Undeniably Chosen

  He left me so easily today. Or had he? Was I making things too hard? Being too difficult? Was I being that person that I had talked about this morning on my bed—the one who wants to be desired but doesn’t do the desiring? Was I leaving everything to Seth and not doing enough to make this work? Was I telling him to fight for me, to not give us on me, but not doing the same?

  I wasn’t fighting for us.

  I sat up. He had come here in the beginning and faced my family even when he thought we’d all hate him. He kept coming back for me, over and over again, even when I didn’t want him to, even when he knew I was angry with him. He always found me and made sure I was taken care of.

  It was time to return the favor.

  I put on my coat and told no one that I was going to the fire station to see Seth. They wouldn’t have let me go this late at night and I didn’t feel like a debate to be honest, so I just snuck out as quietly as I could.

  I pulled out of the driveway and went straight to the coffee shop and got two coffees. One black, one Hazelnut.

  “Haven’t seen you in here, lately,” Paul told me, a little puppy-dog-eye coming through. “I was beginning to worry a little about you.”

  “Oh, no, everything’s fine. Thanks.”

  “Wait!” He leaned on the counter. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in here since that day with that weird guy.”

  “Uh…that weird guy and I are actually dating. Kinda.” I wrinkled my nose.

  He leaned away from me, disgust evident on his face. “What?”

  “Ten years from now, you can say that you knew us back when.” I smiled as cheerfully as I could muster and hoped that was true.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled and tossed my receipt in the trash before crossing his arms. He muttered sarcastically, “I hope it works out. See ya.”

  “Thanks.”

  I couldn’t have stopped the little snort of happiness as I left if I tried. It was short lived, however, as I got back in my car and made the short drive to the fire station. Would he be angry at me for stopping by like this? I looked at the clock on the dash. It was almost nine already. Maybe he would be asleep by now. I pulled across the street where I had parked before and took a deep breath, exhaling all my fears.

  I tried to.

  I tried to be the woman he deserved. I’d never been in a relationship, but I had watched them all my life. And his heart was in my chest if I let it be. I focused, opening up my senses, my mind, and my heart to his. Within seconds, I felt a slow, steady beating beside mine.

  I didn’t gasp. I covered my chest with both hands, as if to keep it safe, to keep it mine. Because he was mine. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know why our connection didn’t seem as…normal as everyone else’s. It felt like there was something in the way, something blocking us, something keeping my connection fuzzy, but I was going to figure out what that was and obliterate it. Nothing was coming between us. He had fought for me and I was done being a weak girl who stood by and waited to be fought for.

  I smiled. I was going to get my man.

  With his heart still beating slow, steady but strong, next to mine, I pulled my little purse from the seat and slung it across my shoulder before taking the two coffees and getting out.

  With deep breaths pulling from my lungs, I crossed the street. The bay doors were open and the lights were on. There were some guys standing around the truck bumper, talking and laughing. They saw me coming and stopped talking, all turning to look at me. One of them came forward. He was really young, like me. He grinned and held his hands up like he was praying. “Please be here to see me.”

  I smiled. “Is Seth here?”

  One of them whistled. “Our boy Seth is popular tonight.” My blood ran cold. Harper, I knew it. Even after he told her not to come. Though, after today…who knew what had happened. It must have been on my face. He cleared his throat. “He’s upstairs in the back with Harper—in the kitchen.”

  They knew her name she was up there so often.

  “I’ll show you the way,” the young guy said.

  “Don’t “get lost” and steal her on the way there,” one of them said and they laughed.

  I tried to chuckle and smile for them, but didn’t know if I was pulling it off or not. He took me up a flight of stairs and pointed.

  “End of the hall on the right.” He winked.

  I laughed and thanked him. I could hear voices and walked toward them. They must not have heard us coming or they would have stopped. I blocked off my mind. It was probably a bad idea, but I wanted to let him know I was there on my own, not because he knew I was there from my jumbled thoughts.

