by S. L. Morgan
Once we hit the end of the course, Dom trotted us all back to the changing rooms.
I stood under the hot shower longer than usual and was the last one to be dressed and presentable to leave the rooms.
Now, it was free time. Free to do what? Study the things I couldn’t remember learning in my classes? Hang with my friends who seemed to forget my freaking name now? I was lost and confused, to say the least.
I walked out of the dressing area, numb and pissed.
“Gotta minute?” Dom’s voice was flooded with authority.
“Who knows? I probably won’t remember anything you’re going to say, so shoot!”
“Follow me,” he ordered.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, thinking he was hauling me off to do this school’s dirty work. Maybe my time was finally up.
He turned back, and his wolf eyes were staring sternly at me. “Trust me.”
“No,” I said, challenging his authority. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Your freaking wolf eyes haven’t even shifted back to normal. You gonna take me to Ethan and have me killed?”
Dom’s hand was on the bend of my arm, and he was stomping away, dragging me as I protested his hostility the entire way. His biceps, the size of my freaking head, had more power than tiny little me, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Quit fighting me,” he said, looking back at me like I was crazy. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just shut up, and quit causing a scene.”
I relaxed some when I felt my wolf begging me to go with him on this. “Fine,” I jerked my arm out of his firm grip. “Just tell me what you want and why we’re out here.”
He led me to an area I had never seen at the far east end of the back of the vast school lawns. Freaking fairy trees. He stopped and turned back to me, his hand now gripping the back of his neck while his eyes focused on the blossoms covering the ground. Oddly enough, the painted rainbow bark of the trees and the sprinkled flowers blanketing the ground like moss covering rocks weren’t glittery as if a fairy had created them. Not even illuminating either. The moon was our only source of light, and it reflected the silver that surrounded Dom’s brown wolf irises. His eyes met mine with sorrow, but they were still stern. He blinked, exhaled, and when his eyes met mine again, they were the brilliant copper brown I was used to seeing.
“Tell me what the hell this is all about. Why am I out here, is this how they killed Jess?”
His forehead crinkled as his thick black eyebrows pulled together. “What are you talking about? She left this school. Her parents demanded that she come home.”
“You’re delusional. I saw her corpse!” I said.
Then I covered my mouth. Crap! “They can hear us. Why are you baiting me for them to have reason to take me out?”
“No one can hear you. These trees aren’t enchanted like the trees the fairies and witches have touched with their magic and dust. They’re eucalyptus trees, rainbow eucalyptus to be exact. The school kept the human trees and left the magic away from them since its opening centuries ago. It’s the only place no one can use their talents to get into your mind. We shouldn’t even be able to feel our wolves in us right now, but I do.
My wolf pranced around as if to say, I’m here too. Freaking wolf!
“You feel your supernatural self, don’t you?” he asked. “You feel your wolf.”
“How would you know that?” I asked.
“Because I feel her—my wolf acknowledges her presence,” he said slowly.
“Okay, fine. We’re special. We feel our wolves around the rainbow trees. Why did you bring me out here?”
“I had to talk to you—warn you,” he said.
“About?”
“You’re being watched, and it’s partly my fault.” He sighed. “At the time, I did it to protect my cousin. I had to keep their eyes off him. Ethan won’t let it go about immortals dying at this place, and his interest in you is validating what we’re all picking up on.”
“And that is?”
“There’s more to you than your wolf shifting abilities. Jenna, this school will lock you in the dungeons. We’ll never see it coming until it was announced you violated a school policy or whatever excuse they will come up with. I couldn’t live with myself if that were to happen. I was already drawn to you, wolf-wise, and so I trusted you could help play along with protecting Ethan while not being hurt that the relationship was fake. That only took their eyes off E and put them on you. I’ve made you a target, I’m so sorry.”
“How do we fix it then?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I need you to stop pushing your wolf as hard as you are. Stop asking questions about the school. Now that they’ve all bought us as a couple, just follow my alpha commands like a normal beta wolf.”
“I am following your stupid alpha commands.”
“Really?” he sighed.
“Yeah, I sense it like the rest do.”
“Start pushing, now!” he ordered me in the Master Dominic command.
“What?” I said, not liking his abrupt change of mood.
“See, there you have it. I toss out an alpha command at you—one I would use against another alpha—and it goes right over your head.”
“Damn it.” I rubbed my forehead.
“Please, you have to find a way to trust me and work on this. I have to get their eyes off you.”
“You know what. Since starting this school, I’ve officially lost my two best friends, gained a hate fanbase for all the girls who seem to be in love with you, your sister can’t stand me anymore, and now you want me to trust the one person who has put me in a position to be locked away for eternity? Screw you, asshole!”
Dom threw me up against the tree, and my wolf loved the dangerous alpha who was nagging at him to shift into her lover wolf. He wasn’t hateful or hurtful, he was exuding his power, and my wolf loved the closeness of the power she felt coming off the wolf in him.
