Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (14 page)

No, for all intents and purposes, Aspen looked exactly like one of the girls that my pack brothers went to the bar to watch on Friday nights and the knowledge made me feel sick to my stomach.

How could she have thought that this was a good idea? Didn’t I bring her up better than this?

I was completely blown away that she would do something like this while I was gone away. I had asked Caver to watch out for her because I thought she might stay out past her curfew or something.

But never had this scenario entered my mind. Not with Aspen and certainly not something like this.

At the moment, she was out past her curfew, drinking alcohol and dancing like a cock hungry nympho with a boy that was way too old for her based on her previous dating experience.

It was a complete nightmare.

I was so pissed off; my head kept swirling with punishments and repercussions that I would inflict on her because of this.

She was mine for fuck’s sake.

My mate, not this little high school jerks play toy.

I wanted to hit someone, anyone, until their face was a bloody pulp. I wanted to take this little shit out in the street and beat him to death.

Never before had I felt such raw, untamed emotion rushing through my veins and my wolf began to howl mournfully because of it. I was filled to the brim with despair and anger.

Why Aspen, why?

“Stop it Roan, your anger and grief is nearly choking me. You realize that this entire situation is all your fault, don’t you?” my wolf said reproachfully. 

“What the hell are you talking about? How is this my fault? Please enlighten me,” I said, bristling with fight and annoyance. 

“You need to tell our mate the truth about who she is to us. You need to give her choices and stop trying to control her every move. She will chose correctly if you would only give her the chance, Roan. She is maturing quickly and is trying to form a bond with us but you constantly push her away and hold her at arm’s length. The reason that she’s not yours right now is simply because you won’t let her be,” my wolf said sagely. 

“You have no idea what she needs, wolf. You’re not human like she is. You couldn’t possibly understand.” 

“Need I remind you, Roan, that you are not human either. Perhaps you aren’t as in touch with what Aspen wants and needs, as well as you think you are.”

My inner dialog was reproachful enough; I didn’t need my wolf blasting his criticism towards me right at the moment.

In my mind, however, I knew my wolf was absolutely right; I was fully responsible for Aspen being here in this situation.

Just not for the reasons he’d listed. Leaving Aspen alone while I was dealing with the incident in Shawfield, with no way to contact me was akin to abandonment and if I knew Aspen as well as I thought I did, part of this Dam party fiasco was attributed to me making her feel that I abandoned her.

And she was right, I had.

I couldn’t keep holding her at arms length, like I had been for the past year. I had to get closer to her emotionally and let her in, while still maintaining physical distance.

It would be difficult but I refused to lose her after all I’d been through to keep her.

I wanted to kick myself; I had arrived home too late to catch her before she left the house. After we’d arrived from Shawfield, I had to get the new Were settled in at the Alpha’s house, where he was going to stay until tomorrow morning when I was supposed to pick him up and bring him deep into the woods to the training camp with me for the next month or so. I needed to make sure he wouldn’t to be a danger to the rest of the pack.

But how could I leave for a whole month now? What would Aspen do while I was gone this time?

Fuck this little jerk and get pregnant?

“Her belly will only hold our pups!” my wolf said angrily. 

“Yeah, well tell that to her, Romeo.” 

“You need to tell Aspen that she is our mate,” my wolf said angrily. 

“Do you honestly think she’s going to understand that? She’s sixteen years old. She wants to have fun and go to parties and dance like a whore with some guy’s cock grinding into her ass. She doesn’t want to be my mate. Not yet anyway. She isn’t ready,” I answered as a dark wrath descended upon me as I watched Aspen drink yet another plastic cup of beer.

It was beer number three.

I hoped she puked her guts out all over Mr. Teenage Dream’s Jeep Cherokee.

                ***

I
t was well after my curfew by the time I got home. I don’t think I had ever been out so late before. Nor had I ever felt so dizzy and lightheaded.

I was drunk.

No, a whole lot drunk…and feeling pretty sick to my stomach too.

