Chapter 5
FIVE
Ben and I sat at the top of the bleachers in the very spacious and fancy Blackstone Academy gymnasium while the school’s entire population of shifters (minus Harriet) spread out in the rows below us in their various cliques and friend groups.
Ice Man and his cronies were on the bottom bleachers on the opposite side from where we sat, which meant I had as much space between them and me as possible, thank the Moon.
Our Gym teacher was Coach Ryan, and he was an extremely attractive wolf-shifter in his mid-to-late twenties with short brown hair and a scruffy face.
He was enormous, even for a shifter—probably six foot five—and stacked with muscle.
Ben and I had already exchanged appreciative comments about him.
Ben also continued to peep Nerd Porn Thad from our perch above the class.
I’d have smacked him and told him to cut it out, but I was having just as much trouble keeping my eyes off the Ice Man.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I mean, I suppose Alpha power calls to other Alpha power and whatnot, so maybe I’m just another Alphawhore at heart (Harriet would never let me hear the end of that).
Real bummer, since I was planning on some hot car sex with a really attractive human boy-man, and I didn’t appreciate my wolf having her wires crossed about any of this.
Ryan had been droning on about what to expect in class this year (more combat drills than last year, some sports and games, etc.). We were apparently just getting all the info today but would be expected to work out starting tomorrow.
"I see here we have some new students," Ryan said, glancing at his clipboard. "Ben and Mave Fortune?" He raised his eyes to scan the bleachers. Some of the students craned their necks around to get a look at the new kids.
Ben gave a jaunty wave and I nodded.
"Great. Mr. Monroe, since you are our fearless leader, can I get you to take our new students to the equipment room to get their gym uniforms?"
Ugh, fuck.
Knox’s head snapped up from whatever conversation he was having with Man Bun and Nerd Porn.
"Sure, Ryan," he replied, giving him a polite but forced smile. "No problem."
Without looking back at us, he stood and made his way toward the side door at the end of the gym floor. Ben and I hopped up and hustled down after him. Ben darted ahead to follow him through the door.
"Hey man! Can you point me to the locker room first? I have to piss like a racehorse!” I heard him shout the last part as he turned and jogged down the hallway after Knox.
Ben disappeared, and I continued through the door and down the hallway at a leisurely pace.
I found Knox in a small equipment room next to what was probably Ryan’s office.
He was bent over some shelves containing gym clothes, and I couldn’t help but check out his very muscular ass as I entered the room.
The door swung closed behind me with a slam. Then, as if on cue, the swirling tornado of anxiety that had been plaguing me most of the day intensified to a full onslaught in my chest.
Knox turned around to hand me a pile of gym clothes. He stopped suddenly with a barely audible gasp, dropping the clothes on the floor. His icy blue eyes widened, and he stared at me with a mix of awe and absolute horror.
"What the fuck?" he whispered.
The intense thrum inside me turned from a tornado of confusing stress to a wave of almost euphoric warmth that spread through my entire body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
I had the sudden confusing but all-consuming urge to wrap my body around Knox’s big muscular torso and bask in his touch.
The reality of the situation hit me with the force of a Mack truck slamming into a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour as the magic clicked into place.
Mate, my wolf said.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Shit shit shit. Shit!
A one-in-a-million, Moon-blessed, fully fucking fated Mate.
I could not form words. True fated mates were so rare that I had never, ever contemplated it could happen to me—that I’d have no control or say in who my mate would be, but instead the Moon would bless me with my supposed perfect match.
I stood there with my jaw hanging open, frozen in shock, just staring at Knox Monroe. My mate was the Alpha’s son, and he looked just as blown over by this as I was.
We stared at each other in complete silence for several minutes.
He recovered first. He shook his head as if to clear the fog and adopted a calm, professional demeanor.
"So, uh, you’re Mave Fortune, right?" he asked, his cool eyes scanning over my face. "You’re from the family of omegas my dad approved for Pack membership over the summer?"
My mind still had not processed the situation enough for me to begin to register his question or form an answer. I was reeling, trying to grasp what was happening.
