by E. M. Moore
Fingers play over my feet, and I peer over to find Nathan—now fully clothed—tracing designs across my skin. My movement makes him look at me. “Where are we?”
“My brother’s place. Well, an outbuilding on his property. You passed out on the way here.”
I stare at my leg where there’s a dull throb beating from the slice the magical lady gave me. A white bandage covers it. “Thank you for fixing me up. Did your brother see us?”
He shakes his head. “Only me. I told him I needed a place to chill for an hour.”
Nathan’s spoken of his brother before. They’re still on good terms, but I’m sure that wouldn’t transfer to harboring a shifter that wasn’t his true mate. Guilty by association.
“I needed to decompress before I went after Sean and killed him.”
His words, the way he acts, it’s the possession of a male wolf over his female. “Why do you think you feel that way?”
“I made my own path. Screw fate. I made it lead to you, and my wolf is one hundred percent on board. We want you. No one else.”
“Then Sean got off easy,” I breathe out.
“You’re fucking right he did,” he growls. “I should’ve done more than scare the shit out of him.”
“But then what?” I ask. “If something happens to him, I’m going to get implicated. I’m obviously the only one who has anything to gain if he got hurt.”
The corner of his mouth tilts up. “I was kind of hoping they’d both miraculously get hit by a train or something equally as traumatic.”
I chuckle. “That might work. Or trip and fall on their own stupidity and stab themselves in the chest.”
“We couldn’t be so lucky.” He bites at his lip as he watches me. “While you were asleep, I went back and searched for your phone. I couldn’t find it.”
I sit up, mouth dropping. “I recorded us. Sean and me. As soon as we set off for the woods, I turned on the app that you downloaded onto my phone. I thought he might say something.”
Nathan sits forward. “Did he?”
I close my eyes, trying to replay everything as best I can, but it’s all super fuzzy. “I don’t think so. From what I can remember, he never once mentioned Gayle. He just said he was sick of the bond, and he wanted to get out of it.”
“Fuck,” he grits out. “If only we had that recording. That’s evidence right there.”
I reach over, placing my hand on his. “We’ll keep searching. It has to be somewhere.”
“He took you nearly a mile away. Who knows where it fell out of your pocket? Hell, he could’ve stolen it.”
I fall back onto the bed, hopes dashed within a few words. “How am I supposed to play this with him now? I’m running out of options. He’s desperate. He drugged me, kidnapped me, and hired a witch to sever our bond. What kind of fucking moron does that?”
“He’s sloppy,” Nathan agrees. “I’ve never ever heard of severing the bond. The way I see it, I carved a new one. The year plus of neglect and rejection eroded the old and made a new course to you. A much better course.”
His words make sense, shedding light on the feelings inside me. My wolf doesn’t think of Sean that way anymore. We’re perfectly happy with the man still tracing designs onto my skin, making my heart pound faster and faster. “You saved me,” I tell him. “If it hadn’t worked, who knows what he would’ve resorted to. Maybe his next attempt is taking me out.”
“He won’t get the fucking chance.” His dark words send a shiver through me, but they also harden me. Nathan and I are in this for real. We can fight this together.
I sit up, moving closer to him so I can put my head on his shoulder. “What are you going to do about Gayle?”
“She fucking knew what Sean was going to do. I know it. She could be wanting to try the same thing with me. Since we’re here, close to them, we need to make the best of it.”
“They have all the power,” I remind him. “We’re the ones who were rejected, so we’re second-class citizens. It’s like walking a tightrope, except ours has way too much slack in it.”
He reaches out and places his hand on my cheek. “We’re not giving up yet. But we have to be as careful as we can around the backstabbing bastards.”
We stay curled up with one another until the world around us starts to lighten. Daybreak…fitting. “We have to go to the cabin,” I tell him. “People will wonder where we are and start talking.”
He leans over, kissing me softly on the forehead, and before I can protest, he sweeps me off my feet. I glower at him, but he only shrugs in response. “Just until we get outside. I like playing the hero.”
“You don’t just play one.”
When we’re outside, he sets me on my feet and moves in—cupping my face and pressing his lips against mine in a scorcher that makes me forget space and time.
He steps away with a smirk. “Undress, baby. You wouldn’t want to ruin your clothes.”
I peer down at the outfit I picked out for the party. The jeans have a cut in them with blood stains; the shirt is marred with leaves and dirt. “Too late.” I shift on the spot, my wolf easily rising to the surface—hair, claws, and all. She walks up to him and licks his hand.
He kneels next to her until they’re eye to eye. “You’re so beautiful. Did you know that?”
She licks his face, and a happy thrum vibrates through her body.
He pats her head and stands, taking off old work clothes that are likely his brother’s. He sets them on the ground in a pile, and when he shifts, he lunges for my wolf, playfully holding her down to lick her face. Afterward, he grabs his clothes in his mouth, and they start off for the alpha’s cabin.
The early morning run is beautiful. The dew on the grass sticks to our fur, making everything slick. The stillness and quiet is what gets to me the most. It allows me to think.
A shiver runs through me. I can’t believe what Sean tried to do. Luckily, Nathan showed up or something much worse could’ve happened.
