by Jayme Morse
But I wouldn’t be alright. I wouldn’t be okay with this. There was nothing Vince or Iris could do to make it better, though.
“Stay hopeful,” Iris told me, leaning in for a hug. “Let all of your positive vibes out into the universe.”
“I’ll try,” I replied with a smile.
Vince wrapped his arms around me, too. “Call us if you need anything—and I mean anything. Whether you want coffee, books or someone murdered, we’ll come back for you at any hour.”
“Yup, yup, yup,” Iris agreed with a nod.
I laughed. “Thanks, you guys. I love you.”
“We love you, too,” they said in sync before slipping out the door.
Colton glanced over at me then. “You have some really good friends, Raven.”
“I know.” I smiled. “Between them and you, I’d say I’m set.”
He smiled. “You’re a good friend, too. Thank you for being here with us right now. You don’t have to be.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re my mates. There’s nowhere else I would rather be.”
At that moment, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Rhys’s expression had turned unreadable—not quite angry, but not exactly what you would call happy, either.
“I’ll be back,” he muttered under his breath and then headed outside into the dark night.
“What bug crawled up his butt?” Colton asked.
“Oh, come on. You really don’t know?” Aiden asked, letting out a little laugh. “Raven just said we’re her mates. Well, that’s only true about three of us. It’s not true about Rhys.”
It dawned on me then that Rhys was still upset, and maybe even jealous, that he was the only Darken who wasn’t mated to me.
I didn’t want it to be this way. I knew that the longer this went on, the more likely he was to feel resentful towards me. Resentful for not kissing him, for not allowing him the chance to see if he was my mate—which I’m pretty sure we were all confident he would be, at this point.
A part of me thought about following after him right now and changing that, but it wasn’t exactly the most romantic story about mating to someone.
Not that it really mattered. I had already promised Theo that if he survived this, I would choose him.
If.
Chapter Thirty-One
I wasn’t sure what time I had fallen asleep, but at some point, my eyes fluttered open and I found Colton resting his head on my shoulder on one side, while Aiden’s head was in my lap.
I glanced across the room to find Rhys sleeping in a chair across from me. I was glad that he wasn’t awake and watching how snuggly my mates were with me. I just hoped that he hadn’t witnessed any of it before he had fallen asleep.
Sitting up straighter in my chair was enough to wake up both guys.
A moment later, the door that led to the operation room opened up, startling Rhys awake.
Dr. Young stepped out into the waiting room, and my heart pounded against my chest.
“How is he?” Aiden asked.
I was so afraid of what the doctor was going to say next. I could feel my entire body trembling.
The doctor’s facial expression was completely unreadable to me. I couldn’t tell if it was positive or not; mostly, it was just serious.
“The surgery was a success.” Dr. Young’s lips turned into a grin. “It’s going to take Theo a day or two to come out from under the strong anesthesia we have to prescribe werewolves to knock them out for procedures like this, and we will want to keep him here for a few days for monitoring. But he is going to be okay.”
I breathed a deep sigh of relief and glanced around at the others. We were all grins from ear to ear.
Before I even knew what was happening, Aiden was lifting me out of my chair and spinning me around in circles.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. It felt like something out of a movie. We were all so overcome with relief and joy.
Finally, there was a happy ending to something.
***
I didn’t want to go back to my dorm suite that night. I was relieved that Theo had survived the gun shot, but I was still so shaken up by the fact that someone had nearly killed him in the first place. It scared me to think that there was someone out there who wanted to hurt him and possibly even me or the others. The idea of being alone just felt really scary right now. And honestly, so did being away from them.
So, I ended up going home with the Darken that night.
Every single time I had ever slept at their house, I had always slept by myself—either on the sectional or in a guest room. But that wasn’t what I wanted tonight.
“I don’t want to sleep alone,” I informed them.
“Alright. Who do you want to sleep with?” Colton asked me.
Normally, this is where Aiden would have made a dirty joke, but even he knew that now wasn’t really the time to be joking around.
I glanced around at them, not entirely sure what to answer. The truth was that I really didn’t want to have to choose just one.
“All of you,” I admitted quietly.
They glanced around at one another, and then finally, Colton nodded. “Your wish is our command.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised at his reaction.
“Yeah, we can make that happen,” Rhys agreed with a nod.
“I’m cool with it,” Aiden agreed.
Wow. I hadn’t actually expected them to agree to that. But I didn’t want to be away from any of them tonight. I wanted to keep all of them close to me, for both my own protection and their protection. If I only chose one, I would have worried about the others.
We ended up choosing Colton’s room to sleep in. Fortunately, he had a California king bed, so it was large enough for the four of us.
I slept in the center of the bed, with Aiden and Rhys at my sides. Colton ended up sleeping towards the bottom of the bed, but laid his head in between my legs.
And that’s when we started having a big ole orgy.
Just kidding.
