Fuck, I needed to pay attention.
Class. Studying. School. Graduation. Tests.
I tried to think of all the stressful things in my life to take my mind off of both Braxton and Aramis.
I bet Aramis was as good a kisser as Braxton had been. I thought of Brax’s rough lips. Damn, I hadn’t expected those on a nerdy type like him, but the surprise had been welcome.
Just when I thought I’d collected myself, he sent me a wink, and I had to cross my legs to keep from squirming or, worse, going over there, right in the middle of class, and kissing him again.
What had gotten into me lately?
Mating or the potential for mating had turned me into a hormone-fueled animal.
Need mates.
Oh Goddess. Speaking of lusty animals, my inner beast was now saying mates, plural, and I was ignoring it the best I could while simultaneously fantasizing about it. Hard to do, but somehow, I pulled it off.
“That’s the bell.” AJ tugged at the elbow of my black leather jacket. I shrugged out of it, now overwarm and feeling caged.
Braxton lingered at his desk and, as I scooted past, his hand brushed mine. I smiled at him but needed to rush to go to the other side of campus for gym.
“Bye, Jade,” he whispered, and I hesitated at the door and waved, not wanting him to think I was ignoring him or didn’t hear what he said.
Goddess I’d turned into such a girl.
I mean, I was a girl.
You know what I mean.
I rushed to gym and dressed out. Nora and I were always the last ones out of the locker room, so before she could leave, I stopped her with my hand on her shoulder. “Hey, can we talk?” I asked, ignoring the croak in my throat.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“How did you know you had more than one mate?”
Her eyes grew wide and she plopped down on the closest bench, taking me down with her. “Spill,” she said.
I groaned. “My wolf wants both of them,” I said quietly.
“Aramis and Braxton?”
I nodded at her guess, which really was just stating a fact since both of my friends were privy to the staring and eye-fucking. Still couldn’t believe I’d said that.
“Hot…” She sang and bounced her knees. “Okay, so, I’m just gonna be blunt about this… Your wolf is wanting to mate with both of them, right? It’s like she’s insatiable.”
I nodded, and my wolf responded by shuddering inside me.
It was true.
I had two mates.
“Okay, so that’s how I knew. And it was equal for all of them. Syn and Danger—all of them are equal in my wolf’s mind and in mine.”
“I’ve never even had a make-out session or anything, at least before the other day, and now I’m drooling and practically panting over two guys at the same time?” I said this mostly to myself, but Nora chuckled and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
“I know. Been there. Done that. Have four mates to prove it. Just let nature take its course. If I know what I think I know from talking to my mates, Aramis and Braxton know you’re their mate as well. And they’re best friends. It’s almost like the Volkov brothers. What could be better than sharing a hot girl with your best friend?”
She made it sound so easy.
Maybe it was.
I looked to the door between the locker room and the gym, knowing Aramis was on the other side. He had gym the same hour as me.
I had to face him.
I had to know.
Have him now. Have both of them now.
“My wolf is a ho.”
Nora cracked up and doubled over laughing. “Again. Been there. Still am there. Get used to it. When you have a harem of hot guys, it just goes with the territory. Now, go see your man. Or should I say one of your men?”
Chapter Seven
Aramis
I didn’t have many classes with Jade. Braxton had a few, but all I shared with our mate was gym. At this time of year, we had phys ed in the actual gymnasium, except on running days. Today was supposed to be basketball for the guys and some sort of dance for the girls, but when I emerged from the dressing room, the coach had everyone gathered around.
“Today’s schedule has been changed. Due to some staffing issues, we’ve decided to make this a forest day. Except for…” He shuffled through some pages on a clipboard—the man was stuck decades back with paper and pens—and read for a moment while I hoped neither Jade, who had also just entered the gym, or I were on the “except” list. “Clara Simms, you can spend the period in the library.” He gave us all a serious stare. “And stay with the pack today. As you all know, there have been some sightings of humans encroaching on the edges of our land and, of course, the other dangers.”
Relief flooded me that neither Jade nor I was on the “except” list. Clara, of course. She’d broken her foot the previous week, badly enough even her shifter genes were going to take a little longer to fully heal. She would have just been bench warming even if we weren’t going to the forest. I hadn’t had the opportunity to run with Jade since we’d broken the wall of silence, and my wolf was prancing around inside me in joy at the prospect. While Clara used her crutches to make her way to the hallway, not having dressed out since she wasn’t going to exercise anyway, the rest of us poured out the door into the courtyard and waited for instructions before shifting.
I focused on Jade, working through the group until I stood near her. Like all of us, she shed her shorts and baggy shirt on cue, and, immediately, fur sprang out to cover her skin, bones, and muscles, as she into the shape of her golden-red wolf. Her coat was thick and lush, her muzzle elegant, body compact but vibrating with strength.
Jade was magnificent.
“Aramis!” Coach’s voice dragged me from my obsession. “Are you shifting, or would you rather go to the library and write an essay on the topic?”
I answered by giving my wolf his head, the uncomfortable but exhilarating change overcoming me. It didn’t hurt exactly, but one couldn’t go from a six-foot-three man to the horizontal form of a lupine creature without a few aches pains and disconcerting pops.
