyes widened and mouth fell
open with a popping sound.

Damian shook his head. “That was
very inappropriate,” he scolded, not at all curious of the very
loaded statement.

“She started it,” Connell argued.
“The side of my face is killing me still from her meaty fist, and
you can’t say I deserved it because I didn’t. I took a damn nap,
big deal. If I could simply screw the hell out of some hot piece of
ass like she can, I wouldn’t need to run two times a week. Instead
I have to find ways to let my wolf run without letting him
run.”

“Connell!” Akia snapped at him.
“Shut up!”

“You shut up!” he shot back,
finally running out of patience with her. “Look at the damn arm you
keep rubbing then pull your head out of your ass!” He put the car
in park, turned it off then got out, slamming the door behind
him.

Akia looked from her brother’s
retreating form as he pulled his shirt off and kicked out of his
shoes, making absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that he was
about to run, to Damian. The look on his face was one of amusement.
“I…” she stammered, trying to find the words.

“Yes?” he said, prompting her to
continue, turning around in his seat to look at her.

She looked away from him, trying to
look at anything but him, when something registered with her. She
pulled the sleeve of her shirt up and her eyes widened; where he
had bit was bruised and sore. It should have already been healed.
Connell’s face was still bruised and slow healing because damaged
inflicted by another of their kind slowly healed…

Akia looked up at him with wide
eyes. “You know…” she stammered, trying to find the
words.

“That you’re a werewolf?” Damian
said with a chuckle, as if it was obvious, and she absently nodded.
“You’re the lone werewolf, the sole female in existence,” he
continued, and she looked away from him. “Don’t turn from me,” he
pleaded, coaxing her by the chin so she was looking at him. “I’ve
known for a long time, and what I found in the basement only
confirmed it.”

Her eyes widened before she smacked
him. “Why in the hell did you go in the basement?” she demanded.
“You hate the basement.”

He chuckled. “I needed a bag big
enough for our clothes… Latria Mou, why do you shackle your
wolf?”

Akia opened her mouth more than
once, but nothing came out.

For years she had waited for that
day to come, the day when she’d have to tell Damian what she truly
was. No man, especially a talented police officer, wouldn’t wonder
why their girlfriend never aged, was never sick, healed in only
minutes from gunshots, cuts and contusions as if they were nothing,
ate more than seven-thousand calories a day but struggled to keep
weight on, or why they chained themselves up in the basement on new
and full moons or whenever their inner wolf started to surface
because the beast couldn’t be trusted. No man would want to be with
someone like her, and yet she seemingly found one, one that was
looking at her with so much tenderness that it made her want to
punch him in the face.

“Will you please say something?”
Damian whispered, caressing the backs of his fingers along her
cheek.

Instead of facing the problem, and
it was ever more of a problem than it was before because Damian
knew exactly what she was, she was going to run from it just as she
had done ten years prior.

Akia got out the car, slamming the
door behind her then ran. She didn’t know where she was going, or
how she’d get there, but she had to be anywhere but there at the
moment.

Her existence wasn’t supposed
to be possible; male werewolves were the result of a mutated gene
carrying father—a werewolf—and it was only passed down to a small
percentage of male heirs. There was no way to
make
a werewolf through any other
means. They weren’t venomous, a werewolf’s bite simply hurt like
any bite would…

Absently she rubbed the bruise on
her arm from where Damian bit her earlier that morning. He didn’t
break the skin, but he left a bruise. Werewolves healed rapidly, in
wolf or human form it didn’t matter, unless the damage was
inflicted by another werewolf. Those took longer to heal, the same
rate as it would take a human to heal, she supposed. For nearly
five years she religiously studied the history and lore of
werewolves with Beowulf and Louvel in the archives at Verulfr
Manor, all in hopes of trying to discover the truth of her origin,
of how it was possible for her to exist at all.

They found no answers.

Beowulf and the others always
stressed the need for discretion, and that other wolves couldn’t
know of her existence. If the Elders knew that Beowulf had hid from
them the existence of a lone female, it wouldn’t end well for the
family and pack. They would be eradicated, and she would find
herself, once again, in a cage and on display. She would be nothing
but a means to try to secure, to produce, a full-blooded
werewolf.

Never again would she be in a cage
or forced…

“Never again,” she whispered before
she was slammed into from behind, knocking the wind from her; she
rolled across the grass, coming to a rest on her back.

When the flashes of light cleared
from her vision she focused on the pure black wolf standing over
her, head tilted to the side to regard her, what was left of a
Dolce & Gabbana tie dangled from his neck, and sapphire eyes
moved over her many times.

Akia blinked rapidly, trying to
clear her vision since she had to be seeing things. When werewolves
were in wolf form their eyes were amber or gold, not the color of
those when in human form, and yet there was no mistaking that the
large eyes looking at her intently were the same eyes that she had
gazed upon nearly every day for the past five years. With a shaking
hand she reached up and caressed his head, and his eyes closed
before a soft hum of contentment rolled from his chest. His fur was
nearly as soft as the heavenly curls she absently played with in
her sleep. Propping herself up on her elbows, she buried her face
in his furry neck and inhaled deeply and suddenly, as if it were a
mythical connection, his human scent and wolf scent connected in
her mind, which would forever be with her now, and it made a
complete creature.