His Redemption (Complete His Series)

Azalea

Although he never said anything and tried to hide it the rest of the day, I knew something was bugging Liam. We enjoyed lunch on the dock; he told me about all his favorite movies he wanted to show me. Luckily it was getting too cold to go swimming, so I had an excuse not to admit I didn’t know how.

After lunch, we went back to the house and cuddled on the couch to watch a movie. Being with Liam was starting to feel so natural and normal. His presence made me feel calm; his touch made my heart race in a good way. I looked forward to hearing his voice and his laugh. His wolf still made me nervous, but I hoped that would get better.

Not long after the movie ended, Liam got a phone call that he had to take. I could tell he felt bad, but I didn’t mind. I knew that running a pack from out here was difficult for him. I excused myself so he could concentrate on the phone call.

I went upstairs to grab my reading book. I thought it might be nice to sit on the porch swing and read with it now being evening. I made my way back downstairs and out to the front porch. The sunset could be better seen from the back of the house, but the sky was a beautiful mixture of oranges and purples. I sat on one of the porch swings and looked up at the sky. I never really got much time to sit back and enjoy something like this. I was always so busy with the Inn, I never really relaxed, even on my days off.

As I sat there enjoying the enchanting view around me, I felt oddly warm, like Liam was smothering me in his body heat. I removed my sweater but still felt warm. I fanned myself lightly with my book, looking for just a little relief.

When the attempt at fanning myself failed, I decided to go in and get a glass of ice water. This was an odd sensation. Even in the summer, I never felt like I just could not cool off. In the kitchen, I grabbed a class from the cabinet and opened the freezer. The rush of cool air felt refreshing against my flushed skin.

I heard abrupt movement behind me, causing my attention to shift from my current temperature dilemma to Liam standing in the kitchen breathing heavily. He held his phone in his hand, sound still coming from it. Had he not finished his phone call?

“Liam, what’s wrong-” I started as he stalked closer to me. A growl emanated from his chest. My face dropped, and my heart began to race. I took a step back, colliding with the open freezer.

“Stop, Liam. You’re scaring me,” I said shakily as he continued to advance towards me. His eyes were a dark, midnight blue, and his face was set with an expression I couldn’t describe.

“L-Liam,” I started again. He stopped six inches away from me. He was breathing heavily. Someone was shouting over the phone. I tried to make out what they were saying. My cell phone rang from my pocket. I had completely forgotten that I had it with me. Liam was staring at me like he was in a trance as I stood there. My cell phone continued to ring. I slowly reached in my pocket to pull it out. The caller ID read ‘Lily,’ but I didn’t know who that was. It must have been a number Liam saved into the contacts before he sent me the phone.

Liam made no motion. I hit the answer button and slowly brought the phone to my ear. I was frightened that if I moved too quickly, he may snap back and do something.

“H-hello?” I said, shaking now.

“Azalea? Where is Liam?” a female’s voice asked.

“In fr-front of me. Who is th-this?” I couldn’t help the stutter in my voice now.

“My name is Lily. I am Damien’s mate. Are you okay?” she said in a confident but calming voice.

“Yea, but I am scared. I-I don’t think L-Liam is okay.” I said quickly.

“Can you quickly tell me what happened?” I could hear a male’s voice shouting in the background. It was probably Damien screaming pointlessly at Liam over his phone.

“I was h-hot and came inside to g-get some water. Th-then he just appeared. H-he’s not talking, and his eyes are dark. He is breathing h-heavy too,” I tried to describe to her.

“Oh Goddess…” she trailed off. I could hear her yell for Damien to stop. They had a fast, hushed conversation that I couldn’t make out before she came back. “Azalea, I have to ask you something. Have you and Liam mated yet?”

I gulped. Why did this matter? “N-no,” I said. I kept my eyes on Liam, but he stood as still as a statue.

“Okay. You aren’t going to like this, sweetheart, but you are in heat. It is your body’s way of speeding up the mating.” she said calmly.

“Heat?” I asked her, confused.

“You don’t know what heat is… Azalea, why didn’t your mom tell you about this?”

Lily clearly did not know who I was or anything about my parents. “I did-” I started but stopped abruptly when Liam stepped forward. I froze in terror. He grabbed the phone from my hand.

“Lily, get here now, bring Damien,” he said as he handed the phone back to me and ran from the room. I heard the front door slam as he must have left. I could hear someone shouting over the phone, so I brought it back to my ear.

