3. Ridge
3
RIDGE
If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the years since I’ve graduated from Eros Academy, it’s the smell. Stale, pungent, and reeking of sweat. Even far away from the main academic building, I have to work extremely hard to keep my face impassive as I step into the unreasonably tiny cottage they designated for me and my team.
Kylian pushes past me, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.
“DIBS!” he hollers, rushing toward the only bed and belly flopping onto the surface.
Luka moves to stand beside me and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Remind me again how Kylian is one of the most feared alphas in the kingdom?” Derision and disgust drip from his tone.
I wipe a hand over my mouth but don’t bother to respond. I’ve gotten used to Kylian’s antics. Everyone’s got a release valve. His just happens to be a bit louder and more boisterous than the rest of ours.
Kylian may not be the largest of us, but his reputation on the battlefield precedes him. He’s a skilled gunsmith and marksman, able to hit any target from hundreds of feet away. His dark skin, colorful tattoos, and close-cropped black hair give him an intimidating aura, but the smile on his face resembles a puppy who just stumbled upon a huge bone.
Luka runs a single finger across the nearby table, collecting a liberal amount of dust.
“This place is absolutely revolting,” he murmurs, and I imagine he’s already thinking through his cleaning regimen for our time here.
“At least it’s better than the dorms,” I grumble as I haul my duffel bag the rest of the way into the cottage and set it on the floor beside the front door. I don’t know how the school expects to fit four grown men here, but it’s not like we were given much choice. Most professors have the option of living off campus, but not us.
We’re special like that.
The cottage is dilapidated, with cracked walls, peeling paint, and dust that covers nearly every available surface. The school wouldn’t have bothered hiring a maid for this building, so far away from the main campus. At least it has a roof and a bed and a refrigerator, which is better than some of the places we’ve been forced to live in over the years.
It’s not under a constant barrage of gunfire, so there’s that.
Through a second door, I can make out a tiny bedroom, which consists of nothing but a queen-size bed flanked by two nightstands. A dresser rests opposite it, though one of the legs appears shorter than the other, causing it to tilt at an odd angle.
The living room bleeds into the kitchen, carpeting transitioning to pale white tiles, and the walls are painted a strange gray color. There’s no dining room that I can see, but it’s not as if we’re the type of pack to sit around the table and enjoy a home-cooked meal. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time one of us cooked.
That used to be Colter’s thing.
Speaking of…
“Does anyone have eyes on Colter?” I ask, alarm seeping into my bloodstream as I scan the forest behind me. In the distance, I can just make out the turrets of Eros Academy, the dark towers poking through the green tapestry like cement trees.
Kylian freezes where he’s practically dry-humping the bed—the first bed any of us have had access to in a little over a year—and Luka runs a hand through his brown hair contemplatively.
“I saw a bunch of recruits in the field a ways back,” Luka says. “He could be throwing knives at them and watching them run.”
Kylian smothers his laughter with the back of his hand while I regard our youngest pack member coldly.
“Not fucking funny.”
Luka arches a brow. “Who says I’m joking?”
I love all of my packmates like brothers, but if I had to choose one to throw off a cliff, it would be Luka. He’s the smartest man I know…but also the dumbest. He has the tact of a baby bull traipsing through a china shop.
All four of us met when we were students at Eros Academy, and we knew immediately that we were meant to be a pack. Our various skills and talents—as well as our bloodthirsty nature—allowed us to quickly rise through the ranks and become one of the best teams the kingdom has ever seen.
Kylian is skilled with weapons, Luka at planning, me at leading, and Colter…
As if my thoughts alone summoned him, the final member of our pack steps into the cottage, the room instantly feeling too small and suffocating. I’m not a small alpha by any means—I come in at over six feet and three inches and have defined muscles—but I’m nothing compared to Colter. He makes giants appear dainty. His blue jeans hang low on his hips, and he’s shirtless, revealing an intricate network of white and red scars on his chest, distorting some of his tattoos.
And, like always, he wears a mask, obscuring all of his facial features from view.
This one was once a gas mask but has been transformed to fit his purposes. It’s been painted a pasty white to resemble a skeleton, with dark smudges beneath both of his eye holes. More black paint cascades in haphazard lines from his forehead to his cheeks in a way that reminds me vaguely of blood.
