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Chapter Sixteen

Gram didn’t want anyone looking at his back, let alone touching it. All he wanted to do was seek out Amelia and spend time with her. He wanted to stress that he’d been truthful. Andie had spoken to him. She had told him Amelia needed help. The idea that Amelia thought Gram was scheming with her father ripped at his gut.

Gram stiffened and stared at the floor through the opening in the massage table. A panicked sensation of needing to find Amelia swept over him, and he was about to act on it when the door to the room opened.

Just like that, the feeling died.

The room filled quickly with her scent—the scent of honeysuckle and vanilla—and for a moment hope spread through him that she was in the room. But just like that, the smell was overrun with lavender and something else. It took Gram a moment to place the scents. Comfrey leaves and calendula flowers.

He lay there, face down on the massage table, wearing only a towel over his backside. Gram’s eyes widened as his cock lengthened from the scents wrapping around him. Thankfully he was lying face down, or it would be really obvious he was turned on. He’d never had an instant reaction to anyone before, especially from just a scent.

Deep down, he knew the person in the room with him was female. He also knew he didn’t want to be there. He just wanted to see Amelia and fix things with her.

As the woman’s hands came into contact with his skin, Gram gasped. Heat rushed through him, centering in his groin. He jerked, fearful he’d ejaculate then and there. His wolf came to life within him, wanting to be free. It surged up with a force he’d not felt in weeks. As his mouth tingled with a pending shift, his eyes widened. Losing control of himself and changing shapes in the middle of a spa was not what he wanted to have happen.

It didn’t matter if the spa was well-acquainted with supernaturals or not. With as unstable as his body and his wolf were, Gram didn’t want to risk lives should he lose control of his beast. And right about now, it felt as if he’d morph into a wolf and never turn human again.

He felt that disconnected from himself. From his control.

The person massaging him rubbed deeper, her fingers like magik on his skin. Each spot she made contact with instantly felt better. As if her hands were a tonic, bringing with them relief that he’d been seeking for weeks. But now that he had relief, he wanted to get away from it, fearful of his primeval reaction. One too many times he’d seen an alpha male lose control and the end results were devastating.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

Get control of yerself, Campbell.

Scolding himself did little to lessen his response to the female’s touch. His balls drew up, tightening, and he groaned, going ramrod stiff, sure he’d lose it and come then and there. The last thing he wanted was word getting around that Striker’s idea of a special massage had not only worked to get Gram “back in the game,” but it had worked so well he’d come before it really got started.

She worked the knots in his upper shoulders and neck, giving him much-needed relief before working her way down his back slowly, each touch taking him close to the edge of culmination.

As the woman’s hands found their way to his lower back, where he’d had so much pain as of late, he tensed more, preparing for pain.

None came.

In fact, there was a total absence of any sort of pain in his back.

She worked the kinks out of the area with an expert touch. Gram would have questioned if the woman was a witch with honest-to-gods healing magik, but at the moment he was pretty sure she was a siren. His cock thought so, anyway.

He wanted to adjust himself but there was no way to handle the matter without being totally and completely obvious. While his buddies might be fine getting special massages, he wasn’t. He didn’t want to turn the session into a sexual escapade. Sadly, his dick didn’t get the memo. It was totally and completely fine with the session going south.

The woman’s hands skimmed over one of his scars, ever so lightly, as if she didn’t want to make contact with them. He couldn’t blame her.

Need caused his gut to clench. As much as he didn’t want his scars on display or touched, he didn’t want to lose contact with her.

Fuck his scars.

He wanted to be caressed by her more than he wanted to shy away from the view of others.

If he dared to look at whoever was massaging him, he’d probably do something extra stupid and try to hump her. Anything was possible with as out of whack as his body and wolf were.

He groaned.

Whatever the fuck had happened to him during the attack had left him a hot mess. His feelings were foreign to him and his reactions made no sense. One second he wanted to rush out and claim a woman he’d only just met, and the next he was perfectly content to remain where he was.

He ran hot to cold.

The fucking Corporation had broken him probably beyond repair. How could he heal when he didn’t even understand what all was wrong?

