by Cheree Alsop
The surety in her words filled Alex with a sense of release. Guilt had remained at the back of his mind when he thought of his dinner at Cherish’s, as though having such an enjoyable evening with humans was something against his werewolf nature. The knowledge that his forays into the human life would eventually be joined by the others eased his longing for that world.
“Let’s begin our first social lesson, shall we?” Gem said. “Take out your papers and write five things about yourself you think no one else in this class knows. I’m going to shuffle the pages and we’ll see if anyone can guess their pack mates correctly.”
The sound of pencils scratching across paper followed.
***
“Who can explain the principles of supply and demand?” Professor Thorson asked from the front of their Economics class.
“I demand everyone’s cookies at lunch and they supply them to me,” Torin replied.
Even Alex could help smiling at Professor Thorson’s answering chuckle.
“In a way, you’re right,” the professor acknowledged. “At least, you are if you take it to the next step. If the cookies are gone, apparently eaten by yourself,” Professor Thorson nodded at Torin. “Then we have a shortage of cookies and they become a valuable commodity. If you were to turn around and trade them back to your pack mates for say two pieces of steak...”
“That’s way too pricey!” Nate piped up.
The professor nodded. “But if others are willing to trade, you have just profited on the principles of supply and demand.”
“Huh,” Torin said.
Alex was surprised to see the Alpha’s attention to the lesson. Instead of lounging back in his seat shooting spit wads at the other packs, Torin actually looked interested.
“So you’re saying that a normal object can become valuable if enough people need it?” the Alpha asked.
Professor Thorson smiled. “Exactly. Let’s try an object lesson. I need someone’s pencil.”
“Alex, give him your pencil,” Torin commanded.
Alex held up the object he was going to offer the professor anyway.
“Thank you,” Professor Thorson said. “Now, Alex, I need you to write your name on your paper.”
“I can’t,” Alex replied.
Professor Thorson waved the pencil. “So to you, this object has great worth. To the rest of your classmates who already have pencils in their hands, this is just a duplicate of their possession and that decreases its value to them; but since you have the need for it, its worth goes up to you.”
He set the pencil on Alex’s desk. Before he could pick it up, Torin reached over and snapped the pencil in half. Alex stifled a sigh.
“What if Alex has two smaller pencils instead of one big one?” Torin asked, holding up the object.
“Then he has a duplicate as well,” Professor Thorson answered. “It will be of less value to him.”
“What if the rest of the class has two smaller pencils?” Torin asked. He threw a glare at the students around him. To Alex’s amazement, everyone, including the members of Pack Drake, immediately broke their pencils in half.
Alex shook his head. “Incredible,” he muttered under his breath.
“Now everyone has the same two objects,” Professor Thorson said. “What is your purpose?”
“Give me the pencils,” Torin said.
Students passed their pencil pieces up the rows to Torin’s desk. He grinned at Professor Thorson. “Supply and demand, Professor. If anyone wants their pencils back, they will give me a cookie and half their steak at lunch today.”
“Torin, I didn’t mean for this to be—”
“If they want to go through the rest of the day without a pencil, that’s up to them. Otherwise,” Torin sat back with the stack of broken pencils in front of him, “I am really going to enjoy lunch.”
True to his word, Torin had a towering stack of cookies and extra pieces of steak in front of him at lunch. He sat in his usual seat with his arms folded like a cookie baron, bartering them like coins for whatever he wanted. At least someone had offered to clean the toilets for his pencils back after Torin said he had enough cookies and needed to up the price. Alex was relieved to be spared that duty for at least one night.
“Hoarding cookies? What was that about?” Cassie asked when Alex met them outside after finishing his lunch, minus the cookie and half of his steak as his Alpha had demanded.
Alex shook his head. “Professor Thorson taught Torin how to run the school using economics.”
“Great,” Trent replied, rolling his eyes. “What’s going to happen when he learns about game theory?”
“What’s that?” Siale asked as she joined them. She slipped her arm through Alex’s and smiled at him.
“It’s the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between decision-makers and applies to economics through the belief that one person’s gains exactly equal the net losses of the other participants,” Trent explained.
Alex and Siale exchanged a confused look. “Does that answer your question?” Alex asked, trying to hide a smile.
“Oh, sure. He should have said that in the first place,” Siale replied.
Trent let out a huff of air. “What is means is that if Torin learns game theory, he’ll understand how groups of people will react when confronted with certain situations. He could prey on the entire student population for things like food and weapons by understanding what people want and how far they are willing to go for them.”
“But you’re bound to have deviations,” Terith spoke up.
“Oh, deviations, naturally,” Alex seconded with a grin.
Trent shook his head at Alex. “You have no idea what we’re talking about, do you?”
Alex shrugged. “No clue, but the fact that you know it means we’re all safe. Anyone up for a run before lunch is over?”
“I am!” Siale said.
“Me, too,” Cassie seconded.
“Why not,” Tennison answered with his arm around Cassie’s shoulder. He bent down and she gave him a quick kiss. She saw Alex watching and a blush stole across her cheeks.
