The Awakening: Liam (Entangled Covet) (4 page)

ordered her to stay away from forever wasn’t a screw-up. It was a death sentence.

For her sister.

Tears pressed against the back of her eyes, and the last thread of her fortitude began to unravel.
No
. She

had to remain strong. The only way she’d be any help to Emma now was finding a way to escape. She

couldn’t let her fear for her sister break her.

Pushing back, she looked up at Liam’s face and again her heart tightened. This was the closest she’d

been to him in eight months, and even with the barrier between them, his strength and dominance flowed

over her.

As much as she wished he wasn’t here, his presence made her feel safer, gave her courage.

“You okay?” she read from his mouth.

“Yes.”

When he settled beside the glass, the side of his body pressed against the spot where hers did. His

fingers enticed her from where they lay on his knee. What she wouldn’t give to have those fingers curled

around hers. If only…

No reason to think of ‘if only.’ She’d made her choice eight months ago, and if she had to do it again,

she’d still choose Emma.

The sound of the steel door opening sliced through the heavy silence. The masked man walked in. Liam

sat straight up, bared his teeth.

She scooted back to the corner of her mat as her captor advanced on her.

“Stay the fuck away from her!” Liam’s deep voice slammed into her, and she gasped.

How could she suddenly hear him? The reason didn’t matter, his voice sounded wonderful, filled her

body and encased her heart. God, she’d missed his voice.

“Liam!” she yelled.

When he jerked back, his gaze flying to hers, she knew he’d heard her, too.

“Can you hear me?” he asked.

She nodded.

The man squatted at the edge of the mat, holding a Tupperware container between his knees. “I enjoyed

our game earlier. Thought you might’ve worked up an appetite, so I brought you some food.” After he

tossed the container by her knee, he turned his head toward Liam. “Like my surprise? You weren’t

expecting him were you?”

“H-how did you know we knew each other?”

“Me and Liam go way back. I’ve known about you for a long time, Ava. A lot of folks know about

you.” He dropped his voice, “You see, Liam has never played well with others.”

A buzzing entered her ears as her gaze darted over to Liam, who had stilled, staring at the man.

Never played well with others.

“I don’t know you, “Liam said.

“Not right now you don’t. I’m wearing a costume.” He snorted. “Can you believe him? Like I wanted

him to recognize me from the get-go. Where’s the fun in that? His list of enemies is so long, I could be

anyone
.” He inhaled sharply. “Oh, I know! Let’s play a game of guess who! Liam, you guess who I am, and

Ava, you guess what Liam did to get you in here. I’ll give you some time to stew over your first guesses.”

Without another word, he left the room. The bolt snapping into place sounded like a bomb going off.

The buzzing intensified.
Long list. Doesn’t play well with others.

Get you in here.

Her life had already been altered once because of a man who’d wanted her stay away from Liam. Had

hurt her sister to make sure she did so. Now she was being held captive by another man who knew Liam.

Who really was the man she’d fallen in love with?

Suddenly the partition wasn’t enough distance between them. She scooted further away.

“Ava, listen to me, I have
no
idea what he’s talking about. I don’t have any enemies.”

“H-how would I know that for sure? I don’t really know you, do I?”

“You know me.”

“There’s a whole part of you I don’t
know
or have you forgotten that?”

His lips pressed together in a tight line. Maybe that had been a low blow, but she still had a hard time

believing shapeshifters existed in her world. Let alone one “owned” her. That still rubbed her raw every

time she thought about it. Made her wish she hadn’t met him, no matter how in love she’d been with him.

At least then, she wouldn’t be trapped in this hell hole and her sister would be safe.

Liam flinched, and turned away from the glass. “Do you really regret our time together that much?”

“How…can you read my mind?”

Wait. Of course he couldn’t. Then he would know the truth.

“No.” When he faced her again, hurt shone deep in his eyes. “I
felt
your regret. And it wasn’t a wistful

I-hate-that-I-dumped-this-man regret. It was an I-wish-I’d-never-met-him regret. Was I such a horrible

choice to spend your life with?”

Dumbfounded by his confession, she shook her head. “Jesus, Liam, what did you do to me when you

put those marks on me?”

“Didn’t you hear the question I asked, Ava?” he asked softly. “Was I a horrible choice to spend your

life with?”

At one time, he’d been the perfect choice. Then danger had entered her life. “I’m stuck in here because

of you. How would you answer that question?”

A stab of remorse went through her as the color seeped out of his skin. “I don’t know what this is

about, Ava. I swear it.”

She wanted to believe him. The Liam she’d spent six months loving didn’t have a malicious bone in his

body, but that was before words like owning and shifting took on new meanings.

There was a long silence before Liam asked, “Why did you really leave, Ava?”

“Oh, we are
not
going to turn this around on me.”

“I have a right to know.”

“You mean the same way I had the right to know I was owned by you?” She lifted the hem of her

nightshirt to mid-thigh, spread one leg out to show the discolored circle on her inner thigh, then let the

gown fall back around her knees. “You put marks on me
without
my permission, Liam. I’m not the kind of

woman that just accepts that and moves on.”

“It’s instinct. I had no choice.”

“Instinct. Like an animal.”

He flinched. “Yes. Like an animal. If it’s any consolation, I hate that part of myself now. You made me

hate it, and I wish I could take back the marks.” He paused, jaw clenching. “Why were you so happy

yesterday morning, Ava?”

The magnitude of his connection to her hit her like a ton of bricks.

“How much can you feel of me, Liam?”

