Wolf’s Fate (ARC Next Class #2)

Chapter 1

Monte

Mandatory fun? Yeah, I had a hard pass ready for that one.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. It’s a requirement that all brothers will attend,” Denny insisted.

“There’s gotta be some way out of this.”

“Monte, you’ve managed to avoid every event Delta Omega Gamma has attended this year. It looks bad.”

“No one even noticed I was missing,” I argued.

He rolled his eyes.

“Not true,” Denny’s mate Lauren chimed in. “I’ve been asked numerous times where you’ve been. Being the only female living in the doghouse puts me in the awkward position of filtering all their questions.”

“Whose questions?”

“Theta,” they said together, and then turned to grin at each other as they both laughed.

Lauren was great. We all loved her. She was the mother of the house now, or maybe everyone’s overprotective big sister.

Denny snagged a quick kiss, causing her to blush.

A part of me longed for that with someone, but not here.

Not while in college. I would be graduating soon and then who knew where life would take me?

Back to my tiny Pack with few opportunities in life?

Or on to a new adventure? My entire world was about to open, and I did not want to risk being bogged down with a mate.

It had been an easy decision to fade out of ARC society.

I much preferred it even. I got to sit out in my boxers playing video games in my spare time or get away from campus altogether and enjoy a hike up in the mountains.

I’d even taken up rock climbing lately. Turns out, I like being alone.

So on my return to campus for my final year, I simply stopped inserting myself into the middle of things and no one seemed to notice.

“Trust me, they notice,” Lauren insisted, as if she’d just read my mind.

I let out a small growl of frustration.

“The guys are starting to worry,” Denny said.

“I’m not a freshman anymore. Far from it.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my time here drunk and partying.

I don’t want to risk any long-term attachments or anything like that.

I just want to spend time with the guys, hang out, and pass my classes while I contemplate what the hell I’m going to do after this place. ”

“Boring! There’s plenty of time for that shit,” Remy claimed as he and the guys butted into our conversation.

Remy, Braxton, Caleb, and I had been friends since childhood. Add in Sadie, Rose, Delilah, and Dakota and that pretty much summed up the entirety of people my age back home in Maxwell Pack. It didn’t exactly make for many opportunities.

“Yeah, what’s up with you?” Caleb asked.

“I was having lunch with the girls today and they all mentioned they hadn’t really seen you around much this semester,” Braxton added.

I shrugged. “Just busy. It’s senior year,” I reminded them.

“Yeah, senior year,” Remy repeated. “We should be partying it up and living life before the real world calls us home way too soon.”

“Next year we can be serious, but this year it’s all about fun,” Caleb insisted.

“I don’t know, I feel like there should be a happy medium this year. It’s okay to have fun, but I don’t particularly want to repeat my senior year either,” Braxton said.

“I think I’m just going to go camping this weekend,” I told them.

“No you aren’t. At least not until after the Theta party. All brothers are required to be there. I promised Zoey,” Denny admitted.

“Zoey Rey? Why the hell would you promise her anything?” I wondered aloud.

“Monte be nice. As fellow Greeks we look out for each other,” Remy insisted.

I snorted. “You’re looking out for something, but not her. She’s a pretentious snob looking to get laid just like all the other Thetas.”

“I’d tap that,” Caleb admitted.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Braxton snapped.

Did I miss something? Does Brax have a thing for Zoey Rey?

I had thought I was at least keeping up with the brothers, but I had no idea Braxton liked Zoey Rey.

And something about the idea of the two of them together made me sick to my stomach.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but I knew without even meeting her that Zoey and Braxton were not a good match.

“Relax. Everyone on campus talks about her like that. It’s Zoey Rey. She’s hot. Who doesn’t want to tap that? Have you seen her videos online? Zoey Unboxed has gone viral.”

“You mean Zoey Rey from Theta is Zoey from Zoey Unboxed?” I asked.

I’d seen her stuff before. When Denny descended upon me, I’d actually been watching her latest video. It wasn’t like I was following her or anything, though.

Her whole schtick is to have people send her boxes of random shit and then she unboxes it online, trials the items, and gives a full, unfiltered review of the products. This morning it just happened to be a rock-climbing harness I’d been researching.

Sure, she was beautiful and, as the newest elected president of Theta, I had no doubt she knew it, too.

There was nothing online to indicate she attended Archibald Reynolds. Actually, I’d just took a deep dive into researching her background to see if she had any ties to the rock climbing community—she did not.

