Seduction (The Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (22 page)

However, chaining her to the platform had been a mean thing to do. I rarely had to chain the new Weres, but this was Aspen we were talking about and I knew her too well. If I hadn’t chained her and forced her to stay in the woods, she would have left the platform to seek me out and gotten herself lost in the woods.
 

Plus, then she never would have been able to make contact with her wolf that way. A wolf would only make contact with it’s Were under extreme pressure and duress. Which was why we abandoned the new Weres and left them with no food or water.

Of course, it normally didn’t take them as long to make contact as it had for Aspen. It seemed like the entire process of transformation had been more difficult for her than anyone I’d ever brought to the training camp. I wondered if that was because she had been turned as opposed to genetically predisposed?

When my wolf finally sensed hers and I’d rushed in to get her, I was overcome with fear. I don’t recall ever having felt such fear during my numerous military deployments.
 

I’d been a steely-eyed machine with an automatic weapon and a medical pack and had worked on dozens of good men in the field who’d never made it. But there was something about seeing Aspen lying lifeless like that. It just unnerved me to the core.
 

I shook my head, trying to clear it of the image of her lying so still on the ground next to the wooden platform. It was upsetting and reminded me of when I had probed her mind and watched her memories of the night Jude had attacked and let her blood drain out until she was seconds from death.
 

I looked down at Aspen and kissed the top of her sleeping head as I inhaled the scent that clung to her hair.

The woods after it rained
.
 

Gone were the disturbing images of her blue tinged lips and fingers. Instead, her lips were now pink and her cheeks rosy and healthy looking as she slept in my arms.

Blood bonding with Aspen had intensified my feelings for her and made me feel aggressively possessive towards her. She was
mine
and that little prick, Jude, was going to pay for what he’d done to her. I loved her so much. My mate. I would protect her and watch over her until my dying breath.
 

 
My mind was fully alert as we lay snuggled together in bed. Aspen hadn’t woken yet and was a boneless, curly haired mass, as she lay cradled with my right arm wrapped around her. I wanted to wake up like this with her every morning.

 
But unfortunately that would have to wait. Because now that Aspen’s wolf had finally made contact with her, it was time to move on the next step in training, which was controlling her emotions. But before I could do that, I had to provoke her and get her going to see what level of threat she posed to the pack.

I was not looking forward to this next step because it required me to really flex my Beta muscle and turn on the heavy-handed, dominant Were gene.
 

New Weres typically felt emotions more intensely than their human counterparts because they were feeling it from both their perspective and their wolf’s.
 

So, it could get pretty intense and overwhelming for the new Were and that is where I came in.

Specifically, it was the new Weres inability to handle anger appropriately that made them much too dangerous to live safely within the pack. New Weres were capable of pretty much anything when their anger was triggered. Aggression, physical violence. Hell, even murder was a possibility under the right circumstances.

I wanted to work on Aspen’s reaction towards anger first because it seemed to be the area that she had the least control over. I wasn’t worried though because all new Weres needed to work on their anger in varying degrees.
 

Every single one of them reacted poorly to anger and I was generally pretty good at getting inside their heads and pushing their buttons until they were mindless with rage.
 

The only difference this time was that I wasn’t going to enjoy it. I had always seen provoking the new Were’s anger as a means to an end and it always gave me a sense of accomplishment to finally see them resist and act out their anger in an appropriate manner.
 

But with Aspen it was different.
 

I had a direct line to her innermost thoughts and feelings and would have to be careful not to push her too hard. But if she refused to comply and raged out of control, then I would push her as hard as I had to in order to get the appropriate response out of her.

There was no going back now. Getting Aspen’s wolf to come through and make contact, was the most physically taxing part of Were training. And as miserable an experience as it had been, we weren’t done yet.

Now it was time for the mental and psychological aspect of Were training to begin and I had a sneaky suspicion that Aspen was going to hate this even more than being chained out in the woods by herself.
 

It was time to put on my dominant, mouthy, overbearing asshole game face. If Aspen didn’t hate me by the time we left the training camp, it would be a miracle.

Chapter 27

~Aspen~

Roan had been very withdrawn during breakfast, which worried me. Because that was exactly what he’d been like the morning when he’d left me in the woods.
 

Oh god, was he gearing up to bring me somewhere else and leave me there as part of this damn Were torture, err, training?

I tried to engage him in conversation several times while we ate, only to be shut down with his one or two word answers. He wouldn’t even look at me when he spoke but instead he’d read a hunting magazine as he ate.
 

Seriously?
 

It was kind of confusing after the intimacy we’d shared the night before. And again this morning before we’d even got out of bed.
 

But since we’d come downstairs for breakfast, I’d sensed a shift in his mood. There was a definite change in his demeanor. The only time he’d even bothered to look up from his magazine was to tell me to hurry up and finish eating.
 

I guess I felt kind of hurt and ticked off at the same time.
I mean, how dare he ignore me like this?
After the night we’d just spent together in bed, I deserved more than to be brushed off like this. I’d let him inside me, body and soul. Didn’t that entitle me to just a little bit of his attention?
 

Roan finished his coffee, put down his magazine and stared at me with narrowed eyes while I ate.
 

“What?” I said, feeling self conscious as he glared at me. But he gave no response, he just continued to watch me while I chewed my toast.
 

