Chapter 35 Avery #2
“As if any notable quad in this school would want you,” Phoebe spat, scandalized. “Everyone knows you’re an affront to the Moon’s will. A cursed female.”
Lovely. Phoebe was an old-school bigot. I flicked a glare at Heath, letting my beast peek out through my eyes, just for fun. “Classy, Blackwell.”
His wolf rose to the challenge. Golden fireworks erupted in his eyes, and a deep, dangerous rumble sounded in his chest. “Move along, Avery. Don’t speak to me or my date for the rest of the night.”
He tugged Phoebe away. She smirked triumphantly at me, though I had the sinking feeling nobody won in that exchange.
As I trudged back toward our table, still carrying my drinks, I passed the dance floor.
Out in the middle of it was Wyatt. Clinging to him like she was a stripper and he was the pole was Callista.
Her wisp of a black dress revealed an almost-but-not-quite scandalous amount of ass and leg, and her dark hair was slicked into a long, perfect ponytail.
She rolled her hips erotically as she straddled Wyatt’s thick thigh, and he wasn’t being shy about where he put his hands on her body.
The bile came up this time, and I swallowed it down with a silent scream of frustration.
My despair—or my beast’s—was a siren call to Wyatt. His green-eyed gaze collided with mine, pinning me to the spot as I tried to sneak by, and he smirked lasciviously at me over Callista’s shoulder.
Callista chose that moment to press her lips to his neck, and he grinned wider as he arched it for her, his focus never straying from me.
The beast reared her head one more time. My vision sharpened, and my teeth lengthened.
Wyatt’s smirk faded, and a red sheen rolled over his green irises.
“Avery,” a deep voice snapped.
I broke my torturous stare-off with Wyatt to find Aiden, dressed in a slim-fitting navy suit, his chocolate waves styled to perfection. From behind a pair of dark blue frames, he eyed me like I was an annoying, naughty child.
On his arm? The hot professor I’d seen fawning over him in the dining hall a time or seven.
“Control your animal,” he said tersely. “This is a school function.”
“Who is this, darling?” his date asked, wrinkling her nose. “I haven’t had this one in class. I’d have remembered a female with such a… loud beast presence.”
Aiden cast me one more harsh look, his jaw flexing and his nostrils flaring. “She’s no one, Eleanor.”
At this point, after this many hits in a row, I couldn’t hold onto my composure. My face twisted into something that no doubt revealed how that statement had crushed me.
Aiden’s irises lit up with his telltale turquoise rings, but I was finished with all of this.
I turned and fled, marching toward our table as fast as my heels could carry me. When I arrived, I slammed the drinks down in front of Ian, who was seated and deep in conversation with Chance’s date.
Ian took one look at me and jumped to his feet. “Where? I will kill them.”
I sat down and dragged him back into his chair. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”
He squeezed my hand, his anger shifting quickly to concern. “Do you want to leave?”
“Maybe.” I took a sip of my punch and wished the vodka in it could dull my pain. “Why don’t you and Brody dance a little bit. Have some fun, then we’ll go.”
This was embarrassing enough. I couldn’t be spotted fleeing so soon.
It took me some coaxing, but Ian did eventually leave me to grab Brody and dance. I sat at the table, sipping my drink as I watched Allen spin Mallory around the dance floor like a tiny ballerina. I sent soothing thoughts to my beast.
She needed to get over this thing with the Blackwell Quad even more than I did.
That thought, of course, conjured its fourth and final member.
Elijah breezed into the ballroom, an easy smile on his handsome face.
Unlike the rest of his quad, he wasn’t wearing a suit, but he was still dressed nicer than I’d ever seen him, in a pale yellow dress shirt, its collar open to the top of his chest, and dark slacks.
The gold hoops he wore in each earlobe winked under the fairy lights, and his dark hair looked wet, like he was just out of the shower.
I hated the relief that rushed through me at the fact that he was alone.
He gave a few lazy waves and head nods to random students, but at some point, he caught the attention of the rest of his quad.
I watched as Heath, Wyatt, and Aiden emerged from the crowd—without their dates—and followed Elijah up the stairs to the balcony level.
They passed the clusters of students and faculty lingering up there without acknowledgement, and then they disappeared onto one of the small outdoor patios.
Fuck this. I was finished sitting around with my hurt feelings and confusion.
I wasn’t crazy, and I wouldn’t be made to feel like I was.
There had been something developing between me and every member of the Blackwell Quad before the break, and then a switch had flipped.
They were now very intentionally treating me like dog shit, and I wanted to know why.
I did still have a modicum of self-respect left.
They were alone now, all four of them, and I was going to get answers.
“… was able to find an old cell phone,” Elijah was saying as I pressed my body against the wall.
I peeked around the doorframe just enough to catch sight of the four of them huddled together and deep in conversation.
“Horatio and I powered it up, and there was a call from a contact labeled ‘Archprime’ the day before she was killed. Then there was an outgoing call to the same number the night after it happened.”
