Chapter 23 Entangled
ELIJAH
I repeated the words he said, not really understanding. Or maybe, I just didn’t want to get my hopes high.
“W-what do you mean you’re feeling her? You can actually feel her wolf now?” I asked.
I knew sleep was going to be hard before, but right now, I doubted it would happen at all. The way I'm feeling, coupled with what Ezra just said, I was desperately trying to distract myself from the growing discomfort between my legs.
It had been just a kiss. So why was my body reacting like this? This was entirely my fault. It had been such a long time since I’d been this close to any woman, and Ezra was already on edge about finally meeting our mate. Everything felt more intense.
I was thinking about anything that would stop me from contemplating the million different ways I wanted to have her across this bed. Because I’d told myself I wanted to get to know her first.
Yes. I needed to get to know her properly before doing anything physical with her.
Well, I’d already kissed her, which had kind of defeated that entire purpose. But still. I wanted to know her as a person first.
“How else do you want me to explain it? I mean exactly what I said—I can feel her now. She’s finally active.”
That was good news, right? It meant she wasn’t abnormal or broken, and it would make this whole mating process move faster.
“Try to communicate with her.”
Ezra went silent for a moment. Adriana was already sound asleep beside me, and here I was, battling with my own body and my wolf about her. The fact that she wasn’t even particularly close to me and I was still feeling this intense pull made me wonder what the hell was wrong with me.
I wasn’t just randomly aroused. That wasn’t it.
I’d had way too much work to be bothering with thoughts about women. That had been true until she came along and changed everything.
“I can’t. I don’t know what’s blocking her, but I can’t get through.”
I sat up carefully in the bed, trying not to disturb her.
“What do you mean you can’t get through?”
“I mean I’m actively trying to communicate with her wolf, but something is preventing me. There’s some kind of barrier blocking me. I can’t reach her at all.”
I was completely confused by what he was describing, but I couldn’t make any noise because I absolutely didn’t want to wake Adriana up.
“What are you trying to tell me, Ezra? What could possibly be creating a block between you two? Can you at least see her wolf?”
I even turned to face Adriana directly so Ezra would have the clearest possible view of her. She looked so incredibly peaceful lying there.
“I’m still attempting to make contact, Elijah, but I honestly don’t understand what’s happening. There’s something really off about this situation. I’ve never encountered any wolf I couldn’t communicate with before. It’s like she’s definitely there, present, but she’s somehow not clear enough for me to reach.”
I understood what he was trying to explain, and I could genuinely feel his mounting frustration. That frustration was making me angry too because I experienced all of his emotions as if they were my own.
“Just let it go for now, Ezra. Don’t get yourself worked up over this. The fact that you can feel her presence at all is a step forward. I mean, you couldn’t sense her at all before, so this is definitely progress forward.”
He didn’t respond immediately, and I could sense he was irritated by the situation.
What could possibly be causing this problem?
Was it simply because she was in a completely new pack environment and her wolf was still trying to adjust and acclimate to the change?
But even when she’d been back at her home pack, the situation hadn’t been any different. In fact, it had been even worse back then—Ezra hadn’t been able to detect her wolf’s presence at all.
I found myself wondering if Adriana herself knew what was happening with her wolf. If she didn’t have any awareness of the situation, I felt strongly compelled to tell her what was going on. She was definitely over eighteen years old, that much was certain.
So how could she possibly not know what was happening with her own wolf?
It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to bring up with her, though.
“There’s definitely something unusual going on here,” Ezra started again.
“Yeah, you already established that pretty clearly.”
“No, that’s not it. I mean there’s something more to her as a whole. There’s this particular energy I’m picking up from her presence and it’s absolutely not normal or typical.”
Here was Ezra speaking in riddles and cryptic statements again.
“So is that energy you’re sensing a positive thing or a negative thing?”
“It’s good. It’s definitely, certainly good.”
I was genuinely confused about how he could simultaneously say that she was strange and unusual, yet also insist that it was somehow a good thing. But I didn’t want to bother asking for clarification because I really didn’t want him launching into a long, complicated explanation right now.
“I really need to try getting some sleep. It’s getting incredibly late.”
He actually laughed at me.
“You and I both know perfectly well that trying to sleep right now is a complete waste of time and effort. Not with everything that’s currently going on with your body.”
“And whose fault is that situation, exactly?” I snapped back at him.
“I’ve been starving and deprived for so long. You really can’t blame a man for his natural reactions.”
“A wolf, you mean.”
“Oh, shut up.”
I laid my head back down on the pillow and immediately got hit with an overwhelming wave of her scent. That distinctly feminine smell was absolutely everywhere around her and it was pulling me in like some kind of powerful magnet.
This arrangement definitely wasn’t going to work out.
I turned my head firmly to the other side, trying desperately to distract myself from my increasingly unfortunate physical situation.
“Turn back around. I’m still actively trying to establish communication with her wolf.”
I rolled my eyes in frustration and turned back around, making absolutely certain to maintain plenty of distance between our bodies.
“I should have just stayed on the damn floor,” I thought to myself.
At least then I would have avoided being embarrassed like this.
“Yeah, and you would have woken up with a stiff back. Just try to go to sleep.”
I didn’t want to start screaming at Ezra internally, mostly because that would only stress me out even more, and right now what I desperately needed was to calm myself down.
I settled on the fact that in the morning, Adriana was probably going to head to Hazel’s training session to practice with those male warriors.
Anyone who dared to hurt her again was going to face serious punishment. That was going to be the new law. I’d taken her away from her abusive home and brought her here specifically to protect her, not so she could be bullied by different people in a different location.
So I absolutely would not tolerate it happening again.
I don’t even remember the exact moment when I finally fell asleep. I just kept thinking about a million different things while lying in that bed beside her, with that same intoxicating scent gradually pulling me closer and closer to her body.
My hands and body seemed to work entirely on their own while I slept. Somehow our positions shifted and changed during the night, and our bodies moved closer together until we became completely entangled with each other.