by E. M. Moore
Gripping the couch cushions between my fingers, I watch him as my heart fissures down the center. I peer into the wolf’s eyes and know those are the same I held onto that day during my first shift. The point at which gravity kept me grounded.
“There you are,” I say, voice breaking.
He moves over to me, popping his head against my palm, nudging me. I run my fingers over his fur and around his ears. He starts licking me, his thick, bumpy tongue kissing the inside of my wrist. I smile through tears.
He’s a beautiful brown wolf with a spot of white on his forehead and chest. I bend at the waist, and he places his head on my shoulder, chest heaving. A sound of displeasure rumbles through its chest, and it kills me inside to know that this wolf has been there this whole time—stuck inside him.
I recline backward on the couch, and Sean’s wolf follows, placing his head on my knee. He stares up at me with golden eyes, and I can’t help but ask, “You’re fighting him, aren’t you?”
He nods.
“I wish you could tell me what his problem is.”
He licks his lips but just stares, unable to give me all the answers I need.
I blink, a sudden thought making me gasp. “If I shift, maybe I can hear you.”
I stand immediately, forcing Sean’s wolf to move back. I raise my hands to strip my shirt off, but the animal immediately starts to howl. A few seconds later, Sean is on all fours in front of me, breaths sawing in and out of him.
I force my shirt down, glaring at him as he stands. “You bastard.” I stalk forward, shoving him in the chest. He falls over the coffee table, dick out and all, and lands on his ass.
He cringes. “Mia....”
I spin on my heel. This wasn’t exactly the first meeting that I wanted. Sean is more stubborn than I imagined.
I need to get out of here before I say or do something that will ruin any chance of a future. If I could make Sean stay in his wolf form, we might actually get somewhere, but there’s no chance of that right now.
“Mia!” he calls out again as I walk away.
I lift my middle finger in the air as I leave the house. There. Since he didn’t like my potty mouth, maybe he’ll like hand signals better.
Dick.
12
The door to the cabin slams shut behind me, and the black Jeep that followed me all the way here reverses out of the long drive, its tires kicking up mud and adding more ruts into the bumpy road.
I didn’t stop for him—not that he asked me to. Confusion coats my skin in a sickening feeling that makes my head reel.
Reject me, hide yourself away, then follow me back to the cabin?
Alice is sitting at the bar when I come marching in. She picks up her head as I blow right by, taking the stairs two at a time. I hook a left and run right into Nathan. He grabs my arms when I try to pull away, his harsh hold making me stop. He runs his gaze all over, inspecting me. “Did he hurt you?”
He continues to scrutinize every inch of my skin, but the way Sean hurt me can’t be seen on the outside. Instead, it’s a nail slowly driving through my heart.
Torture in its purest form.
My lip starts to wobble, and I bite it to get it to stop. Without asking, Nathan drags me into my room and closes the door behind us. I finally wrangle myself out of his grip and start to pace around the room.
He’s been fighting his wolf this whole time. Which is probably why he stopped coming to visit me. But fucking why?
“Talk to me,” Nathan orders.
The hair on my arms stands straight up. The way his voice works over me stops me from wearing a path in the floorboards.
He raises his brows when I look at him. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, his chest outline on full display through the thin, off-gray material. He’s wider than Sean. Wolf DNA keeps us all well-appointed, but there are some guys who just have more. Nathan has it.
I lift my stare past his dark stubble to his face. A swollen lip greets me, and I immediately home in on the plush, plump spot.
“Mia....”
I swallow. If anyone will know what I’m feeling, it’s Nathan. “He’s been holding his wolf inside,” I blurt. “He’s been fucking handcuffing it because his wolf still feels the bond. Stubborn motherfucking—”
“What?” Nathan snaps.
“His wolf!” I cry. “He forced a shift. His wolf came up to me, put his head under my hand, nuzzled me. I was about to shift to see if we could talk, but Sean shifted back. He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t tell me why. Then he fucking followed me back here like a damn possessive stalker.”