Her unboxing scheme was most likely just a way to get a ton of free shit. And if her harness video was any indication, she was scoring some high dollar free shit. I briefly wondered how I could get into that biz, but exclusively for camping, hiking, and climbing gear.

By nature, my wolf wasn’t thrilled with my newest hobby.

He never minded camping and hiking. Being outdoors put us both at peace, but climbing was a bit tough.

Wolves do not climb, but I think feeling my wolf’s discomfort and anxiety only heightened the adrenaline in my human form.

It was like I had become addicted to the rush of it.

Man, I wanted that harness she was in the process of trialing.

Zoey claimed to personally test each and every product no matter what was sent to her, so I could only imagine she was already planning a rock-climbing trip to test it out.

For a brief moment, I wondered if she’d let me go with her.

But I’d seen enough of her videos to know she didn’t have guests or partners of any kind.

She also didn’t give her location or any personal details out online and always used generic backgrounds that gave nothing away.

So how the hell did these guys know that Zoey Rey was also Zoey Unboxed?

“How do you know it’s her?”

“Have you ever seen Zoey Rey? Because if it’s not her, then she’s a witch who doppelgangs famous people,” Caleb teased.

“Famous?” I snorted. “She’s just some girl who posts videos and manipulates people into sending her free shit. That doesn’t make her famous.”

“It does actually,” Denny insisted.

“And if that didn’t? The fact that she is now the newest president of Theta and the hottest girl on campus makes her famous here at the ARC,” Remy pointed out.

“What? You’re giving up on your lifelong love of Dakota for Zoey Rey now?” I teased.

“Maybe. But unfortunately for me, neither girl is my true mate. Fun to play with, but that’s it. I’ll take my chances on finding my true mate.”

I laughed. “Sadie and Pete have ruined you, my friend.”

It was true. Sadie and Remy had always been close, even when we weren’t supposed to have anything to do with her.

She had sort of been banned from the Pack, but also not really.

Her dad was a wolf shifter like the rest of us.

He was part of the Pack, but Sadie’s mom had been human.

Not knowing if she would ever have a wolf, our previous Alpha had put a gag order in place to silence the Pack.

She wasn’t supposed to know about us as she grew up, even though she lived right on the edge of Pack territory.

She was raised fully as a human and we were told to stay away from her.

For some reason, Remy had never listened.

Just before graduation, she’d shifted for the first time and been forced to come to the ARC with us for college. I supposed it had been the right thing since she had found her one true mate here.

Sophomore year she and Pete had moved to Westin Pack.

He’d gotten a job there, and Sadie had always dreamed of going to some human college that her mom had attended and was commutable to from San Marco.

She’d learned quickly that human life wasn’t what it had been for her, though.

And Pete had been advised that Westin Foundation, where he worked, would pay for his master’s degree.

They’d moved back to the ARC for it so Sadie would be graduating with the rest of us.

It just felt right having us all together for our senior year.

After this year, who knew where any of us would end up.

“So bottom line,” Denny said. “You’re coming to Theta tonight. Full fraternity. No D.O.G. left behind. I mean it.”

I groaned, hoping he would have forgotten about that in our discussion of Zoey. No such luck.

“I’ll be there.”

Satisfied with that, the group broke up and everyone headed off in different directions. I hightailed it straight for my bedroom. I had a single this year and while I sort of missed living with Remy, it was nice to have my own space, too.

Still grumbling about being forced to attend a party I didn’t want to go to, I grabbed my laptop to get some studying in, seeing how I wouldn’t be able to do it tonight while the house was quiet as I had planned.

Up on my screen was the Zoey Unboxed video I’d been watching earlier. Feeling irritated in general, I watched it once more.

The look on her face when she opened it and held it up for everyone to see was pathetic. It was clear she had no idea what it was until she read the note with instructions that came with it.

“Well, it looks like I’m going to be trying rock climbing in the near future. Stay tuned for a future video of me trying this one out in my review.”

She flashed a fake smile for the camera as the video ended.

I rolled my eyes, but something inside me stirred.

Clicking on comments, I decided to add my own.

Admit it. You have no clue what to do with that thing.

Rock Steady made a huge mistake in wasting time and money on you.

That harness would have served anyone else better.

Perhaps someone who actually knows how to rock climb and use a harness like that.

This company has lost all respect from me choosing to partner with you when there are so many great influencers in the actual rock climbing community.

Make sure you anchor well, sweetheart. Wouldn’t want to see you take a massive whipper off the crux!

I grinned, knowing she was going to have to look up that last bit because I was certain she would have no idea what I was talking about. This girl was definitely not a climber.