“Azalea? Hey, answer me! Are you okay?” she said, panicked.

“I-I am okay. But Liam left. He left m-me,” I said, still afraid but now also sad. What was going on, and why was he acting like this?

“Azalea, I need you to listen to me for a few minutes, okay? You are in heat, and Liam is trying to resist mating you. I don’t think he wants to do it against your will, but I am sure his wolf and instincts are telling him otherwise. Damien and I are coming to you, but I need you to do something. Are you following me?”

I nodded my head but quickly realized she couldn’t see me. I whispered, “y-yea.”

“I need you to go lock all the doors. It won’t stop him, but if he loses control before we get there, it will slow him down. Go now while I am talking.” She paused momentarily. I did not need to be told twice. I ran to the back door first and began locking it. I then moved to the front door as she continued. “I will have to explain more later, but you need to go upstairs and lock yourself in the bathroom. Take a very cold shower, okay? As cold as the water will go. Stay in the shower until I get there, okay?”

“Okay,” I said as I did what she said.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“We will be there in 10 minutes. Stay in the shower with the cold water on, no matter what. Damien will find Liam, okay? Everything is going to be alright; I am going to help you through this. Do you trust me?”

Oddly, I did. I somehow knew I could trust her even though she was a complete stranger. “Yes,” I told her.

“Good. I’ll be there shortly,” she said and hung up the phone. I made it to the bathroom. I set the phone on the counter and quickly undressed. I opened the large, frosted doors and climbed into the shower. After a bit of fidgeting, I figured out how to get the water on. I turned it to the coldest setting and stepped into the stream. At first, the cold water felt amazing. My hot body began to cool down immediately.

I grabbed some soap from the little shelf in the corner and washed my body quickly, figuring I shouldn’t waste my time in here. As I washed, the image of Liam in the kitchen floated back into my mind. Was I in heat? Liam was fighting the urge to mate me? How did this all happen? I thought female wolves went into heat when their bodies were ready to produce pups.

After about five minutes under the cold water, I began to shiver. I was no longer uncomfortably hot and was quickly going in the opposite direction. I sat down on the floor, pulling my legs to my body to try and conserve as much body heat as I could while also letting the cold-water flow over me. Was Liam actually going to do it? Is that why he stopped in front of me?

Only a couple of minutes later, I heard pounding on the bathroom door. It was followed by a growl. My heart almost stopped; Liam was outside the bathroom door.

The pounding grew louder as I sat there frozen. How long had I been in here? Where were Damien and Lily? If Liam got through the door, what was he going to do? I began to shake even harder now, completely unable to control my body.

“Dai, throw him in the damn lake. Cool him off and get Liam back now!” I could hear the same female voice from the phone. She was forceful in her commands but not erratic. I could hear a struggle in the bedroom over the sound of the water as I sat there shaking but frozen to the spot. A moment later, the doorknob shook a little bit before turning all the way. The door swung open, and a dark figure appeared on the other side of the shower door.

“Azalea? It’s Lily. Are you okay?”

It took me a moment to find my voice, but I finally answered her “Yea,” in a small voice.

“I am going to get you a towel, okay? I can’t smell anything now, so I think the shower did the trick. Damien is calming Liam down now. He won’t touch you.” With that, she left the bathroom and returned moments later.

“Can I open the door?” she said nicely.

“Sure,” I told her.

She opened the door slowly. Reaching in, she turned the water off. “I am going to hand you a towel, okay? Let’s get you dried off and in some clothes.” Her arm reappeared in the door holding a large grey towel. I slowly stood up and reached for it. I wrapped the towel around my body and wrung out my wet braid. I opened the shower door all the way and stepped out. Lily stood, leaning against the bathroom counter.

She was gorgeous. She had light brown skin and midnight black hair. Her fair fell in soft waves down slightly past her shoulders. She had plump pink lips and long eyelashes that made her brown eyes look incredible. She was taller than me but not quite as tall as Liam. She was thin but fit.

She came towards me. “Thank Goddess; you’re okay. I thought he was about to get through the door when we got here. Do you have something warm to put on? You look a little cold.”

“Y-yea in the closet,” I said. She walked out of the bathroom, and I followed her. She went into the closet and came back with a stack of clothes for me. She handed them to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“I am going to make some tea; I’ll be right back, okay?” she said. I nodded my head. She left the room, closing the door behind her.