“What?” Nathan growls. I turn toward him, and he locks gazes with me. His large shoulders hunch forward as he attempts to control his breathing. Marching forward, he wraps his hand around my neck and pulls me close. “Mine.”
My heart beats double-time, thumping so hard I can feel it throughout my body. I wish it were true. With Nathan, everything is so easy. So...real.
“Why is your lip swollen?” I ask, stare dropping to the curve of his mouth, made even more embellished by the plump spot. This close, I even spy a blemish of blood.
“Gayle kissed me.”
I step back, and he drops his territorial hold. Jealousy pumps through me, riding high on a wave of sorrow. “Did you like it?”
“She bit me,” he almost growls.
“I don’t need to know about your kinks,” I deadpan, forcing my eyes away from him. Two guys: One who’s supposed to be mine, the other who I’m not supposed to have these thoughts for, and I can’t have either one.
Nathan grabs my forearms, moving me until my calves hit the bed. I sit, and he towers over me. “You want to know what my kink is? You, Mia. I don’t care that you’re not mine by a technicality, you are in here.” He places his hand over his heart. “For the record, the best thing about kissing her was when it ended.”
“But you’re attracted to her. We’ve talked about this. You told me you want her. It’s our nature.”
“Not anymore,” he says, pushing my shoulders to the bed and climbing over me.
“That’s not possible,” I blurt, even when my body responds to how close he is. My legs immediately fall to the side, allowing him room to lower his hips to mine.
“Oh, it is.”
He trails his lips across my jaw and over my cheeks, then backtracks to breathe along that path, making my skin tingle. “You told me to get him back.”
“I told you to figure out how not to go Feral. No matter how you do it, I’m not giving you up.”
He grinds his dick between my legs. Clearly, he knows what he wants. Confusion licks through me—not because he doesn’t instill the same feelings, but because he’s not supposed to. We could die for this. And it bucks against everything I know about mates.
“How is this possible?” I ask as he moves his attention to my throat, placing his lips there, lingering. My pulse thrums.
“You’re asking the wrong question. The right question is: can you be quiet?”
I tilt my head, but in the next moment, I understand where he’s going with this. He unclasps my jeans, leans back to unzip them, and then yanks them down. Not wasting any time, he hovers back over me, his fingers moving over my hips to find their mark.
The closer he gets, the more intricate the pattern he traces over my skin. “You didn’t answer my question.” He rims my clit, and it takes all my willpower to stay on the bed. “Can you be quiet?”
I nod, even though I’m practically bursting at the seams.
“Oh, thank fuck.”
He presses the pad of his thumb against my nub, working it in featherlight circles until he pushes his pointer finger into me.
I let out a short, yet quiet, cry.
“Mine,” he growls into my ear. He works his finger in and out as I move in sync with him. Each thrust rattles the tension around us. The air is so thick with it, I worry everyone else in the cabin can feel it, too. “You know it, don’t you? You can feel that you belong
to me.”
He works his hips against his hand as his finger sinks inside me. It’s almost as if we’re fucking. Going at it in the alpha’s hunting camp like it’s no big deal.
Scared to know what my wolf might be feeling, I block her out and just go with the sensations coursing through me. Our heavy breaths mix in the air. Nathan starts moaning, his lips held tight together as he reins himself in. I sneak my hand around his body and clamp down on his ass, taking a handful for myself and quickening his movements.
He bares his teeth against my neck. “Are you going to come around my finger, Mia?”
I whimper. “Mm-hmm.”
“I wish it was my cock. I want to drive into you so bad.”
The image of that sends me over the edge. Both of us lose control in that one moment. Unrestrained. Not giving any fucks. All about the pleasure.
I gasp as my orgasm overtakes me. Nathan holds his free hand over my mouth, and I spasm around his finger. The forbidden act prolongs my pleasure, and I writhe under him while he drives into me again and again.