Speaking of…
“What the fuck happened to you?” I demand, scowling.
Blood splatters the front of his chest and covers his arms.
Colter doesn’t respond as he ducks his head to get through the doorway. He moves immediately to the lone bedroom, where Kylian watches in rapt attention from the middle of the bed.
“Hey, buddy. Did you decide to paint yourself red today? Why’d you—” Kylian’s cut off when Colter grabs the other man’s shoulders and shoves him off the bed. Kylian lands on the ground with a muffled groan and a pained, “Fuck you, Colt.”
Colter doesn’t respond as he tugs his pants off—not seeming to care that he’s butt ass naked—and throws himself onto the bed, one arm draped behind his masked head and the other resting on his torso.
“I guess that answers the question of who gets the bed,” Luka grumbles from beside me, his hand rising to his close-cropped beard to shield the words from Colter’s ears.
“We can cuddle—” Kylian begins, but Colter growls, and Kylian clamps his mouth shut.
I think Colter would rather rip Kylian limb from limb than “cuddle.”
“Good try, brother. I admire your tenacity,” Luka quips as Kylian pads out of the bedroom on bare feet.
Kylian simply flips him off before throwing himself onto the couch with a dramatic huff.
“You guys all suck,” he laments. Then he pauses, frowns, and glances toward his crotch. “And not in the good way.”
Both Luka and I snort at that.
A lot of packmates, especially before they find their omega, engage in sexual intercourse with each other. We tried it once, many years ago, but couldn’t get any further than some kissing and heavy petting before deciding it wasn’t for us. We wanted a girl between us all, crying out our names and writhing in pleasure. We’ve had a few casual lovers over the years, but nothing that lasted. And none were our scent match.
The longest we “dated” the same girl—if you could even call it that—was seven months, but she refused to be in the same room as Colter. She barely even tolerated Luka because he’s about as demure as a gorilla playing with its own shit at the zoo. The second she mentioned to me and Kylian that she wanted us to break away from the other two and join a pack with her, we dumped her like yesterday’s trash.
It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten laid.
I think all of us have given up hope on ever finding an omega to mate with, let alone our scent match. Most take one look at our grizzled appearances—at our scars and demons—and run screaming in the opposite direction. Or they only want one of us, not all of us, which just won’t fucking do.
One omega made the grave mistake of saying I’m the only sane one of the group.
I let her know exactly how “sane” I truly am.
Kylian likes to joke that my looks put others at ease. He claims I have a “pretty boy” face. My golden skin, blond hair, and baby blue eyes may make me look angelic, but I’m anything but. Even Lucifer was once called beautiful, was he not? I’m the devil made flesh, and I won’t hesitate to rip anyone to pieces if they dare harm my family.
Maybe that’s why we no longer bother trying to find an omega.
We’ll break her, just like we did ourselves.
“How long do we have to be here again?” Luka demands as he begins opening up cupboards at random. He finally finds what he’s looking for—paper towels—and flicks the faucet on. He then wets a paper towel and squirts soap on it. Almost immediately, he begins to scrub at the countertops. I imagine by the time he’s done with this place, it’ll be immaculate, not a single dust mite or cobweb to be seen.
“Until we’re no longer here,” Kylian answers cryptically.
Luka gives him an irritated look.
“We get in, bide our time until we get what we need, and then get the fuck out,” I say.
Luka opens his mouth to say something—probably protest—but a knock on the cottage door interrupts him.
I barely have to move an inch to open it. The cottage is that goddamn tiny.
A portly, somewhat familiar man stands on the threshold. It takes me a moment to put a name to the face. Years ago, when we were students here, he’d been fit and muscular, with a full head of dark hair and keen eyes. Now, time has eroded his physique, giving him a potbelly and removing some of the hair on his head. Gray is interspersed with the black.
Headmaster Graves.
Thierry Graves was once one of the highest ranking generals in the king’s army, but that all changed when he busted his kneecap. He was instantly removed from commanding the front lines and placed in the academy, where he oversees all of the alpha recruits.