  “I don’t get it, Seth,” Harper whined. “She comes in, just ruins everything, and you think it’s all okay? What has she done to you?”

  “There are things you don’t know, Harper,” he said harshly. “And things you do know. Things that our family has done and everyone just acts like it’s all just normal.”

  “We’ve done what we had to do to survive. What we had to do because of what that woman did to us!” she hissed. “And then you go and drink the Kool-Aid, forget everything, all our plans?”

  “I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid, I found my soulmate!” he hissed back. “There’s a difference, and the fact that you all act like I’m a traitor pisses me off. All I’ve been trying to do is keep the peace, try to find a way to bridge the gap for all of us, but you guys won’t even try.”

  “Why should we? We can still keep to the plan.”

  “How, Harper?” he asked in a hard voice. “How would we do that?”

  “Will you stop calling me Harper?” she asked softly and I heard rustling. “Since when do you call me by my full name?”

  I heard him sigh and I knew right then that I needed to leave. I didn’t need to hear this and I didn’t want to. I turned to walk back down the stairs and wait for him, but his next words stopped me dead.

  “Since I realized that you wanted to force the imprint with me.”

  She didn’t even try to deny it, which I didn’t know if that added to her character or took away from it.

  “So?” she whispered and I heard more rustling. I realized she was moving, probably toward him. I felt sick. “Would that have been so bad? At least you wouldn’t have all of this to deal with.”

  His pause was too long, too pregnant, too—

  “We’re family, Harper,” he growled and meant it. “There is never, was never, and will never be anything between us but that. And the fact that you and your father tried to—”

  I walked away. It was too much. He was letting into her and I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t feel sorry for her, but I still didn’t want to hear it. I walked back out to the bay and nodded to the big guy. “He’s talking still. I’ll wait.”

  “We’ll keep you company,” the young guy said and wiggled his eyebrows.

  I made my way over to them, accepting the tall stool they put out for me with thanks. I looked at eyebrows. “You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

  Everyone laughed. He saluted me and said, “Trouble is my middle name, ma’am.”

  “Well, Trouble, I’m Ava.” I saw his eyes light up like he recognized that name. And then he confirmed it.

  “Ahh, so you’re her.” He grinned. “Now it makes sense.” He stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

  I shook his hand and tried not to sound too nonplussed but I was about to crawl out of my skin with the eagerly happy knowledge that Seth had mentioned me. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Most people call me Landon” He winked. “But you can call me Trouble anytime.”

  I laughed and the other guys introduced themselves. I knew I’d never remember them all, but Trouble, I’d definitely remember. They kept me thoroughly entertained as I sipped my coffee. It was only about ten minutes and Harper came steaming down the stairs, black hair, red face, anger practically shooting from her eyes. When she saw me perched on my stool, the guys around me, I thought her head was going t
o explode, steam from the ears and all.

  She didn’t say a word, just gave me the glare from hell and walked on out of there. One of the guys whistled. “Well, okay then. I guess he’s done talking.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered, but didn’t move. He probably needed and wanted a minute, and so did I. Me barging in there after his big fight with Harper was so not how I wanted our make up to be tonight. I wanted to just go home and start over another day, but no. I was here, I was doing this.

  The guys continued to make cracks around me, pulling me into the jokes, trying to make me laugh, obviously knowing that something was going on, but not knowing what.

  I hadn’t seen Seth since lunch and my body was definitely feeling it. My back was already starting to get achy, to get stiff. My hands ached to hold him. If he showed his face right now, I’m wasn’t sure I wouldn’t run across the room and—

  “Ava?”

  I looked up at the rough voice who had said my name. He stood across the bay on the other side of the trucks, looking as wracked as I felt in that moment. Was it because he needed me? Or was it because he was upset that he’d fought with Harper?

  He huffed and shook his head a little as he came toward us. I waited for it, for him to grab my arm and haul me up, take me out of the bay area and ask what I was doing there in the first place.

