Chapter 16 Avery #2
She scoffed. “Whatever. You’re here pretending to be latent, which is clearly bullshit. You’re the shiny new thing right now, but that won’t last. Wyatt will quickly see you for what you really are—a desperate bitch trying to climb the social ladder on the back of a high-status quad.”
Deep breaths. Zen. “Sure.”
Her cheeks tinged pink, and she pointed a long maroon nail at me.
“All you are is the maybe-daughter of an Alpha who stooped to form a trio with ordinary shifters and then stooped again to living in the human city. Then they had you, a freak of nature, and your brother, a weak fox shifter, for kids, and they probably have shit for power because their central bond is dead—”
My blade was out of the special pocket I’d fashioned for it on the side of my backpack and at her throat before she could blink. She shrieked as I slammed her against the wall and pressed the sharp edge right up under her chin.
“Do not talk about my family,” I growled in her face. “If you insult them again—in front of me or behind my back, I don’t fucking care—I will break your pretty face and then poke you so full of holes that you’ll be laid up in the infirmary for months.”
“You deranged bitch—ahhh!”
I pressed harder. Tiny beads of blood sprouted under my blade. “And you will keep all references to my dead mother out of your fucking mouth, or I’ll slit your throat—”
“Uh-oh, that’s enough of that.”
A large hand deftly removed my sword from my grip and Callista’s neck, and then I was unceremoniously thrown over a large shoulder.
“Wyatt,” I growled. “Put me the fuck down.”
“Wyatt!” Callista screamed. “Where are you going? She hurt me!”
He ignored her and marched us down the hall.
I thrashed, but he’d wrapped his arm around the back of my thighs like a steel band.
He also had my blade in his other hand, spinning it leisurely like it was a pencil and he was bored in class.
Students darted out of our way, not one of them appearing concerned for my predicament.
He kicked the doors of the building open and hauled me outside into the bright, chilly day. A few quick, purposeful strides around the corner, and we were in a small courtyard similar to the one Aiden had taken me to work runes in last night.
“Are you going to behave if I put you down?” he asked lightly, coming to a stop next to a crape myrtle tree.
“Try it and find out,” I hissed. He was lucky my beast wasn’t rattling the bars of her enclosure. Anyone else would’ve had teeth in their neck by now, but nooo, Wyatt got to manhandle me while she flicked her tail, merely curious and alert.
He chuckled, a pleasing rumble I could feel where my boobs were smashed against his back. “Game on, then, Wildcat.”
In a swift and graceful move, he set me on my feet, then stepped clear of my reach. He still had my sword, so he knew I wasn’t going to bolt, and he probably suspected I wasn’t dumb enough to attack him—a Prime bear shifter armed with a blade.
I wasn’t dumb, but I was really pissed off, so there was still a chance.
“This is nice,” he said, making a few slashes with my sword as he examined it. “But way too lightweight for my taste. Perfect for you, though. I don’t think we have anyone in the program who can dual-wield as well as you.”
“Thank you. Give it back, please.”
He raised a dark-red brow, and his green eyes sparkled with predatory amusement, like I was a feisty little mouse he was excited to have caught.
“Are you going to threaten any more students whose fathers are on the college’s Board of Trustees?
I’ve decided I might be disappointed to see you expelled so soon. ”
I glared at him. “Your girlfriend isn’t allowed to talk shit about my family or my dead mother. She can insult me all day and call me a social-climbing whore and warn me off you, but she can’t—”
“Callista warned you off me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Wyatt, don’t play dumb.”
“She isn’t my girlfriend, but you knew that.” He grinned lasciviously. “Are you jealous, Wildcat?”
“No.”
“Not even a little bit?” He crept closer to me, stashing my poor sword away by slipping it through his belt as he moved.
I went on high alert, slowly shuffling backward until my legs hit a stone bench, which knocked me off balance. I sat down, and Wyatt kept coming. My jaw went slack as he knelt between my legs, crowding me, a huge sculpted arm coming down on either side of me.
Our eyes met, and he spoke again in a low, flirty purr.
“Callista is beautiful, sure. She’s a little louder and bolder than your average blue-blooded shifter girl, which I like, but I don’t like hearing that she let petty jealousy turn her into someone who would be callous about your mother.
” He paused, moving closer, his lips brushing my ear as he whispered, “She isn’t my girlfriend, though I suppose she thinks she’s the current lead contender because I let her suck my cock at a party last month. ”
Uncomfortable, conflicting emotions burned in my stomach. My beast flattened her ears and growled.
“I don’t need to hear about where your cock has been, asshole,” I said through clenched teeth.
He chuckled, and it sounded like sex because now I was thinking about sex, moondamn him.
He leaned back again, a deceptively earnest look in his eyes.
“All I’m trying to say is, there’s no need to be jealous, baby.
One blow job does not a claim on me make, though I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to you giving it your best shot. ”
I surged forward and wrapped a hand around his throat.
His eyes widened. My grip was probably much stronger than he was expecting, though my hand was little and his neck was thick.
He lifted his chin and leaned into my grip, his green eyes blazing as his beast surged to the surface, a wild smile on his lips.
“Are you finished?” I snarled in his face.
There was no way my own eyes weren’t lit up like the northern-fucking-lights, but that ship had well and truly sailed.
“Give me back my sword, and keep your groupies in line if you don’t want to clean their blood off the walls of the Magical Ed building.
And if you proposition me again, I will cut off that cock you’re so fond of using to make all those poor girls think they have a chance. Understood?”
“Fuck, you’re hot,” he said, his voice a guttural growl. “Tell me what you are. Tell me why my bear is so fucking fixated on you. Then you can do whatever the fuck you want to my cock.”
I shoved him away, and then I jammed the flat of my shoe into his wide, hard chest for good measure. He let me move him, and I scrambled to my feet, swiping my sword from his belt as I went.
He stood up and turned to face me, smiling like it was the best day of his life.
I raised my sword and pointed it at him. “Don’t ever touch this again.”
“Your sword? Or your sexy fucking body?”
I groaned and stomped off.
He didn’t follow me.