I walked over to the bed and sat down. I was so overwhelmed; I felt like I was on autopilot. I dressed and then pulled my hair out of its braid to towel dry. In no time at all, Lily was back with two warm mugs in her hand. She knocked to announce she was back before she came in.

She handed me a mug and set the other one on the bedside table. She grabbed a blanket from the folded ones on the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. I gave her a weak smile, too overwhelmed to talk.

She grabbed her mug and sat down next to me. “This wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to meet you, but here we are,” she said with a shallow laugh. She looked me up and down for a moment. “I hope you know; Liam is going to kill himself over this. He is big and bad on the outside, but I know better. I only know a little of what Damien told me, but I know Liam has waited for you for a long time. He isn’t the kind of wolf to do that without your consent.”

I nodded at her. When I agreed to come with Liam here, I never thought this was how things would go. I never thought his wolf would be taking control and trying to mate me.

“Azalea?” Lily said, breaking me from my thoughts. I looked up at her. “Do you know what heat is?” I shook my head. She sighed. “I didn’t think so. Okay, basically, wolves have a primal need to mate. Once we find our mates, things generally move fairly quickly. It is not common for wolves to wait to mate and mark each other after they find their true mate. Damien and I only took about two days. If you don’t mate and mark, your body starts to help the process along. Females can go into heat to lure their mate to them. It becomes incredibly hard to resist the longer it goes on.”

I tried to digest what she was saying. So, my body was trying to get Liam to mate and mark me because he is my mate.

“It’s a little odd that it’s happening so fast for you two. But he is an alpha, so I guess that can happen. Usually, this would not happen unless it had taken like a month or more before mating,” she said with a light laugh. I gave her a look. I guess she didn’t know everything about Liam and me. I wonder what he told Damien?

“Wait, how long ago did you find out Liam is your mate?” She asked.

I sighed. I guess I should go ahead and tell her everything. I took a sip of my tea before answering. “It’s a long story, but around three years or so ago. Liam’s 17th birthday, to be exact.” Lily looked at me in horror.

“What did Damien tell you about me?” I asked quietly. I was not entirely sure if I wanted to know, but she wouldn’t be able to understand what was going on unless she knew.

“That Liam found his mate, and it was someone they knew as kids. He also said you were a werewolf but lived over in the human town. I didn’t get much else…” she clarified.

I sighed again. “Well, Damien and Liam did know me when we were younger. I grew up in the packhouse with them. But not because my family lived there. My parents were traitors who tried to overthrow Alpha Robert when I was around five years old.” Her eyes got wide as she listened. “My parents died, and after that, no one would take me in. So, the Alpha and Luna did. But I had to earn my keep in the packhouse. The other kids made fun of me; I learned to ignore it. I was just waiting until my 17th birthday and graduation before I left the packhouse. But the night Liam turned 17, he accidentally found me and realized I was his mate. He didn’t want his father to find out and didn’t think I would make an acceptable Luna, so he convinced his father to send me to the human town instead of casting me out as a rogue. He thought I had a better chance of survival that way. When I got there, Liam rejected me.” Lily looked a little dumbfounded. Her face was going between sympathy, sadness, confusion, and anger. I gave her a second to process everything I said.

“But if he rejected you three years ago, how are you mates now?” she asked finally.

“Well, I sort of never accepted the rejection, and the bond never fully broke. So, when he came in for lunch a couple of weeks ago, he saw me again, and I guess it started to repair,” I explained.

“So, you have lived over in the human town all this time? Didn’t you ever feel hurt when Liam slept with someone? It wasn’t often, but I know it happened,” she said.

My heart sank a little. I had never thought about what Liam had done during those years. “I think I did feel things, just not the same as a normal wolf.”

“Normal wolf? Are you not a normal wolf?”

“I have never shifted. My wolf left me, receded I am told, before I was ever able to shift. Liam’s uncle thinks it has to do with my size.”

She looked me up and down before replying, “You are pretty small for a werewolf. If I didn’t know already, I would have thought you were pretty young.” I gave her a tight smile. “So, you really haven’t ever shifted? And you don’t know about heat cycles and mating?” I shook my head. “Wow, that’s a lot to unpack, huh?”

I think I was going to like Lily. She was taking this all pretty well and didn’t want to sugarcoat everything for me. We sat there sipping on our tea for a few minutes before I finally broke the silence, “So, uh, how long will this heat thing last?” I asked her.

“Well, it usually only lasts a couple of days…” she said.

“Right,” I said.