I gave him what I was sure was a sad smile and shook my head. “I can’t do this right now, Aidan. With my dad and the cougars and everything … I just can’t. I’ve appointed Erika as my beta. She’ll spread the word about what happened or you can get Dom to do it. But please, work through her for now. I need some space.”
He let his scent trickle out, just a soft brush, and I stood stiff, wishing he would stop. He must have noticed my effort not to throw myself at him, because he smiled … a little, and he pulled it back instantly. Jared took my hand, and Beck took the other, and I let them, thankful for the support, and as I left, I couldn’t stop the tears from finally breaking through and trailing down my cheeks.
CHAPTER 36
~ AIDAN ~
I followed the scent of almonds and fruit punch and mouthwatering power around the large log house and into the backyard. The air was brisk, but I didn’t mind it. It was refreshing, and helped alleviate some of the nervous sweat that beaded along my forehead. I jammed my hands in my front pockets and kept my head down, as I made my way across the grass to where she lay, staring up at the sky.
I hadn’t seen Jade in two days. She needed space, and I’d been determined to give her that, but two days … it felt more like a year. She wouldn’t even accept my phone calls. Text messages were all I got, and they were only status updates on the progress of tracking the cougars.
I pulled in another deep breath and my heart thudded wildly in my chest. I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but I had figured her scent would have changed by now. From what Beck had relayed back to me, Jared had moved in, or maybe not officially moved in, but he hadn’t gone home since she claimed alpha status. But her scent was the same, unclaimed and perfect.
I stopped a few feet away, watching her for a moment. Her dark hair covered the grass like a fan around her head, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she pulled in deep breaths. She knew I was there, she was breathing me in, and it killed me that she forced herself to pretend I wasn’t.
You did this and you deserve it. I knew it was true. I’d driven her away. I’d caused this, but it didn’t change how much I still wanted her. She was my mate, or should be. My perfect match in every way, and I’d ruined it.
Her muscles had toned up. The black yoga pants that clung to her hips and thighs revealed the firm skin underneath. She had the sleeves of her plum hoodie pushed up to her elbows, showing the tight and lean muscles of her forearms. She was breathtaking. The most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on.
The wind picked up, bringing her scent right to me, and my skin heated and tingled. I drank it in, savoring every breath. My inner-wolf scrambled in my stomach, begging me to move closer. It wanted her just as much as I did, and it was torture staying away. I pulled in another deep, calming breath and closed the last few feet between us, lying down beside her in the cool grass.
“That one looks like an ice-cream cone.” I pointed up to the sky, letting my finger trail along the sharpened point of the cloudy cone, and the rounded top.
“Go away,” she said, tensing but not moving from her place beside me. I probably should have just gotten up and left her alone, but I decided to take her not moving as an invitation to stay.
“I used to spend hours watching the clouds,” I said. “Always found it calming.” I pointed up to a thick gray cloud that looked like a ball of dirty fluff more than anything and said, “Cheeseburger.”
She sighed, a deep-bellied sigh. “What do you want, Aidan?” She sounded … tired. But I figured she probably was. From her short text messages, I knew she’d been training with Jared a lot, learning how to fight and use her scent as an advantage.
“That one’s spaghetti and meatballs. And that one there, it looks like a loaf of bread,” I said, ignoring her question, not because I didn’t want to answer, but because I didn’t know how to.
“They all look like food?” she asked with a laugh. It was a musical sound, and it made my heart leap and my inner-wolf stir in my chest. My breath caught, and I swallowed hard.
“It’s subliminal messaging,” I said. My voice hitched, and I cleared my throat. “I figure if they all look like food, you’ll get hungry and won’t be able to say no when I ask you to come with me for dinner.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and I tilted my head to look at her. Her typically soft features were tense, her jaw tight and clenched. “Not happening,” she finally said.
