Reclaimed and Restored

Pushing Her Away

“Want to tell me why you ran off in such a rush last night and missed this morning’s training?”

The image of Ava’s long and toned legs entered Marcus’s mind, but he quickly pushed it away and returned his focus to sending his wrapped fists into the focus pads attached to Silas’s hands.

“No.”

Silas, the bastard, hummed and narrowed his eyes. “It didn’t have anything to do with Ava, did it?”

Marcus could almost feel the press of her naked body, her soft golden skin, against him. He wondered if he would ever forget the sensation or if he would ever be able to smell lime, cumin, or honey without thinking of her―it would have taken Marcus far longer to recognize the flavors, especially the cumin, had he not spent so much time in his gran’s kitchen as a teenager. His mate smelled like sharp citrus, warm spice, and sweetness, and Marcus couldn’t deny how perfectly the combination suited the feisty yet kind woman.

It's sick, her father’s voice echoed in his ears.

“No,” he snarled, sending a flurry of particularly hard punches to the pads.

“So, you’re telling me she’s not your mate then?”

Marcus’s next punch halted in mid-air. He lifted his gaze to meet Silas’s eyes and ground his teeth when he saw the man’s smug smirk. “How the hell did you know?”

Silas shrugged and lowered his hands. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out. You were clutching your chest when you stormed off, so I figured you were either suffering from a serious case of heartburn, or you felt your mate shifting for the first time. And you told me it was her eighteenth birthday yesterday, so I put two and two together. To be fair, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but you just confirmed it.”

Marcus scowled as his training partner grinned triumphantly.

Silas’s smile dropped when Marcus continued to glare, and he sighed. “Based on your foul mood, I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

“Her parents pitched up at dawn, and her dad was quick to throw the word p*****t around,” Marcus scoffed. He wasn’t sure why he was telling the other Council member what had happened, but it felt good to get it off his chest.

Silas’s eyes widened, and his eyebrows flew up into his hairline. “Well, shit.”

“Yeah.”

He’d never felt as humiliated as he had that morning. Being called a p*****t by his mate’s father hadn’t exactly been how he’d imagined his day starting, and the more he thought about it, the more he knew the man was right. He was way too old for Ava.

It didn’t matter how good it had felt to hold her in his arms or how well her body fit against his. It didn’t matter how attracted he was to the tray-wielding warrior who’d stood up for herself in such a spectacular fashion. It didn’t matter because she was barely legal, and he would be the sicko who was preying on her youth.

“Then what happened?”

“I told Ava that her dad was probably right and that she should leave with her parents.”

“You did what?” Silas hissed.

“He’s not wrong,” Marcus sighed. “She’s still in high school, Silas. She’s a kid.”

“According to the law, she’s an adult,” the other man pointed out.

“So a day earlier, and I would have been a p*****t, but, what, now it’s all good?” Marcus asked sharply.

“Well… yeah,” Silas said, but he didn’t sound so sure anymore. “So what now? You’re going to reject her because she’s too young for you?”

Marcus hid his grimace. “I don’t know.”

The last thing he wanted to do was reject Ava and hurt her, but he didn’t see another option either. Werewolves would be more accepting than humans about the difference in their ages, but many of them would still likely give them a hard time about it.

More importantly, he couldn’t drag her into the mess that was his life and risk putting her in danger. If anyone found out what he was planning for Gold, he would likely be executed or put in a cell for the rest of his life. And where would that leave his mate? Broken and alone? How could he accept her when he knew his future involved either dying, rotting in a cell, or being on the run for the rest of his life?

“If you’re going to reject her, you need to be sure,” Silas warned him. “Don’t make a decision like that lightly.”

“I won’t,” Marcus gritted out. “Now, can we get back to training?” Talking about Ava was only making him more confused about what he should do.

Silas sighed but nodded and lifted his pad-covered hands. Marcus continued with the boxing combination he’d been working on, but no matter how hard he tried to keep Ava off his mind, he failed miserably.

He had donned the focus pads, and Silas was mercilessly pounding his fists into the mitts when the very woman that Marcus had been trying not to think of walked into the training room. He dropped his hands without thinking, and had Silas’s reaction time been even a second slower, he would have been left with a black eye.

