Chapter 20 #2
Bright against the darker shades around him, like a beacon saying look here, pay attention, this one is different.
He's wearing the same sportswear as everyone else—dark shorts, a fitted t-shirt that shows off arms more muscular than I expected—but somehow he makes it look deliberate. Artistic. Like everything about his appearance is a carefully curated performance.
As if sensing my attention, his head turns.
Our eyes meet across the crowded gymnasium.
Something passes between us—recognition, acknowledgment, the particular awareness of bonded individuals who can feel each other's presence without trying.
His lips curve.
Not quite a smile.
More like a promise.
See you soon, the expression says. We're here. You're not alone.
Then his attention shifts, responding to something one of the nearby Alphas says, and the moment breaks.
But the warmth in my chest lingers.
He's watching out for me.
They all are, probably.
When has anyone ever watched out for me before?
The thought is dangerous.
Soft.
The kind of thing that leads to hope, which leads to disappointment, which leads to the particular kind of devastation that happens when you let yourself want something you can't have.
Don't get attached.
This is temporary.
Remember the deal.
But it's hard to remember deals when your bonded Alpha is across the room, looking at you like you're something precious.
Movement catches my peripheral vision.
More figures joining the Alpha cluster—two more that I recognize, even from this distance.
Blaze.
His golden hair catches the light like actual flames, and there's an energy to his movements that suggests barely contained chaos.
He's grinning at something—probably a joke, probably inappropriate—and even from here I can see the way the other Alphas react to him.
Part wariness, part amusement, the particular response reserved for people who are entertaining but dangerous.
Kai.
The pack leader enters last.
He doesn't walk so much as prowl—each step deliberate, controlled, radiating the kind of authority that makes people instinctively move out of his way.
His dark red hair is swept back from his face, and even in simple sportswear, he looks like someone who could buy and sell the entire academy without noticing the expense.
My enemy, I remind myself.
The son of the man who killed my parents.
The person I'm supposed to destroy after this alliance ends.
But the reminder doesn't land the way it should.
Because I've seen behind the mask now. Seen the vulnerability he hides beneath the power. Seen the boy who just found out his own father wants him dead.
We're not so different, I think, and the thought is more unsettling than comforting.
"Incoming object."
Ro's voice cuts through my drifting thoughts.
Sharp.
Urgent.
I blink—coming back to reality, realizing I zoned out again, fuck—and lift my gaze just in time to see it.
A volleyball.
White and blue, spinning through the air with more velocity than a casual throw could produce. Aimed directly at my face. Moving too fast for me to dodge, too close for me to duck, already in the moment before impact where flinching would just make it worse.
Someone threw that.
Intentionally.
While I wasn't paying attention.
Time does that thing it sometimes does—stretching, elongating, each millisecond expanding into something I can observe and analyze.
I see the ball. See its trajectory. See the exact point on my face where it's going to connect—nose, probably.
Maybe the bridge of my eyes. Hard enough to hurt. Maybe hard enough to break something.
A normal person would flinch.
Would throw up their hands, turn their head, try to minimize the damage.
I stay completely still.
Not because I'm brave.
Not because I'm stupid.
But because some part of me—the part that's been hit before, that's learned to take pain without showing weakness, that knows flinching only invites more abuse—has decided that showing fear is worse than bleeding.
Let it hit me.
Let them see that I don't break.
Let them know that their cruelty only makes me stronger.
The thought is defiant.
Vicious.
The kind of thing that probably qualifies as sadistic, in its own way—finding satisfaction in the idea of bleeding in front of people who want to hurt me, of refusing to give them the reaction they're looking for.
The ball is a foot from my face.
Six inches.
Three.
A hand appears.
Large, pale, moving with impossible speed—intercepting the ball in a grip so tight the leather audibly compresses. The impact makes a sound like a thunderclap, and the force should have destroyed a normal person's fingers.
But the hand doesn't buckle.
Doesn't flinch.
Just... catches.
The ball falls to the ground, bouncing once before rolling to a stop at my feet.
It looks useless now.
Harmless.
Like it wasn't just seconds away from breaking my nose and painting my face red.
I follow the arm connected to the hand—up, up, up—to find its owner.
Storm-grey eyes meet mine.
Cold.
Assessing.
