Reclaimed and Restored

Twisting the Knife

Ava tried to push away her anger as she added some shading to her sketch. So what if her dad had told her that she needed to find a way to move on, or, in other words, get over it and quit moping around? Yes, it had been infuriating to be told by the man who’d been such an ass to her mate that she needed to simply get over the fact Marcus clearly wanted nothing to do with her, but she couldn’t let it get to her.

She had a drawing in front of her, her new camera was proving to be her most prized possession of all time, and Molly and the twins were firmly in her corner. True, her brothers didn’t know the real reason why she was fighting with their dad, but they had her back nonetheless. That was just how they were―they would take her side no matter what.

In the four weeks since her eighteenth birthday, her relationship with her father had only gotten worse, and Ava’s mother was so busy defending his actions that all she was succeeding in doing was pushing her daughter away as well.

All Ava needed was some comfort or some goddamned sympathy from her parents, not constant lectures about how she was too young, excuses about how her dad had only been trying to protect her, and worst of all, their ‘this is for the best’ talks.

Yes, Ava thought dryly, it suited her parents, especially her dad, just fine that Marcus had barely said a word to her or acknowledged her presence since she’d accused him of being a coward and stormed out of the training room. Looking back, she knew she’d let her temper get the best of her and had been a bit of a b***h. But Marcus’s reluctance toward their mate bond had hurt, and her defenses had immediately reared up and gone on the attack.

Having her mate look at her with heat and amazement in his eyes in the morning and then to have him back off that very same day and agree with her dad’s assessment that she was too young for him had crushed whatever stupid and naïve fantasies she had built up in her head. And the knife had been dug deeper when she’d tried to approach him and apologize for her hot-headedness in the weeks after, only for him to walk off and escape her presence whenever she got close.

So yes, Marcus had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in having Ava as a mate, and her parents were too busy celebrating over the fact to offer her a shoulder to cry on, but she was absolutely not allowing herself to throw herself a pity party. No, she thought adamantly as she added some more detail to the eyes in her drawing, she was not feeling sorry for herself.

She was just hurt and angry and so goddamned tired. She had started training, but those almost daily classes weren’t the reason for her exhaustion. It was that she couldn’t get a good night’s sleep because her mind was a disastrous mess.

Her mate was probably going to reject her any day now, and she didn’t know how she could keep living in the same building as him and see him every day after he’d stomped all over her heart. It was all she could think about when she closed her eyes at night, and nothing could make her mind stop obsessing over the inevitable. Not meditation, not music, not reading, not drawing. Nothing.

Molly may have been holding out hope because Marcus hadn’t actually rejected Ava yet, but Ava knew it was only a matter of time. The last dying embers of hope she had for the two of them had been snuffed out. If Marcus wanted her, he wouldn’t have been ignoring her. End of story.

Yes, Ava was totally and completely one hundred percent fine. Hence why she’d been in the otherwise empty dining hall since five-thirty in the morning and had spent the last hour sipping at mugs of disgusting coffee while finishing up the drawing that she’d started around midnight after sleep just wouldn’t come because she was too riled up over what her dad had said to her at dinner. Totally fine.

“You’re here early.”

The voice made Ava jump in her chair. She nearly ruined her drawing when her hand and the pencil in it jerked with her sudden movement, but thankfully she caught herself in time and evaded disaster.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Ava looked up from her sketchpad and found Silas and Marcus standing on the other side of the table. Briefly, she wondered if she was dreaming, but she quickly dismissed the thought. Silas’s friendly grin and Marcus’s apathetic expression were far too realistic and detailed for even her imagination to conjure up.

“No worries,” she replied to Silas. “I just get really into it sometimes and zone out.”

“You look tired,” Marcus noted.

Maybe she was dreaming after all because Ava was sure that was a glimmer of worry softening his hard brown eyes.

“Trouble sleeping,” she explained once her surprise at him talking to her had worn off.

A grunt was his response, and now she was sure that she had imagined the concern she’d seen in his eyes because he wasn’t even looking at her anymore. Clearly, he found the buffet table more fascinating than her insomnia. With his crossed arms and indifferent expression, he looked like he would rather be anywhere else.

“What are you working on?” Silas asked, seeming genuinely interested.

“Nothing that exciting.” She spun her sketchpad around and slid it toward the two men.

Apparently taking that as an invitation, Silas pulled out a chair and got comfortable before examining her sketch of Molly.

“Woah. This is seriously good.”

In response to Silas’s words, Marcus seemingly reluctantly lowered his gaze to the sketchpad. His only reaction was the slight raise of his eyebrows, which Ava took to mean he was pleasantly surprised―at least she hoped that was what it meant.

“So is drawing your thing then?” Silas asked.

“I like drawing, but I’m more into photography, actually.”

In fact, the sketch she’d been touching up was based on a photograph she’d taken of her friend with her new camera. Molly had been laughing at something one of the twins had said, and Ava had managed to capture the woman as her laughter had morphed into a wide grin. Her eyes were slightly squinted and lined with crow’s feet.

The twins had spent their money well because Ava had spent almost every free second she had behind her camera lens.

“How do you do it?” Marcus asked. From his expression, it looked as if he were just as surprised as she was that he’d asked her a question and shown interest in her life after weeks of cold silence. He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” he added.

“Starting is the easiest part,” Ava said, not having the backbone, or perhaps the pettiness, to treat him with the same coldness he’d treated her with for the last few weeks.

She took back the sketchpad and turned the page over to reveal a blank piece of white paper just waiting to be drawn on.

“I always start with the head, which is just a circle, then the neck and body are rectangles, the legs and the arms are two tapered rectangles put together, the feet are small rectangles, and the hands start as circles.” She sketched out the shapes as she explained it to them, creating a very basic human form.

“Then you just flesh it out a bit by adding more organic lines over those shapes,” she continued with a shrug.

As she worked on it, the character became less cartoon-like, but she stopped before she could get too carried away.

“See. Not so hard.”

“You make it look so easy,” Marcus said.

“You make fighting look easy,” she responded with a smile.

His reaction was not at all what she’d hoped it would be. Any interest in his brown eyes immediately died, and Ava could practically see his walls getting built up again.

“We need to eat and get to training,” he said, his words directed more at Silas than at her.

“What’s the rush?” Silas asked. His friendly grin had soured into a disappointed frown, much like Ava’s smile had faded and become a hard line.

Marcus looked ready to punch his friend, so Ava intervened before things could escalate.

“I need to get going as well,” she said as she packed her sketchbook and pencils away.

Neither of the men asked where she had to be or brought up the fact that she had plenty of time before she had to be at school. They both probably knew that she was making an excuse.

“See you around, Ava,” Silas said. He sounded sad.

Ava hated that he was most likely pitying her. He must have known by then that she and Marcus were mates. Even though Ava and Marcus weren’t advertising what they were to one another, Silas’s reactions around her told her that he knew more than most.

“Sure,” she replied, though a big part of her hoped that she wouldn’t be seeing them around―talking to Marcus and having him show an inkling of interest before he became closed off again had been more painful than when he’d flat out ignored her.

She left the two Council members in the dining hall and walked up the stairs to the apartment she lived in with her mom and dad. Her parents were in the kitchen―her mom was pouring herself a glass of orange juice, and her dad was reading the newspaper―but Ava walked straight past them to her bedroom.

They didn’t call out or ask her if she was okay even though her eyes must have been red and her cheeks were wet with tears. Maybe they hadn’t noticed, she thought as she closed her door a bit more forcefully than needed.

Ava flopped down on her bed in an emotionally and physically exhausted heap. She closed her eyes, and sleep was thankfully quick to clutch her in its grasp.