Nothing like that happened that night. We all just slept… peacefully, happily, without a worry in the world.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep with two out of three of my mates by my side.
Everything felt right.
***
A couple of days later, Theo woke up from the anesthesia.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” I told him, kissing him. The others were in the room, and normally I didn’t kiss them in front of each other—not since Theo had caught me kissing Aiden that night in the pool—but I didn’t care. He had lived through a near death experience. He deserved all of the kisses in the world, even if the others had to watch.
“Me, too.” He smiled up at me from the hospital bed he was still laying in.
“We’re all so glad you’re okay,” Colton added.
“Did you happen to see who shot you?” Aiden asked.
“No.” Theo shook his head. “Whoever shot me shot me did it from behind.”
Shit. That sort of scared me. Colton had taught us in Weaponry that it was always best to shoot someone from the front because most people have a hard time figuring out where someone’s heart is from behind. The fact that someone had shot Theo from behind and come just two millimeters away from hitting his heart told me that they must have had a really good shot—meaning they were both skilled and probably had a lot of practice at this.
“Well, do you remember what happened, exactly?” Rhys asked, pulling a chair up to Theo’s bedside.
Theo closed his eyes, as if he were picturing it like a movie scene playing out in his mind. “I was late to class—which never happens—but I got a phone call in my office. Then Caroline Wickburn told me there was a package in the Headmaster’s office. I went to get it. I was walking back to the Descendants’ House when I heard the sound of a gun going off.” His eyes opened, and there was a look of fear within his eyes. “I can remember the pain. Damn, you gu
ys. It’s been so long since I’ve been shot by a bullet that I forgot how painful it is.”
“Wait, this isn’t the first time you were ever shot?” I asked him with raised eyebrows.
“I’ve been shot a few times throughout my lifetime,” he replied. “Once in the shoulder, another time in the thigh, and a few times in the knees. This is the first time I’ve ever been shot close to my heart… which is probably a big reason that this time was the most painful.” He paused. “I’m not kidding you when I tell you my whole life flashed before my eyes. All six hundred years’ worth of it, so I guess you can say it happened in slow motion. It was the craziest thing.”
Theo glanced over at the others. “Would you guys mind giving me and Raven a minute alone together?”
“No, not at all,” Aiden replied, rising to his feet. He, Rhys, and Colton slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.
Sliding into the chair Rhys had been sitting in next to the bed, I turned to Theo. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Seriously. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be okay again if you died.”
“You would have been okay, Raven.”
“You don’t know that,” I insisted.
His ocean blue eyes met mine. “Believe me. I do. You’re a very strong girl. You don’t need me or anyone else.”
“You’re right. I don’t need you or anyone else, but I want you to be in my life for many years to come.” I swallowed hard. “I also didn’t want to live with the guilt of knowing that if you had died, it would have been my fault.”
His eyebrows lifted and he joked, “So it was you who shot me?”
“No, of course I didn’t shoot you,” I replied with a laugh. “But I would have felt guilty knowing that it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been teaching at the Academy just to keep an eye on me.”
“You couldn’t have known that for sure. Someone clearly has it out for me. If they wanted to kill me, they would have done it regardless of my location,” he replied.
“I guess.” I paused for a moment. “So, did you hear everything I said to you while you were in a coma?”
“No.” His blue eyes locked on mine. “What did you say?”
That I would choose you if you survived. I knew that I should have told him that, but honestly?
The fact that he had said it made me feel so much relief. When I’d made that promise, it had felt like I was bargaining with him, and with the universe, to keep him alive. I’d been hoping that it would give him the will to carry on.
But I wasn’t entirely sure if it was what I wanted.
A big part of me felt drawn to Aiden. I hadn’t even gone out with Rhys yet. And I still wanted to get to know Colton better.
So maybe I was a horrible person, but I didn’t tell him. I kept it completely to myself, relieved that he hadn’t heard me.
“Just how much I wanted you to stay alive,” I told him quietly. “I wasn’t sure if you could hear me. It sounded like you’d smiled.”
The trace of a smile hit his lips then. “Nope. Didn’t hear a thing.” He tried to sit up in bed then, but he couldn’t seem to. “My body is healed, but I’m still a bit groggy from the anesthesia,” he explained. “Can you come closer to me?”
I was already sitting in a chair next to him. “How close?” I asked.
“Well, I was thinking that maybe you could climb onto my bed,” he replied with a sly grin.
“So, that was the reason you wanted privacy,” I commented with a smile, as I climbed onto the bed with him, straddling him.
“Maybeeee,” he agreed, kissing my lips.
He reached up and, running his hand underneath my shirt and bra, grabbed my breasts, rubbing his hands all over them. “You see, when my life flashed before my eyes, I realized that I haven’t gotten to do everything I want with you yet.”
“Well, I’m not sure if this is really the place for all that,” I replied, glancing at the infirmary door nervously. “One of the doctors or nurses could walk in here at any second.”
