by May Dawson
“Bullshit,” Clearborn said, enunciating each word perfectly. “Maynard, get her out of the cell.”
The guards in the woods must not have been as loyal to the dean as he thought. Someone reported him to the Alpha council.
There was a clanging, then the shuffling of feet. My heart raced, afraid my mother might tell Clearborn that Rafe and I were hiding down the hall. She was so unpredictable.
“You can both come with me,” Clearborn said, his voice full of danger. “It’s convenient the Alphas are gathering. We can hear what this woman has to say—together—since you can’t be trusted to relay the message.”
It was only when the clanging door had shut again, when the hall had been quiet for a long time, that Rafe quietly muttered a curse word in my ear.
I couldn’t agree more.
Chapter Eight
Rafe
As Maddie and I rushed down the hall, I dared to steal a look at her face. Her lush pink lips were set, and high color lingered in her cheeks. Whatever she was thinking was locked up tight, and only the bleed of red across her high cheekbones gave away her emotions.
God, I wanted to make things better for her so badly that it burned in my chest. Her words earlier about how she could trust my intentions—but she couldn’t trust me—still haunted me.
We had to get out of the basement and back into the hallway before classes started and the halls filled.
“Stay close.” I tried the door, only to find it locked from the outside again. Fuck. I had keys, but it didn’t matter from this side of the door.
The clock was ticking down. I pulled out my cell phone, but it was a dead zone down here. No bars. No way to call for help.
Everyone was still at breakfast. It wouldn’t be long until the hallways above filled with students, though. I didn’t want Clearborn to know we’d eavesdropped on him.
“Now what?” Maddie asked, her voice calm. “When do you think Lex will come looking?”
“Soon, hopefully. If things aren’t going to shit out there too.” So much for keeping Joan’s mysterious accusations under wraps. “You’re taking this well.”
She shrugged. “It’s hardly my first time in an awkward situation.”
I leaned against the wall opposite her, crossing my arms, and she mimicked my posture. With her long blond hair drawn over her shoulder, her leanly muscled body curvy even in our utility uniform, a t-shirt and cargo pants, she was sexy as hell.
We’d have to clear Maddie’s name, now that the accusations were going to come out. I didn’t care about Dean McCauley or the academy’s reputation. I cared about protecting my guys, and I cared about protecting Maddie. Everything else was irrelevant.
I was always curious about her, and for once, I had an excuse to ask questions without giving her the wrong impression. We were trapped down here anyway. “What was it like growing up as a pack princess?”
“Don’t call me that,” she said, but went on without waiting for me to acknowledge her words, as if she expected to be obeyed. As if she were a princess. “Which part of my life do you want to know about? Growing up with the coven? Or growing up with the pack? Because those are two very different stories.”
I glanced at my watch. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“We’ve got that much time,” she said, not exactly a question.
“Maybe.” A spider crept across the wall above her head, and I decided to ignore it as long as it didn’t drop toward her.
Maybe I should start keeping spiders as pets like Dani. If we got caught down here, we might well find ourselves making a home in these cells.
“I’ll skip over the part where I was born in the Atlantic pack because, well, who knows?” Maddie managed to sound blasé, but I’d seen enough lately to know that was an act. “I was kidnapped by Rippedthroat when I was a little kid. He changed my memories, and Piper’s too, so that we thought we were sisters. Then he drained our magic, using it to power himself and his coven.”
“You’d think since he went through all that trouble that he’d value us, but no. He seemed to hate us. Maybe because he needed us. Maybe because we were wolves, or kids, or girls. I don’t know.” She shook her head, her face blank as memories washed over her, but pain flickered in her blue eyes.
I hadn’t meant to make her relive the darkness in her past. I should let the conversation die. And yet rage flared through my body at her own emotion, no matter how much she suppressed it.
“He’s dead now, right?” If not, I wanted to kill him myself.
She nodded. “Piper took the worst of it. She protected me when I was too little to protect myself.”
“You look up to her.” We had that in common. I’d met Piper Northsea once, briefly, on one of the darkest nights of my life. And I’d never forget it.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I came here wanting to make her proud. Coming to her school—it’s meant a lot to me.”
Then she’d been bullied and mistreated. Fury—at myself—tightened my chest. I shouldn’t have let it happen. I’d warned off the cadre when they dared to pick on her, and I’d debated making any cadet who bullied her regret their choices. But I’d always talked myself out of taking any action.
I’d known she could take it. If she hadn’t fought her own battles, no one would ever have treated her as an equal. But it still felt like I’d abandoned her.
As it was, she’d won over most of the school. I heard the way the men in the other patrols talked about her, and it was very different from when she arrived. Did she even know that?
Or had I let her down again, by not telling her just that?
“I’m sorry you were alone when you came here,” I admitted.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said lightly. “I’m tough.”
“You are,” I admitted, and something changed in her face, which made my heart beat faster.
“Anyway,” she said lightly, “now she’ll watch the trials, so hopefully I don’t embarrass myself.”
