Seduction (The Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (23 page)

 
“Too bad you’re not this feisty when my cock is in you, you little bitch,” Roan laughed sarcastically as he used the tail end of his t-shirt to wipe the blood from under his nose.
 

“I hate you, you asshole! How could you do this to me? I trusted you!” I said as tears threatened to spill over. But I would not cry. I wouldn’t allow myself. Not in front of him, at least. He didn’t deserve my tears.
 

For Roan, I only had howling rage and I threw myself at him again, slapping and hitting him.

“You hit like a sissy,” he said as he pushed me into the wall with his body. He grabbed my wrists and easily restrained me with one hand around my neck and the other around both my wrists. “Stop hitting me, little girl, or you may not like what I do to you in return” he said, his eyes dark and full of intensity.
 

“Fuck you, Roan!” I spat at him.
 

“Naw, thanks anyway. But I’ve had enough of fucking you to last me a lifetime. But I’ll tell you what, when we get back home, I’m going to get back together with Stacey and maybe you can have a threesome with us. She’s so much better in bed than you are, you could definitely learn something from her. She even takes it in the ass for me” he said. His voice was cold and mocking as he suddenly let go of me and crossed his arms.
 

I was flowing over.
 

I could not contain my rage any longer and it spilled over and consumed me until I was no longer in control of my faculties.
 

“Let me out, let me out of this fucking room Roan. I said let me out! Let me out! Let me out,” I screamed at him over and over again as he watched me with a smug expression on his face.

The air was tight in my lungs as I struggled to escape. I banged on the door, in a desperate bid to win my freedom.
 

I needed to get away from him.
 

Chapter 28

~Roan~

It had been two long, gut wrenching hours.

I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up for. I fervently prayed, for the hundredth time since I had locked the door, that she was ready to crack soon.
 

Aspen’s reaction to my provocation had been very interesting, to say the least. She’d yelled and screamed a lot, which was expected. But I really hadn’t expected her to rush at me and punch me in the nose.
 

She was pretty darn fast for such a short little girl.
 

I’d almost lost my composure and started laughing as I looked down at her with blood dripping from my nose. She’d really surprised me in her ferocity. I figured she’d try and lash out physically in some way, as that seemed to be the “go to” move for new Were’s, but I didn’t expect her to actually make contact and draw blood.
 

She was a feisty little spitfire, my girl was.
 

The bedroom was pretty much destroyed at this point. Everything she could get her little hands on to throw at me, was now smashed or resting in disarray on the floor. It kind of reminded me of when she’d had a hissy fit years ago on New Years Eve and trashed my room because she thought I was going out to get laid.
 

The only difference was, she couldn’t run away from me this time.
 

Right now, she was standing over by the door and she looked pretty desperate. Her body language was pleading with me to let her go. She had that wild “deer in the headlights” look about her as her eyes darted around the room as she looked for a way to get out and get away from me.
 

I had bowled her over completely with everything I’d said to her since I’d locked her in with me. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be and it had taken everything I’d had to keep going. I really had to dig down deep and draw on my strength as Beta to be so cruel and heartless to her.

In Aspen’s eyes, I was now a mean, heartless bastard that had run her over, backed up and run her over again.
 

Then rinsed and repeated for the past two hours.
 

I knew that I kind of had an unfair advantage with Aspen. Knowing her so intimately beforehand had allowed me to really get inside her head and give it to her with both barrels.
 

But it was my job.
 

And there was nothing that I could do to change the situation. My role as Beta here at the training camp was not to coddle her and be her mate, it was to push, assess and train her. It was imperative that I pick her brain and get her as riled up as I possibly could to see what threat level she would bring to the pack and the townspeople of Spruce Hollow during bouts of intense anger.
 

And I’d done just that.

I’d used absolutely everything I had at my disposal. Nothing was off limits. I brought up anything that I thought would get her going. Topics like: her biological parents, Valerie, her being my mate, blood bonding with her, her being too young and inexperienced for me, her not satisfying me in bed, her physical appearance and how I thought that she was too skinny and unattractive or my past relationships with other women.

Basically anything that I could think of that would hurt her enough to make her see red. Unfortunately, these were all things that hurt her feelings as well. I knew I would have one upset little girl to put back together after this was all done and over with.
 

None of what I’d said to her was true, of course, but she didn’t know that. I’d felt her trying to push into my head several times when I’d first locked the door, but I’d blocked her from sensing my thoughts.
 

However, my entire ruse had worked like a charm and she’d bought everything. Hook, line and sinker.
 

Still she’d been pretty spirited and had refused to back down from me, at least at first. But I was wearing her down now and she’d had enough. She was presently pacing the floor and trying to figure how to get the hell out of the bedroom.
 

It was a good thing that the doors were reinforced because she kind of went crazy for a while, screaming, banging and clawing to get out.
 

It would all be over soon, I could feel her resolve was dwindling. As soon as she showed me another emotion other than anger, then this goddamn test would be over and I could unlock the padlock and let her out.
 

But I had saved the biggest gun for the last and hoped that it would be enough to push her over the edge of anger and into sadness. My throat felt parched and dry as I geared up to spit the words out at her.

