The Awakening: Liam (Entangled Covet) (16 page)

would have chewed their heads off. “Seriously, is Jaylin around?”

“I’m in the living room, Liam,” came a feminine voice from inside.

He looked at Aidan. “I need to talk to her and grab a couple of things.”

“No worries. You want me to make myself scarce?”

Liam clapped him on the shoulder. “Nope. The curiosity would kill you if you weren’t in the room.”

When he entered the cabin, he saw Jaylin standing before the leather couch with her game face on. She

studied him, arms crossed, brows knitted together. Without preamble, she said, “You kissed her.”

Geez, did he really look
that
different? “Yeah.”

“And from the way you’re now carrying yourself, she kissed you back.”

“Yes.”

“Yet you’re here, wanting answers. Did she reject you again?”

Liam’s shocked gaze turned to Aidan, who had sat down in an armchair in the corner. “How the hell

does she do that?”

He lifted his arms in the air, an amused expression on his face. “Annoying, isn’t it? She drove me mad

with that crap the entire time I pursued her. I’ve since deemed her Miss Know-It-All.”

Worried he was about to start a fight, he glanced back at Jaylin, but her lips were tilted in humor. “It’s

an easy deduction, my love. Liam wouldn’t be here unless he was worried about being
Dserted
again. The

only reason he would be worried is if his mate was pushing him away again.” She looked at Liam. “Am I

close?”

“Pretty spot on.”

Seriousness came over her face. “Liam, sit down.”

Ah hell, this wasn’t good. But he sat on the couch, anyway, and waited for her to take her place beside

him.

“I know a little about what happened from what Brit told Aidan. I know you and Ava were held

captive. I assume that is when you kissed.”

“Yes. And afterwards, I felt different. Why?”

“Just as the kiss awakens the
Drall
in a shifter, a kiss from a rejected shifter’s mate can lull a
Dserted

shifter’s
Fewshon
. If she had fought the kiss, we’d be dealing with a different ballgame. But Brit said you

shifted, therefore you’re reconnected to your beast, and that she gave her kiss willingly, which means

you’re back to normal…for now.”

“For now?”

She ignored the question. “What kind of contact are you having with her?”

“I’m sleeping on her front porch. She’s trying to make me leave, but I’m refusing.”

“She’s trying to make you leave? So she doesn’t have herself shut up in the house, but is having heated

interactions with you?”

Not the kind of heated interactions he would like, but… “So far, yes.”

“That’s good.”

“No, it sucks, but why do you think that’s good?”

“Most exchanges with a mate after a
Dserted
shifter is re-kissed by his mate help keep the rejection

from forming again.”

“So, as long as we keep fighting, I’ll be fine?”

Jaylin grimaced. “That’s not exactly what I said. I said
most
exchanges. It will depend on the type of

exchange you are having with her. This kiss has given you a temporary reprieve from the
Dsershon
, but she

is
trying to reject you again. Think of the contact you have with her as nothing more than a compression to

a severed artery. Once that compression is released, you’ll bleed out.”

“What the hell are you saying, Jaylin?”

“This is only a temporary fix. If she makes you
believe
the rejection, you’ll be
Dserted
again.”

“Okay.” He inhaled deeply and released it. “The first time, it took a few months for me to really get into

the grip of
Dsershon
, so that gives me some time to change her mind. Right?”

A sad smile came to Jaylin’s lips. “No. You don’t understand. This will be your second bout with

Dsershon
. There won’t be any build-up like last time.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Liam,

you’ll go into an instant
Bahrraj
episode.
Instant
. You need to prepare for that and put everything you’ve

learned into action.”

Horrified at what he was hearing, he yanked his hand from hers. “Instant? Do you mean Ava could

potentially see me that way?”

She held his gaze and nodded. “You need to be very careful. I’m not going to tell you not to pursue this,

since a reunion with your mate is the only cure for
Dsershon
, but it is also very dangerous, and you could

lose every bit of the progress you’ve made. How much does Ava know about what you’ve been through

since she left?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe it’s time to tell her.”

“Have you lost your mind? I never want her to know what happened to me.”

“Liam, pride isn’t going to help you here. She needs to know.”

He sprang up on unsteady legs. No. Ava would never learn how he’d stopped living. How when she

died, he would, too. It was bad enough she already knew he could feel her death. He sure as fuck didn’t

want her knowing she’d leave him here on this planet as a living breathing, carcass of a person. Hell, no. He

didn’t want her to want him simply out of pity, out of some self-righteous sense of obligation. He wanted

her to want him because she loved him, to come back because she couldn’t live without him.

“I’m ready to go,” he said to Brit, who stood there with a stunned expression on his face.

Not waiting for a reply, he strode out and climbed in the jeep. A few minutes later Brit came out with a

duffle bag and tossed it in the backseat.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

His friend only nodded, tension radiating from him, but he remained silent on the drive back to Ava’s,

and Liam was thankful for that. He had a lot to process.

But one thing was clear, he had to make Ava love him again.

The sooner the better.

When they pulled up, she was standing on the porch talking to Val. She turned her head in their

direction, a scowl on her face, before she hobbled across the yard. Even with the crutches he saw the

determination in her approach. When she reached him, she poked him hard in the chest. “Where in the
hell

have you been?”

The anger vibrating in her voice swept away all the feelings from the bad news he’d received.
She’d

been worried
. His beast hummed in pleasure. At her concern, he pressed his lips together to suppress a

thrilled smile, and almost lost that ability when Brit mumbled low enough that only Liam could hear,

“Seems someone missed you.”