“You won’t,” I said confidently. So many people still wanted to see her fail, but she was Maddie Northsea. She was a fucking pain in my ass, but she was also a force of nature.
And she had us watching her back, anyway.
She gave me a long look. “Going soft?”
“No.” Her words irritated me. “But thanks for the reminder that it’s always a mistake to be nice to first-years.”
A mischievous smile touched her lips. It made my heart leap, but it was the faintest hint of a smile before it flickered and her gaze dropped from mine.
She said, “It’s probably a mistake to be nice to fourth-years too for that matter, but here I am, spilling my life story.”
“I just wanted to get to know you better.”
Her brows arched. “What about you, Rafe? I know you’re an uncle. That’s about it.”
I’d half-expected her to finish that thought. I know you’re an uncle… and an asshole.
“Yeah,” I said. “Charlotte turns one in a month.”
“You ever think twice about the world she has to live in?”
I met the challenge in her gaze. “Yeah. I do.”
I thought I’d given her what she wanted, but she didn’t break her stare.
“So what,” she asked slowly, as if I were an idiot, “are you going to do about it?”
That tone, the condescending way she talked to me, made me heated, but the way that question ended stopped me dead.
“It’s what you have to do, isn’t it?” I asked, and my voice came out genuinely curious. “I can’t make anyone see you the way you really are.”
“The way I really am?” Her brows arched.
Cain on a cracker, she won’t let a damn thing I say stand without pushing back.
“You know. You’re the only one who can make them see that you’re one of us,” I said impatiently. “Probably tougher than most, to be honest.”
“Oh?”
“Definitely tougher than Silas, probably not tougher th
an me.” I could feel the cockiness slip into my grin, even though I was joking, and I made my mouth straighten back out again. I shouldn’t be teasing her.
“Don’t underestimate Silas,” she said. “I think he’s pretty amazing.”
Jealousy curled through my stomach, but I shouldn’t feel a damn thing.
“You asked for my life story,” she said. “Tell me something about yourself.”
“I had a brother and a sister.”
Something sad flickered in her eyes, registering the had. My brother had been dead for years now, but it never got easier. I didn’t want to talk about it, and I was about to shut her down.
She said lightly, “You seem like an oldest child…”
Relief flooded my chest that she’d shifted the subject. My eyebrows arched. “Because I’m bossy? No, this is just how I’m wired. I’m the youngest.”
“I thought the youngest is supposed to be the fun-loving trickster.” Maddie’s lips arched. She was the youngest, and that certainly seemed to describe her.
“Maybe I am. Maybe you don’t know everything about me.” I could be fun.
“Maybe.” She flashed me a skeptical look that made me want to prove her wrong.
Just then, the door rattled. I drew her to one side, concealing us behind the door in case it wasn’t the Calvary.
Or maybe I was just taking any excuse to be close to her again.
The door flew open.
Silas, in school uniform, stuck his head around the door. His blond hair flopped over his forehead, and he grinned his big boyish grin.
“Found you,” he said. “You two having a moment?”
Yep. We had work to do, but I still felt irrationally annoyed that this brief moment with Maddie was over.
I ignored Silas’ insinuations. “We’ve got to move.”
He slid his thumb under the strap of the book bag over his shoulder, and for the first time, I realized he was carrying two bags. “I’ve got Maddie’s bag and both your uniforms.”
We only had a few minutes before the bell, but everyone was usually running over here from breakfast at the last possible minute. If we hustled, no one would know we’d been locked in the basement.
I grabbed the strap of Maddie’s bag and tossed it over my shoulder. She rolled her eyes, not that I missed it—every single time, swear to god, my palm itched to smack her rebellious but perfect ass—but she was already going ahead of me down the hall. We needed to put some distance between us and the cells, no matter what.
“Don’t ask me what kind of school has a prison under the classrooms,” she muttered as the three of us ducked into an empty classroom. I knew the schedule well enough to know it was unused during hour one. We’d have a minute of privacy in here.
If someone caught us, I’d just pretend I’d needed privacy to yell at my smartass cadets. That would not be a tough sell.
Without hesitating, I grabbed my clothes out of the book bag, then handed it to Maddie. It was too light—Silas must have had to sacrifice some space—so she wouldn’t be completely prepared. “Guess it doesn’t matter if you have all your books, the way your classes are going.”
“The guys and I will share.” Silas stared me down, challenge in his gaze. “We look after our girl here.”
Our girl? When the hell did that happen?
“Yeah, you’ve done a bang-up job so far,” I muttered. I yanked my t-shirt over my head, before pulling on my dress shirt and beginning to button it.
Maddie didn’t hesitate. She was already skimming off her PT uniform, completely unembarrassed to strip in front of us. I tried to focus on my own shirt, but I missed a damn button and had to start over.
She stripped down to a sports bra and cotton panties with lace along the waistband. It shouldn’t have been sexy, but the combination of her lean, athletic frame and her narrow curves had me suddenly, humiliatingly hard. As she leaned over, pulling up her short plaid skirt, the muscles in her arms and her back rippled. Those lean muscles were clearly defined, even though her frame was feminine.
