by E. M. Moore
We were alone in my room, talking about our mates. The conversation turned dark. Into a territory I don’t like to think about. The kiss kind of just happened.
After he initially pressed his lips to mine, we broke away in surprise. Then we stared at each other. I was gazing into eyes I’d peered into countless times, only this time, it was different. In that moment, a need I hadn’t felt before pulsed inside.
We clashed into each other as if our mouths were high-powered magnets. Every sweep of our lips shot a spark of electricity into me. Like a hunger that needed feeding.
It wasn’t until I stepped away from the situation that I wondered how in the hell it happened. I’ve written off the feelings I had in that moment that probably weren’t real to begin with. It was just a longing, a searching, for the one man’s mouth I dream of.
Thankfully, Kinsey interrupted us before it went too far.
Nathan’s Adam’s apple bobs, the black scruff moving with it. The memory of those short, sharp hairs scraping my palm as I cupped his cheek is like a nagging buzzer that goes off every once in a while. “We don’t need to talk about it, though,” he whispers.
“What if someone—”
“No one saw anything,” he seethes.
It’s what I keep trying to tell myself, too, but the length of time I’ve been at the academy is making me paranoid. “Then beyond that, Nathan, don’t you think we should talk about it…for reasons? For us?”
The look he sears into me tells me he completely disagrees. “The more we discuss it, the greater the chance someone will overhear.” He drops his gaze to my lips. “And that’s what we don’t want.”
My breath catches, pulse fluttering as if I were sitting in front of a boy I like. But that’s impossible. If not impossible, then wrong. There’s nothing worse in the shifter world than having relations with someone other than your mate.
But what if I liked it?
The thought sends a terror-filled tremor through me. Pre-first shift, we could date whoever we wanted. Prior to being paired, it’s even encouraged, but to do it now, when we’re supposed to be with our fated mates? It’s not right.
“I guess,” I relent. “If you don’t want to talk about it….” Nathan’s my closest friend. The last thing I want to do is upset him.
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He’s sitting right next to me, but it’s as if he’s already slipped away. My heartbeat fills the room. I don’t know what to say to him, and it’s evident the feeling is mutual by the lengthy silence that follows.
I wait a minute before I attempt to retract the leg that’s lying on his thigh. When I start to pull it back, though, he places his hand on it. “Don’t be weird, okay?”
“Me? Weird?” I tease. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” I’m hoping humor will relieve some of the tension in the room. Thankfully, it does.
“Yeah,” Nathan says, patting my leg. “You’re never weird.”
“Never.”
He leans his head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “I just got off the phone with my mom. She keeps talking about Daybreak’s turn to host the Winter Solstice party.”
“Yeah, my mother’s social media pages are filled with planning ideas.”
His jaw thrums. “Biggest party of the year. Bet we don’t get asked back.”
I feel his pain as much as my own. To have a kid end up at the academy is a curse. They try to brush it under the rug or hide it with fancy life updates, distracting everyone from what’s really going on: Their shifter offspring was unwanted by their own mate.
“To be fair, if we were to go, we’d probably get gawked at.”
“Oh God. The stares.”
“The whispers,” I add.
“The weary looks. Like they can catch getting rejected.” Laughter follows, but we’re hedging the line between humor and anger.
“We’d get to see them, though.”
He makes a bitter sound in the back of his throat. “Maybe catch them fucking.”
My wolf, who’s quiet when I’m self-loathing, starts growling. My stomach somersaults, like it can’t even fathom the thought of Sean doing that with Gayle. It goes against our basic instincts.
I wonder if that’s why Nathan kissed me. Or why I kissed Nathan. Honestly, I don’t know how it started. Maybe we were trying to give our mates a taste of their own medicine. It couldn’t hurt for them to be a little jealous, could it?
“Actually,” Nathan grinds out, “I wish I could catch them fucking. I’m sick of being here because of her.”
“Nathan….” I let the warning in my voice float heavy in the air.
