*ON HOLD* The Theon Revelations (The Ancients Series)

THREE.

But it is when I tear the blankets off me, when I see the wet spot on my shorts—when I finally register the warm, stickiness that coats my skin beneath my sleepwear—my temper hits its breaking point.

Dread and disgust.

Shock and awe.

They all slam into me at once, churning and whirling inside me—pure fury and destruction—and now I am not sure what I am feeling. I don't understand why this keeps happening, I don't understand why it's only Evie.

Fuck her.

And no, not literally.

I send another alarm clock into the wall. This one shatters, the cheap plastic cracking under too immense of a force and I watch as the pieces scatter across the floor, leaving me with only a dark sense of foreboding.

It's not going to be a good day.

¤¤¤

Dad sighs, "You're not angry enough." The deprecated look on his face is mostly hidden by the glaring mid-day sun of which I am thankful.

Looking up at the cloudless sky, I scoff. I think of Evie and mold and pack all my frustrations into this rageful snowball that insists on rolling down my gut to settle in my fucking dick. I feel it twitch and I curse under my breath. This should infuriate me more than anything else and yet, today, my irritation has suddenly been wiped, replaced with desire as if my body refuses to acknowledge the orders my brain keeps drilling.

I can't focus...

Which means I can't shift.

Yet again.

Dad stills, eyeing me and making me squirm under his gaze. "What's going on with you and the witch?" Knowing who my father is, I should have learned to be prepared for such ludicrous questions but alas, he has caught me off guard once more.

Heat rushes to my guilty face.

I know how to mind-link and I do it really well so I know I didn't send him a mental image of this morning's wet dream. I steady myself, clenching my jaw, "Nothing is going on with me and Evie."

Nothing.

"I think you like her," Bug sings with a mirthful grin that only exasperates me more. Her words pull my eyes northward again, and I do not attempt to hide my glower, "I just threw up in the back of my mouth."

Searching the vastness above me, I wonder just exactly what kind of trial my grandmother is putting me through. A grandmother I've never met but a goddess I am meant to worship nonetheless—she provides no help, no solace and the consideration of whether an abomination such as myself is even meant to transform into a wolf is brought to the forefront of my mind once more.

Maybe I am not a werewolf...

Not a lycan...

Not an Ancient in the true sense of the word.

"Maybe you're mates," dad shrugs, his suggestion meant to be casual though it is anything but.

I turn my displeasure from the sky and grandma to him instead, "I'm an Ancient. I don't have a mate." And if I did, it would definitely not be Evangeline Dubois.

I'm an Ancient, I repeat countless times daily and yet, even to me, it seems like a falsity. I remember the warmth and comfort I felt at two years old within the embrace of one red headed witch and I can't prevent the sinking feeling of despair that washes over me with the recollection of being ripped from her arms. It is the fuel to the ever raging wildfire of hate that burns inside of me.