Hungry Like a Wolf (Claws Clause 1)

But she could guess.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Confusion, betrayal, shock… a motley of different emotions came crashing over her, weighing her down. She could feel Maddox watching her closely, gauging her reaction.

The sympathy mixed with love in his gaze somehow made it so much worse. How could she process all of this when Maddox was looking at her with so much expectation?

She couldn’t, that was for sure.

“I think you should go.”

Maddox stiffened on the edge of the chair. “Ang?”

She nodded. “Please, Maddox. I… I think I’d like to be alone right now.”

27

To her surprise, Maddox nodded. Gathering up the marriage certificate and the photo, he slipped them back into the manila folder.

“I didn’t want to do this,” he said, and there was enough regret in his tone that she believed him. “Wright forced my hand. I wanted you to remember on your own… I’m sorry, Ang. I really am.”

Then, before she could say anything, he leaned down, brushed the back of his hand across her cheek, then left her alone in the room.

She felt the burn of his flesh against hers long after he was gone.

The image of Evangeline in a wedding dress, holding tightly to Maddox as if she never wanted to let him go? That stayed seared in her mind even longer.

She didn’t know what to think. Her initial reaction to deny the validity of the marriage license—to accuse him of forging her signature—had come from the last remnants of her certainty that Maddox had made this all up. The moment it slipped out, she didn’t even believe it.

It was like she thought she had to.

But even that was wrong—because of the dreams.

She’d been having dreams about a shadowy figure with glowing golden eyes since right after her accident. Long before she met Maddox at Mugs, she dreamed of him, erotic dreams that made the virgin she thought she was blush. But then, before Adam and the other cop interrupted them, she grabbed hold of Maddox’s cock and it seemed right. Like she’d done the same exact thing a thousand times before, his moans and his pleasure music to his ears.

And that wasn’t all.

The despair at waking up and finding out that he had just taken her from Mugs had blinded her to the fact that she’d felt a pull to Maddox from the first moment they locked eyes.

He repeatedly told her that she was his mate. That there was a special bond between them, a tether put in place by fate. She was the one woman he was meant to love, meant to sleep with, meant to breed with.

In her dreams, they did that. A lot.

Then there were the recent visions that seemed so real… Memories? At first, Evangeline thought they were fantasies. Now? She wasn’t so sure. It was like déjà vu. She felt like she’d lived those scenes before but, without the memories to back them up, she dismissed them.

She had to start paying attention.

The room. The bedroom that so eerily resembled the space she created for herself in Grayson. She’d only lived there for months, though it felt like a lifetime. Was it possible? Could she have celebrated her newly won independence by subconsciously decorating her room like the one she left behind—and couldn’t remember?

Adam.

Apart from the wedding picture—which could’ve been faked, just like the marriage license, they could’ve been faked—Adam was the biggest piece of proof she had. He was the one she could believe. And he was the one who said out loud that Maddox and Evangeline used to have a bond.

Used to.

Did they still?

Sitting on the edge of the bed—her bed— Evangeline reached deep inside of her. It fe

lt strange and kind of silly, but maybe there was something to it because, after a few seconds, she felt this kind of knot down low. Without knowing what it was or how she was doing it, she tugged at it.