“No, I mean it,” he says, his grip on my leg tightening. “They have no consideration for us, Mia. I think I’m finally starting to get it. Sean will only come to your mandatory meetings. We’re a step away from Feral, and they know it.”
“He said he wants to spare me,” I grind out, reiterating the same words my mate used when I asked why he wouldn’t just fill out the final form and be done with it.
“By leaving you here?” Nathan pushes my leg off him, and I bring both knees to my chest as he stands. The area next to his eyes crinkles. “If he wanted to spare you, he’d accept you as his mate no matter what. He’d fake it if he had to. These dumbass excuses he keeps giving Greystone are bullshit.” Nathan starts pacing now, his wolf rippling up and down his arms, threatening to make itself known. “But we’re the ones who have no recourse. There are no checks or balances on this side of the coin.”
I get to my feet, sidestep into the path he’s wearing in the middle of my room, and wait until his gaze lifts to meet mine. “Hey,” I say, a small smile playing across my lips. I love that he gets protective over me, and I have the same feelings about Gayle’s treatment of him, but we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole right now. “It’s okay.”
His shoulders lift and lower on a deep breath, and he stares into my eyes, almost like he’s investigating their color. We’ve never looked at each other like this before. I’d never had these thoughts flitter through my fated brain. The longer we stare at each other, the shallower my breaths get.
“What?” he asks, blue eyes dropping to my lips. They buzz with something akin to anticipation. Inside, in that spot where my wolf resides when she hasn’t taken over, I feel her confused interest.
Peering down, I spy his clenched fists. I follow his muscular forearm all the way to the open collar of his shirt that reveals a sprinkle of dark chest hair.
A pull starts inside of me that’s so foreign. I’ve always found him handsome, like looking at a painting and appreciating it for its beauty, but nothing else. There’s no other interest there. At least, there wasn’t.
Before I can go too far into my own head, I laugh at myself. I place my palms on my closed eyelids and chuckle. “Man, I think I need to get laid,” I say aloud, bringing my hands away and fanning myself.
My skin is burning up. I place my fingers on my cheeks, feeling the fire underneath.
I expected Nathan to follow me with laughter, but he hasn’t. Finally, I glance at him, and a different look than I predicted greets me. One that makes both my wolf and I perk up.
My lips part on a gasp at his intensity. Before I’m even able to pull another breath, we’re interrupted by a knock on the door. I jump, nerves skating all over my skin. I step away from Nathan, even though there’s already a hefty distance between us. It was only in my head that we were close enough to give me some serious heat.
The knock sounds again, and I give him a wide berth to swing the door open. A grinning Nadia stands in the doorway, her school bag flung over her shoulder. “The lady in the main office asked me to give this to you.” Peering around me, she lifts her hand to greet my other guest. “Hey, Nathan.”
She’s still waving at him when he pushes past me, knocking me to the side. “Going for a run,” he grunts.
Both Nadia and I stare at his retreating form, his footsteps eating up t
he long hallway in half the time it usually takes.
“Did you guys get into a fight?” Nadia asks. The girl is so damn sweet. I thought I was naïve when I first got here, but she takes the cake.
“No, he had a meeting with Gayle yesterday.” There really is no other explanation, right? We’re both feeling off because we’ve been in this damn place forever with no progress.
Nadia’s gaze burns into my temple as I stare down at the note she’s given me. My brows lift in surprise. It’s from Ms. Ebon, Lunar Pack’s advisor. My own advisor only shows up for mine and Sean’s mandatory meetings now. I guess she’s given up on us.
The careful scrawl tells me to come see her ASAP. I frown, my gut tugging with apprehension.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I answer Nadia truthfully. Reaching back inside my room, I grab my keys and lock the door behind me. I tell myself this obviously important, time sensitive meeting can’t have anything to do with Kinsey since I literally just spoke to her, which means it’s school related. I’m willing to bet the Lunar Pack advisor doesn’t want to give me a makeover. Advisors aren’t supposed to reach out to students from other packs and vice versa. This is out-of-the-norm, which makes not knowing so much worse. “Hey, I’ll see you later,” I tell my new friend before taking off.