As we approach the alpha’s land, the feeling of protectiveness and power hums over my wolf’s fur. She preens. There are reasons why Alpha Richard is alpha. His line has been running Daybreak Pack for hundreds of years. This ground is sacred.
Our wolves stop just outside the screened-in porch, and Nathan shifts and dresses. Like the gentleman he is, he opens the doors for my wolf until she’s in my room where we can shift in privacy.
Nathan licks his lips as I straighten in my human form. “As much as I want to devour you, you need to rest.”
“How can you start a sentence like that and not think I’ll want you to follow through?”
He reaches out to pinch my nipple, then clutches my arms before throwing me to the bed. I bounce there for a few seconds, the mattress coils squeaking underneath me. “Sleep, Mia.” With that, he strolls to his room through the bathroom, and I’m left on the bed, thoroughly turned on by his no-bullshit attitude.
No fair.
But he’s not wrong. My body is sore and exhausted. As soon as I pull the covers over my shoulders, it doesn’t take me long to fall asleep again.
Harsh voices downstairs wake me. I sit up in bed, the covers falling down my naked torso. The feet stomping up the steps pricks my ears and puts me on high alert. I run to the bathroom with just enough time to put a towel around my body before the door to my room slams open.
“Hey,” Nathan protests.
I slip out, watching as one of Alpha Richard’s security team moves into my bedroom. Nathan’s gaze treks over the bed and then whips toward me in the doorway to the bathroom. His lip peels back in a snarl, but no sound emanates as the security member stops to look at me. “I’ll need to ask you a few questions.”
My stomach roils, and I freeze on the spot, scared to take a breath for fear of what might happen in the next second.
“Robbie Ventura ran last night,” Nathan explains.
I meet Nathan’s stare, and the coiled-up tightness washes away in an instant. Swallowing, I turn toward the g
uard and ask, “Can I get dressed first?”
The security member turns on his heel and exits the room. “Meet us in the kitchen.”
Nathan barely moves out of the guy’s way, glaring at his retreating form thudding down the stairs. Nathan turns toward me, and I round my eyes at him. “Robbie ran?”
“Apparently.” He frowns as he tracks his gaze down my towel-clad body. “Get dressed. Don’t give them a reason to be pissed at all the Greystone students.”
I nod. When he shuts the door, I take the quickest washcloth bath of my life—just enough to clean up most of the dirt—and then yank on my Greystone Academy uniform. Right before I leave, I pull a brush through my ratty hair and hope for the best.
I rocket down the stairs and find three security personnel in our living room. Each of them is standing with their hands on their hips. As soon as my feet touch the ground floor, they start in. “Were any of you with Robert Ventura last night?”
“We were all at a party,” Nathan helpfully supplies. “I didn’t see him after we got there.”
“What happened to you?” one of the men asks. He’s zeroed in on the white bandage gracing my leg.
“I got a little too drunk and fell,” I say sheepishly. “That’s what I get for not drinking in a while.”
“None of you knew Robert’s plans to leave Daybreak?”
The three of us shake our heads. The man who seems to be the leader nods at the other two. They move past us and head toward the steps. “What’s going on?” Nathan asks.
“They’re going through your things.”
My stomach clenches. “For what?”
He just glares, as if I’m so insignificant that he doesn’t owe me anything.
Nathan starts breathing heavily. He certainly doesn’t like this, but we don’t really have a choice. We’re like visitors in our own pack.
“Did any of you help him leave?”
“No,” the three of us say in unison.
“Who were you hanging out with yesterday at the party?” He looks at Nathan first. Nathan tells him he was with his mate. Trish is next, and she answers the same. I go last, and even though I want to tell this fucker that they should go after the mate who drugged me last night instead of someone trying to escape a terrible situation, I answer the same, giving him Sean’s full name.
“They’ll be able to verify this?”
We all nod. Sean better fucking back me up on this, but who knows what he’ll be thinking when the alpha’s guards show up on his doorstep. I’m sure he’ll want to distance himself from even being near me if he thinks they’re there because of what he did to me.
“Do you three have any plans to run away from Daybreak?”
“No,” we rush out.
Jesus. Who would want to do that? To run away would be to live Feral, and that’s not something anyone aims for.
“Do we know why Robbie did it?” I ask. “Is he okay?”
The head security guy eyes the other two black-clad men as they march down the stairs empty-handed. “Robert Ventura is no concern of yours anymore. When interrogated, he admitted he was giving up on his mate and his pack.”
I’m sure those weren’t his exact words, but I nod anyway. Poor Robbie. They probably have him in a cell right now. Because rejecting someone and sending them away to Greystone Academy is fine. It’s for reform so you can finally end up together. But shirking your responsibilities by running away, that’s punishable by law.
Yeah, sure.
Now, the question is: how ruthless is Alpha Richard when it comes to rogue shifters?
17
“I can’t believe we’re on house arrest,” Trish whines as she plonks down on the couch, arms outstretched over the cushions. “And then there were three...prisoners.”
“Wake up. We’ve always been prisoners,” Nathan deadpans. He’s not taking any of this well.
