Chapter Seventeen
Parker
I don't go to my room. I grab my clothes from the courtyard and head straight to the indoor gym in the basement of the main building.
Based on the amount of clothes still scattered around the courtyard, Genie and I are the first ones back.
The betas who were supposed to be with us for the hunt didn't keep up.
I don't know if they simply couldn't keep up, or if they decided mid-run to join their friends' groups.
I don't care. They don't matter. Even if they had been with us when the other wolves attacked, I doubt they would have been an asset, especially without the loyalty of a pack bond.
I need to run.
I need to think.
That was more than strange. It was weird. I'll find those wolves tomorrow and have a few conversations. The older male has to be one of the counselors or maybe admin.
Why? What was the point of that? There were more than enough deer in that clearing for all of us.
And Genie was useless. I think she was completely checked out.
She was all wolf and satisfied with letting me lead her – which is shocking.
Genie's wolf is a completely different creature than her human half.
Goddess, and I protected her. I couldn't help myself.
It's infuriating. I didn't even fight against the urge to do it.
It felt like the right thing to do, so I did it.
I pull on my boxers and then my shorts, tightening the drawstring. The hum of the treadmill is way too loud when I turn it on, but my ears will get used to it soon. I need to run. So I can think.
I should have made sure she got back to her room.
My hand reaches to turn off the machine, but I stop myself.
She's fine. If anyone was going to attack her, they wouldn't do it inside the building.
And why do I fucking care in the first place?
That's what's bothering me more than almost anything else.
Why do I give a fuck about who attacks her or where they do it?
By all accounts, I shouldn't be bothered.
We wouldn't even be here if she'd just marched her ass across that clearing and let Cross claim her.
He didn't turn her away this time. I've replayed it a thousand times.
He didn't reject her, she chose to refuse him. We should be at home right now.
Well, they should be at home. I should be back in my forest. Or at least staying with my mom until I figure out my place. Either way, we shouldn't be here.
And she just has to be beautiful. She's exactly the type of female Cross goes for. Hell, she's the type I go for. I don't even think she knows or cares about how gorgeous she is.
We should be home.
Maybe I can convince her to let Cross claim her here.
Tonight even. We can go home and be away from this place.
My teeth have been on edge since we got here and what happened tonight justifies my unease.
We need to go. I need to get Cross out of here, and I absolutely fucking hate that that extends to Genie.
I need to talk to him. I wasn't going to tell him because I didn't want to add anymore stress to what he's already dealing with.
I also, admittedly selfishly, didn't want to talk to him about Genie.
I don't want to tell him that I led her or that she willingly followed me or that I put myself in front of her.
But if I tell him, maybe it will push him to pull himself together and make her submit to his claim and then we can go the fuck home.
I turn the machine off and make my way to his room before I give myself time to change my mind.
He's stretched out on his bed when I barge in, eyes closed and hands clasped behind his head. I shove the door closed behind me and reach for the lock that isn't there. Automatic locks. No key pad on the inside. How easily we could be locked inside.
No. Stop it. Something weird might be going on here, but not that weird. Not yet, anyway.
Cross sits up quickly, eyes sharp as he looks me over. “What?” he demands, immediately becoming the alpha I need him to be. “What's wrong? What happened?”
“We need to get out of here.”
“Why?” he asks. “Did something happen at the hunt? Did you do something?”
I roll my neck to relieve some of the pressure that's built up over the past few hours. “Yes, but no.” I look around the room until I see his bag shoved into a corner beside the small dresser. It's still mostly full when I pick it up and put it on the dresser.
“I need more than that, Parker. Explain.”
Sighing, I abandon the bag and drop down onto his bed next to him.
Then I go into the events of the evening, moment by moment, until he has a grasp on what literally happened before I start in on my suspicions.
“Something strange is happening here. They're forcing us together and apart.
I can't put my finger on it, but I know something is going on.
They put her in your classes. They put her in my group.
But they keep us separated. And she was being really strange, too.
Did anyone come talk to you after we left?
They didn't call your name when they were grouping everyone together.