“Let’s hurry, please,” Alex said dryly. “As much as I enjoy watching you two make out, I have a tyrant to get back to who will no doubt come up with more demands from his cookie empire.”
“Game theory,” Trent muttered as he followed them through the gate. “A game theory tyrant with cookies. Does it get worse than that?”
Alex squeezed Trent’s shoulder. “I sure hope so; otherwise, all Torin needs to take over the world is one giant bakery.”
Trent shook his head, but couldn’t keep from laughing. “You are ridiculous.”
“Tell me about it,” Alex said.
Chapter Twelve
“How’s a day in the life of Torin’s Second?” Siale asked when she found Alex wandering the grounds after school.
Alex glanced at her. It was impossible not to smile at the sound of her voice. “Well, let’s just say that human and werewolf biology is not a class I would choose to take with my Alpha. He’s obsessed with pointing out the differences between werewolves and humans. I think Professor Mouse is going to have a conniption by the time the term’s over.”
“You could maneuver a counter attack by pointing out all the similarities werewolves have with humans,” Siale suggested.
Alex’s smile deepened. “I knew I liked you for a good reason.”
She laughed. “And here I thought I was just a girl you pawned off on your old Alpha.”
Alex took her hand. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” she asked in surprise.
“I want to show you something.”
He led the way through the gate and into the forest where they had run during the lunch hour. It was different experience walking through the woods in human form. The scents weren’t quite as sharp, but the colors held shades and warmth they didn’t carry when he was a wolf. In the animal form, grays took over, highlighting shapes and emph
asizing details. It was easier to see at night, but dulled the aesthetics of the sun shining through the green leaves overhead or the way the dapple light illuminated the smaller pools of river water in green and blue hues.
“It’s so peaceful out here,” Siale said, her voice breathless.
“It’s home,” he replied. At her questioning look, he smiled. “Sometimes all walls become too much, and when that happens, I can come here and just exist. I don’t have to be Alex, I’m not a brother, a friend, a student, or a Second. I’m just a part of this forest.”
Siale stopped walking. He looked back at her in time to see her sit on the ground.
“What are you doing?” he asked, crossing to her side.
Siale settled onto her back on the pine needle and leaf-strewn forest floor and smiled up at him. “I’m just going to exist.”
Alex took a seat near her, not close enough to touch and distract her, but with only a slight gap between them so that when he laid on his back and closed his eyes, he was still completely aware of her.
He listened to her breathing settle into a steady, slow rhythm, the quiet intake and release of breath between lips he so badly wanted to kiss again. He couldn’t believe he was in Rafe’s forest with the girl who owned his heart, his mind, his soul, his flaws, and anything else that made him who he was.
He could see her again as she had been in his arms in the body pit. She had been motionless, bleeding. The soft breaths of air that made up her words had been so painful to listen to because he knew how much it took from her. Holding his hands over her wounds and feeling her blood slide between his fingers had felt like the very definition of hopelessness. He couldn’t let her go, yet no matter what he did, he had felt her slipping away.
Yet here she was, perfect and whole, lying beside him on the forest floor listening to the breeze as it danced between the leaves and showered them in scents of loam and clover, the coming rain and pine needles, and sage and lavender. He smiled at the realization that the last two scents didn’t belong to the forest. They were Siale’s, and they were his.
“How do you push it all from your mind?”
Siale’s soft words broke through his quiet contemplation. He looked over to find Siale watching him. A tear stole slowly from the corner of her eye, drifting down her cheek the way his fingers longed to.
“Why are you crying?” he asked softly. He turned on his side and wiped the tear away with the backs of his fingers. He looked at the moisture on his skin, then again into Siale’s soft gray eyes. The blue flecks that hid in the depths were dark with her pain. He cupped her cheek in his hand. “Siale, please talk to me.”
She closed her eyes, shutting him out, closing away everything around them. Alex felt helpless to do anything. He wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was alright, but he couldn’t fix something if he didn’t know how it was broken.
After what felt like an eternity, Siale said, “I can’t shut it all the way out. The second I close my eyes, it all comes rushing back, the General, the knives, the experiments.” A shudder ran down her body and she curled into a fetal position. “Landing on the bodies of my friends, knowing they were dead and that I was going to join them.” Her voice tightened. “Knowing my mother was among them somewhere.”
“Oh, Siale.”
Tears flowed down her cheeks from her tightly closed eyes as if she couldn’t stop them from coming. Alex put his forehead against hers, willing her to feel some form of comfort from being near someone who understood.
She had never spoken of her mother, and he hadn’t wanted to pry. Red, her father, had told him that both his daughter and wife had been taken, and that he felt fortunate to have one of them back. Knowing that Siale had lost her mother to whatever horrors the General had created had been enough to keep Alex from asking questions. He knew all too well what it was like to lose family members and be helpless to do anything about it.
“You’re so strong,” Alex whispered, the skin of his forehead warm against hers. “You carry it all inside so much better than I do.”