She rushes to keep up with me. “Will I see you at dinner?”
I shrug. “No idea. Text me?”
She frowns, stopping at the bottom of the stairs as I take a right down the admin hall where the offices are located. Ms. Ebon has always looked like a tough shifter—sharp cheekbones, angular face. The kind people would instantly label a bitch. All I really know about her is that she gets results. Kinsey was the last Lunar Pack student here. Ms. Ebon’s save rate is better than any other advisor.
My stomach twists as I stand in front of the large, wooden door that leads to her office. Kinsey trusts her, so I should too. Ms. Ebon was even on her side when Kinsey ran away from Greystone a few weeks ago. With that in mind, I reach out and knock firmly.
Her harsh voice travels through the solid surface. “Come in.”
I take a deep breath, letting it out in a huff before I twist the knob and step inside.
I don’t know what I expected, but this room mirrors my own advisor’s space. Everything in Greystone Academy looks like a castle. Old, metal chandeliers with flickering light bulbs; huge, wooden desks and chairs that look like they’re straight out of Dracula’s home. It’s as if they tried to make this place as archaic as the reason we’re here.
“Miss Adams. Take a seat, please.”
There’s just something about Ms. Ebon that instantly makes me want to snap to attention. It’s an aura of authority with a cloak of finesse.
Before I’ve even sat down, she says, “I trust you know who I am.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I state, sinking into the purple velvet cushion of the high-back chair. “Kinsey spoke highly of you.”
At the mention of my friend, Ms. Ebon’s cold exterior melts a little.
“I spoke to her today, actually.” Pulling out my phone, I bring up the picture Kinsey sent me of her greenhouse. I don’t know why I’m showing her other than trying to find some common ground with a person who has so much sway around here.
“Look at that,” Ms. Ebon states. Her voice has far less pinch to it, even though she’s hanging onto her air of indifference. “Lovely.” She arranges some folders on her desk and clears her throat. “Miss Walker spoke of you to me.” She leans back in her chair, fingers steepling in front of her. “Miss Adams, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but....”
Oh God. My heart takes off like a pack of stampeding wolves on the hunt. Did Ms. Ebon draw the short straw? Is she about to tell me Sean finally decided my fate?
I try to take a deep breath, and then another. Before I realize it, I’m drawing in short, quick gasps, air whistling through my chest while stars dot my vision.
Suddenly, Ms. Ebon is in my face, pencil skirt straining around her knees. “Deep breaths, Miss Adams. In,” she dictates, sucking in a lungful of air. “And release.”
I follow her, watching as her chest rises and falls with each slow, steady, exaggerated breath. I do as she tells me, mimicking her rhythm until I sigh in relief when I can breathe normally again.
Wonderful. Make her think you’re a total whack job.
“Okay,” Ms. Ebon says, gaze darting to me. “Good?”
I nod, sitting back in the chair and placing my palm over my beating heart.
She moves behind her desk again, her huge chair scraping against the wood at her feet. She places her hands on the flat surface before her, face softening now as she regards me. “I’ve had a visit from Lydia Greystone concerning you.”
My wolf bares her teeth inside me. I do my best to hide my own reaction, but when my wolf and I are on the same page, sometimes that’s impossible.
“I’m afraid it’s not good news,” she states. “She’s given your mate a time limit to make a decision.”
The floor opens up beneath me, and I fall into a hell, the depths of which I’ve not previously known before—and that’s saying something.
3
Panic flutters in my chest. It isn’t as bad as Sean already deciding to send me Feral, but it’s up there. There’s a time limit now. I’ll actually know the date I have to leave this place. I never liked Greystone Academy much, but the alternative is worse.
“Does that come as a shock to you?” Ms. Ebon asks.
Honestly, nothing comes as a shock to me anymore. I nibble on that thought to see if I should say it out loud. Whatever Kinsey thinks, Ms. Ebon does still work for Greystone. I’m not sure how far my insolence will get me.