Justin had driven us back into town in his Jeep and while it probably wasn’t the best idea as I lost count how many he’d had after our first four or five beers. But unfortunately, I didn’t know how else we were going to get home as everyone else at the party was also in varying stages of inebriation as well.

I didn’t want to think of the logistics of it or how dangerous what we had done was. Right now, I was just glad to be home alive and in one piece.

That is, until Justin pulled in the driveway.

Parked in the driveway, looking like Satan’s chariot in all it’s splendor, was Roan’s black truck. Just this morning, tears had come to my eyes as I looked in the driveway and saw that it wasn’t parked there. How I had longed to see that truck.

But right now, my heart leapt up into my throat as I gawked at it. I was as good as dead and Roan was going to be the black hooded executioner! I was sure he was in the house sharpening his axe, just bidding his time until I came home.

Justin leaned over to brush his lips against mine in a goodnight kiss, when the side door of the house burst opened and Roan came stalking out like an animal coming in for the kill.

Oh my god, he was going to kill us both!

His body was tense as he walked over to the passenger side of Justin’s vehicle and wrenched the door open. He reached into the vehicle, grabbed the key in the ignition and shut the Jeep off while Justin shot me a panic stricken “Omg, its one of the hulking gear heads from Sabre’s Auto body” type of look.

Roan didn’t even notice, he never took his eyes off me the entire time.

Wrapping his bear sized hand around my upper arm in a tight vise, he undid my seat belt, yanked me roughly out of the car in one jerking motion and I stumbled into his unyielding form in the driveway.

“Goodnight Justin and thank you for bringing Aspen home safely. I’m sure she had a great time tonight. Now I’m going to keep your keys until tomorrow, so get your drunk ass out of the Jeep and get the hell home before you kill someone on the road,” he said evenly, and then slammed the vehicle door without waiting for a response.

I was in big trouble…

                ***

"
Y
ou’re in big trouble Aspen Greystone. Get your skinny little ass in the house right now, little girl!” I bellowed.

Aspen looked wide-eyed with absolute terror. I’d never spoken to her in this way before but I was so beyond caring about her thoughts and feelings in that exact moment. She had never done anything like this before and my blood was boiling over with rage after watching her and the little asshole together all night.

She stood and started at me, her mouth still agape in shock that I was home and had caught her red handed. I turned her around and gave her a push in the direction of the house as Mr. Dreamboat got out of the Jeep and took off like a bat out of hell back down the driveway.

Aspen was thoroughly intoxicated and stumbled and fell as she made her way to the door. Although I could smell the alcohol on her breath and in her blood before I even opened up the Jeep door, she was much worse off than I had previously thought.

The smell of alcohol hung around her like a cloud. She smelled like a microbrewery.

Reaching down, I grabbed her by the arm and steadied her before she ended up on her ass in the driveway.

“Get. In. The. House. Aspen,” I bit out. I could feel her, quivering and fearful under my hand; she was trembling in front of me like a cornered animal.

Good.

“I’m sorry Roan, I shouldn’t have been drinking. I’m sorry,” she pleaded with me. 

“I don’t give a crap if you’re sorry or not Aspen,” I said as she suddenly bent over at the waist and promptly started throwing up in the driveway.

I let go of her and watched her with a slight look of amusement on my face. “Good, serves her right,” the angry, infuriated part of me called out as her stomach heaved over and over again.

But then she started crying as she threw up.

I could harden myself against a lot of things in life but normally Aspen crying cut me right to the quick every single time. I hated it when she cried, it touched upon an internal, deep seated fear that perhaps I wasn’t worthy enough to take care of her and have her be my mate. Happy mates didn’t drown in their tears.

I couldn’t let my affinity for her cloud my judgment this time around though, she needed to know what kind of a situation she had put herself into, so I hardened myself against her weeping and swallowed my building sympathy. Those empathetic feelings were tempered with too much rage to allow me to really focus on her tears right now anyway.