Liam leaned a hip against the front of the Jeep and crossed his arms. “I had some work I needed to get.”

She looked in the backseat and saw his toolbox. “Oh. Well, don’t do a disappearing act again without

telling someone where you’re going. Detective Calhoun didn’t even know where you were. We were about

to call in reinforcements.”

She could make it sound like it was because they were all worried, but he knew the truth. She was the

one who really cared.

“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to use your garage.”

“Don’t you have a workshop?”

He lifted a brow. “Your reception just now made me think you want me here.”

Her gaze darted around, and she threw her shoulders back, thrusting her chin high in the air. In a louder

voice, she said, “Stop reading into everything I do, Liam. You disappeared. We didn’t know where you

were. I don’t care where you go, just tell someone before you do.”

“Liar,” he whispered.

Her entire body shook before she spun around and toddled back into the house, the front door

slamming.

He couldn’t hold back the chuckle anymore. When he caught Brit watching him, he asked, “What?”

“So, that’s how it works.” Brit almost said it to himself, but the look of understanding couldn’t be

ignored. “Not a minute ago you were sitting in stony silence. Now you’re all light again. It really
is
her.”

“I tried to explain that to you last night. She gives me peace, Brit.”

But she was also the one who could sentence him to hell.

“Aidan says the same thing about Jaylin.”

“That’s because she does the same for him.”

“How can this instinct be so good and so damn bad at the same time? What I just heard from Jaylin is all

kinds of fucked up, Liam.”

“I guess there has to be some serious repercussions for something that’s supposed to last an eternity.”

“I guess. It still makes no fucking sense to me.”

“You won’t have to worry about it for sixteen more years.”

“Thank the High Council for that. The
Drall
really seems to be a huge pain in the ass.”

Liam chuckled again. “You won’t say that when you meet her.”

“No, I’ll just be consumed by a woman.” He shuddered. “The idea gives me hives. I like to spread the

love around. Don’t see why I have to be shackled to one woman when there are so many beautiful ones to

sample from.” Brit went back to the Jeep and lifted the toolbox from the back. “I hate to drop and run, but I

need to get some sleep. What are we doing with this?”

Liam grabbed the duffle bag. “The garage.”

After he stepped through the open bay of the attached two-car garage, he froze. All of his stuff was still

in there. Pushed up against the wall, but still, it was there. He walked around Ava’s red sedan and pulled

out the workbench he’d used while he was here. Another toolbox was behind it. And a pile of wood from a

project he’d worked on last summer.

She hadn’t thrown any of it away. Had she even remembered it was in here?

He doubted it. If she had, she would’ve found some excuse to keep him from coming back here, and

gotten rid of everything.

Brit walked in behind him, then whistled. “Now, that’s telling, isn’t it?” He slapped Liam on the

shoulder. “I’m pulling for you, man.” He looked back at the pile in the corner. “For both of you.”

…

Ava pressed closer to the door that led from inside the house to the garage. Liam had been filling the

house with memories for the last couple of hours, and she was close to breaking.

At first, the change in the air had been subtle. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table deciding on today’s

cafe lunch menu with Becky over the phone. They had just decided to offer Ava’s special chicken salad

croissant as the sandwich of the day, when the first whiff of sanded wood teased her nose. She’d stiffened,

but then closed her eyes and inhaled, as images so bittersweet they made her chest ache passed through her

mind.
Liam bent over the wood. The sander gripped in his hands. The muscles of his back and arms

flexing with each pass of the machine
...

The longer he sanded, the more the scent poured in from under the door and filled her living space,

filled her heart. She’d tried to escape the memories by forcing her concentration onto Becky’s

recommendation for the drink special—a caramel latte—when a new smell encircled her.

Scorched wood.

And just like that, she was caught in the past again, remembering Liam’s large hands wrapped around

the small wood burning instrument, the look of concentration that would come over his face as he

delicately burned a design into the grain, and the way his lips puckered as he blew away the blackened

pieces of etched-out timber. The smell—along with memories—was unbearable. And just when she didn’t

think she couldn’t handle another second of it, couldn’t respond to Becky with anything more than

murmured “
Hmm
,” he switched it again.

Varnish.

And a whole new set of images assaulted her. All of Liam. All of the loving way he manipulated the

wood. All making her wish she had the right to sit in the corner as she’d done on many occasions, watching

him work, just waiting for the moment he’d look up and wink at her with a crooked smile before returning

to his task.

She missed that intimacy. She missed him. Terribly.

She’d lied to him earlier. When she’d looked out her window and found him gone, she’d been terrified.

She had immediately called Detective Calhoun, only to be told by the woman that she hadn’t heard from

him, either. All Ava could think about was him back in the hands of the man who’d taken them. Images of

Liam drugged and strapped down, powerless to stop the maniac from inflicting the pain he had planned—

the thoughts had consumed her, and she’d felt the same desperation to save Liam as she did for her sister.

But to save one, meant the other would pay.

She wanted to keep everyone safe. Wanted them all to come out on the other side of this unscathed, but

she couldn’t decide how best to escape the evil threatening them when Liam was refusing her information

about himself. The key must be something about him, something the other shifter was obsessed with.

She’d tried to get Detective Calhoun to answer a few questions, but if they didn’t revolve around the

case, the woman hadn’t been interested in answering.

Any information was going to have to come from Liam himself.

What did she need to do to get him to open up?

That was only one of her current problems, though. Liam was safe for the moment. But Emma wasn’t.