Afflicted Read online

  Afflicted

  By Ava Novak

  Afflicted © Ava Novak 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, place, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Dear Reader,

  The novel you are about to indulge in is a non-clean novel! This is adult reading material with one or more tame to erotic sex scenes that a few are opposed to finding/reading in books. I hope you enjoy this romance novel as much as I had the fun writing it and eventually publishing. Be sure to leave honest feedback. I appreciate all comments including the bad, ugly, and the indifferent.

  With Much Love,

  Ava Novak

  Afflicted

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  The End

  Coming Soon

  Chapter One

  Her scent invaded his senses. How could something smell so damned delicious? She smelled like home. His wolf recognized the meaning of such a decadent fragrance that drifted up Kaden’s nose. The beast knew it was their mate standing a few feet away from them. The only problem with that, well the fact was this woman, whose scent almost had Kaden drooling, was a human.

  Kaden felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been thrown on him. He couldn’t be with a human let allow be mated to one. This had to be a mistake and maybe that lovely smell was coming from someone else. Unfortunately, Kaden and Victoria Lane were the only ones in the small office located at the Collins State Bank, the only bank in town. A human female as his mate was nothing but impossible and more than anything unheard of.

  Fuck me! This can’t be right. This human can’t possibly be my mate.

  “You must be my one o’clock Mr. Wright?”

  Kaden cleared his throat and shook the hand she offered to him.

  “Yes I’m Kaden Wright,” he replied coolly.

  “Please have a seat.” She nodded down to the red wine colored uncomfortable looking traditional styled box arm chair. Kaden dropped down on the grain feeling leather, with a thickly padded seat, and backrest cushions that weren’t all too comfortable.

  Victoria gave him another smile as she took her own seat.

  There is no way she is originally from here. This is just so unbelievable right now. She can’t be mine. There is no way she is my mate.

  This was not what he had in mind when he returned to this place. Twenty-nine year old Kaden had been away from Collins for a long time. Making a run for it the first chance he got when he turned eighteen. He made a vow never to set foot in this town unless his father was dead.

  Now I am regretting coming back to this damned place. Shit!

  Collins was a small remote town, located in the state of Colorado, surrounded by mountains, and nothing but a green forest of tall timbering trees cut off from decent civilization. Collins was the perfect spot for shifters like Kaden to have a good life in secrecy among the humans. Yet Kaden left to get away from his old man, the leader of the shifter pack in Collins. Morgan Wright wasn’t a leader, he didn’t do his job as an alpha, and now he’d placed Kaden in a sticky situation after his death— nobody even bothered to mourn him other than Kellie, Kaden’s mother.

  Hell of a scent, he thought, wondering if it was conceivable his life mate might have simply visited the bank, and maybe her scent was just left behind from her visit. It was possible but Kaden was grasping for anything to prove all this wrong. The last thing he needed was for this human sitting behind the oak wood finished desk to be the woman that was meant to be his. He had a bunch of shit on his plate and a mate wasn’t something he needed at the moment— human or not. Kaden had to figure out how to fix everything his father had screwed up. His plan was to clean up the mess by the end of the summer, find someone to take his title, and then head back to Alaska where he’d been living with a few rogue shifters working on the oil rigs.

  He had to do the reasonable thing here. Kaden chose to ignore her decadent scent that almost caused him to break out in a sweat. Most importantly he pushed aside the aching need to have her. He needed to conjure up a mega load of willpower to push that catastrophic craving aside.

  “I tried to explain the situation to Mrs. Wright but I don’t think what I said even mattered. I understand what the death of a loved one can do to someone. It’s all very tragic,” Victoria said as she typed away on her computer.

  Kaden was listening but his eyes were glued to her lips.

  Fight it damn it. A human can’t be your fucking mate.

  “Can’t be tragic when the son of bitch deserved to die,” Kaden snapped. He didn’t want to hear sympathies from anyone about his father. The man caused nothing but suffering, a poor excuse of an alpha, a mate, and father.

  Shit I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

  Victoria stopped typing to glance at him. Kaden looked down at his boots and made an attempt to get a handle on all the rage he felt towards Morgan Wright. Kaden had healed scars imperceptible by the human eye on his back, and legs from the doing of Morgan. The man left nothing good behind for a single soul to remember him by just misdeeds.

  Kaden dared to glance back up when Victoria resumed typing once again. He took the time to run his eyes over her features. He liked her long thick espresso colored hair that came to a stop just at the middle of her back, complementing her oval shaped face, along with perfectly arched eyebrows, navy blue eyes, a snub shaped nose, and soft-looking pinkish lips. The black rimmed glasses gave her a sexy librarian look. Kaden’s thoughts took a turn and ended up in the gutter. Erotic images flashed through his mind.

  Enough with the kinky fantasies damn it. She is a human you idiot. Our kind doesn’t mix!

  “As I told Mrs. Wright, there have been several mortgages taken out on several properties that your family owns and some of those have been defaulted on and the bank had no choice but to place those properties up for auction.”