Mac and Car thought he needed to clear his head, but what he needed—what he wanted—was Amelia. She consumed his thoughts.

Protect her.

Your mate.

His mind raced back to the voice he’d heard in his head upon arriving. He thought harder on his reaction to Amelia. Of how seeing her being manhandled by Taggert had left him wanting to kill the bastard. The need to touch her had been overpowering.

His gums began to burn, a sign his wolf incisors were about to push through. The sound of his racing pulse filled his head and he closed his eyes tight, doing his best to control the urge to rush from the room, seek out Amelia, and claim her.

As it all came together in his head, the warning, the visions, the reaction to her, he gasped. Could it be true? Could Amelia really be his mate?

No.

The odds were…

He thought of all the men he knew who had mated over the last year. There had been a rash of matings within PSI and I-Ops. He’d once heard someone say they came in clusters. Did he dare to hope that he not only had a mate, but that he’d somehow ended up placed in the same spot as her when he needed her most?

He needed to find Amelia and see if he was right. If she was who he was fast starting to suspect she was.

Gram nearly leapt off the massage table. As he went to move, someone touched his back, just below one of his many scars. Warmth spread through his body and it centered in his groin. He was sure he was going to come. This time his incisors did break free. His jaw began to re-form, taking on the characteristics of a wolf.

Fearing he’d lose control and hurt whoever was with him, he tried to speak, but couldn’t form words with how far gone his mouth was.

Panic assailed him, and he nearly reached out to Mac and Car via their mental links for help. They’d be able to contain him and keep him from doing anything stupid, like hunting down Amelia and claiming her before she was ready for him.

As he thought about how his body was reacting to being touched by another woman, his elation over possibly finding his mate died almost instantly.

If Amelia was truly his mate, Gram wouldn’t be able to get an erection with any other woman. His body would only crave its mate after meeting her. That was simply the way of it with shifters. He didn’t know if it worked the same for other supernaturals, but he did understand the ins and outs of shifter matings.

The fact he had a dick currently hard enough to cut glass meant he was wrong. Amelia wasn’t his mate.

He grabbed the massage table and gripped it tight as his disappointment coursed through him. He’d been so sure. The idea had felt right, as if he’d been waiting for her all his immortally long life.

It still felt that way.

He made a mental note to reach out to Auberi or James after his massage and confess what happened. They might be able to shed light on why his senses were telling him one thing when that couldn’t possibly be the case. That, or they’d confirm everything still wrong with him was psychosomatic and he was basically fucked.

Either way, he’d have more answers than he did now.

All he had to do now was avoid coming while getting his back rubbed. He’d never hear the end of it if he did. The special massage didn’t even need to enter bedroom territory for him to lose his load.

He groaned, his thoughts going right back to Amelia. To her eyes, to her flawless skin, her long brown hair, and her scent. He and the wolf wanted Amelia. The intensity with which he longed for her was the only thing that kept him in place. He knew if he dared get up, he’d hunt her down and more than likely attempt to have his way with her. His willpower was that shaky.

The fierce need to lay claim to Amelia was quickly tempered by the knowledge that she already thought herself a replacement for Brooke. A fill-in. Thanks to Car, he’d have that mess to clean up before he could even attempt to see if anything more could develop. Mate or not, he wanted to be near her.

Hell. Who was he kidding? He wanted to be in her.

“Gram,” whispered a soft voice.

One that made need slam through him. One he knew.

When he realized it was Amelia’s hands on his back, that she was the one massaging him, he gasped and sat up faster than he should have, considering that all he had was one towel draped over his ass. Other than that, he was naked.

It had been her hands on him all along? He really had caught her scent to start with?

His body hadn’t reacted to some other woman. It had reacted to her . Hope surged through him.

Looking up, he found Amelia there, her hazel gaze snapping to his exposed erection. Her eyes widened, and she leapt back as if his cock were a snake about to bite her. In many ways, it was.

Gram was torn between laughing and being mortified. It was an equal split.

“Good goddess, did it just get bigger?” asked Amelia, her upper chest flushing with pink.