Kylian rolls his head along the back of the couch to stare at the headmaster, and Luka immediately resumes his cleaning. In the back room, through the open door, Colter tilts his masked head in the headmaster’s direction and watches from the bed.
“Ridge.” Formality—and something akin to annoyance—bleeds into the headmaster’s tone as he offers me a curt nod. “It’s been a long time.”
I cross my arms over my chest and offer him a smile that is nothing but sharp edges. I imagine it’s a smile I wore often when I was a student here in order to talk myself—or one of my packmates—out of trouble.
“Funny how the last time I was here, I was nothing but a student for you and the others to push around.” I chuckle, but the noise is devoid of any real humor. “Now, I’m…” I pretend to consider our current situation. “ Well…I’m sort of your boss, am I right?”
Kylian snorts, and even Luka has to bite his cheek to keep from smiling.
Graves’s terse smile fades, and the snippy, pathetic side I remember emerges. “You’re here because you’re being punished. In what world does that make you my boss?”
Kylian waves a hand in the air with a shit-eating grin. “The queen herself asked us to teach at the academy. Said that we’re to take over day-to-day operations.” He shrugs a single shoulder. “Kind of sounds like we’re doing the headmaster’s job, wouldn’t you say?”
Red seeps into Graves’s cheeks, but he manages to keep his composure. “I just wanted to let you four know that all instructors have a mandatory meeting in the main academic building in an hour. Attendance is not optional.”
“Is it?” Luka arches an arrogant eyebrow as he tosses his wet, dirty paper towel at Graves’s shoe. It lands with a splat, sliding down the leather as my packmate continues, “Because again…we’re kind of in charge now. What if we don’t want this meeting to be mandatory?”
“Meetings bore me,” Kylian agrees with an exaggerated yawn.
“They are quite dull, aren’t they?” I muse.
A vein begins to pulsate amusingly on Graves’s forehead. One of his hands forms a fist by his side. “Don’t think you can get away with speaking to me like this. I don’t give a damn what you believe. You four are being punished. This isn’t a vacation. You report to me and only me. And maybe, just maybe, when all of this is said and done, you won’t be put to death for your crimes.”
“Put to death.” I whistle. “Wow. That’s a pretty big threat.”
“Speaking of big threat…” Kylian murmurs with a pointed look in Colter’s direction. Well, a pointed look in the direction of his dick, which hangs huge and heavy against his thigh as he sits up in bed.
Sigh.
Yet another reason why no omega ever wishes to stay with us.
Headmaster Graves’s face pales when he catches sight of Colter’s masked face, and I don’t bother to smother my grin. It appears as if Colter’s reputation has reached even Eros Academy.
Colter moves to stand beside me, muscles flexing, and Graves’s eyes automatically dip to the other man’s cock. Red tints his cheeks. He glances up immediately, attempting to regain a little bit of the bravado he lost, but the scent of his sweat sours his aftershave, and I know his nerves are shaken.
“One hour, Ridge. Do not be late.”
“We’ll be there in two hours,” Kylian calls with a grin as Graves stomps off the tiny, sagging porch.
“Maybe three,” Luka throws in as he reaches for a new paper towel.
Colter just growls.
On the front porch of the cottage, Graves spins around and jabs a finger in my direction.
“Control your team, Ridge. I’m not fucking joking?—”
I slam the door in his face.
“Fuck me,” I groan, running a hand down my face. I can already feel a migraine coming on.
“Can’t we just kill him?” Kylian gripes as he reclines back on the couch. “We’re pretty good at hiding bodies.”
“Tempting,” Luka murmurs as he scrubs at a stain on the kitchen countertop.
For a moment, I consider it—weighing the pros and the cons in my head. But dammit. We can’t just solve every problem with murder.
“We’ll do what we came here to do,” I tell my team fiercely before clapping my hands together. “Now, get ready. We have a meeting we need to attend in…” I glance at my watch. “Does two hours sound good?”
“Three,” Kylian quips.
“Three and a half,” suggests Luka.
Colter just grunts, already walking back toward the bedroom.
“Okay, meeting in four hours.” A slow smirk tugs up my lips. “Wouldn’t want to be late on the first day of the new job, now would we?”