“Oh. Hi, Ava,” Marcus’s training partner called out after he’d looked over his shoulder and saw her hovering in the doorway.

“Hi,” she replied while her gaze flitted between the two men uncertainly.

“I think I’m going to call it a night. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Silas said to him.

“Sure,” Marcus mumbled.

Ava silently shifted on her feet until Silas had collected his things and left the room, and even with him gone, she couldn’t seem to find any words. Not having much luck of his own, Marcus worked his hands free and walked over to the box in the corner of the room to find a pair of women’s fingerless boxing gloves.

“Here.”

He offered them to her, and she took them with a questioning look.

“Jab, cross, uppercut,” Marcus instructed her as he put the pads back on his hands. Talking was hard, but this was easy. This he could do.

Ava nodded and got into a fighting stance, not even hesitating before she threw herself into the combination. Marcus bit back a grin as her fists hit mercilessly against the mitts. She was a fighter, all right, and it had nothing to do with how much training she’d had―it was just who she was.

“I’m sorry,” she said after her fifth set.

“For what?”

“My father had no right to say what he did,” she ground out. Her eyes moved up to meet his, and he could almost feel the heat of her anger burning into him.

“He’s your dad,” Marcus sighed. “He has every right to be concerned.”

Ava shook her head and completed another set before replying. “He was being an asshole,” she argued. “You know he’s wrong, right?”

“I’m not so sure he is.”

Ava’s eyes snapped back to his, and this time some of her anger was directed at him. “I’m not a child, and I’m sure as hell not going to turn my back on my mate bond because my dad and others might not like that I’m younger than you.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said.

“It is that easy.”

“We barely even know each other.”

“What mates do at first?” she pointed out with a scoff.

“You’re still in high school,” he retorted.

“And you’re an old man,” she snapped.

The insult surprised Marcus enough that he couldn’t think of another argument.

“Not so nice to have your age used against you, is it?” Ava asked with a satisfied smile.

“No,” Marcus agreed dryly.

“Look,” she sighed. “I understand why you might be reluctant, especially after what happened this morning, but all I’m asking is that you give it a chance.”

“I don’t know.” He hated saying the words, but they needed to be said―he couldn’t give her any false hope.

She might have been an adult, legally speaking, but while Marcus had been forced to grow up quickly and had been independent since he’d left New York at eighteen, Ava still lived with her parents. Her biggest concern was probably her next test at school or what college she would attend if becoming a Council member wasn’t in the cards for her.

They were in completely different phases of their lives. And while Marcus may have been using her youth as an excuse, there were other, much more valid, reasons for why he needed to keep his distance.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Ava, I don’t think you understand.”

Ava yanked the gloves from her hands and threw them at his chest, and he had to wonder if it was wrong that he found the move somewhat amusing and startlingly sexy. Just like with the tray incident, he liked that Ava’s fierce anger was an almost tangible force that she could barely contain.

He had never been so aware of how dull and cold his life had become until he’d met her and witnessed the full intensity of her emotions. She was fire and life and passion, and, after living so long with only his gran’s maternal love and Silas’s not-quite-friendship to keep lonely desolation at bay, it was incredibly hard to ignore how much she made Marcus crave all of those things in the extremely short time they’d known each other.

“Maybe I don’t, but at least I’m trying,” she seethed. “At least I’m not being a coward because I’m afraid of what people might think,” she added before storming out of the room.

Ava’s words stayed with him as he packed up and left the nearly empty third floor. They haunted him as he showered and lay awake in his bed for hours. Her words stuck with him because she was right. Marcus was a coward. Only it had nothing to do with being afraid of what people thought and everything to do with his fear of letting himself love people only to lose them.

That night Marcus dreamed of Ava, of her golden skin beneath his hands and her girly laughter and her fierce hazel eyes. He dreamed of what it would be like to accept their bond, to be happy with her. But it was her desperate and terrified screams as Master Gold dragged her away from him that had him bolting up in bed before the sun had risen.

One hundred sit-ups later, and the trembling in his hands had stopped. One hundred push-ups later, he could no longer hear Ava screaming and begging him to save her. One hundred more of each, and his mask of indifference was back. With it came a steely determination not to let Ava get close to him. For her safety and his sanity, Marcus would push her away, just like he’d pushed everybody else away.