“Stop your crying Aspen, you brought this on yourself! How could you have been so stupid to do something like this? You don’t even know that boy, what if he had gotten you drunk and then raped you in the woods? What if you had gotten into a car accident and been injured or killed because he’d been drinking? You don’t think!” I yelled at her.

“I said I was sorry. Okay? I made a mistake,” she sniffled pitifully. 

“Aspen, you let me down tonight. I trusted you and you’ve shown me that trust was misplaced. You need to use your head, Aspen!” I said gravely.

Boom, that comment was like pouring gasoline on a brush fire because Aspen raised her head, her eyes boring into mine and said: “You’re the one that left me here in Spruce Hollow for almost a whole week with no word from you, Roan. How could you do that to me? How could you abandon me like that? You didn’t even leave me with a way to contact you if I needed you! Maybe I needed you, did you ever think of that, Roan?” Aspen was crying in earnest now, tears and eye makeup streaking down her face

Bingo!

I had hit the nail on the head! I knew my leaving her alone had something to do with her behavior tonight but it still wasn’t a good enough excuse for the danger she had placed herself in.

Tonight could have had a potentially disastrous ending, given Justin’s drunken ride back into Spruce Hollow and the thought of living the rest of my life without her was one that left me shaken.

“You should have known that it wasn’t okay, Aspen, whether I was at home or not. Do you honestly think for a second that I would have allowed you to go to a party at the Dam with older kids and underage drinking? Use your freaking head for once. You should’ve known that it wasn’t a good idea. Now, get in the house and puke in the toilet instead of the driveway!”

I stood in the driveway, my arms crossed and watched as Aspen slowly straightened up and walked towards the door.

I could tell her head was spinning by the way she walked in unsteady zigzags but she still managed to get herself to the door without falling down on her ass.

Jiggling the door handle, she was as uncoordinated as a newborn kitten and couldn’t open it. Frustrated with her, I reached around her and threw it open, then pushed her inside.

Aspen slumped against the wall in the front entryway and tried to take her shoes off but I grabbed her by the arm to stop her.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. Bathroom, little girl.” 

“Let go of me, Roan, I can get there on my own, you big jerk!” she yelled as she tried, unsuccessfully, to pull her arm out of my grasp. 

“Don’t you dare call me a jerk after what you’ve up to all night. Drinking and rubbing yourself against that little asshole. I can smell him all over you, Aspen.” 

“So what, I’m not a little girl anymore, Roan. Open your freaking eyes! And for the record, I liked it when Justin touched me, it made me feel sexy and alive. How do you like that, huh?” 

“Did it make you want to have sex with him too, Aspen? Huh, did you want that little boy?” I spat out.

 “YES I DID!!” she screeched into my face.

Wrong answer.

I knew things were fast crossing the line between us and I needed to stop talking and walk away from her until I cooled down, but the fury boiling inside me wouldn’t allow me to and instead, I cocked my fist back and punched a hole through the drywall next to the coat rack.

That only seemed to ignite her even further as she put both slender hands on me and started yelling in my face,“I hate you, Roan. You left me!” as she tried to beat on my chest.

I grabbed her by both wrists, pulled them above her head and shoved them against the wall and held her there. She looked up at me, helpless and pinned to the wall like a fly and started crying great big, hysterical, alcohol induced sobs.

“I hate you, I hate you. I trusted you, Roan, and you left me! I thought I could trust you, that you were different, but I was wrong, you’re just like everyone else that's ever come into my life.”

I was not expecting her to be like this. In my head, I expected her to rage back and fight against me. I expected her to tell me all the reasons why she should be allowed to date boys and go to parties.

That, I was fully prepared to deal with.

I wasn’t anticipating crying, sadness and disappointment. I was never prepared for that from Aspen.

Confused, I let her wrists go and her arms flopped down to her sides like a rag doll.

What the hell do I do now? This is not how this whole thing was supposed to go at all.

I had no idea what to do next, so we just stood there, bristling with fight and sadness and looked at one another, until I finally told her to go up to the bathroom. She just stood there and then started sobbing into her hands.

Oh, someone please kill me. I cannot handle all this crying,