25. Brylee
25
brYLEE
This week was the longest week of my life. Of course, every week feels like that these days.
Every time Colter even glanced my way, I stiffened up—froze like an ice sculpture. And if he came near, I’d dodge behind another student like the coward I am.
He’s done nothing to outright convey that he knows, nothing more than stare. But my skin prickles with each look he gives, and I can’t stand it. Even if it’s nothing more than my own paranoia, just being around the giant, silent alpha right now is slow torture.
I round the corner of the arched stone hallway, drinking decaf iced tea from a glass bottle I swiped in the cafeteria. Walking past dozens of paintings of former generals staring gruffly out at me, I make my way to my dorm room at Eros. Sweat has created an entire terrarium inside my suit, and I’m surprised plants haven’t sprung up inside this tropical nightmare.
My body is begging for a shower and then a very early bedtime. I was supposed to go to dinner at Ted’s, but there’s just no way. I’m wiped out. Mentally and physically kaboomed . Done. Blown to smithereens.
This morning’s Scenario Training over at Darling started my day off on a gag-worthy note because…I cannot believe I actually had to endure Madam Ellora gripping bananas in both her hands and going over how to give multiple hand jobs at once.
“It’s a skill, ladies. Not simply a task. It’s a skill you all must master,” she lectured with a completely straight face as she stroked up and down the banana peels. “See how I’m gripping? Firmly, but not bruising.”
Harper and I exchanged a look of pure horror.
“Is this a prank?” she whispered.
“I don’t think she knows what a prank is,” I responded, trying to focus on anything except for our teacher.
“This is the worst,” Harper muttered.
She was wrong because it got infinitely worse.
“Now, some of your alphas might like a slow rhythm while others prefer faster. You’ll have to practice coordinating so that you can please each man the way he prefers. Think of it like playing piano—one hand does one thing, the other does another.”
Never in my wildest dreams did I have “watching an elderly omega jerk off fruit” on my bingo card.
I want to sear her words and that memory from my brain, just burn it all away. And I tried this afternoon.
I had Hand-to-Hand Combat, where I put every second of my kickboxing classes and extra training with Ridge this week to good use. Even without the muscles the other guys have, I’ve got speed on my side and flexibility, and I made the most of those—actually laying Sam out on his ass. Granted, he’s a beta, not an alpha, but it still felt good to have one win under my belt. And he wasn’t a bad sport about it at all. Clapped me on the back and everything.
For a few hours, I was able to set aside the anxiety piling up inside of me over this double-life lie and the constantly nagging question about my future.
I’ve been evading texts and phone calls from my parents. But by now, I’m certain word has filtered up to them that I’m not interested in Brock and company. They’re going to want answers, and I don’t have any to give because they won’t accept the very basic fact that I want to be a spinster.
Still want to despite the urges that keep intruding on my logic.
Scenario Training with Alpha Team X this evening had been defusing bombs… And damn it all to hell, but Kylian’s competence at directing our team through a practice maze of a building to get to the bomb’s location was hot. His focused, furrowed brow, his crisp movements, and the way he’d used his weapon to cover me. You could tell he’s been in the field, that he can walk the walk and not just talk the talk. That brawny confidence and competence had me salivating.
Then Luka’s demonstration analyzing the different wiring mechanisms made me squirm in all the ways I don’t want to squirm.
I wish they were idiots.
It would be so much easier to dismiss the attraction I have to them if it were only physical. But the more I get to see them in action, the more the draw becomes mental too.
“You are mental,” I mutter to myself under my breath as I heave myself up a flight of stairs. A random alpha up ahead turns to see if I’m talking to him, but I wave him off. “Just cursing how sore I am. Sorry.”
He juts his chin in acknowledgement. “I feel that.” Then he heads around a bend.
I finally arrive at my destination, feet dragging, thighs burning, and eyelids ready to slam down like those metal gates at the mall—closed for the night.
I don’t want to stay here, but it’s apparent I’m not going to get much choice in the matter. When I attempted to sneak over to Darling Academy, I saw a hulking, masked figure pacing near the tree line.
Colter.
As if he knows that’s the pathway I take to get back to school.
As if he knows I hide my Darling clothes in a hollowed-out tree there.
As if he knows who I am and what I’ve been doing.
Fuck, he must’ve put two and two together after he saw me attempting to hide my backpack in the tree. And then the little stunt after practice the other day, when I practically molested his chest with my nose?
A chill careens down my spine, and I try to shake off my fear as nothing but paranoia. If Colter knows, he would’ve said something, right? He certainly would’ve told his packmates.
I guess I have no choice but to remain at Eros Academy, at least until early tomorrow morning, when I can finally sneak back over for my morning classes. I’m just grateful Sam has a late-night class that he bitches about whenever I’m around.
Once I ensure that Sam’s not in the room, I set down my tea and pull out eight thousand bobby pins so I can yank off my wig. Immediately, the air around me feels so much cooler, and I give a satisfied sigh of relief.
Glancing down at my suit, I groan. Taking it off is going to be such a bitch.