As for me, I’m happy that at least Sean can’t get me in here. Plus, I’m distracted, wondering what’s going to happen to Robbie. I wish he would’ve said something. I wish he would’ve reached out.
I understand why he didn’t, though. They isolate us at Greystone, even to everyone else there. They make us all enemies, so that if we even have a thought that is outside the norm, we think we can’t say it. If he’d said he didn’t want a mate to the wrong person, they would’ve turned him in.
I glance over at Nathan and thank the shifter universe for him. I’ve always been able to say anything I wanted in front of him and we both just got it.
Running my hands through my hair, I sigh. “What do you think they’ll do to him?”
I’m met with two very pointed stares, but Trish speaks first. “Well, he’s not sticking around, that’s for sure. He basically just gave Shifter Basics 101 the middle finger. We all should want to mate. We should want to get down and dirty and create all those shifter pups everyone wants.”
I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because we live in a topsy-turvy world. “Has anyone thought of the injustice of all this? Our mates can send us to Greystone Academy because we’re rejects, but we can’t run away?”
“The pack is the highest power,” Nathan muses. “He didn’t just say fuck you to his mate, he said it to the pack. It’s okay if they do it to us, but not the other way around.”
“Talk like that will get you exiled,” Trish says in a playfully threatening way. I warn Nathan with my eyes not to go too off the rails. At this point, he’s the only shifter I trust. Anything we say could be used against us, especially in times like this.
And personally, I don’t need another strike against me. I already have a detonator ticking over my shoulder.
“I need a shower,” I grumble. “Come get me if anything else happens.”
Without looking at either of them, I head up the stairs and escape to my room. I start the shower and stare at myself in the mirror. There’s a fist strangling my heart right now. It’s been that way since they informed us of Robbie’s escape attempt. I don’t know what he thought he would do away from all of this, but I understand his reasoning. I’ve wanted to do it several times myself.
I carefully peel off the bandage, and my lip curls up at the angry red line down my leg. It’s crooked and sloppy and stings like a bitch under the shower spray.
Despite that, I stay under the showerhead for a long time, letting the dirt run away. I clean my body again and again, stopping myself before I go in for a fourth round. It feels as if I need to undo the events of the last eight hours or so: Sean kidnapping me, making me into some magical experiment; poor Robbie being so desperate he thought his only option would be to run away. Even though death likely awaited him while he was all by himself, it’ll be worse now. He’ll get publicly humiliated, then cast out, then die a slow death away from the rest of his pack.
When I’m finished, I dress myself in the Greystone Academy uniform again. No doubt the security staff are going to be in and out all day, so we’ll want to act like we’re sticking to their rules. I throw on a little makeup and decide to let my hair dry naturally. All in all, when I’m done, I feel more myself. The effects of the drugs seem to finally be out of my system, and the thought of sleeping from now to eternity doesn’t consume me.
Just as I finish, a ring comes from downstairs that sounds mysteriously like an old-school telephone. I stride toward the door and pull it open right as Trish calls out from below, “Mia! Phone for you!”
Surprise ricochets through me. The only person I can imagine it will be is one of the security guys forgetting that he wanted to ask me another question. I grab the Band-Aids I found in the bathroom drawer and head downstairs.
Trish grins, offering me the receiver. “It’s your mate.”
I glare at the phone. He has balls to be calling me right now. I grip the island as it dawns on me that we’re stuck in here, so there’s no way Nathan or I can go looking for my phone to see if we even have a good recording of what happened.
As I take the black receiver and hold
it to my ear, a trickle of awareness tells me Nathan is nearby. “Hello?”
“Mia.”
“Sean,” I state, letting my anger seep into my voice.
“Are you okay?”
“Really? We’re going to play that game?”
The line is silent for a moment. “I just wanted to know if that wolf hurt you.”
“The way I saw it, they saved me.”
I tap my foot as I wait to see what he comes out with next. His response surprises me. “We’re eating dinner at your parents’ house tonight. I’ve arranged it with them.”
I blink. “Excuse me, what?”
“You’re only allowed off alpha grounds with your mate or a chaperone. After they brought Ventura back kicking and screaming, you wouldn’t want anyone to think you were disobeying your mate, would you?”
My fingers curl into my palms, turning sharp as my wolf threatens to come out, and I know I’ve pierced skin. What Nathan and I didn’t want to happen is now happening. I’ll have to be alone with Sean. Inside, I sense my wolf raising her head like she’s not about to bow down to a fight. He got her with the drugs before, but we can safely say we’re not going to take anything he gives us again. “What time should I be ready?”
“Oh, about an hour.”
I open my mouth to agree, but he’s already hung up the phone. I strangle the life out of the receiver before calmly placing it back on the base and then take deep breaths before allowing myself to turn and face the other two. Nathan is so attuned to me that I’m sure he knows something is wrong, but Trish should know nothing. “So, here’s some news.” I cross my arms over my chest. “We’re allowed to leave with our mates or with a chaperone. That’s it.”
“So, you’re going somewhere with Sean?”
I don’t look at Nathan while I answer. “Before this, we had plans for dinner at my parents’ place. I guess I can still go.”