Page 59 of Blood and Trouble

I wanted to be the only one for Ava and for Poe, and I was selfish enough to think that could be possible. I hadn’t lied when I told Ava I was an evil bastard. I wanted, and I claimed, and fuck the consequences.

But…

Wasn’t that what got me into this mess in the first place? I had wanted Poe. I had taken Poe. And when he demanded more, I pushed him away because I couldn’t control the fallout. If I mated him and he died, I wouldn’t be able to deal with it. And now I’d gone and done the same fucking thing with Ava, except this time, I’d married her. How could I justify having either of them?

Even if I could stomach the thought of mating, bonding magic only worked in pairs. I could choose only one of them, or let them have each other.

The human rationalized the entire walk through the woods to the cabin while the wolf growled and whined and fought my excuses.

“We sent a team to your hotel room to get your things,” Thurjin said when we climbed the wooden steps to the tiny cabin. I should have been worried about the three of us holed up in such a small space, but that self-centered prick inside only grinned with anticipation.

Oh, the things we could get up to.

“We were careful,” he continued as he opened the door. “We weren’t followed.”

“Thank you,” I said, patting him on the shoulder as I walked inside. True enough, it wasn’t much more than a kitchen, living room, and bathroom, but it would work.

“There’s a bedroom in the back,” he said, pointing down a tiny hallway to an open door at the end. “Toilet’s on the right. We figured Lycan and Ava could take the bed, and Poe could take the couch.”

Of course he would assume Ava and I were together. We’d gotten shitfaced at the pub and wandered off to get married, and both of us were still wearing our wedding bands.

“Perfect.” Poe shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “Where is Ava?”

“She’s with Madeline,” Thurjin explained. “She wanted a tour of the den…and Madeline figured she could use some girl time.”

I pursed my lips, realizing I’d be alone with Poe for the first time since he showed up. My heart raced at the prospect, but he swallowed and quickly moved to the fireplace at the far edge of the room.

“I’ll let you two get settled,” Thurjin said, heading toward the door. “Breakfast’s at six.”

After he left, I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, tilting my head at Poe until I got his attention. He froze like a baby gazelle that had just spotted a big, nasty lion.

“What?” He ran his hand over his neck again and flashed me a nervous smile.

“Why are you anxious?” I took a step closer, my chest tightening with the proximity. “I sensed it rolling off you in that meeting. What are you thinking?”

He shrugged. “It’s just…something about this whole thing is rubbing me the wrong way. Aside from the whole witch mind-trick.”

“How so?” I trusted Poe’s instincts. For a wolf that had grown up alone, transitioned alone, and run alone until we found him, he had a mind for survival. His quick, strategic thinking had pulled us out of disaster more than once.

“It’s something I can’t prove,” he said. “But still, I can’t ignore it.”

“Tell me.” I stepped toward him, my gut clenching as his pine scent hit me between the eyes. It took me back to the nights I’d spent gripping his hair and marking his skin with my teeth. I quickly buried that and refocused on the conversation.

“You know…when we rescued Maeve, Marx was in the middle of doing some fucked-up ritual on her.”

That got my attention. “What kind of ritual?”

“I don’t know. We found them in a dark room with candles lit on the floor, vampires chanting, magic so thick I nearly choked on it. She had bite marks all over her body, and all of them had clearly drunk from her.” Poe paused to dig his palms into his eyes. “We’d had a Harlot with us. Marta. But she didn’t recognize the spell and couldn’t find anything about it in her records when she got home. When we got Maeve back to the medbay, she was throwing up black shit. She and Mill were in comas for a while afterward. It took a lot of Kodiak’s strength to pull them out of it.”

“Did Morwyn ever figure it out?” I didn’t know a better healer than her. If there were something there, she’d find it.

Poe shook his head. “It’s only been a few weeks, and even if she did, I doubt she’d tell me.”

“I’ll talk to Mill,” I said. “Maybe Ava can ask Maeve. Do you think there’s something to this ritual?”

He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and run his hands over his face. “I don’t know. My wolf keeps nudging it to the front of my mind, telling me to pay attention to it. But the full moon is tomorrow. He could just be antsy and looking for something to sink his teeth into.”

I grinned at the double entendre, unable to resist playing with it. We’d had a hell of a night, and we could both afford to blow off some steam. “If you need something to sink your teeth into, all you have to do is ask.”