“You have no idea who I am, Jenna Silvers,” he said, eyes locked on mine, woodsy aroma complementing what female shifters loved in a male alpha. “I do not want you hurt. I’m not that jerk your wild imagination has made me out to be. Ethan needed my protection. You seemed to adore my cousin, and I found that extremely admirable of you since most tend to run the other way in fear of the wisdom coming off an owl shifter. You didn’t. You embraced his nature, and no one has ever done that before. My wolf sensed more, but I ignored the wolf and went with how you seemed to care for my cousin. I figured if I could ask you, you would have said yes to going along with getting the school to stop watching him. He’s unlike any owl shifter they’ve encountered. He’s rare, and they don’t want anything out of place here at this school. I could sense Ethan was in danger the night he shifted. I had to do what I could to help him. I figured you would be fine with that once I got a chance to tell you about it.”
“Fine,” I conceded, my wolf going insane at the thought her fated wolf was opening up to us. “Show me your true wolf if you want me to start trusting you. For all I know, you’re on the crazy cocktail of loving this school too.”
“What? My mate is the only one who’s getting a look at my wolf.” He looked at me like I was insane. He smirked as his eyes darted back and forth intently studying mine. “I see. You think we are wolf mates?”
“I don’t think anything like that, and if you’re picking up on my wolf, then stop. She and I haven’t agreed on a lot of things lately. Mainly you and your dumb motives.”
“Hold very still,” he said, his lips close to mine.
I ducked away from the kiss of death. Screw that. He was able to get in and see my wolf, but I couldn’t see his? Lame.
“No more,” I said. “No more games. We show the school you dumped me, since that story is believable, and then to repay me, you insist I go on the mission with the masters.”
“Absolutely not,” he answered.
“You have my ass in a vulnerable position. The best
you can do to make this up to me is get me the hell out of here for a couple of weeks when you four leave.”
“If you fail any of the obstacles on this quest, you’re instantly teleported back to the school, and a grade is docked from your shifter finals. It won’t work. You won’t survive the mission.”
“Screw you.”
“Stop being so stubborn. You will fail, at least on the first obstacle. The fairies and their tricks are all over these quests. The witches have spelled anything and everything against us. I might not even succeed.”
“You’re not being honest with me.” I was shocked that came out of nowhere. I had no idea why I even said it.
“What about? You will get whacked and teleported back to the school. You won’t make it. That’s as honest as it gets.”
“Everything. You know more than you’re saying,” I insisted, wondering if my wolf was speaking for me again.
“Maybe I do. Maybe you should just listen to me and stay here where you’re safer. You go on this quest, then they’ll have their way with you when you get transported back to the school.”
“I’m willing to take my chances.”
He smiled and shook his head. “You are something else, you know that? You’re right, I owe you for helping me with E. I’ll get you on the mission, but if I have to break you out of those dungeons and risk getting thrown into one myself, then you owe me your immortal life for that.” He laughed, and I was shocked when he took my hand in his. “Under different circumstances, maybe my wolf would be drawn to you. You said you wanted to see him?”
“Yes.” My heart picked up, knowing his mood had shifted.
He brought his hands around my waist and drew me in. With our bodies molded together, he let his forehead rest against mine. “Here.”
I felt immense power, unstoppable energy, a wolf that should have never been tamed, yet it was created to run a pack of his own. I felt loyalty I had never known could exist in someone. It was an excellent explanation for why he was trying to protect me now, and for what he did for Ethan. Most of all, I felt confusion and, oddly enough, fear toward me.
His wolf didn’t like what it sensed off of me because it couldn’t harness whatever it was I carried outside of my own wolf. I felt his wolf drawn to mine, but I couldn’t determine if it was drawn to my wolf’s power or the mystery of her. His wolf definitely liked that my wolf was madly in love with his, but out of self-preservation, it restrained itself from the attraction I was sensing both these wolves felt for each other.
It wasn’t happening, though. His wolf would never entirely give my wolf what she needed and wanted from him…his love and devotion. My wolf needed to understand that Dominic’s wolf was not her true mate, but maybe it was her protector. I was turning nineteen in two weeks, most shifters would never sense a mate until they were at least nineteen or twenty.
Dominic pulled away, leaving me breathless. “There. I think you have all you need to trust me now.”
“Then I’m on the mission.”
“I’ll get you on it, but you better stay with me and not fall behind. This won’t end up being a search and rescue, got it? There’s a reason the masters test these things before we lead a quest of students.”
“And we’re broken up now too?”
“A great reason for me to take you to the trees where they can’t hear our thoughts or lurk with an invisible spell.”
“Good. When do we leave for the mission?”
“Next week. Now, think of something sad and start crying. Lusa would be more likely to believe our story if you played up some tears about it.”
“You mean for her to believe we actually had a relationship and broke up.”
“Yeah,” he oddly stammered.
“Why doesn’t she know you did that to protect E? He’s her cousin too. She loves him as much as you do. That would’ve made my life a hell of a lot easier.”
His expression went blank. “Come on, let’s get back. You need to study, and they’re going to question if we were out secretly mating.”