I’d expected the rejection, but even knowing it would happen, it didn’t hurt any less. “Is Jared really living here?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice was a bit airy as she let her pent-up breath out with the word.
I rolled onto my side, resting up on my elbow, and I traced the twitching line of her jaw. She glanced at me, her eyes shimmering with tears, and she leaned into my hand. “You deserve better than him, Jade.”
“Aidan, don’t do this,” she whispered, as she rubbed her cheek against my palm.
Her inner-wolf was craving me, I thought, surprised that she was rubbing against me. It gave me a small ounce of hope, but there was also a pleading note to her voice that crushed my heart all at once.
“Hey, little girl, you ready?” Jared said, and she jumped away from my touch.
Jade flushed bright red. “Just give me a sec,” she said, looking up at Jared with what could only be guilt. She sat up, glancing back at the house, and then quickly locked her eyes on him. She smiled the kind of bright sunshine smile she used to give me.
“Sure, kitten,” Jared said in a husky voice. He crouched down in front of her. His hand snaked out, wrapping around the back of her neck, and he pulled her into him. And she let him. She even looked … happy about it … eager. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t, and I watched as he crushed his lips against hers. It was a possessive kind of kiss, one that made my blood boil, and adrenaline rush through my veins. There was nothing sensual about it. But then, I was sure it wasn’t meant to be. Jared was marking his territory, attempting to give me a clear sign that she was no longer on the market, and it took every ounce of willpower I had, to not pull him off her and snap his neck.
He broke the kiss as abruptly as he started it, and stood back up. His eyes flared as they settled on her, and then he smirked at me. I fought the urge to growl, and let my scent loose on him. I wanted to see him crumble at my feet, and inflict as much pain on him as I could. Jared chuckled and gave me a knowing kind of look, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to do before he glanced back at Jade. “Don’t be long,” he said, and then he turned and walked away.
Jade watched him walk with a soft smile on her face, and that smile hurt more than watching the kiss. It was … contentment. She looked happy. I should have been okay with that. She deserved happy after what I put her through, but I figured I wasn’t that good of a person, because the last thing I felt was okay with it.
“Jade?” I said, pulling her attention away from Jared’s backside.
She looked at me, and her smile disappeared almost instantly. “Yeah?”
“Would you have fought?” I asked. I dreaded the answer. I wasn’t really sure if I could handle it, but I had to know. “Did I ever have a chance?” Do I still have a chance to make this right? I wondered, unable to voice the last question.
She smiled a little. “Yeah, I think I would have.” She rolled up to her feet then and glanced at Jared leaning against a tree at the edge of the forest. “I’ve got to go.”
“Jade,” I called, a little desperately, as she started to walk away. This wasn’t going as I had hoped, although I had to admit, it was better than I expected. She turned back; her face was blank — emotionless — as she waited to hear what I had to say. “I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’m really sorry.”
“I know, Aidan,” she said with a smile that didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes, and then she turned away from me. She took a few steps, and then glanced over her shoulder. “My dad called this morning. He’ll be home in two days.??
?
~ JADE ~
Jared watched me cross the backyard and it took everything I had not to lash out at him. What the hell did he think he was doing kissing me like that? Or better yet, kissing me at all? It was degrading, and overly wrong. What was it with these stupid dogs that made them feel the need to treat everything like a possession? I’d be damned if I was going to be part of a pissing contest between the two of them.
Sure, my mom had been watching from the window, but a smile or a peck on the cheek would have been more than enough to keep her thinking we were together. The fact that he’d been sleeping in my room (on the floor) for the last two days was more than enough as it was.