That was Maddie in a nutshell, though: tough and badass and feminine all at once. It was a fucking addictive combination.
I turned away, buttoning up my blazer. Think about the least sexy things in the universe. Washing my grandmother’s laundry for her. Big panties, the size of dish towels, spotted with flowers.
Silas watched us both, his arms folded across his chest in his blazer, a faint smile written across his lips.
“What’s funny?” I asked him, warning in my voice.
“You know what’s funny,” he said.
When Maddie was around, my sense of authority over all of them seemed to slip. My jaw tightened as Maddie looked up from buttoning her blouse, her eyes bright with curiosity.
Then Silas added, “But any of us could have been trapped in those cells. We didn’t see Clearborn coming.”
Was Silas really covering for me?
I adjusted my trousers as best I could and moved behind the desk. The last thing I wanted was for Maddie to know the effect she had on me, or worse, to make her uncomfortable because of it.
“You two get to class,” I said, taking a seat in the teacher’s chair. “I’m going to figure out where Clearborn took Maddie’s mom.”
The two of them nodded. As they headed out the door, Silas touched Maddie’s back, and she glanced up at him with a smile. Jealousy rippled through my muscles again, even worse than before.
I still had a hard-on that I was ashamed of, and worse than that, it wasn’t just her body I wanted.
I wanted all of Maddie Northsea.
I could sit in the instructor’s chair all I wanted.
But my grip was slipping.
Chapter Nine
Maddie
I had to go through my classes, no matter how distracted I felt. Luckily, I had Silas, Penn, or Chase—or on occasions, all three—in my classes, so I was never alone with my troubles.
We made jokes between classes, and Penn—because he never cared much about getting in trouble—passed me notes. I was too good a girl to actually pass him one back, but I still read them all, and they made me smile.
Chase never messed around in class, or at least he confined himself to checking his secret cell phone under the desk, so I was surprised when he leaned over to me as our instructor, Kingfisher, had his back turned.
Chase usually was nothing but annoyed when he checked his phone. He always received texts about family stuff where he was too far away to help, but this time I could feel his joyful energy as he leaned toward me.
He held his phone up. I looked at the screen—lottery numbers—and then looked back up at him, trying to figure out why he was showing me that.
“They’re mine,” he mouthed.
“All of them?” I mouthed back. All six numbers?
“All of them.”
His eyes were bright.
“Northsea, Freeman, out of my class.” Kingfisher snapped from the front of the room. “You can say whatever you want in the hall. Five points off your house for each of you.”
“Sorry,” I said abashedly. I mostly felt sorry for getting caught, but still.
I gathered my books, then Chase and I headed out into the hallway. I should be worried about getting in trouble—I was already on restriction until the end of time, possibly until well after graduation if Rafe had his way—but I was too interested in Chase’s news right now to give a damn. Things were hard for Chase. Maybe this would take the weight off his shoulders.
“How much?” I asked as soon as we were out in the hallway.
“Seven million dollars,” he said. He was grinning as he raked his hand over his hair like he couldn’t believe it. “Holy shit, Maddie. This changes everything. My aunt can quit her job, I can move Blake and Skyla closer to here, we can have a house…”
“I’m so happy for you!” Elation swelled in my chest. The situation with his family was so tough on him. Maybe this would be the start of something new.
I grabbed him in a hug, and he pulled me against his chest so hard that my toes lifted off the ground. As I laughed at him, he grinned back at me.
Then suddenly he said, “Oh, I’m sorry I got you in trouble. I just wanted to tell you—“
“Dude, I get in trouble all the time,” I reminded him. “I don’t care. I’m glad I got to be part of this moment with you.”
“I’m glad I got to share it with you too,” he said. “No one else knows yet. Just you.”
He gazed into my face, still smiling as those words settled in. But he told me just because of how our day had gone, right? It wasn’t that he chose to tell me first…
“You should call Blake!” I said.
He shook his head. “What if something goes wrong? I don’t want them to be disappointed. I’ll get the money, get everything set up, then tell them.”
I had the feeling that for him, something had always gone wrong, and it made my heart lurch in my chest.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I told him.
“Shouldn’t I be telling you that?” He ran his hand over his hair again, his smile dimming. “Sorry. Here I was so caught up in—”
I caught his hand with mine. “Don’t do that. I couldn’t be happier right now if I’d won the lottery myself.”
His eyes sparked. The two of us were so close, and I was suddenly keenly aware of his hard fingers, warm against my palm.
Chase and I were just friends. So why was it that butterflies rose in my chest when I gazed at his soft, pink lips, a contrast to his hard-angled, big-jawed face?
“For now, this is a secret,” he said. “Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I don’t know how the dean or the Council would take my new independence,” he muttered, even though we didn’t know yet if Dean McCauley would be the dean much longer.
I cocked my head to one side, feeling a jolt of anger at the thought people had intimidated him before. “Why?”
My voice came out sharp, protective, and his lips quirked.