Coach joined us in his gray form, bounding out ahead, leading the way through the forest. We followed the same route on these class-time runs, a path winding through the outer edge of the forest, fairly level and well-trodden by many paws. I had been out here the night before as well, burning off excess energy generated by my need to mate.
It wasn’t sex. I could have sex anytime, and had accepted from many pretty shifters who knew the score. I avoided those who made it clear they wanted relationships because I didn’t intend to lead them on. With nary a twitch of long-term interest until one day at the start of this semester, I’d been confident romance lay nowhere in the near future for me. My parents had been in their fifties when they mated, not an uncommon age in the shifters’ longer lifetimes to settle down, and I’d considered that a little early.
Jade wasn’t new in school. She’d been around for a couple of years, possibly more. A pretty girl but one who didn’t show the least interest in me, didn’t hang out in the circle of females who made it a point to show up wherever I did. But then one day, about two weeks into the term, I looked up from a stack of pancakes at breakfast to see her with her girlfriends, Nora and AJ, laughing, eyes sparkling, and my wolf and I fell hard.
My pack leaders always said a wolf knows when he meets his mate, but I’d scoffed. Matings were arranged in some packs, and nobody had ever mentioned falling for someone already around. To listen to Mom and Dad, the second they came into one another’s presence, when Dad visited her pack one spring, representing his on some errand for his alpha father, it was like lightning struck for both of them. He saw her standing outside, face tipped up and eyes closed, sunlight washing over her pale cheeks after a long dark winter, and that was it. She dropped her head, opened her eyes…he approached her…and they’d never willingly been apart since. Dad took her back to his pack after delivering his
message to her alpha—a message he had to be prompted to repeat because he had only one focus—Mom, already pregnant with me and my littermate/twin.
I’d probably passed Jade in the hall hundreds of times, had for sure been on school runs with her, eaten at tables near hers, and shared a few classes with not a sign of anything until the day my wolf howled and my breath caught, and the world tilted.
Clouds that had been blocking out the light all day parted to allow rays of pale winter sun to pour down on the forest with its mostly leafless trees and the occasional dark-needled evergreen. Jade ran toward the front of the pack, bounding along with such enthusiasm, my wolf surged forward to get next to her. Before I realized what my wolf intended, he’d nudged her to the side and away from the others, off the path.
Then we were tearing along, darting around the magnificent, ancient trees and leaping over the downed logs from previous years’ storms. We raced through shadows and bright patches, side by side, bumping noses and brushing sides from time to time. My wolf’s joy was expressed in a long, warbling howl before we leapt over a shallow ditch and sprinted up a hill overlooking the school grounds.
The rest of the pack were still on the path, and we’d probably receive some sort of penalty for leaving them. While we were encouraged to go out with at least one other wolf, the hunters’ presence had made it a big no until we received an all-clear. But I saw nothing untoward, just trees and buildings, the few streams, the Volkovs’ cottage, and the other wolves.
Then, as Jade nipped at my muzzle and made to run past me, I heard it. Rifle fire. And not too far off. I yipped at her, and she skidded to a stop. I cursed my foolishness. I’d endangered our mate, brought her here where we had no protection from whoever was out there shooting at…who?
We bumped noses and raced back the way we’d come. I had to get her under cover before those hunters took a shot at her. If anything happened to our mate, I’d never forgive myself. The coach could impose any penalty on me, and I’d deserve it.
Once in the trees, I set a course for the gym. Once Jade was safe, I’d tell her to go let Headmaster know what we’d heard then shift myself and find the others, get them home as well.
Hunters on our grounds could not be tolerated. The academy was the one place wolves should be free of fear of attack. Trespassers deserved whatever they got.
Threaten our mate’s safety?
Not and live to tell about it.
Chapter Eight
Jade
Gunfire!
I’d heard it many times at a distance, since hunters often chased game in the forests outside the academy walls, but never from so close up. As we stood on the hilltop together, the grounds stretched out around us in a 360 degree panorama. The other wolves raced along their path behind the coach, and a few students milled in the courtyard in front of the main school building. Cars and a couple of trucks streamed along the highway, although traffic jams were a non-issue out in the country where we dwelled.
Running with Aramis had left my wolf elated, and I shared the emotion. He was a wolf as dark as his human’s hair, with a thick, luxurious coat and eyes a little more luminous green. I’d seen this before, of course, but hadn’t gone beyond thinking of him as the most beautiful of his kind. The way I might appreciate a painting or sculpture. But with my wolf singing his praises, I recognized so much more about him.
He bounded over downed trees and some boulders with grace and joy, leading me through the sleeping forest on a route only he knew. And I gladly went along for the ride, for the pleasure of watching him, for the pleasure of stretching out my limbs and running full out.
For the pleasure of not knowing where we were going, a true metaphor for the sudden turn my life had taken. Unlike the tales of my pack, of my school friends, I had not recognized my mates the moment I first saw them. I had not known when they did—if the months of seeing them focused on me offered any indication. But since I knew, any moment when one of them was not in my sights was almost painful.