The fourth member of the pack—the one I haven't formally met yet, the one Blaze called Jett. The aerialist assassin. The silent shadow who moves through violence like water through cracks.
He's tall.
Taller than I expected, somehow, even though I saw him that night at the theater. His teal-blue hair falls across his forehead in disheveled strands, and his features have an angular quality that makes him look almost otherworldly. Like something carved from ice and moonlight.
His scent reaches me a moment later.
Cold rain.
Metal.
Eucalyptus.
It's sharp, clean, completely different from the warmth of Sage or the heat of Blaze. This scent speaks of distance, of precision, of someone who observes rather than engages.
But there's something else underneath.
Something that might be protectiveness, buried so deep it's almost invisible.
The gymnasium has gone silent.
Completely silent.
Every eye in the room is fixed on us—on the scene that just unfolded, on the volleyball that almost became a weapon, on the Alpha who intervened without warning.
A nervous laugh breaks the tension.
It comes from somewhere in the Alpha cluster—a tall, muscular guy with a cruel smile and the particular arrogance of someone who's never faced real consequences for his actions.
"Oops, my—"
He doesn't get to finish.
A volleyball crashes into the side of his head.
Hard.
Hard enough that his head snaps to the side, hard enough that he stumbles, hard enough that the sound of impact echoes through the silent gymnasium like a gunshot.
He goes down.
Not unconscious, but close—dropping to one knee, hand pressed against his temple, expression shifting from smug to stunned to furious in the span of seconds.
All eyes shift to the source of the throw.
Blaze.
He's standing with one arm still extended from the follow-through, golden eyes blazing with something that looks like cold fury despite his reputation for chaos.
Beside him, Sage has gone still—that particular kind of stillness that suggests violence is being actively restrained.
And behind them both, Kai stands with his arms crossed, expression unreadable but radiating danger.
"Oh?" Blaze's voice carries across the gymnasium—casual, conversational, completely at odds with what just happened. "My bad. Didn't see your whole ass there."
The silence stretches.
Pregnant.
Dangerous.
"But realistically," Blaze continues, and now there's nothing casual about his tone, "I could have sworn I just saw you intentionally try to hit our Omega with a volleyball when no one is fucking playing on this court."
The accusation lands like a bomb.
Our Omega.
Intentionally.
Our.
The guy on the ground looks around—searching for allies, maybe, or just trying to figure out how the situation turned against him so quickly. His friends have gone very still, clearly deciding that solidarity isn't worth whatever retribution the Lawson pack might bring.
Smart, I think.
Survival instinct is finally kicking in.
No one speaks.
No one moves.
The tension is a physical thing—thick enough to choke on, heavy enough to press down on everyone present.
Then Jett looks at me.
Really looks.
Those storm-grey eyes scanning my face, my posture, cataloguing details the way I catalogue everything else.
"Are you okay?"
His voice is quiet.
Controlled.
Nothing like the raw fury in Blaze's tone. This is something else—concern, maybe, buried beneath layers of detachment and precision.
I blink.
"Yes."
The word comes out steadier than I expected.
"I shouldn't have zoned out," I add, because honesty is my default when I'm caught off guard. "But this isn't a kill zone. I didn't think—"
"It's not," he agrees, cutting me off. "It's not a kill zone. You shouldn't have to be on guard against volleyballs."
The dry observation makes something in my chest flutter.
He understands.
He gets it.
The constant vigilance. The exhaustion of treating every space like a battlefield. The particular kind of tired that comes from never being able to relax, never being able to trust that you're safe.
He reaches out.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Giving me time to flinch away, to retreat, to reject the contact if I want to.
I don't move.
His fingers find a strand of hair that's escaped my ponytail—one of those rebellious pieces that refuses to stay contained no matter what I do. He tucks it behind my ear with surprising gentleness, the gesture so tender it makes my breath catch.
"You weren't in the slightest bit afraid."
It's not a question.
A statement of fact, delivered with the certainty of someone who's used to reading people.
"Why do you think that?" I ask, finding my voice.
"Because I'm used to smelling fear." His fingers linger at my temple, tracing the curve of my ear before falling away. "You didn't smell like it at all. Not even a trace."
The observation settles into my chest.
He can smell fear.
Of course he can.