Twenty-Five – Reed
I walked into the Principal’s Office just as one of Jay’s guards tried to grab the zip on Vail’s coat. A move that was met with a textbook covering block from her, and a warning growl from me. It was four in the morning, and I had twenty Marshall omegas in hysterics, because some asshole had tried to snatch a pup in the middle of Den Night. I didn’t need one of Jay’s security thugs grinding on my last nerve.
“Try that move again and you’ll lose a paw,” I told him and he backed off a step, but tossed a wet cloth in my direction. “You clean her up then, Alphason. She’s not letting us near her.”
I turned to Vail, who was sitting in one of the visitor chairs. She looked cold and tired. Her bulky coat was zipped up to the throat, but the collar was spotted with blood, and I could smell it beneath the fabric. I hunkered down by her chair, careful not to touch her. “What happened?”
“Trey Barakat,” she said quietly. “The blood isn’t related. He didn’t hurt me, and I don’t think he meant to hurt the pup.”
I stood and nodded at the guard, who started to fill me in on the basic details. But when he said Vail had taken one of the pups out of the room, she shot to her feet. “I didn’t! I saw Trey out the window with him, so I went to bring him back.”
The guard looked unimpressed. “Someone took both pups from the Head Omega’s room. There are sensors on all the windows and the only one breached was yours.” His gaze skidded off her, but it was flat with dislike. “Maybe he came through your window, took the pup, and you had a change of heart. Followed him out to talk him round, and then he heard the wolves and got scared.”
She was already shaking her head. “I woke up. One of the pups was scratching at the door. I looked out the window and saw Trey with the other.”
The guard curled his lip, but looked back at me. “The system was down for a couple minutes. Some kind of glitch. By the time it came back up, the sensor on her window was triggered. We came round from the outside and saw her trying to get back into her room.” He nodded to her coat. “The pup panicked and clawed her throat. When my partner tried to pull him loose, he bit him. And then the omega bit me.”
I stared at him for a moment. The guy was pissed, but I couldn’t scent a lie, and I doubted he had the imagination for story-telling. And even if I’d missed the teeth marks on his hand, there was a definite whiff of the male’s blood coming from Vail. But she kept her head down, her eyes on her nails. I took a careful breath and looked at the empty seat behind the desk. “Where’s Principal Bregman?”
“He went to meet Mrs. Arras. She’s on her way back from Huntington.” The guard’s scent spiked with satisfaction. “We’ve alerted the Clan Alpha, too.”
Neither of us missed the shudder that passed through Vail at this news, and when the guard’s mouth tilted up, I snapped, “Work on your report. And be ready to explain that system outage as something more than a glitch.” When he didn’t move, I looked at the door. “You’re dismissed, wolf.”
I ignored the anger rippling off him. He had a shit of a day ahead of him, considering he had to explain both a security breach and getting bitten by an omega. And not just any omega. I pulled up the other visitor chair and sat next to Vail. When she turned to look at me, I could see three distinct claw marks on her neck, just above Jasper’s collar. “Does it hurt?”
Her lips quirked. “Like a bitch. The little rascal really dug in deep.”
“We need to get you cleaned up,” I told her quietly. “But is there anything else you can tell me? Like maybe why Barakat would go to so much trouble to lure you out?”
Her eyes shone for a moment, as if she was surprised I believed her story. “I don’t know. He was rambling. I think he was drunk. Or drugged.” She bit the corner of her lip, then added, “His dad just died. Maybe he just wanted to come tell me that.”
I nodded, keeping my face blank. Barakat had been on the clan’s radar for a couple years, mainly because of his connection to the Black Denners. But he’d come into sharp focus when Vail arrived at the Academy. She’d tried to downplay their relationship, but it was common knowledge back on her mountain that Barakat considered her his property. He’d gone so far as to approach her at the Clan Caves, which had prompted a deeper investigation into both their backgrounds. But other than the obvious – he was scum, who had a finger in a lot of dirty pies, and did scut work for the Denners – there wasn’t a lot else we knew about him.
But that was about to change. Especially since the asshole had gone as far as kidnapping the Clan Alpha’s brother to get her attention.