Focused on the plume of Aramis’s tail ahead of me, I nearly stumbled over a thick branch on the forest floor but caught myself in time. He took a sharp left, and I followed him up the hillside to the flat top where we stood, sides pressed together. He nuzzled my face, and I inhaled his scent of earth and musk, never wanting to return to school. I would stay here with him forever as long as our other mate would join us.
Two mates…the thought still sent me reeling.
Then the shots rang out and, before I could process how close they had come from, Aramis was urging me down the slope to where the winter trees and low bushes offered a little cover. This time, he stayed at my side, guiding me with nudges and whines back toward the school buildings. I stretched out and ran for my life, for his life. Although I was at my limit, Aramis’s longer legs and larger body could probably leave me in the dust, could find safety much faster, but my wolf understood he’d never abandon me to the smoking barrels and leering grins of those who had crossed the boundaries onto school land.
There were plenty of deer and birds and small animals for them to shoot beyond our grounds. The only thing they could want here was the ultimate game. Us. Did they know we were shifters, or was it enough to kill a wolf for its pelt? Should their hot lead pierce the heart of one of my schoolmates, the murderer would find no pelt left behind. The victim’s last act before vacating their body would be to shift back to human. At least, anyone I’d known to die had done so. The hunters’ would have to settle for a person to skin and tack to their walls.
Would they do that?
I ran faster, lungs and heart at full capacity, unable to avoid sharp sticks and stones piercing my paws, seeking only shelter for my mate and myself. And then, as the gym came into sight, I realized we were not the only possible targets for those who had encroached on private property for their day of sick fun. Or revenge? Had a wolf ever harmed someone in the village?
Not that I’d heard of.
And if the hunters did believe they were firing at animals, they were on posted, mostly walled-off private property. No, they indeed knew what they were doing, and if they were not aiming for my mate and me, then they were going for one of our friends.
Another volley, and I veered away from the safety of the buildings and onto the path the other students followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aramis skid to a halt in a way that would have been comical had I not been terrified. He came to my side, tried to block me, but I would not be swayed. The others were in danger. It seemed unlikely they had not heard the shots, but if so, wouldn’t they have already returned to the gym? My steps faltered when I wondered for a second if they had, but by focusing, I could hear them still running, paws thudding the packed earth of the pathway.
In hopes of cutting them off, of turning them toward home, I took a sharp left and ran through dense brush, my already abused paws taking more damage from the thorns and sharp sticks therein. But they would heal. I had to save my friends.
Another trio of shots, followed by a yip, and then all chaos broke loose. My shortcut was filled with wolves of all colors tearing back toward home, the first of them slamming into me and knocking me to the ground. A fierce growl sounded before a furry black leg planted itself in front of my face. My mate stood guard over me, shielding me from the stampede of terrified wolves flying toward home. The stream split apart and flowed past, none, so far as I could tell, as big or muscular as the alpha who’d placed his body between me and harm.
In only a few moments, they were gone and he stepped aside, allowing me to rise to my feet. He nudged me to turn, and, together, we followed the gym class back to school and inside the building, grabbing our clothes in our mouths as we went, not willing to pause to don them until all were safe and the heavy doors pulled closed behind us.
There followed a shuffle of shifting and dressing before the coach gathered the class in a circle around him. Aramis stepped to the coach’s side and spoke to him for a moments then started toward the door to the hal
lway. I followed, but he paused and drew me close to his side. Together, we walked toward Headmaster’s office.
“Do you think they already know what happened?” I flexed my fingers, wincing.
“I— What’s wrong?” Aramis reached for my hand and lifted it, palm up. “You got pretty torn up out there. How are your feet? You’re limping.”
“I didn’t put any shoes on,” I said lamely. “But honestly, I’m not sure I could.”
“You don’t do that cross-country stuff as much as I do. Guessing not at all?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been a stick-to-the-approved-trails sort of girl until today.”
“After we see Headmaster, we’ll stop by the infirmary and get you bandaged up. I’ll carry you for now.”
“No way—oof!” He hadn’t waited for my opinion before lifting me in his arms, my head cradled against his chest. “What is everyone going to think?”
“The trail of blood should answer any questions.” He turned so I could see the droplets studding the hallways behind us. “But maybe they will also think your mate likes to hold you close.”
“Maybe they will.”
Chapter Nine
Braxton
The almost effervescent scent of her life force in the air caused my nose to scrunch up. I stood and, with my nose leading the way, followed the scent—her blood an undeniable beacon to both my senses and my wolf’s intuition.
Our mate was somewhere near and bleeding.
My footsteps turned to a brash sprint as the scent grew thicker in the air.
It led me right to the infirmary.
Goddess above, let her be okay.
Without a knock or any other signal to the occupants, I turned the knob and stepped inside. Three gasps welcomed me. One from the nurse. One from Aramis. And the last from my mate.
Yeah, I was calling her that in my head now.
I knew she was—it was a fact I could no longer run from.
Jaded Love (The Lycan Academy Book 4) Page 3