“That’s half the excitement,” Theo replied, kissing me again. He grabbed my waist then, pulling me closer to him, planting his hands firmly on my hips.
I could feel his hardness beneath me. Through his hospital gown and the thin material of the leggings I was wearing, it felt so close.
I could feel myself growing wet.
I wanted nothing more than to lose my virginity right here in this hospital bed, but I knew it wasn’t the time or place for that. I wanted my first time to be special, not in the middle of the school’s infirmary.
Reaching my hand underneath his hospital gown, I grabbed his dick.
I ran my hand over his shaft and let out a gasp.
He was freaking huge. God damn. Werewolf dicks must have been bigger than human dicks.
Wrapping my fingers around it, I brought my lips down on his again.
I eventually drifted downwards, taking his length in my mouth. Swirling my tongue around him, he began to moan quietly.
I moaned, too, excited by the sounds he was making.
“Oh, baby,” he groaned out as his breathing became labored.
After he came, I laid in the hospital bed with him for a long time. I felt both relieved that he was alive and guilty for lying about what I had really told him when he was in a coma.
Chapter Thirty-Two
One of the security guards from Werewolf Academy came to Theo’s infirmary room later that day.
“My name is Will. I’m going to be working with local authorities to try and figure out who could have possibly done this to you. We take all incidents of violence that happen on campus very seriously. Would you mind telling me a little about the incident? How did it happen? Did you see anyone? Give me every detail you can think of.”
Theo told him the same thing he had told us about how it had all happened: Caroline Wickburn had told him there was a package for him in the Headmaster’s office, and he had gone to get it. On his way back to the Descendants’ House, he had been shot in the back.
Once Will had written down his story, he frowned.
“So, there’s something a little bit disturbing about this case,” he said. “I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but when we went through the video footage of where you were shot, we didn’t actually see anyone.”
“I don’t understand,” Theo said, shaking his head. “How could that be?”
“An invisibility spell,” I realized out loud, remembering our Lunar Magic 101 lesson from the day the shooting had taken place. I glanced over at the security guard. “Doesn’t that make sense? Whoever shot Theo in the back made themselves invisible before they did it?”
“That’s what we believe, which tells us a lot about whoever was trying to kill you. They want to great lengths to not get caught. They knew that the cameras would pick up on who they were if they didn’t make themselves invisible.”
“It also means they could be anywhere,” I said quietly.
“Yes, that’s one of the things we find most alarming about this,” Will agreed with a nod. “I would like to tell you that there are precautions you can take to avoid being shot again, but with your shooter making themselves invisible, you might not have much of a head’s up next time.”
“Next time. You make it sound like you’re so certain they’ll shoot me again,” Theo said.
Will shot him a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid that it seems safe to assume that whoever shot you really wants you dead.”
“So, there’s no way this could have possibly been a case of Theo being at the wrong place at the wrong time? We’re certain that this shooting was a targeted attack?” I asked.
Considering it wasn’t easy to kill a werewolf in the first place, I figured that it had been targeted. But a part of me had just been hopeful that this had all been some sort of mix-up—that someone would come forward and let us know that they had accidentally shot Theo.
I knew that wasn’t likely, but I wished it was the case.
�
��It’s incredibly unlikely that whoever shot him wasn’t intentionally trying to kill him,” Will replied. “Now, I have another question for you, Mr. Rossi,” he said, turning to Theo. “Do you have any idea of who may have wanted you dead? Can you think of anyone who might be angry with you? Do you have any enemies?”
Theo thought about it for a long moment. “The only one who I could possibly think of is Milos Santorini.”
I swallowed hard. Theo thought Milos was the one who had done this, and he was probably right. Milos had killed my parents. If he had somehow caught wind of the fact that Theo was my mate, I wouldn’t have put this past him.
Even if Milos didn’t know that Theo was my mate, he might have known that Theo and the other Darken had brought me to Werewolf Academy to protect me from him. That alone may have been enough fuel to ignite Milos’s fire and want Theo dead.
What I hated was knowing that if this theory was true, if Milos was the one who had shot Theo, it all came back to me.
I would never get over the belief that this was my thought. If Theo or any of the others ended up getting hurt, it was because of me.
***
After Will left Theo’s infirmary room, I excused myself. I needed to get some fresh air and to really think about things.
I needed to stay the hell away from the Darken. That was the conclusion that I kept coming back to.
If I kept them too close, I would be putting all of their lives in danger. What if Milos’s shot was more on point next time and he actually shot Theo or one of the others straight through the heart? I wasn’t sure if I would be able to live with the guilt, and honestly?
I wanted the Darken to live. I didn’t want any of them to die because of me or any other reason.
If staying away from them was what I needed to do to protect them, then so be it.
I would just focus on my studies. The end of the school year was coming up, and I needed to get good grades.