She let out a breath that brushed his lips. “I feel like I’m going to explode, but that it wouldn’t make a difference if I did.” Her eyes opened inches from his, staring up at him. “I’m just scars, Alex, horrible memories pieced together in the place where my soul used to be. I don’t even know where one ends and the next begins anymore.”
Alex sat up and pulled off his shirt. She seemed surprised by the action until her gaze took in his torso and the scars that lined it.
“What happened to you?” she asked, sitting up and staring at his chest.
Alex shrugged and untangled a leaf from her hair. “The General and his son. Like I told you at the warehouse, sometimes I don’t know where the scars end and I begin anymore.”
He was about to pull his shirt back on when Siale put her hand on his chest. Her touch shocked him like lightning, coursing through his skin with a million electric fingers, awakening every sense and making him feel again, truly feel.
Her fingers traced the scars from the bullet wounds, the knife scar in his stomach, and the stab wound in his shoulder. Her fingers drifted up to his arm, lingering on the scar from the silver bullet.
“I helped make that one,” she said quietly.
Alex shook his head. “You helped me survive that one.”
He couldn’t hold back any longer. He pulled her onto his lap and bent his head, meeting her mouth in a tender kiss. After a moment, he raised his head and looked down at her. “What are you doing to me, Siale?”
She tipped her head slightly to one side as she looked up at him. Her wavy brown hair brushed his arm, sending shivers through his skin. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He smiled and kissed her again.
“Were you going to show me something?” she asked a while later as the sunlight began to lessen and the shadows of the trees lengthened along the path like soldiers lined up to protect those who lived within the forest.
Alex pulled another leaf from her hair. He twirled it in his fingers and smiled at her. “Yes, I was. You distracted me.”
She smiled at his mocking accusatory tone. “I did, and it was entirely on purpose.”
Alex rose to his feet and held out a hand. “I had a feeling you did.” He picked up his tee-shirt and slipped it over his head before taking her fingers in his. “No more distractions.”
“Not even a little bit?”
He couldn’t keep back the smile at her innocent tone. “Maybe a little bit.” He leaned down and stole a kiss from her, then danced back when she tried to swat him away.
“Now who’s the distracting one?” she asked.
“I just needed to give you a reason to follow me,” he called over his shoulder.
“Like I needed one,” she replied with a laugh, running to keep up with him.
Alex led her through the trees as fast as he could. She cut corners and tried to beat him, but he dodged her attempts and turned, steering them up the incline. By the time they reached the top of the cliff, Alex was gasping for air as much as she was.
“You don’t give up,” he breathed, collapsing onto his back on the cliff edge.
“You, neither,” she replied, dropping to her knees beside him. “You’d think with all this forest to run in, you’d be in much better condition.”
He laughed up at her. “Yeah, you’d think.”
She put a hand on his chest as she stared out at the small lake below the cliff. The sun had sunk beneath the distant mountains, lighting the forest in hues of gold and red. Orange and pink hung in the clouds that darkened overhead, promising rain by nightfall.
“It’s so beautiful,” Siale whispered. “It’s like...”
Curious as to why her words had faded away, Alex looked up at Siale. She was studying him hard, concern sharp in her features. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Your heart. It skipped.”
Alex sat up, slipping away from her hand on his chest. “Yeah,”
he said, feigning nonchalance. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s not nothing, Alex.”
He lifted his shoulders. “It happens sometimes. It’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal.”
Siale watched him the way Cassie did sometimes, as if she was waiting for him to collapse. Alex couldn’t stand being looked at that way. He rose to his feet. “Dr. Benjamin wasn’t too concerned.” His heart skipped another beat.
Siale stood beside him. “If you’re going to lie, you should probably get better at it,” she said quietly.
Alex stared at the sunset as if trying to bore a hole in it.
After a few minutes had passed, Siale’s arm slipped through his. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I shouldn’t pry.”
Alex turned. “I just don’t want you to worry,” he told her. “You’ve been through enough. You shouldn’t have to worry about me, too.” His voice dropped. “The last thing you need is a broken boyfriend.”
He studied the ground past her shoulder, unable to meet her gaze.
She let out a little breath, tempering it with a smile. “We’re a matched set.” She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest. “We’re both broken in our own ways.”
He wrapped his arms around her. It was the only choice he had when she was so near. Holding her reminded him that at least one of the hard things he had gone through ended up with something good.
“We’ll do what we can to fix each other,” Siale said.
Alex smiled down at her. “Good luck with that.”
“You’re unfixable?” she asked with her teasing smile, her gray eyes bright.
He chuckled. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
She slapped his shoulder softly. Taking his hand, she turned to watch the last of the sun’s rays reflect off of the lake below.
“Jump with me,” Alex said.
The wide-eyed look she gave him made him bite back a smile. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Alex. What I don’t trust is leaping from this high of a cliff into a lake that may or may not be filled with sharp rocks on the bottom waiting to smash us to pieces.”