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Sleep doesn’t come easy.
Did I expect it to? Not even a little. Though I received Elizabeth’s promise, I still can’t get over the truth of her curse—because, yeah. If you ask me, that’s one hell of a curse.
She seems like a sweetheart, though. Incredibly secretive in regards to her rough past, but once she recognizes that she has a possible ally on me, she’s a lot more open when it comes to her feelings for the Wicked Wolf.
Spoiler alert: she hates his freaking guts.
Elizabeth is a smart she-wolf. A survivor. After she warned me that there are eyes and ears everywhere, I start to pick up on what she means in the seemingly simple things she says. Once she realizes that I’m quick enough to get her code—and then I’m all aboard the “Walker sucks” train—she lets down her guard enough that the rest of the night isn’t as awkward as it was when I, you know, hoisted her up by the throat.
She figured me for that, by the way. Muttering something about how that wasn’t the worst way someone reacted when it came to her gift, she tells me it’s fine. It’s not fine, obviously, but I let it go because she’s definitely not the argumentative type.
We stay up way too late. That’s on me. The jet lag I used an excuse earlier started kicking my ass about an hour after dinner, but between wanting to learn more about the Luna-touched Elizabeth and subconsciously avoiding my empty bed, I keep her talking. Only when her eyes start to droop, her voice gone raspy from overuse, do I realize that I’m being a coward.
And I hate being a coward.
It’s just… Ryker ruined me. There. I admit it. He ruined me because, once I started sleeping in the same bed with him, I completely forgot what it was like to be in one alone. It’s a twin bed, but it seems so huge without him. The pillow isn’t comfortable at all. My bond is a faint echo of what it is when he’s near me, and I force myself to ignore it if only because it hurts, knowing we’re apart.
What’s worse is that I have twenty-four nights of this crap.
I don’t know when I finally fell asleep, but when there’s a knock at my door, I can definitely say that I haven’t had enough hours down. For a moment, still caught somewhere between dreamland and rageville, I blindly grab a pillow and chuck it somewhere over my head. It slaps the wall with a muffled thump.
The knocking doesn’t stop.
Forcing my eyes open, I jolt in place when I see the unfamiliar surroundings. In the borrowed room, I have a small bed and a dresser. That’s all. But it’s not my bed and dresser.
It takes me longer than it should to remember where I am. When I do, I growl under my breath, throwing back the thin blanket Elizabeth lent me. I ended up falling asleep in my t-shirt and jeans last night so at least I’m dressed enough to confront the shifter who’s about to lose a paw because they just won’t stop fucking knocking.
My hair’s a blonde rant’s nest. My shirt crooked. I trip over one of my boots in my haste to get to the door. Snarling, I kick it out of the way. My face is contorted in the angry expression when I yank the door open.
I guess I thought it would be Elizabeth. She’s the only one who has a right to be in this cabin, and it never hit me that someone else would invade it.
But it’s not Elizabeth. She’s standing a few feet behind the male shifter, nibbling on her claw nervously.
I blink. Something about the black-haired, light-eyes male is familiar. The cleft in his chin, too. I feel like I’ve seen this male before, but I’ve seen so many since I arrived at the Wolf District yesterday that it’s possible my eyes cataloged him in passing.
That’s when his aura seems to slap me the rest of the way.
His alpha aura.
That’s right. I do know this guy.
What was his name again?
Ah!
“Theo. What the hell are you doing here?”
His eyes are pretty much laughing at me as he takes in my appearance. “Good morning to you, too, Gemma.”
I’m not in the mood. Flipping him the bird with one hand, I try to tame my wild blonde mane with the other as I keep the scowl in place. “What do you want?”
“I thought you’d like to see your… friends.”
Smart wolf. At the last second, he didn’t call them guards the way that his Alpha did.
I take a deep breath. This early in the morning, it’s hard for me to go from pissed off to pleasant. Ask Aleks. We got along amazingly mainly because he’s a vamp and, well, I’ve never been much of a morning person. It’s one of the reasons why I chose to work at Charlie’s. Bar hours were right up my alley.
Add that to a stressful situation, an unfamiliar—and empty—bed, and little sleep, and he’s lucky that I barked first before I bit.
