Chapter 6 - My enemy, My Protector

Ace

Six years ago… No. Five. Whatever! It doesn't even matter because no matter the time that has passed, it's impossible to erase the pain she caused me.

My eyes settled on the girl in front of me.

Vine.

Her black and white eyes are fixed on mine and her arms are still around my neck and I could swear that the little hairs on my neck didn't just stand on end. Her contact just warmed my skin.

Yet I wanted nothing but to snuff the little brightness on her face.

My fingers curled at my sides as my gaze pierced into her. I wanted that little light of excitement, whatever it was to get snuffed out of her eyes.

She didn't deserve to be protected by me.

That night, five years ago, this same girl walked into my room unclad like she was being controlled, and the rest that happened was a disaster.

Wherever her feet stepped, there was disaster.

My stare metamorphoses into a scowl since all I see is motive, and an ambition I can't help but want to crush under my fingertips and then…

Then she withdrew, her arms falling to her sides as she took a glance back at the crowd staring at her before giving me the pitiable look like that of a little puppy begging for meat.

My heart skipped.

“Please… Help!” She whispered “They,” she glanced over her shoulder, eyes watery, “Please pretend to be my boyfriend.”

“You must help her, Ace! She's our mate!” my wolf thrashed its body against the walls of my mind threatening to take over if I did not do the needful.

“You've forgotten Laila so soon you traitor!” I lashed back against him in my mind and I could feel him retreating even if he was still very much excited about our new mate.

A mate I was never going to take as mine.

Not until she paid for her sins and shed every bit of blood Laila shed on the day that she died.

I reached out and held her hand, and immediately sparks traveled through my skin, and I immediately pulled back but that touch was enough to not make her bolt off already.

“I Ace Callahan will never help you.” I surrounded her shoulders walking around her as my fingers tapered on the edges of her shoulder blade.

“And if there's nothing else in your thick skull. I need you to have it upstairs that I…” I exhaled and the moment the air touched her skin, she tensed, touching the hem of her jacket.

But I couldn't care less about the effects that my words have on her, so I completed my sentence, “HATE. YOU.”

I completely turned my back on her.

And in that instant, it felt as if the spell had been cast down on everyone's eyes.

They began throwing things at her. I could smell it. Wine. Soup. Unfinished cakes.

Fuck!

How had I forgotten that these were wolves? Their sense of hearing was heightened more than any being on earth and they were basically included in our conversation back there.

I halted in my movement and ran to her in an instant, blocking her front and face with my back while spreading my jacket so that she was shielded.

After a while the whole mansion seemed to quieten down as they seemed to realize that it wasn't Vine who they were throwing things at.

It was me.

Ace Callahan, the god of the Vikings hockey team!

The host of the party.

I shrugged off my jacket and hugged Vine so tight I could feel the warmth of her skin seeping into mine.

Her body shook slightly as she squirmed from fear but apart from that, there was nothing else.

She didn't seem to be having an excited wolf like mine or else she would have been burying her face in the crook of my neck or jamming up her skin against mine as every wolf does.

But she wasn't! Did she even feel our mate bond or was she just holding back just like I did minutes ago?

Slowly, I released Vine, then smiled at everyone in the crowd.

Then I scanned the crowd around me.

“I Ace Callahan declare to everyone in this mansion that Vine Davis is my girlfriend. Throw things or touch her one more time and you'll never use your fingers again.”

The crowd gasped. People threw away their faces for perhaps fear of being recognized by me and being punished the next time I met them.

Some wolves even began retreating and the moment I spotted Miriam and Drew as Vine called them, retreating, I stopped them.

“Hey, you both. Stop.”

They instantly planted on the floor as they slowly turned around to look at me.

Even as the murmurs faded, Miriam’s gaze dropped—then flicked to the left, her eyes were anywhere but at me.

But Drew… Drew met my eyes. Barely.

I saw it—the hesitation behind the arrogance, and the fear buried beneath his smirk.

He was trying to hold it together. Pretending I didn’t already see through him…

Through the twitch in his jaw, his uneven breath, even the gentle nudge under his skin to avert his gaze from my eyes.

Then I tilted my head, just slightly, and let the silence stretch like a blade between us.

"So... remind me — what exactly did you ask my girlfriend to do?"