My wolf gave me a sudden nudge. Hunting down Barakat was a priority, but right now he had something else on his mind. “Vail, can you open your mouth for me a little?” The look she cast me was full of suspicion, but she parted her lips an inch, and I nodded. Taking her hand, I lifted her finger and pressed it against her top canine. “You feel that? The gum’s a little swollen and the tip is sharper.” She stared at me, clearly not making the connection. “ Shifter sharp,” I emphasized. “I think you just had your first wolf teeth come through.”
Her hand slapped across her mouth, her green eyes huge. “You’re kidding,” she mumbled. “I shifted?”
“Enough to bite.”
Her eyes grew even larger, then she winced. “No wonder that guard was pissed.”
“He’ll survive.” Or at least, he might until Jay got his hands on him. “But I have to tell you something. You’ve been reading up on omegas, right? You get to the part about their protective instincts?”
She dropped her hand, clearly going through those study cards in her mind. “Yeah, I was reading about pups because of Den Night. It said omegas are triggered if a pup is threatened.” Some of the color returned to her pale face. “You think that’s why I bit him? Because I was protecting Jay’s brother?”
I nodded slowly. “The thing is, omegas only bite to protect their kin. Their pups, or the pups of their mate.”
“Really?” She frowned, but I could see her mind working and her hand slapped back over her mouth. The next moment her head was in her hands. “Oh, shit! He’s going to think I did it again. Like Hunter Moon. That I’m using his brothers to try to force a bond.”
The thought had occurred to me, too. It was bullshit, since she’d definitely shifted enough to form fangs, and that kind of reaction couldn’t be faked by an omega. But Jay was at his paranoid worst. And when it came to Vail, he wasn’t exactly lucid when blood and bonds were added to the mix. “I think we should get you cleaned up and into bed. I’d suggest your room, but Omega House is crawling with guards.” I stood and pulled my phone out, quickly shooting off a text. “Carter is right outside. He’ll take you to my room, and wait until his sister shows. You okay to sleep there if Marnie’s with you?”
She lifted her head and gave a dazed nod. Her eyes were swimming with tears and when one trickled down her cheek, she winced. “Thanks, Reed. I’m just… really tired. I don’t know.”
“Shifting drains you.” I put a hand under her arm and helped her up. “But it’s a good thing. Your wolf is close, Vail. Soon as you’re feeling better, we’ll talk about that. See if we can’t tempt her out some more.”
***
Only minutes after Carter had led Vail out, Jasper’s mom burst through the door in a rage. Gwendoline Arras was an alpha female, famed for both her cool beauty and her ruthlessness. She came from a pack in the remote Canadian Mountains and had been mated to the old alpha through an arrangement struck with her parents. She’d never publicly fought with her mate, but everyone knew their relationship was stormy, and at times, even violent. She’d put out a statement supporting Jay after he ascended, and according to clan gossip, had been celebrating her freedom ever since her mate died. With her new status as mother of the Clan Alpha, she’d been quick to call in favors and settle old scores. To say nothing of working her way through every male in the clan who’d ever caught her eye.
Something I was careful to avoid as she burst into the room, a vicious snarl on her beautiful face. “Where’s the little bitch?”
“Hello, Gwendoline.” I held up my phone, which was already loaded with the video from my private feed. I was assuming she didn’t know about the glitch in the guards’ system and wouldn’t ask where I got the footage. I played the short snippet of Vail running from the woods and being tackled by the guards. I stopped it before she sunk her canines into his hand. “She was retrieving your pup, not putting him in danger. Have you seen them yet?”
She gave me a cold look and pushed the phone aside. “She’s to stay away from my family, Reed. If she touches them again, she’ll need more than her Marrow name to protect her.”
She wasn’t making empty threats, so I thumbed the phone and brought up a picture of Vail and Jasper in the dance studio. It was a still, since I didn’t think she’d enjoy the whole scene any more than I did, but it perfectly framed their body language. “You need to talk to your son about that. And remember the other half of her bloodline. She’s a Marshall wolf, too, and we protect our own.”
She sneered at me. “Pearl LaRue is a good wolf. She and I are very close, and if I have my way, she’ll be mated to Jay before the year’s out.” She stepped towards me, aggression rolling off her in a way my wolf didn’t like at all. “We’re so close, in fact, there are no secrets between us. Such as when a certain alphason gave her a vial of Wolf Fire from his father’s stash.” She smiled at the look on my face and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “Keep your bitch away from my boys, Reed, and it will stay our little secret.”