  When his arms wrapped around me and tugged me up from the stool, I was shocked. My face pressed into his warm neck and I groaned into him skin as quietly as I could. Heavens above, I missed him, and he smelled so good. That shower he took when he went home made him smell so…dark and manly. I let my arms go where they may and they went around his neck. My legs felt cooler in that moment and I remembered the dress I was wearing.

  I let my arms fall back down to his waist, but Seth was already pulling back, looking at my face. “I’m going on a break,” he announced, never letting his eyes leave mine.

  “You’ve been on a break all night.”

  “Hey!” Trouble said and stood. “She’s been waiting down here for him forever! You let him have a break with her. Or I will.” He grinned, but Seth had already turned his gaze on him. “Whoa, buddy!” He laughed hard. “Our boy Seth has it bad.”

  “Go,” the big guy said and I assumed he was the chief, “but I don’t want to hear anything more out of you about us old married saps.”

  Seth shook his head. “I never say anything about married people.”

  He squinted. “Maybe not. Go.”

  Seth took my hand and tugged me to follow behind him, but I quickly grabbed his cup of coffee from one of the bumpers before we went up the narrow, musky concrete stairway. He took me up two flights of stairs to a room full of beds. This was where he’d be sleeping tonight. I stopped my inspection and turned, expecting to find him standing there, but instead he was sitting on one of the beds—his bed I assumed—his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees.

  I’d never felt so guilty than in that moment.

  He looked up sharply. “What? Why would you feel guilty?”

  My neck burned pink. Oh…he was upset about Harper, not me. Yikes. I was walking into one spectacular blunder after another. I looked at the floor for a second but quickly remembered my pep talk to myself. I was going to fight for him. Even if he didn’t want to be fought for. I remembered what that felt like.

  I smiled as best as I could as I lifted his cup. “I brought you a coffee, black.”

  He shook his head back and forth, looking angry and confused, pissed and just—ornery.

  I was failing epically at operation fight for us, mission one.

  My mouth opened to explain, to apologize, to…something, but he stood and came my way. I got nothing from him, not an emotion, a thought, a fear, anger, nothing. Just that look that made me think that it was a horrible, horrible mistake to come—

  His hand wrapped around the back of my neck gently but his mouth slammed on mine so forcefully the coffee fell from my fingers. I heard the splash, felt it on my boots and tights, but had not a care for those things as his lips slanted over mine, his other arm wrapped around my waist so tightly that if I wanted to gasp it wouldn’t have been impossible. His thighs were touching mine and his chest was already puffing with reckless breath.

  He released my neck to instead tangle his hand in my hair, letting his fingers get caught and tugging a little, before letting them slip down to my shoulder and starting all over again.

  And his mouth—wars could be fought and won with it, with all the ways he was conquering me with his tongue and lips. His lips changed my world, they upset the order of everything I knew.

  He groaned a little and I realized he was listening to every word. You’re making me insane, Ave. He breathed out against my lips. How could you think for one second that any of this was about her?

  He pulled back to get my answer, but I was having none. I turned us and pushed his chest until his back hit the wall a couple feet away. He grunted with the force and, to his credit, I felt his first smile of the night against my kiss.

  Daggum, Ava.

  With his satisfaction at my aggression pulsing through me, I reached up on my toes, feeling his legs spread apart to make him shorter so I could reach him better, and gripped his hair with both hands as I opened my mouth and tugged him close. The noise he made, I’d never heard him make before. My pulse banged away. I loved knowing that he could feel every beat in his chest, a rhythm just for us, a rhythm no one else could hear.

  And since we were so worked up, I could feel his in my chest, too, and didn’t even have to try. I soaked all that in as I moved away from his lips, which earned me a protest as he tried to chase my lips, just before I took a trip to the spot under his ear. I’d wondered what it tasted like and now seemed like a good a time as any to find out. Once I kissed that spot, there were no more grunts of protests. He gripped my hips—to keep me there, to keep me still, to keep me from crawling any closer?

  “Ava,” he breathed, “is this my punishment? Death by torture?”

