Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted (Ava and Lucas)

Chapter 102 Lucas: Jealousy

LUCAS

She's going to talk to Clayton tonight.

She won't let me call her, but she'll talk to him.

Fuck. I'm going crazy.

My wolf gives me the silent treatment, a palpable wall of disapproval and resentment radiating from him. I know he blames me for this mess.

"I'm trying," I mutter, pacing the length of my office. "I'm doing everything I can to fix this."

There would be nothing to fix if you hadn't rejected our mate in the first place, he snaps, his voice dripping with accusation.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I struggle not to groan in frustration. He's right and I fucking hate it. If I hadn't been so goddamn stupid, Ava would have been with me long ago. Safe. Marked. Mine.

But I can't change the past. I can only try to salvage the future.

Go to her, my wolf demands. Claim her before he does.

I shake my head. "She needs space. I have to respect that."

Space is the last thing she needs. She needs her mate. She needs us.

won't be that kind of alpha. That kind of

need to clear my head. Get out of this suffocating

over. He surges forward, all coiled power

the scents of summer filling my lungs. Out here,

that I'm the one she

the right way. Earn back her trust, her affection.

on. One step at a

paws against the forest floor drowns out the chaos in my head. With each stride, the turmoil fades, replaced by

what we need, he rumbles, content

complications of pack politics and the tangled web of my

losing ourselves in the primal pleasure of the hunt, even if we're chasing nothing but our own shadows. The worries melt away,

a scent on the

dog, my wolf snorts, his nose twitching as

something familiar about it, something that tugs at my memory. I can't quite place it, but it draws me in like

following the trail deeper into the woods. The scent grows stronger

skinny frame. It looks up at us with wary blue eyes, hackles raising slightly at

a wolf. And this is

Selene.

whispers through my mind, a half-remembered fragment from days of watching

is Selene doing out here, alone and bedraggled? And why do I

my wolf watching intently from behind my eyes. Selene stands

that no ordinary dog should possess.

moment he's all aloof disdain over stray dogs, and the next he's groveling on his belly like a pup begging for attention. I can only watch in stunned disbelief as he army-crawls his way