Page 55 of Pack’s Prize

“You should take your time,” said Theo, from behind him. He wasn’t looking at me, but at something over my shoulder. “Don’t make this decision because it’s whatwewant.”

Something bubbled up within my chest. “You do want this, though?” I asked.

His eyes burned as they met mine, and he took a step closer, then another, until he was so close he could have reached out and touched me. “More than anything. More thananything,” he growled, and that intensity was back behind his eyes, making me shiver. “Except… your happiness.”

CHAPTERFIFTY-TWO

Theo

We had made a deal.

Michael, Elias, and I.

Ava.

We had an agreement.

She’d play a part, and we would too, and at the end…

At the end?

That was it.

The end.

We would say our goodbyes, and go our separate ways, everyone having gotten what they wanted.

And what Ava wanted was sex.

It was to get over her shitty ex.

It was to have fun, to not worry about settling down.

It was money, and a new apartment, and a fresh start.

And I wasn’t about to let Elias, or Michael, or anyone–anyone–take that from her.

“I love you, Ava,” Elias had said, “If you leave, I’ll…”

I heard too much of my past self in the beginning of that sentence.

Too much of myself to allow him to finish it.

When Louise had left me, I had thought I would die on that balcony, the scent of her skin still on mine, her image on the canvases that littered the apartment’s floors, walls. I’d thought she had loved me, and I’d thought I’d loved her.That was how it was supposed to be,I had thought, an alpha and an omega, an artist and his muse, two lovers in a sunny apartment in Paris.

If I could have forced her to stay…

I knew that I would have. In a second, in an instant, I would have kept her.

It would have been the greatest mistake of my life.

I couldn’t do that to Ava, couldn’t let Elias do it, or Michael.

I wanted nothing more than to keep her, to sink my teeth into her skin and pierce into her soul.

But what I had said to her was true: as much as I wanted to, I couldn’ttakeher, not at the expense of her happiness.

I didn’t want to force her, not when she was fragile, and vulnerable, and still, perhaps, a bit unsure of who she was withoutthem.Withoutus.