Chapter 15 - Tangled Desires

I gave a head shake.


"Evan was your best friend in the village; he was younger than you, but somehow he was always more mature. He made sure you weren't foolish like you usually were and kept you safe.


"How could I not remember him? Why wasn't his back? The majority of my memories were. When I saw him at Akbur Hills, he told me that my father was still alive."


"I can see why Damon was furious with you when you ran off. She combed my hair back and looked at my damaged neck. "You cannot defy him again."

Her motherly, disapproving touch made me cringe and shrink. "If he can hurt you this badly for pleasure, just think of what he can do when his true intention is to hurt you," she said.


When Damon came back later that evening, I was lying on the bed. I had just learned about the library's existence and was reading The Nature of the Beast, a novel about the history of werewolves. He hardly looked at me as he undressed in front of me, his cologne of cigarettes and alcohol returning. I made an effort to look away from his toned chest and the light brown hairs that adorned his ripped abdomen.

I bit my lip when he was fully nude, wishing instead that it was his thick, lengthy shaft facing me instead of his flawlessly toned behind. His broad back quivered as he reached for something in the closet. At this point, his hair was long enough to hang nicely over his shoulders.
Damon looked around and saw me gazing, so I flinched a little too smoothly, and the book tumbled off my knees where it had been resting and onto the floor. A mischievous smile played at the corners of his lips as I rushed to take it up.


"You haven't learned your lesson yet, huh?"


"What?" I growled, trying not to show off my desire for death.


He approached me, his nude body enveloping me. I kept my distance from his lower abdomen, letting him know that I did not feel threatened.
His face was now leaning on mine.

"No matter how much I mistreat and abuse you, you still desire and lust for me," he said.


His finger grazed my neck gently at first, then applied pressure to the bruise. When I let out a painful groan, he straightened up and said, "You mortals are pathetic."


I forced myself to stop crying, and as he vanished into the toilet, I promised myself that I would never fall in love with Damon the way Emily had fallen in love with his violent father.
Emily would suffer for all of eternity because she was helpless and innocent; unlike me, she wasn't a fighter. I vowed never to be in danger of the same outcome again.


Damon put on boxers instead of the towel across his waist as he left the loo.


He was drying his hair and said, "Tomorrow we have a party to attend."


"What?" It nearly made me wonder if I had heard accurately.


"It's time for you to meet the rest of the pack council; they are throwing me a mating ceremony tomorrow night."


"Why do you want me there?"


"Your mate is the alpha." Were you really under the impression that you wouldn't have to meet the other pack members and their mates?


"How can I refuse to meet the rest of your vicious wolf friends?" I asked myself as I sat up, picturing Luke's expressionless face while his alpha beheaded someone at his knees.


"You don't have much of a say."


"I'm not going."


"Then you will share the same fate as the vampire."


That instantly silenced me.
He was aware of it. He knew the entire time that I had watched him murder that vampire and disobeyed him once more.That night, Damon went to bed, but I stayed up, attempting to imagine what the night after tomorrow might hold.


When the morning finally came, Damon had vanished as usual. Though I was dying to pick up the phone and talk to Evan again, Maria did not take her eyes off of me. I knew that tonight would be my mating ritual.


"The celebration is scheduled to be tonight at 8:00 p.m. in the Pack Gala House. At five, we will need to begin preparing."

I thought it was crazy to spend three hours getting ready. I returned to the library after lunch and breakfast. By the afternoon, I had read the entire book and was looking for a new one. A part of me also hoped to find another abandoned landline. It seemed like nobody ever entered the library, not even for a dusting. If fortune would be on my side just this time and grant me a phone, this would be a secure area for me to speak with Evan.

I discovered a box with an old leather exterior that was fastened with metal shackles in the brief period between three and four p.m. When I shook the box, I heard the sound of something inside. Shortly after Tessa's brief visit, I returned it to its original location—between two more leather books.

Later, when five o'clock rolled around, I realized that Maria might start looking for me if I didn't find her quickly. After quickly returning to my room, I grabbed my new book, Half-Blood DNA and Why It's Superior to Pure Blood.
It turned out that Maria was indeed there, stumbling over garments that were hanging on a rolling wardrobe.