“Buck up, buttercup,” I tell myself and start to yank off my black T-shirt. I’ve just gotten the stupid thing up over my head when a thunderclap rattles the building.
“What the fuck?” I pause, frozen, my mind shocked into blankness for a millisecond before I remember… It’s been nothing but clear skies today.
The hair on the nape of my neck stiffens as I shove my shirt back into place with shaking hands.
That’s when the lights go out. I hear a terrified yell from down the hall. The type of mortal yell that shoots right through you.
An alarm screams in the distance, too late. Three long blasts and then a pause—a message every student at Eros knows.
“Holy fuck. We’re under attack!” Chest heaving, I try to decide what the hell I should do. Hole up here or make a break for it?
The smell of smoke makes the decision for me.
I have to leave. But what if I have to fight my way out?
Arms trembling, I scan my room for a weapon, but nothing’s allowed in the dorms. It’s all fucking locked up each night as if we’re bloodthirsty fools. Maybe most alphas are, but right now I’m cursing the stupid policy. I could use a handgun or five.
I grab my bottle of tea from my desk and yank open the door. Black smoke is billowing down the corridor from the left-hand side, and figures race past me. The stairway in the distance echoes with boots thundering downward.
Curses fill the air along with the rancid scent of panic.
A yell rips through my sense of self-preservation, making me turn from the stairwell and sending me barreling into the smoke…because I know that voice.
Sam’s hurt.
Tossing an arm up over my nose and mouth, I squint through the haze, trying not to make too much noise in my combat boots as I creep forward. I pass someone on the ground who’s not moving and debate stopping to check for a pulse.
But I hear Sam’s cough somewhere nearby, and I know just from the tone it’s him. He’s farther in. I’ll get him first and then come back to check…
“Please! Fuck, I can—” Spluttering noises cut off Sam’s words, and it’s as though I can feel him being choked. My own throat tightens in response, remembering how often I used to beg to no avail.
A burst of something—adrenaline, rage, divine intervention—catapults through my veins, and suddenly I’m flying forward into a sitting room at the end of the hallway.
Inside, one of the chairs facing a massive fireplace is overturned. Only the flicker of the fire itself lets me see two figures near the tall windows. A tall, stacked silhouette of an alpha has a hand around Sam’s neck. My roommate is up on his tiptoes, feebly kicking as he scratches at the hands choking him.
Pure, blinding rage strikes me like lightning.
Suddenly, every ache in my body is gone, replaced by raw, feral anger. Launching myself across the room, I jump on the alpha’s back and slam my bottle into his head. Iced tea splashes everywhere as the huge man bellows in fury, dropping Sam to the ground and reaching back over his shoulder for me.
Just from the red bands on the arm of this fucker’s uniform, I know he’s a Noth.
That makes something cruel and dark, something pitch black and boiling like tar, seethe deep inside of me.
How fucking dare they?
I reach around with my left hand and shove my fingers into this asshole’s eye socket, relishing his howl of pain.
Meanwhile, Sam scrambles backward across the ground, clutching at his neck.
Another explosion goes off somewhere, and the walls shake around us before the smoke gets sucked from the room, drawn toward whatever new hole has been blown in the building.
The bastard I’m riding stumbles sideways and then backward, yanking at my arm but unable to get a good grip because my suit is sliding all around my sweat-slicked body. He bucks like a bronco, spinning and moving until— BAM .
I slam backward into a stone wall. Oxygen whooshes out of my compressed lungs, and my ribs threaten to crack as pain slashes up my torso.
On reflex, I jerk the bottle in my hand so that it smashes into the wall too just as the fucker slams me back into the stone again with a grunt, this time throwing his weight into the motion.
Agony.
Pure. Fucking. Agony.
Red speckles line the edges of my vision, and I’m not certain I’m consciously moving any more. My legs feel limp, but my arm swings backward again, almost like it’s on autopilot. Like that one limb alone is fighting for my survival.
The bottle smashes into the stone behind me, cracking, tiny chips falling like ice. Leaving a brutal set of glass teeth on the tip.
Inhaling through the foggy nebula of my thoughts, the disjointed swirling, I swing my arm forward. And then, almost as if I’m watching someone else do it, I drag the bottle across the Noth’s neck.
His hands fly up, which makes me push deeper. Harder.
Red bursts through the air, a blast like canned hair dye. Unreal. Fake like Halloween.
Nothing feels real.
Not the ache in my back as I slide from the Noth’s back and he stumbles forward, trying vainly to staunch a wound that can’t be staunched. Not the blasts I can hear in the distance. Not the way that Sam is blinking up at me in terrified wonder.
The beta lurches toward me, circling far around the dying Noth, who’s now laid out on the ground, gurgling like a stream.
“Ted.”
He reaches me and shakes my shoulders, but he can’t shake off the stunned shock encasing me. Not until he says, “What the fuck happened to your hair?”
That question shatters my trance. Makes my blood run cold. Because I realize…I left my wig in the room.
I’ve been made.