Gram was positive he was about to shoot a load all over his leg at the rate he was going. He grabbed his cock, attempting to shield it from view. Even with two hands, he couldn’t cover it all. He’d never been ashamed of his body before he’d been hurt and scarred. As a shifter, nudity came with the territory. But the woman he was positive was his mate looked like she might pass out at the sight of him naked.

Never a good sign.

Of course she’d find the sight of his scarred body repulsive. “Lass.”

She just stared at him, her eyes still wide.

He grabbed for the towel and brought it over his groin quickly. There was so much he wanted to say. The problem was, Gram couldn’t focus. Not with her there, looking stunning in a nearly sheer white gown that was different from the other one she’d been in. This one gifted him a view of her nipples—and the fact she had nothing on beneath the dress. All he had to do was lift the dress and he’d find paradise.

Sitting up fully, he draped his long legs over the edge of the table. He noted the look of shock on Amelia’s face, and his cock picked then to wilt. “Lass, I’ll put clothes on. You do nae have to be alone in here with me. I know yer scared of me, and you do nae care much for me. And I know I’m no prize to look upon. Nae now. Nae after what happened.”

“W-what?” she asked, as if coming out of a daze. She met his gaze. “Scared of you? I’m not. It’s just, well, I wasn’t expecting you to be so…much. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I just don’t know how to respond or act. I really want to play it cool, like it’s no big deal to have you naked in a room with me, but the rest of me is thinking I should run away, that you’re way more man than I can handle. And what do you mean by no prize? Wait. Do you think you’re unattractive? You can’t be serious. You’re the most attractive man I’ve ever seen, like, ever, and in case you missed it, I live in a compound with hundreds of males.”

Relief that she didn’t think he was hideous came over him. “You find me attractive?”

“Yes. Very.” Nodding, her gaze slinked down him, and she bit at her lower lip. It was then he caught scent of her desire. The smell was pure perfection, bringing his cock back to life at once.

At the rate he was going, he’d never be able to walk right. Not from his injuries but from an endless hard-on.

There were worse things to suffer from.

“Amelia.”

She jumped in place slightly as he said her name. Her gaze snapped to his. “Yes?”

“I find you verra, verra, verra attractive, too.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said in a shy manner that suited her—a second before she lurched backward. “Oh! Um, yes. Thank you?”

Gram did his best to avoid laughing. It didn’t quite work. He had a pretty good idea that she wasn’t well versed on the inner workings between men and women. That only served to make him happier. If happy thoughts really could make someone fly, he’d be able to go around the world twice over.

She thought he was attractive and more than likely didn’t have an ex who would swoop in and try to take her from Gram. The very idea of a man attempting such a thing set him on edge. He growled.

She jerked more.

“Lass, no,” he said quickly. “My wolf and my imagination got the better of me. By chance, you do nae have a long-lost love that you’ve had a child with, do you?”

She glanced around the room.

“What are you looking for?”

“Medicinal marijuana. It would explain your senseless line of questioning.” She righted herself, easing away from the door, keeping a safe distance from him. “No to all of that. I’ve never even had what someone would label a boyfriend. That isn’t really done here with the Flock. Mostly, when you’re of age, Cal hands you off to whoever he sees fit. Some men get more than one woman given to them.”

“Cal is an arsehole,” said Gram and then sighed. “Sorry, lass. I dinnae mean to call yer father such a thing.”

Shrugging, a smile spread over her face. “It would be offensive if you were wrong. You’re not.”

Gram realized how dry his throat was and understood it had something to do with his state of longing for Amelia. “Lass, can I have some water? I’d get it myself but I’m nae in naught more than I was born in, and I’m worried you will pass out if I flash you again.”

Her eyes tracked to his groin once more. “Yes. Let’s get you me. Wait. I mean, let’s get me some you. No. I mean I’ll get you water. Don’t move.”

Gram snickered. “Aye. I’ll be right here, waiting to be given you.”

He winked.

She squeaked like a mouse, making him laugh as she fumbled to unlock the door. She didn’t bother closing it, not that he cared. He strongly suspected she hadn’t meant to leave it open but was in a hurry to put distance between them.

It had to be overwhelming for her. It was for him, and he had her by centuries. He could sense her age and she was barely into her twenties.