  “How much is owed,” Kaden asked as he turned his attention to the fish tank behind her. Even looking at the fish swimming around didn’t do much to distract him. He needed to get out of this office, away from her, and soon before he did or said something he would regret.

  “Well your father Mr. Wright took out mortgages on at least 5 properties located just a little distance outside of Collins, the same amount, but he did manage to pay back at least three …..leaving an unpaid balance of twenty thousand each plus interest on the remaining two.”

  “I can pay that now.”

  There were shifter families living on each of those properties. Morgan had no right taking mortgages out on those homes, especially when he had shifters living in the homes, and not only that but Kaden had helped build those houses from the ground up. Then again Morgan was the alpha and no one said a damned thing against him. No one bothered to challenge his bullshit leadership.

  “You do understand that’s forty thousand dollars without the interest and with the interest the amou-”

  “Can I pay that here and now or not?” Kaden fought the urge to smile at the look of aggravation on her face. Clearly she hated being cut off.

  “I’m afraid not. Your name isn’t on the mortgage and Mrs. Wright w
ants nothing to do with this. I’ve spoken to her several times and she is fully aware of the state of this matter.”

  “What? There must be a mistake.”

  “There is no mistake. She has been informed for some time now and she knows about the auctions that are taking place this weekend.”

  What the hell mom? Please don’t let this mean you’ve been lying to me.

  “You can’t do that. This auction can’t take place. There are families living in those homes. Look I have the money here with me, take it and do what needs to be done.”

  Members of the pack were mad about this betrayal. The only way to calm them down was to fix it before something happened and emotions got the best of everyone.

  “I’m sorry I can’t take the money unless it’s from Mrs. Wright. And she has already been vocal about how she doesn’t want to stop the auction.”

  He was stunned. His mother gave the impression she was aware of the money owed, the risk of an auction, and she was doing everything in her power to stop it. She hadn’t been truthful. And apparently it sounded as if she didn’t give a damn. Kaden wanted to be angry. The life they had with Morgan was a tough one. If it weren’t for the healing capabilities from being a shifter— who knows, they’d probably be dead. He could understand that she just wanted to rid herself of this place even if it meant ignoring all Morgan’s debts. Hell, she didn’t cause all this chaos, that dead son of a bitch did, and here Kaden was trying to make things right for the Duncan’s and Salvatore’s. Morgan had no right. He wasn’t looking out for the pack. If it weren’t for Kaden taking his own money to pay for this— if he didn’t there was a great risk of humans moving into those two homes. It wouldn’t take long for the new occupants to learn that deep in the heart of the remote mountain town that the next door neighbors were dark creatures of the night. The pack was littered all over that section of town. It had the perfect amount of coverage to seal them away from prying eyes and nosey human neighbors. Kaden had to make sure it stayed that way.

  ***

  Victoria was intrigued by the man sitting across from her in the tiny office. His face was almost completely hidden by a long wild mane of jet black hair. His cheekbones, jaw and chin were covered by a rough beard in need of shaving, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like freshly cut emeralds. When he walked into her office Victoria almost snatched off her glasses and had to do a double take. Kaden Wright was every bit rugged, deliciously over six feet tall, wearing a flannel shirt and faded jeans. The man looked as if he’d walked straight out of one of her favorite romance novels or one of her wild erotic dreams. He was the dream man type.

  She had half a mind to clear everything off her desk, jump on top, and command him to come and get her. The man was hot. Victoria had to clear her mind, prevent anything dirty from taking over, as this was the last place she needed to get her panties wet. Hell, she was capable of keeping it professional, even if the guy across from her seemed to be staring at her with this look on his face that read, I-will-be-the-best-fuck-you-ever-had. Or maybe that bit was just a part of her imagination that was running wild today. Then again it might be from the lack of sex she’d had in the past few months. The only thing she had to ease out her sexual tension was a purple vibrator with one of those butterflies to massage her clit until it broke weeks ago. No longer vibrating at the certain speed she liked, Victoria had ceased getting herself off until her new replacement arrived, which should’ve been in her mail box days ago.

  Keep it professional Vic.

  “So can anyone go to this damned auction?”

  Victoria flinched. He didn’t have to speak so rudely. She wasn’t the person who carelessly caused this mess. It was Morgan Wright, who didn’t think of his tenants, or leave behind the funds to pay for this. The son really had no business trying to pay a debt that wasn’t his. Victoria found it sexy that Kaden was here making an attempt to make amends for something that wasn’t his doing. Speaking of tenants, Victoria wondered if the sign she’d placed on the properties for the one hundredth time were pulled up and in the trash. She didn’t want to attend the upcoming auction. Victoria had a gut feeling it was going to get uglier than the phone threats, someone throwing toilet paper on the cabin she’d been renting, and the nonstop anonymous letters being sent to the bank with a message reading to end the auction. Personally she didn’t see what the hell the problem was. Morgan Wright’s name was on all the properties and he legally had the right to do whatever he wanted. Victoria was ready for this account to over and done with. She was sick of being aggravated with it all.