I could feel Aidan watching me and his eyes trailing along my back was the only thing that kept me from attacking Jared. I desperately wanted to turn back and tell Aidan that none of this was what it looked like. I wanted to beg him to believe that it was all an act for my mother’s benefit and tell him it was all part of the plan to deal with my father. But I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to fall into his arms, and tell him everything, I couldn’t. Not yet. He had to believe the act as much as everyone else did. It was the only way we’d be able to beat my dad at his own game. The less people that knew, the less likely my dad would be to pick up on it. As he said in the video, I was Aidan’s weakness, and I was beginning to believe it. Right now, Aidan needed to be strong, and when he was near me, he wasn’t. When he was with me, he was lost and confused and hopeful, focusing on fixing us instead of dealing with my dad and the cougars. And right now, I needed him to be strong. But not just me, the pack needed him to be strong.
Seeing him again was harder than I thought it would be. I had trained with Jared every waking minute for the last two days, just to avoid him. My body ached everywhere, and I was exhausted, but having Aidan lying beside me for those few minutes, gave me more energy than I knew what to do with. My body was alive, my skin sparking, and my inner-wolf did summersaults in my stomach, begging me to go back to him.
I stopped in front of Jared, and glared at him fiercely with my hands on my hips. He chuckled, and reached out a hand, caressing my face. “You okay?” he asked, and then dropped his voice to a whisper, “We still have an audience.”
“Nope, not really,” I said through gritted teeth, but I forced myself to lean into his touch. The hardest part about letting Jared touch me was the simple fact that my inner-wolf responded to him just as much as it responded to Aidan.
It was a different feeling with Jared, though. Wilder. Reckless. It made my heart thump, and my body come alive in an entirely different way, and I hated it. I despised how he made me feel. I loathed the way he spoke to me. And it made me sick that at times I wondered what it would be like to just let myself go, and become his mate. The thing that stopped me, though, was the lack of birds in my belly. Jared only spoke to my inner-wolf, but Aidan … Aidan spoke to my human heart as well. He made me feel … alive. Alive in a complete and utterly perfect kind of way.
He chuckled. It was infuriating, and I bit back a slew of nasty words I wanted to spit at him. “Wow, I never thought I’d see the day that a werewolf would make your heart go thumpaty-thump.”
“Me neither,” I snapped with a frustrated huff, banishing the thoughts from my mind. I glanced over my shoulder then, seeking out the person that had put me in this position. Aidan still sat on the grass, watching, with an utterly blank look on his face.
“Come on, kitten,” Jared said and pushed off from the tree. He slung an arm over my shoulder and he led me into the forest.
I let him. I didn’t have much of a choice until we figured out how deep my mom was in all of this. So, I snuggled into him, wrapping my arm around his waist, as we walked the trail.
As soon as we rounded the bend in the trail, and were out of sight, I said, “Seriously, you have to stop calling me kitten, and news flash — you and me are never going to happen.” I shrugged off his arm, and cut him a sideways glare. “And if you pull that kissing crap again, I’ll kill you myself. It’s bad enough that I have to lie to him and make him think we’re together. You don’t need to rub it in his face.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said with a wink. “I think you’re warming up to me. Oh, and it’s not just us today. Beck and I thought it’d be fun to see if you could stand up to both of us.”
“Bring it on,” I said, stifling the groan. My whole body ached from yesterday, but I’d be damned if I was going to admit it. And in all honesty, I knew it would be a good distraction. It would give me something else to think about other than Aidan and Jared and how crazy they were making me, and my inner-wolf. I smirked. “I can’t wait to kick your asses.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashley Stoyanoff, the award winning author of The Soul’s Mark: FOUND, lives in Whitby, Ontario and loves diving into the magical world of creating fiction. When not writing, she can be found reading sappy novels, watching cheesy chick flicks, and buying far too many clothes.
Connect with Ashley Stoyanoff online:
www.ashleystoyanoff.com
www.facebook.com/AshleyStoyanoffTheSoulsMark
www.goodreads.com/ashley_stoyanoff
Read on for a preview of Ashley Stoyanoff’s award winning novel, The Soul’s Mark: FOUND, Book 1 of The Soul’s Mark Series.