“Should it?” I ask, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of my tone. “I’ve been the longest matriculated student here ever. There had to be a day when that ride ended.”
Ms. Ebon glares at me. The look is so fierce that I’m almost taken aback by it. I’m the one that was told I’m on death row with an execution date, so shouldn’t I be giving her that look?
I wonder how long I’ll last outside the pack boundaries alone?
My mind swerves to Nathan. He’ll be here all by himself. Well, if he doesn’t follow me soon after.
“Miss Adams?” Ms. Ebon’s sharp tone makes me focus on her again. She leans back in her seat. “You seem resolved. I assumed since you were a friend of Kinsey’s you might be more....”
She weighs her next words, but I don’t give her a chance to voice them. “More prickly? Kinsey and Jonah didn’t have the weight of a year’s separation between them.” When I first came here, I tried so damn hard. I can still conjure the sting of his rejection as if I were feeling it for the first time. But lately, everything circles back to the standoff we’re having. “Sometimes, it’s even hard to remember Sean before he was an asshole to me.”
Inside, my wolf winces, and I don’t try to cover up the hurt. I have a working hypothesis that for wolves, the feeling of rejection is much more acute than for us as humans. For instance, when I’m fully shifted, I feel the tether pulling me back to Daybreak more than when I’m a human, but over the year, it’s lessened.
“So, you’ve decided to accept your fate?”
Just from the tone of her voice, I can tell Ms. Ebon thinks I’m wrong. Like I haven’t tried for a year to get Sean to see me as his mate instead of whatever the fuck is blocking him from accepting me. I’ve spent every ounce of my being on getting him back. I’m. Fucking. Exhausted. By it all. “What do you think I can do that I haven’t already tried?”
Ms. Ebon purses her lips as she regards me. My skin awakens at her inspection. Nathan is the only person who really sees me anymore. The shifters who walk these halls are just another statistic to manage for the authority figures here. Ms. Ebon, though, is actually looking at me as if I matter. She licks her bottom lip and pulls out a folder. “I wasn’t going to say prickly earlier. I was going to say fighter. Kinsey
was a fighter. A stubborn one at that.” Her words come out on an exasperated sigh, but I’m pretty sure there’s some affection there, too.
“I’m a fighter,” I tell her. “I’ve been fighting.”
“Not with me in your corner,” she says flatly.
I rear back in surprise, my fingers sinking into the purple velvet of the armrest. “You’re going to help me? Is that even allowed?”
“I don’t have a student right now, and I have a very good success rate. Lydia Greystone herself asked me to take a look at your folder.”
“When she gave you the deadline,” I state. I find nothing helpful about what Lydia Greystone has done. In fact, I can’t stand her. All the packs agreed to the Rejected Mate Academy, but it was the Lunar Pack’s line that implemented it. Rumor is they’re the strictest pack of them all. I don’t know about that, seems like Daybreak is just as bad.
“Let’s get down to business,” Ms. Ebon directs, maneuvering the conversation as if she could do this in her sleep. So many Lunar Pack shifters have sat in this very chair, and they’ve succeeded. I suppose she is the person to listen to. “The Winter Solstice party is coming up. Since Daybreak is hosting, I’m going to petition for Daybreak shifters to return to their pack territories.”
“W-what? Why?”
Ms. Ebon glances up from the paperwork in front of her. “For you, Miss Adams. I’ve read through your file and the sparse notes your own advisor has left. I see nothing has progressed in your relationship with your mate for quite some time. It’s obvious that will still be the case, even with the deadline looming over our heads. However, a change of scenery might do you both good. Returning to Daybreak and seeing you more often than the bi-weekly mandatory meetings, might show your fated mate what he’s been missing.”
“I...don’t think—”
“You don’t think, but you don’t know, either, Miss Adams. You’ve been here for a very long time. Your mate has obviously not given up because he hasn’t filled out the final paperwork. There is hope for you yet. The Winter Solstice party is your last chance. I suggest you use it wisely.”