Has anyone said anything to you since we've been here, anything off?”
“Slow down. I know you tend to assume the worst about people, but you're tiptoeing into paranoia right now. What do you mean, Genie was being strange? What did she do?”
Of course that's what he focuses on first. “She followed my lead. No fight. No snark. No sass. Just fell in line behind me. She didn't feel right, not like herself.”
“But she had shifted,” he counters. “She was wolf. She didn't need to fight. You were the stronger choice to lead so she followed. It's natural.”
“No, Cross. It isn't. Wolf or not, Genie wouldn't just bow to me. Me. She hates me. You don't give someone you hate that much control. She didn't even hesitate when the others in our group fell back, all she cared about is staying one step behind me and following my cues.”
“How did that go?”
“It doesn't matter how it went,” I say, my voice rough with frustration.
“The point is that she shouldn't have done it.
And that's not even the point. Those wolves ambushed us.
They came at us and tried to corral us. Like they just wanted to see what we'd do. Then they ran off. I want to go home, Cross. We need to go home.”
“We can't go home,” he says quietly. “I can't. I need to find a way to reconcile with my wolf. That's why I'm here. Maybe you're misunderstanding. You always think the absolute worst of people, you know that.”
“Don't gaslight me, Cross,” I bark. “This isn't that. We can fix your wolf another way.”
“No, we can't.”
I'm going to say it. It makes me sick, but I'm going to say it. “Claim her. That will fix it. Then let's get the fuck out of here and go home.”
He laughs, sharp and painful. “Claim her? How? Do you think I can convince her to let me mark her when I'm so broken? Do you think she'd find that appealing in this place where we're surrounded by broken things? And what about you? What happens with us if I claim her?”
“It doesn't matter, Cross. We can figure it out. I'm not the path to our future, our pack's future. I'll always be here, with you and for you, but I'm not what you need. I can't fix you.”
“And she can?”
I rip my hands through my hair, releasing a harsh breath that holds the edge of a growl. “I don't know. Maybe. Fuck, probably. You were ready to claim her before. You would have if I hadn't come back.”
He snarls, anger lining his face. “You were called.”
He did it on purpose. The whole ceremony.
He did it on purpose to get me to come back.
That explains it. I can't believe he... I'm going to hit him.
We're going to fight, right here in this stupid, tiny room.
“You are supposed to be our Alpha, Cross. You are supposed to make decisions for all of us, not just yourself.”
“How can I lead from a place of darkness? I can't lead anyone through this much misery. Everything I do is wrong. Everything feels wrong. I love you. I don't want to lose you. It has always been us.”
I'm going to rip my hair out. And throw it at him. “You are so stupid. And selfish. I left so you could set things right. That was the only way forward.”
“Even if I could, she won't accept me now. You know that.”
“No, I fucking don't,” I argue. “I have spent more actual time with her than you have.
I don't like it, but she's not a bad person.
I don't know her, but I can feel it. She isn't bad or evil or conniving or any of those things.
She's been thrown into this situation like we have.
Do I want to hand you over to her? Fuck no.
But I will, Cross. I will. You're right, you are broken, and you're destroying everything else because of it.
I can't fix you and I don't know if she can, but you have to try. I will step aside. I already did once.”
“You aren't going anywhere,” he seethes. He wraps his fingers around my wrist and pulls me down to sit next to him. “Regardless of what's happening here or what might happen with her, you aren't going anywhere. I don't care how selfish that makes me.”
I sit there silently. Anger and frustration vibrating my bones as I try to formulate a response to this utter bullshit. We need to be packing our shit right now, not sitting on this fucking bed.
“What's wrong with her?” he asks after a few minutes. “Why is she here?”
“I don't know. I didn't ask and she didn't offer the information.” I don't tell him that she asked the exact same thing about him, in nearly the exact same way.
“Tomorrow we'll talk to the betas who abandoned you and Genie,” he says, falling back into a sense of reason. “Do you think you'd recognize the scents of the others?”
“Yes.” The scents are always muted in human form, but they will be the same and I will find them.