What the fuck, Moon? The Alpha’s son? So much for keeping a low profile.
He certainly is hot, though.
Hopefully he’ll be okay with like, getting to know each other for a bit?
Casually date before we have to formally mate or whatever?
He cleared his throat and snapped my attention back to his question. I just nodded at him mutely. I guess someone had clued him in to who Ben and I were at some point this morning.
"Alright, well," he continued, looking serious. "I’m sure you can understand that as the Alpha’s son, and for the good of the Pack, I intend to take a mate from a powerful bloodline. I have no intention of mating an unknown omega."
Like, maybe he’d be cool if we just didn’t tell anyone right away? It’s my first fucking day here.
Yeah, we’ll get to know each other first. Keep it on the downlow. Let everyone know after a few months. Maybe the whole year.
Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. I can do that.
"So, I will not be accepting you as my mate," he stated with finality.
He stared at me for a second, then started toward the door. He paused, and then he turned back to face me from the doorway. He let his eyes roam my entire body this time, then he gave me a lecherous smirk.
"But I wouldn’t be opposed if you wanted to fuck on occasion," he said, chuckling like an asshole. "You’re definitely a smokeshow. Wouldn’t mind hitting that… not at all. The bond will probably make you crave my dick, anyway."
Well, that bullshit certainly snapped me out of my stupor. In any other situation, those words would’ve earned the speaker a swift kick to the nuts.
He turned and walked out the door and into the hall. Slowly, the rest of the events that had unfolded in the five minutes we’d been standing in that equipment room registered in my malfunctioning brain.
Wait a minute.
He just said… no?
"Wait… what?" I shouted as I darted after him down the hall.
I careened around the corner and shouted again at his back.
"You’re just… rejecting me? You don’t even want to try to get to know me, first? THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL!" I screeched the last part at him at the top of my lungs, realizing too late that we’d both made it back out into the gym.
My high-pitched shout reverberated off of the high gym walls and echoed into the suddenly silent room. I came to a halt a few feet behind where Knox now stood with his back to me.
Fifty-something shifter students and Ryan all stared at us.
Knox sighed audibly. He glanced at me and gave me the "are you fucking kidding me" look. I continued to stand there in utter shock, trying to process.
Trying to understand.
Praying to the Moon he would act rationally about the situation once the shock wore off for him, too.
"I guess I should just take care of this so there are no questions," he said loudly, addressing the audience of students that continued to stare at us with extreme curiosity. He continued, "It seems the Moon has seen fit to present me with a fated mating."
Gasps rang out throughout the gym. A wave of nausea so strong overcame me that it took every ounce of power I had in my body to resist vomiting my paltry breakfast all over the shiny wooden floors.
No. No no no. He’s going to do it.
He went on. "I, Knox Monroe, son of the Alpha of the Northwest Louisiana Pack, am rejecting Mave Fortune, omega wolf of the Northwest Louisiana Pack, as my mate. I do not intend to entertain this mating."
Louder gasps. A flurry of excited conversation. Mason and Thad hopped to their feet and made a beeline for Knox.
At the same time as his final words were delivered to the crowd, an excruciating, sharp pain hit me square in the chest. I would have crumpled to the floor if strong arms hadn’t at that moment banded around my chest and held me tight.
Ben.
He must have made it back into the gym to catch the end of the show. He continued to hold onto me as he shifted us a few steps closer to where Knox was conferring with Mason and Thad. All three looked up at his approach.
With more anger and venom than I had ever heard come out of Ben’s mouth, he pointed straight at Knox and said, "You just made the biggest fucking mistake of your life."
Knox just forced out a laugh and rolled his eyes. "In your dreams, omega."
Thad looked on with mild interest, but Mason at least had the decency to look embarrassed and a little worried.
I started to lose control of my breath as my heart beat rapidly in my chest. The pain and the nausea were too much. My wolf was confused and distraught. I willed the ground to open beneath my feet and send me to Hell so that I would never have to see any of these people ever again.
It did not, so just I buried my face in Ben’s shoulder and tried to fight the urge to pass out.