“At 12:37 this morning you died.”

Again she was struck dumb as her mind rebelled against what she was being told. How was any of this

possible? Everything he was saying was unimaginable. “B-but I didn’t. I thought I was dying, but I didn’t.”

“No, you died. You were completely gone from my body until you woke up in that room. It just

happened again when he dragged you out.”

“He injected me with something.”

Liam started pacing. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“Whoever captured us has to be a shifter, and he must know you
Dserted
me.”

Deserted. She hated the way that word sounded. But it was true. She had abandoned him. “Why would

me breaking up with you make a difference?”

He spun to face her, anger contorting his face. “No. You
Dserted
me, Ava.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

He nodded toward her leg. “Those marks bond me to you.” He stepped forward. “I told you those

marks meant I owned you out of desperation, because I knew you were going to reject me.”

“You
don’t
own me?”

“No,
you
own
me
.”

“What kind of twisted world do you live in? How are permanent marks on
my
body ownership over

you?”

“They bond me to you, making you a part of me.” He placed his hand over his heart. “I feel you. The

beat of your heart. The flow of your blood. And now your emotions.”

Dismayed, she cupped her hand over her mouth. “Oh God. W-what happened when you thought I

died?”

“You were just…gone.”

…

Liam rose to his feet and turned away from the horror on Ava’s face. There was so much more he could

tell her—the hell she’d put him through since she left him, what would happen to him when she truly died,

just how painfully she had been “gone” from his body, that he’d spent the last eight months battling

Dsershon,
a condition that had stripped him of his manhood.

Because of it, he’d become a pathetic jerk in need of constant supervision. No one knew when he’d

have a
Bahrraj
episode. Before he’d learned to control the episodes through therapy, his therapists had to

shock
him with a device called the
Splycer
to bring him back to this reality. He’d lost his connection with

his beast—the thing that made him what he was. He may not have much left, but he still had his damn

pride. She would never know what he’d been reduced to after she’d rejected him. He didn’t need her pity.

And didn’t want her guilt.

“What is
Dserted
?”

Cringing, he wished he’d never uttered the word, knowing she was hearing deserted, instead of

Dserted
. The spelling might be off by one letter, but the meaning behind the word was still the same,

though the effects of it were completely different to a shifter.

He turned back to look at her, and found her standing up, as well. “There are other ears listening. How

about we save this conversation for later?” he suggested.

“Oh, hell no. You just said this guy must know you’re a shifter and that I
Dserted
you. The words are

already out there.
You
started it. Now finish it. What. Is.
Dserted
?”

The stubborn tilt of her of her chin made him scowl. She could be such a pain in the ass when she

wanted to be. But at least she was standing toe-to-toe with him again and not moving away from him in fear

caused by a man’s false insinuations.“It’s exactly what I just said.”

“I may not be hip to your cool shifter lingo, Liam, so you could tell me anything and I would have to

take you at your word, but I can still tell when you’re lying to me.” She looked pointedly at his fingers.

Damn it. He fisted his hands to keep from flicking his fingers, his tell to when he was skirting around a

topic. “Drop it, Ava.”

When her eyes narrowed, he knew a pissed-off Ava storm was brewing. He had to give her something.

“All right. Fine. Do you know why shifters mark their mates so fast?”

“That’s not what I ask—”

“Do you want to know?”

She pressed her lips together in that this-conversation-is-so-not-over way she’d done so many times in

the past. “At least I’ll have an explanation for something, won’t I?”

Bitter sarcasm saturated her words. She was angry, and she had every right to be, but the topic of

Dsershon
was off-limits. “We mark so quickly to preserve our existence.”

“What?”

“Think about it. Have you ever told another human what I am?”

Her brows furrowed. “No. Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind.”

“Have you ever wondered why that is?”

“Not until this moment, no, but now I’m curious.”

“My mark makes you incapable of speaking about it, even by accident, to another human. It’s a way to

preserve our species. We can mate with humans. I don’t know why. It’d be a hell of a lot easier just to mate

with someone with our own genes, but it doesn’t work that way. A shifter has as much of a chance of

having a human as a mate as he does a half-shifter.”

“Half-shifter?”

“The females of our race.”

“Why are they considered half?”

“Because they don’t have a beast. They do not shift. But they do have special abilities.”

“Wow.” She lowered back onto the floor, staring off into the distance. “What kind of beast is it? Are

you all the same?”

“No. Our beasts come from a wide range of animals.”

“What is yours?”

Nope, they weren’t going to venture down that road of questioning. What if she wanted to see his beast

next? He hadn’t shifted since her rejection, and there was no way in hell he was going to explain to her why

he couldn’t shift and have
Dsershon
brought back into focus again. “That’s not a question I’m willing to

answer.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t share the most personal part of me with a woman who left me.”

The hurt that sparked in her eyes made his silently curse, but he’d take the hurt over pity any day.

She remained silent for a long time before she said, “Fair enough, but there’s so much I don’t know

about you. Things that are so hard to believe. If this guy problem is with you, why was I brought into it?”

The reminder that
he
was the reason she’d been taken, was being hurt, made him grind his teeth as

helpless rage filled him. The man could spout off anything he wanted, but Liam did not have any enemies,

and he sure as fuck didn’t associate with people who would use an innocent woman to extract revenge.

“I-I think he’s using you to torture me.”

“He hasn’t touched
you
.” Eyes wide, she smacked her hand to her mouth. “God, that sounded awful.

I’m so sorry, Liam. I don’t want him to hurt you. I-I don’t.”