THE CLAIM

CHAPTER SIX

THE CLAIM

8 Eva's POV)

My heart was beating against my ribs.

Mate? He uttered that word as if it were determined, as if he was more than serious… about it.

I felt an immediate spark in me, and I was thinking I had my wolf in me.

Orion looked over the counter at me. The dinner had gone quiet. A number of the customers stared between us, but no one dared to speak. His eyes were flashing into mine, hot and sure.

My wolf stirred up in me and I had to scratch my skin. I dried my hands and my apron, and got out of the counter. “Outside," I said. My voice sounded louder than the way I thought it would come out.

Orion stalked me silently. I felt the cold evening air on my face as I continued into our alley. There was the smell of old grease and damp pavement with his strong smell.

It made my head turn.

I shook my neck, turning my face to him. "What did you just call me?"

“Mate,” he repeated, his voice low and rough. He stood too close. His broad shoulders shot out and reflected the little light on the street. “The bond broke the very first night I smelled the woods on your body. I tried to fight it. But it's there, Ava. You feel it too."

I really felt it.

A warm pull cracked in my belly. Each time he spoke to me, it pulled even harder. My wolf was pushing me to take a step forward, to rub himself against his chest and taste him. But my head knew better.

“You're the Alpha,” I said, and shook his head. “You ought to understand me better than this. You had allowed Rhys to talk back at you as he had the right. You deceived your own pack on behalf of my sake and not to order about my sake. That is no way to behave like a real Alpha does.

Orion's jaw tightened. Something dark came flashing in his eyes, after which there was a momentary pause. Then it was gone. He stayed calm. Too calm.

I have not to behead all the wolves that ask a question, I said to myself. "The pack is already restless. Cain is watching our borders. When I begin to reprimand my own little heads, we are weakened at the heart.

I laughed and did not feel joy. That is the reason why they refer to you, Orion, as weak. You forgive too easily. You talk when you should roar. According to my father, a real Alpha does not negotiate. He takes what belongs to him."

His eyes narrowed. And what, hath your father wished you take?

I looked away. The truth burned in my throat. Alpha Cain, Elder Lynx, had been pushing me towards her for several months. Cain was severe, loud and all was frightened by him. This was the type of strength the pack admired now.

Orion stepped closer. His body heat was round my body. He did not touch me, but his being brushed me as hands slid on my skin. My breath came faster.

You have too much of that, he said, repeating the night in the woods. Some large hand came forward and touched a strand of my face hair. His fingers were warm. The touch shot me a shiver all along my spine.

I swallowed hard. "Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

Making me feel this way when I know you are not strong enough to me.

His golden eyes darkened. He bent down, almost touching his ear against my mouth. "The bond doesn't lie, Ava. Your wolf knows me. She wants me." His voice dropped even lower. And I can tell you how wet you are just now.

Heat flooded my face. My thighs clashed against each other. The bond boiled between us. One crazy moment I wished that he would lean me up against the wall and tear my clothes and have his way with me there in the ratty alley.

I shoved his chest. He did not move much Brethren, he was too large, too heavy--but he made one step backward.

That I am not yours, I thought and breathed fast. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."

Orion stood and regarded me long and long. His expression remained stony, but I could read his weariness in his eyes once more. It was the same expression he had when the pack got out of the clearing.

"Tonight at the quarry," he said. "You will come. Show them the stone I gave you. Stand by my side. Let them see the bond."

I shook my head. I am not ready to be appropriated in a place of everyone.

It is not up to you anymore, he answered. His tone was tender, yet the lyrics were bulky. We are already getting sucked by the connection. Resistance to it will only succeed in making the hurt greater.

He got into his pocket and took out another folded bill, only two hundred dollars this time. He pressed it into my hand.

"For your heater," he said. "And for your time tonight. Don't be late."

I desired to plunge the money back in him. Rather, I made my fingers round it. My water heater was actually faulty and winter was approaching.

He walked away, and I yelled back at him, "Orion!”

He paused without looking around.

You can not continue to save me with falsities, I said. And one day your pack will be able to live the truth. And where and when they do, they will not follow an insensitive Alpha who places a girl above his own strength.

He remained quiet a couple of heart beats.

Then perhaps I must cease being tender, I said to myself.

There was something queer, the words gave me a shiver. I wanted to believe him half the time. The other portion, the ambitious one which my father had raised, understood that the tenderly clear Alphas had no chance of surviving in our world.

I saw him go off to the increasing darkness. My wolf pawed the ground, in me, in furious impatience at my having driven him away. Where his fingers had touched my hair my body still tingled.

I put the money and the warm granite stone in my pocket and went back into the diner.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from my father.