“What, Roan? What are staring at me for? Do I have something on my face,” I asked as I touched my face to check.

“No, I just can’t believe that you chew so loudly when you eat. It’s pretty disgusting,” he said as continued to stare at me with a repulsed look on his face.
 

Stunned, I continued to chew the bite of toast in my mouth, trying to chew slower and quieter as I reeled from his words.
 

“Don’t you think you’ve eaten enough?” he said as he continued to stare at me and shook his head in apparent disgust.
 

Without warning, he pushed away from the table. “I’ve lost my appetite, Aspen. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to go get ready for today’s training. I’ll meet you in the living room when you’re done stuffing your face.”
 

I watched him get up and leave the kitchen. My mouth was opened wide in shock as total confusion surged through me.
What the hell was that all about? Did I do something to offend him this morning?
 

As I sat and thought about it, nothing stood out.

At all.
 

We’d had mind-blowing sex the night before and then had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped protectively around me.
 

I could feel anger and embarrassment start to color my cheeks.
What the hell was his problem?
Just who in the hell did he think he was, speaking to me like that? No one spoke to me that way, especially not my own blood bound mate!
 

Fuming inside, I shoved my chair away from the table and stomped upstairs with the intention of confronting Roan at the forefront of my mind.
 

He was in the bedroom, bare-chested, and wearing a pair of worn jeans. He had picked out a black t-shirt from the drawer and was in the midst of pulling it over his head when I walked in. Like an idiot, I stood there and watched him get dressed, in complete awe that something so beautiful supposedly belonged to me.
 

He pulled the shirt down his chest and then ran his hand through his black, silky mussed up hair. He regarded me for a moment before turning away to put his boots on.
 

“Don’t stand there like an open mouthed idiot, what do you want Aspen?” he said as he sat on the bed and pulled on the first boot.
 

More insults, what the hell was wrong with him?

“Um, what exactly is your problem this morning anyway? All you’ve done is insult me. Why are you being like this?” I spat out.
 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Am I insulting you? Maybe I’m finally being truthful, have you ever thought of that? Maybe I’m finally being honest with you about how I truly feel about this
arrangement
,” he said, as he pulled on the second boot.
 

“What? What arrangement? Our blood bonding?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy with where this conversation was going.
 

Roan got up off the bed and walked past me to the bedroom door. Slamming it shut, he flipped the hinged lock attached to the back of the door.
Where had that lock come from?
I had never noticed a lock on the back of the door before. Then he took out a silver padlock from his jeans pocket and attached it to the lock on the back of the door.

“What are you doing? Why are you locking the door, Roan? I’m not sleeping with you if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said as I backed away from him.
 

“Sleep with you, why would I want to sleep with you? It’s been less than a month and I’ve already had my fill of what you’ve got to offer. Seriously, Aspen, you give it up so easily, it’s pathetic how desperate you are,” he said, his vicious words hanging in the air between us.
 

“You know, you’re lucky that Weres don’t get to choose their mates because I certainly never would have chosen you. Our mates are made aware to us and I seriously question whether a mistake was made between the two of us.”

I stood and stared at Roan, utterly dumfounded and wounded to the core by his sudden change in demeanor. I felt naked and exposed by his venomous words. They were the exact same words that played in my head when my insecurities about being Roan’s mate reared their ugly head. But to hear them come directly from Roan’s mouth was excruciatingly painful.

“You weren’t even the right age when we first met for fuck sake. You were just a kid. A skinny, little six old kid. You’re barely an adult now. Did you know that you’re not even my type? Did you know that, Aspen? I wanted a tall, slinky, dark haired sex kitten for a mate, not a five foot fuck all, curly haired, waif with daddy issues.”

I sucked in my breath as I searched Roan’s eyes, but they were two hard, unyielding pools of fiery blue aquamarine and offered me no clues.

“You son of a bitch, how dare you speak to me like I’m….like I’m…some tramp you picked up in a bar!” I said anger blinding my vision. “You looked after me and cared for me from the time I was a kid. I never asked to be your mate, Roan! I never asked for you to blood bond with me either. Those were your decisions, not mine. And now, that you’ve taken away my choices
and
my virginity, now you decide that you aren’t happy with me? Just who the hell do you think you are, Roan?” I screeched at him. I was quickly boiling over with rage so hot and thick that I could taste it on my tongue.
 

“I never asked for you to be my mate either, Aspen. A hot, dark haired nympho that sucks cock like a champ would have been more to my liking, not some virginal little girl who just lays there moaning “Oh please, oh please” whenever I stick my dick in her,” he said through narrowed eyes.
 

I wanted to hurt him. The urge to smash his cruel, beautiful face in was overtaking my higher brain function. I wanted to make him cry out in pain for saying such god-awful things to me.
 

“How could you do this to me, you fucking jerk, how could you, Roan? You used me!” I screamed as I advanced towards him.
 

“Yeah, pretty much,” he said, his body tense and waiting for me to strike.
 

There was no notice given when I cocked my fist back and punched him in the face with everything I had in me.
 

Roan quickly moved to the side but I still managed to catch him in the nose by complete accident and his head snapped back. I was one part shock and two parts perverse satisfaction when I saw a small trickle of blood run down from his nose to his lip.