When I let out a harsh breath, he finally releases his hand from my mouth and pulls his finger from my core. Collapsing onto the side, his chest slams against my arm.
The ceiling comes back into view, its rustic beams like bars across the white paint. “We’re fucked,” I breathe out.
“Don’t say that,” Nathan growls. He tugs my pants up, and we both lie there. After a moment, I reach down to zip up and clasp the button back into place. My limbs still feel like jelly. He grabs my hand and intertwines our fingers. “I just can’t help myself,” he admits. “I’m reeling with all these thoughts about you that I should be having about her. When you told me he shifted in front of you, I needed to have you.”
“We can’t take this path,” I explain. I’m fucked anyway, but he doesn’t have to be.
He glares at me after I tell him as much. “We’re both fucked if you end up Feral. Did you hear me? I don’t give a fuck if fate put us together or not. I feel it inside me.”
“Are you sure you’re not just being a dude?” I counter.
He growls, his teeth elongating and cutting into his plump lip. “I know what it feels like to have a mate, and you’re mine.”
“I don’t think you can just claim me,” I tell him, wishing it were so. That’s not the way this is supposed to go.
“Except I just did,” he says, leaning over to nibble my neck. “And you liked it.”
I fucking loved it, but that’s beside the point. Maybe I’m too reality driven, but Nathan and I can’t be a normal couple. “We can’t be together. Not for real. Not out there for everyone to see.”
He lifts himself to lean on his arm, and I turn toward him, bringing my knees up until I’m in a half ball. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ll take whatever I can get, whenever I can get. I don’t care, as long as you’re safe.”
“You want to be my side piece?”
He glowers, the corner of his mouth turning upward into a snarl. I guess he doesn’t like joking about this. “You can be what you need to be with him. But you’re mine. That’s the easiest way out. The other way is my personal preference: we catch them together. We put them on trial.”
This again. We’ve discussed this at length, but we both decided that we couldn’t do that to our mates.
“Things have changed,” he tells me, as if he can sense my thoughts.
“We still wouldn’t be able to be together.”
“Not officially, but I’ll be damned if Sean puts you through this. Did you tell him about the timeline?”
I nod. “He didn’t know.”
“Bullshit. We don’t do anything there that they don’t know about.”
I shrug. Whether he did or he didn’t doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything.
“I asked her about him. I kept asking her and asking her. She broke down crying, but I kept at it. I didn’t fucking care. It was then that she kissed me. She threw herself at me. I half expect it was to get me to shut up.”
“And you really felt nothing?”
He swallows, looking away. I wait for him to respond. “I can’t say there was nothing, but it was nothing like when fate paired us up to begin with. It was like a faint feeling. A frayed wire, almost. Like it needed to be repaired. I don’t care, though,” he grinds out.
“What’s happening?” I voice as fear trickles in. “It’s not supposed to be like this. Mates are forever. I don’t get it.”
“They screwed us up,” he answers like he’s thought about this enough for the two of us. “No one has ever been at Greystone as long as we have. They’ve either been accepted by their mate or made to go Feral. Maybe no one actually knows what happens when you reject your inner nature for so long.”
His words hit like a brick to my chest. It goes against everything we were told. It goes against shifter law, the belief in mates, everything. Hell, it goes against what keeps us alive. “We might never be able to reproduce,” I tell him. Family is so strong within packs. The drive to produce kin is high. That’s where the mate possessiveness comes in.
“I don’t care,” Nathan argues. “Nothing matters but you.”
My own nature—the desire to have little shifter babies—flinches. It’s ingrained in us. In school, there is no talk about deciding to have kids. There’s only mate talk. The drive to reproduce with your fated one. It’s why those who aren’t paired with anyone seem so sad.
I don’t know if I could go through that. It’s not about wanting Nathan or not wanting Nathan, it’s about never being able to fulfill that piece of my destiny.