“Not a smoking gun,” Aiden mused. “But the timing is suspicious. Worth following up on, for sure.”
“We should have some time before camp starts for us to—” Heath cut off abruptly when I stepped out of my hiding place.
My heels clicked against the stone floor, tiny gunshots in the tense silence that had fallen over the group. They all turned to face me, four deadly, gorgeous assholes watching my approach with rigid shoulders and smoldering glares.
Wyatt recovered first. He slouched against the railing, affixing his lazy smirk to his face.
He’d loosened his tie at some point in the past half hour, giving us all a tantalizing peek at the decorated pale skin of his neck and collarbone beneath his all-black suit.
“Just can’t stay away from us, can you, Wildcat? ” he drawled.
Heath crossed his arms over his chest and put on his quad leader face. “This is a private conversation, Avery—”
I held up a hand. “Stop it. I’ve had enough of whatever this is.
I’m finished being disrespected by all of you.
Something happened over the break, and you all came back to school determined to be complete assholes to me.
To ignore whatever it was going on between us before that.
To pretend like every single one of you didn’t put your hands on me—”
Wyatt chuckled. “We put our hands on a lot of girls, babe. It doesn’t make you special.”
“Nice try, Gale.” I lifted my chin even as my beast let out a pained whine. “Low blow, but I’m still standing.”
“The affairs of this quad are none of your business, Avery—” Aiden began, but I wasn’t having it.
Not tonight.
“You’re obviously trying to send me a message with the way you’ve been treating me,” I said, meeting Aiden’s glacial stare with all the power I could muster. “Use your big-boy words and tell me exactly what that is.”
They were silent for a few moments. Heath and Aiden glared, Wyatt fidgeted with his tie like he was bored, and Elijah, who hadn’t looked at me once, could only stare at his shoes, frowning, his hands tucked into his pockets.
I wanted to ask him if he had been talking about his mother before I interrupted. I wanted to tell him about mine—about how I wondered if their deaths were similar.
And I wanted to tell Heath and Aiden what a piece of shit their dad was—that he’d more or less attacked me in the locker room hallway of the arena.
But I couldn’t. Not after the way they’d treated me. They’d stomped to death any fragile seedling of trust that might’ve been developing between me and any one of them.
Heath shifted on his feet, a brief uneasiness flickering across his face before he wiped it away. “Fine. It isn’t any of your business, but we’ve decided to pursue a bonding. You are a distraction we don’t need.”
The bile stirred again, but I held on for dear life. “Oh?” I asked lightly. “And I take it that, despite the clear chemistry between us, I’m not a candidate for your bond? Is that what all the asshole behavior has been trying to tell me?”
Aiden let out a weary sigh. “You know you aren’t an option, Avery.”
“Why not?” I took another step forward, bringing me within a few feet of Heath. In my heels, I was eye level with him. “Just say it. Say it out loud. Say that you think shifting females are lesser. Abominations. Beneath you.”
Heath rumbled an angry growl. “That is not it. We can have respect for females with a beast and still believe they aren’t the right choice for our bond.”
I stepped even closer until we were nearly toe to toe.
I met his golden-glazed smolder and held it because I had the power to do so.
“And why do you believe a shifting female isn’t the right choice for the bond of a powerful Prime quad?
” I asked in a low, harsh voice. “Is it because you believe in the lie made up by our ancestors to malign a hero just because she was female? Admit you think that because I share my soul with a beast, just as you all do, that I’m somehow defective.
That the Moon would never dare bless our bonding with the power you all must be desperately craving, simply because I’m your equal, not a latent conduit. ”
Heath blew out a breath and raked a hand through his thick hair. He looked away from me, agony marring his beautiful face.
Aiden, as furious as I’d ever seen him, stepped up next to his brother. “You think you have everything figured out,” he spat. “You think you’re the exception to the rules. You don’t, and you’re not. Drop it, Avery.”
Wyatt had lost his cocky, devil-may-care smirk. A red sheen glinted in his eyes. “This is what you wanted, Wildcat. We told you the cold, hard truth. You aren’t it for us.”
“I wasn’t under the illusion that I was,” I replied softly, pretending I didn’t feel like his bear had just clawed my guts out and strewn them all over the stone floor. After a deep breath, I dared a glance at the quietest member of the quad. “Elijah?”
He gripped the railing behind him with white knuckles. Slowly, his glowing yellow gaze met mine, his pupils the narrow slits of his beast.
Aiden moved to block my view of Elijah. “Don’t. You agitate his beast. You know that.”
“I’m sorry, Dove,” Elijah rasped. Those were the first words he’d spoken to me since he’d let me out the laundry room door at the lake house all those weeks ago. After I’d let him watch what Wyatt did to me. “I really am.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.
“I don’t blame you.”
“Just go, Avery,” Heath said, anger and frustration bleeding into his every word. “You got your answer.”
I did. I did get my answer.
My beast had curled into a little ball. Pain fled. An empty, numbing feeling remained.
Without looking back, I turned and left.