“Answer me,” I urged. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“She wouldn’t have let me use you like that.”
He said it, but I knew that’s not how he felt. I also knew that Lusa would have at least played along and been more apologetic than he was.
“She’s changed since she’s been back,” I said. “She’s acting as crazy as my friends.”
“You have no idea what the hell is going on, Jenna. Stop asking the damn questions, or you’ll be in the dungeons before we can get on the quest.”
“Oh, he cusses.”
“You have a way of pulling that out of me.”
“Let’s go. I’ll get my answers my own way.”
“For the love of God, stop it! I’ll deal with my sister. Vamps trip out after coming off a blood-thirst quest. Leave it alone, for your sake, hers, and mine.”
“I’ll just focus on the quest then.”
“God dang, yes. I asked that the first damn time. Just chill and stop it with the risky questions.”
“I’m with you. Time to go through some old books and research.”
“I’d focus on your House Mage studies if I were you. Word has it you’re about to fail out of that class. You want help?”
“I think you’ve helped enough. I’ve got it.”
“Alright. Let’s get back before questions start floating around, and we really end up as wolf mates…in a friggin dungeon beneath this school.”
I followed him out. All that mattered now was that I was getting on this quest for the masters and getting out of here. Freedom and finding help was finally possible. My wolf was crushed, but she’d get over it. He wasn’t her true mate. It was all a physical, lustful attraction toward his wolf anyway. Her fault for falling for a wolf without really knowing what that wolf was all about.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dominic made the break-up dramatic, and everyone seemed to buy it. Thank God! I was relieved to be out of that ridiculous spotlight, but it came at a different price now. It wasn’t the rigorous drills Dom practically ran me into the ground with—I knew that was on his agenda given that I had demanded to go on the quest—but it was how much the others loved him seemingly picking on me.
Now, here I was, sitting alone—again—in the library, studying the foiled pages of the fairy realms. My head was killing me, and my immature and depressed wolf wouldn’t lend me her eyes to cancel out the brilliantly colorful words of the book. She would most likely be the reason I would fail the quest and couldn’t bust out of this joint. She wasn’t the nagging issue though. Since Dom and I broke off our fake relationship, my stoned-out friends were officially no longer my friends. I tried my hardest to fit in with them and look like I was drinking the fairy juice they were on, but no matter how hard I tried, my friends—my best friends who I missed so much—wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
It was weird and heartbreaking all at once. Literally overnight, it went from Tanner hand-feeding Emma and Vannah giggling like an immature little school girl to them blatantly ignoring my presence while I sat with them at lunch. I couldn’t fix it, none of it. I wanted to blame their love interests, but I knew those fairies well enough. Nick and Emma weren’t doing this to them. It was this damn school.
Without my fake boyfriend, all I had now was my Ethan who sat next to me at lunch and interacted with his quick, hard, and cryptic facts. I couldn’t take this anymore, and I still had five more days until I got to break out of here and go on the Master’s Quest.
I had come to the point where I couldn’t nail down what was the most frustrating, losing my friends or the fact that I wished Dom and I were still in our fake relationship just so I had someone to talk to at lunch. At this point, I’d talk about anything. Fairy stones lighting up on the way to House Fae, I was down for that. The weather, why the heck not? Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t only the simple conversation that I felt I wanted from Dominic. More than once, I caught myself staring
over at him with the other masters, the chicks who made sure they sat at his table, and whoever else was with Dom and Co. at lunch.
I had to continually put myself in check, especially when I was fixated on him. His smile, his commanding yet fun personality that seemed to humor everyone who sat around him.
I had no idea why, but I longed to be close to him and in his presence since the night he took me out to the eucalyptus trees. Was it because he showed me more of a glimpse of his wolf? I had no idea.
I watched Ethan get up from the table he sat alone at. I would have joined him, but Ethan always made it known he didn’t want company while studying in the library. I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes before lights out. I followed a gut instinct that came from nowhere and shut the fairy book I had barely read a sentence from.
“Ethan,” I said in a soft voice, knowing the owl in him would startle, being that he was still processing whatever he’d studied. Owls were like that. You never snuck up on one.
He had just reached the last step of the library when I called his name, and he stopped. His head craned up to where I stepped lightly down toward him on the path that led out to the front lawns of the school.
“Yes, Jenna,” he answered with a partial smile. “I am going to my dorm.”
“Wanna take a detour?” I smiled at his pleasant demeanor.
“I don’t understand. Detour. I will walk my usual path to the dorm. Everyone knows they—”
I hesitantly and slowly linked my arm into his. He stood tall like Dom, but he was skinnier and not as robust in his build. “I know, I know. I just wanted to take a walk with you. It seems like you’re my only friend at the school these days.”
“Not true.” He glanced at my hand in the bend of his elbow. I waited for him to alert me to not touch him, but instead, his soft blue eyes met mine. “Your friends are here, you’re the reason you can’t reach them anymore.”
“Wow, that was pretty harsh.”