  “Yes, anyone can attend. It’s an open auction and it will start around ten a.m. in the morning.”

  He stood up forcing Victoria to lift her head to look up at him.

  “All right thanks for wasting my time.”

  Well, who pissed in your cornflakes?

  “Mr. Wright, I would think after meeting your mother, a nice woman by the way, I’d expect her to have raised a fine man with some manners!”

  “Naw, the old man did that,” he said darkly.

  It was bad enough she was dealing with shitty attitudes from other people about those stupid properties. Victoria wasn’t in the mood for dealing with it today even from the hunk standing up in her office looking like a predator on the prowl. A predator that moments ago she felt the urge to crawl on top of her desk and allow him to do whatever he saw fit to do with her body. Perhaps that’s what they both needed a good fucking or two. For a split second Victoria thought he was going to launch over her desk at her. Instead she found herself looking at his back as he turned around to leave. At the same time she couldn’t help but wonder how muscled his back was. She pictured her hot pink polished fingernails digging into his back as she was given something hard, thick, and long.

  Clearly I am the one who is in need of a good fuck. That vibrator better be in my damned mailbox.

  She jumped as Kaden slammed the door behind him.

  “Asshole,” she mumbled.

  She heard a ruff laugh on the opposite side of the closed door.

  There is no way he heard that. As if he has sonic hearing!

  Victoria tossed a glare at the door and mouthed the word asshole. With a sigh she turned her attention to her computer. She was ready to go home and soak away the day in a hot relaxing bubble bath. This small town in the middle of god forsaken nowhere was turning out to be one wild crazy circus. She had to remind herself why she sought the solitude this place seemed to offer. All that came to screeching halt with this freaking auction. Victoria wasn’t going to complain too much because she left her old life behind for a fresh new start. What she had going on here in Collins was ten times better than anything back in North Carolina. Whenever she thought about North Carolina Victoria would get the urge to pick up the phone to give her ex best friend and ex fiancé a piece of her mind. Sure six months had passed since she caught the two of them in the bed that Mark and Victoria had shared; the wound was still kind of fresh. Her dreams of being Mrs. Mark Hanson came to a screeching halt on that day. The embarrassment was too much for her to handle at the time when the wedding was only two weeks away. So the twenty six year old packed her bags and hit the road putting as much distance as she could between her and the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Although it felt good to know Mark must have had one hell of a headache from the lamp she hit him upside the head with.

  It was funny that she ended here of all places. In the passing months Mark and Hannah’s affair meant nothing and the pain slowly disappeared but not completely. As far as she was truly concerned Mark and Hannah deserved to be with each other and to be horribly miserable. Just because she had one guy, who was a cheating jackass, Victoria wasn’t going to let that stop her from finding love again.

  Chapter Two

  Kaden used his foot to close the door behind him.

  “Mom, I’m back,” Kaden said, walking into the kitchen with the bag of groceries he stopped by the store to pick up on his way
back to her house. He almost forgot she’d asked and the list she gave him. His thoughts were on Victoria. His sexy librarian, that’s what he’d secretly dubbed her. Kaden was still trying to fight the idea that she was his mate. He merely settled on something different. Kaden believed it was just a sexual attraction and the wolf part of him was wrong about her being his mate. A quick go in the sheets should show his wolf that it was nothing more than sex and that’s where the connection ended. Kaden felt like a weight had been lifted after he settled on an agreeable resolution when it came to Victoria. . He’d got a whiff her arousal and it smelled so god damn magnificent. The urge to please her was overwhelming. And he’d heard her call him an asshole. Kaden exited the bank swiftly and gulped in fresh air. Even now her scent was stuck in his nose. It was inerasable.

  Of all the damned things that had to happen to me and this is what I have to deal with.

  “You got everything,” Kellie said as she walked into the kitchen.

  “Yep,” Kaden said, as he grabbed a beer, and placed the rest of the pack into the fridge.

  Taking a seat at the table, Kaden silently watched his mother put the groceries up. At fifty one years of age Kellie looked not a day over at least thirty five. Long black curls stopped at the middle of her back, she had the same identical eyes as Kaden but that’s all where the resemblance stopped. Kaden had taken on a majority of his father’s features.

  “So did you get what you needed to do in town done?”

  Okay, she isn’t going to like the shit that I am about to say, but she is the one that isn’t being honest.

  He had to confront her about those houses. Didn’t she know the risk if a human was able to get their hands on one of those homes? Of course she knew. For whatever her reasons were for ignoring the debt, it still had to be paid. She was the wife of an alpha and had to act accordingly. The safety of the pack was at stake. All of the land in their hands was private property and needed to stay that way. There wasn’t time to beat around the bush about it. Kaden had no choice but to reveal what he knew and the real reason he was in town today. He took a long good sip of the beer before finally answering his mother.