“Aspen, I don’t know what you want me to do. But, I don’t love you. I’ve never loved you. When I found out that you were my mate, I figured it must have been a mistake and that I’d eventually find my real mate. But the pack brought you to Spruce Hollow against my wishes. I’ve had to put up with you for the past fifteen years, but I can’t do this anymore. I’ve tried having sex with you, hoping that I would feel something. I’ve tried blood bonding with you but it didn’t change anything for me. I just don’t love you, Aspen and I never will.”
 

The look on her face was one of pure despair, masked by hatred.
Come on little girl, cry for me.
Cry so this can all be over and I can take you in my arms and make it all better.
 

“But..I love you Roan,” she whispered softly, her back to me as she faced the door. She was just killing me, this was so much easier to do with the other new Weres. I wasn’t emotionally invested in them, like I was with Aspen.
 

God, for the hundredth time since we’d been at the training camp, I wanted to kick myself in the ass for insisting to be the one to take her up here. I would succeed in training her, there was no doubt about that, but at what cost to our relationship?
 

Her eyes were enormous, as she turned and looked at me. They were full of so much pain as she searched my face for the truth.
 

Unfortunately, it was at that exact same moment that Fate chose to make Aspen’s pheromones suddenly kick into high gear again and my wolf started sniffing the air with intense interest.
Oh fuck, not again
. Not now! This couldn’t be happening right now!

“Stop it, you moron. I’m working here!” I hissed at my wolf.

I focused all my attention on blocking Aspen and her delicious scent out of my head. Desperately searching the room, I quickly decided to lay on the bed and put a pillow emblazoned with blue and yellow stars over my face to keep her smell away from me.
 

“God Aspen, you’re so tiresome,” I said as I tried to appear bored and tired of our conversation. I knew it wasn’t the best plan I’d ever masterminded but Aspen’s mating scent was quickly rendering me nearly incapacitated until all I could think of was mating with her.
 

Plus burying my head under the pillow would at least serve two purposes. It dulled her scent somewhat so I could think and it would also tell me what she would do if I was vulnerable and not anticipating an attack while she was angry.
 

Will she go on the offensive and attack?
I offered up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t.
Fuck, I can’t keep this up much longer.
I didn’t like doing this to her and now I was being bombarded by the scent of her in heat.
Please Aspen, just cry for fuck sake
. I wanted this whole horrible exercise to be over so badly.

Finally, I sensed her coming towards me and I braced for an assault but she headed past the bed and went into the closet instead. She was hiding from me. I could hear her, huddled in the corner at the bottom of the closet and sniffling.
 

Thank fuck, an appropriate response to emotional pain.

It was over.

Chapter 29

~Aspen~

I hated Roan.
 

As I sat balled up in the corner of the closet floor, every fiber of my being was crying out in outrage at his deception.

My tears were hot and falling down my face in big fat drops as my chest shook with gasping sobs.
Why?
Why had Roan done this to me?
I tried to make sense of what had just happened between us but there were no answers to be found. It just didn’t make any sense.

I sniffed and snorted as my nose filled up and my tears soaked the front of my pink t-shirt as they ran down my face.

Figures, with my red rimmed eyes and swollen nose, I was going to look even uglier than I already felt. My entire life, I’d always felt like I was too skinny and unattractive with my mass of curly hair that always seemed to have a mind of it’s own. I wasn’t shiny and polished like Sorcha or hot and sexy like Roan’s girlfriend Stacey.
 

I’d never once verbalized it to Roan but ever since we’d blood bonded, I’d clung tightly to the notion that I wasn’t attractive enough for him. And apparently I was right because Roan had said that I wasn’t as sexy as Stacey was during our argument.
 

The tears started up again in earnest as I replayed the words in my head. Why would he say such a hurtful thing to me? I just didn’t understand what had happened in the past two hours. Didn’t we have sex and love one another so desperately just last night and then again this morning?
 

I could feel the emotions emanating from him as we fell asleep last night, he was touching my hair lovingly and wrapping the curls around his fingers.
He’d loved me
. I had sensed it deep down inside him. Why would he be so vulnerable and open with me if he truly didn’t care about me?
 

But I knew why.

Roan had spelled it out quite clearly for me during the course of our argument.
 

In spite my misguided notions and everything that I thought Roan felt for me, he’d informed me that he was only having sex with me to try and force himself into feeling something towards me…
because the pack expected us to be together.
 

But he Fates had obviously been wrong about our match. I truly wasn’t meant to be his mate, after all. Because true blood born mates loved one another with an intensity, bordering on obsession. I had seen it with my own eyes with the male Weres in the pack. They were fiercely loyal and extremely protective of their female mates.

But the way Roan had treated me today was anything but love.
 

It was cruel and it was heartless.

My wolf was alternating between howling and whining in response to my emotional pain.
 

“Aspen, we must go. We must leave this place. Our mate will not care for or protect us anymore. We need to get back to the safety of the pack,” my wolf said anxiously.

Nodding mutely, I silently agreed with her. There was no way that I could stay with Roan at the training camp, Were training be damned! I was humiliated beyond belief and emotionally raw from the confession of his true feelings.
 

“Get us outside and I will help you return to your pack brothers and sisters, Aspen. There is safety with those of our kind.”