PROLOGUE
Salem, Massachusetts, 1692
Racing through the dense woodland, a heavy cloud of smoke billowed upwards, cresting above the herbaceous border and confirming his soundless fears. Still miles away, he could already smell the pungent curdling of her blood as it began to boil, and the vile stench of searing flesh. Undeniably, the firestorm was spreading, and he struggled to drive out the image of the flames reaching up her body.
He cursed his heightened senses, wishing he could block out the ruthless chanting, “Burn the Witch!” The unyielding voices only helped his psyche run wild, and the graphic image of her tied to a post and set ablaze etched itself in his vision.
Her fear consumed him, rupturing their bond like a sudden cloudburst, and his body threatened to surrender to the inevitable fate marked for his soul. Regardless, the chain around his heart yanked him forwards. You need to save her, he told himself over and over, battling his body’s attempts to give up and abandon the rescue. He pushed on, raw adrenaline propelling him forward. But even with the unparalleled velocity and power of a vampire, his limbs would not move fast enough.
The smoke cloud rose mercilessly, thick and black and punctuated by the sparks of glowing embers as he broke into the clearing at Salem Commons. A mob of several hundred onlookers cheered for her execution. He watched in horror as they tossed books, chairs, and brush onto the fire that was licking up her dress.
Their eyes met, and the look of pure hatred that contorted her face was agonizing. His knees buckled, and he plunged to the ground. He focused all of his energy on pulling her spirit to him but it was futile: no matter what he tried, she would not let him ease her pain.
The congregation’s savage chanting became deafening. The flames licked at her cheeks, and her long, curly locks were set ablaze, melting and sparking, but she did not howl from the pain. Silently, her gray-blue eyes remained fixed on his, and flared with accusation. At that moment, he knew without a doubt that she blamed him, solely and entirely, for her cold-blooded death sentence.
His tortured wails were scarcely heard over the fevered roars of the mob. He watched, powerless, as one of the very few things that could kill him—the blazing inferno—devoured her body and his soul, turning her into nothing more than ash.
CHAPTER 1
The Greyhound bus pulled into the Willowberg station with a sucking pneumatic hiss. Amelia Caldwell shuddered as the driver announced the arrival and wondered if she could just stay on the bus. She hated moving. And she really hated change. It seemed as if that was all she had ever done.
On the ten-hour ride, she had almost convinced herself that this time would be different. This time she would make
friends. She would not be the sad girl who lost her parents or the girl that no one wanted. No one would know her story; she could just start over. A clean slate. But now that the doors clicked open and she was actually here, her resolve was fading fast.
Amelia wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at her lap, hugging tightly and trying to stop the trembles that vibrated through her. She could feel the other passengers staring at her as they retrieved their belongings and made their way off the bus. People always seemed to stare.
She never really understood why she couldn’t just blend into the crowd. At five foot four, she wasn’t tall. With a slim figure, curly brown hair and blue-gray eyes, she felt average. Definitely not eye-catching. But there was just something about her, something she did not understand that made people notice her. It was like they just couldn’t help but stare.
Amelia kept her head down, waiting for the other passengers to leave. It’s not fair, a voice in her head bellowed. It was supposed to be different this time, better somehow. Her eyes burned, she was shaking, and she knew she was going to cry.
Willowberg was supposed to be her new start at life. Despite all her fears of moving, she had been so sure that she was making the right decision. It had seemed like a dream come true. A full scholarship, housing arranged and paid for, and the University of Willowberg was even providing a basic living allowance so that she wouldn’t have to work.
Amelia sighed, scrubbing furiously at her puffy, pink eyes. Gulping down a few breaths, she wondered why she had accepted the scholarship. Especially after she found out she would be living off campus, in a house with roommates. If they didn’t like her, just as she knew they wouldn’t, she would be alone. Completely alone. There would not be dorm advisors that would have to be nice to her or other nerdy girls to study with. It would just be her and the roommates who thought she was a freak.