Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-one
Parker
Genie is standing in front of her door when I find her, staring at the envelope. There were envelopes taped to other doors, which makes me feel better.
“What does it say?” I ask, stepping up beside her.
“I don't know,” she says. “Other people got them. I just... I don't know. I'm going to open it. Did you get one?”
“We both did. Cross has a leadership presentation tonight with the other alphas. I have been invited to a small group hunt.”
She glances at me. “Small group hunt?”
I shrug.
“Are you going?”
I shrug again. “I don't have anything else going on, and I'm a little,” I clear my throat, “restless.”
She ignores my comment about being restless. “I'm not going on a hunt tonight. I don't care how small the group is.”
I draw in a breath of her scent. She smells like Cross and me, but she also smells like a female wolf approaching heat. “That's probably a good idea.”
“Stop smelling me.”
“Can't help it. Want me to open your note?”
She stares at the crisp, white envelope while she contemplates.
Finally, she rips the envelope off the door and opens it.
I watch her brows lower as she reads, then she hands it to me and puts the code in to open her door.
I follow her unspoken invitation and step into her room after her.
I don't look at the note until the door shuts behind me.
All females are invited to enjoy an evening of revelry and relaxation.
A special dinner will be served in the garden, followed by dessert and a film.
I fold it and give it back to her. “Isn't that nice.”
“Is it?” she asks.
I shrug and lay down on her bed. “Are you going to change your shirt?”
She looks down at it then back up at me. “Yes.”
“I wouldn't,” I tell her, fluffing her pillow behind my head. “Put on a bra, though. As previously discussed, your tits are very distracting.”
“You're an ass.”
I close my eyes. “Go ahead. I won't peek.”
She huffs and pulls open a drawer and I listen to her decide whether or not she's going to change into a shirt of her own or keep wearing Drew's. After last night, her scent is different. Or I'm processing it differently. It isn't bad, it just makes me want to rub my nose.
“Are you going tonight?” I ask. “For the evening of revelry and relaxation?”
“Why do you care?”
It's my job to care, but I won't tell her that.
Cross is going to claim her and then she's going to be my responsibility.
We haven't discussed it because it's not how things usually work in packs.
Usually, the Alpha protects and sees to the needs of his Luna.
I know Cross will do those things, but I will also do them.
It feels right. She can dislike me if she wants to, she can even hate me, but she will be my Luna.
“It could be fun,” I urge.
“I'm done,” she says. “I know you don't know me very well, but trust me when I say that the idea of sitting around in a garden eating weird food and watching anything with a bunch of catty bitches doesn't thrill me.”
This feels like... There's no other way to say it. “You know I like women, right?”
She looks at me, brows drawn, nose wrinkled. “And?”
“It's just,” I pause, maybe I'm reading something into it that isn't there. “I'm not usually on this end of these conversations.”
“I don't know what you mean,” she says, lips still pursed. “And no, I'm probably not going to the special dinner for females. I'll probably go for a walk around the grounds and then go to bed.”
“I mean, I'm only attracted to Cross, no other males. If I'm going to casually fuck, I like women.”
Somehow her face screws up into an even more confused-sarcastic combo. “Good for you. Now get out of my room.”
Yeah, but now I'm staying. “Does that bother you?”
“Which part?” she asks. “Wanting to casually fuck women or wanting to fuck Cross?”
I open my mouth but the answer is frozen inside. I initially wanted to know whether or not it bothered her for Cross and I to continue our relationship, but now I'm curious; not that I expect her to care who I fuck or how casually I do it. “Both. Either.”
She sighs and shoves my feet over before sitting down on the bed.
“I don't care about Drew. You have a whole history with him, and I barely have a present tense with him.
I don't know what our future will look like, but I don't want to be miserable.
I've been miserable for the past few years and I'm sick of it.
If you want to fuck Drew and he wants to fuck you, you can both go fuck each other until your dicks fall off.
Preferably after we've produced an heir.”
“And what about the women?” I ask.
“Who you fuck is none of my business.”
Well, doesn't that just feel like a slap. And why do I care what her opinion is about it? “We've shared. In the past.”
Her eyes narrow to slits. “Good for you.”
“Last night was sharing.”
“Last night was a planned attack.”
I smile at her. “I didn't plan to spread you wide open for Drew. Or sleep with you between us. You're not so bad when you're unconscious.”
She smiles back. “Neither are you. Don't you have somewhere to be?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I do. So please leave.”
I get up off the bed and haul her up before she can stop me. “It was a good idea to keep Drew's shirt on. It might piss off a few people here, but it will make him feel better.”
“I don't care how he feels. He owes me a new sweatshirt.”
Before we walk out the door, I touch her elbow. “Hey, wait.”
“What?” she says, turning to face me.
“I think your wolf hates me.”
She smirks. “I think you're right.”
“What are we going to do about that?”
Her smirk turns into the sweetest smile. “We aren't going to do anything. If she hates you, it's your own fault.”
“Do you hate me?”
Her smile dies on her face. “Sometimes.”
***
I hate being right. Fuck do I hate it. Every single hunt that I have participated in since being here has been strange.
Every one of them has given me the impression that something strange is happening here, and this one is no different.
When I get to the smaller courtyard, there's no one and nothing waiting for me besides a box on the table that was placed in the center of the space. The tag on the top says:
On your mark...
Get set...
I open the box. There's a collar inside. The same type that kept us from shifting before.
Nope. I'm not doing it. I will not be the rabbit in this chase.
I drop the box back onto the table and turn to go back inside. I'm going back to my room and staying there until tomorrow. Small group hunt, my ass. They're trying to hunt me.
The dorms are uncomfortably quiet when I make my way back to my room but it isn't unexpected.
Almost everyone has been whisked off for special activities tonight.
Drew's thing probably won't end until late in the night.
I might actually get to take a nap. I miss naps.
I used to take them all the time when I was younger and even when I was living out on my own. Naps are amazing.
I've got my hand on the door handle, already mentally in my bed and underneath my blankets when a thick, dark sack covers my head.
I spin and attempt a defensive position, but it's over before it started.
Several pairs of hands force me to my knees and a collar is placed around my neck no matter how I thrash and fight against it.
No words are spoken as they lift me off the floor and drag me down the hall.
I'm pulled out of the building and down a path, then loaded onto a truck.
Cold air rushes past my face, filtering through the fabric covering it.
The only thing I can smell is the fucking sack and my own breath.
A few minutes later, I'm dumped out of the truck, the sack pulled off at the last moment before the truck and the people in it abandon me.
The ride didn't last long enough to carry me off Recovery grounds, but I don't know how far I've been left in which direction.
This cannot possibly be staff approved, and if it is, this place needs to be shut down.
The trees are too dense for me to see the stars.
I don't know which way to go. But the truck went down the barely-there path to my left, so that's the direction I'm going.
I will eventually end up back at Recovery or wherever the people in the truck are.
Either way, there's going to be a fight.