"Alright, alright, everyone!" Ryan shouted over the escalating volume of excited student tittering.
"We’ll, uh, just end class a little early today since this is all very…
distracting." The whole class hustled off of the bleachers toward the outer doors before he’d even finished the sentence.
"See you tomorrow! Be prepared for combat assessment! "
Ben dragged me in the opposite direction, carrying me back into the hallway toward Ryan’s office. He shut the door and locked it, apparently not caring whether Ryan might need to get in at some point.
"Magic. Breathe. Shhhh, breathe, it’s okay. It’ll be okay," he soothed me, rubbing my back while I clung to him, eyes shut tight and face buried in his shirt.
I took deep breaths and tried to calm my racing heart. The sharp, mind-numbing pain had abated, but only a little bit, and the nausea remained.
"It hurts, Ben," I croaked, sounding like a weak bitch. "It hurts so bad."
"I know, babe. He’s a fucking idiot and he doesn’t deserve you. You know that, right? His actions have made that extremely fucking clear."
"Yeah, but my wolf doesn’t understand." I sniffed into his shirt, probably snotting all over him. "He just… he didn’t even care to know anything about me, Ben."
"Because he’s a self-centered, short-sighted, head-up-his-own-ass, tiny-dicked fucktard."
I laugh-sobbed, then looked up into his eyes. "He took a once-in-a-lifetime gift from the Moon and just shit all over it, Ben. He doesn’t care that this is going to probably fuck us both up for a very long time!" I sobbed more.
Ben continued to rub my back and make soothing sounds while I fought to contain the tears and tried to get my shit back together. I needed to find a way to control the pain and make it through the rest of the day without letting on how much Knox’s rejection had devastated me.
He had to know this was going to affect him, too, right? I didn’t understand much about fated mate bonds, but I knew that refusing it didn’t just make the magic disappear. The Moon’s will was harder than that to subvert. What the fuck was he thinking?
Coach Ryan, wisely, did not try to bother us in his office for the rest of the allotted time for third period.
Adding to the horror of the entire situation, we had lunch next.
With every shifter who just witnessed Knox’s callous and humiliating rejection of me as his mate, as well as all of the human students who would need to remain ignorant of all of this juicy wolf gossip.
Ben’s strong presence bolstered my resolve.
He was radiating righteous anger and basically leaking Alpha power into the room, which would have had pretty much any other shifter cowering in the corner, but for me it was like a balm soothing away the pain and despair triggered by Knox’s disrespect of the bond.
I took another deep breath and communed with my wolf.
He’s not worthy of us.
We would never accept such an egotistical, cruel, and condescending male as our mate.
We reject him. Ardently, completely, and without hesitation, reject him.
I let my own Alpha power hum through my body. The magic of the bond still clung to me, both pushing toward Knox and radiating back the pain of the rejection. It felt like the two forces—the gift of the Moon and the perversion of that gift courtesy of Knox—were warring inside of me.
But, once I finally worked through the shock and embarrassment and gained some control over my emotions, I found my wolf and I were strong enough to counter the fucked up magic coursing through my body.
I was at least keeping the pain and discomfort at a manageable level by pushing my power inward to calm the violent storm that swirled there.
I finally looked at Ben with a determined stare, communicating my resolve to fight this with every ounce of my being.
I would not be crawling back to Knox, begging him to reconsider.
I would not let him or his sycophants ever see me hurting.
And I would never, under any circumstances, entertain a request from him to be his mate after all, should he ever realize the gravity of his mistake.
Ben beamed at me then. "Good," he cooed at me. "There you are. I knew it wouldn’t take too long for you to realize you are so much stronger than this thing, Moon be damned. You’re the strongest wolf I know. There’s no way you would ever let a prick like Knox Monroe bring you down.
I, for one, can’t wait to see you fuck up his entire world. "
I nodded, resolve fortifying by the minute.
The bell rang, and Ben and I stalked out the gym doors with our heads held high, hand in hand, ready to face the shitshow that was going to be our first lunch period at Blackstone Academy.