  I smiled against his skin. “Maybe.”

  I moved under his chin to that little scar there and paused. He tensed a little, but held still for me and then moved his chin toward my mouth in such a minuscule way, I barely noticed. I kissed it just once, not knowing what this scar was, where it came from, but knowing that it meant something to him and I didn’t want to go somewhere he wasn’t ready to take me yet.

  Then I slowly moved down to the hollow of his neck, where I learned he was the softest, and the side of his neck, where I learned he smelled the best. He moaned and gripped my hips tighter.

  “I’m happy to die a tortured man if that’s what you want, but if not, then you’ve got to stop.”

  I lifted my head and he took my lips in an instant, switching places with me, pressing me to the wall and cupping my face with both hands as he devoured my lips. And then the torture really began when he left my lips, refusing to meet my eyes, and started to kiss every inch of skin from my lips from one ear to the other. His arm banded around my lower back and he crushed me to him. I could do nothing but hold on for the ride and remember.

  To.

  Breathe.

  Which was embarrassingly loud in his ear, I was sure. Finally, I could stand the torture no more and dragged his mouth back to mine by gripping his collar, but could barely breathe at all at that point. He pulled back and laid his forehead against mine, his own breathing out of control. He didn’t waste any time.

  “I’ve been in agony, unable to do anything but think about you. I thought I was going to have to grovel, and do a lot of it. I was prepared to, wanted to, whatever it took to get us back to where we were. But then you shock the hell out of me by showing up here when I was on my way to come see you.” I felt my eyebrows raise and my heartbeat speed up. He took my face in his hands as he smiled just a little to match mine. “When I was on my way to beg you to forgive me for being a jerk.”

  I shook my head. “No, I—”

  “No,” he
soothed, his thumbs moving on my cheeks. “Let me take this one, Ava.”

  “Seth, wait. Listen.” His brow bunched. “If you had grown up around our kind, other than the Watsons, and knew all our traditions and things, then I could expect you to know things and do them. But you didn’t, and I keep expecting you to just…” I threw my hands at my sides a little in exasperation, but he still held my face, refusing to let me go, “know everything. You’re so good at this and it makes me forget that you’re…human.”

  He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Barely.”

  “But you’re my human.” His eyes shot to mine. “And I wanted to come here to tell you that I’m sorry that I didn’t fight hard enough.” He opened his mouth to speak and I put my fingers over them. “You’ve fought so hard for me, from the very beginning. The very first thing I did was run away from you, and the very first thing you did was tell me you’d wait for me as long as it took.” He sighed against my fingers, closing his eyes and then opening them. “I’m done, Seth.” He stared. “I’m done not fighting for us. I’m done not trusting, I’m done not believing, I’m done with anything that’s not right here.” I tugged him closer, moving my fingers from his lips before I kissed them.

  He tugged me to him hard. I opened up my mind, willing to hear anything he wanted me to. He was truly happy. Utterly contented. So relieved.

  He had been coming to me, regardless of what his chief said. He would have been coming earlier and he probably would have been at my house before I even had a chance to leave to come see him if Harper hadn’t shown up.

  Discord with me hurt him so badly, he could barely breathe or think when we were apart.

  We parted to breathe and I kept my hand on his neck because the hum of his skin was becoming so addicting.

  “I wanted to ask you to marry me,” he blurted.

  My breath didn’t exist anymore but I heard myself mumble, “W-what did you say?”

  He smiled, the smug, cute bastard. “I was so blind-sided because I wasn’t aware of the tradition. When my family gets married, they usually just do it, go to the justice of the peace or sometimes have a little backyard wedding. It’s never a big deal and I never really thought about how much time had passed. I never thought that there was a Virtuoso tradition to hurry things along, but it does make sense.” He chuckled. “I just…when I thought about the girl I was going to meet one day, there was always a proposal in the mix. And a big wedding. With how romantic and sappy our kind is, it’s just kind of strange to me that they skip that part.”