Page 79 of Blood and Trouble

I knew better than that. The Bastards didn’t do anything by halves. One drink would turn into four, and I’d be dragging ass in the morning. Lycan of yesteryear would have said, “Fuck yeah,” and slipped his leathers on in record time. However, my heart wasn’t in it. The more distance I put between me, Ava, and Poe, the more agitated my wolf became.

Fuck, maybe a beer would help settle him down.

“Yeah, alright,” I said. “Let me get dressed.”

I grabbed clean clothes and headed back to the bathroom to change.

The pub wasn’t much more than a bar and a couple of tables, certainly not as big as the place we’d gone to in Copenhagen. But bikers generally weren’t picky. I certainly would never have brought Ava here. I caught up with Thurjin and Magnus, and we went through the deer encounter one more time, to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

Sometime around the end of beer number three, I sat at the bar by myself and flipped through my phone. Neither Ava nor Poe had reached out, and my thumb hovered over our group chat to send a message letting them know I was okay, that I’d made it to the motel. But I paused, wondering what they were getting up to while I was gone. This far away, I couldn’t reach Ava telepathically, even if I still sensed a tiny bit of my magic brewing in her. Was she working herself to death? Was Poe moping in a corner and writing his sad poems? Were they cuddled together in our nest, writhing and sweating and moaning?

That envious sweltering heat rolled through me again, sinking from my stomach to my balls. I’d fucked around a lot in my youth. I’d had threesomes and orgies and all kinds of fascinating, wonderful sex. But it was different with them, and I wasn’t sure why.

My chest tightened, and I rubbed a hand over my sternum to soothe the ache. I hadn’t set any exclusivity clause with Ava, mostly because I didn’t want to hold her back. I’d never considered how emotionally involved I’d become with her. I’d never thought she and Poe would develop such affection for each other. And yet…the thought of them together burned and seethed and oddly made my cock half hard.

Just as I was about to put my phone back in my pocket, it lit up with my sister’s name.

Ren.

“Fuck.” I gulped the last of my beer and stood to walk outside, where it was quieter, before answering and bringing it to my ear. “What’s up?”

“Hey to you, too,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Alright,” I said. “How’s it back home?”

“Oh, you know. Another day on the homestead. Vampire threats. Zion bullshit. The usual.”

“Everything okay?” She sounded like a cowboy trying not to scare a wild horse, which had never been our dynamic.

“Yeah. I mean, aside from bloodsuckers chasing us down and Ava being a primary target. We’re thinking about cutting the trip short, but we really need to get this last deal done.” I went over the events from the previous few days, how Evelyn had shown up at the royal reception and the constant sensation of being watched.

“Look, you know I’m not one to pry, but people are talking. They say you got married to Ava,” she said.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” She blew out a disbelieving breath. “How’s your new bride feel about being nothing?”

“No, I mean…” I didn’t know what I meant.

“Are you doing okay with Poe there?”

“It’s…complicated,” I said, glancing at the ground. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I can tell something’s shifted in you. I can sense it,” she said. “You should talk to someone, if not me.”

“It’s just…” I cleared my throat and tried to force the words over my tongue. Maybe it was the three beers, or maybe it was because it was her, but when I spoke, I bled all over the phone. “I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I had my life figured out. Now I don’t know, Ren. I think I fucked up.”

She laughed. “You want both of them, don’t you?”

“I can’t have them,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as tears threatened to spill over.

Fucking suck it up, Mitchell.

I didn’t want it to be true, but fuck, I swore to myself I’d never get mated. I wouldn’t do that. “I can’t give them what they want.”

“Well, you married Ava, so you’re halfway there,” she said.

“It isn’t real.” Even if it felt very real. Even if I’d started calling her my wife, slept next to her, and taken care of her the way my father had always taken care of my mother. I’d gotten shit-faced and sworn some fake vows in a fake ceremony, and the next morning, it felt more real than anything ever had before. I’d been fucked up about it since. I couldn’t tell Ren that, though. “We’ll probably get it annulled when we get home.”