And I’m not sure about that. “What do we do?” I ask.
Nathan settles beside me again, pulling my head to his shoulder. He wraps me up, and even though everything about this is supposed to be wrong, I can’t actually feel that in any way.
13
A knock comes on the door as Nathan and I are discussing plans. He jumps off the bed, clearing almost the entire room with his shifter reflexes. As soon as he’s standing on the other side, I sit up, pushing myself against the wall. All in all, two seconds later, I call out, “Come in.”
Alice sticks her head in, smiling at the both of us. “The alpha’s assistant called. He wants us all to go to the Winter Solstice meeting tonight.”
That sounds like the last thing I want to do. It’s already almost 8:00 p.m. I don’t give a shit about the solstice preparations and rules. But, instead of saying all that, I force a smile. “Sure. Sounds fun.”
She holds up a finger. “Greystone uniforms expected, of course.” She turns and leaves the bedroom door wide open, and I roll my eyes at Nathan. He huffs. “Yeah, come be a part of the pack that’s forgotten all about you. Sounds like a super fun time.” Striding across the room, he reaches out a hand to help me to my feet. We put unwanted distance between us as I make sure my clothes are on properly. Other than my panties still being a little damp, I—
“Shit,” I whisper. “Do you think she could smell it?”
Nathan presses his lips together. “I guess you could tell her you were—how do you call it—flicking the bean?”
I glare at him, but he’s not wrong. “Funny. I’ll be downstairs in a few.”
He moves closer, the hair on my arms standing at attention as soon as he’s near enough. “Just another pair of panties I’m going to ruin.”
I push him away. If he doesn’t stop, I’m going to be in a constant state of arousal. I lead him right toward the door of our shared bathroom and close it behind him. His faint chuckle reverberates as he heads to his room to most likely change into his academy uniform. Because I didn’t do it earlier, I plop my luggage on my bed and go through it, searching for unsoiled panties. When I find them, I hurry up and change, saving the full unpacking for later.
I descend the stairs. My four Daybreak counterparts are waiting by the door, and I give them all a smile. “Ready.”
We exit the cabin together while Alice chats happi
ly about the meeting she had with her mate earlier. It sounds like they actually had a good time. You could even call it a date. When we’re almost three-quarters of the way to the Alpha’s house, she turns toward me. “You met with Sean, right? How did it go?”
I shrug. “Not as well as yours.”
The answering frowns I receive is enough to put me on edge. Alice waits like I’m going to go into more detail, but I rarely do that with anyone aside from Nathan. Once you start being the oldest person at the school, you’re almost embarrassed by the fact that you’re still there. Especially when hundreds of other shifters have come and gone.
Robbie speaks up instead. He tells us he didn’t get very far with his mate either. She didn’t even want to see him. “It’s no surprise why we ended up here instead of at our own homes.”
I’m still a bit bitter about that, too.
We look like a band of prep school kids as we approach the annex off the main house. We’re all dressed the same, no doubt intentionally. Just another thing to set us apart from the pack we’re a disgrace to.
Alice doesn’t seem to notice the attention as she waltzes happily through the entryway that leads into the meeting room. People file in after her, each of them whispering in surprise. She’d have to be blind not to feel all of their stares on her. When we finally get inside, she’s sitting with her mate.
The four of us Greystone Academy shifters hover near the back. A trickle of awareness buzzes up my spine, and I search the room. Sure enough, Sean is here, already sitting. He glances over his shoulder at the same time that I find him. He’s wearing virtually the same outfit, though this one isn’t in tatters on the floor. He holds my stare while Nathan leans in. “Should I make him jealous?”
“If you want us both to die,” I squeak, trying my best not to move my lips.
“It would be fun.”
Even though Nathan isn’t even doing anything, Sean flicks his hard gaze to him.
“Perfect,” Nathan purrs.